Hello, Kyoto!
Hello all!
So...after a long silence, I'm back in Japan again! Most of August was spent back in Florida (after a really, really shitty last week in Sotogahama--did not shed a single tear when I left or have any lingering feelings of wanting to go back whatsoever). Here's an overview of what I did last month:
Week 1: Getting over jet lag and adjusting to the idea that I never have to go back to Aomori. Ever.
Weekend of Week 1 (or was it week 2...?): Went up to Virginia to visit the grandparents, who I haven't seen in years. Wasn't sure if I was really looking forward to it beforehand, but the trip ended up being really great. My grandparents (on both sides) pretty much rock. As do the associated aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. who are probably reading this post as well. :)
Also during this time, I got myself an iPod Touch! (affectionately referred to as my "iThing"). This came about after I returned to the iStates and iRealized that iEveryone had been turned into iZombies. I cannot explain to most of you, who are iAmericans, what it was iLike to be sitting in iStarbucks or an iRestaurant, looking around, and seeing everyone's head bent down into an iGame or iText on their iPhone (or sometimes blackberry). EVERYONE IN AMERICA HAS AN IPHONE! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??
Anyway, I felt left out, so I got myself an iTouch...which I've wanted for a while, anyway. (Though that is $400 that I didn't need to spend. >_<)
Weeks 2&3: Helped my sister pack for college, and then actually move UP to college...which meant implementing a drill sergeant mentality for much of this time period in order to get her off her ass and into the piles of clothes, trinkets, and papers that have been accumulating in the house under her name for the last 18 years. There was also a lot of running around in stores like Target which, after living in Japan, was like the land of milk&honey. But there was also a lot of nostalgic "Aaaaaaaaaaaah, remember THIS???" which was kinda cool, too. In its way.
There was also a dentist appointment in there, which was not cool. ;P
Week 3: Came back down and started getting my old and new Japan affairs in order, which involved applying for my visa (gotta love those Japanese expats at the Miami consulate--they got that thing done over the WEEKEND), applying for my pension refund, and wrapping up a bunch of little odds and ends from Aomori that needed to be dealt with before the move.
Week 4: Wrapped things up, threw a party on the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend where I got to see a bunch of friends, and then...had something of a mild panic attack the night before my flight. Ended up changing my flight to 1 day later, and then finally came back to Japan.
All in all, it was a pretty good trip home. I got to do a lot of things I'd been missing (canoe ride, eat at Chik-fil-A just about every day, go to the Melting Pot, go shopping in stores that sold clothes that fit me, drive, etc.), as well as get a lot of work done (...most of which was on behalf of SOMEONE ELSE, but whatever). And the relief of being done with JET at last was really great.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now. What am I up to NOW?
Travel Time:
On September 11 (yea, I know), I arrived back in Tokyo at 5:00pm. This was...probably the best 14-hour flight I've ever been on (and let's face it: by now, I've flown my fair share). I say it's because of the food. See, before I got on the flight, I went to the food court and filled up on Chinese food (which is the sort of thing that you can really come to appreciate when you only have it say, once every 2 years) and root beer. Then I went and got myself some McDonald's hamburgers (see previous sentence's explanation), and a WHOLE BAG of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory candy (totaling $17, but worth it). I took the burgers and candy on the plane, and rationed the hell out of them, so that the only airplane food I touched for that whole 14 hours was a bag of grapes and 2 Milano cookies.
So for anyone who's wondering, the secret to avoiding that yucky nauseous feeling you get after a long flight is NOT EATING THE FOOD. Just looking at the menu turns my stomach these days. 3:
Anyway, the 2 other great things about the flight were a) the fact that I brought Portland (my stuffed animal dog) with me, who turned out to be the best plane pillow ever and actually enabled me to SLEEP (imagine that!) for the last 4 hours of the flight, and b) the fact that the plane was not full, resulting in an empty seat between me and the lady on the aisle (the effect of which was slightly dampened when she decided to sleep with her feet up on it, but whatever).
