On the Hours and the Euros

NYU in Paris: Where I Am When Not AsleepI live very close to the NYU in France building, where I work and go to school. I spend roughly 10 hours per day there Monday through Thursday, with short breaks during the day when I run out to grab food which I bring back to eat. A lot of days, when I leave the office around 8 pm, I crawl home, microwave something easy for dinner, rush through some homework, and collapse, exhausted, falling asleep instantly, between 10 pm and midnight. I’m taking a full course load and working longer hours than I ever have before during the school year. I also don’t get a lot of downtime during my job to work on homework, so I usually have to find other time to do that. I really like my job, its definitely got perks, I just often wish I had more downtime. On Friday, when we are all lucky enough to not have class or work, I always plan to do a lot of things but end up just sleeping in, facebooking, getting some homework out of the way, doing laundry and only leaving my place for the occasionally emergency baguette run to the nearby bakery. Luckily that still leaves me Saturday and Sunday to go out and see Paris and have fun with my friends. This schedule though leaves me feeling burnt out a lot, a feeling I don’t get as often in New York. That’s odd, because New York definitely has a faster pace to it, but I think the faster pace invigorates me, gives me more energy, while the slower pace of life in Paris leaves me constantly wondering where the time goes.

I’ve worked my finances down to a pretty fine science. Breakfast, when I wake up on time, is a piece of toast with nutella and jam or a bowl of cereal; when I wake up late, which is not as rare an occurrence as I’d like, breakfast is the first thing thrown out of the schedule. Lunch is paid for out of whatever pocket change I remembered to grab on the way out. Typically, this means a sandwich or quiche for 2 or 3 euro, or, if I’m celebrating something, the 5 euro menu which is comprised of the sandwich with a drink and a dessert. If I’m running really low on change, lunch is a smoothie, which can be purchased for less than 2 euro. Dinner almost every night consists of pasta and sauce. My roommate and I take turns making nearly a pound of pasta once a week and then refrigerating it so the two of us can eat off the leftovers for the rest of the week. In addition to this I usually have some cheese and bread and a salad. And maybe a glass of wine if we have a bottle open. To summarize: Four days a week I buy lunch (2-5 Euro) and a baguette (1 Euro). Weekly I buy cheese (I try a different type each week,) and salad (~4 Euro). Every two weeks I buy a bottle of wine, a loaf of sliced bread, and a bottle of milk, and a jar of sauce de Provence (the best pasta sauce you have ever had.) (15-20 Euro) (I buy the sauce, roomie buys the pasta.) Monthly, I buy jam and cereal (~6 Euro). (Roomie buys nutella.)

I usually eat out about twice a week depending on how my back account’s doing, maybe one night at a friend’s for dinner where we all bring ingredients for a big meal and on Sunday usually to one of the fantastic Japanese or North African restaurants nearby where I try not to spend more than 20 euro. I give a euro to the Church every week at Mass, and of course have incidental expenses like train tickets or rushed opera tickets. I also buy a monthly Navigo pass, the unlimited monthly metro pass which, because I know how much it costs, provides the extra kick that gets me out the door, down into the metro, and out into the city. And, when the day comes that my pay-as-you-go plan runs out, I will have to refill it. I could probably write a whole blog entry about the anxiety that comes out of the pay-as-you-go plan, but that’s for another day. Happy weekend everyone!