"Nessages"

New Beginnings

2010-08-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hello, Blog. It's been a while.

I'm no longer in Auvergne, as the title "Nessages from Auvergne and Beyond" may suggest, and I'm no longer even in Detroit. I'm in Washington, DC, starting a new chapter. Time to blog again.

The summer after I graduated from K College, a random google search lead to me to the homepage of Georgetown University's Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Master's Degree program. I fell in love almost immediately - it seemed to perfectly combine my interests in holistic approaches to health and healing with my academic background in Science. I had always told myself I wanted to work for at least two years before going back to school, and I still had a couple of requirements to fulfill before I could apply to the program, so I started working downtown at the Women's Hospital, snuck in a few courses at Wayne State University, and took the GRE. Two years later, here I am, about to start my first class at Georgetown University tomorrow morning.

But what is CAM and why would anyone want a degree in it? CAM is exactly what it sounds like - nonconventional methods for dealing with disease that are either used alongside or in place of conventional medicine. Examples include acupuncture, massage, herbs and supplements, and mind-body interactions.

For those interested, the mission of our program is as follows:

"The intense consumer-driven interest in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), and the increasing clinical integration of various CAM modalities, has led to the demand for well-informed and properly trained health care providers and scientists.

The goal of the innovative Complementary and Alternative Medicine Master of Science degree (CAM-MS) in Physiology is to provide advanced study in the science and philosophy of predominant CAM therapies and disciplines. This program offers an academically rigorous graduate education in CAM anchored in state-of-the-art biomedical science. Our objective is to educate open-minded health care providers and scientists eager to explore the state of the evidence in this field with objectivity and rigor. Graduates receive an M.S. degree in Physiology."

So where does my interest in CAM stem from? I have my own personal experiences with CAM, but at large, it is a rapidly expanding field that is becoming increasingly important as people continue to desire something more from their healthcare. The medical field must adapt to the evolving needs of its patients, and in my opinion, the integration of CAM modalities and mainstream medical practices are the future of medicine. It is therefore our responsibility as scientists to critically evaluate the safety and efficacy of CAM practices and to start implementing them alongside conventional medical practices to improve the overall physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health of the patient. Rigorous scientific research is absolutely necessary in order for CAM to gain support amongst the medical community and public alike.

What do I hope to do with this degree? My intent in completing this program is to give me a unique set of skills that will serve me in pursuing a research career in a CAM related field. Whether I do that as an MD, PhD, or both is TBD. Let's see how I do in this program ;)

The purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with friends and family while I'm away, as well as to share my new knowledge and hopefully spark interest in an exciting new field. Oh, and don't worry, there will be plenty of my random little anecdotes along the way. Thanks for tuning in. Feel free to post questions or comments. I'll try to update this blog at least once a week.

V

Mmm, blood.

2009-03-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

My job is so twisted.

I went to work today, and within my first 5 minutes of being there, I was asked to give up my non-pregnant female blood for one of my boss's studies. This is the second time in two months that I've been asked to give blood for one of her studies. Here's the thing; I hate giving blood. I have been so traumatized time and time again by nurses picking, poking and prodding at my skinny, little, deep veins that I hate, no, loathe, giving blood. I appreciate the Red Cross, but I cringe at and avoid every blood drive that crops up in my life. But when your boss asks you to give blood for one of her studies, what do you do? Suck it up.

Last time, I told her I had deep and difficult veins, so she refused to do it herself. We went to the clinic on the same floor of our hospital where a very nice nurse distracted me long enough to draw two vials. No biggy. She found blood and I hardly even noticed. She handed me the vials and sent me back to my lab. I walked back through the corridors of the hospital carrying two warm vials of my very own fresh blood. Twisted.

Today, one of our new Korean fellows volunteered to draw my blood. He's a doctor. I watched him draw three vials from one of my female coworkers. Three vials?! Two was pushing it. How was I ever going to give three vials without passing out??? I explained to him that I have deep veins, blah blah blah. I then sat there as he fumbled around feeling my arm up until he found what he thought might have been a vein. I then proceeded to watch him drive a needle deeper and deeper into my arm until I was convinced it was going to pop out the other side. No blood. Not even a drop. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he pulled the needle out and apologized. He was embarrassed, "I used to be an expert."

A funny thing happened. 10 whole minutes later, not 1 minute, not 2 minutes, I thought I was going to pass out. I didn't even lose a drop of blood, but that whole scenario was enough to induce a physiological effect on me 10 minutes after the fact. Why? I'm not afraid of needles, necessarily. I have no problem getting a vaccine, and the actual poking part of having my blood drawn doesn't normally affect me. But for some reason, watching him drive the needle in really freaked me out. And I want to be a doctor, ha!

We're supposed to try again tomorrow. I think I'll pass. Maybe next week we can go back to the clinic and have the nice nurse distract me again. Doctors aren't such hot shots after all.

Twisted.

Hidden Talents You Never Knew You Had

2009-03-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered a new talent of mine.

I spent a few nights last week teenagersitting for a family friend. It was kind of an emergency situation, which meant that I threw enough random articles of clothing in a bag to get me by for a few days. I realized that I didn't pack any socks, which is a common mistake of mine, and given that it was near 40 degrees F, I really felt that I wouldn't be comfortable working on my feet all day long without a foot to shoe barrier. This being the situation, I decided to stop by the drugstore on my way to work to pick up a cheapo pair of socks. Roadwork on the street outside my place of employment was causing me to be even more late for work, so I decided to save time by attempting to put on my socks while driving - a stupid idea, really, since driving involves careful control of your feet. I expertly managed to put on a pair of knee-high socks from underneath the steering-wheel while switching feet to manage the gas/break pedals. I was impressed. All day long, however, I felt an odd pinching pressure on my right ankle, almost as if my sock was falling down. The pinch faded in and out of my awareness throughout the course of my day, but it was never uncomfortable enough to actually take a look at my leg to see what was going on. Later that night, as I was undressing, I found a hair-tie on my ankle, underneath my sock. What? I was so confused, I almost started to panic. How was this possible? I then realized that everyday, without even thinking about it anymore, I wear a hair-tie around my wrist in case I desire to pull my hair back during the day. I've done it for so many years that I don't even think about it anymore. I just always have one on me. Somehow, without even noticing it, I managed to displace my hair-tie from my wrist to my ankle while struggling to put my socks on underneath the steering-wheel that morning. That, my friends, is pure talent. I was impressed, aren't you??

Eww.

2009-02-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, I work as a research assistant in a pathology lab in a women's hospital. What does that mean? Well, it means a variety of hellish things. On a good day, it means that I do experiments to see what's happening on a genetic level to cause preterm labor pregnancies. I like this part of my job. I get to use my brain and do mildly important things. On a bad day, it means working in what is called the "minilab" (which really isn't so mini, so I don't get it), which means that I collect biological specimens and prepare them for other people's experiments. Plainly put, I sort and aliquot the blood, pee and vaginal fluids of pregnant women (eww). Without the samples, there are no experiments, so even though my boss forces me to work in the minilab 2 days a week, I feel indebted to the minilab because without the samples, there would be no experiments. Yesterday was my day to help out and it sucked royally because 2 guys were out, leaving me and one other person to do the work of really, about 5 people, because we are understaffed as it is (hence me helping out 2 days a week). SUCKED. It sucked so much that I was actually dreaming about it all night long. SOooo many vials of blood and urine in my dreams last night, which I think is just terribly wrong. So wrong, that it makes a girl drink wine and eat chocolate for dinner. Ugh.

Rosemary Biscuit Topping

2009-02-20T21:10:00.000-08:00

Says one Topping to another, reading from Bon Appetit:

Littlest Topping (Me): Ooh, Mom! Listen to this recipe - sounds delish! Roasted Root Vegetable and Mushroom Pie with Rosemary Biscuit...Topping.

Mumma Topping: Rosemary Biscuit Topping? Well hell, that sounds like one of us!!!

I don't normally find Topping jokes funny. Growing up, I heard them all. Pizza places have hung up the phone on me because they think I'm kidding around when I tell them my last name is Topping. For some reason though, the thought of having a relative named Rosemary Biscuit Topping was just too much to handle.

I'm going to name my child Biscuit.

Once, there was a stranger in a restaurant that drew a picture of me...

2009-01-09T19:22:00.000-08:00

A couple of coworkers and I went to lunch today at the 'Olympic Grill', a little place on Warren in Detroit. Just as we were finishing lunch, a man who had been sitting at a table approached our table and handed me this:

This, my friends, if you could not tell, is a picture of me. Please note the Detroit city skyline in the background.

First, let me start by showing you what I actually looked like today:

This is me, 6 days into a flu bug of which I cannot seem to rid myself.

I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time.

Now if you ask me, the artiste must have started with the shirt's neckline, which seems to be the only accurate part of the portrait. I think he got a little carried away while concentrating so hard on my neckline that he decided I would look better as a double-D vixen than as a plain Jane with no cleavage, glasses, and the flu.

What do you think? The likeness is uncanny, isn't it?

Hahaha.

But more importantly, um, random?? He also drew my buddy Chris, who has actually had his picture drawn by this same guy before at another restaurant Downtown.

He didn't even charge us money, although he did ask for a donation, which we did supply. I mean, come on, how could you not? That picture made my day. The beggars around here are getting smarter. Now, if the beggar who hangs out around the McDonald's drive-thru starts drawing portraits of people in their cars, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Oh, Detroit.

Snow Day from Hell

2008-12-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

I've always loved the anticipation of a big snow storm. Maybe its a Midwest thing, but Snow never fails to get people talking. And everyone is always their own weatherman.

As a kid, you went to bed praying, "Dear God, if you're really out there, prove it to me and please, please, PLEASE let's have a snow day." Even in high school, it was, "Alright God, look, I really can't take that Calc test tomorrow. We HAVE to have a snow day. That's just the way its going to be." And then you couldn't sleep at night, because you would lie awake thinking about all the things you were going to do if school actually did get canceled.

Even though snow days don't often exist in the working world, I still went to bed last night with that same anticipation ; I couldn't wait to get up this morning and throw open the blinds to see the snow that had fallen while I had been dreaming. At day's end, I wish that today itself had been a dream. Instead of waking up and venturing out into a wintry apocalypse, busting my ass to get to work in one piece, I wish that I had woken up in a winter wonderland of sledding and snow forts, hot cocoa, candy canes and santa's elves themselves.

My day started at 7 am when the snow/ice blowing into my window woke me up. I got up, threw open the blinds and muttered something like, "holy *$*#ing snow". Wintry apocalypse it was. Not used to being up so early, I scrubbed the kitchen sink, stove, toilet, and shower, because, I mean, what else does one do so early in the morning. After getting ready for work, I stood in front of my window for a long time, watching car after car get stuck trying to leave the parking lot. They had shovels.

It was finally my turn to go. I made a game plan in my head. "Ok, if I just throw it in reverse and gun it, I should be able to blast over that hump and at least get out of my spot. I'll worry about the rest after I get that far." I bundled up and headed downstairs. God, was it shitty out there! I managed to blast out of my spot, as planned. I never really made it much farther than that. My car got stuck almost immediately. Since I had no shovel, I got out of my car to kick some snow around. I then proceded to do that about 8 more times, as I made a royal mess out of the parking lot. I couldn't get my car to do anything. I finally (by some act of God) made it back to a parking space and decided to call it quits. I was going to have to walk.

I went back upstairs and pulled out my winter armor. Longjohns over tights and under another pair of pants, wool socks on top of that, a thick sweater, boots (with the fur), hair tucked into my hat, scarf wrapped around my face, and a big, puffy feather coat. I looked ridiculous. I trudged all the way to work, and about 3/4 of the way there, I realized I forgot my badge that swipes me in to everywhere I need to go in the hospital. Rarrr! Screw that! I wasn't going back. I would get a visitor's pass and use my key to get around. As I approached the hospital, I took my hat off, thinking it might help my goofy appearance somewhat. I walked up to the security desk to get my pass. The woman looked at me like I was nucking futs. I told her my story and she said "Ok, but when you get upstairs, you might wanna check yourself..." Huh? "You got mascara running all over your face." Great. I get upstairs, only to realize I came up the back way to the door without a keylock, so I couldn't use my key to get in. I had to bang on the door until my coworker let me in. He started in on me and my ridiculous appearance almost immediately. I ran to the bathroom to "check myself" only to find that I had mascara all over my upper and lower eyelids, running along my cheek bones and down to my MOUTH. HOT. On top of that, I was soaked through with sweat from my treck.

