Sleepless in Metz

11:44 P.M.

So after 2 nights of no sleep, here I am again, surfing the net into the late hours of the night. I don't know if this is the result of being a night owl, but I feel tired during the day and completely awake at night.

I suppose it all began on Sunday, when I went to my hairdresser's house for a Chinese New Year dinner with his wife and their friend. I felt kind of funny when he introduced me to them as his client and tried to laugh this off by asking them what they thought of my hair. What was stranger is I had the feeling they were trying to set me up with their friend, but I made sure to pepper my sentences with "mon copain" in case there were any questions. The friend was very cool though, apparently he has watched a marathon of the BET show "Girlfriends" while visiting New York. Can you say random?? Anyway, before I arrived, I wasn't expecting very much considering 1. My hairdresser is a man. 2. He's young-ish. But when I sat at the table, out came dishes of har gow, cha siu bao (probably got the spelling all wrong), fish, duck, noodles, chicken, and pork. All homemade. Turns out he and his wife started cooking at noon! Wow, I had not eaten Chinese food in months, not to mention good Chinese food. Dinner started at about 8 PM and didn't end until 1:30 AM, when they drove me back home and I started on my lesson plan for Monday.

Monday was my b-day and I turned the big 2-3. My day was pretty low key, it was the usual at work and then some friends came over for dinner. Vanessa made rabbit and I made my Italian veggie dish (thank you, Giada de Laurentiis!). I think everyone was kind of tired, it being Monday and all. I was exhausted after not getting much sleep the night before, but once I got into bed, I couldn't fall asleep! I had been dreading this for weeks because I saw that there was a full moon on the night of my birthday. As noted in a previous post, I've been having problems sleeping when there's a full (and even sometimes half) moon. It just started a month or two after arriving in France. I googled it and it may have something to do with the moonlight having an effect on the levels of melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate sleep. How am I supposed to go about preventing this?? I spent about 4 hours lying on my back before I finally felt a little sleepy and then of course waking up to go to work was nearly impossible.

These days I'm impatient for 3 things: 1. My paycheck 2. le CAF 3. New York!! I'm quite poor at the moment as I think I was a little too enthusiastic about les soldes. Last weekend, Vanessa and I ventured to a store not far from our apartment where they sell the cuuuutest vintage purses. As if I needed to be tempted by even MORE things I can't afford.