The only thing that really went wrong was this little 2-year-old Japanese kid on the seat in front of me to my left, who jumped up every now and then to stand on his seat, face the back of the plane, and STARE AT ME for a few minutes. Shamelessly. Every, oh, half hour or so. Also, his head was RIGHT where the movie screen was. Little bugger. *twitch*
But hell, I can live with all that if it means no nausea and a little sleep. In fact, I got to Japan still feeling alive enough that I came straight down to Kyoto on the Shinkansen, which added another few hours of traveling to my journey. I got in at about 10, checked into my hotel at 10:30, took a glorious shower, and collapsed into a surprisingly comfortable (albeit obviously very cheap) bed until 9:30 the following morning.
Kyoto (At Last):
After checking out of the hotel, I headed to the station to kill some time until 2, when I was meeting my new landlord to check me into my new building. Kyoto Station is a pretty big place, and just the feeling of being in a big city within Japan made the time go quicker than you might expect. I also got a lot done--withdrew some money, found myself some maps, scouted out the Starbucks, got me a BIG lunch to make up for the lack of food in my belly the day before...
1:30 rolls around, and I go back to my hotel, where I've left my bags, and hop a taxi down Horikawa-dori (Horikawa Street), which takes me to my apartment. The landlord checks me in, I get a rundown of the place, meet some of my housemates, find out my internet doesn't work on my newer computer, and set up my new room with the contents of the suitcase and backpacks that are currently in my possession. In the evening, I went (get this) AROUND THE CORNER to the grocery store and got dinner.
Around the corner! I didn't have to stock up, didn't have to ask someone to take me, didn't have to plan or think ahead at all! And the food was cheaper than in Aomori!
I guess I might as well say here that I really like the place, btw, and not just for its proximity to a supermarket. The building is clean and (unbeknownst to me when I got here, but it was a nice surprise) brand new--as in, just opened last April. The rent is cheap and the furniture/facilities are all good quality, so I'm really happy with it. I have a dentist office on one side and a flower shop on the other, from which I'm thinking about buying a little potted plant for company. There's also a bus stop practically right outside my door. It's...essentially, as far as you can get from Tairadate. :)
That night, one of my new housemates had his Japanese-speaking Taiwanese friend come over, and she made takoyaki (for lack of a better translation, "octopus balls") and gyoza ("potstickers") for everyone in the house. So I got to sit around and get to know everyone--"everyone" being 2 Japanese people, 2 Swedes, 1 French girl, and 1 dual-citizenship German/British guy. I like that they're all here for their own reasons, that they all appear to love Japan, and especially that none of them appear to be jerks.
I'm gonna love it here.
The Moment of Truth...:
Since the moment I left Aomori, the vision of those 15 boxes I left behind has been hanging over my head like a freshly sharpened guillotine ready to drop. I had visions and nightmares of those things arriving in my new place...only to find I had nowhere to put them. I think, in my head, the size of them just kept getting bigger and bigger, until I was envisioning a hoard of ridiculously ginormous boxes marching in to ruin my life like an army of heffalumps and woozles. Not to mention the fact that I'm on the 3rd floor of my building, and I was monstrously afraid that no one would be around to help me lug those things up the stairs.
Luckily, that didn't happen.
The mover arrived around 4, and not only did he carry everything up for me (along with my Japanese neighbor across the hall, who first waited with me for the mover to arrive and then volunteered to help), but it all fits like a dream. And everything was smaller than I'd come to make it out to be in my horrific fantasies, which is good.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...:
Monday was my first trip to campus, made for the purpose of joining a group to go to the ward office and get my new alien registration card and health insurance. That morning, as I'd been selected to do a speech at the entrance ceremony on Thursday, I showed up about an hour early to make sure the international office approved of what I intended to say. As it turns out...an hour was a bit more than I needed. I basically got there, and they said, "Yea, it looks fine." So I ended up walking around campus looking for something to do, until ultimately sitting down on a bench and watching this student club do, as one of my friends put it, "things with a jump rope that I'd never imagined possible." Seriously, it's like break dancing through a double-dutch jump rope. AMAZING.
When the time finally came for me to join the group congregating at the international center, I walked into the room and started talking to one of the SKP "buddies"--Japanese student volunteers who help show us around campus and get acclimated to life here.
Guess where he's from?
Me: Yea, I've been living in Aomori for 3 years.
Him: Aomori? Where?
Me: You probably don't know it. It's a little town called Kanita.
Him: ...My grandfather lives in Kanita.
Me: WHAT?
Him: Yea, he runs the Sevres bakery.
