I haven’t been paying close enough attention to this place. It’s starting to collect cobwebs, get wrinkles, and smell of mothballs—sort of like a geriatric who’s been abandoned and long forgotten at the old folks’ home by her extended family. Just as guilt-trippy, but less poopy in the pants.

This is my last semester at school before I take off for Paris. Thus, I am feeling no immediate need to do any school work right now and am frantically planning for my departure in January. I still haven’t found a place to live or sorted out my visa. I’m sure everything will work out, but I can’t quite dispel the niggling fear that something will go wrong and I will not be able to leave for my exchange. This is because I have planned to travel to Europe multiple times in the past and, for some reason or another (usually monetary), I am not able to go. This time I have pulled out all the stops: I took out my first loan, got a line of credit, and am applying to every scholarship and bursary that I come across. I probably should have invested this same time and effort in my previous unsuccessful travel plans, but—what can I say?—this time things are different. This will be my last chance to bum around as an annoying tourist in a foreign city for what is essentially going to be (I hope) an extended vacation. Once September rolls around, I will be locked in for years upon years of research, writing, and self-aggrandizement.

I’m so excited, I can’t really believe I am going to be leaving in less than two months. I’ve been refreshing my French skills in a conversational course for a few months now and I’m feeling pretty confident (Je suis canadienne, pas américaine, donc ne crachez pas dans ma nourriture). My parents, completely Asian in their frugality (or frugal in their Asianness), have expressed their confusion at my decision to live in a foreign city where people speak French (“Who wants to speak French?”) and where I will have to pay $2000 a month to live in a broom closet and shower over the toilet. But they’ve been quite supportive of the idea in general, if only for the reason that they will have someone to mooch off of should they want to visit Paris.

Two exams and two papers to go. Then I am off… like Britney Spears’-underwear-coming-out-of-a-car off!