2 days. I hope you're not expecting these to get progressively better.

Freshman year, we had a night where we had three fire drills in the pouring rain the night before a final exam, beginning around 3am. By the last one, people were refusing to go outside. Jillian even slept through one of them.

I just thought of that because I've been through four fire drills and a potential one (it was all smoky but we left before anything went off) in the past month.

4 days.

When I went from Grenoble to visit my roommate in Aberdeen last year, we had quite an adventure. We had a train to catch at 6am. I was up and ready at 6am, but I hadn't considered the thought that the first bus goes by around 6:03. For some reason I couldn't get the phone to work properly and couldn't call a cab to the train station, so I went to the nearby phone box, and I couldn't get my phone card to work. What was I going to do? I was going to let Cheryl down and ruin all of our plans. Ahhh, the waterworks. The butcher's shop on the corner began to come to life - lights turning on, doors opening, so I ran down there and begged for a telephone call. The lady very nicely called me a cab, which came, sped me to the station when he found out I had to be there by 6, and I was just in time.

Wow, what a story, huh? Ah, it's just beginning.

We got on the train, which took us to Geneva, Switzerland. From there we had plane tickets to Liverpool, England, and would take an evening train from Liverpool to Aberdeen. We got to Geneva with time to spare so we went and had a leisurely breakfast before going to the airport. Unfortunately... we got a bit lost on our way back to the airport and check-in had closed by the time we got there. We had no bags to check but they still wouldn't let us on. But they found us a flight to London instead.

We finally got into London around 9pm and after being sent to every train station in town (Houston? Did she say Houston? It sounded like she said Houston. Ah, Euston!), we found the one that would take us to Scotland. We asked for tickets to Aberdeen and all they had was Edinburgh. On the sleeper. At midnight. Sitting up. Ahem.

So we had a couple of hours to kill and we didn't want to sit around the train station so we went out into London. At night, in the dark, in seriously pouring rain. We got to see a lot of cool stuff but didn't get to take pictures of many because we didn't want to get our cameras wet. Meanwhile, they were getting wet (along with the rest of our overpacked stuff) in our bags.

We got back to the train station, got on our train and pulled out of the station. No. No wait, we didn't, did we? No. We sat there for at least another hour while some insane Scot argued about his ticket and the train company waited to see if anyone else would come along so we could fill up the train. Seriously.

We tried to sleep (rather unsuccessfully) on the train and pulled into Edinburgh at some unholy hour of the morning like 8am. We called my roommate and let her know what was going on then quickly hopped on the next train to Aberdeen. We finally pulled into Aberdeen at 11am, 29 hours after we had left from Grenoble.

Then we romped around and looked at castles and drank a bit of liquor and danced and had an all-around good time.

6 days.

Freshman year, a game of multilingual Uno broke out on our hall. French, Spanish, German, maybe even some Samoan found its way into the game as we called out numbers and colors and tried to translate things like "draw two" and "reverse". The only rule: no English. It was a level of multilingual fun we don't even get in I-House.

7 days. One week to go till I'm sitting up there, either sweating in my graduation robes in the hot sun or with the rain running off my taller neighbor's mortarboard and all over me, while some investment-guy alum blathers on to us and PT lisps about how excellent our class is and rah rah Liberal Arts at Work. Can you tell I'm looking forward to it?

One day last summer someone signed the guestbook on my website, leaving their name as "John Hannah".

'Yeah right,' I snorted, and went on with my life. Then a few days later, he signed again, insisting it was him, saying that he liked the site, and that he'd like to contact me. So I left my email address in the guestbook, thinking 'What the hey'. By then there was some more information that made it sound more likely that it was actually him.

He did email me. He said he liked the site and and asked how I got involved. Through the information he shared, I came to believe that it really was John Hannah. So there I was at work, getting no work done and emailing back and forth with John Hannah. When I wasn't emailing back and forth, I was checking my email every two seconds to see if something new had come in. There were only three messages, but I still didn't get anything done all day.

In one of the messages, I mentioned that I was going to England soon and that I'd be going to see his friend Neil Dudgeon in a play he was in. Upon discovering that I'd be in London, he gave me the number of someone to contact at Twickenham Studios, where he was filming "The Memory of Water".

