My Name is Marie and I Have Temporary Tourette's

Temporary Tourette's - a condition whose onset occurs at times of excessive stress, occurring frequently in graduate students, and whose primary symptom is frequent outbursts of profanity. Its known causes include the following:

- Finals week (concomitant with general insanity);

- Hitting one's head while attempting to take a tiny break from studying to look out the window (best six-consecutive-word string of profanity ever emitted from a mouth other than George Carlin's);
- Walking behind crowds of slow-moving, text-messaging, oblivious French people while trying to make it to class on time to turn in one's painstakingly executed term paper (these outbursts take place in French, of course, namely in the form of putain);
- Receiving the reading list for next semester when the stress of the current semester has not sufficiently abated (and furthermore having it suggested that the readings be completed during VACATION - Oh, I see; you want me to enjoy the Eiffel Tower by jumping off of it).

A typical patient.

Prognosis: Generally subsides on its own once the causing factor has been removed, and especially upon the arrival of guests whose sensibilities it is best not to offend.
Note: Occasionally, Temporary Tourette's can manifest itself in the expression of relief, especially following a final exam (as a few of us walked out of the building, a classmate exclaimed, "Fuck yeah!")

IT'S OVER!!!
Well, sort of. I still have to write a paper that counts toward this semester, but I have at least three weeks before I even have to start. As for those suggested readings, well, I have my own suggestion, and it's not something that generally issues forth from the mouth of a recently-cured patient of Temporary Tourette's. People say the darnedest things when they are stressed and sometimes it's hilarious, even when it's not meant to be. One of the best quotes I heard this week, and possibly ever, was a response from one of my classmates to another, the latter of which was contemplating whether or not tear stains on her term paper would elicit sympathy from the professor. The response was, "Tears are not MLA format."

In the instant that the exams and term papers are over, life's soundtrack suddenly goes from something like Slayer's "Raining Blood" to the Trololo song. A classmate of mine can actually attest to the fact that as soon as I walked out of the exam room I broke into something resembling the hokey pokey. After which, I promptly sped home and, on the way, bought the makings of a superb French ham sandwich along with a piece of cheesecake for dessert. Of course, in the background of this extreme sense of relief is always the fact that the results of this semester's hard work are still pending. I'll deal with the outcome in due course.

So what now? Well, mostly just laundry and other acts of personal hygiene that have fallen by the wayside. I'm sure that the fact that my choice of winter hat was complimented by a homeless man whose wine-like aroma could be experienced from a meter's distance directly correlates to the stress of graduate school. As you spend hours trying to express what you have learned (or not) about things like "deterritorialization", "teleopoeisis" and "metacritical reflection" you find that things like hair washing are replaced by hat wearing. But that is all a thing of the past now (at least for a few weeks). In three days, Charlie's parents and sister will arrive and running amok in Paris will commence.

To conclude this blog, I will leave you with the following images of my dear classmates and commiserators (from left to right, Stephanie, Bonnie, Christine, Shanna, Alex and Dan):

Before exams

After exams