Where to start. since last I wrote I've been doing a lot of work and lots of school work, but not much else until this last friday when I went to Paris. We got home yesterday. I had an extraordinary time. I truly love that city. We did a couple of walking tours and then were left to our own devices- which was so good for me. I speak more french than I thought I did and that made me extremely happy. I felt special when people would ask me if I knew how to say something (and too often I did not) but i was glad to help when I could. I really really really want to start studying french again. I love it so much. I finally got to see l'arc de triomphe up close, as last time i was too lazy to walk to it. I discovered my favorite place in paris, is not as I thought Monmartre, but the cemetery pere Lachaise. Yes yes, that is where Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and Edith Piaf are buried, but none of them were really why I enjoyed it there so much. I feel a little morbid thinking that my favorite place in paris is a cemeteryy, but honestly it was the most beautiful and pure place I have been. I think autumn had a lot to do with my attraction, as I would watch the yellow and orange leaves dance with the wind around beautiful mausoleums. I also think, though, that I loved it so much because the graves are so big and extravagant- which part of me finds distasteful, but I think another part comforts me.

it's a bit comforting to think of having something so big, and elegant to house my remains. Ah, but i am really ambivalent about it all.

perhaps it was just the day, the mood, the weather and the circumstances that made me love the cemetery so much. I did visit jim morrison's grave and left him a little somethin-somethin. It was after we visited his grave and walked around a bit more and found this gigantic monument to some french general where we sat down and I cried. Maybe it was the release that made the cemetery so wonderful. I cried about Elliot Smith, John Lennon, and Jim. I cried about my grandma's and grandpa who've gone already and my papa still living in arkansas. I cried about how scary and sad death is, yet how completely natural and beautiful it is also. I cried because everyone has to die, and because it's wonderful to be a part of a cycle. Then I cried about those who are living under horrific circumstances. I cried because I don't want to reinforce the system of oppression in the world. I cried because I'm so small and insignificant. I cried because we are all alone, and so many of us (myself included) don't love the only person who will ever really know us- ourselves. I cried because I was a tourist in this place where people where bringing their loved ones flowers and cleaning their headstones and sarcophagi. I can't explain how it all made me feel but it was good- a really really good feeling. I was so sad to leave, I wanted to cry more, to sit longer, to be so fully in my living skin amid tombs and death and life.
I have an honest fear of ghosts and the dark or better put- things that may be lurking in the dark- but I was able to picture myself inside Pere Lachaise on the darkest of nights without any inclination to fear or speculation about what would be waiting for me there. It was comfortable and safe. I don't know if anyone can relate- or if you all are suspecting that I've lost my mind, but when i return to paris, that cemetery is the place I want to go.

OY! and the next day we went to Le Chateux de Versailles (which, the first time I went to paris, was the structure which impacted me the most- I loved it then). This time, however, I could see how very much I had changed as a person in these last five years. I saw how I looked at the magnificent buildings and gardens and how I saw them as a waste of money- a needless extravagance. I kept a running list of how many things could be better aided by this money. I felt sorry for the plants, flowers and trees because the French (not only at versailles) keep them so damn regulated. I hated it. They look like they are cut out in little squares standing next to one another- as though they are imprisoned in a cell. It's ugly to me and I wished the gardeners or whoever would just let them grow. I understand the historical significance of the building and why maintaining it is so important to the identity of france, but it really really really made me dislike the sun king- Louis XIV. It just seems like a structural and architectural (forgive me for using this term) masturbation of his ego. He's pretty high on my list of people NOT to admire. I was glad to find myself so different, although a little sad that something that used to be so magical to me was now not as enjoyable. C'est la vie. Perhaps the cemetery will be that way for me next time I'm in paris. Oh and I took this fabulous picture of the Peace monument which is across from the military school- I managed to get both in the picture. Interesting juxtaposition isn't it- peace across from military. Hrm- somebody was thinking when they did that one.

We had a long trip home- our ferry was delayed. but I'm back in brighton safe and sound working hard and avoiding homework like the pro that I am.

and i've got other things to think about. England truly is a Temptation Island.

Zoe and Kate-the two women who run the american office here in brighton and the contacts through USAC (which is the program I used to get here)- and I were talking about me staying another year. Oy vay. Then today this lovely girl Suki who I work with at the bar suggested that I live with her next year in a house. She kept reinerating that she wasn't joking either. AND THEN I sat down with this lovely girl steph and our friend matt and steph turned to me and said- "I really think you should stay another year." ALL OVER THE PLACE I TELL YOU.

so I looked at what I need for my fafsa next year- and am contemplating. Nothing concrete yet- and I'm still almost positive that I'll come home after this year- but people have been making me think.

I have a few problems with staying. One of course being that I miss all my lovely friends and family in the states, and another year away from my niece and nephew might just be impossible. Another is the money issue- do I want to spend money on another year here, when I will certainly need it for either the peace corp, i to i, TEFL or graduate school so soon after I get my bachelors. The hardest to deal with is the ever present fear that I am running from something and this is just a big beautiful way of me hiding from whatever "it" is. Then I'm not even certain that I could stay through USAC for another year. And what about graduating- I don't have that many credits left and certainly several of them are not offered here....lots to think about.

in good news though- I'm going to try (with lots of peoples help) to organize a performance of the Vagina Monologues here at the University of Brighton. And I get to be a part of this huge event put on here for World AIDS day (which is December 1st for those of you who don't know). I will keep everyone updated on the goings-on of my life. Still looking for mail and e-mails from anybody bored. I do miss everyone. do take care all of you and until next time

-shavawn