So when I got to England, I called and talked to this contact at Twickenham. We were calling back and forth all day, trying to set something up. Finally, it was discovered that John wouldn't even be filming on the day that I could come in. But that's okay, because he wanted to meet me, so he was going to come in especially for me.

!

So my London friend Denzylle, my sister and I went down to Twickenham and had to wait for the 2nd assistant director, one of the people I'd talked to on the phone. She walked into the room and shook my hand, and I noticed that someone had walked in with her. It was John Hannah! He looked strangely normal - I didn't recognize him at first. I think I expected him to be sparkly or have an odd glow, being a movie star and all.

We went to the little juice-bar thing next door and John bought us water and we talked for about 45 minutes about what he was working on then, what he'd just finished, what he's doing next... and he was interested in what I was doing, too. He asked "'Is this as weird for you as it is for me?" Um... probably more so.... He seemed quite amazed by some of the information we had about his work and kept going 'How did you know about THAT?'

Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom, The Full Monty, Shakespeare in Love, etc.), who's also in "The Memory of Water", came over for a minute, shook our hands, seemed to think having a website was pretty weird, and went upstairs to watch cricket.

Anyway, then we were done and we were getting ready to go and he kissed each of us on the cheek before we left. I almost fell over backwards and had to keep from squealing until we got out of hearing distance.

(geek)

8 days.

Last year in Grenoble I went out for a walk one day with nothing to do. Cheryl was out doing something else and I was bored so I wandered around downtown for a while and ended up on the quais of the Isère, just below the Bastille, one of the smaller of the mountains around Grenoble. So I decided to climb the Bastille. It's not like I needed climbing ropes or something - it's just a zig-zag walking path up the mountain. But since I hadn't really planned the expedition, I was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, carrying my backpack, and hadn't had anything to drink since my morning cup of tea. And yet, I set off up the mountain. It really wasn't that hard until I started getting out from under the tree cover. By the time I reached the last set of steps to get to the top, I had to sit down because I was seeing stars. Then I had to scramble around and find myself something to drink so I didn't die of dehydration or heat stroke or stupidity or being out of shape or whatever it was that was killing me.

Climbing the Bastille is a lot more fun when you have someone with you and when you're prepared for it, as I found out this summer when I climbed it with my dad and a bottle of water on our summer trip to England and France.

10 days.

One weekend last fall, Ligia, Juan, Alex and I all ended up at I-House with a bag of marshmallows and a can of Pringles. Juan put a little Pringle hat on top of a marshmallow head and then went to find a way to make it stay. Gradually, Marshmallowstein was born. He had a straw for a body and two more for legs, toothpick arms, and later even had clothing. Our artistic creation lived in Ligia's refrigerator for months afterwards.

11 days.

In the spirit of yesterday's cannibalistic song posting, I will post another making-fun-of-people song, which also happens to be a memory from my four years at Albion. This is a song I wrote for Mary Grace, the very stupid girl in my Europe Since 1500 class. It can be sung to the tune of "Amazing Grace".

Oh Mary Grace, I wonder why
this class drags on so slow.
It is because we must explain
the things that you don't know.

Oh Mary Grace, put down your hand.
Don't share your point of view
I hate to say that Adam D**tz
is not as dumb as you.

Oh Mary Grace, you taught us 'bout
the Inquisition - wow!
I didn't know The Church was much
more murd'rous then than now.

Oh Mary Grace, how dumb thou art,
up front in History.
I understand better than than you
a film I didn't see.

Oh Mary Grace, your curly hair
does nothing to conceal
that underneath that fluffy mane's
a hamster on a wheel.

12 days.

At Halloween of my freshman year, I had nothing to wear. So I ran out to Felpausch at the last minute and got some white bunny ears. I dressed all in white (or light khakis) and was a bunny.

Well, what do you do with bunny ears for the rest of the year? I became known on my hall for wearing my bunny ears everywhere. On the hall, around campus, to the coffee house... Ah, attention.

I became identified as "The Bunny". Rabbits became my favorite animal, just because I identify with them. Hence three stuffed bunnies, sitting on my couch.

13 days.

Our Geology TAs were named Gabe and Magda, but Jillian and I, being the clever Geology students that we were, nicknamed them Gabbro and Magma. Ha ha! We had a lot of fun in that class because Gabbro was sort of cute but dumb and we had two hours to do a lab that often needed less than an hour. We were usually the last ones there because we were amusing ourselves by playing with the fossils.

