Well here I am in my new apartment in my new bed and I am having trouble sleeping. Excitement, I guess. The girl I had been in contact with before arriving and who wanted to meet me in person before deciding we should live together finally got back from Paris today, and I met her at the train station. I was sort of relieved to know I'd meet her before living with her after the whole debacle of being an au pair this summer, but this desire was starting to be surpassed by my desire to find a permanent place to lie my head as soon as possible. But, we hit it off an d I moved in an hour after we met.

Her name is Beéengère, and she is in her last year of speech therapy school. Just got back from teaching orphans in India, has a boyfriend who is studying acting and leads a reggae band in Paris. Best of all, she's a big music fan (and my constant listening to music is one of the biggest possible points of contention for roommates, but luckily we both like to listen to it all of the time so we take turns choosing). I am going to discover a lot of French music and well, music from a lot of other places since she seems to have eclectic music taste.

The apartment is fabulous. It is in an old building, which is just what I wanted. I saw pictures of it before arriving, and from the angle of the picture, it looked a lot like my apartment from last year, and I started to worry that it was in the same residence, but it was just the same new wood floors. This apartment is in a very cool old building, and is equipped with everything since she lived here the year before too --furniture, pots and pans, television, you name it. Even my room is furnished, which let me tell you after all of my apartment research, is a rarity. It wasn't buying the furniture that would have been the problem really--it would have been finding some way to get it back to my apartment and up the four flights of stairs.

I'm feeling the need to get really organized and decorated and to have exactly everything I need in the apartment, really for the first time in my life. I guess I could best describe the feeling as "nesting." Seems to be something biological...I guess my body knows that it's the time for my life to be a little more established and less transitional.

My room has an alcove-y sort of thing in the middle of it--where a heater used to be . It's a really weird thing in the middle of the room--it seems like somewhere where there should be a shrine. Now I just have to figure out who or what to make my shrine to

Let's rewind a little bit to Thursday night because that's when I ended up sitting on the floor of the apartment of a bunch of guys from Chad partaking in a Ramadan feast. The roommate of the person I was staying with, invited us to the meal with her friends, and it sounded interesting. I got there and realized that I know shamefully little about Islam. During Ramadan, they don't eat all day and then at night they have a big feast. One of the guys asked me, "Do you even know where Darfur is?" This question sounds kind of patronizing, but you had to be there to hear the tone and to know that he was just wondering if Americans cared at all about what was going on in Africa. I did know where Darfur is (thanks to Shivers) but it was weird answering because I know that a lot of Americans don't know or care at all. He then went on to explain a lot of the crazy stuff going on in Chad and the Sudan.

Friday I had a second meeting with Marie-Paule in preparation for the only class that I will be teaching alone. This is a group of master's law students, and I am excited about the class for several reasons. 1. Attendance is voluntary. Students will only show up if they want to come and talk. 2. I get to talk about law-related things--which includes politics and a lot of the stuff that I am interested in and enjoy discussing. 3. While I was introducing myself to the law secretary at the university, I discovered that another class of law students who didn't have to option to take English are trying to get into the class. People are just dying to get into my class...can you blame them? Maybe the weirdest thing about the class is that I have to grade them...that's going to be interesting.

The weather here is already awful. I was thinking that I would catch some good weather by getting here earlier than last year, but there I was today in the same old situation dragging home lots of groceries in the freezing rain. Guess I should be used to it by now--anyway,, other than that, everything in Nancy is going pretty well thus far. Oh, and I was mad about being here so early but I had two meetings last week, and I have at least one every day next on top of the need to get to Metz to get the things that language exchange Carlos is keeping for me. There's also the flea market tomorrow (maybe I"ll find something for the shrine?) and plenty or other things to do. Now, if I could only get to sleep...