FIELD NOTE 3.72 - Southern charm.

I've come to realize that in France, just like in the United States, when someone tells you "You look tired" it really means "You look horrible." Needless to say I have heard this phrase multiple times in the past few weeks and have come to accept it as a phrase which, like the sporadic downpours in Nantes, is just a constant that I need to get used to.
In my defense, sleeping on a 4-inch slab of plastic-wrapped foam every night hasn't been exactly wonderful on my back and some nights I can almost swear I'm actually sleeping on concrete. And most days I actually am tired, the aftereffects of either too little sleep or too much work.
So I fall back on that age-old trick: a good and solid Southern upbringing. If there's anything growing up in the South has taught me, it is that everything, even the worse of insults, can be delivered and deflected with a bright smile and a slow drawl. I'm sure that my French sounds horrible when I do this, but it seems to do the trick regardless - the topic soon changes and I can yawn to my heart's content behind my desk. Sure, I may look bad some days and my hair might be a little poofy, but at least I know that here a small dose of Southern charm can still go a long way.