14 days.

My sophomore year, I took Intro to Earth History, a Geology class (lab science credit), with a bunch of other non-science majors from my freshman-year hall. I think the Sophomore Slump was beginning to set in and they were so happy to see each other again that they would very rudely talk through the whole class. And I, unfortunately, was associated with them. One day he kicked our side of the room out but I stayed, because I knew I had done nothing wrong.

I haven't done one of these in several days. Maybe I'm getting low on memories.

16 days.

One day Stephanie, Erin, Julie and I went to Felpausch but instead of making it just any trip to the supermarket, we brought along cameras and pretended we were on vacation at Felpausch. There's a lot of light in supermarkets. I have a nice picture of Erin sitting on the cheese case.

17 days on the 17th. Huh.

When we went to visit Denis and Sophie's cousin and her kids in St-Etienne, the six-year-old cousin Charles latched on to me. It was interesting because he'd seen me about a month before and had told me that his cousins were beautiful but I was moche. Well, little Charles. I was bored and lonely and bombarded with French. We can't all be looking our best under these circumstances. Poo on you.

But on this visit, he followed me all over the place and wanted to sit next to me at dinner, sit on my lap, and hold my hand when we went on walks. Little flirt. I shudder to think what he's going to be like when he gets older.

19 days.

One day in our freshman year, Stephanie, Lewis, Jen and I stayed up all night, eating tuna dip and giving (Jen and Lewis) and receiving (Stephanie and me) makeovers. It was actually rather spectacular in my case, being the makeup-less troll that I am. Heh heh. I'm glad I've never had any homework to do during my four years. It makes spontaneous fun-sessions more possible.

Well okay, maybe I've had a little homework, but nothing to interfere with my dazzling social life or anything.

22 days.

Over my February vacation last year, I was reading some French book and sitting by the bus stop to get the bus back to Nîmes and various people began to join me. Quite a few of them spoke English, but I was lost in my book and don't normally talk to strangers, anyway. I got onto the bus and sat behind two Americans. They were talking amongst themselves and I wasn't really paying attention, but I caught words here and there. Then one of them turned around and said, "Mademoiselle, vous habitez ici?" ("Miss, do you live here?") Suddenly I put together all of the snippets of their conversation that I'd overheard and realized that they were talking about me (and trying to figure out how old I was) and thought I was French. "Non," I replied, wondering if I should 'fess up. "Si ça ne vous dérange pas, vous habitez où?" ("If you don't mind me asking, where do you live?") I thought about saying "Grenoble" and leading them on, but I figured I might as well be honest (and get the opportunity to see how they'd react!) So I took a deep breath and admitted "Michigan," which made one of them collapse behind the seat in embarrassment. But they were quite nice and sweet and we chatted all the way back to Nîmes.

Where are you guys? They were from California somewhere.

24 days.

An RHA tradition that has been lost in the past few years (I swear, I leave campus and the organization falls apart) is the a-salt-ing of new members. Or old members. Or anyone we want to a-salt. This often consists of putting salt shakers in people's pockets or backpacks when they're not looking or taping salt packets all over their office/room door. For a while, The Great Salterini was stalking our advisor via email. We even have salt-related t-shirts from two years ago. Bring back the salt!

26 days.

Last year, my favorite professor was Dominique. He was our main (sort of "homeroom") teacher in our three-a-week language classes. He had a very entertaining and mimicable way of talking and I miss him just thinking about it. He always went around the room to get answers, so everyone got a chance to or was forced to speak. On the last day of class, we bought him a card and a nice pen and he took us all down to the cafeteria for coffee and tea and to exchange addresses with everyone.

We were all very sad when we learned, at the end of the semester, that we would have a different teacher for the language classes in the spring, because the school liked to switch the levels that they were teaching at. Right now, I can't even remember our second semester teacher's name, but she was nothing near as good as Dominique, and those of us who had been around for the first semester constantly commented to each other about that. There were days when I just wouldn't say anything in class. I think that first semester, most of my learning was in the classroom but second semester, I was doing it all at home.

