All Saints, and not much else

I have to admit, I was a little afraid of what a real French bank holiday would be like. At home, such a thing doesn't really exist. It's no problem to hit up the grocery store or the movie theatres any day of the year, even Christmas. But here, I wasn't sure they'd caught on to the capitalist strategy that when everyone else isn't working, you should stay open to serve them and make more money. From what I can tell, nothing was really closed. Except the bank, naturally, which I needed.

So on Tuesday I got a little letter in the mail saying that my debit card was ready for pick up. Silly, silly French people. You can't just mail me my card? So anyway, I go in, and of course they tell me to come back next week cuz it's not there yet. Why the douche bags sent me the letter, then, I don't know. So meanwhile I need to pay my rent by online transfer, but I can't put money into my account without the damn card. So I ask the guy if there's a place to make a deposit without a card (because this branch doesn't have tellers -- WTF) and he tells me to go up to St. Michel to do it. By this time I was late for class so I'm going to do that today. Anyway, I wouldn't have been able to make the transfer for rent anyway because in order to add my landlord as a recipient, I have to get a confirmation code IN THE MAIL. After the first one they sends the codes by text message, but COME ON. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who makes things difficult just for the sake of being difficult.

So anyway. This holiday nonsense was all very poorly-timed because I couldn't get this important banking done yesterday. Although I'm hoping that 1. the code comes in the mail today, and 2. my landlord hasn't even bothered to check her account to make sure I sent her money. She's kind of getting on my nerves. We signed the lease at a dollar amount back in January (the equivalent of 750 euros back then) to guard against currency fluctuations. Good thing, too, cuz the dollar is in the shitter. Anyway, after I moved in she mentioned that it would be better for me to deposit euros into her account here so she could pay the bills with them. So meanwhile I set up this bank account and took almost all of my money out of my American account to put it in my French one. But now she doesn't like that the euro amount of the rent will be different every month so she wants me to send her checks for dollars in the States. Well god dammit, I'm very low on dollars and I don't even know how I would transfer money from my French account to the American one. I wonder if I can make online transfers to her American account. Gah.

So there's that as well. Today I'm also going to attempt to pick up Matt and I's bus tickets to Amsterdam. Of course, there was some sort of ridiculous service charge to have them mailed to me, so I opted to pick them up near the Sorbonne. Except they want me to print out the confirmation email and bring it to them, along with ID and the credit card I paid with. Fuck them. Printing shit out is way too expensive. I'm going to go systéme "d" with my ID, credit card, and confirmation number and convince them that it's enough. Again, they just like to make things difficult, and then you're a worthwhile human if you fight them through it.

Another fun story. My dumb ass locked my stuff into a locker at the gym without putting my keys on my belly button ring (haha). Of course I realized right away, but I decided to do my workout first before I dealt with it. Afterward I had to search all of the posters around to find the words for "lock" (une serrure) and "locker" (un casier). Luckily the verbs for locking and closing are the same word. There is a poster in the locker room about how the club accepts no responsibility for stuff being stolen from lockers, and then another one saying that we shouldn't use combo locks. So I found the words and the nice girl brought out some giant pruning shears and cut my lock off. So now I need a new one. I tried to go to Bricorama at the mall to find a new one, but no dice. I did however find some very affordable cat food in big bags, so I won't have to buy Puck the little bags at the vet's office anymore. But now I want a combo lock more than ever. I used to have a sweet purple one but I left it at Fitness USA once.

I responded to a babysitting ad on Craig's list, out of compulsion, I think. It's just for occasional work, which is good. At first I wasn't going to babysit because my job pays so well, but now that I'm doing all of this traveling I figure the more extra cash the better. Except they live in Villejuif (a suburb) and I can't figure out if it's a good neighborhood or not. Whatever, I'll go meet them during the day and we'll see. I also feel kind of awkward giving references when I haven't talked to my references since I left. I don't even know why that would worry me.

So yeah. This break has been very relaxing but at the same time I know I have stuff to work on. I have like 6 written expression assignments, an exposée on Wednesday with Keisha, plus tons of lesson planning. My plan is to make a bunch of handouts online and then print them out at work in one shot when I get back. Luckily they understand what a flash drive is. This will save me lots of money at the rip-off printer's downstairs.

One more news tidbit. Oink and TV Links were both busted during the same week. Sad time for me. I need a new music downloading service, but I think I can find another place to watch streaming TV cuz TV Links was just a list of links from other services. Still, though, the man is fucking up my life.