C'est un total eclipse of the heart

A couple of things:

1. I really miss burritos.

2. My discount grocery store plays the strangest French versions of American songs. Last time it was "Let the Sunshine In" from "Hair." Today it was "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and the song from "Flashdance." Surreal when you're digging through the discount gouda selection. Or really just surreal...

3. The funny thing about grad school applications is that they make you write. This week I've written way more than in the whole time I've been here. I am conjuring up images of spending next year in New York or Boston or Iowa or SoCal. Or, you know, Wisconsin.

4. About a month from now, my family will be in Paris!

5. Today I ran to the Bastille from my house. Turns out it's like 4 miles. So I guess I'm getting back in shape.

6. I made pasta puttanesca successfully for a second time. Mastering the art of normal cooking is coming in right on schedule.

7. One of my friends has a jar of peanut butter. Our level of excitement over this is kind of ridiculous.

8. Still people-sick. Who wants a postcard?

9. Leonard Cohen's music was totally made for Paris. Nothing makes me feel quite like a young bohemian writer making my way in Paris like listening to Leonard Cohen while cooking in my shabby kitchen in my tiny apartment between looking out at Paris night windows over the courtyard and writing.

10. Or perhaps I'm just kind of pretentious.

Crunch Time for Nounou

I am officially a nanny for a Senegalese family in Montparnasse, and I have yet to get over the irony of this. First of all, Montparnasse, once the bohemian and artistic center of Paris is where I go to babysit. Hello, bourgeoisie. Maybe the 13th isn't so bad. It's where the poor artists are. Which is way more bohemian than the wealthy non-artists of Montparnasse. I still sometimes wish I lived there, but don't tell anyone.

Anyway, all over Paris, you see North African nannies taking care of white babies, and then there's the six-year-old girl I babysit for, and me. We are an odd and unexpected pair in Paris, but I kind of love that my nannying situation is the opposite of what you usually see.

Today we were walking home and one of the kids from her school walked up to her and said, "Who is that? Your mom or your sister? Nounou?"

And I realized that I am a nounou. This is the French word for nanny. I wasn't sure whether to find it cute or to be sort of weirded out.

Nose is set to the proverbial grindstone (why do people always think that using the word "proverbial" makes clichés sound less lame? Well whatever. This is a blog.) on grad school applications to MFA programs. Definitely have a newfound appreciation for online applications. But UC Irvine's sneaky 2-writing-sample-requirement? Not so much. For shame, UC Irvine. Why must you be one of my top choices?

Also, sometimes I have these moments where I just think, oh dear, why am I a teacher again? Because one of the teachers at one of the schools I work for asked me if I knew a song that includes all of the days of the week, to teach the kids the words in English, and my first thought was "Police On My Back." By the Clash. And for a minute I was like, well, they probably wouldn't understand the lyrics anyway, and I don't think the teachers would care, and "I been runnin' Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday" is pretty catchy. And what day in Paris do I ever not have the thought, "What have I done?"

Then I remembered that it has lines about shootings and stuff. And I am a teacher. So I went with a song that has no lyrics except for the actual days of the week, and a youtube video with a man singing in a fluffy hat. With hand puppets.

Also, when do you know you work with kids? When you pull out your umbrella because it's rainy in Paris and a flash card comes floating out onto the sidewalk with the word "NOODLES" on one side.