Okay, I have been seriously neglecting this blog–partly because I’ve been lazy, partly because I’ve discovered the joy of keeping a physical journal to write in.

This past week has been hectic, and I can literally see my grades slipping. I got one paper back and in the three grade categories fikk jeg: D/F, F, and N/A. So yeah, I’m redoing that paper.

Lately, I’ve also felt a huge urge to just get out and do something. For the first time, college is an imprisonment. I feel trapped by all this work; there isn’t enough time to go out and explore Ticino, Switzerland, Europe, the world.

But hopefully that urge will be soon appeased, as I will be going to a Natasha St-Pier concert on Wednesday! (To put things into context, Natasha St-Pier was my inspiration to learn French in the first place. I first heard “Un ange frappe à ma porte” on a flight to Hawai’i a 4 years ago, and from there my interest in the francophone world only exponentiated. [That's probably not even a word, but it felt justifiably fitting.]) I am thinking of taking the train after Italian in the morning to Morges and spending the day in either Lausanne or Morges. The concert starts at 20:30, and the only thing I am concerned about is making the train to Zurich (the last train departs at 22:30); and oh yeah–I will be CouchSurfing in Zurich! This will be my first CouchSurfing experience, so I’m very excited for it.

For Thanksgiving, I will be going down to visit min søte Jessica in Vailate. I’ve been talking to her a bit both on Skype and Facebook, and it will be so koselig to see her in person again. And I’m excited to use the Italian that I’ve learned in school, in addition to picking up some new slang as well.
I met Jessica last year as an exchange student in Norway; she lived up in Gol while I lived in Horten. In the beginning, there was a huge language barrier since I couldn’t speak any Italian and neither of us spoke Norwegian, but as the year went by I feel that we have grown closer despite seeing each other very rarely. (It became also much easier to talk with her as she improved both her English and Norwegian immensely.)
I will be taking the train down to Italy Friday, and since she has school during the daytime, the tentative plan is that I will explore Treviglio (the city where she goes to school) by myself during the day before meeting up with her and spending the weekend in Vailate. An attempt at turkey-baking and a visit to an ordentlig Italian discoteca is also planned in the itinerary. All in all, I’m very very excited and it’s going to be wonderful hearing her cheerful voice and seeing her smile again.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I plan on going to visit Geneva and doing some exploring there. Even though it is the weekend before finals, I figure I will get some studying done on the train there, right?

And after finals (which seems so far away but is in reality very close upon us), I will head up to Alsace to visit Marie Demeulenaere and meet her family before heading back to the US for winter vacation. (Marie was also an exchange student in Norway; she lived up in Asker and we’ve had some great times together along the Oslofjorden.)

Yep, that’s the news. I guess I should write more about current news, but the upcoming plans seem much more exciting. Til neste gang, ha det så lenge!

This has fast become one of my favorite songs. It’s called “On veut plus que de l’amour” and is sung by Natasha St-Pier as the closing track on her latest self-titled opus.
It’s the epitome of melancholy, yet unexpectedly comforting. I think I’ll let the lyrics speak for the rest.

On veut plus que de l’amour
on veut toucher au bonheur
On oublie que chaque jour qui passe est le meilleur
Mais le bonheur est si petit
qu’au bout du compte, il passe entre nos mains
qu’au bout du compte, il passe entre nos vies

And for the non-francophone inclined:
We all want more of love
We all want to touch happiness
We all forget that each day that passes is the best
But happiness is so short
That after all has been said and done, it slips between our fingers
That after all has been said and done, it passes between our lives