Well, it has taken me a full week, but I think I'm finally somewhat recovered from last weekend. But only somewhat: how can life ever really be the same once you've seen a French mousse party? I think I'm scarred for life on that score. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Anyway, I spent Monday and Tuesday more or less resting and reading in bed, since food poisoning is such a soul draining experience. It really leaves you astonishingly weak, I couldn't get through the day without a few naps.
By Wednesday I was starting to feel like myself again, so I went over to the BN and got my library card and spent two days getting reacquainted with my sources. Which was a highly productive experience, as it led me to a major methodological breakthrough that totally liberated me from some misdirected ideas I had on what I needed to do before I could start writing. Instead I realized that I had much more than I thought I did, and this discovery actually led me to leave the library early on Thursday to being writing. I spent a good portion of Thursday night glued to my computer, then returned to the library on Friday for more. This revelation was in fact so rich that I spent Friday night in my room, continuing to write. I was planning on reserving today for that but then I got an invitation to go to Proust's home town, which is about an hour outside of Paris. I couldn't resist the trip to Combray, which led to a moment of existential crisis, since I want to ride this inspiration wave as long as hard as I can. So I stayed up until like 1 last night and got up again at 6 to continue writing. Damn! But, I've gotten a skeleton of everything I have down, so I can polish it tomorrow before hitting the BN again on Monday. Writing is such a curious process, I was panicking about falling behind on my plan and then all of a sudden I just whipped up 17 pages in two days. Yes!
My other huge progress of the week is that I've gotten organized on the music front. I was having scheduling issues with the orchestras here at the ENS, so I finally decided to stop obsessing over how to work those out and find something else in the community instead. After a bit of googling and emailing, I got a few leads. One orchestra that sounds pretty good invited me to join (because, honestly, even though I'm nowhere near professional quality and am sadly rusty, I have a decent musical CV on paper so it at least seems like I know what I'm doing, haha), so I accepted on the spot so that I would have something. Their repertoire seems reasonably ambitious, so they can't suck. Then I got another invitation for some chamber music, which I couldn't turn down since I adore chamber music. I may have gotten myself into a group preparing the Mendelssohn Octet, which is totally hot. Not only is it a great piece, I've also played it before so it won't be as much of a stretch as it would be otherwise. Word.
Anyway, that lead me to take action on renting a cello, since I had been having trouble getting one from a friend of my former cello teacher. We've been trying to connect without success, since he lives in Aix. I finally ended up renting a rather crappy one from a Paris luthier, but I'm hoping I can still get the one in Aix later since I'm sure it's way better. But any port in a storm, at least I can start playing this week.
The funniest moment of picking up the cello, however, was that I went over there with my checkbook, as instructed. I had to leave a deposit check that they won't cash unless I screw up the instrument. So we were going through the paperwork and I signed the documents, then I went to open up my checkbook, at which point I realized that I had NO FREAKIN' CLUE how to write a check in France! They're totally different. It's not clear where any of the information goes! This isn't my first bank account in France, but I guess I never had to write a check from my other one. It had just never come up, and I hadn't thought of it. So I was sitting there like a dumbass, and I figured the only solution was to make a joke of it. The woman was quite nice, so I was like, "well, the best part of getting settled in a foreign country is the stuff you learn unexpectedly, I have no idea how to fill this out!" We had a good laugh over it and she taught me how to write a check in France. You even have to write out the city where you wrote it, so there's a space to say that I wrote the check in Paris. I guess I lost some Paris points on that one, but maybe I've gained them back now that I know how to do it? In any case I thought it was pretty hilarious, haha.
I still haven't figured out how to deposit checks, however, and I already knew that's totally different. There's a weird machine you have to use, not the ATM. I'll be getting a check soon, so more on that later.
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