Day 38, Enduring to the End...

After doing the grasse matinee (sleeping in) I managed to pull myself out of bed.  I wasn't terribly heartbroken over missing the first two hours of class.  Actually, although I've considered it before, today was an accident.  Tant pis.  My biggest concern about missing class is that I will not have earned as many hours as my scholarship paid for and approved, even though that won't be reflected on the certificate they'll give me upon completion.  As long as a student attends part of class, he or she can still sign the roll, just like I did today after attending what was left of the class time following the 20-minute pause.  Because I didn't have a workshop this afternoon, and my metro pass expired with the change of the month, I had to decide whether or not I really wanted to use one of the ten metro tickets I bought yesterday to go to school and to see Erin to make plans for our jour ferie without class tomorrow.  Yeah, the *good* student that I am, I went.  Keeping with the plan to make plans at school with Erin was a big reason to go, I'll admit.

As soon as class ended, Erin and I went with some other girls to a little deli for lunch.  I love the sandwich baguettes--not the cheap ones that are dry and crunchy, but the better quality crisp-on-the-outside-and-soft-on-the-inside ones!

It's a good thing I decided to eat with them rather than wait until I got home because I ended up walking home so as not to use another ticket.  My ticket from the morning had already expired and it's not like I had anything to hurry back home for anyway.

I figured it'd take me about an hour, if not more, to get back to my apartment.  Time underestimation+sore foot from my shoe and from falling out of the shower+needing a restroom+being parched made for an uncomfortable situation, but at least I saw some gourmet bonbon shops like Michel Cluizel and Godiva and explored a bit.  The weather was beautifully sunny, clear, and warm, too!  I ended up walking by the famous Opera house directly north of the Tuileries (I think O.o ) and coming upon the St. Roch cathedrale and a chapel dedicated to the Asomption (which I thought was ironic because tomorrow is Ascention Day, and I mistook Assumption and Ascention to be the same thing or I confused the terms and tomorrow's holiday).

Opera House

Saint Roch, which was first built in the 17th and 18th centuries!  Somehow, I continue to be amazed at how I will be surrounded by industrial Paris and then, tout a coup, I'll happen upon some grandiose religious structure!

This stained glass has the date 1710.  The picture on the right makes me think of the Greg Olsen painting, "Heavenly Hands."

"Heavenly Hands" by Greg Olsen

I learned just this past Sunday that instead of picking flower petals one by one and saying, "He loves me.  He loves me not," the French say, "Il m'aime.  Un peu. Beaucoup. Passionement.  A la folie.  Pas du tout."  (He loves me.  A little.  A lot.  Passionately.  Crazily.  Not at all.)  That's basically what these Michel Cluizel chocolates say, cleverly leaving out the "pas du tout," and replacing it with a more optimistic "pour toujours" (for always).

Two hours after having begun my little trek, I finally made it chez moi!  I Skyped with my mama, took a nap, ate dinner (a quinoa dish and some Spanish tortilla--yay Spanish type stuff), sorted through the inch-thick pile of papers my school has given me that I plan to recycle soon, looked at my Eurail documents, planned a bit for tomorrow, and did a bunch of other tinkering on the computer while listening to the French singer Emmanuel Moire.

For the past couple of days, I've wanted to call one of my blog posts "Enduring to the End."  I am leaving Paris soon, after all, and the beginning part especially seemeds like a drag, something to be endured that would then give way to a wonderful, blissful experience in Spain.  And since I bought my plane ticket for Barcelona and realized that I leave next week (the end is in sight!), I feel like I'm in the last stretch.  Okay, so not my entire experience here has been merely "endured," but I'm just trying to explain how the term has applied to me and some of my sentiments.  Well, two (?) weeks ago, I was reading in the Book of Mormon in relation to the concept of eternal life and enduring to the end.  Suddenly, it hit me, "I've always heard this phrase, but what does it really mean?  Endure to the end...of what???"  The best I can make of it so far is that we determine to what end we endure.  "To what end" as in "how far," but come to think of it, as in "why" also.  In a way, this is a scriptural phrase telling us to enjoy life as it comes.  Make goals and steps to achieve those goals, and endure to the end of each step and each goal.  If we try to endure to the end of life or eternity, we've got something else coming because that is too broad and we could become distracted far too easily.  As a human, I know I need to feel like I've accomplished something and I like to check items off lists.  Even though my walk today was somewhat painful and strenuous, I could see the progress I was making as I made my way from one monument to another.  I made detours and backtracked at times, but I was able to see simple beauty and gain knowledge along the way.  Just like I endured to the end of my two-hour trek home and was able to truly relax and rest once I made it, we can find ways to endure to the end of whatever it may be that Heavenly Father has in mind for us by enduring first to the end of an assignment, a day, a week, a month, a trip--whatever--and we can make it back to him!  What's more, there are heavenly hands and love to help us along the way through everything, both good and bad, joy and sorrow, serenity and chaos.