Once I finally got settled, the day proceeded fairly normally. I worked all day on a boring project that I couldn't put off any longer. I told my boss I was going to leave as soon as the sun started to set because I didn't want to walk home in the dark. He understood. About 15 mins before I was planning on leaving, my work computer just randomly decided to restart itself. I hadn't saved anything that I had been working on all day because I thought the autosave function was working. WRONG. As the icing on my shitty little cake of a day, I lost everything that I had worked on all day, making my day at work an absolute 100% a waste of my time. YAY!!! It pains me to think about it. To top it off, nobody even offered me a ride home!

TODAY=WORTHLESS!

Long gone are the snow days of yore. I'm going to go buy a snow shovel tomorrow. That's that.

Polish change

2008-12-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

The other day, a coworker walked into my office to ask if I knew what a Polish change was.

Her salon was offering free Polish changes for the holidays. I was clueless. A Polish change? Was it kind of like a sex change, only for people that really wanted to be Polish? Or on the contrary, was it for Polish people who no longer wanted to be Polish? What does this have to do with a salon?

Having not the slightest idea, we turned to the internet. I googled "polish change" and a video popped up of a woman with those long, gnarly, coiling nails like the ones in the Guinness Book of World Records. A manicurist was taking the lime green color off of the woman's nails with a cotton swab. Still confused, I said to my coworker, "maybe its just when they change your nail color? What's so Polish about that?"

"Oh my God," she said. "Not Polish change, its polish change."

Maybe it was because we had JUST been talking about Hamtramck and Polish food. Or maybe we're just really dumb. OR, maybe it was because the English language is so confused.

Bass and bass, bow and bow, dove and dove, Polish and polish... completely unrelated words with the exact same spelling. Never would I ever want to learn English as a second language.

ElfYourself

2008-12-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I paid money for this, but it in the end, it was so worth it...

I wish some fancy script would appear in the last shot that read :

"Merry Christmas, from My Assholes to Yours."

You can make your own here for free, but be prepared to shell out $5 to keep it.

Red people are people too

2008-12-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

FYI, world:

I
am
a
red
person.

I am not white.

I am not black.

I am not yellow.

I am not gray.

I am not green.

I am not blue.

I am not even

a ginger.

I
am
R-E-D

When I'm angry, I turn red.
When I'm happy, I turn red.
When I laugh, I turn red.
When I cry, I turn blotchy and red.
When I'm uncomfortable, I turn red.
When I'm scared, I turn red.
When I'm sleepy, I turn red.
When I'm hot, I turn red.
When I'm cold, I turn red.
When I drink, I turn red.
When I cough, I turn red.
When I'm flattered, I turn red.
When I'm embarrassed, I turn red.
When I'm flustered, I turn red.
When I'm offended, I turn red.
When I fart, I turn red.
When I talk, I turn red.
When I breathe, I turn red.

I am not blushing, I am a red person.

Do not flatter yourself.

Meme!

2008-11-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

I've been meme'd? I don't know what it means either, but I was meme'd yesterday by my brother on his blog, and I've got nothing better to do, so here we are.

List seven random and/or weird facts about myself:

(1) I grind up human tissues, play with dry ice and liquid nitrogen and shoot lasers all day at work! Yay Science!

(2) My name means "butterfly" in Latin and is thus a genus name for a bunch of flutterby species.

(3) Ich will deutsch sprechen: I [really, really, really] want to speak German. Ridiculous.

(4) I've been to 10 countries outside of the US.

(5) I cried every time I saw Littlefoot's mom die in Land Before Time. I just YouTubed it right now for old time's sake and came very close to shedding one tear.

(6) I am not a fan of the man who hangs around outside of my apartment building at night wearing a ski mask.

(7) At age 6, I was certain my Daddy was going to grow up to be President of the United States.

There you have it! 7 useless facts about me! Now it's time for bed :)

Goodnight!

Effington

2008-10-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

This is why I like Ben Folds:

If there's a god,
he's laughing at us
And our football team.

Effington could be a wonderful f'ing place
I can see it from the highway
And I'm wondering
Are they f'ing in their yards
f'ing in their cars
f'ing in the trailers and the backroads and the parking lots of Effington
Making my way to Normal, Illinois.

Maybe I should ditch this little white rental on the interstate
And start a new f'ing life...in effington
I could change my name, grow a beard, start a family
Or I could just keep moving on, moving on, moving on, moving on
Not stop 'til I get to Normal.

I want to live in Effington
I want to die there too.
Please bury me in Effington
In Effington
In Effington
Oh

Birthday!

2008-09-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday, and while 22 is not supposed to be exciting, I have to say I think this was the best birthday I've had in a good long while. I spent the day exploring the Eastern Market with a couple of girlfriends and I'm pretty sure we could not have had more of a blast. What an exciting place to entertain the senses. My favorite purchase was a bottle of pure Michigan maple syrup. I spent some solid time talking to the vendor about his syrups and the grading system they use to differentiate them, or the color/darkness of the syrup, which is based on what time of year the syrup was collected and how long it sat before being bottled up. The man knows his syrup, that is for sure! The man in the wine shop knew one of the friends I was with and gave me a free mini bottle of champagne for my birthday! The guy in the liquor shop also gave me a free shot of vodka, haha. We toured the produce stands and the meat markets, got an "Old World Sandwich", went into several shops and made a few friends along the way. Afterwards, we went back to my apartment and were joined by more friends for a night of games, drinks, and eats. This morning, I made chocolate chip pancakes and smoky links for b'fast and then my friends and I walked 2 blocks up to the public library to hear Obama speak! Totally didn't know he was going to be in town for my birthday - he should have called. I got badly sunburned, but I have to say I'm ok with that. Afterwards, I returned to my apartment to meet up with my fam and we went out for a fantastic dinner just a few blocks down the street in the other direction, after which Dad drove us around to help me get my bearings in the city. I have to say, not only was it a fantastic birthday weekend, I am really starting to like living in the city. There are so many things I look forward to doing!

Walls

2008-09-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

The shower is my favorite place to think.

Problems at work, problems at school, problems with relationships, everything, spiraling down the drain.

Bosses, coworkers, classmates, friends and foes, washing away.

Tissue samples, chemical reagents, protocols, microcentrifuge tubes, excel spreadsheets, cycloalkanes, alkyl halides, text books, dollars, bill payments splashing down from my head, dripping through my hair, running down my arms, chest, stomach, legs, feet, rushing toward the drain.

She has to know she could do so much better than him. What does she see in him anyway. I hope she gets her life together. Why didn't he call? Why hasn't he answered me back? I wonder if I'll ever see him again. What am I going to do next year? When are applications due? Do I even qualify for that program? When did these decisions get so hard to make? I miss my friends. I wonder if my check went through. When will I get paid again? Did I pay the electric bill yet this month? I can't wait to see my friends again. What will I do for my birthday? Why haven't I heard from him? What am I going to make for dinner tomorrow? I need to start studying for that exam.

Each thought, each stressor, each worry, clinging to my body for dear life until each soap molecule comes along and carries them away, coaxing them down, one by one, soap and stressor hand in hand, sucked down the drain, off to the water treatment plant where my thoughts, my stressors, and my worries will all be purified and my made anew.

A Baptism. A purifying experience. Purification of thought and character. Cleansing. Pure.

A sigh of relief. I can do another day. I turn the water off, throw back the curtain and grab my towel from the rack. Dry the face first, then the hair, arms, stomach, legs, feet, back. Step out of the tub. Flip my hair over and twist the towel into a turban. Feeling good.

A familiar sound. The squeaking and splashing of a body lifting itself up out of the tub. I hear the drain open from the other side of the wall from exactly where I had just unloaded my stress. I hear the water rush down from the 5th floor, deep down into the earth, carrying with it someone elses' thoughts, stressors and worries. My stressors and my neighbor's s stressors intertwine as they pool together in the belly of the city along with those of the 952,000 other residents of Detroit. This is huge.

When I go to sleep tonight, I won't be able to help but wonder if my neighbor lays his head on the other side of the wall from where I lay mine, and whether or not our hopes, our dreams, our inspirations and aspirations will meet on some otherworldly plane tonight as our tired, aching bodies rest, lying head to head with only a wall between us.

2008-09-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

I feel like blogging again.

Suzy and Nessa's Big Adventure

2007-10-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday night was so very interesting. I saw and heard a lot of things I've never seen or heard before - some of which were completely awe-inspiring and others of which I don't care to ever see or hear again. I guess I should start at the beginning.

Friday, I came into possession of 2 tickets to see Andrew Bird in concert on Saturday at the State Theater in Kalamazoo. Cool! I'm a big fan. Well actually, it might be more appropriate to say I'm a big appreciator, meaning I have a few albums that I listen to from time to time, but I couldn't tell you the names of songs, albums, or even what the lyrics are. All I know is Andrew makes it cool to play the violin. I decided to take my friend Suzy with me because she introduced me to his music Sophomore year I think.

We set out to what actually was a Bright Eyes concert for which Andrew was opening. We were really only going to see Andrew, so it didn't really matter to us that it was indeed a Bright Eyes concert. We approached the theater and made our way through the throbs of sulky Emo college kids inside, where we made a move for the bar. Never missing an opportunity to try another locally brewed beer, we payed 8 bucks for a large plastic cup of beer and headed to our seats in the theater, which by the way, is beautiful. Who knew this little gem existed in Kalamazoo? The interior was decorated to look like the facade of a Spanish style building, with stuccoed walls and red tile roof, niches with statues of various saints, and a ceiling painted midnight blue that had been lit up with constellations. Beautiful! Our seats were glorious. All was shaping up to be a great concert.

Andrew was amazing. He played a one man show with his violin, guitar, xylephone, whistle and voice. He surrounded himself in a circle with foot pedals that would repeat what he was playing at the time, so he'd start a song by plucking out a line on the violin, hit a foot pedal, which would keep that line repeating, then play another line, hit another foot pedal, which would keep that line repeating, then put his violin down, flip his guitar around to the front, play a line, hit a pedal, toss his guitar around to the back, pick up his violin, play a line, hit a pedal, whistle, hit a pedal, and sing, until he had like 20 different things happening at once. It was amazing. I was so impressed. Having finished our beers on empty stomaches by the end of Andrew's set, we decided it was best not to stay for Bright Eyes and thus we left the theater in search of food and Andrew Bird. He had to be staying in the nicest hotel in town, so we headed to the Radisson. Though we never did find him that night, we saw enough interesting things to make up for it. We went to Zazio's, a really nice restaurant (just in case he decided he needed a drink at the hotel bar before bed), got some drinks and split a pizza. Suzy and I bonded over many a philosophical conversation, good martinis, good pizza and good bread (even if my forehead did somehow have a run in with the angular breadbasket in a fit of laughter, which left a bruise on my head).

On our way out, we decided to pop into the hotel lobby restroom. I saw something I never want to see again. Keep in mind, this is a nice hotel. We walked in, and standing near the sinks were two girls, about our age. The one had her back to us, but we could see she had her shirt pulled up, exposing some major stretch marks. This was a little weird on its own, but it wasn't until I came out of the bathroom stall until I realized what was really going on. The girl with her shirt up had two little bottles dangling from her breasts, which were quickly filling with breast milk. This girl was pumping her breast milk in the middle of the bathroom of the Radisson. What the HELL? SO strange. So, we went around to the other side and we overheared a conversation between two ladies in their 40's. The one woman says: I mean, I just feel like I can't leave him because of the kids... Ummmm...WHAT? Where are we? We left the bathroom and Suzy said she didn't see the woman with the breast pumps, so I made her go back in. So WEIRD.

