jacquesjadore

Facts:

I'M IN IRELAND. It is beautiful and amazing.

The cliffs of Moher are an excellent example of this.

I can now speak about 10 words in Irish. It's fun.

My apartment is cool, my room is huge, I have a kitchen of which all facilities are available to me. This is good.

I've been here 9 days, as of yet, no luggage. I'm outfitted by the local Dunnes department store. Bright yellow is the new everything else.

It's Ashley Nolin's birthday! Happy Birthday!

It's also independence day! Way to be, America!

It's almost 3 o'clock! I should do some reading!

Audrey is a funky monkey.

Fin.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Aces.

It's a shock to the system. Homesickness has shed to a low hum of desire with an undercurrent of mild apprehension/curiousity towards what it's going to be like to be back in the US. I mean, I've lived there all my life, so obviously I'm sure it'll be fine but it's just like - isn't it cheating to read things in English? And not have to sit through three courses in a meal? And stare at onion soup all day long? And for the first time in my life I desperately don't want to leave the city, not a minute not an hour I want to be here. I just love it, love the opportunities and parks and places and people and public and even though I've grudually grown into the long-known philosophy that a lot of the things offered here aren't for me, I can do without out out out, at least every night, and I wouldn't mind again having grass and privacy to lay and rest and stay in said grass as long as I like, and I'm excited so excited at whatever opportunities will fall towards me (or I'll reach towards) as graduation looms closer and closer (why are you graduating early! youknowwhoyouare), and I love America, Massachusetts, everything. I do love it all. But all of a sudden it's not even just the city life that I'll miss, it's Paris, too. I like the change from fear of weaponry to a shake of the head towards the guys who come at you here, creepy but usually harmless. I like the cleanliness of the city, aside from the abundance of dog poops, but with that comes the frequency of dogs all over the place, in every store of every kind, waggling their tails on their way to the metro, hanging out in bars, picking up some groceries, dogs everywhere! Which only makes me more excited about getting one of my own, possibly even to be picked out during my brief respite at home, otherwise in August. And a new kitten, hopefully, too, providing the fluffster approves. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that I'm going to miss Paris! A lot! I've grown deeply attached to the city and the customs and the pros and cons and as much as I know home is going to be magical and mystical and everything that I love, I am leaving some love here, too, which is sad but I'm glad for it, because I'm a proponent of the 'it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" slogan, and so I'm glad I could love it here, even if it means feeling this wave of pre-leaving sadness that I won't live here anymore.

BUT, as much as I feel sad for leaving, I only have a week left so I'm trying to live it large! Love it much! Natalie and I finally climbed to the top of the eiffel last week, we took the stairs and read all the fun bulletins on the way up (did you know that when they first installed a skating rink up on one of the floors of the eiffel their honored and first guest to skate on it was a well known bear from Moscow?! I mean, not just a bear, a bear from MOSCOW! Who comes up with this stuff!) Anyway, so although the eiffel is just a big tower, not beautiful or necessarily special in actuality but because of sentimentality, but then still the best part isn't the structure itself, but the view from above. You can see Paris stretching out all around you and it's so neat looking from up there! Like seeing fields from an airplane, and it was beautiful and wonderful and I loved being up there and seeing it, it's like stepping back from a painting you've been laboring on for hours, the distance giving you some much appreciated perspective. And then yesterday we traveled back to the eiffel for a picnic, which is something I love to be doing in Paris, in honor of a few people who I know who graduated this semester but didn't get to go to their actual ceremonies, so we lived it large for them. It was a really nice, and I finally got a reason to sport the twin blue dresses ariel and I bought in Oxford back in January.

In other news! My brother (Tom) is apparently a business major (who knew!) and I guess will be done with GCC within the next semester or year, whereupon he's planning on transferring to a four year school, finishing up a degree, and it's weird but really great to hear him doing all this. He's considering transferring to Umass (which, let's mention, his girlfriend was also considering, hmmm...) which, if he got there at the same time as me, horrifying outwardly, but fun inwardly, and anyway, it's just cool to see my brother being cool. Jesse too will be done with GCC soon, and probably shooting over to the boston area to finish up his art degree, and then maybe on to grad school? I feel like these boys have been in some werid anti-place for awhile, and now they're starting to grow out of it, or just grow into something else, a place place, and I don't know, but it's kind of fun! And exciting!

