August in Paris

Ah, August in Paris. The smell of hot dog merde cooking in the sun, fanny-pack porting tourists clogging the public transport, and every good boulangerie, restaurant and café closed during ‘les vacances’.

Today is the 1^st of September. Yesterday was the 31^st of August. The difference between today and yesterday is alarming. Fall coats, boots, black, grey and camel colored garb surrounded me in a flurry of Parisians returning from their month of vacations. I noticed the 70% increase of people roaming in the deadest, oldest most bourgeois neighborhood, the ease of taking the bus (usually a sardine can of tourists gawking at the Eiffel Tower), and upon arriving in an area as dead as the 16^th arrondisment (Neuilly, where Jean-David works) we had to wait for a table.

I’ve been waiting with bated breath for September for a while now (since April). The start of my job, my entrance auditions for the Conservatory, moving into our apartment…

My, my, my how things change. In the typical French fashion my entire application process for the conservatoire has been bungled from start to finish. Pardon-moi to repeat moi, but as you may have read:

• I jumped through several hoops to have my residency card. Check!
• I pre-applied for an application for the Conservatoire. Check!
• I never got the application in the mail until the day it was due, then had to pull a thesis proposition out of you-know-where and submit it the following day…
• I received a letter saying my application was selected for an audition contingent on my passing a French comprehension exam, and sending the results before the 2^nd of September.
• The only TCF (test) was the 21^st of August with a three-week wait time before getting the results.
• I sent frantic emails starting the beginning of July.
• I never received emails or phone calls back.

Hilariously enough, we (the test takers) were guaranteed that we would under no circumstances receive our test results before September 15^th. I got them back on Monday (the 30^th). I passed. Whoopee.

I am finally receiving responses back from my many emails and phone calls…all of which say-“we are resending your check and application back, sorry about the test problem”. I am not going to correct this mistake, because I decided it is in my best interest to put off graduate school until next fall, when I can decide on a thesis, try out some different teachers, and most importantly rework my technique.

So this year, I will not be a student but rather-Baby sitter extraordinaire and hopefully waitress extraordinaire. I would explain about my job, but it is so boring and I gather that most of you have started reading something else by this point.

In other news, Jean-David and I are still waiting on our apartment (they are repairing the shower which means of course that they cannot answer our phone calls) so for the time being we are still chez his parents house.

If we are still not in our own place by October. I will use my entire first pay check on clothing. All in a black, grey and camel color palette.