Milestones

I found out yesterday I passed my driving test! Monday I pick up my temporary license!

When I called the driving school and found out my results yesterday, I was happy, but in a weird way it was anti-climactic. Just yeah, okay. When I had to deal with the tactless owner and expensive driving lessons, I thought I'd immediately open a bottle of champagne when I finally had my license, but I didn't feel that excited. B said it was probably because I was already driving before, that it wasn't like getting my license at 16 when I could suddenly go anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted. But it's still a relief to have it all over with. And at just over 1300€ I couldn't really afford more lessons or retaking the test. I've been asked by a few people recently if I plan on making my life in France and I think now I'll respond that after having invested so much in getting my French license when I already had one, the answer is yes.

The second milestone is that today is our one year wedding anniversary. A year ago I was trying to adapt to 25 hours a week of classes, plus 5 hours of tutoring, and dealing with family drama concerning the wedding. Recently I've been fantasizing a lot about redoing our wedding in the states for all my friends and family since only my parents attended, and also to have a wedding I like (I know, I know, I have a real negative take on how things went....). I still feel torn between wanting something nice/fun/beautiful, and knowing that a lot of it is consumerist crap that was declared "required" by bridal magazines created by department stores to sell more stuff (and also paternalistic pre-feminism crap).

Some of our friends reminded us that the first anniversary we're supposed to exchange paper gifts. Then B said no, it's cotton. I said no, it's paper. Cotton is the second. And then I realized how dumb the whole anniversary gift thing is, that it's culturally defined, and it's another case of being-married=have-to-conform. Seriously, who gives wheat for the third anniversary?

My in-laws were really kind and gave B some money so we could afford to go out to dinner to celebrate. Since most places are closed Sunday night, we'll go some night this week or Friday evening. We didn't celebrate yesterday because we spent the day helping a friend move out of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend and we didn't feel like doing much once we got home.

Next milestone is to find a job, or at least a paid internship, which I'm hoping might happen this week.