notes from the underground

an entry I meant to post last tuesday:

Bad word, bad word, bad word.

This really hasn’t been my week. I’m not feeling any better – in fact, I’m feeling worse in some ways, so I went to the doctor today only to shell out 40 euros for “well, you don’t have strep throat… sounds viral to me. Rest up, here’s a sudophed prescription for the congestion and codeine for the throat pain. Come back in a week if it’s still bad.” If I have pneumonia, that is not at all helpful advice. I asked her if there was any way for her to test whether it was viral or bacterial, and she said that *she* couldn’t, she supposes she could refer me to a lab but she’s not sure if it would be worth the trouble, and anyway, once you hit 20 you’re pretty much done getting bacterial infections.

French doctors are useless.

I had an art history midterm this morning. I felt really, really prepared for it and I wanted to get it over with, so I called Estelle, my professor/the director of the program, to see if she would have a problem with me coming in to take it. She said no, but she was going to relegate me to the back corner in any case. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have come in: on the way to school, I went through subsequent phases of nausea, dizziness, and feeling very sorry for myself, only to finally break the fever as I was walking into the building (read: schmitzing like a pig). I don’t think I bombed the midterm, but I don’t think I rocked it either. It’s hard to think in French.

The worst part of my week so far is that I dropped my computer and now the airport hardware is no longer registering. This is disastrous. It didn’t drop that far – it just slid off my lap, and everything else appears to be totally fine, but it insists that there’s no airport card, when I know for sure that there is (I can see it!!). Ironically enough, MacHelp doesn’t tell you how to take out the airport card – it says that in order to learn how to do that, you have to go to apple.com. Do you think I would need to reinstall my airport card if I had internet access?? Of course, I would look up directions on Chloe’s computer but considering my condition, she doesn’t want me touching her computer with a ten foot pole. So here I am writing a blog entry on Microsoft word.

That said, if you need to contact me with anything urgent in the next few days, buy some skype credit or use an international calling card and call my Paris cell phone: 33 6 86 38 47 51. In my quarantined state, I’d appreciate any and all forms of company!!


UPDATES:

I'm feeling much better but I still have no internet on my own computer. I borrowed a computer from the Center to use, which gets wifi but not at my house, so I have to trek to McDonals every time I want to use it... barf. In other news, though, Sara and I saw Charlie Wilson's War on Friday night and loved it, I turned in my URP grant proposal which might give me money to stay at Stanford and research over the summer, and I also finished my final French exposé, to be delievered tomorrow. Whew! RA interview followed by "girls night" at Natalie's apartment tonight - I'm looking forward to it! Wish me luck on my expose tomorrow...