slight trace of hope

Still feel pretty shitty for declining the TA position especially when I thought that it'd might be my last chance to work with the both of them. TA Jason will probably be gone next year, and Prof. Holmes sometimes goes on sabbatical, so if I ever wanted to work with both of them this was my chance.

And then I thought about how abominable this past semester was with the university strikes and that they might very well happen again this semester because, of course, this is France.

The only thing French related that made me happy today was when I went up the street to buy groceries, and this guy was playing the accordion in front of the Franprix, and a jolly fat man smoking a cigarette across from him had his arms out and swayed to the music. That was the only thing. That and the sun shined for a good half hour before it was covered up again by the clouds. And then I thought that maybe if I checked out the soldes (there's only 2 great sales of the year, it's now and then one in July), maybe I'll see something I like and then that'll make me happy, but I worked so hard not to go down that path again. Nothing material will ever make me truly happy. And now that I've passed that, happiness is so much harder to find. I've been so used to looking for it in stores.

Then I got an email from Prof. Holmes. She said that her and Jason will miss be, but how happy she is for me. She wants to put me in touch with a film friend she has in Paris and asked if she could give my email to her. I'll tell her yes. It's always nice when your teachers do recommendations for you or talk good things about you with other people. That's when I know I've done good. And when you want to do something like film, you need people to talk good things about you. Last summer, my screenwriting professor showed my recommendation letter for his tenure to "someone in academia" who said, after reading it, that I was a good writer. I couldn't stop smiling for a week.

So there is some hope.