Me: ...I KNOW THAT BAKERY!!
Him: OMG!
Me: Come to think of it, you kind of look familiar. Do you have any cousins or anything going to school in Kanita?
Him: Well, I have a second cousin named Touko who graduated from Kanita Junior High School last--
Me: Touko? I TAUGHT TOUKO! :D
It was...a crazy coincidence.
The rest of the students in that ward office group were pretty great, too. I've met more Swedish, French, and Norwegian people these last couple days than I ever thought possible. And...strangely, very few Americans (though those I do meet tend to be from New York, for some reason.)
(And Erin, though I know you'll disapprove, by some random happenstance, most of my friends are French. lol)
Speaking of friends, when Tuesday rolled around, I headed back to Kyoto Station to meet an Australian friend of mine I haven't seen in years. And that...was my last excursion until yesterday.
Why?
Because I sat home memorizing my speech for a day and a half. My Japanese speech. In Japanese. Memorizing. And I...can't believe I actually did it.
Orientation, Day 1 (ie, Speech Day):
Yesterday was our first day of Orientation. Most of it was the kind of stuff you expect--safety seminars, health seminars, filling out paperwork and looking over pamphlets...
At 1:30pm came the Entrance Ceremony.
Earlier that day, I was walking down a hallway talking to one of my French friends, who mentioned to someone beside her that I was doing the speech. Another guy walking buy stops and looks up and says:
Him: You're doing the speech?
Me: Yea.
Him: ...I'm doing the speech.
Me: *blink*
Him: *blinkblink*
Me: Let's...go ask someone.
Turns out, there were 2 of us doing the speech. But with the nature of mine being more...emotionally profound, so to speak, and his being much more academic, I actually think they complimented each other really well. That is, we didn't overlap, which is good.
Also, I made the audience laugh. Not...exactly by way of an opening joke, but when I said the wrong words to start off the first real sentence of my speech, stopped, asked if everyone could forget I said that, and then started over again, it got a good laugh. After that, each time I made a mistake, it was in a very, "yea, man, I've been there!" kind of atmosphere. And lots of people have come up to me since and said how much they liked it, so...yay. :)
Orientation, Day 2 (ie, Test Day):
Practicing for the speech ate into a lot of my study time for the placement test.
(For those who are wondering, when I say "placement test," I mean the Ritsumeikan placement test, not the official proficiency exam. There are 6 levels of Japanese classes that we can get placed into here, and in order to determine which level would be most appropriate for each of us, we take the test.)
Despite my concerns that my lack of studying for the last few months would come back and bite me in the ass, it actually went ok. the listening portion was a piece of cake, and the reading section was pretty decent as well...until the last 2 pages. It was like...everything was going great, and then I turned the page, and suddenly couldn't read anything anymore. All of my answers for the last 2 pages were guess-work. But whatever. I figure it'll just be that much easier for them to find the right level to stick me in.
The rest of the day was more seminars, as well as a grossly underwhelming campus tour (most of which was us walking to a building across campus, learning what it was, walking by a bunch of other buildings before learning what another one was, and so on. When we asked about one of the buildings we were just passing by, we got, "Oh, you're not gonna use that one." *eyeroll*)
Soooooo...I think that's it! So far, I'm really liking Kyoto. My biggest issue at the moment (with the speech and test overwith) is trying to decide whether I want to get a student bus pass or not, since my place is further away from the university than I anticipated, and the road to take me there is long and at least slightly slanted upward for most of the ride. *sigh* But it'll work out.
Other stuff:
- The bus system in Kyoto is AWESOME
- I love that I have a roof that I can go up on and look out over the city from
- my apartment is surrounded by French bakeries
- The British advertising tag line for stopping swine flu is: "Catch it. Bin it. Kill it." ...which I think is awesome.
- ...I think I'm catching a cold. *sniff*
- My favorite conversation here so far:
My French Friend (MFF): What do Americans think we French are like?
Me: ...Lots of us think you all smoke and like to sit around talking about how life is shit.
MFF: *laughs* Yea, we do do that! *sigh* I want to smoke.
(note: it's a non-smoking campus)
Me: ...You could go over there...alone...and smoke...alone. By yourself. And talk about how life is shit. It would be very French.
Her: That's not French! ...Well, maybe it is. Ok, it's French. French, but lame.