29 days. It sounds like so much less than 30. Mmmm. *shivers in delight*

Freshman year I was at Briton Bash, the beginning-of-the-year activity held to introduce new students to campus organizations. I was walking along when suddenly I froze. Stephanie looked at me funny. "Scottish accent," I explained. I looked around but couldn't see, at first, where it was coming from. Then I spotted him. Hmm, he looked as good as he sounded. From that day forward, the Attractive Scot was known on the hall as "srah's husband". After several weeks or months or so, I even discovered his name. Then he got to know my friends and people on my hall, so I even met him.

Then, my husband was viciously stolen from me by my friend Erin. Actually, I sound lighthearted now, but it was really upsetting at the time. They started going out before I got a crack at him! If only he had found me before Erin, he would have fallen in love with me. I've seen Trainspotting! And Hamish MacBeth! I like Star Wars! I wear lots of plaid! I read Waiting for Godot because he said he'd read it! (I am so pathetic.) I still had a crush on him even when he and Erin were going out. I remember the time Jillian, Lisa and I were sitting in the hall reading a Scottish smut novel out loud and we stopped him as he walked by and made him read it to us. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh...

Richard and Erin went out for over a year before deciding that they couldn't handle the long-distance thing any longer, then broke up last Spring. I think her friends were almost as upset about the breakup as she was, just because we liked having him and his accent around. And, of course, the potential of meeting Scottish men at their eventual wedding...

Hmmmm, I wonder if Richard's available now... ; )

30 days.

My sophomore year, my friend, Trivial Pursuit rival (we are still even, I believe), and crush-at-the-time, Kurt Medland, was selected to be on College Jeopardy. This was months after I had gone through the process and had gotten to the second round at U-M's tryouts. We were all very proud of him and made a video clip to support him, got Kurt Medland t-shirts, made him a campus celebrity, and watched him on TV. He did really well in the first round, but choked in Final Jeopardy. Luckily, he still managed to make it to the second round, where he did very well but choked in Final Jeopardy. Recognize a trend?

So today's graduation countdown is dedicated to my friend Kurt, to whom I would just like to say "Harry Potter" (I knew that one!) and "Psycho" (I knew that one too!). So there.

31 days.

The first time I ever had peach iced tea was sitting out in the back yard chatting with Denis. We had run out of Coke, so he got me a peach iced tea instead. I knew I didn't like iced tea, but I was thirsty and a year abroad is all about trying new things. I'm glad I did. I believe it was a Nestea.

They don't seem to have peach Nestea anywhere around here. Peach Nestea is pretty impossible to find, at least where I've been shopping. It's also hard to find peach Lipton except by the bottle. I would like to buy more than one bottle at a time, please. Do you have a case or something? The only place I've been able to find peach Lipton is Albion's fast-food joint, the Eat Shop. Not even in Meijers, just in the Eat Shop. It's odd how things will turn up in one place you wouldn't expect and nowhere else. Right now I am enjoying a peach Snapple, though less than I would a Nestea or Lipton. It's sweeter than the others.

So there you go. Blogged about tea and a graduation memory. Take that, two birds! *THWACK!*

32 days.

My roommate and I are both Sarahs from Ann Arbor (one called Srah to try to ease the confusion, except when someone asks for "Sarah" on the phone) and we went to high school together. We had some friends in common so we were aware of each other, but we didn't really know each other and neither of us really had a problem with that. Then our senior year in high school, we found out that we were both going to Albion so we talked a little more. When I got to college and had to find someone to go to dinner with, I gave her a call once or twice even though we didn't really know each other that well. She got to know my roommate and pretty soon the three of us were hanging out together. When roommating with Stephanie sophomore year didn't work out, we decided we might as well give it a try, if only because we are appliance-compatible. So we did. And here we still are. Dear dear Roommate.

33 days.

Dively and I were driving to Meijers sophomore year, quite late at night. It was a foggy, misty night, in the way that horror movies are sometimes foggy. You could see where the layer of fog hung and the clear air above and below it. One of us remarked to the other that this was the kind of fog that only happened in horror movies, the kind where two girls are driving along and suddenly a man with a hook comes out of nowhere and jumps onto the car. As we were talking about this and freaking each other out, we slowed down to turn onto the freeway ramp and saw a man walking by the ramp. Of course we freaked out and assumed he was a man with a hook who was going to latch on the side of the car and attack us once the car stopped. So we drove shakily to Jackson, then once we got to Meijers, I had to get out on Jen's side so he couldn't attack me. Ah, irrational fear.