Anyway, family-wise, as much as I'll survive missing Seth's wedding, I long for another big family gathering but I think we're in a lull of marraiges right now, caught between the 30 age groupers and the 25's, but I implore you, anyone, go get hitched! We need some forward family party action up in here.

Anyway, so as to what I'm doing right this minute! I'm waiting for some laundry to be finished and trying to finish off the last of the planning for the week-long european fling Michelle and I are about to embark on! So far our schedule looks something like, leaving Paris this sunday, heading over to zurich, from zurich to venice, venice to brussels, brussels to ireland, and from ireland home! Highlights in each of the locations, in my mind, in order of place, are: milk shakes/bank notes, water!, waffles!, heritage/the country as a whole. We're training half of it, planing the other half, and not spending more than a day and a half/two days in any one location. HOWEVER, that's why we're going to these locations, I think, because they're all locations that deserve a comb-through, but aren't so full of history and famous things to see that you would be required to spend so much time there. Venice in particular I've heard is great for about 12 hours, but after you've gone all through it, although in awe, the feeling tends to be "And....good! Now what?" Anyway, I guess we'll find out! And in case anyone tries to email or contact me during this time period, I'll be cell-phone less and mostly likely won't have time or means to internet-it, so have patience! And then actually, I'll check it briefly I'm guessing during my day or two home (June 11th-13th), but then I'm heading up to the Cape and since we're internetless up there, I won't be officially hooked up again until Galway, which will be the 25th of June, and with any luck our apartments will be wired and I'll actually have near-constant access! But we'll see. ANYWHO I feel like I've babbled on quite long enough, even though I feel like there's so much to say! I know everything always comes out better and more fun in person, so I can't wait to see everybody! I do miss everything, I swear! And I'm going to leave this with another song suggestion, although I should mention that the songs I leave here aren't supposed to be like songs I'm deeply in love with, but songs I've come across and for some reason some part of them, like one line or part or peice or pluck of an instrument just resonates so much in my belly that I feel compelled to share it with ya'll. And for the record, for the following song, the lines/music surrounding the lines "baby you had me" and "faster and faster!" are what really get me in this song. Okay, bye!


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It's sweltering in here! Or it could just be me, I seem to be having the hot-cold pre-sick symptoms going on lately, which may or may not be a result of a long weekend of little sleep, lots of rain, and a few cold-rain-soaked hours in which I was lost and found myself (appropriately?) lost in the pimp and ho sex-slave area of Paris. I've never had so many proposals!

Anyway, so it looks like the Habibster and myself are hammering out the last of the details for our brief (but oh so exciting!) european affair, and I'm getting spazzed/jazzed about getting ready to embark on this mini-great adventure of ours!!! I'm still worried about what I'll do with my four months plus of stuff, which aren't really conducive to short european escapades, but worse case scenario I figure I'll just chuck it in the Seine or hand it over to some of my favorite street bums. I don't like clothes anymore anyway. One word: OVERRATED!

Right now I'm sort of hiding away from my house because my lady is having some other lady over there to check the place out to see if she wants her students to crash there in the semesters to come. I spent all yesterday cleaning that room up to make it look like a dream, and let me tell you, it felt good to straighten things out. Very cathartic.

Anyway, that's all for now because I want to save some time to check out some sweet links from some sweet comments I know were left on the last entry! Seriously, it's HOT in here! I think I'm probably dying. This sunday is mother's day! Be nice!

Paris has bloomed! I think I mentioned it before, but this place has gotten green, greener, and greenery my friends. It's so pretty! And all of a sudden the buildings that were starting to get a wee bit commonplace are now turning back into big beastly wonders of architecture and I love it, I love it all. I've been darting my eyes around a bit more, too, taking in things that I wasn't really paying attention to before. My eyes now cling to writing and ads they way they do in the US, drawn to the text and with a desire to soak up everything I see. Happily, this led me to a discovery a couple days ago that down a series of roads I take to class about twice a week is a plaque stating that the building it's attached to used to be the home of our buddy Freud! Now, let's not get started on whether or not that guy was out of his mind, because either way it's fun to see his house! And it makes me think, makes my heart feel soft, makes my blood beat to feel a little part of that sort of thing here, and to help me feel connected to the things I love, the things I can't wait to get back to school for and study again! I like that I walk by there now, tip my head a little, and say 'hey freud, what's shaking today?", even though his house is now a brazilian hotel, it's his, and it's mine, and it's everybody's. I like it.

