Holy Flood!

Be surprised, yet another week of complete mayhem.
So, let's start the easy way; last Monday.

After a long, long, not-so-pleasant day of lots of school and work and whatnot, I called my mom while studying in Deej's room to talk and vent my discouraged self away. I get off the phone with her around midnight, and wait for Deej to get done with the bathroom so I can go to bed. But I hear water trickling in a peculiar way, so I go to the bathroom to hear if he was taking a shower. No...the sound sounds more like rain....in my room...
I turned on the light in my room to find the hanging lamp pouring out water all over my room. A huge pool of water has accumulated onto the floor, and my bed is gathering a good pool, too. At first, I gazed at it, thinking how interesting it looked, almost photogenic. Then reality bitch slapped me back and I got Deej to call the emergency maintenance hotline while I run upstairs to see what's going on.
My neighbors upstairs, 2 charming NYU guys (one's BRITISH! imagine that!) are frantically running around in their boxers because their toilet (located directly above my bed) has clogged and flooded all over the place. Awesome. This is when I start to laugh hysterically, and don't stop laughing for a very long time.
By the end of the night, I had two strange guys in boxers on my bed holding a bucket to the light, hoping for it to stop. It did finally, but my stuff was all wet. And the bed was a mess.
The boys were super apologetic about it all, and ended up buying me a bottle of French wine in apology. They were really sweet, I told them we should have a dinner party together sometime. They seemed up for it.

It's alright, I had to do laundry the next day anyways.
I'm still waiting for the landlord to come over to check the ceiling. And my light still doesn't work.
Tuesday I walked to school to see some airplanes in the sky writing continuously "UN For Taiwan." It was awesome!

Wednesday I had to work at the IBEX fair during lunch. It was intense! I met up with Manon and got at my table to set it up. People swarmed us for about 45 minutes, asking us what the difference between Sciences Po and Uni. Paris Dauphine was (Harvard vs. Wharton, basically). And all of the French requirement questions. Luckily Paz came over and helped us out a bit.
I got a free meal out of it, so I'm contented.
That night, I was not looking forward to it, but I told myself I would go to FIAF for their Rendez-Vous party. Basically, the institute has this big cocktail event monthly where you get together with the other patrons and speak French. I was SHOCKED at how much fun I had! And I realized how good my French actually is! I was correcting people's French a lot! I met some really great people, got some business cards from some sweet people, and looking forward to next month.
And what more! But across the street from FIAF is a French bistro, Bistro 60, that had my FAVORITE French dish, Steak Tartare!!!! I was soooo excited, and bought myself dinner to go (where I got WAY too much beef tartare, fries, and bread....soooo good!).

Thursday started off with an interview to be an escort at the International Emmy Awards Gala. They seemed to like me a lot, gave me a huge folder, and told me to call them November 1st to see what French person I could be put with.
Then I had a meeting, then classes....
Chambers started, and it didn't start on the best note. Granted, I love my Chambers group, but it was poorly ran by certain someone, especially considering that most of the group is new now. We joked and laughed a lot, and it was fun, but I was not fully comfortable.
Afterwards, Rob and I met up and got a glass of wine at WineBar. It was a FABULOUS rosado wine from Riajo, Spain. So so good.... We had a fun time talking, he's all about helping me out with life. He says that he's here to teach me about how people work, while I teach him how the world works. We are even thinking about working together to make a nonprofit trip for some vacation soon. We'll see!

Friday I had to go the Yankees Game (against the Blue Jays). I am not a huge fan of baseball what-so-ever, but it was for the sake of IBEX. Let me tell you, though......DON'T bring 30 international students to a baseball game 1 month into their stay in the US. BAD IDEA. Things were not smooth for them.
I hung out with the French kids, spoke some Franglish, tried to explain the game to them (and gave up), but in the end, I was not feeling the game. So, with a Mexican girl, I left at 5th inning...after buying a HUGE bag of Cracker Jacks. Now, I felt it necessary to buy some, but THAT MUCH? I ate 3 hand-fulls and was done.
Later, a homeless guy on the train started begging for money for food, and I handed him my (mostly full) bag of Cracker Jacks. He looked so shocked and confused, it made me chuckle.
I met up with Lauren and watched "Across the Universe". Great experimental musical with the Beatles music!!!!! But don't go see it while tripping on something, it's QUITE an acid trip without the added supplements. Man, 3 hours of thinking I was on shrooms.......Lauren proceeded to talk about it for an hour after, but I was incoherent so I couldn't indulge in the conversation.

Saturday I woke up for a Chambers meeting with Darrell and Christina, that went alright. I ran to my next school meeting that lasted me for 4 hours......and I got a text from Nate. Poor guy was bored all day, so we went out for dinner at Negrille (oh so good...) and joked around. Afterwards, we walked uptown to a bar where we met his friends and had a few drinks and joined a party of 30 kids in the back. It was a really fun night, actually. I talked with his friends a lot, and I stole a lot of cherries from the bar.
In the middle of the night, José-Louis from Paris calls me up to tell me he's in the city. Last minute, eh?
I got really tired early, though, so I left, with Nate. Nate asked to crash at my place for my night, so we had a fun ride on the train home together.

Sunday I woke up completely exhausted.
I ran up to school to meet up with José and have a walk around for a little while. I think I can safely say that only the Europeans (French, in particular) can say, "It's 2pm....I'm parched......I need a beer." Alright, alchy......But I did have a nice time with him, and we rolled in between languages.
Chambers went by a lot better than the last time, thank goodness! I was delirious the entire time, though, so I brought much entertainment for my fellow singers, I guess.

Yesterday! Was alright. Cassie bought me lunch, where I found out that she's close friends with this guy I've known since 2nd grade and who just recently transfered to our school. WEIRD!
I had a very informative and helpful advisor meeting.
And, Neil came over late at night. We wrestled for a while, but I was bruised so he had to be gentle. I am learning so much about jiu jitsu!

Today was alright. I started Yoga. It's a great class (and OUTSIDE!). But I'm shocked to realize just how much of my flexibility and strength I lost from not doing dance or yoga in France. Ouch.......
Otherwise, my day was done early. Had a presentation on Metro in Spain. Fun....
Now I'm trying to apply for a job with Eli Lilly. Just in case.