Ca va? Oui, ca va.

The French have a really easy system for asking and responding to the question: "how's it going?" It involves three words (see above). Of course you can expand on this, but for now I'm sticking to the basic formula. For one, it's easy to pronounce and requires no nasal sounds or rolling r's. And more specifically, it's actually incredible appropriate for how things are going. Someone asks "It goes?" and I reply, "Yeah, it goes."

Cause sure it goes. I mean it always goes. And half the time I feel like it goes pretty smoothly, that I'm good, as we like to say chez Currier. But then there are the times when I feel like the train is moving forward, but it's scrapin' along the track, swaying wildly, belching thick black smoke, and blaring its horn, i.e. the totally amorphous it is not going so smoothly.

Take this afternoon. I was at a "welcome reception" for students in the graduate program of my department. I was totally self-conscious but doing OK, chatting in that light, noncommittal tone everybody tries so hard to assume in situations like this. I was chatting with my professors, feeling proud of myself for feeling adult enough that I could chat them up in a social setting (alas, however, not in French... baby steps...) Then I breezed over to a fellow student who, in the course of our conversation, thought she was being helpful by offering me a bit of advice. Unfortunately, from my perspective, she dropped a bomb.

"So what you should really do is start writing your papers now."

In my head: "What?!" Out loud: "Oh, really? Hmmm."

"Yeah, see everybody waits until the end of the quarter and then what happens is you can't get them all done and you end up getting extensions and having to write them all over winter break or spring break and then you get to spring quarter and you've never really had a vacation and you're completely burned out. "

Out loud: "Oh I see." In my head: "Holy #@*+%!"

"So yeah, start now."

Out loud: "I'll, uh, do that." In my head: ... well yeah, you get the idea.

So the train chugs on, as in the scenery is still flying by, but I'm not sure who's in the engine room and where exactly this puppy is headed. But tonight I guess I'm going to come up with a few paper topics, try to figure out how to begin a graduate-level seminar paper, and then start writing about concepts and ideas I thought I was supposed to learn about in the coming weeks. Mais, tout de meme, ca va.