In other news, Paris has a had a few small thunderstorms! Praise Allah! They're fun and quick and powerful! It soothes me soothes me soothes me. In other other news, on Friday, there was a mini api excursion to Saint-Chappelle, where we went inside the Justice buildings and inside the church and listened to this chorus and classical concert thing. I knew I would like it, and I did. But despite having been in churches before, and heard singing in churches before (okay, like twice, but still), I didn't expect the sounds that I heard, or the echoing, and the sheer volume and quality and beauty of the whole thing. I kept looking around the church, at the walls all almost completely made of stained class, and the big arching oldness of it, and I realized this is why they make them this way. Churches aren't random, I realized, even though I already knew that. Everything is structured for a reason, and one of the reasons is for this sound, that echos off all the walls and swells to the top of the building and crashes back on your shoulder and I can see how people feel lifted in this, are swept up in this, how they watch the sound lift higher and higher, and imagine it's floating right up to God, and when it falls back down, that He's giving it back to them. My dad would say what an effective (affective?) marketing technique this is for religion. Either way, anyway, boiled down, it was beautiful. It was really, really beautiful.

Anyhow, so things are swimming along like normal, but now that I realize I only have a month left (yikes!) I've been forced (happily so) to make a list of the things I must make sure I do before I check out of this joint, and I'm excited to start doing it all, seeing it all, squeezing whatever I can out of Paris before I leave! The homesickness I felt at around the halfway mark has washed away, has moved from the realization of how much and how deeply I love things at home, miss them, want them now now now, to the appreciation of how much I have and have to love and all the things that make me forever happy, and the understanding of "Do I love home? Yes! Will I be overjoyed whence I return? Hells yes! But am I glad to be here, happy to keep living this thing through to the end, enjoying myself, etc? Oh brothah, you betta belive it!" And is this all made easier by my decision to come home for 12 beautiful days in June? Yes, yes it is. I love you, home. I love you, Paris. I love.

Anyway, following Portugal I took a quick break from my book reading frenzy and hooked myself up with the world of television again (thank you friends with dvds, THANK YOU KAT!!!!!!!!!), and have been enjoying movie fests with people here, as well as some quality me and my computer time at home. I can't deny my love for television! And I won't even try to deny my love for Veronica Mars, which I'm kept abreast of due to the ever-sending wonderfulness of Kat once again, and by George, that show is getting good! Two more (I think?) episodes until the end, I'm pretty much foaming at the mouth on a daily basis. I've thrown all my theories out the door, picked them back up, chucked them out the window again, gathered them back, and splayed them on the floor to look at them hopelessly. If they don't renew this show for the third season...devastation, to say the least. Headquarter explosions, to say something else.

Moving on, I've put some more pictures up! I still don't have a zillion up there, but they're trickling in, slowly but surely. I have some of Oxford, finally, and London will shortly follow. Maybe even right now, if I have time! Anywho, lastly, a suggestion for the day!:

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Smoochies!

Okay, so I've finally uploaded some photos! My battery only has like three minutes left on it so I managed to upload about 20 pictures, of which I reserve the right to change any/all headings and captions because I wrote them at break neck speed! And they're of portugal, because that's where I left my heart and I decided to start there, and whence I gets me the time, I'll be putting up France there, too. Of course, if you've got facebook then you can disregard this, they're the same pictures (well, probably, there could always be a picture or two different here and there, I took a looot of different angles of the same stuff) however I didn't put up any explainations yet on facebook or fun captions, so if you haven't looked on facebook yet this might be more fun! Anyways, the address is:

http://community.webshots.com/user/jacquesjadore

And my username is the same as the livejournal name, so jacquesjadore is what you're looking for. And the albulm name is Portugal! If this doesn't help I'll put up more definitive information tomorrow, but anyway, until then, enjoy what's there! I'll start adding like nobody's business now that the photos are on my computer (thanks again Bec!)

