Exhausted or just bankrupt?

I feel so worn out...Why? Well, don't you guess? I've been shopping. Not that long actually, I'm no longer used to spending hours on end of rambling from store to store; still... I've been indulging in some shopping orgy (even though the term is a bit strong, I'm usually quite sensible & think twice before buying something, with the risk of seeing my hoped-for piece of clothing disappear, which happened twice in less than a month!). Well, I was supposed to prepare my tomorrow "intensive course" but one of my "students" wasn't available so the course is postponed... I also have to go on reading extensively for my thesis, there are so many things I want to read (and need to get hold of, incl. Chinese books that haven't been translated, but I may have to put this one aside...) & I'm meeting my supervisor next week.
Apart from that, I went to a conference last week-end and discovered a yet unchartered academic building at the other end of Aix, pretty lovely actually! On my way to the university annex I came across an old lady who stopped to tell me something. At first, I thought she was just asking me for directions, cos, yes, another troubling & upsetting thing in my (quite uneventful) life is that i must unconsciously carry some signpost saying "i'm a tourist agency, for enquiries, ask me"... So, she started to speak but i was in a hurry and didn't really catch all her words. The terms "fortune teller" reached my ears, and she started to unravel her "prophecies", which stirred my inner laugh, when she said things like "you're pretty, you'll be very lucky in your love life", and which completely destroyed her credibility and struck me with its falseness: my love life is simply non-existent! Well, of course, if she can see my future, there's still hope!
Right now, I'm so into my British-mood (kind of England-sick) that I spent almost an hour on Sainsbury's grocery store online, just to browse the incredible range of teas, and the typical biscuits...How pathetic is that? (But among them are custard creams, one of my favourites, just after scones, my all-time favourite) that we can't find here except in a bookstore picturing itself as British (am I being nasty, here?) where the owners aren't warm at all and where you pay 3 or 4 times the normal price. Yet, there's another British bookstore-coffee shop in the city which is so cosy and makes great, original teas. And I really need my shot!

Don't you dare "madam" me again!

I'm facing serious existential questions nowadays, or existential crisis even... I'm a bit troubled by the fact I'm being addressed to as "madam" in shops and so... Well, it depends, once, a salesman said "madam" and then "miss, rather, sorry"... Hum. As John Cage - aka "the Biscuit" - in Ally McBeal would say (yes, I've indulged in some Ally episodes over the Xmas holidays, i must admit it), so, as he would have it: "I'm troubled", I really am! I mean, I've always looked younger than my age and that used to annoy me a lil, except when I could get reduced fees in museums or fairs, but that was hardly worth the existential trouble. And now, all of a sudden, I look like a madam, though ringless and unmarried, which makes it even more ironic. Help?

What's happening?

Today, I've lived an experience (well, that sounds a lil bit too official for what i'm about to tell, but never mind) that has seriously qualified my – well – hatred, or rather lack of enthusiasm for city buses. I had to give a course quite far away, i.e not in the city centre of Aix… So I had to take a special bus in addition to the normal one (a kind of minibus, called "proxibus", nothing to do with an internet-related thingy, though the process of getting a chance to have a ride is to book it by phone, modernity has taken hold of us, hurrah!). The outward route was pretty good, the bus was even ahead on time and I didn't even have to care for my stop, the driver just knew where I was going and stopped by himself. Then, on the return journey, I feared – for all the time I was running full blast since I had done extra (unpaid) hours (Sarkozy, where art thou?) – that that bout of technology wouldn't meet my expectations, or at least, wouldn't meet me…But there it was, waiting for me! I felt so grateful (yes, that deserves to be noted, I rarely acknowledge gratitude for the public service) actually, I was only 1 minute late. Then, it dropped me whereabout I was to catch the other bus (the "regular"one, are you following?) but there were several stops and no mention of where the bus I was waiting for was to pass… And, lucky as I naturally am, I was waiting at the wrong stop, so when I saw the bus arrive, I took to my heels (after a few seconds of hopeless hesitation) and was running again; I saw the bus stop and then start driving again to reach a green traffic light, but I didn't stop running (the irony of hopelessness? A repressed Forrest Gump surging up?), and to my great surprise, I saw it stop and waiting for me. Grateful again; no really, that was too much! I'm not use to having such a stroke of luck with public transport! What's going on?