I can do this, I can do this, I can do this

Frantic positive reinforcement to help me feel like coming back to Stenay was the right decision. Of course, whether it really was, we shall see. I'll keep you updated. So, a couple of New Years decisions to help myself get through the next couple of months (not really related to New Years at all, just seemed like a good time marker): taking class at Uni Metz this semester (still trying to work out the kinks schedule-wise, but I'm hopeful. Even if I don't end up making friends, at least it'll be something else to do once a week), going to travel more (still working out the kinks schedule-wise there too, but being able to look forward to being somewhere else on a semi-regular basis will make actually being in Stenay that much more tolerable), and most importantly, I'm going to stand up for myself and stop taking everyone's crap (of course, I've been saying that since I was first cognizant enough to know what a New Years resolution was, but this time I actually mean it...I think. I'm going to ask for rides to the train station so I won't be so much at the mercy of the bus, which will make travelling easier, and I'll find out who to ask if we can use the kitchen in the SEGBA, so that I can bake again, which will help pass time a bit. So that's my hope for the first half of this year; more travelling, less crying myself to sleep. One last random, unrelated observation before I leave you all alone, the tradition of overdecorating your house and lawn with a vibrant and extremely costly array of seizure inducing, florescent lights (which is universally thought of as typically american) seems to have really caught on in rural France. Perhaps it's because they have nothing to do and as a result tend to go a little overboard with the decorating. The pretty, tasteful displays you see in even slightly bigger cities like Verdun, have nothing on the whirling, flashing cacophonies of colour you get surrounding every other house in the middle of nowhere.