Suzy and I then hitched a ride with her roommate to a party that a friend was having. What another strange experience. Freshman year, we waited to catch word of a party and then we'd all show up in hordes to the home of some Seniors who we didn't know, and who we were sure hadn't a clue who we were. Now, my friends are the ones having the parties, and I'm the one walking around yelling at people to close the doors after themselves, turning off the gas stove after some kid knocks into it, turning it on by accident, and closing the kitchen cupboard doors, trying to protect my friend's food. Life's a funny thing.

Much fun was had, and all in all, a really great night. Thanks for sharing in my adventure, and please, don't pump your breast milk in public restrooms. Oh, and check out Andrew Bird. He's amazing.

I have some jobs.

2007-10-12T14:46:00.002-07:00

My room looks as though a tornado ripped through it. You can tell its Friday. Not only should I be cleaning my room, I should do my laundry, go grocery shopping, take a shower, do some work, pay some bills...all that stuff I've been meaning to do all week but just haven't gotten to yet. I just can't do it. Not yet. I need to decompress. Today I was on campus from 8:30 to 5:00, and none of that time was spent doing work in the library, like I wish it had been. What was I doing with my time then, you may ask? Well, let's see. 4 and a half hours were spent in class, one of which included an exam (already!), and the other 4 hours were spent with a violin in hand. 4 hours with a violin in hand? I know! Well, I have a new job. Well actually, two new jobs, only one of which requires the violin. I didn't go looking for this job by any means. The job came to me and I accepted reluctantly, but only because I have a violin and there is money involved. My orchestra conductor conducts a conducting class for an hour and a half three times a week and he needed individuals to play in a "laboratory orchestra" that his students could conduct. How could I pass up being in a "laboratory orchestra"? Sounds like we're going to be doing fun and sciency things. So basically, I get paid to go to a class I don't get credit for and play the violin. Its really really interesting. These kids have never conducted before so when they approach the podium they look like they're going to vomit or die, or vomit and then die. It's really kind of cute, if you can imagine. They're fun. They have no idea what they're doing. I'm learning so much though - there is a lot more that goes into conducting than you would ever imagine, and this is coming from a musician of 15 yrs! The downside to my job is that I have to practice all the music, and that eats up a lot of my time. Then, because my orchestra conductor is a rather unpleasant fellow, I have to play in a chamber ensemble to fulfill a requirement of our orchestra class (a class I'm actually enrolled in as a student), but my job doesn't count as the chamber music portion. So, that's an extra hour a week of violining, plus practice time. Now you can see why I spent 4 hrs today with a violin in my hand. That ensemble met today too. There are 7 of us, and I'm the only senior, so everyone is looking to me for direction. Too bad they don't know yet that I'm the laziest violin player ever and will be practically of no use to them. I hate responsibility.

My other job is fun too. I tutor an older woman in French. A senior French Major tutored her last year, and another the year before that, so this is my lucky year. She's pretty much precious. She told me she's been struggling with the language for 30 yrs. All of that time she was teaching herself out of various text books, and while she can read and write decently, she's not so good on the speaking end of things. She is a piano teacher and has a few beginner books in French, so I told her I play a little piano and that next week I want her to conduct a lesson in French with me as her student. I'm looking forward to that. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that next week.

So, those are my jobs. I'm keeping busy, that's for sure. I'm kinda ready for a break already. Good thing its the weekend.

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands (or don't)

2007-10-09T20:02:00.001-07:00

Hi Nat.

I know you're the only one that may or may not be reading this thing anymore, so just in case you do happen to check my blog, I just wanted to say hi. I'd like to know more about this bet you placed having to do with McDonalds joints in France. Today Sarah and I turned on Paul Simon's 'You can call me Al' in the apartment and we 'kindergarten danced'. 'Kindergarten dancing' is a very accomplished art form popular amongst the younger crowds, generally ages 3-4. It requires a certain lightness of foot accompanied by a high level of physical and emotional inhibition, freeing the limbs of the body to move as they wish. Naturally, I thought of you. I even borrowed a few of your better moves, including the 'I'm gonna fake you out and make you think I'm gonna play the air flute', as well as the 'ooom, ooom dip'. Oh, and I like you.

Suppose someone else is reading this. Life is good, life is busy. Its interesting to go away for a summer, get a real job, and come back to school for 9 final months and realize how detached college is from the real world. To be perfectly honest, I think I prefer the real world. Maybe its just that whole getting ready to move on thing. I sit in the library, holed up in a corner listening to Mozart on my iPod (hoping desperately and in vain that Mozart will make me smarter) slaving away on my thesis and I hear Freshmen giggling over cute boys in their 1st year writing seminars (never mind the fact that their prof told me their first writing assignments were so horrible that not a one would have merited a C so she threw them all out). There was a day that I went to the library to discuss my classmates with my friends, but let me tell you, that day has long since passed. I didn't go to a K-party on Saturday. I baked cookies at home and watched a pollination video by David Attenborough. I'm becoming lame. Although, I did drink with my Bio profs on Friday. We killed a keg. We also made references to DNA polymerase while playing card games. LAME.

Ah well, these are the best days of our lives, are they not? I'll miss them when they're gone. I hate transitions.

I'm back!

2007-09-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

You know, I thought I would just stop blogging after I got back from Europe because I mean, hell, I'm not in France anymore, what could I possibly have to write about that would be as cool as any of the stuff I did over there? As it turns out, one year later (can you believe that?) I actually do a lot of pretty cool stuff and I still have a lot to say.

I should also mention that my brother's fabulously funny blog has inspired me to start posting again (insert plug for brother's blog here ). He's a nutcase, but as long as I have to log into this ol' blog account to comment on his posts, I might as well babble a little in here too.

So where do I start? A lot has happened since I last posted in February. I came home, got my wisdom teeth yanked out of my face (I only had two! I'm evolved!), went back to school for a 10 week long party, then came home for the summer, where I still am today. This summer has been a big nothing. My grandma died the day I moved home from school, my uncle had a tumor removed from his brain and was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer, my grandpa died a month ago, and in the past three weeks, my only remaining grandparent, my grandma, has gone into the hospital out to a nursing home back to the hospital out to the nursing home too many times to count. It's enough to lose one of them. Why I have to lose them all in one summer I'll never know.

Well, despite all the grief, I did manage to land an awesome summer job. I worked as a research assistant at the Perinatology Research Branch, NICHD located in Hutzel Women's Hospital in the Detroit Medical Center. I had an amazing, amazing experience. All summer long, I researched the immune responses in placentas and fetal membranes of normal and pathological pregnancies. Pretty dang cool. I liked it so much that I'm now thinking of going to med school and becoming a pathologist. I'm so grateful for this experience. Of course, I ruled med school out my freshman year of college, so I have not taken the 2 semesters of organic chemistry and 2 semesters of physics that most med schools require. I've not even thought about taking the MCAT nor researched any med schools that I might like to attend. This constitutes a bit of a problem, but fear not. I'll most likely take the year after graduation to work (hopefully in the same lab) and take those couple of classes to catch up. I guess my plans of fleeing to Europe after graduation to teach English to the French for a year will have to be put on hold. Maybe a good retirement activity? So that's that. Pretty cool, huh?

Now I'm finishing up my manuscript that I have to write to get credit for this internship (my boss says it's most likely publishable...watch out Nat, I might be a published author before you!) before going back to school next weekend. Classes start the 24th and my 21st birthday just happens to be the 27th. You know what that means! As you can see, there's a lot going on right now. I'll try to update this thing every now and then to keep you posted, oh whoever may be reading this. Take care and a bientot!

Vanessa

Home Sweet Home

2007-02-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

Hello out there!

Well, I've not been so good about updating this thing during the past couple of weeks. I've been home (as in Clarkston, MI) for over a week now and I still can hardly believe it! My program wrapped up in the end of January - I had exams and papers galore, plus 5 and a half months of my life to pack up into two suitcases! Fortunately for me, it all got finished (well, mostly) before heading off on 3 weeks of European travel. I cried and all that stuff while saying goodbye to my host family, to my friends I'd made, and to Clermont-Ferrand itself.

A couple days after my program ended, I flew to Florence to meet up with my family, who just happened to be vacationing in Italy...coincidence? I think not. It has always been a dream of my mom's to see Tuscany, so they planned a trip that coincided with the end of my program. I stayed with them for a few days in an apartment next to the Duomo...like literally, in the apartment building directly next to the Duomo. We rented a car and drove all over Tuscany, including a stop in Assisi. We had many an adventure with our GPS friend whom my mother nicknamed "Wilma" and whom my father so lovingly nicknamed "that little bitch", among other things which are not suitable for my blog. It was so great to see them. No, seriously! The hugs and kisses came at a much needed time!

After a few days with the fam, I took an overnight train to Interlaken, Switzerland, where I met up with my friend Sarah. Interlaken is amazing! The mountains and the lakes are so beautiful. Sarah and I decided to go to the top of the Schilthorn, a nice sized peak at 9,744ft. Halfway up, we got off of the gondola and took a trail along a ridge which provided an amazing panoramic view of the Jungfrau (13,642ft and the tallest peak in Europe), Monch, and Eiger. We then continued up and found ourselves suddenly on top of Europe! We could see Lyon, Paris, and London, which was pretty sweet. We then got an ice cream sundae and a chai latte in the rotating restaurant up on the summit, which happens to be a filming spot for one of the James Bond films! Before leaving Interlaken, we had cheese fondu and some very delicious Swiss chocolate. We then took the train to Basel, where we caught our plane later that night to Istanbul.

In Istanbul, we were greeted by our friend from K, Levent, who is studying abroad in Turkey. We stayed for 4 days or so with him and his grandma in her apartment. We had a great time! We saw the Ayasofya as well as the Blue Mosque, the cisterne, the Grand Bazaar, the Topkapi and Dolmabahce palaces (talk about extravagence!), as well as sipped turkish coffee and played backgammon on the Bosphorous. Istanbul was amazing - unlike anything I've ever seen! I think one of the highlights was the call to prayer - different prayers would sound from towers of mosques all over the city at the same time. So cool. Istanbul was a great cultural experience, and the food was delicious!! Plus, Levent's grandma is my new best friend.

From Istanbul, we flew to Berlin. We hadn't really planned on spending any real time in Berlin, we were more or less just passing through on our way to Prague. We did manage, however, to see the East Side Gallery - a chunk of the wall that still stands and was covered in murals in the 90s by artists all over the world. The original artists restored the paintings in 2000. It was really neat to see and I'm glad we made time for it.

Prague was fabulous. The architecture is so different! Pink, orange, and yellow stucco exteriors with fun rooflines and green steeples all over the place. We did a really neat tour of the Jewish section which has a horrendous history. We toured Prague castle, saw Franz Kafka's birthplace, saw some beautiful churches and ate some delicious goulash! The biggest highlight from Prague, other than meeting some French guys on the King Charles Bridge and talking to them in the rain for an hour and a half, was listening to Smetana's Moldau on my iPod while standing on the bank of the Moldau itslef. "Moldau" is the German name for the Vltava River, which runs through Prague. How cool to hear a piece of music that has always meant so much to me while standing on the bank of the river that it was written about. I never in a million years thought that would happen. Prague gets an A+.

Onto Vienna. Vienna was fabulous. We had decided to focus on the composers, and I'm glad we did! We visited the homes of Mozart and Beethoven, the Haus der Musik, which is a music museum, the Vienna opera house, as well as the cemetary where Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Strauss, and Schubert are all burried together. We payed homage by listening to some Beethoven on our iPods. Weird, I know, but you know what, those guys have put me through hell! We saw an opera at the Vienna opera house for 3.50 euro... which I still haven't decided whether or not it was a mistake. It was standing room only and we had a really smelly man in front of us and two teenaged Austrian boys behind us who were getting a little too close for comfort. Oh, and did I mention we were standing for 3 hrs??? The Opera was Manon Lescaut by Puccini - the music was fabulous but I wasn't feeling the storyline. Oh well, at least I can say I saw an opera in the Vienna opera house. While in Vienna, we ate some wienerschnitzel and some delicious desserts. We really got into the coffeehouse culture and found ourselves in deep conversation in several famous coffeehouses around town. Fun!