Ariel and I, we are Sun Warriors! We are Experts at re-lotioning and Masters of the sand and sea. The Portugal sun is quick, but we are quicker! The cliffs are huge and scary but we are huger and scarier and do not faint when we creep three inches from death to look over the edge of the big reds to the perfectly perfectly clear blue waters beneath! You can see everything in the ocean! The fish and the rocks underneath and the coral and everything, you can see it all! Donºt be fooled, though, because the big blue is cold cold cold, despite how inviting it looks. And the beach! Holy mamba, the beach! The sand is sifty and the sun is shiny and the people are friendly (although some of the tourists - gross, tourists! - can be a little noisy at times)

Also, the world is friendly! Tourists (like Ariel and I, good untouristy but touristy but really good touristy tourists) are welcome! The locals apparenlty love rotating friends, and every waiter or bar weºve visited has yielded friends and opportunities thus far. Also, we are masters of hostel-choosing! Our door opens on not only bathroom (full shower and tub and toilet and bidet and sink and everything everything) and beds and tv and closets and bureaus, but a porch overlooking the street! The porch, simple but with two chairs and little table, is peferct for gin playing. So far Ariel (under the names Dr. Briney Bottom, Jerry Jumbalieya, Ricky LumpPants and Lºil Dickie LumpPants) has lost and won 2, making the score even against Me, the true warrior, who warrioryºs under pseudonames Jimmy Sheen!, David Cop-her-bottom, and Gabby Gibbons, to date. We are funny! And we sing on our porch! We sing sweetly and happily and knowing all the words because even though weºre different we know so much the same and we love the same (even though she not always appreciating my attempts at journey) and it feels so good good good to relax!

Paris, though still lovely and wonderful and full of french, was starting to kill me just a little. Not sleeping and eating reguarly in accordance with lots of friends! but little time to chill, and then everyone visiting everyone here (and me thinking why did I tell people to not come! or not tell them anything at all) and talking about their moms and family and I miss my mom! And family! And friends! And Fluffy! Sometimes when I call home my mom puts Fluffy on the phone, so I can hear her adorable little meow, and I love it but I hate it because I love that cat, and I love her little meows and her spoiled nature and I miss her! I miss my mom, and the ever-traditional beginning of baseball wherein I lay my head upon her lap and she lays her school papers upon the top of my head and with an absent extra hand (while reading, not grading, grading requires two hands) she strokes my hair and we watch the game and groan at Manny and talk about the players and maybe I doze off and then wake up and sheºs gone but thereºs the smell of popcorn in the kitchen and then sometime later Dad comes home, and he makes some corny jokes and tells me Iºm expensive but do I want some ice cream anyway and we watch a movie and then maybe Tom is there, appearing from who knows, and heºs sitting down with us and making gross noises to upset me, resulting in my hitting him or saying "Tom!" in my whinest I-hate-brothers voice, and maybe we forget the name of someone in the movie, so we pause and yell to Jesse "Was that the girl from this or this?" We ask, and he, of course, sighs and says "No, from THIS." While not saying, although we know he is "You guys are hopeless!" And then thereºs the cape and maine, of which Iºve never missed! Not one summer, although the time there has been both less and more than usual in the last few years, and the thought of not being there, of not seeing those things and having that time - I canºt think that thought! And so my parents, through some sort of special parental telekinesis, have figured this out! And my dad, though only usually having two weeks off, will take three this summer and we are going to the Cape in August! Something never before done, and to which I look forward to greatly. And my mom is arranging for a week at Camp, and Easter (I forgot Iºd be missing Easter!) Iºve been informed (as of last night) is being postponed until August, when I return, because Jesus can wait to come around again, heck heºs probably tired of this routine by now anyway, and because, as my family has mentioned, they want me there.

Europe is amazing, Portugal is beautiful and beyond dreams and France is a wonder, wonder, wonder, but I do miss these things, these things that are part of me and that Iºve never been this long without (yes, only a little over two months, which is so short but so so long! and four more to go!) And so many other things (Congrats Seth and Marcy!, I miss you Wednesday nights and Love Walls! I miss you home cooking and seven layer bars!) and am overly (so!) excited about those things I wonºt have to wait for (Euroadventure!, Irish Men!), there are still these feelings, they are here. And sometimes my head spins with how much I knew, but couldnºt know, what all these little things mean to me, and how much they lift me to have them. I miss!

Literally. Paris has started up with the car burnings again, and now with the President confirming the new law concerning work status and under 26 year olds, les gens have gone NUTS! France is all about protesting, and oh baby, are they all aboutin' it now! The strikes are getting more frequent and worse and now starting to include things like smelly gas. And trust me, nobody smells smelly gas without wanting to never smell again. Tomorrow public transportation will be mucho affected again, with the rumor that the hope is they'll find a way to get us on the metro and keep us there, as hostages of the protest. I'm thinking that's not really possible, but yikes! Paris is Angry!

