Today was pretty good. Jeremy & I had lunch at Mandarin Garden (I know, fancy!). I'd never had lunch there before. Even though it was good, I sort of prefer dinner. They gave me less of my entree and put my rice on my plate instead of giving me a separate bowl for it. Plus they threw in a little fried chicken which seemed.... random. It was pretty good as far as fried chicken goes, but whatever.

At work we had our yearly outing. Previous years we've gone to a restaurant and sat around socializing during the time we didn't eat. This time we went to Chuck E Cheese. I dunno what it was, I generally like Skee ball, but I found it kind of boring. Then part of our group (including me) splintered off and went to Barnes & Noble which was more fun.

I had a fantastic weekend; Jeremy & I went to Matthiessen park. We couldn't get to a couple of the places because the water level was too high, but we still had fun. We also had a failed attempt at making pesto. The problem was caused by a strange culprit: the cheese. Jeremy & I both love cheese but the Parmesan I bought was moderately fancy (i.e. not the powdered processed stuff, an actual block that I grated) which apparently translates into bitter. I'm not even kidding, it had a bitter flavor, like coffee or citrus rind. It was disgusting. If I ever try again I'll use the processed stuff or find something else. To make it even edible Jeremy dumped a bunch of spices & cream in. It still wasn't very good so we dumped some marinara on top of that. Oh well, at least we had fun cooking together. We visited the new Fresh Market place (as expected, it is moderately interesting but somewhat pricey) and did some Halloween costume prep (I am going to be Wolverine again; he is going to look like I mauled him with my chopstick--I mean, adamantium--claws.)

In other news, I'm trying to decide on this French program thing. I was looking at the application and there's even more BS than I thought there would be to do it.

Pro's:

1) I've always wanted to go to France. Plus, I might even get to visit other countries over there.

2) I am reeeally tired of my job right now. I need something different. This would certainly be different.

Con's:

1) The BS involved in applying. I have to write a thing, get my passport up to date, pay a $40 application fee, get 2 people to recommend me, get a physical, probably other things. This sounds like a lot of time and money without even knowing ahead of time that I'd get in.

2) I don't even know that I'm qualified. The application thing says to write the essay IN French. I haven't spoken French much in a long time. I was hoping that I could apply and actually re-learn French after I got accepted. They also say you need a minimum of 3 semesters of French.... I think they mean college. I only took one semester in college but years and years of it in high school and jr. high. So I feel like that more than covers the 3 semesters, but I don't know if they care. Also, the recommendation letters are supposed to be from people who can speak to your French ability... I don't know my French teachers anymore. So if I apply it's all this work and then I might not get in. And I'll have wasted my time, money, effort, energy, and feel depressed again like I always do when I get rejected for a job.

3) What if I do get over there and I'm really homesick? I've never spent much time away from here. And what about when I get back? I'll be jobless again and the economy will probably still be shitty.

Cons outweigh pros, I guess. I just want to be brave for once and go somewhere and do something. And I really, really hate the job I'm doing now. I feel so fucking trapped sometimes. I'm going to give myself a couple more weeks to decide whether to apply. I guess I could apply and decide whether or not to actually go later, but the thing is, I don't really want to commit the amount of time, effort, and money the application process takes if I'm not 100% into it.