35 days.

One of the last things I did, between my final exams and flying home from Grenoble was to make cookies with Sophie. It was something we'd talked about all year, but we never had all of the ingredients. So one day in May, we finally sat down and made them. It was interesting because we had the directions in English and in cups and teaspoons. We had the right measuring utensils, because the Morins had had so many Americans before. We had alsatian raising powder, which was something akin to baking powder or soda or something. We had some flour, but I don't think it was the same kind we use in the US. But we mixed everything together. We heated the oven, but it was hard to correspond the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. settings on the oven to Fahrenheit degrees. So we guessed that we wanted it somewhere around 6. We cooked about 5 trays full of cookies and never managed to get the temperature quite right. We'd put it up to 7 and they'd burn, we'd put it down to 5 and they'd be flat. But once we fed all of the burnt ones to Denis, our cookies were quite yummy and we gobbled them up.

36 days. Little over 5 weeks. Dear me, I suppose I have some term papers and final projects to do at some point. Hmmm. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled daily memory from the past four years.

Freshman year, our R.A., Carl, went away somewhere with his band and left his room unlocked. Big mistake. Lisa Lew and I went into his room and stole his comfortable rolly chair. Then we wrote anonymous ransom notes stating our demands, which I seem to remember were hugs for his residents (we were all very odd about Carl and I think all the girls on the hall had some kind of crush/hero worship going on at some point. I don't understand it now) and an impromptu concert in the hall by the band. I don't remember the hugs, but we did get our concert...

37 days.

Freshman year I was in a Film class where the professor sat us down and told us to make movies, then graded us on what we did wrong. Hmmph. Not bitter or anything. Anyway, my Honors buddy Denny and I made several crappy little films in that class that I have on video and will occasionally show to people if I really like them.

There was the one where the plot was "Sometimes I want to go to sleep but there's always a party on my hall." It included me wearing bunny ears, some footage from Monty Python and the Holy Grail cut in, and a cardboard cut-out of Austin Powers. Yikes. You can see the cameraman in one shot and we switched actresses for one of the parts halfway through filming.

There was the music video where I didn't realize we were allowed to cut the song, so I had way more song than I had footage. It involved using and reusing clips of me spinning around in circles and at one point repeating all of the previous footage. Bad. I can't listen to Semisonic's "Closing Time" without thinking of that video.

There was Denny's video where Larry refused to play himself so we had Carl play him. I remember the talented camerawoman getting a shot of "Larry" with a big Republican Party sign behind his head. Very Larry. Denny doesn't act "asleep" very well.

There was my final project where I decided to make a movie sort of like Sliding Doors, but set in Albion. It might have worked out quite well, except we discovered at the editing stage, when it was too late to refilm, that we had serious sound problems with the dialogue in a few scenes. So did we cut them out? Did we rerecord the sound? No! We made it into a silent film, with little title-cards between shots. WHAT????? There are very clever little in-jokes in the music selection, but no one ever pays attention to the music anyway.

I put Ed Wood to shame.

39 days till you can sing this to me.

When she visited Grenoble in October of last year, Dr Guenin-Lelle gave us a few things to give to Pénélope, our former Native Speaker, when we saw her. Well, it took a few months, but I finally managed to pay Penny a visit in March. I stayed with her in her parents' home in Aix-les-Bains and she took me to spend the day in Annecy, drive around the lakes of the region and also on a side trip to Chambéry.

Pénélope's family was extremely kind and hospitable to me. Their house is quite modern and amazing. I stayed in her brother's room, since he was away at art school in Paris. The room was bright, beautiful, and full of his art.

Annecy, although not quite so much in March, is supposed to have such beautiful flowers that won competitions for the most flowered town in France until it was finally disqualified from continuing in the competition. It, like several other towns in France, calls itself a "little Venice" because it has canals and water running throughout.

I also got to see the largest natural lake in France and experience flooding in Savoie. The entire country was having problems with flooding, but it was less evident in Grenoble, which is behind a big dam. Near Lake Bourget, the water was nearly covering the road and in Annecy, it was flowing quickly and threatening to overflow the canals.

40 days.

And 40 nights?