Happily (but also not, because tearing your eyes away from Paris is like trying not to watch a lifetime movie once my mom's already got it turned on, or like pulling your eyes off an especially terrible car crash on the side of the street), I'll be shooting off for Portugal on Thursday! For 12 beautiful days Ariel and I are flying into Lisbon, and then training down to the very warm south (Lagos) where we're going to be spring breakin' it like never before! Ariel's got some great tips on the area and I've got a great desire to be warm and in water, so it's going to be fantastic! And then I was going to be going somewhere else when I got back (with five days remaining of my spring break, two weeks long total) but you know, I'm thinking that five free days in Paris to actually explore this puppy a little better might actually be amazing. I feel too much like I've been seeing everything but Paris. I mean, I live here, but I haven't even touched a millionth of what it has to offer, and I've got a list of things I'm still dying to see!

On another note, courses for Umass are finally available for viewing and I couldn't be more excited! I love this process! And I love my chosen field of studies! I can't wait to start being incredibly stressed out and satisfied! SENIOR YEAR IS GOING TO BE THE BOMB!!! Anyway, more on all of this later, but as for now my neighbors from Wendell are randomly in Paris and offering free food at nice places and presents from home so I'm going to make like a rabbit and...hop....right on over there...now! I LOVE YOU.

So it has just sort of occurred to me that the world is immense. There is so so much out there and so so many things to do and so so many paths and opportunties and it's amazing. I mean, I've been aware that opportunity is running around like nuts everywhere all the time, but coming here has opened that up for me more than I thought it would and it's kind of weird. Good weird. Example: I said before that I was enjoying city life, but I mean, I'm REALLY enjoying it. Like, I want to do it again. Once isn't enough. I don't know where I'll end up after umass finishes up or where I'll be for grad school, but I really want to shoot for a city area now. New york, cali, seattle' still in there, australia, anywhere european, I mean anywhere! I never would have cared greatly about where I was before, and I'm still the rollwiththetimes girl that I am, but now I think I'd feel left out if I didn't. Left out of a lifestyle that I don't hate or even not feel at home in - public transportation is a dream, I love the convienience of city life, I just love - so much! Week trips here and there to cities in the US never really had me understanding that. And thinking about stuff like this it has just got me so excited to even think about where I could end up when school's out! I mean, I'm cherishing this time I have now when I'm young and wild and still in undergrad, trust me I'm all over it - but the future is starting to excite my pants off. I'm really excited! I just feel like there's so much, and I can't wait to dip into it. So much so much, so good so soon so far.

On another note, I have success stories two and three to share! Two: Yesterday I went to the bank to attempt to open up a bank account (the appointment had been set up by my program lady) and horror struck! I wasn't supposed to be there (but really I was) and I had a very lengthy and informative time with the desk clerk trying to figure out what went wrong and who I was and what I wanted and then I made a new appointment, without her ever suggesting we switch to english. Granted, my responses weren't as lengthy as her talking, but it still felt really good to feel like I could manage things like that on my own now, that I now have the basics of getting by here on all major fronts. It feels good! Three: I'm direction girl! Although I've been asked for directions before and managed to blunder through a response or a je ne sais pas, today I was asked twice what the devil was going on and where someone should go to get to somewhere else, and not only did I know where and how and the fastest route to do all the things they asked, I told it to them in f good rench and when I got confused I didn't hesitate to show them where the map was so they could figure out the rest! And they understood me, no problem! Phonetics is a dream! I think the trick is that my comprehension now is so much better, and basic sentences and things come easily. So even though I might not have all the grammar and vocab ready to hold lenghty political debates, I know what they're saying to me and at the least I can minimally reply or explain what I don't know how to say and they tell me the word in french and we move on. And the higher my conversational confidence gets, the better I do.

To follow up the last update, the old lady LOVED the movie and the attention and the whole shabang, lille was really cool but wet and cold so slightly underappreciated and I still don't know exactly what I'm doing for spring break. I have managed to continue to meet new people and one american girl I've made friends with in my grammar class just happens to be from Fall River, which I swear didn't exist before college and now everyone and her mother is from there. It's cool to meet someone else from MA though, it's a nice little link to the familiar.