Budapest was our next stop. Buda and Pest couldn't be more different! Buda is hilly and Pest is completely flat. In Budapest, we saw more churches and synagogues, parliament (from the outside), Buda castle, fisherman's bastion (a really neat neighborhood in Buda Hills), the castle labrynth, and the central market. We did manage to reserve an afternoon at a famous spa where we enjoyed the thermal baths and got a massage. Haha, what an experience. Afterwards, we headed to the opera house where we took in a great orchestra concert. What a day that was. We spoiled ourselves! Oh, and the food was fabulous, if you like paprika, which I do!

Our last stop before home was Geneva. It was basically just a pit stop, but we managed to tour old town and see the lake, and all that good stuff. We then took the train home to Clermont, picking up our buddy Arnaud in Lyon. We stayed with Arnaud that night and then headed back to our host families the following day. I finished up packing and ran all my last minute errands and then headed home to the U.S. the next day! The morning of our departure, we were lucky enough to see the most beautiful sunrise ever from the plane window. What a gift that was.

So, I got into Detroit Metro at about 1:30 on feb. 17th WITHOUT MY LUGGAGE!! I didn't think it was possible! I arrived without my luggage on the way OVER, so I thought certainly I'd have it on the way back! WRONG! It's okay, it showed up a few days later. Anyway, I'm home now, and it's good to be here. I can't believe how fast time really does fly. What a great experience. It really was the experience of a lifetime! Too bad its over...now what!?

Well, now that the fun is over, I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow. Once I'm healed, I'll be heading over to Kalamazoo to find an apartment for Senior year. Back to business! Then, I'm gonna take a weekend and head over to Chicago to see my brother. I head back to K at the end of March for Spring Quarter.

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen! Thanks for joining me on my journey. I hope these postings have provided at least a little entertainment! Take care!

Vanessa

Somehow, and I'm not exactly sure how, I've reached the end.

2007-01-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

Well ladies and gentleman, this is it! Minus one massive paper still in progress, I'm finished. I can't even believe it. I leave tomorrow morning for 3 weeks of travel and fun. I'll write a really big update when I get back. For right now, I've gotta get on with it. Oy vey. Life.

Love you guys!!

Me

No more Pepiniere

2007-01-22T00:47:00.000-08:00

So, I am forever finished with my Pepiniere project. I just got done with the presentation and I am so, so happy. Now I just have two 10 page papers to write before Friday... Pshhhh.

Salut tout le monde!!

2007-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays everybody!

Well, today is January 9th, 2007. Can anyone believe that? I’ve been in France since September 1st. That’s 4 months. My program finishes on January 25th and I’ll be flying home on February 17th. My friend Sarah and I are going to travel for three weeks after our program ends. We’re in the process of getting that figured out. Anyway, that’s the plan. My classes are pretty much finishing up by now. My Marketing class is completely over - we took the final exam before winter break (the results of which I should find out soon). My other classes are more or less nonexistent. My European civ class continues with the other international kids. My French classes with M. Faure have pretty much fizzled out. We just have tests/papers/projects until the end. Project Pépinière continues, but more or less without me. My ICRP and violin lessons continue as well. That’s that.

I just got in yesterday from my winter break travels. Here’s an overview of what I’ve been up to. I promise not to do an in-depth report like I did for Italy.

Dec 21-25: These days were spent in Bonn, Germany with my K pal Suzy, who is studying at the Uni Bonn and has an apartment there. We spent a day in Cologne exploring the cathedral and the Christmas markets, which was much too fun. Their Christmas markets are intense and put the one in Cl-Fd to shame. We putzed around Bonn as well, but mostly just lazed around watching Grey’s Anatomy and several movies. On Christmas Eve, we cooked up mom’s recipe for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding – a Topping family Christmas tradition. Against all odds, it turned out to be extremely delicious, and just what we needed. Christmas Day we made a huge breakfast for ourselves. The rest of the day was entirely spent cooking up a storm. Suzy invited a few of her friends who were homeless for the holiday and we fed them a feast. One must understand that Suz and I are not the most experienced in the kitchen. We took on a gigantic meal, however, including turkey with cranberry/apple/sausage stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, a goat cheese and pear salad, mashed potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls, and a gingerbread cake with orange glaze. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. All was made by scratch. I just have to say that I am extremely proud of us, because it all tasted delicious, even after smelling it in the kitchen all day. Suz and I joke that we cooked as an act of self preservation so that we wouldn’t dwell on the fact that we weren’t home with the fam. I was able to skype my family on Christmas though, which was really really nice. Actually, it was excellent. I really like those people.

Dec 25-30: Suz and I took a train to Munich, where I think the highlight was the bräuhäuses we ate at every night. For those who are fans of German beer, we visited/drank at/ate at Löwenbräu, Züm Dümbräu, Augustiner, and Paul something or other. We visited Häfbräuhäus but did not eat there because it was way too busy. I’m sure I’ve got my umlauts in all the wrong places. Anyway, I ate lots of delicious German food and drank lots of delicious German beer. We hopped on a train one of the days and visited Neuschwanstein, which is Mad King Ludwig II’s castle that he designed and dedicated to Richard Wagner and that Disney supposedly used as a model for its castle. We also took a daytrip to Dachau concentration camp. That was pretty difficult to see, but fortunately we had an excellent guide. I’m glad I did it.

Dec 30- Jan 1: Suz and I met up with Sarah and her family at the apartment they rented in Paris. The 31st was the Musée d’Orsay’s 20th birthday, and as a result, anyone age 20 got in for free. Well, it was Sar’s, Suz’s, and my lucky day! We spent a long time in there and then headed to the Rodin museum afterwards. We did New Years Eve on the Champs Elysées right below the Arc de Triomphe, where we lost Sarah’s brother Dave in the crowd. That was terrifying. Other than that, it was really cool to be there. We walked home along the Seine and watched the Eiffel Tower for a while. People flooded the streets for the occasion, and there were fireworks and corks flying all over the place. It was pretty neat.

Jan 1- Jan 4: The three of us took a train to Amboise, which is a town in the Loire Valley not far from Tours. We decided to spend a few days seeing some of the Châteaux de la Loire. We managed to see Chenonceaux (le chateaux des dames) and Clos Lucé (where da Vinci spent the last three years of his life), then moved onto a town called Blois, where we managed to see Chambord (an architectural marvel).

Jan 4 – Jan 7: We then headed to Dijon (Bourgogne), where we ate ourselves stupid for a few days straight. Don’t be fooled by that crap they sell in Farmer Jack called Dijon mustard. That stuff is nothing compared to the real stuff, which burns your mouth, makes you cry, and cleans out your sinuses. Other regional specialties included coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, and escargot. Food is not all that they do in Bourgogne. Bourgogne (or Burgundy) is a very important wine region, producing mostly pinot noirs and chardonnays. 20 minutes away from Dijon is Beaune, which is home to several wine caves. We visited the wine museum, and toured two caves (one of which was over 5 km long). Between both tours/degoustations, we tasted 13 wines and several other types of alcohols, including a couple crèmes de cassis. Oy vey. I learned so much, and then forgot most of it. I’m kidddding. I picked up a tastevin though, which is pretty cool. It’s a little silver cup that is traditionally used in Bourgogne for degoustations.

Whelp, that more or less sums up my two and a half weeks of travels over winter break! It was a lot of fun but my wallet it sure feeling a lot lighter these days! I hope I have enough to get me through until the end! Time to get serious and finish up so that I can get out of here! Hope all is well and I’m still missing everyone at home! Teuß

Hallo!

2006-12-23T04:24:00.001-08:00

Okay, this time Christmas really is coming, and I'm not at home with my family, but I am in Bonn, Germany with my K pal, Suzy. We're going to do Christmas here at her apartment in Bonn (we spent the afternoon/evening yesterday in Cologne), then head to Munich after Christmas to see Bavaria. We plan to make it to Paris by New Year's, which we will spend with Sarah and her family at the apartment they've rented. After that, we still have a week before class starts, so we'll probably go someplace else. We haven't figured that part out yet, but it'll get done soon. Anyway, I'll be sure to write about it when I get back. So that's what I'll be doing over the holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! I miss you much and I'll be seeing you VERY soon!!

Christmas is coming

2006-12-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming. I don’t know whether or not the goose is getting fat and I haven’t put a penny in the old man’s hat. Maybe I’ll do that on my way home today. I’ve got the perfect old man picked out. He stands right outside the door to my apartment all day everyday and has never once asked me for money. He only says hello and wishes me a good day. Clermont-Ferrand is really outdoing itself on the Christmas decorations. Over the course of the past two weeks, they’ve strung every street and square with lights, decorated a giant dilapidated tree, assembled a Christmas market composed of many tiny shanties, and constructed a giant Christmas Ferris Wheel in the center of the large square. The stores are packed, people are everywhere, and I actually ate chestnuts that were roasted on an open-fire. For the record, I didn’t like them very much. Christmas is coming.

My life lately hasn’t really been that exciting. I’ll try and recount only the good stuff. Three weekends ago, three friends and I took the train to Avignon so that we could sing and dance on the bridge. The train took 6 hours, which I was actually very happy about. The sights along the way were beautiful; the train followed the Rhone River all the way down. Avignon is adorable. We visited the pope’s palace, which was only mediocre after having explored the Vatican and St. Peter’s. My audio guide broke halfway through our visit, and the others I traveled with were having trouble concentrating while listening to their own, so Kelly and I started making up our own stories for each room, which were definitely a little livelier and sometimes scandalous in comparison. We shopped, ate the provincial specialties, and smelled the lovely lavender, which isn’t growing right now, but is everywhere in one form or another. The highlight for me was definitely the bridge. Ever since I was four and first learned the song with Madame Henderson in kindergarten, I’ve always thought about what it would be like to actually be “sur le pont d’Avignon” and dance, “toute en ronde”. We danced and sang the song – there are photos and videos to prove it. It was so satisfying.

In other news, my foot still hurts. I finally worked up the courage to go get an x-ray, where the doctor told me there was nothing wrong with my foot other than the fact that I have an extremely high arch and my ligaments are just tired. Thank you genetics. Now I have to get an insert made that is specially formed to my foot. Fun. Seeing as I’ve been trying to rest my foot, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting around watching TV. Unfortunately this has led to a very strong addiction to Grey’s Anatomy, which I’d never seen until recently. What an amazing show.

School is terrible – I don’t like that place, and I don’t care much for the people. Classes are boring and there’s not a lot of work to do. The work that we do have (Pépinière stuff) is absolutely unbearable. I’m trying to change my attitude but it’s so incredibly hard to do. According to “the W curve” in our Study Abroad Handbook, we’re in the “crisis phase” of our study abroad experience. I believe it. I’ve been in crisis for about a month now I’m finally trying to figure out how to get out. Watching TV and being depressed aren’t getting me very far. I’ve been trying to spend more time with my host family lately. I’ve also decided to start traveling more. Last weekend I went to Lyon to see the Festival of Lights with Sarah and Arnaud. It was a lot of fun – I’ll be sure to write about it later.

I’m definitely not the only one of the group feeling this way. In an effort to try and cheer ourselves up a little, the other K girls and I decided to take advantage of Lauren’s host family being gone two weekends ago (they told her she could have friends over) and have a little retreat. The six of us spent last Saturday afternoon baking sugar cookies and making tacos. We did the best we could without having baking soda, taco seasoning, or taco worthy cheese. Someone had the bright idea of using yeast in the cookies in place of baking soda. Didn’t exactly work, but we ate them nonetheless. The vegetarian convinced the meat eating grocery shoppers that they didn’t need to buy taco seasoning because it was too expensive. This resulted in me throwing together as many “taco-smelling spices” as I could. Surprisingly, I didn’t do a bad job. As for cheese, we used shredded Swiss cheese. Interesting, but not bad either. All in all it was a success.

Well, like I said before, nothing too exciting going on. I hope everything at home is going well. Okay, take care!

Vanessa

Well hello there!

2006-11-21T06:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose its time for another update.

