An exciting/excruciating day in my life

Remember the good old days, when you could mosey pretty much anyway in a pair of obnoxious pajama bottoms? The computer lab is only a couple flights down from my room, but I always feel compelled to put pants on. You know, the denim kind. I actually got two steps out of my room before I realized my brash American ways would never be accepted and turned back to change. (Lucky break, too...there's another teacher working down here, and he's an awkward enough conversationalist that I wouldn't want to throw up an unbreachable pajama divide) French people generally don't truck much with the idea that pjs are a perfectly adequate mode of attire; my wearing of gold flip flops on bare feet in the middle of winter is certainly scandalous enough.

Don Julio once ventured out in sweatpants to go pick up Chinese food, and I almost had a heart-attack. He hasn't done it since, probably out of a mistaken notion that I was offended by his inappropriate attire. I wish he would do it again...makes me feel Francophone dangerous.

I had my medical visit this morning at 8:15 am, in the city where Don Julio lives, which is a half an hour from where I live. For some reason they give you the chest x-rays they take. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with them, or what general purpose that could possibly serve. I mean, do I frame them? Do some cool watercolor effects maybe? I mean, they definitely don't use them for Halloween parties, since they don't celebrate Halloween. I'm baffled. I imagine patients lose them or accidently destroy them more often than hospital personal do...I will never understand this practice.

I met a Senegalese commerce student, who was doing the same visa trajectory I was (radiogram and general check-up). We both ended up at the train station at the same time and both of us had to wait a bit for our different trains, which was awkward in that 'we probably ought to talk since we have this visa thing in common and we did that whole nicety thing at the hospital but we're both too tired to care' way. Since the waiting room was filled with a gang of foul mouthed, chain smoking sixteen year old boys, I asked if she wanted to go with me to a cafe instead of standing around in the ticketing area for over an hour (I was frankly too scared to go by myself, since the only cafe I saw was filled with staring men...and I confessed as much) We went. We talked about various places we wanted to visit, she talked about her family, I talked about the kids I work with, and it was in retrospect strange and not strange; we were anonymous compatriots for an hour, then I took my train and went immediately to outlining my lesson plans for my fourth graders, including what I thought was a fun use of the Simpsons to teach the family...which I didn't use anyway because they were shit today (they have a student teacher right now so they've become a giant mob of obnoxious) so I punished them by making them copy down questions and answers for twenty minutes. Lame, but effective. Yeah...When did I become that person?

Thank god the third graders were awesome, and that the second grade teacher I met with today was incredibly nice and helpful. Saved my life. Holy crap.