I also just wanted to mention that in case anyone noticed the protests and riots going on in paris, I'm alive! The sorbonne has been blocked off for two weeks now and there are some areas of the city you simply can't get to at all. Since my classes aren't actually at the main sorbonne area buildings but in offshoot buildingsn around the city because I'm an exchange student I've been having class, but a bunch of girls I know that are more advanced and take legit classes at the sorbonne haven't had class for two weeks, have been accidently shut into random basements for hour intervals while trying to get to class, and always have a story to tell about what's up because every day they have to try to go to class even though every day they can't get there and it's cancelled. I've been watching the news with my old lady to keep in touch, and oddly enough I've never felt so connected to what's going on in the news before. I like this feeling of connectedness.

LASTLY I've decided that since I have random weird periods of time on the metro when I formally was just listening to music but now have figured out that I can fill that time with reading! I haven't had much time for books all throughout college with the exception of a few lulls in the summer and winter breaks, and it feels really good to be going at it like nuts again! Some other girls I know have had a similiar revelation, and we've started a little library of english books to circulate among us. It's not improving my french much but my soul is digging it hardcore. Anyway, that's all for now!

Alright, if I haven't already mentioned the old lady that I live with, and how awesome she is, please take this as me mentioning it officially and excitedly! Her name is Marie-Christine Lefebvre and she's a delightful feather in my cap. Every day when I get home we chat about our days, she shows me the eight hundred pillows she's managed to make during the afternoon, she tells me about the paintings she's working on (she has a little painting room, it's nice) and she encourages my bad french and makes it good and we have private jokes and funnies and she's a delight. SO I had Natalie meet her a few weeks ago, and naturally Nat loved her, and we decided we had to do something fun with her. Now, madame gets kind of tired walking around, but she loves conversation and she loves movies. AND apparently she loves Julia Roberts. So I convinced her to watch a movie with Natalie and I at my house tonight, and refused to tell her what movie we'd watch, and went out and bought Pretty Woman (she also confessed she loves Richard Gere), and we're going to buy some dessert and bring over my computer (Marie doesn't actually have a dvd player or movie player, just a tv, so my dvd playing computer is quite fancy fun as far as she's concerned) and have a wild night! I'm excited to do something nice for her. I also recently learned that she's a bridge player, and we've been bonding over it non-stop. I'm trying to hint that I'd love to come along and play with her friends or at least watch, and I think she's starting to get the hint. Not only would it be a blast, but I'd be able to drive Tom crazy by speaking bridge-french non-stop back home and it'd be a good way for me to keep some real french in mind. Plus I just think playing bridge with a bunch of old french ladies would probably be a major life highlight. Think about it!

Anyway, I'm excited about that. I'm also excited about next weekend, when I'm scooting back over to London for probably the final time in my european adventure because Mon and Aud will be there for Spring break. IT'S GOING TO BE FANTASTIC. I'll be staying with Bil until Aud and Mon are available (they're with their school, so they've got a strict itinerary) which should also be fun, because I'll get a chance to see yet another area of England and explore London a bit and let the haze of seeing it five years ago wash away.

This weekend I'm off to Lille with the api group again, and I forget what's there but I'm sure it's rich in history 'cause everything in Europe is. I love this place! Classes continue to be pretty easy but hard because they're in french. But I think I'm coming along alright; if only Lamb (and ewe) could see my stellar dictee skills now! I still haven't figured out Spring Break for sure, but it involves ariel, beaches, and warmth. Can't go wrong!

SO classes have finally started and they're good. Phonetics is every day every other week usually, but for the first two weeks for some reason for some students there's no skip, it's just straight through. It's making me want to eat my feet, and not in a good way. Don't get me wrong, phonetics is rocking my socks hardcore by kicking me into high gear on my bad pronunciation habits, and there's few things I love more than wearing strange head gear for long periods of time (I hope that doesn't sound sarcastic, because I have plenty of childhood photos to back up that claim), but it's early in the morning which is starting to kill me slowly. Paris time is the weirdest! I sleep in until 1:30 on the weekends and go to bed at 2 on the weekdays! I mean, I know every teenager/college student on the planet has already become familiar with sleep times of the like, but for me, c'est bizarre!