I can’t believe how fast this is all going. I just realized it’s been two weeks already since I returned from Italy. How is that possible? These past two weeks have been crazy. The Thursday before last, my parents came into town for a few days, which was amazing. They are way too good to me. I don’t know what I did to deserve them, but I like it. We had four fabulous days together and I miss them a ton. I also have to admit that I’ve been in quite a funk since they left. It’ll pass. I’m too busy for it to not pass.

Class has been interesting; we’ve had quite a bit of it lately. Last Wednesday was Marketing day, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like dying just a little inside. I actually understood what was going on, contributed to group work and even initiated a little. I’m embarrassed to say that I may have enjoyed it just a little. I’ve been doing quite a bit with my Intercultural Research Project lately, helping middle schoolers/high schoolers with their English homework. That can be quite boring from time to time seeing as they don’t always have English work to do and I just sit there awkwardly while they work with other people on their math and history homework.

In other news, I mysteriously injured my foot last weekend and have been suffering from complications all week. My foot swelled to be twice its normal size, sandwiching together all of my toes and causing major sock indentations on my ankle. It was so big by the end of the week that I couldn’t even stuff it into a single shoe I have here, other than my hiking boots. As Kelly says, I’m rocking the “rustic-chic look” with my sweaters and clunky hiking boots. I’m too scared to go to a doctor, so I’m trying the good old ICE method… Ice, Compression and Elevation. As a result of ICE, I’m bored out of my mind. I’ve watched 4 movies in the last 24 hours and eaten more than my share of chocolate (literally; I ate some of Sarah’s and Kelly’s too).

Thursday was the unveiling of 2006’s Beaujolais nouveau, so M. and Mme. Faure invited us over to their apartment for a tasting. I’m not gonna lie: it’s pretty bad, which is the general consensus amongst French people. Despite the fact that nobody likes how it tastes, in recent years the Beaujolais nouveau has become a commercial holiday in France and everybody drinks the stuff anyway. M. Faure I think just wanted us to drink with him. He always does this to us because he thinks we speak so much better when we drink (which we do). It was a fun evening. I like the Faures.

Sometime last week I had an encounter that I think is worth sharing. Actually, I had two encounters which are worth sharing. The first one was slightly terrifying. Sarah and I were walking up towards the cathedral, doing some shopping when we ran across a group of 5-6 guys in their 40’s wearing leather jackets, cut-off shorts, tennis shoes, and ponytails with skull caps. To my surprise, I kind of accidentally only somewhat discretely blurted out in English (?? Where did I learn to write like that?) “Are those guys FRENCH?” to which they turned around and were like “HEY, are you girls AMERICAN?” Shit. Turns out they were two heavy metal bands from the U.S. touring Europe, making a pit stop in Cl-Fd for the bus drivers on their way from Spain to Germany. They said the names of their bands but I wasn’t listening because a) I didn’t care and I don’t like heavy metal so I wouldn’t have known anyway, and b) I was trying to figure out an escape route. At any rate, you could tell that they thought they were pretty important stuff. God they were so obnoxious. They were making such a scene and they wanted to keep talking when Sarah and I wanted nothing more than to run in the opposite direction, especially when they asked what we were doing that night. It was terrifying, and they were such idiots. “Yeah, this is my 15^th time touring Europe. Every European city is the same,” one of the guys said while we were standing in front of the cathedral. I so badly wanted to say to him “Oh yeah? And did you know this cathedral is black because it was built from volcanic rock? What an idiot.

My other incident worth mentioning happened on Thursday. I was in the middle of trying to print something out in a giant hurry before class when I heard the most special pick up line ever. I busted open the doors to the library and headed straight to the back of the room, where the printer is. On my way to the printer, I was caught off guard by a French student who had been sitting at a computer in the front of the room. He was turned around in his chair, looking at me as I charged by in a hurry. Suddenly, he grabbed his eyes and said slowly, in broken English, “My eyes hurt to see such beautiful girl.” What the hell?! I gave him a very confused look and when I finally got to the printer, what he had said finally registered and I burst out laughing. As far as lines go, that one is definitely up there. It was too hilarious. Once again, what an idiot.

That’s all for now! Love and miss you all!

PART IV: REFLECTION (Because I’m a Huge Nerd and I Can’t Help Myself)

2006-11-13T06:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry this turned into a full fledged report. I don’t even know how to function when I’m not in school. Anyway, what an amazing fieldtrip. I learned so much on so many different levels. Aside from the amazing things I saw and did over the course of the past week and a half that brought to life what I’ve spent years learning in school, I have to say that going to Italy really put my study abroad experience in France into perspective. It was so refreshing to experience another culture and realize “Oh. Not all Europeans are the same.” I’ve spent the past two months really getting to know French culture, and having not experienced much else other that and my own culture, I started to lump Europeans into one big category. For being so geographically close to one another, it’s fascinating to me that the French and Italian cultures could be so incredibly different and not alike at all. Many of the Italians that we came across were such a lively, rowdy bunch that yelled and laughed heartily and were very warm and friendly to everyone. Almost everyone we did any kind of business with greeted us with a huge and jolly “Bonjourno!!” I half expected them to hug us or give us a giant slap on the back. On the other hand, we also observed lots of stubbornness, yelling, arguing and machoism. Not to mention the creepy guys that stared at us a little too long. Italians are very open with their emotions – all emotions – whereas in comparison, the French are so reserved and concerned about their personal privacy. A lot of them also really need to remove the stick from their lower-halves… I should stop here, but I think you get the picture without me needing to go further. I adore my host family and I like my French friends I’ve made, but let’s just say that now that I’m “home” I’m looking at French people as a whole in a different light than I was before I went to Italy, and I don’t necessarily mean this in a bad way. The French are much better than making bread than the Italians. (I’m kidding, only not really…)

I also have to add that for as lost as I felt in Italy without being able to speak a word of the language except for the names of my favorite pasta dishes, I found such comfort in hearing French being spoken by other tourists around us. I never imagined in a million years that I would think that. I found it more comforting than hearing English – American English more specifically. I think I cringed every time I heard a loud, unattractive American voice stick out in a crowd. Why are we so loud? Why do we do and say dumb and ignorant things? I was in line to board my plane in front of the quintessential Ugly American Tourist Family that you always hear about. When it came time to board the plane, everyone made a mad dash to the gate, pushing and shoving their way to the front of the “line”. The concept of a formed line doesn’t really exist here, and that wasn’t good enough for the Ugly American Tourist Family. This is sadly how the scene unfolded, and I’m not exaggerating in the slightest:

“This is UNFAIR!” whined the twenty-something year old daughter. “How can they get away with that? We were there first!”
“I don’t know, but this would NEVER happen in AMERICA”, the father yelled, raising his voice above the crowd towards the end of his stupid sentence.
“I’m gonna go YELL AT SOMEBODY!” cried the daughter.
“Oh yeah, and who are you gonna yell at?”
“I don’t know, SOMEBODY” she whined. “This is UNFAIR!”
“This system doesn’t work. This is unacceptable” he restated.
“So what are we supposed to do? Just SHOVE ourselves up there like THEY did? I want to sit with you guys” she continued to whine.
“NO. WE DON’T DO THINGS LIKE THAT IN AMERICA.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt embarrassed to be American since leaving the States.
I had some interesting experiences with some British folk as well, but seeing as I’m not British, I should probably bite my tongue. I justify talking about Americans the way I do because a) I am one, and b) I’m lamenting for my people. I probably did some dumb and ignorant things myself, and I accept that, but at least I’m learning and I can see the difference.

Anyway, the gelato was amazing.

Well my friends, if you hung in there until the end, I thank you, and even if you didn’t I still thank you. Like I said, I don’t kid myself about being long-winded. Hey, at least you got to experience all of Italy’s finest for a lot cheaper than I did. If you ever get a chance to go, you’ll at least now know what to look out for. I wasn’t kidding about the gelato.

PART III: VENICE

2006-11-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

PART III: VENICE (Wednesday – Friday)

Venice was a breath of fresh air. After checking off a list of places to go and things to see in Rome and Florence, we arrived in Venice without an agenda, and it was fabulous. It was dark already when we arrived on Wednesday evening. The train basically dropped us off on the water and we had to find the correct water taxi (vaporetto) to get us to the island that our hostel was on. Our hostel was a pit. It was sick. I don’t even want to talk about it. Let’s just say it was motivation to get the hell out every morning and to stay out until curfew every night. We explored the main island a little bit that night and then headed straight to Murano the next morning, where we saw a few glass blowing demonstrations and bought a lot of glass. We returned to the main island and proceeded to get lost in the tiny streets and numerous canals of Venice. We didn’t buy a map in Venice. We just wanted to get lost. We shopped for a while that day; I bought a Venetian mask, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. We were propositioned for a gondola ride, but we denied it even though the gondolier brought the price down from 80 E to 60. Our pockets were already feeling a little too light. We saw San Marco briefly – the hordes of tourists were terrible. We then took an elevator to the top of the Campanile (San Marco’s bell tower), which is the location where Galileo tested the first telescope. The view was yet again astounding, and we made an American friend…an older woman from New York who was desperate to talk to someone. We received the condensed version of her life story from the time we got in line until we rode the elevator back down. She scolded us for learning French instead of Chinese, which I thought was hilarious at the time, but now that I’m back, I’m starting to think she was right. Other than being overly ignorant, loud, and offensive, she was pleasant.

The following day, Friday, we explored the Peggy Guggenheim museum. It was weird to end a week of Italian renaissance masterpieces with a bit of modern art, but hey, when in Venice… Her collection included pieces by Picasso, Pollock, Kandinsky, and Dalí. It was pretty different, but very educational, nonetheless. That night we hopped a plane to Paris, but as with all of our experiences with public transportation on this trip, it wasn’t without a mishap. To make a short but embarrassing story shorter, let’s just say we ended up at the wrong airport and had to pay yet another 60 E taxi ride to get to the proper airport before our flight took off. No worries. Someone here is a stickler for leaving way too much margin for error in her travel plans because she knows herself extremely well, therefore we still ended up being 90 minutes early for our flight. I am a Topping after all. We don’t travel without situations. We got into Paris late that night and headed back over to Kelly’s cousin’s apartment. The next day we wandered around a little, ending up at Montmartre on the steps of Sacre Coeur. We lazed around all of Sunday until catching our train back to Cl-Fd, and now I’m here, wondering what the hell I’m doing here.

PART II: FLORENCE

2006-11-07T11:25:00.001-08:00

PART II: FLORENCE (Sunday-Wednesday)

Sunday, we took a train from Rome to Florence, which was by far my favorite of the three cities we visited. We checked into our hotel immediately, which was surprisingly very agreeable. It was student run, which originally gave me pause, but the place was clean, breakfast was included, and it was in a good location. After dropping our bags, we ran to the Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David – the beauty that he is. Once again, textbooks just don’t do him justice. The Accademia is quite small, but included some other really beautiful works by Botticelli, Lippi, and Alloti as well. It also included a small instrument museum, which included a Stradivari violin and viola from the Medici Quintet. Dinner that night was amazing. We went to a place recommended to Sarah by her summer employers. Unfortunately, the meal cost us 50 euros each (ouch, and never again). Fortunately, our waiter, Antonio, was adorable. We spent three hours in the restaurant, and I’d be lying if we didn’t order dessert and then coffee just to stay a little longer. Antonio was very funny and enjoyed practicing his English (and charm) with us, even though he was a bit self-conscious about it. I think we were all blushing (even him). He was incredibly sad that we were leaving so soon and invited us back for drinks before we left, but our injured wallets (and better sense) prevented us from doing so.

