it's that time of year

This is now the third February I've spent in Paris, and the third February I've gotten a bit depressed. I'm guessing it's mostly the weather, and how everyone is sick, and my impending birthday. Am I the only one who gets melancholy around birthday time? This year I'll be 29, which is a bit of a weird age. 30 is so very close, but as I'm still in my 20s I suppose I can't really bitch about being old. Inside, though, I'm still somewhere around 17. Which makes the fact that I'm almost 29 downright weird.

It's not all bad. Lots of good things have happened since I last wrote. A few weeks ago Anna, Pauline, and Anna's friend Ali and I went to an Of Montreal concert at Alhambra. Anna and Ali went to high school with the keyboardist's boyfriend, so we all got in for free and hung out with the band after. I had never heard of them before, except through Anna, but it was a great show. I think it was sold out, which is impressive considering the Alhambra is a pretty big venue. The place was obviously packed, so I missed out on a lot of the cool onstage happenings, but their music is great.

As if we hadn't had enough drinks (disgusting whiskey shots pre-concert, my hidden flask during the concert, and a post-concert beer at the venue), we went to Le Motel to meet up with the band. I had many beers, and then developed a need for french fries. Anna and I raced down the street, giggling like mad, to find the McDonald's closed. I started banging on the glass doors, making sad faces to try and get the guys inside to open up and give us fries. They looked really confused, and pointed to the right. To the take-out window. Oh.

I swear, those were the best fries and McNuggets I've had in a long time.

I saw a bunch of movies (Le Bal des Actrices, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), saw Safira for the first time since August, saw a beautiful exhibit on women's fashion during the Second Empire at Le Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris with Lauren, and even got a few days of sun.

But there've also been a few bummers. Least among them, I got a haircut. I was very clear and specific about the length I wanted: just above my shoulders. I specified the amount of centimeters to cut off, showed with my hands where the hair should hit, etc. And it ended up several inches shorter, around my chin. It's a good cut, but shorter than I wanted. But worst of all, no one noticed! I cut off like 4 inches of hair and the ONLY person who noticed is Ella, the 9 year-old I see on Thursdays. Grr.

Much more important than the hair cut, however, is that I lost my job. Back in November I got this kick-ass job, or so I thought, working for an educational, international NGO. But there's no funding, so I got the boot. This sucks for many reasons. One, I actually liked the job and would have enjoyed continuing. Two, I thought I had job security through 2010, so had basically stopped looking for anything else. Three, they were going to get me my papers. And now I'm back to square one.

I have to move out of my current apartment in about six weeks, which really sucks. I love it here. And it's basically going to be impossible to find something now. I had thought that I would find a job, and use the job papers to help secure an apartment. But now I'm going to be so at the bottom of the barrel of apartment applicants, it's not even funny. I've called a bunch of places, but there's A LOT of competition.

And I'm sick. I haven't gotten a semi-decent night's sleep since Saturday. I keep waking up coughing, and I'm just exhausted. I went to the doctor today and he gave me something, but since it's viral I basically just have to wait. And I'm so tired . . .

Luckily it's now February vacation, so I have a few weeks off from tutoring. The down side to that is that I'll have no money coming in for the next two weeks. The upside is that I can take the time to get better before my big trip to Spain!