One day, early in sophomore year, we were hit by an attack of the Sophomore Slump. After living on top of each other in Wesley the year before, we found ourselves broken up and spread across campus. So Jillian, Erin, Jen and I got together to hang out in Jillian and Erin's room. We sat in the Isolation Corner and sang and danced to depressing songs. We were still sad to be separated, but we discovered that even if we weren't just down the hall, we could always get together when we were down.

42 days.

Freshman year, Harini and Cheryl came to visit me at Albion over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. We built snowmen and had a grand old time.

43 days.

I have a friend. We would meet in the KC and talk about nothing and everything, back at the beginning of the year when no one had anything better to do than sit in the KC and talk for hours on end. I thought, "We have a lot to talk about. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

But he had other plans, which became evident when he ran home one day and returned with a Pringles can. No, I lied. It did not become evident, it became confusing. "Have some Pringles," he said. "No thanks, I don't really like Pringles," I replied. "No, really, take some," he insisted. "Well, fine," I gave in. There was a red rose in the Pringles can. Was this a declaration of his true intentions or a late birthday gift? Turned out to be the former, which caused much distress and confusion and accusations of stalking until I finally gave in and gave him a chance.

I'm glad I did. I love you. Happy six monthiversary.

44 days.

My favorite class that I've taken at Albion was English Language. Just like my Computer Science class, I was one of the only ones who was taking it for fun rather than for a requirement. I loved learning about linguistics, the teacher was amusing, and I never missed a class session.

My least favorite class was Great Issues in Science, which met two days a week from 8:30 to 10:00. One and a half hour classes are enough of a pain without being at 8:30 in the morning and being about Science. One of the themes of the class was "How non-scientists view science." There were 12 science majors in the class, plus me. They promised they wouldn't pick on me. They lied.

45 days.

When my freshman seminar took a trip to France, we visited Paris and Grenoble, where Albion students were studying, and Noisy-le-roi, Albion's sister city.

When we were in Grenoble, we took the télépheriques to the top of the Bastille and ate dinner in the restaurant there. I was peacefully eating my salad when a little friend said hello to me. "Bonjour," said the slug, "Je suis dans ta salade!" Well, that started me gagging. Remember, I thought to myself, you are in a foreign country and you are a representative of the United States. Let's try to understand this culturally. The French like their food fresher than Americans. A slug wouldn't stand a chance in American lettuce. Mmmm, fresh salad. So don't freak out. DON'T FREAK OUT! The really stupid part is, I didn't freak out at all. I just covered him with a piece of lettuce and kept eating. Then when he crawled out from under that piece, I put another one on top of him, all the while trying not to gag or bring any attention to myself or my salad.

Worst. Salad. Ever.

46 days.

I prided myself on never watching Survivor or any such "reality" series and never giving in to popular American culture. Then I went to France and along came "Loft Story". It was the French version of Big Brother, with a twist that the last male and female who remained in the house had to live there together for a month. The contestants were young and beautiful. When the show first started out, Sophie and I were addicted and would watch all of the updates. Our interest waned after a while, but I have to admit that I was once sucked into the realm of reality TV.

But I've still never seen Survivor, so there.

The main reason for this being my memory today is so that I can upload and offer to you, in mp3 form, one of the worst songs ever made. It was created after Loft Story was over and consists of the "lofteurs" singing about life in the loft. They are clearly not professional singers, but they didn't have great material to work with, either. So all in all, it's a disaster. It's here for a limited time only, so download it now and have a listen.

47 days.

I was working on a project for my Film class alone in my professor's office my freshman year and it went sort of late into the night. Stephanie and Sarah got rather concerned and sent Campus Safety looking for me. Apparently I didn't make enough noise in the room, because Campus Safety passed right by and reported back to them that I wasn't there. Which set of another round of worrying. I don't know what they would have done if I hadn't called home.

By the way, it is very creepy to be all alone in an academic building during the wee hours of the morning, in case you were wondering. Especially with what you don't know are Campus Safety officers making noises outside the door.

48 days.

Over Thanksgiving weekend last year, Jillian, Erin and their friend Stephanie came from Venice to visit me in Grenoble and go up to Paris. The whole Grenoble-finding-a-place-to-stay-during-a-Socialist-convention story is one for another time. But when we went to Paris, we stayed in a hostel. The desk clerk's name was Frédéric. Actually, it wasn't. It could have been, but we never asked. We just made it up.