So...after a long silence, I'm back in Japan again! Most of August was spent back in Florida (after a really, really shitty last week in Sotogahama--did not shed a single tear when I left or have any lingering feelings of wanting to go back whatsoever). Here's an overview of what I did last month:
Week 1: Getting over jet lag and adjusting to the idea that I never have to go back to Aomori. Ever.
Weekend of Week 1 (or was it week 2...?): Went up to Virginia to visit the grandparents, who I haven't seen in years. Wasn't sure if I was really looking forward to it beforehand, but the trip ended up being really great. My grandparents (on both sides) pretty much rock. As do the associated aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. who are probably reading this post as well. :)
Also during this time, I got myself an iPod Touch! (affectionately referred to as my "iThing"). This came about after I returned to the iStates and iRealized that iEveryone had been turned into iZombies. I cannot explain to most of you, who are iAmericans, what it was iLike to be sitting in iStarbucks or an iRestaurant, looking around, and seeing everyone's head bent down into an iGame or iText on their iPhone (or sometimes blackberry). EVERYONE IN AMERICA HAS AN IPHONE! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??
Anyway, I felt left out, so I got myself an iTouch...which I've wanted for a while, anyway. (Though that is $400 that I didn't need to spend. >_<)
Weeks 2&3: Helped my sister pack for college, and then actually move UP to college...which meant implementing a drill sergeant mentality for much of this time period in order to get her off her ass and into the piles of clothes, trinkets, and papers that have been accumulating in the house under her name for the last 18 years. There was also a lot of running around in stores like Target which, after living in Japan, was like the land of milk&honey. But there was also a lot of nostalgic "Aaaaaaaaaaaah, remember THIS???" which was kinda cool, too. In its way.
There was also a dentist appointment in there, which was not cool. ;P
Week 3: Came back down and started getting my old and new Japan affairs in order, which involved applying for my visa (gotta love those Japanese expats at the Miami consulate--they got that thing done over the WEEKEND), applying for my pension refund, and wrapping up a bunch of little odds and ends from Aomori that needed to be dealt with before the move.
Week 4: Wrapped things up, threw a party on the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend where I got to see a bunch of friends, and then...had something of a mild panic attack the night before my flight. Ended up changing my flight to 1 day later, and then finally came back to Japan.
All in all, it was a pretty good trip home. I got to do a lot of things I'd been missing (canoe ride, eat at Chik-fil-A just about every day, go to the Melting Pot, go shopping in stores that sold clothes that fit me, drive, etc.), as well as get a lot of work done (...most of which was on behalf of SOMEONE ELSE, but whatever). And the relief of being done with JET at last was really great.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now. What am I up to NOW?
Travel Time:
On September 11 (yea, I know), I arrived back in Tokyo at 5:00pm. This was...probably the best 14-hour flight I've ever been on (and let's face it: by now, I've flown my fair share). I say it's because of the food. See, before I got on the flight, I went to the food court and filled up on Chinese food (which is the sort of thing that you can really come to appreciate when you only have it say, once every 2 years) and root beer. Then I went and got myself some McDonald's hamburgers (see previous sentence's explanation), and a WHOLE BAG of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory candy (totaling $17, but worth it). I took the burgers and candy on the plane, and rationed the hell out of them, so that the only airplane food I touched for that whole 14 hours was a bag of grapes and 2 Milano cookies.
So for anyone who's wondering, the secret to avoiding that yucky nauseous feeling you get after a long flight is NOT EATING THE FOOD. Just looking at the menu turns my stomach these days. 3:
Anyway, the 2 other great things about the flight were a) the fact that I brought Portland (my stuffed animal dog) with me, who turned out to be the best plane pillow ever and actually enabled me to SLEEP (imagine that!) for the last 4 hours of the flight, and b) the fact that the plane was not full, resulting in an empty seat between me and the lady on the aisle (the effect of which was slightly dampened when she decided to sleep with her feet up on it, but whatever).
