Requests Fulfilled!

I had intended to post this last night but decided to check my rapidly withering basil plant on the balcony first and if there is one thing I've learned since moving into the dorms here, it's that, if the lights are on at night, you never, EVER open the balcony door. As soon as the door was even cracked open, at least a hundred bugs came swarming in. I spent the next half hour standing on the desk and chair, swatting at bugs with the IKEA catalog and I still hadn't gotten to my basil plant! So I had to open the external blinds, shut off all the lights (including my computer) and leave it all sit for another half an hour so that the remaining bugs would loose interest before rescuing the plant. By that time, it was far too late to attempt a blog post.
So, for a few updates: I FINALLY got clothes hangers and dish cloths (the really cheap brand was finally re-stocked). I finally figures out how to do laundry, but it was only after we lugged all the laundry to the other building that Michael realized that we have a laundry room in our building.
Now, to answer some requests...
Mom (and many others) have asked for a little more detail on our living arrangement, so here it is: we are staying in a double dorm room at a French university across the lake called Supélec which is a Grand école (prestigious school) of electricity.Michael made up this nice diagram so that you'll have a better idea of the layout; for being a dorm room, it isn't half bad. The kitchenette is quite small and unfortunately, we only have one induction burner (an electric burner that uses magnetic waves to directly heat the pot, so there is less of a fire hazard and less wasted energy, they were all the rage at the CIA). Since we can only have the one burner, though, induction is really nice to have, you can boil a pot of water in something like 3 minutes! We'd like to get a small table both to sit and eat at and to use at more prep space. The bedroom is pretty cramped now with two twin beds crammed together, but it works fine. And likewise, the study/living area (where one bed was removed from) is pretty empty. We are hoping that eventually we will be able to get a small/cheap futon type piece of furniture to sit on for watching TV and movies on the computer. I'll be posting more pictures on Facebook later (for those of you without FB, don't worry, I'll post a public link so you can view them)
Speaking of pictures...
Adrienne requested that I put some pictures here on the blog, which I had been intending to do but was waiting until I could use my computer to upload the pics (meaning, waiting until we had internet in our dorms, which thankfully, we got the other day). I have added some pictures in to older posts and have made some small comments about them within the text. One more thing Adrienne requested -- a vocab lesson. I have been reading so much French literature over the past year or so that I forget most people don't know some of the terminology I use. I will try to go through before I post and note any words that might not be familiar, but if I miss any, please feel free to comment and I'll make sure to clarify. Here are some word that I used in past posts:

Saucisson - hard, dried sausage, French regions seem to have their own recipes
Cornichon - small, gherkin pickle, can be either sweet or sour
Technopôle - our "neighborhood" southeast of downtown Metz, it is the home of many tech companies and universities
Haricots Verts - skinny green beans

Let me know if there are any more words you need clarified.