The guy ahead of us in line was very annoying and didn't pay any attention to what Frédéric was saying. We smiled knowingly at him and waited patiently. Then he serviced served us. We had to give him our names and dates of birth and such. The dates gave the Venetians a chance to practice their newly-learned French numbers, which seemed to impress and amuse Frédéric. He pointed out that he and Jillian were born on the same day - 17 March 1980.

On the elevator, on the way up to our room, we fought over who was going to win him and I announced that I was, due to my superior French-language skills. Of course, Jillian had the whole soul-mates thing going on. By the time we came down, almost brave enough to ask him to come to dinner with us, he was gone. Sigh.

49 days.

Sophomore year, while studying for a Europe Since 1500 test, Bob and I got distracted and started talking about How Much Andie McDowell Sucks (a lot), and began explaining European history as the whims of the Magic Power Elves, who decide to lend their support to one country or another, and that is why a country is more powerful than others at any given time. It went on and on from there... I seem to remember the Magic Power Elves liked tea.

It struck me during Computer Science class that I had not done this when I woke up this morning. I was going to do it on Grenoble, but the Friday Five inspires me to do it on another topic...

50 days.

Freshman year, Dively came to Ann Arbor to visit me over Spring Break. We planned to go out and spend the whole day exploring Ann Arbor. Well, we didn't quite manage that. Jen did spend the whole day in Ann Arbor, but not quite as planned. She was playing with the devil dog Howie when something freaked him out and he either bit or scratched her right across the nose. I didn't realize what had happened until she started dripping blood. We got a wet washcloth, drove to the hospital (the only time I ever remember being in the Emergency section of a hospital), and spent the rest of the day stitching. Well, neither of us was stitching, obviously. They have professionals for that. Her nose is quite lovely now and has healed well enough that you can only see the scar if you know what you're looking for. But every time he sees her, Howie remembers that day and growls at her. Eeeeeeeevil.

51 days.

When I was a SOAR leader at the beginning of the year, I was pushing all of my baby chicks from Baldwin to the health center. I held the door for them, then one of them complained that I had shut the door on his invisible tail. Good thing we were going to the health center, then. We spent the trip to the health center discussing whether it would be better to have a tail or the ability to fly. What a weirdo. Who would have thought I'd be dating him now?

52 days.

Freshman year, a prospective student named Phil came to stay with Paul Talbot. But he didn't like Paul, so he went wandering down the hall looking for Leah, who he went to high school with. Leah wasn't home, so he found Jillian and immediately latched on. He spent the rest of the weekend following her around. Somehow Lisa and I ended up at a TKE party with him, where he revealed the way he identified the two of us: "You're short and you're Episcopalian." We're still trying to figure out what it means.

53 days.

Junior year, I had nowhere to go for my Spring Break. I didn't have any friends who were close enough to travel with. Most of my friends were the European students on a shoestring budget who could travel Europe whenever they wanted, rather than the Americans who were travelling all over the place while they had the opportunity and occasionally coming to class.

So I thought I was going to spend Spring Break alone and friendless, but my host family invited me along on their Spring Break trip and it ended up being an amazing experience. We spent several days at Francoise's brother's house and met all of the cousins, who were all great fun. We went to a party where Sophie and I were bored out of our minds and Denis was drunk out of his. We had a water fight, went for walks and bike rides, had lots and lots of tea, played board games, and generally amused ourselves.

Then for the rest of the break, we went to a former abbey near Dijon, which has been fixed up as a really nice hotel. We were celebrating Easter and BonPapa's 90th birthday. I met all the rest of the family that I hadn't already met, hid Easter eggs, went on a side-trip to Dijon, and had some great food. It was nice to be in such a large family with so many cousins of overlapping ages.

I'm going to try to put down one memory from the past four years every day in my Graduation countdown. It's mostly for my own benefit, as none of you are going to know what I'm talking about.

54 days.

One weekend during Freshman year, Dively, Jillian and I stayed up all night long, just for the sake of staying up all night long. When morning came, we danced around on the steps of the chapel in our pyjamas, tried to watch the sun come up (too many buildings) and waited for Baldwin to open for breakfast.