michelle downing

Iapos;m about to be homeless and that is my little adventure.

I swear, Iapos;m just trying my best to be positive and to not panic about my situation, because if you really think about it, I really shouldnapos;t have a problem with lodging.

I have a room reserved at Logis, which Iapos;ve checked and isnapos;t bad at all. Ample closet space, lots of shelves, a private bathroom, what else can I ask for, yeah?

Except that it is in the middle of lavender fields and as much as they are wonderful to look at, I cannot stare at Cezanne landscapes for the rest of my time here.

I visited Citadines, which is a bus ride away from the Rotonde, and itapos;s a lovely place, almost a hostel, but more expensive and with better facilities (free coffee, tea, and a swimming pool to boot) but itapos;s still not the bustling place I thought Iapos;d live in.

I pictured myself to be in walking distance to all the fruit and flower markets in the morning near Mirabeau. And after school, Iapos;d go pass by the plaza and listen to street musicians play their guitars and saxophones and what-have-youapos;s.

So here I am looking for a place to stay and being very mercenary about it (The Tourism Office comes out with fresh listings every Wed, and Iapos;m on top of it already). Itapos;s university town after all and when Sept comes, itapos;s gonna be even tougher to find housing.

I lowered my standards after reading that Michelle Obama graduated cum laude in Princeton while sharing with 3 (or 4?) other girls a room with the bathroom 5 flights down.

OK, her bad living situation has nothing to do with her cum laude, but hey, if she can do it, so can I. (live in a bad apartment I mean. Not the cum laude part)

So Iapos;ve gone nazi about it and listed down some choices, sent emails to those with emails, and stored numbers to call tomorrow morning.

After opening my bank account tom, I shall walk around town and hopefully conduct oculars so that I can move ASAP.

I decided to take on one or two roommates--Mes the Ethiopian and Nadja (sp?) the Russian because we get along well and they are looking for the same things in an apartment. If they donapos;t like my choice, then I shall go solo.

And if all else fails, I shall go solo. In Logis.

Good old Logis, my fall back. Ha

In other news, I was waiting for the last bus to Puyricard after an afternoon of apartment-hunting and cheese-experimenting when this guy started singing playfully. I applauded him and he struck a conversation. Heapos;s a Palestinian whoapos;s been teaching music at one of the many universities in town. He gave me tips on how to find a room but his bus came before I could take anything down. Darn.

And I also spoke with the only other person in the busstop (Bus 21 dint come and we had to wait for Bus20 at 8:06pm instead) Coincidence of all coincidences She lives right across IAE And she speaks English Not very good English but much much better than most.

We spoke and shared stories the entire way home and since it was Bus20, we had to walk about a kilometer (thank goodness it was chilly) to our respective destinations.

Her nameapos;s Rakia and sheapos;s Lebanese. She moved to Paris in 1984 because of the war and studied French there. After 10 years, she decided to move to the South as she could not take the noise of Paris. She doesnapos;t have a very positive impression of the French in general (they are very selfish, they will only talk to you because they need something from you, they will speak English to you not for anything but so they can practice and improve their English) but she says these things in a matter-of-fact way. She claims that I will never have a French friend, but many French acquaintances, as she does.

She is a translator (Lebanese, Hebrew, French, and a little English) of books, articles, letters, and movies. So she says she has done subtitles for a number of films. Apart from that, she designs websites.

She has a very good grasp of the history of French language and explained to me the different vernaculars in France. I dint know they were so varied--I thought it was just accents.

The funniest part was, when we parted, we wanted to trade email addresses but we couldnapos;t find any paper on us to write things down.

So she goes, "O letapos;s walk a little farther, there is a garbage can."

So off she goes checking out the garbage can for waste paper.

The neurotic in me just took note of what we touched (my pink pen which my friend Brian uses so maybe I will give it to him for good haha) and vowed to just bury the thought of rummaging the garbage bin in the deepest burrows of my mind.

Of course that piece of paper is laid on that corner of my desk which I donapos;t touch.

Hereapos;s to a productive day tomorrow

A bientot

kenny g cd, michelle downing, michelle dowdy hairspray, michelle doucette, michelle doucett, michelle doucet.