Anyway, so phonetics rocks despite the early hour and grammar kicks it something fierce, which just leaves my two conferences, french literature and film - which showed the most ridiculous movie I could have thought of! It was literally just a bunch of kids in medieval clothes standing in front of a 2d painted background and occasionally riding horses to the kings table and eating with everyone else while still on said horse, and then making out with random girls and stealing their food and leaving, and then asking my mom why she's crying and then stealing her food and leaving before she responds and 'accidently' throwing my spear into a guy I supposedly likes eye and stealing his food and leaving, and throughout the whole thing people would randomly sing and braid each other's hair. To steal a line from a european travel book I've been reading (thanks chainy), the best that can be said for it is that it gave you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvience. It was so bad it was good for five minutes and then for the next two and a half hours it was just terrible! But it was only the first class so there's some definite time for improvement.

Anyway, and then the other conference is the 'grands noms de france' which is just kind of like french history and the teacher makes funny jokes about important popes and stuff and a lot of people I know are in the class and so its got a comfortable, nice, easygoing feel to it. I think I'm going to like that class.

And okay, so it's hard to pick which things to talk about! I should update this thing more often! But I'm just gonna babble a bit about my birthday weekend and call it a day. If anyone ever thinks about something in particular they want me to babble about, I'm all for it. Request and receive. Anyway, so birthday weekend, the dets in clipped form:

4 1/2 hour bus ride to place I can't remember the name of, west of france. Really cool church, tour guide didn't show up and then later we found out she was there and with the wrong group of students because they apparently said "maybe we're supposed to have a tour" and she took that as "we're your guys." So haphazard tour, really really cold weather. Awesome information and so much cool church/architecture/religon information. I had no idea to what extent everything in european churches is constructed puposefully, down to the number of pillars and size of objects and references to jesus and judus and mary mag. and the rest. After reading the da vinci code, it was all the more fascinating, and hanging out with a lot of art history majors has made the experience that much better. I love churches. Another 1 1/2 bus ride. Tour of dijon (yes, mustard capital of the world, plus home of ginerbread and black currents and something else I can't remember either) cool medieval architecture. Funny incident with a little french girl seeing our group of students, pointing, screaming, and running for her six year old life. Hotel was nice, saw some french 'you are the weakest link", ate at a kind of strange restaurant, realized afterward that dijon is where france got the bird flu and had some moments of panic while we decided that natalie, who had eaten the chicken, was in fact doomed to death by bird flu. Made fun of her for an event earlier in the week, when a pigeon flew at her and she screamed 'bird flu!" and ran spastically across the street, to the horror and distaste of the french populace. This was all saturday.

Sunday: 20 minute bus ride, wine tour/wine tasting event. As I have no desire to drink wine, I gave all of my tastings to natalie, thus doubling her in-take and getting her drunkish in no time. Natalie is the best drunk I know, and was nothing but quietly hilarious. Around 3pm (after an hour of wine) she turned to me and said "omigod, I forgot to say it, happy birthday!" and then proceeded to poke some people and inform them it was my birthday, which led to an annocement by a kid named David, which led to an erruption of "hey, it's your birthday? happy birthday! Why didn't you tell us? How old are you? Have some more wine!" Which was nice and felt good and even though I didn't think I cared I was wrong, I was glad for the happy birthdays and good wishes. It feels good to feel important on your birthday. 5 hour bus ride back to paris, only one stop at a rest area despite being told before we'd have one for food, weird spelling games in the back of the bus, conversations about everything ever, little sleep, phone calls from home, pretty scenery. At paris, a bunch of us went to a restaurant called "indiana" and we got food we'd all been craving (mexican, finally!) and nat bought me a brownie ice cream thing for my birthday and everyone said happy birthday again and then even though everyone was like "you should go out!" I was exhuasted so I want back to nat's room with her and margaret and I read my facebook happy birthday messages quick and then we watched a movie and I went home. I talked to my lady for a while, got a call from home again, more birthday wishes, and bed. It was a really good, if slightly surreal, birthday. And it was really good to experience france outside of paris, despite my constant love for the city. I think I could live in the city now, which is weird to realize. I love public transportation and walking and endless opportunity. On the flip side, though, seeing the country gave me the most stirring home sickness pangs I've had yet.

Lastly - I hope to have pictures up on facebook soon, but I'm still trying to find a replacement for my now officially lost camera cord! I'm trying to see if I can borrow someone else's in the meantime, if it'll fit. Hopefully soon they'll be some visuals to go with these rambles! (Although beware that I have a tendency to forget my camera on tours and remember it in hotel rooms). Anyway, I hope everyone is doing amazingly and that everything is as good as I left it or better. Ciao!

