Wistful

I'm not exactly sure why, but I've been feeling wistful the past week or two. Like, starting to get subtle yearnings for home. There are several factors related to this development:

- I was looking at the webpage for the inaugural Illinois Marathon the other day. Man, I really want to run that race sometime. Maybe next year? But silly me, I traced over the whole course map, and it really made me miss running with Second Wind. A lot of the course follows the old marathon training runs. It's funny how grids of streets on a map can bring back so many memories.

- I've been reading James's blog (hi, James :) ), and his photography has developed this really dreamy, impressionistic view of C-U. Since we ran in a lot of the same places, I think we had a lot of the same visions of Urbana, and his pictures jar those images in my memory, like seeing the town pass through my peripheral vision during a twilight run.

- I miss all of you whenever you leave me a comment on these blog postings.

But anyway. My classes are still really good, and I become more and more sure that this is the right school for me as time goes on, which is a great feeling. I'm so glad to be solidifying in that direction, and not the opposite - if I were becoming more and more sure I don't want to write my dissertation here, I'd be pretty miserable!

Hey, speaking of being miserable in graduate school... my friend George will be in town this weekend! I'm so excited; I haven't seen him in almost a year, and it'll be fantastic to catch up. On a whim (the combination of my wistfulness and the knowledge that George is coming), I was looking back through old journal entries from Paris tonight. Here's part of one about our trip to Greece that made me laugh:

So we got in to Athens around 12:30 the Thursday night before break, and it was surprisingly easy to find the bus to the port, where our hotel was. I had my first experience of being paralyzed and having to ask George to say things for me when we bought tickets, which was odd, but fine. We get on the bus and this guy immediately asks the three of us, in French, with a Greek accent, if we’re French. Maybe because I was wearing French clothes and I might be pulling off the European look these days? Who knows. But we weren’t even speaking French at the time, I don’t think. So we tell him we’re not French in French, and George says something to him in Greek, so he says something to me and Matt in Greek when George goes up to validate his ticket, and Matt and I tell him in French we’re sorry but we don’t speak Greek, and then George comes back and says something in either English, French, or Greek… I forget, I just know the guy kept getting more and more confused, until he eventually says in French, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understand where you’re from….” So we explained that we’re Americans studying abroad in France for the year, that Matt and I only speak English and French, but that George speaks Greek too. The first of several interesting language situations.

So we’re on the bus, headed for the port, surprisingly not tired, especially considering I was up the entire night before writing my stupid paper for my Paris IV class that I ended up not even being able to turn in because there were manifestants [protesters] outside of Malesherbes [the school building] because of the whole CPE thing [proposed new employment policy] and no one could get in. Anyway… we’re clipping along at some ungodly speed, dodging other vehicles as though on a moped, when we finally get on the highway that goes around the perimeter of the city and the traffic up ahead is at a standstill. The bus driver pulls up on the sidewalk for some reason… it seems in retrospect that it might have been to let ambulances and police cars through, but I honestly can’t say whether I’m making that up so it’ll make more sense or not… and just stops. This guy in the very back of the bus starts yelling at the bus driver, who starts yelling back, and Matt and I have no idea what’s going on, but George is laughing and promising to translate in a second. Then the doors of the bus open and everyone but us files out and starts smoking. It turns out the guy was telling the bus driver if he was going to be an idiot and just pull over on the sidewalk like that, he might as well be reasonable and open the doors to let him go out and have a cigarette. Apparently everyone thought that was a good idea. Eventually the bus driver started yelling at everyone to get back in again so we could go, and we made it to the port and to the hotel around 2:00, I think. It was a perfectly Greek start to things. I really like how everyone yells at everyone else, but it’s like… good-natured. It’s cool; that’s just how they talk. They get excited about things.

I'm not sure why I wanted to share that, but I did. Ok, it's late, I'm tired, I have to run the dogs in the morning, so I'm going to bed. Love to you all.