The only thing that really went wrong was this little 2-year-old Japanese kid on the seat in front of me to my left, who jumped up every now and then to stand on his seat, face the back of the plane, and STARE AT ME for a few minutes. Shamelessly. Every, oh, half hour or so. Also, his head was RIGHT where the movie screen was. Little bugger. *twitch*
But hell, I can live with all that if it means no nausea and a little sleep. In fact, I got to Japan still feeling alive enough that I came straight down to Kyoto on the Shinkansen, which added another few hours of traveling to my journey. I got in at about 10, checked into my hotel at 10:30, took a glorious shower, and collapsed into a surprisingly comfortable (albeit obviously very cheap) bed until 9:30 the following morning.
Kyoto (At Last):
After checking out of the hotel, I headed to the station to kill some time until 2, when I was meeting my new landlord to check me into my new building. Kyoto Station is a pretty big place, and just the feeling of being in a big city within Japan made the time go quicker than you might expect. I also got a lot done--withdrew some money, found myself some maps, scouted out the Starbucks, got me a BIG lunch to make up for the lack of food in my belly the day before...
1:30 rolls around, and I go back to my hotel, where I've left my bags, and hop a taxi down Horikawa-dori (Horikawa Street), which takes me to my apartment. The landlord checks me in, I get a rundown of the place, meet some of my housemates, find out my internet doesn't work on my newer computer, and set up my new room with the contents of the suitcase and backpacks that are currently in my possession. In the evening, I went (get this) AROUND THE CORNER to the grocery store and got dinner.
Around the corner! I didn't have to stock up, didn't have to ask someone to take me, didn't have to plan or think ahead at all! And the food was cheaper than in Aomori!
I guess I might as well say here that I really like the place, btw, and not just for its proximity to a supermarket. The building is clean and (unbeknownst to me when I got here, but it was a nice surprise) brand new--as in, just opened last April. The rent is cheap and the furniture/facilities are all good quality, so I'm really happy with it. I have a dentist office on one side and a flower shop on the other, from which I'm thinking about buying a little potted plant for company. There's also a bus stop practically right outside my door. It's...essentially, as far as you can get from Tairadate. :)
That night, one of my new housemates had his Japanese-speaking Taiwanese friend come over, and she made takoyaki (for lack of a better translation, "octopus balls") and gyoza ("potstickers") for everyone in the house. So I got to sit around and get to know everyone--"everyone" being 2 Japanese people, 2 Swedes, 1 French girl, and 1 dual-citizenship German/British guy. I like that they're all here for their own reasons, that they all appear to love Japan, and especially that none of them appear to be jerks.
I'm gonna love it here.
The Moment of Truth...:
Since the moment I left Aomori, the vision of those 15 boxes I left behind has been hanging over my head like a freshly sharpened guillotine ready to drop. I had visions and nightmares of those things arriving in my new place...only to find I had nowhere to put them. I think, in my head, the size of them just kept getting bigger and bigger, until I was envisioning a hoard of ridiculously ginormous boxes marching in to ruin my life like an army of heffalumps and woozles. Not to mention the fact that I'm on the 3rd floor of my building, and I was monstrously afraid that no one would be around to help me lug those things up the stairs.
Luckily, that didn't happen.
The mover arrived around 4, and not only did he carry everything up for me (along with my Japanese neighbor across the hall, who first waited with me for the mover to arrive and then volunteered to help), but it all fits like a dream. And everything was smaller than I'd come to make it out to be in my horrific fantasies, which is good.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...:
Monday was my first trip to campus, made for the purpose of joining a group to go to the ward office and get my new alien registration card and health insurance. That morning, as I'd been selected to do a speech at the entrance ceremony on Thursday, I showed up about an hour early to make sure the international office approved of what I intended to say. As it turns out...an hour was a bit more than I needed. I basically got there, and they said, "Yea, it looks fine." So I ended up walking around campus looking for something to do, until ultimately sitting down on a bench and watching this student club do, as one of my friends put it, "things with a jump rope that I'd never imagined possible." Seriously, it's like break dancing through a double-dutch jump rope. AMAZING.
When the time finally came for me to join the group congregating at the international center, I walked into the room and started talking to one of the SKP "buddies"--Japanese student volunteers who help show us around campus and get acclimated to life here.
Guess where he's from?
Me: Yea, I've been living in Aomori for 3 years.
Him: Aomori? Where?
Me: You probably don't know it. It's a little town called Kanita.
Him: ...My grandfather lives in Kanita.
Me: WHAT?
Him: Yea, he runs the Sevres bakery.
