end of week one

so i'm sure the surgeon general would advise against drinking and blogging, but it's the studio E. equivalent of a friday night (class is sunday through thursday rather than M-F), so the downstairs apartment crew invited people over for drinks after dinner tonight and i am if not three, at least 1.2 sheets to the wind.
today was good; i got up early to do a bit more on ann boleyn, and then in class we spent all day on one poster study, a feat of concentration i would not have previously believed myself capable of. definite improvement noted, whether because i am finally getting the hang of the point of the poster studies, or just because i am forced to slow down and do it properly i don't know, but it's good to see the difference.
i feel like the class is sort of settling into a personality a little bit as well, now, especially since we are always sitting in the same order, rotating every two days clockwise around the easels; i am getting used to having the young brazilian guy squirming away on his squeaky chair to my left, and the liverpudlian swearing under his breath, on my right; it is amazing how quickly it has started to feel peaceful and comfy with the group. we heard horror stories tonight about a couple of folks from the summer session; so far we seem to be free of any obtrusive personalities. the model, who after all spends eight hours a day with not much more to do than watch us and think about the world, was doing imitations of all our painting styles tonight - the tappers, the dabbers, the wipers, the grunters, the jigglers...
after class i worked on ann boleyn a bit more as well as another drawing (i am sorry i can't post pictures - it's a network problem, apparently, that any file bigger than absolutely tiny won't go through, and noone has been able to send any photos this week) and then went for a run before going to the party, where i am proud to say that i had two longish separate conversations in french, one with a random couple of 20 somethings that L picked up while out today (the girl works in the tourist office, and the guy drives the town ambulance), and the other (about the franco-quebecois relationship) with M, the Frenchwoman in our class, who speaks english just fine, but is clearly happier in french to the point that she is (astonishingly) willing to martyr herself to the cause of talking to me in frog and having to stop every fourth word to explain. it was great. oh, i almost forgot: very cute - L has been eating an ENORMOUS slab of pate on ry-vita crackers every day for lunch, apparently under the impression that because it is liver and therefore a food vaguely associated with unpleasant childhood memories that it is a 'health food' and something that you eat when you are trying to slim down and get in shape. she was mortified to find out that that's not, um, the case. her cholesterol must have tripled over the last week. i used to be able to eat pate, and then about a year ago a bite of foie gras coincided with the thought 'steatohepatitis' and it was all over. a good example of language completely altering how you think of something - delicious food in french, revolting disease in greek.
plan for tomorrow: thouars farmer's market for fruit, drawing paper, yoga at 2:30, work on ann boleyn (hopefully finish by the weekend), go for a run. hope the weather will be better- iit was chilly and a little bit rainy aujourd-hui. got to justify having brought my pink bikini, after all...