December 7, 1988: Finished my Latin American paper which I worked like a dog on: killed my awesome black pen along the way, took this one from Sean. Guillaume corrected my paper, but I couldn't read his writing half of the time, which was pretty goddam annoying. I know what I had written was wrong, what he had written was right, and there was nothing I could do about it. Needless to say, I'll be psyched to work on the old Mac next semester. I'm stopping my guitar lessons -- too much homework and other stuff to do, like go to the movies. I saw Mystery of Picasso the other day, he was interesting, I can't imagine standing in front of physical things that you had made which are so violent, yet so well-known at the same time. I saw Handel's Messahiah Messiah tonight with Rebecca, Pam, Sean, Andy, Martine (she's French), Jacky, Allison and some other guy. I like it when plans work out, everyone is so happy -- hallelujah -- quite amazing. It's like there's one line of music that starts and then these other lines get weaved in and out of the sound. I have to get on the ball as far as tickets are concerned for Ma and Dad. I'm bummed that Hamburger is giving us our third paper. Once again, Mary Anne started a false rumor -- I don't know why I said, 'once again.' But Abby hates her and so does Pam. I heard that Brigit is coming next semester. I'm running on empty right now.
December 9, 1988: I have to say that I massively wimped out tonight -- I really liked my art teacher, I wanted to talk to him and after the class I saw him in the bookstore and I lagged that's all I can say. Like I have something to lose by chatting with my art-history teacher -- the worst part is, it was the last class with him and we probably won't see him again. I'll see if I feel like getting his phone number from Mary Anne. Seriously, after all he said, what's left for art? Oh well, bought tickets for the stuffy old opera today.
December 10, 1988. It's all winding down and I have 3 papers to write in 11 or 12 days and that's it. I'm not sure what I'll do about the art teacher -- can't stop thinking about what he said. Today was depressing as hell. I had planned to go to Beaubourg to buy shoes, etc -- basically I didn't leave the apartment (except to buy milk) all day. My eyes are getting worse all the time, I really have to move on. The environment is so stressed, I just can't deal for too much longer. Christ, they must think I'm a saint (they better). I help, I'm always cheerful, whatever. Tomorrow there's going to be a big lunch with relatives: stress, stress, stress between Mme M and her brother and sister-in-law -- they're all slightly whacked as far as I can tell. I called Rebecca to go out tonight and she said she would call back in thirty minutes, I wonder what happened? I have to get into paper-mode.
PS. I don't think I've written anything yet about the social scene at Pompidou yet. The library might as well be at an American University. The other day I was sitting across from a girl who sat down and just started laughing to herself until she couldn't stop and she had to walk behind the bookshelves. She finally came back but of course she started laughing again and we exchanged Metro tidbits. It turned out she was laughing about her friend who dropped her shoe in the Metro and the train ran over it, and it was the last train, and her friend had to walk home with one shoe. I told her about Abby's friend Mark (U.S. national chess champion, incidentally) who got his head caught in the Metro doors. I'm laughing right now as I think of it. Anyway, I know what it's like to start laughing just sort of randomly. When I was getting braces, they put this huge thing in my mouth which stretched my lips about a mile apart and for some reason I kept visualizing Michael surfacing from underneath a wave and turning to yell something just as another wave crashed into him and he swallowed a gallon of water. That's how I felt, like I could have swallowed the whole dentist office, or the world for that matter. It's strange how news gets around. I've received two letters from S.E.A. people who told me about some guy who tried out for my spot in my band at Cornell. At least he didn't make it for chrissakes. We'll see though -- I really miss playing guitar in the band.
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