Me: ...I KNOW THAT BAKERY!!
Him: OMG!
Me: Come to think of it, you kind of look familiar. Do you have any cousins or anything going to school in Kanita?
Him: Well, I have a second cousin named Touko who graduated from Kanita Junior High School last--
Me: Touko? I TAUGHT TOUKO! :D
It was...a crazy coincidence.
The rest of the students in that ward office group were pretty great, too. I've met more Swedish, French, and Norwegian people these last couple days than I ever thought possible. And...strangely, very few Americans (though those I do meet tend to be from New York, for some reason.)
(And Erin, though I know you'll disapprove, by some random happenstance, most of my friends are French. lol)
Speaking of friends, when Tuesday rolled around, I headed back to Kyoto Station to meet an Australian friend of mine I haven't seen in years. And that...was my last excursion until yesterday.
Why?
Because I sat home memorizing my speech for a day and a half. My Japanese speech. In Japanese. Memorizing. And I...can't believe I actually did it.
Orientation, Day 1 (ie, Speech Day):
Yesterday was our first day of Orientation. Most of it was the kind of stuff you expect--safety seminars, health seminars, filling out paperwork and looking over pamphlets...
At 1:30pm came the Entrance Ceremony.
Earlier that day, I was walking down a hallway talking to one of my French friends, who mentioned to someone beside her that I was doing the speech. Another guy walking buy stops and looks up and says:
Him: You're doing the speech?
Me: Yea.
Him: ...I'm doing the speech.
Me: *blink*
Him: *blinkblink*
Me: Let's...go ask someone.
Turns out, there were 2 of us doing the speech. But with the nature of mine being more...emotionally profound, so to speak, and his being much more academic, I actually think they complimented each other really well. That is, we didn't overlap, which is good.
Also, I made the audience laugh. Not...exactly by way of an opening joke, but when I said the wrong words to start off the first real sentence of my speech, stopped, asked if everyone could forget I said that, and then started over again, it got a good laugh. After that, each time I made a mistake, it was in a very, "yea, man, I've been there!" kind of atmosphere. And lots of people have come up to me since and said how much they liked it, so...yay. :)
Orientation, Day 2 (ie, Test Day):
Practicing for the speech ate into a lot of my study time for the placement test.
(For those who are wondering, when I say "placement test," I mean the Ritsumeikan placement test, not the official proficiency exam. There are 6 levels of Japanese classes that we can get placed into here, and in order to determine which level would be most appropriate for each of us, we take the test.)
Despite my concerns that my lack of studying for the last few months would come back and bite me in the ass, it actually went ok. the listening portion was a piece of cake, and the reading section was pretty decent as well...until the last 2 pages. It was like...everything was going great, and then I turned the page, and suddenly couldn't read anything anymore. All of my answers for the last 2 pages were guess-work. But whatever. I figure it'll just be that much easier for them to find the right level to stick me in.
The rest of the day was more seminars, as well as a grossly underwhelming campus tour (most of which was us walking to a building across campus, learning what it was, walking by a bunch of other buildings before learning what another one was, and so on. When we asked about one of the buildings we were just passing by, we got, "Oh, you're not gonna use that one." *eyeroll*)
Soooooo...I think that's it! So far, I'm really liking Kyoto. My biggest issue at the moment (with the speech and test overwith) is trying to decide whether I want to get a student bus pass or not, since my place is further away from the university than I anticipated, and the road to take me there is long and at least slightly slanted upward for most of the ride. *sigh* But it'll work out.
Other stuff:
- The bus system in Kyoto is AWESOME
- I love that I have a roof that I can go up on and look out over the city from
- my apartment is surrounded by French bakeries
- The British advertising tag line for stopping swine flu is: "Catch it. Bin it. Kill it." ...which I think is awesome.
- ...I think I'm catching a cold. *sniff*
- My favorite conversation here so far:
My French Friend (MFF): What do Americans think we French are like?
Me: ...Lots of us think you all smoke and like to sit around talking about how life is shit.
MFF: *laughs* Yea, we do do that! *sigh* I want to smoke.
(note: it's a non-smoking campus)
Me: ...You could go over there...alone...and smoke...alone. By yourself. And talk about how life is shit. It would be very French.
Her: That's not French! ...Well, maybe it is. Ok, it's French. French, but lame.