Day 20

Oh what a day! I started my language courses today, so I woke up a bit early, allowing myself plenty of time for (a) waking up, (b) getting ready, and (c) transportation.

Now, the first two parts were fully in my control, and I was doing fine, sticking to my schedule. Enter the French public transportation system. Usually very efficient, a metro train will come to a platform every 2-4 minutes, transporting a vast number of people on a daily basis. Today was not one of its more efficient days. I had hopped off of one line, and was waiting for another train to come, but after about 7 minutes of waiting on a crowded platform, I changed my route a bit, and was lucky enough to find another train that got me to the station I needed. All this changing of metro plans was cutting into my time budget, so I walked rather quickly to the class, and finally found where I needed to be, though I was late (only by 2-3 minutes, but enough to be noticeable), and I really don't like being late. It's not respectful to the teachers/professors or my classmates.

Thankfully, the teacher was very courteous, and recognized me as a new student, and I think saw that I was a bit flustered. Now, almost everything is closed on Sundays in Paris, so I didn't have the opportunity yesterday to go out & browse for a notebook, pens, pencils, etc., which I regretted today. Somehow, I had the forethought to put a small notepad in my purse, so I adapted for today, taking notes on a notepad, & looking on to my neighbor's worksheets so that I too could participate in the class. I think that these classes started last week, so I'm already playing catch-up, which is another thing I don't like. From the sound of it, a two-hour-long class sounds like a drag, but it really didn't feel very long at all, which surprised me. Thursday should be interesting...I've got a "civilization class" for two hours, a 15 minute break, and then a normal language class for another two hours. That's looking like another reason to add to my list of reasons I don't like Thursdays.

After class was dismissed, I found a grocery store, got something to drink & a mediocre chicken sandwich with gummy bread, then came back to the apartment to decompress from my strange morning. After some much-needed quiet time, I went to pick up Youngest from school, and then we went to the park because Eldest has chess on Mondays, and finishes much later. After picking up Eldest, we returned to the apartment, and before I had time to finish putting up the park toys, he had already pulled out a Monopoly board. I knew at this point that resistance would be futile, so I played for a bit, but said that at a certain time, he had to take a shower, which put a cap on our playing time (thank goodness!). We hadn't even been playing for 10 minutes when he almost had a monopoly already, though I held the other property that he needed, and I wasn't about to let that one go. It definitely made things interesting, though I don't know if he realizes that I've played this game before...

While the kids were getting cleaned up, I made dinner, which tonight was leftover soup followed by barley & steamed veggies, made in a rice cooker! I didn't think it would be that simple/easy to do. It was pretty simple, but the kids seemed to like it, and I figured they probably wanted a break from pasta, haha. :]