The next day, we started off early at the Bargello museum, where we saw Donatello’s Davids, Giambologna’s Winged Mercury, and Brunelleschi and Ghiberti’s bronze competition panels for the baptistery doors (Ghiberti won), among other things. Next was Palazzo Vecchio, or Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s palace, which is now the mayor’s office. The palace is beautifully frescoed by Vasari and also served as the original home of Michelangelo’s David. We also explored the Loggia dei Lanzi, which is an outdoor sculpture garden in Piazza della Signoria, which is where Palazzo Vecchio is located. We ate lunch that day on the steps of the Duomo. While the Duomo’s exterior is beautifully ornate, I thought the inside was surprisingly quite plain! I guess it would have to be to counter the red, green and white marble plus frescoes on the outside! On our way to Santa Croce, we stopped and checked out the niches of Orsanmichele. Santa Croce was unfortunately undergoing some restorations on the inside and therefore we didn’t get the full effect, but we still got to see the final resting spots of some pretty big names, including Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelle, Rossini, Alberti, and Galileo. Not to mention the artwork covering the walls by Vasari, Donatello, Allori, Gaddi, Bartolini, Volterrano, and Giotto. How do you even describe a place like that? Oh, I’m forgetting something. Being the largest Franciscan church in the world, Santa Croce also contained the robe and girdle of St. Francis himself. Afterwards, we took my brother’s suggestion and instead of paying to climb to the top of the Duomo, we crossed the Arno and made the treck up to Piazzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset. That was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, my camera crapped out and I have nothing to show for it, except for a crappy picture I took on my cell phone. After the sun went down behind a hill, we kept heading uphill until we came across San Miniato al Monte, one of Florence’s oldest churches. We happened to get there at just the right time because as we walked around this old, dark, frescoed church, we were able to hear the haunting chants of monks coming from the back of the church. These guys were pretty serious. By the time we left the church, the sunset had been replaced by a beautiful night sky marked with city lights. We worked our way back down to the water and walked along the Arno for a while, exploring Ponte Vecchio and its environs. Eventually we made our way over to a restaurant recommended by Sarah’s guidebook. It was a small neighborhood trattoria that gave you four choices for each course and that’s it. There was no menu; the owner was our menu. It was amazing.

The next day was devoted entirely to the Uffizi and nothing else. It took us all day, but we saw every piece of art in the building. Among the masterpieces were Botticelli’s Primavera and Birth of Venus, as well as a whole bunch of Annunciations, Adorations of the Magi, Pietàs, and Madonnas with child by everybody and their brother. I think I saw 75% of the world’s greatest works of art in one week.

The next morning, before catching our train to Venice that afternoon, we ran over to Palazzo Pitti – yet another Medici palace. We walked through the Appartamenti Monumentali, which are rooms furnished with portraits, chandeliers and tapestries from the time of the Medici. We saw the Galleria Palatina, which included more Italian Renaissance paintings (surprise!), and then finished up at Pitti with the Galleria d’Arte Moderna.

PART I: ROME

2006-11-07T06:05:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: I decided to break this very very long post into a couple different ones. I got a little carried away. I realize that nobody has this kind of time to read, but I couldn't stop writing.

Disclaimer: This has potential to be a very long post. I’ll try my best to give the condensed version, but as a warning, I tend to be very long winded… (No way!) I suggest that you grab a snack, get comfy, and prepare to go to Italy.

PART I: ROME (Wednesday-Sunday)

Kelly, Sarah and I took the night train to Paris last Tuesday evening and stayed the night at Kelly’s cousin’s apartment. Our plane to Rome was the following night, so we spent the day in Jardin Luxembourg and pretty much just wandering around Paris in total anticipation for our trip to come. To make a long and not particularly interesting story short, we flew Ryanair and arrived in Rome at around midnight. We were whisked away by a taxi driver who spoke no English at all and who proceeded to get us lost, running the meter all the while. When the meter reached 60 euros, we told the taxi driver to pull over and we’d have our friends come pick us up (we stayed with my roommate from Kalamazoo, Whitney, and other K people studying in Rome). I was so pissed and I didn’t even know the right words to tell the guy so. We couldn’t argue the price, so we bucked up and paid it, even though my roommate and her housemates told us that they’ve never had a taxi driver who didn’t know how to find their apartment, and that the flat rate from the airport to their apartment is 30 euros. We made it to the apartment at around 1 am and stayed up talking with our friends, which was unfortunate because they had midterms the next morning… They must love us :)

The next day, Kelly, Sarah and I decided to attack ancient Rome. This included the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill. I could have spent much more time exploring all three places, but that was enough to fill an entire day. The following day, we hit the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps, Via Condotti (home of all Italian designers), Via del Corso (much less expensive shopping), the San Callisto catacombs of the Appian Way, as well as San Giovani in Appia, a church just outside of the old city walls. Saturday was devoted to the Vatican. Sarah, Kelly and I were joined by most of the K kids studying in Rome, which was really fun, especially since they were mostly Classics or Art History Majors. The first thing we did was hit the museum where we saw just the beginning of all the renaissance masterpieces that we would see during the week! This included walking through the Pinacoteca (Picture Gallery), the Raphael Rooms (which included The School of Athens), and of course, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. It’s amazing when you see pictures in textbooks, but when you see the chapel in person you realize that someone actually painted it with their own two hands, or in Michelangelo’s case, lying on his back, several meters off of the ground. Now that’s a labor of love. All I have to say is, not bad for someone who didn’t want to paint it in the first place. I guess when the Pope asks you to paint his chapel you don’t deny him, even if you consider yourself a sculptor first. Afterwards, Sarah, Kelly and I headed to St. Peter’s, which is equally captivating. We spent some time in the basilica, toured the tombs, and then climbed the 545 steps to the top of the cupola for a fabulous view of the city. Thus concludes Rome.

Brag time

2006-10-30T13:17:00.000-08:00

So...

I'm in Florence right now. It's pretty much the best ever. I'll write more later...

Vacation!!

2006-10-23T06:06:00.000-07:00

Long time no post!!

Things here are going well - busy of course! This week was just a normal week, nothing too special. I started my Intercultural Research Project (one of my K credits), which is exciting. I go a couple times a week to help french middle-schoolers with their english homework. They're pretty cute. Other than that, I really don't know what I've done. Saturday night I went to see a play - a comedy. My face hurt so much afterwards from laughing. Luckily it was really more physical comedy than anything, which made for easy comprehension on my part. My host parents had gone to see it the night before and they came back raving about it, so I decided to check it out the next night. A good decision indeed.

Our fall break is this week and next week (really just next week; the French kids have exams this week but since we don't have exams, we have an extended vacation). This means that tomorrow night I'm leaving Cl-Fd and heading to Paris, then to Rome on Wednesday. We'll stay there for a few days with Whitney, my roommate from Kalamazoo, then move on to Florence for a couple of days, then Venice for a couple days. Therefore, no more posts for a while! I won't be back to Cl-Fd until the 5th! I'll have lots of adventures to catch up on when I get back. Everyone have a fabulous week and a half and I'll talk to you later!

Perigord Excursion

2006-10-17T04:54:00.000-07:00

Just incase anyone was worrying, my social awkwardness is still alive and well, as I continue to fumble and falter with the bises (pronounced beezes - the two cheek kisses used to greet EVERYONE). You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard, but it is. I’m doing alright in the realm of cultural misunderstandings. Nothing too grave lately, especially now that I’m starting to get this whole friend thing figured out (or at least I think I am). Language barriers are still tricky from time to time. For example, today I tried to ask my friend Junior if he was feeling better (he’s got a cold). Thinking that this is what I was saying, I asked “est-ce que tu sens mieux?” Jokingly, he lifted his arm, smelled his pit and said yes. I then realized I’d asked “do you smell better?” and not “do you feel better”, which is really “est-ce que tu te sens mieux?” Luckily, Junior is used to my mistakes and corrected me, as usual. Other than that, things are going well :)

This past weekend was really great. The 7 of us K kids went on a 3 day excursion with M. Faure and his wife to Périgord, a region of France which is more southwest than Auvergne. M. Faure rented a minibus and was our chauffeur, which was fun since he tended to get lost every couple of hours. With the help of iTrip and our iPods, we managed to have the world’s longest sing-along during the bus ride. All we were missing was the bouncing red ball. At one point, M. Faure pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the bus, unbuckled his seatbelt, and turned around to tell us that he had a really great idea on how we could pick up guys (he’s always looking out for us). His thought was that we needed to go out onto the street in front of the school with our phone numbers hanging on signs around our necks and sing together. He then proceeded to turn around, start up the car, and drive on. I was teasing him later, saying that I couldn’t believe he stopped the car to tell us that and he said that it’s not very often that he has such great ideas which lead me to believe that he may have actually been serious.

We stopped for lunch at a really neat old town called Sarlat. The region of Périgord is famous for its food and its wine! In particular, Périgord is famous for its duck, fois gras, and gateau aux noix (nut cake). So what did I eat at lunch? Duck and gateau aux noix, and it was divine. Our next stop was in a town (I forgot the name) where the homes were built into the side of a cliff. They had normal looking exteriors, just built into the side of a cliff. We took a guided boat tour that traveled along the face of the cliff. I’ll post pictures soon. We continued onward and arrived later that evening in Périgueux, which is the largest city in Périgord. That night, we ate dinner out in the country at a family run place. The dinner was prearranged for us, and man did we eat well. The first course was a delicious soup, which was unfortunate because we all ate two bowls, thus leaving less space for what was to come. The next course was a salad that had duck gizzards, duck bacon, and fois gras in/on it. Not gonna lie; despite its deliciousness, this one was a little hard to eat, but I did it anyway, and cleared my plate at that. The next course was, yet again, duck. And dessert? Nut cake. That’s okay, it was all so delicious. Unfortunately, it was all so greasy and rich that I was soo sick that night! All I could do was curl up in a ball and groan.

The next day, we ventured out to see the city, which is made up of two sections: the medieval renaissance quarter and the Gallo-Roman quarter. We did a guided tour of the medieval renaissance quarter which was amazing and included lots of narrow streets full of awesome architecture and a cathedral that served as the model for Sacré-Coeur. The tour also included seeing a white-marble bust of a Roman emperor called Marc Aurele who at first glance I could have mistaken for my brother, Nat. That afternoon we went to a museum full of “tromp-l’oeil” paintings, or the best I can come up with is magic-eye/ trick-eye paintings? I don’t know! What are they called in English? They’re paintings in which the objects look so real that you’re convinced that they just might not be paintings. The artists also paint all kinds of little overlooked details into their pieces. It was fun. Afterwards, I took myself on a self-guided tour of the Roman quarter, which was full of cool Roman ruins, like an old temple, parts of an amphitheatre, as well as parts of a wall that bordered the area. Pictures to come.

On our way home the next day, we stopped at St. Emilion (very famous for its wine) and took another guided tour. On this tour, we saw an underground cathedral, catacombs, and all kinds of other fun stuff. In the afternoon, we took a ride through the vineyards on a little trolley thing and saw several chateaus and famous wineries. Sarah and I bought a bottle to take back to the States with us and drink in a year when we’re feeling sad and wishing we were in France. We’ve just got to figure out a way to get it home…

That was my weekend! I’m looking forward to getting this week over with because next week is our fall break and I’m going to Italy! Rome, Florence, and Venice (with a little Paris before and after). I feel like such a brat. I don’t care! I’m in Europe, damn it, and I’m going to enjoy it! I just can’t forget about this whole school thing…

Last Week Part II

2006-10-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

...Wednesday was pure hell. We had one class for 6 hours: Marketing. This is the only class we have with all of the other French first year students. The lecture portion was not bad because I had a PowerPoint to stare at, but the small group sessions were terrible. The lecture is about 200 students or so, and then we have smaller groups of about 40. Within the groups of 40 we had to get in even smaller groups of about 5 students and give presentations before the other 35 people in our class. Talk about stress. I don’t know the French vocabulary that goes along with Marketing. I guess I’ll be learning it quickly. I went home that night and gorged myself with chocolate and took a two and a half hour nap. I was not a happy camper.

I can’t complain about Thursday. I turned in a paper for my European civ class. Sarah and I went to lunch beforehand with our French friend Arnaud, who was so kind as to offer to proofread our papers. After much laughter at our creative French, he helped us make our corrections. I think he’s only our friend because we’re absolutely ridiculous/pathetic and he keeps us around for laughs.

Friday was rather non-eventful. We had our language class in the morning with our program director M. Faure and then I had a Pépinière meeting. My group handed me a thick packet of information completely in English and told me that they couldn’t understand it and that I needed to read it and explain it to them. I spent my whole Sunday afternoon reading that packet and let me just say, it is extremely technical. We’re talking like photodetectors, light emitting devices, circuits, and external vs. internal power sources. We’re working on marketing a small roadside safety device that both reflects the light from car headlights back onto the car for oncoming traffic to see and also emits light in the opposite direction so that the driver of the first car can better see oncoming traffic. Sounds like a great way to blind both drivers to me.

