Wow. So this blog became just about as ambitious a project as the ziploc bags full of ticket stubs sitting on my floor at home somewhere intended to be scrapbooked. Oh well!
So today while we met outside the Musée de l'Orangerie in the Tuileries before our class there, we saw all the police cars rolling into the Place de la Concorde (where I really wish I'd been last weekend just for the experience) : the signal that Sarko was near. Yup, today Nicolas Sarkozy was officially handed over the power by Chirac in front of the Élysée - okay it's also officially too annoying to put in the accents. Anyway. My art history professor said it was "dommage" - too bad. I mentioned a conversation I had with my host mom last night, and they seem to be in agreement that the new pres will try, unfortunately, to bring France closer to the US and Britain in terms of work and economy - optionally longer workweeks, welfare cuts - basically eroding away some of what I think are key defining values in France that it'd be really a shame to lose. Yes, he'll probably boost the country's economy - but from what everyone says, and like what I'm told happened under Blair (I tread carefully with words like "I hear" and "I'm told" because I don't pretend to hide my ignorance), the poor should plan to get poorer and the rich to get richer. He's said to be closer to Bush's policies than any of the other candidates, and anticipated to bring about a lot of change to move in that direction, which my host mom shook her head at. She only said she was wary of that in terms of the war aspect - she wants her country to stay out of things like war, like they have been - but I'd be wary for the rest, too.
The values that I mentioned - what I meant by that were a deference to leisure time (which means, broken down: necessary time for family, for oneself, for travel - 36 hour workweeks, 6 week starting vacations and paternity leave - ) and a laid back attitude that knows how to enjoy life a little more day by day, and to embrace art and culture as a continuous, fluid element of it. Not to say that Sarkozy is out to change these things or that a country's people could lose some of its longstanding core values and traditions just like that, it's just that I think (fear) that it's all part of the same spirit that's about to get attacked in one way or another in the upcoming years. I like this element of France that's been a refresher to me - whether I'm really still an American at heart that will take every moment possible to work harder, make more money, more more more, I don't know - but in any case it'd be sad for the country to lose a bit of uniqueness. That's just me.
In OTHER news, things are great these days - came back from a lovely weekend in the south of France (my tan lines and weirdly placed and painful burns are starting to subside), and am currently working on finding a job (eeeek), preparing to make the most of my last month here, booking a weekend in Canada pronto, and anticipating some much-awaited catch-ups with family and friends! (Even though some of those friends are doing silly things like doing a Europe tour after I've left, leaving for the whole summer in Maine before I get home, or like, living in California or something... Thanks.) Ha, well, I'm excited and all, but what's more frappant... Striking, I mean... (the French words sometimes just come first!!!) is how sad I'll be to leave. I kinda realized, crap, this may be as good as it gets. Not that it should get any better - I couldn't ask for a more wonderful experience than the one I've been given for the past couple months - but just, wow, these are perhaps some of the best months of my life, and I'll never be in this situation again. Unless I live in Europe later in life (okay - actually I am planning on it - ), chances to come back here will be few and far between. When I get restless and need a change of scenery I won't be able to just hop on a train or a RyanAir flight and go somewhere beautiful and old that I haven't been before. And I'll certainly never have this much leisure time again... besides perhaps this summer, it might just be all downhill from here... aaaah! End of study abroad semester blues!
But in any case, ::snap-out-of-it headshake:: I'm going to just be incredibly thankful for being able to do this and try to really make the most (as in, get my ass out of bed earlier on thursdays fridays saturdays and sundays, spend a little less time on facebook, and make more of an effort to do something different every day) of the rest of my time here. Yyyyyeah!
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