LIST TIME!! I don't have time for a legit update.

Sorry guys, 18 days is quite a long unannounced hiatus. But I'm alive! And I'm happy.

Here is a list of awesome things that happened in the past 7 days:

1. Fall TV premieres finally started happening back home, and I watched a couple things online and started a television blog called Jam and Telly. 
2. My weird word-vomit approach to job applications (where I just awkwardly explain with creative use of the English language that I'm good at everything but have no experience) finally worked!
3. I went to what may or may not have been Israeli folk dance on the Quai Saint-Bernard. Regardless, I tried and miserably failed to join a circle dance, and then a couple dapper old men asked me to dance. One of them was a foot shorter than me and shuffled the whole time. I'm pretty sure the other one was a spy from a Slavic country. (He had a nuclear-code kind of a briefcase.)
4. I saw my fabulous family! Auntie Ann, Uncle Michel, Cousins Tom, Emelle, Mehdi, and Lillia, and friends were probably the highlight of my week. It was so lovely to spend a little time with family. It's nice not having someone's opinion of me rely on me being the perfect exchange student or French speaker or bread-orderer. I don't even have to be the perfect niece! (Just a pretty good one.) I love knowing that there are a few people who know me pretty well and like me anyway. That's family. You're blood relations and you haven't murdered anyone lately? You're good with me!It's just a wonderful feeling when you're in a foreign country. Plus my fam-fam is pretty much the best ever. Uncle Michel told me cool stuff about Paris, Auntie Ann and I talked shop (ie discussed knitting), and the wee cousinskies just showed up and were too cute for words. Oh my god, so cute.
5. I MADE A MOVIE. In 48 hours. I responded to some guy on Craigslist and next thing I know, I'm leaving the house at 5:15 am, on my way to orchestrate the one-day filming of a 4-minute fantasy short. I worked 19 hours straight. I made sandwiches, a postman's cap, and a bucket full of fake human feces. I learned how to keep a log sheet of all the good or bad takes and time codes. I probably got second hand lung cancer but I did NOT take up smoking, despite almost 24 hours spent on a team made up of 11 chain smokers and little old asthma-free me. I climbed the 5 flights of stairs between our set and our headquarters at least 15 times. I learned a lot about lighting. You know, I don't mean to brag, but I figure if you're reading this you like me enough to forgive me: I got an email the next morning that included the line, "Thanks to all for the really great time we had today, in particular to Jethro for letting us in his palace, and to Zoe for doing everything for everyone." Also, during one of our sleep-deprived delirious smoke breaks, a couple of the middle-aged professional filmmakers I was working with told me that if I could keep up this pace at multiple locations for multiple days, I'd make a really great producer. And even though I did not actually mean I wanted to be a film producer when I said I wanted to major in film production at our planning meeting, it's starting to sound like a possible option for me. I've never felt less like a lazy useless slob. It was beautiful.
6. I actually paid attention in Cultural Identities In France! Miracles do happen.