The final stretch...

It's hard to believe there's only five weeks to go. I would say it's also hard to believe how rarely I've been posting on my blog, but maybe I should have seen it coming...I think when you're in a foreign country, every moment feels so loaded with learning potential: a trip to the pharmacy, grocery shopping, a quick phone call, it's all a possibility to live in (and improve on) the language I came here to speak. As a result, everyday activities are loaded with significance -- and it can be hard to justify quiet time...or blogging time, for that matter.

But that's okay! I'll try my best in the next few weeks to write a bit more...but my top priority, as the days go by, is to just livelivelive here, in the moment. I feel so happy, so at peace with my routine here. And I'm so happy with the fact I've adapted to this strange and lovely life. It will be hard to leave, and it will be hard to jump into the job search once I get back...but I'm trying to think of that uncertainty as liberating, rather than overwhelming. Looking back on almost any moment of uncertainty in my life, I always wish that at the time I'd also felt the exciting sense of possibility that I project retrospectively. Granted, it's hard to feel that way while you're in the midst of it, as I soon will be...but for the sake of Future Marina Looking Back, I'm just trying to keep the uncertainty positive.

I have no CLUE what I'll be doing or even what I'll be looking for when I'm back stateside, but at least I'm doing lots of writing and am taking in "grist for the mill." France and its bureaucracy rarely disappoints on this front. There's something so fantastically off-kilter about how things work here. I'd almost describe it as a clock with hands that spin in opposite directions. And everyone knows that it's wacky, but they still tell the time by it anyway.

Bedtime for now!