Don't want to "gâcher mon régime"

I was great all day yesterday at school. I woke up early after more sleep than I'd had the night before, made a cup of tea, and proceeded to dress nicely and put on make-up in an effort to make myself appear much better than I felt. It worked for awhile, which is good. Sylvie, the director of La Passerelle (the school I teach at on Thursdays) informed me that this means I need to take a "French Lover" (she said those words in English, btw). We'll see. Just the thought currently makes me want to throw up.

Anyway, the kids were really great. Somehow having an entire school worth of children flock to you, say "Hello!" and hug you kind of helps. We made pumpkin pies with one of my classes (photos to come later) and I had an exceptionally excellent Thursday lunch with the teachers. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned Thursday lunch, but everyone chips in 10€ and the husband of one of the teachers makes a gourmet meal. This week, Jean-Yves made sauerkraut (since he's from Alsace) and apple pie and, although I still have next to no appetite, I did enjoy it... even if I didn't finish my already small slice of pie. Sauerkraut is a big dish in Cincinnati so it was a comforting meal, since I'd give anything to be home right now. Here are a few photos I managed to take of the meal with my cell phone:

Jean-Yves making some final preparations... That's a lot of food.
The big platter for this week. Don't worry there were 12 of us and plenty of leftovers.

So far, I'm finding that being home alone is the worst. I feel very much like the person Dane Cook describes in this video. It's one of my favorite Dane Cook clips and it managed to make me smile a bit today. I'm lucky I have so many people who are willing to put up with me right now, I'm sure I'm rather tiring to deal with.

I stepped on the scale this morning and am apparently 2 kilos down from the last time I measured (perhaps a week or 2 ago?). I wish I could say it was the new plan, but I have a feeling the reason I'm finding the new plan so easy has more to do with the fact that I'm not hungry. Though, I do love me these bananas. Like I said, I refuse to let how sad and hurt I am "gâcher mon régime (diet)" and all my hard work. Gâcher is a great verb, by the way. It means "to waste, ruin, spoil, or throw away." For example, here a common expression with it is "gâcher sa vie" meaning to ruin one's life. I won't be melodramatic and say my life is ruined because that's not the case, but I do like the verb and don't want to ruin all my hard work by stuffing my face with pizza and ice cream. That'd just make me feel worse.

In an effort to make myself feel better, I'm trying to do the opposite and today, I woke up and suited up for my first run since November 5th (which is coincidentally Jon's birthday now that I think about it). Not important. What is important is that I got out there in the freezing cold (it was -2ºC/28ºF) and did my best.

Here I am (blurry) after my run. I had kept on my gloves, ear thing, turtle neck, jacket etc the whole time and my arms and my butt were FREEZING. Any ideas on what to do?

It was only a 3 mile run and I stopped 4 times for water and to get my heart rate to come down since it was frequently up around 184, which is really high for me. Not a super fast pace, but I got out of the house and did it and for that I'm proud.

My friend Judith (the professor I worked with in Paris) is coming into town tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to seeing her. It'll be really comforting since she knows both of us, she and I are really close, AND she's also kind of a sister/mentor/mom figure sometimes and I really would love a family-hug. She got confused and I thought she was getting here today since she bought the wrong train tickets. Oops! When I figured out I'd have the whole day to myself, I really panicked (I'm not doing so well alone right now), but Kyle, Helen, and some other friends have pulled through and have been around and will be making me go out tonight so I am far from Facebook etc. Whew. Again, really lucky to have such a great group of family and friends.

On that note, I need to go read some of the stuff I want to read to prepare for my grad school interviews. I reaaaaaaaally want to get into Emory still. Though, a nap does sound quite nice.