culture shock: school supplies

i'm going to admit one of the things i'm having the most difficulty adjusting to in france is the school supply situation. i've had a quite the time deciding when to assimilate and when to stand proud and maintain my american identity.

for example: do i buy the scarely-found lined paper, or suck it up and use this crazy grid stuff? basically everyone either writes on that or graph paper. today i finally broke down and bought it. where do i WRITE? what are all these lines for?!

now, to hold this crazy paper...do i get a binder? no of course not, french people just write on loose leaf paper and put it back in the box that they bought it in. ok thats just too extreme, i am not up to the challenge. compromise: bought some fun colored 3-flap chemises or folders (yes, even the folders are different). ok i am exaggerating some people use binders. i am stubborn though, and bought folders. sidenote: its funny that the word for "shirt" is the same as the word for folder.

and then, to write on the paper...what do i use? the american pens i brought with me are starting to run out of ink, and though they do sell lots of ballpoints here, fountain pens are everywhere! and they have cool white-out like eraser stuff! alice tells me that you put on the white out stuff and get a special different pen to write over that. how intricate. i want to buy them but i am nervous. will it spill all over me?

in other news (well like 2 week old news), i finished the beret! it turned out to be a little big and more of a floppy hat than a beret, but i like it. wow my room is yellow.