Our friend Arnaud had a buddy visiting from Lyon for the weekend, so he invited Sarah and me to go out with them on Friday night. Thibault is the name of Arnaud’s friend, and he is gorgeous. After hanging out with the two of them for a bit, we met up with the rest of the guys (the same ones as before). Sarah and I are starting to feel less awkward with them and think they might actually be starting to consider us friends. It’s still really strange to us to be just two girls hanging out with a group of 4-5 guys, but something Arnaud said that night lead us to believe that they don’t like hanging out with French girls as much because they are either too shy or too reserved. I can’t afford to be shy or reserved here, and besides, I like to laugh too much. It’s working out in my favor anyway – I get to spend my weekends hanging out with four gorgeous French guys!

Saturday was spent shopping for school supplies (among other things) and running around town. It was a gorgeous fall day not to be wasted. Sunday was spent doing homework all day long, with little breaks for painting my nails and looking at pictures from the last two autumns on my computer. I miss fall in Michigan so much! Okay, that's enough for now! Sorry to bore you all!!

Last Week Part I

2006-10-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

Well hello there!

Last week was terrifying, and as a result, this is bound to be a long one. I’m kind of frightened. Maybe I’ll break it up into two entries. Here’s the first one J

I guess I should start with the good part. The weekend after my birthday was very enjoyable. Saturday the 30^th was spent with the other international students exploring the Auvergne region. This included a visit to a medieval castle called chateau Murol, a visit to a cathedral called Orcival, a traditional Auvergnat lunch of truffade (a dish composed of potatoes and the region’s most popular cheese, St. Nectaire), a visit to St. Nectaire cheese farm and a tour of the cheese caves (once also medieval underground dwellings). It was a day well spent, but it got even better because by the time we returned to Clermont, a friend from K had arrived by train from her study abroad spot in Bonn to stay for the weekend. Sunday and Monday were spent showing Suzy our favorite spots in Clermont (and making new ones). I was quite sad to see her go on Tuesday, but it just means I have to get my butt over to Germany.

School this week sucked a lot. I should back up and say that the Friday before; we had to sit through several hours of a conference on business ethics during which the speaker proceeded to bash America in many ways. I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life. Monday was frustrating as well. My French civilization and culture class in the morning was pretty uneventful. I had another Pépinière meeting in the afternoon, during which I kept making a complete ass out of myself. Afterwards, I had my second violin lesson, which was even more of a failure than the first one. It was yet another 15 minute lesson. He had me sight-read a piece that started on B # and had many double sharps and called for many odd positions. That pissed me off, especially since in France, it’s not B #, it’s “Si dièse”, or something, so I couldn’t even tell him that I hate B #’s because I didn’t even know how to say B #. The French don’t use the letter note system… C D E F G A B C. They use solfedge here, like Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, only it’s not even that. In France, Ti is Si.

Tuesday was Native Speaker Day, which meant that all of the French students at l’ESC who are taking English classes could sign up with myself or any of the other 6 K kids for hour long sessions to do nothing but talk in English. Each group had about 5-6 kids and we did this 3 times throughout the day. Let’s just say it was awkward. Some of the groups just didn’t want to talk. I don’t know if they were shy and unsure of their English level or what, but I ended up doing a lot of talking, and they would just sit there and stare at me. I’d ask them questions, and they would respond, but it never went any further than that. When they did ask me questions, they were horribly awkward, like about French-American politics. Unfortunately, I’m doing this all day today as well...

I guess that’s enough for a first entry. The second half of the week will follow :)

My Birthday Adventures

2006-09-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

People say that it's not all that exciting to turn 20 years old. Normally I'd agree with them, however, I turned 20 in France!

I decided that for my birthday on Wednesday, I wanted to venture outside of Clermont. My host family told me the night before about a little medieval town called Royat, which touches Clermont. Royat is supposedly famous for the healing powers of the water from its springs. Having nothing better to do with an afternoon, three friends and I hopped on a bus to Royat not really knowing where we were going or what exactly we were going to do. We just wanted to have a little adventure. We found a restaurant and had an amazing lunch (as if they're not all amazing), then hiked our butts up to the old downtown area. We visited a small church, which was under construction, after which we wandered around for a bit. There really didn't seem like that much to do, and we couldn't find the springs, so we waited around until the “Musée de Royat” opened up at 3.

The museum was situated in a small house, which should have been our first warning sign. Our second warning sign should have been the small bell-boy mannequin with one arm that greeted us at the door. (For any "Arrested Development" fans out there, we coined him "Baby Buster"). As soon as we entered, a flittering little Frenchman came down to greet us and whisked us off to the reception area, where he informed us that the tour would cost 3 euro per person. Not really knowing what was going on, we gave him our 3 euro. We asked how long the tour would take and he told us "a good hour". It's not nice to lie.

The museum had 6 rooms, and probably 15 full-sized mannequins. We skipped the first room and started our little learning adventure of the history of Royat. I was pretty interested for the first hour, I'm not gonna lie. After that, it was pure agony. Every time I’d start to space out or want to jump out the window, I’d see a person in the corner of my eye and wonder if they were as bored as I was until I’d turn my head and see that it was not a person in the corner of my eye, but one of the many freakish bug-eyed mannequins in this man’s personal collection. An hour and a half later, he finally announced that we were about to enter the last room – the costume and doll room. Feeling like I had rounded the bend in the last lap and that the finish line was in sight, I listened with great anticipation as our tour was coming to an end. As he finished showing us the last baby doll holding a miniature umbrella, he remembered that we had skipped the very first room. How dare we leave without seeing the fresque! He skittered off to the fresque and as we contemplated an escape. Unfortunately for us, he was waiting in the hall, standing between us and the exit. He quickly ushered us into the room with the fresque: a giant timeline (starting with the very beginning, like the first 7 days, and ending in 1972) that spanned the entire perimeter of the room. He then proceeded to talk us through the entire timeline. I thought I was literally going to die. I kept snickering to myself and almost completely lost it a couple times. I was fidgeting so much that I think I accidentally danced a jig in place. Well, maybe more like a waltz, because dancing a jig in place is pretty much just dancing a jig. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t just spent the past hour and a half listening to all these exact same things in mannequin form. The only difference was that they were now before us in a timeline. At one point my phone rang and I thought we had an out for sure. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. When it came down to it, I could tell how much the poor guy loved his job and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. After finally finishing and forcibly signing the guest book, we all but ran from the museum. We spent over 2 and a half hours in that building. Afterwards, we were too blown away to look for the springs and just got back on the bus to Clermont. I’ll drink the water another day.

That night, my host mom made an especially delicious dinner, including pasta with mussel sauce and a homemade lemon tart. They stuck candles in the tart, sang to me, and gave me a very nice pair of earrings from Gallery Lafayette. They’re awfully kind to me. Shortly after, I headed out for the evening with the rest of the Kalamazoo crew plus four Frenchies. My K buddies surprised me with champagne and cake, so we celebrated for a little bit underneath a statue of Vercingetorix before going out for the night. Much merriment was to be had. The French boys told me that it was mandatory that I do something a little outlandish for my 20^th birthday, so to appease them, I ran through a row of about 10 fountains, one after the other, in the middle of Place de Jaude. One of my friends told me it was quite a sight to behold; I had four French boys running alongside me, filming the whole thing and yelling in French. We’re only young and stupid once, right?

My host mom told me at dinner that night that she hopes I’ll always remember my birthday in France. I’m pretty sure that won’t ever be a problem.

P.S. Mon cheri just found out that I'm American, not British. I'm afraid he might not be mon cheri for much longer...

Another little update...

2006-09-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

May I just say, I love Caffe Cosy. Everytime I walk in their faces light up and they yell out "ah! c'est ma cherie!!" then proceed to ask me about my weekend, make fun of me, etc. Today when I came in, I pressed the "on" button to my computer but rather than turning on, it decided to make a God-awful screeching sound instead. The guys were yelling up to me from down below to make sure everything was okay, and when the one guy brought up my drink, he sat down with me to try and figure out what was wrong with my computer. I enjoy this place :)

This week has been kinda boring so far. The weekend was alright. Friday night, Sarah and I went to a movie accompanied by two of our Frenchies who we found don't really hate us afterall. As to whether or not it was a date...we really don't know. We still don't understand the rules of social conduct here, but we got friendly vibes from them, so we're thinking maybe guys and girls can be just friends? At anyrate, we went to see Little Miss Sunshine (a very good movie) and after watching an American movie, the boys really wanted to practice their English. We obliged, and it was pretty much the funniest thing ever. It took us about an hour alone to describe candy corn. We had so much fun just walking around CF and talking. I think we may have succeeded in making a couple French friends.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much spent in bed and writing a paper because I'm sick and didn't really feel like doing anything else. Class was cancelled on Monday morning. Monday afternoon we had a Pepiniere meeting. Pepiniere is terrifying. It's a project for First-Years to develop a business plan for a new enterprise. I don't understand our topic and my group makes a lot of jokes that I don't understand. I ask questions though, and sometimes I understand the responses... I don't know why, but it is so much harder to understand people my own age, especially in large groups. Conversation happens so quickly and with a lot of slang. Pepiniere is going to be a real learning experience.

I had my first violin lesson yesterday. It lasted 15 minutes because the teacher was running late. He basically told me that the bow I rented sucked and that I needed to do something about it. I played a little bit for him (I haven't played all summer) and he told me that there were some good things and some "interesting" things. I've got a lot of work cut out for me.

I had no class today so I bought myself some birthday gifts (my birthday is tomorrow) - some shoes and some perfume :) I'm good to myself. Tomorrow we don't have class either... maybe I'll hop a bus to Vichy or something. I'm starting to get a little bored here... Hopefully that won't last. Okay, well I can't stand to be infront of my computer any longer. I hope all is well and I miss you all! xoxo

Domaine Royal de Randan

2006-09-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

After a long and truthful discussion about Weekend of Integration with my host parents, my host mother Hélène decided that she needed to reconcile me with “la France” (although I insisted this was not the case and that it was only the students of l’ESC of whom I was weary). Every Thursday, Hélène goes hiking in the volcanoes with a group of friends (a very common pastime here in Clermont). Occasionally they pass up the hike and do a bit of sightseeing instead. Hélène was so kind as to invite me to go along yesterday on one of their excursions. I was fortunate enough to have the afternoon free, so Hélène and I, along with 18 other women, piled in cars and headed off to Domaine Royal de Randan: the last chateau of the royal family.

The chateau is situated in Randan, a tiny town between Vichy and Clermont-Ferrand, and was inhabited by Adélaïde d’Orléans, the sister and adviser of roi Louis-Philippe, the final king of France. Adélaïde acquired the property and restored and refurnished the chateau with the help of François-Léonard Fontaine, the premier architect of the kingdom, and Louis-Philippe himself. In 1925, the chateau caught fire and burned to the ground. Since 1999, the state has claimed the property and is doing it’s best to restore what’s left.

The place was pretty amazing. While the chateau itself is merely a brick frame with vegetation growing out of it, the parts that weren’t damaged by fire show how innovative the place had been for its time, including the complex heating and cooling systems and a generator that provided energy to the chateau before the rest of the town had electricity. I must not forget to say that the generator was decorated elaborately with many fleurs de lyses. The grounds are gorgeous and the gardens are well kept. Oh, and it was a beautiful day J

Before I sign off, I’d just like to say that I returned to Caffé Cosy yesterday to find that the baristas did indeed remember me and greeted me with, “Oh la, c’est ma Cherie?” They were quite pleased to see that their Cherie had returned and my original Cheri even went out of his way to tell the weird French guy, Giles, who randomly decided to sit down next to me and talk my ear off for 20 minutes straight that I was his Cherie. The look on Giles face was priceless. Giles was precious. He claimed he’d never spoken to an American before and was completely enamored with my computer, my keyboard, my computer cord, my plug adaptor, my cell phone, my web browser, and my email provider. He also thought Michigan was near Texas. Oh, Giles. At least I have mes Cheris. Maybe I’ll make a friend or two after all. Au revoir!

