Awkward.

Yesterday I went to the Comédie Française with my class and we saw Le Misanthrope by Molière (a play we'd just read) performed. The theater was great. It was kind of small, but with balconies, and old seats, huge chandelier and all that jazz. The play was...intense. Rather melodramatic, I thought. Lots of shouting, running around, falling on the ground, being overly dramatic for a play where there wasn't much action, just conversation, and all in all about a guy who insults another guy's poem, and they're also both in love with the same woman. Of course, there's a lot more to the play, social commentary and all that. But wow. I mean, I could tell that it was very well performed-the actors were really great. But it was a little much for me. Also, with the makeup, they seriously ugly-fied the actors. And two guys had the craziest hair and whitest faces ever. And there was a lot of laughing where I didn't expect. And sometimes things were performed with emotion, or stage direction that I did not imagine while reading the play. And then when it ended...they had to go on bowing FOREVER.
Then I went home, helped out a little to prepare for my host dad's surprise birthday party and then tried to get some homework done. I ended up going down to the party, which was probably the most awkward event in my life. I mean, I'm not that great in social situations where there are a bunch of people I sort of know who are my age who speak english, but this was a bunch of people 10 years older than me, speaking french, and I didn't know anyone. And I'm not really sure what's polite or not to ask, so I didn't really know how to start conversations. So I ate some, and drank a little, and stood around awkwardly occaisionally talking to people.

These three guys were in the kitchen and they all tried a dessert before they were supposed to. Then there was this chocolate cake they wanted to try, but the way it was cut, there needed to be an even number of pieces taken to keep the cake looking full, so I got a piece of the cake. Then, and they thought this was HILARIOUS, they stuck toothpicks in the cake to connect the pieces, so they would stick together when someone tried to take a piece. They were laughing really hard. They probably had also had a bit of wine. Because it was kinda funny, but not THAT funny. Finally, I snuck back upstairs. I really didn't know what to do with myself, and whenever I saw my host mom or her sister I asked if I could help with something but they were always like, no! no! (Oh and one guy confused California with Florida when I told him where I was from, and asked if I was near Miami. So that was funny). Also, I think every guest was part of a couple, and most of the women were pregnant. No joke.

Today, a little after I got up, my host mom came in with a tray with tea, OJ, some small crepes and nutella, and apologized for not attending to me last night. That was surprising. But really nice. I said it wasn't a problem (I mean, she had enough to deal with besides awkward american). Then I went on a walk in the Bois de Vincennes, and discovered just how bad my sense of direction was. We had to do this half hour observation/reflection writing for my professor, so I wanted to go sit by the lake. I went the wrong direction-but found my pegasus crossing sign! And finally found the lake. (You'd think it'd be easy to keep track of a lake, but I couldn't find it for the life of me).
When I returned, my family was having lunch (with leftovers from the party) with a couple of guests, so I joined them. After that, I took a walk with the family down to this flea market, which was nice. A little stressful, because Calixte would sort of wander off, or not follow directions. Also, Maxcence had to go to the bathroom, so he ended up peeing in the gutter. As we were waiting, my host mom turns to me and says that that's the benefit of having little boys. And then we returned, and now I need to get homework done. We actually have quite a bit of work now, which I'm not too keen on doing. Oh well. I suppose technically I am in school, even though at times it doesn't feel like it.