High

Today is the day of natural highs.
- I made vegetable soup (toss a bunch of mushrooms, two chopped tomatoes, a chopped zucchini, some frozen spinach, a dash of lime juice and your favorite spices in chicken broth and let it simmer for as long as it takes you to watch a movie). It was delicious.
- I had a good idea about how to decorate my room a bit more without spending money. Pictures will be posted once I do it.
- I went to a movie with Judit, and it was a feel good movie. It's called "Le Premier Cri" (the First Cry, but I don't know what the official title is in English) and it's an un-documentary-like documentary about how women give birth all over the world. It's nice to see a well-publicized, well-recognized movie that values life so much as this one does. Even a man who sees the movie would leave wanting to have a baby.
- I realized that my French has very sneakily gotten significantly better. Now that I think about it, there was once a time when I would need to look words up in a dictionary when reading, or when I wouldn't understand dialog in a movie. But that seems like the distant past, since I understand everything that comes at me now. (Now that I think about it, there was once I time when I didn't speak any French at all... wow.)
- La Maîtrise gave a concert tonight (Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms, I highly recommend listening to it), and it went wonderfully. No one expected it to be nearly as good as it was, since during rehearsals up to tonight we'd had problems with... well... intonation, rhythm, pronunciation, counting, singing melodically, using dynamics, listening to the other parts, watching the director... you name it, we did it wrong. And then, by the grace of God I'm sure (it helps if you perform in a cathedral!) we were absolutely wonderful. The tenors messed up two or three times, but there were no hugely noticeable problems. We didn't speed up as much as usual, the fugues were good, and the audience (which was surprisingly large) gave us a standing ovation that lasted five bows and our procession out, which is a very long time.
- I got a ride home with one of the sopranos, and I realized how comfortable it's become to chat with people in French about any topic at all.

I've got good books, I have time to cook, I'm meeting nice people, I'm singing in two great choirs, I get to speak French, and there's a castle. I'm totally content, and I could happily live my whole life this way. But don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm coming home in June :)