I do love Paris but the States don't suck

Maria made her grand return to the United States of America. I arrived last Monday at Dulles International Airport and rocked it to Frederick. Didn't do much Monday as I was tired so I just hung out with the fam. Tuesday the car was broken so I didn't have much to do during the day. That evening I did visit the Dennisons which was quite nice. It was really good to see them again. Wednesday I made the Frederick rounds and saw Ms. Tilden and ran some errands. Wendesday evening I decided to go to DC and visit Hesham. How I miss my Hesham. We had a lovely dinner together. Many camel noises and impressions of Middle East leaders were made. It was stupendous. Thursday was the big day though. I made my grand return to Pittsburgh and very few people knew. Randy and Alok helped me to give Phil the biggest suprise ever. Phil woke up late and was unable to meet up with Randy so I was passed off to Alok who had plans to meet Phil for lunch. So we were in the Union and Phil walks in and it takes him a moment to see me and then he does and he is shocked. It was wonderful. He was all scruffy and not expecting to see me as he thought I was in Germany visiting Charlie. hehehe. I am a sneaky bastard! It was so nice to be with him again. The rest of the trip was seeing Kate, breakfast for dinner at Cato St., dinner with Joanne and lots of time with Phil. It was a really good break from Paris and Sciences-Po which was MUCH needed and now I can go back and handle second semester.

I love Pairs!

I do! It is wonderful. Especially when you don't have anything to worry about and can just go for a nice relaxing walk all over the city and see things you have never seen in Paris before. It was a wonderful day. A perfect way to spend my last day in Paris before I depart on vacation. I still get giddy when I look around and realize that I LIVE in Paris. I am not a tourist. I live in this city. Paris is my home. YAY!

DONE!!!!!

I am done. It is a fantastic feeling. This whole system of 4 hours finals is crap. Oi. However, it is done. Neither of my tests went AWESOME!!!!!11one!!1 but I think I did well enough. Besides, I am done finished with my first semester at Sciences-Po and I couldn’t be happier. It is nice to be able to read for pleasure. It is nice to not be uber stressing out about some lame test. I am calm. I am on vacation. Life is pretty fucking sweet. Tomorrow I am going to bake some brownies for Judith and then hang out with Tom who finishes tomorrow morning. I could go for a good evening out. We’ll see what comes of it.

In other news I think I have decided to attend graduate school in England. There are several reasons for this. One, it is cheaper. A lot cheaper. Quite frankly my dears, money talks. LSE is only 12,000 pounds, so with the exchange rate we are looking at around $20,000. Not horrible. Plus graduate school in England, one year. So not only would I be saving money I would be saving time. Also England is kinda cool. I could so live there for a year. I am definitely going to take a year off before going to grad school though. I think I will need a break from school for a bit plus I need to earn some money. It is nice to have an idea of my future. Even if it is only a vague idea, it is an idea nonetheless.

I also figured out my schedule for next year. I got all of the classes I wanted and it only required dealing with the bitchiest woman in the world twice. But I was able to be forceful in French and I was proud of myself and I got the schedule I wanted. Hopefully the Pitt French department won’t suck balls and give me credit for these classes.

My new haircut