Interviewing people in French is so damn hard. I’ve never felt so out of my depth before, ever. At the end of the day I feel mentally exhausted, in addition to being continuously sleep deprived.

Working with a tape recorder is actually an even worse idea because people start talking quickly and ignore the fact that you are still taking notes. They assume everything will be caught on tape, recorded there, even their muffled voices and stuttered words, which are…for the most part. Except that my recorder isn’t that high tech, so basically I have hours of transcribing ahead of me, squeezing my brows together trying to figure out whether “eh” meant “est” or “et”…and that’s the easy part. I thought I learned this last year, when I was working purely in English. Recorders suck.

***

I’m finally taking the advice of my readers here. I’m going on a sabbatical in the whole “love” department. It’s highly overrated, confusing as hell, and, when it comes down to it—draining. It makes you doubt—and feel—everything 10 times the normal degree. How exactly shall I be doing this?

Well, today I texted German guy (who I haven’t seen or been alone with for many many weeks since he was traveling about), and I told him we have to talk. I think he knows something’s wrong. Well, because it is.

I’m glad though that I’m finally being mature about something. That I’m finally acting like an adult in my relationship(s)—instead of doing what I would normally be so tempted to do, which is just let things fizzle out and (because I’m so busy) eventually force the other person to speak about “us” because of their frustration with my work schedule.

Not this time. G-d help me.

As for Jack, well, I’m going to try to stop focusing on him so much. He’s busy, as am I. And, ironically enough, as of late I’ve been feeling like I’m making too many time demands on him, or preventing myself from doing so (which is a scary thing). A “friend” should not preoccupy so much of your thoughts. Productivity is important. In all honesty, I don’t know how to go about fixing these last couple problems. Time will tell.