While I was thinking about terrorism and carefully planning my entry, I was also eating a chocolate pudding. I pulled the lid too hard and now I have chocolate splotches on my face, on my prized yellow sweatshirt and worstly on the lenses of my glasses. I was about to read some articles about the Spain bombings--remember that I'm striving to be more informed of stuff, so that I might cultivate an opinion, which would then allow me to discuss things with people in a particular language, which theoretically would lead to several positive outcomes. But then came the chocolate, then an article about sea lions which intrigued me more than photos of wreckage, gatherings and speeches. Perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. Here's the sea lion article though. It had the word abduction in conjunction with a marine mammal: you can't blame me for my curiosity. The country of Spain did figure prominently in my day, as well as the rest of the world's, I suppose. I scored a little internship with an British website which advertises events in Europe. I wrote up a super corny article about a Paul McCartney concert in Paris (I'll link it if it gets published, which they promised me it would) and voila, meet your new "Profit-sharing freelancer" for some website (I'll link it later, because I actually do know the name). I cover Spain, writing up concerts, exhibits and cultural hoop-lahs in the hopes that customers (largely in the UK) will purchase their tickets directly from the site rather than through another web company. The "profit" lies therein, meaning that I would get a tiny commission from all the sales of events that I have written up, though truly the "profit" lies in the fact that I'm getting some experience in writing and getting published. That said, I'm one of only two people covering Spain, which is a popular destination, much cheaper than France or England, which is promising. On the other hand, Madrid was just bombed by some fringy (or mainstream, I didn't click the link, remember?) terrorist group, killing over 200 people. So there's really a lot going on in Spain. I'm sure the Spaniards just can't stop talking about the Norah Jones concert in May. I am admittedly excited even if I don't really know the nuts-and-bolts of the site, I'm sure I'll learn quickly. I don't know yet whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'll be working from home, or from wherever I have an internet connection, because all this stuff is done from afar, and each writer is in fact an administrator on the website. It is a shame because the office is in fact an incredible apartment of a British lady near Odeon, whose assistant is a looker. But this in fact might be a good thing, as this is definitely not full-time work, and I do have a few prospects for such work elsewhere. This would allow me to write at my own leisure whenever I'm home.

Tonight I went to the premier of a film from New Zealand at a woman's international film festival outside of Paris, not far from where I'm staying (my aunt's house, lest you get delusions of grand Parisian apartments). Enjoyed that. My dream of playing basketball with a bunch of French amateurs who played so poorly that I would seem a Harlem globetrotter in comparison died (or at least became deferred) shortly after it was hatched. I attended one practice session of the local club Wednesday night, and found myself unable to breathe, in a state of near-vomiting after an hour and a half of humiliating drills and poor play by me. I blame jet-lag and terrorists, anything but cigarettes. Speaking of, my cousin Patrick, who has the unenviable task of shepherding me around on the weekends with he and his friends, has nearly completed his short third short film, an unapologetic, defiant tribute to smoking. I saw it for the second time today, and it remains baffling. It's dark and bizarre and allegedly touches upon issues of freedom, (la liberte!) conformity and sanity, but I really don't know what to say about it (a phenomenon I am not unfamiliar with). There's one point in the movie where the patient, played by Patrick, who has been committed to a sort of detox center for smokers, confronts a group of people dressed as cigarettes and pummels one into the ground and kicks it several times for good measure. The noises the cigarette makes while being kicked are brilliant. In any case, I must say that I find all my cousins, but Patrick in particular, to be quite unique characters. As I am still getting used to being here, and not speaking French as well as I like, I realize that hanging out with me is as probably not fun as it is in English, as any of my English speaking friends can attest to. I'm ending all kinds of sentences with prepositions now, not great form for an up-and-coming profit-sharing freelancer like myself.

By the way, my spell-checker suggests that I should replace "McCartney" with "myocardium," which under most cirsumstances I would do without a second thought, but tonight the surname remains, as the erstwhile Beatle indirectly secured me a job.