I'm so hot! I thought about taking my coat off, but ugghhh the effort involved! So classes started yesterday but only the grammar course (two hours every day), which is good but also maddening. Maddening because it's the type of course and learning style I wish I'd started with back in the days of mr. guillmette and related horrors, but good because there's much more speaking, listening, and altogether french involved in it. I chose my other classes for next week, which is also when phonetics starts, but really I don't know what they were. They were kind of speaking fast and I was kind of pointing and speaking and looking lost and pointing and nodding enthusiasitcally and saying "oui, d'accord" and so I think it'll be a mystery. Exciting!

I did have a successful post office experience though, which involved both me and a post lady, some stamps, and a complete comprehended conversation in french. I've definetly improved more in the last couple of weeks then the last bajillion years, so I'm feeling snazzy about it all. And, as always, there's way too much to say about Paris itself. I just love being here! Seriously! Anyway, I'm feeling some major hunger coming on, so I'm gonna pack up, grab some grub, and love you all later. And now. All the time, really. Okay, bye!

Wow, so I think I've already taken about, oh, 300 pictures of France. That's like 100 a day. I've now put myself on a pretty strict schedule of camera-carrying, so as to keep myself in check. Facebook albulms will be created as soon as I can figure out what I did with my camera cord, or an alternate method to put my thousands of pictures of fat pigeons on display. First off, I love Paris! I live really close to the airport and l'arc de triumph, I've already seen the eiffel tower (soooo coooooold!), la musee d'orsay (cool statues, lots of awesome monets and van goghs..goeshsd...gogehe...and other impressionist stuff that was definetly cool. I like to look for the subtle painting-style fist-shakings directed at the church that the more flamboyant and prankster painters put in.) Anyway, there are 14 students in my program going to the sorbonne, and we all live in various places around the city (with familys, in apartments, at the united states dorm area). We're all American, which is cool because it's nice to have a safety net and instant friends around Paris, but also we all understand the need to get out and find actual french people and french clubs and to speak french and be seriously parisian. Without going into more detail overkill (but don't think I won't later), the clothes are great (the sales are wonderful), everyone wears scarves in chic ways, the pigeons are REALLY fat, duck and rabbit are favored meats, the streets are clean, the pickpockets are many, I haven't lost anything yet (I don't think), and I live with a crazy old grandma lady that, when I first met her, was watching a justin timberlake music video and wearing one of the greatest sweaters man has ever known! Suffice it to say, I love this place. School starts in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping by then I'll be the Queen of Paris. Shockingly, I've already got the metro under my belt! Anyway, there are crepes to be eaten and fun to be had, so I'm gonna scaddadle. I miss you, United States, and I hope everyone is rocking out!

For anyone who received my address, IT HAS CHANGED!!!! I'll be without the internet a bit longer, but once I get it I'll let you know the new adddress. D'accord?

So, I don't really know what I was thinking the couple of weekends I spent in London. I wasn't completely won over, and my thoughts immediately ran to "England, cool, but not my favorite scene." But Oxford is amazing! I love this place! It's just incredible to throw together 45 or so little colleges with their own little personalities and the like under one university heading. The college Ariel goes to, and thus the one I'm staying in despite certain rule-breakings, is called St. Catherines (Catz if you're cool) and I'm absolutely in love with it. It's small, it's nice, the fields are great, the architecture is old and pretty, the people are totally rockin' it up, and there's a bar/hang out spot (the jcr) that is probably the best invention college man/woman has ever known. This place is the bomb. And although this makes me be like "France who?", don't let it make you think that's not going to rock my socks too. Anyways, so my travels were just ducky, noteworthy events being a relatively sparse plane ride that led to some unexpected and appreciated extra comforts, a central bus station misunderstanding, and a potentially homeless british boy who needed a place to stay for the night. Now I'm settled in here, relatively jet-lagless, and getting pumped for the first dance event (entz) of the catz season, which hosts the theme "666999" (the devil and emergency services). Ariel's thinking 'blue devil' and I may be going with 'fallen angel'. We did some minimal shopping, in general but with the event in mind, and let me say - we're clearly going to be the coolest rockets in space. And now for some sweet online orientation action. Ciao!