One week, or should I say, une semaine?

That's right, one week. Or according to my handy dashboard widget--6 days, 23 hours.

I was mildly productive today. I called Sallie Mae to ask what to do about my loans that I'll have to start paying back in January and was told that they don't accept payments from foreign banks. Something to do with the exchange rate, the woman with the thick southern accent told me, before informing me that she had never left the United States, as if this had some bearing on the matter. Unfortunately, I started spacing out as she listed my other repayment options. Something about an international money order made out in U.S. currency. Too much to think about right now.

After that, I read about fused participles on the New York Times grammar blog. They sound much more exciting than they actually are, but have the potential to make me sound like a bad ass.
"Hey, Laura, what did you do today?"
"Oh not much, just corrected some fused participles."
"That's bad ass."
If I had said, "Oh not much, just inserted a possessive before the gerund, thereby making the sentence grammatically correct..." Well, it doesn't really have the same ring to it.  (By the way, I had no idea what a fused participle was before today. I can barely tell you the difference between a direct and indirect object. The rules of grammar never really stuck with me which is why I find this blog so enlightening.)

In addition to grammar blogs, I'm painfully making my way through The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  I'd rather read the collected works of Dan Brown five times over while sticking needles in my eyes than this book.  At least Dan Brown's novels are page-turners, which is more than I can say about this supposed crime thriller.  I'm about 400 pages in, and it's FINALLY (thank god) holding my attention.  In addition to being poorly written, it's poorly edited too.  It could've been cut down by about 300 pages (by that, I mean the first two-thirds of the book could have literally been ripped out).  Not to mention it's being hailed as a "feminist" novel, but all I see is a female character that doesn't fit the "normal" female lead crime thriller stereotype (except for the fact that she DOES because she still partially exists just to be a sexual partner for the lead male detective, but at least she gets to do a little detecting too), and who is horrifyingly accepting of her being sexually abused (let me digress for a moment and point out the totally non-fused participle that just happened in that sentence.  Woo!)  Then again, it's been on the bestseller list for months (a whole lotta good that's going to do the dead author), made into a film, and has had two successful follow-up novels too.  Shows what I know.  Maybe I should reevaluate my desire to go into publishing.

That rant aside, I think I'm going to go read some more.  One hundred pages til I'm done and can go read a good book.  At least it's serving to distract me from the fact that I'm leaving in one week!