Some things I've learned

2006-09-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I now have a week to catch up on. It's been a pretty difficult week, full of lots of awkward social situations and cultural confusion (nice alliteration, huh?).

Last Friday in our French Language and Culture class, we gave presentations on any topic that we wanted. I chose to give mine on Pope Urbain II and the Crusades (they started here in Clermont). The night before, we were invited to go out with a couple of guys from Sarah’s Pepinière group. Because of our presentations, we asked to go out Friday night instead. Sarah, Kelly and I went into it not really knowing what to expect. French boys had been overly nice to us and we knew that the French don't go on single dates unless they're really serious, and that they go out in big groups instead. As a result, we didn't really know if we had just been asked out on a group date or if they were just being nice and wanted to make some American friends. At any rate, on our way to the Café we were "hazed" by a group of second year students who attacked us with shaving cream, confetti, and alcohol. It was pretty ridiculous. These second years are part of the BDE which is the main student organization on campus that plans all the soirées and was in charge of the upcoming Weekend of Integration. The hazing was a little scary, but we had a really good time at the Café. The guys bought our drinks and then they insisted that we sing a karaoke song as part of our "integration". They ended up coming up there to help us out because we sounded so bad! What did they expect; we were singing a song we’d never heard before, in another language! After the karaoke, the guys really wanted to go to the discothèque. I can now say I've had my first discothèque experience, and it was truly amusing.

Sunday, we left for Weekend of Integration: a weekend trip that all of the first year students at ESC go on to make friends and apparently to drink excessively. We boarded the buses at 6:30 in the morning, and by 7, the BDE (main student organization) was literally pouring alcohol down everyone's throats. They had filled containers that you are supposed to use for fertilizing lawns and were using them to pump alcohol into everyone’s mouths. I don't even know how to describe the chaos of the bus. They were singing and cheering and dancing and yelling. At one point we were even written on with permanent marker. We had to introduce ourselves to the whole bus and individually sing a song. The only French song I can sing is “Alouette” so I made the whole bus sing along with me. Oh yes, and the bus ride was about 7 hours long. We ended up at a resort in the South-West of France, near Italy. We were in a town called Fréjus, which is near St. Tropez. The bus drivers were so mean as to tell us we were going to the beach, drive us along the coast, then tell us the beaches were closed and that we'd have to swim in the pool at the resort instead. At least I got a glimpse of the Mediterranean. I was oh so happy to get off of that bus.

We stayed in little "bungalows", which were really just trailers. It was like a giant trailer park with a pool and a night club. Sarah, Kelly and I shared a trailer with 3 French girls who were really nice. We unpacked our stuff and headed to the pool for a little bit, then had dinner as one big group. Conversation was impossible during dinner, seeing as people were cheering, singing, and standing on the benches. I should say that this was mostly the guys. They have one song that they sing where they call on a guy to stand up on the table and get completely naked. This is their idea of fun. I was mortified when the guy I was sitting next to was called on. Oh, la France.

After dinner, there was more cheering and singing, always the cheering and the singing, and then we all went off to the club. Dancing was fun, but not drama free. Many a cultural boundary was crossed in the club on behalf of the girls of Kalamazoo, and while I personally was not crossing them, I became quite the shoulder to cry on. I also became quite the liaison between the French and the Americans since I definitely had more than one person approach me and ask me to tell one or more of my friends that they needed to calm down. The next day was spent in bed and at the pool. Monday night was an exact repeat of Sunday night. Boundaries in the club were restored and respected, but I do believe the damage is done. Tuesday afternoon we returned to Clermont-Ferrand. I’m happy to say the 7 hour bus ride was much more docile on the return.

I really cannot figure out how I feel about the weekend. Parts of it were so shitty and I just wanted to go home. Other parts were really fun and I enjoyed myself a lot. It was just such a strange weekend and I really felt the cultural differences. I guess to better explain myself, here’s a list of things I’d been told before coming to France that were proven to me this weekend and this morning after a discussion with our program director:

1. Dating is completely different in France. French people don’t go out on single dates, but date in groups instead. Dating is also completely artificial. It’s based on appearance solely. Conversation comes later. Whereas in the U.S., relationships start out based on friendship and getting to know one another, it’s completely not like that here. It starts based on physical attraction, and then you get to know one another later.

2. Guys and girls can’t be friends because the guys always have other intentions. But you can’t date them either because they’re only interested in how you look. But literally, guys and girls don’t mix. For this reason, we thought we were being slighted by our “new friends” we made on Friday when they weren’t exactly the friendliest to us this weekend. Really, they just realized we weren’t going to date any of them and therefore have no more use for us. This sucks because we really want to be their friends, but guys and girls don’t hang out in groups unless they’re dating.

3. French girls and American girls can’t be friends because there is “too much competition” over the guys. They don’t want to be our friends, and after this weekend and the spectacle that we made, I don’t blame them. The girls we shared our bungalow with were nice, but they weren’t afraid to tell my friends what they thought of them and their behavior either.

4. Circles of friends are made early on. Once they’re formed, it’s significantly harder to get in. But once you do make it in, you’re friends with everyone in that circle.

5. When in a club, if you are going to dance with anyone, you are to choose only one person and dance with that one person all night long. If you do that, you’re pretty much in a relationship without knowing it. If you dance with more than one person, apparently you’re promiscuous. You are definitely not to kiss anyone unless you’re serious. It’s better to dance completely alone.

6. Guys can drink as much as they want and be as stupid and promiscuous as they want. It does not work the same way for girls, especially not for American girls.

This was definitely a weekend of cultural trial and error. Unfortunately, I think it favored more the side of error. Equally unfortunate, I think the American girls on campus have created quite a little reputation for ourselves, even if we weren’t all sharing the same behavior. It sucks, and now that I understand the rules of social conduct here in France, I’m convinced that I’m not going to make any French friends while I’m here. I have a feeling it’s going to be a pretty lonely 6 months.

Well, I’m here to learn, and I’m learning, right? I guess I can just be glad that I personally wasn’t the cause of any of the drama. Unfortunately, I still have to bear the brunt of it and share in our cute little reputation. Good thing our school is made up of only 500 kids... (With a hint of sarcasm). I hope I’m being overly dramatic and that I’m proven wrong. Time will tell.

Well, I wish it was this easy to write the paper that I need to turn in on Monday. I guess I should start that… Hope everyone is well and I miss you all!! (Obviously!)

"Un Mocha, mon Chéri!"

2006-09-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

I just had the best "faux-pas" ever.

I'm sitting in a cafe right now, Cafe Cosy, and there are two adorable guys working the counter. I went to order my drink and I couldn't decide, so they told me to take my time. As I was browsing the menu, I saw that there was a drink called "Mocha Cherry". Well, the "ch" sound really doesn't exist in the French language, so I thought that I would try and pass myself off as a local (what was I thinking?) and pronounce it as "Sherry". In effect, I said to the barista "Je voudrais un Mocha (pause) Sherry, s'il vous plait". They guys chuckled and said "non non, c'est Cherry, pas Sherry". I laughed because I thought I understood - sherry, like the alcohol. So I tried to be funny and say it again in a silly voice as if I wanted alcohol in my coffee. They laughed again and corrected me again, saying "non, c'est Cherry, comme une cerise (cherry)." I figured my joke was lost and went upstairs and set up my computer and started talking to my mom via Skype. He brought us our drinks, and then 5 minutes later came back with a free sample that he made just for my friend Lauren and I. I made another stupid joke about "sherry" and we laughed. I then figured out that I wasn't saying "sherry", like the alcohol, but "chéri", like "my love". I literally said to the man, "I would like a mocha, my love." Oh my goodness! No wonder he's bringing us free samples!! My mom and I started crying because we were laughing so hard. I can't believe I totally didn't get the joke! The other barista came upstairs and overheard me laughing to myself, so I had to explain to him that I was talking to my mom over the internet. He came over and started speaking into my microphone to her! What an ordeal! Pronounciation is risky. You have to really know what you're saying and how to say it! Here I am worried about the guys that keep approaching me and asking if I "have boyfriend" when in reality, they should apparantly be watching out for me! "Chéri!" Ha!

This language thing is a hoot. Well, I should actually do some work. Ugh. I hope you all found that as amusing as my mom and I did.

Lot's of love! Thanks for the emails, I love them dearly!

Ness

Another post!

2006-09-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I actually wrote this blog like 3 days ago, but I've had trouble posting. This site doesn't always like me and I have pretty limited internet access...

Hello again,

Well, I’m already 12 days into my adventure and I can hardly believe it. Things are pretty much going smoothly. I have a host family now! They came and picked me up from Bernard’s on Thursday. They’re pretty much close to amazing. M and Mme DeLafforest have 4 daughters, only one of which will be living at home while I’m here (the others will be leaving for school shortly, minus Sophie, the eldest, who is mentally handicapped and lives in a home elsewhere).

The youngest one, Raphaelle, is absolutely a doll. She is 12 and she attends an international school in Clermont-Fd where she spends half of her day taking classes in French and the other half of the day taking classes in English. As it turns out, she studies violin and plays in the orchestra at the conservatory, which is where I will eventually be taking lessons. In fact, I rented a violin on Saturday which is costing me 76 Euros for 3 months. I hope it’s worth it! I decided I would give it a go on Saturday while the family was taking the second oldest to the train station. They came home while I was playing and Raphaelle couldn’t wait to get her hands on it. She pulled out her own violin and we played Pachabel’s Canon together. Rapha was really excited, and unfortunately for me, when Rapha gets excited, she speaks extremely fast! Anyway, this should be really good. Mme DeLafforest has high hopes that I’ll kick Raphaelle’s butt and make her practice.

The next youngest is Beatrice, who is 17. She is heading off tomorrow for her first year away at university (the French education system is quite a bit different. For example, I’m attending a grad school, but all the first year French students are also 20). Her school is in Paris and she’s quite nervous to leave home. She’s running around like crazy trying to get everything ready to go. She’s really interested in American culture and likes to talk about American movies, TV, and music.

The second oldest is Caroline, 20, and she attends a school about 4.5 hrs away from here by train. She is also studying biology! She left yesterday afternoon to return to school and take a small test for her English class for which I’ve helped her prepare. She’ll come back in a few days and then leave for school in the middle of October when her semester starts. In the winter, she’s going to study abroad in Prague.

As you can see, I have lots in common with these three. They’re fabulous, and it is incredible how well they get along with one another, considering the age gap. Yesterday, Rapha was crying because she’s sad that her sisters are leaving her and for the first time ever, it will just be her and her parents. This is where I had to play the awkward foreign student role and remind her that she wouldn’t be alone, but she’d have me, the weirdo that lives in her home and only understands half of what’s said to her (for the other half she just smiles and nods, or laughs uncomfortably).

The apartment is quite old and charming. It’s on a really nice street with lots of stores underneath. I have my own room with my own shower (it’s really Bea’s room, but she’s leaving for school). You can’t imagine how good it felt to unpack my bags and have my own space after living out of suitcases for so long (which didn’t even show up with the plane).

That's where I left off the other day. Just to quickly update, orientation with the other french first years started yesterday. We sat through a presentation by the faculty in the morning and then did a "Brise Glace" activity in the afternoon (ice breaker), which was terrifying. We had to do a bunch of get to know you games, which was really difficult because it's a lot harder to understand French people my own age than adults. They talk a lot faster and with a lot of slang (naturally). Afterwards, the school offered us champaign and we had a little mixer. Needless to say, this made it a little easier to meet people. The guys here are very forward and it's kinda scary. Almost immediately after they ask your name they ask, "you have boyfriend?" It's a bit much.

Today we sat through the most boring presentation ever. We were told by the school we needed to go to this meeting, but it didn't pertain to us at all. For the first 1.5 hours, the speaker talked about classes the other kids would take over the course of their 3 years here. For the other 1.5 hrs, the speaker basically lectured us on how to use a computer. It was totally useless. This afternoon we ran around and registered ourselves all around town, at the library, at the conservatory, etc.

Well I should go, I miss you all!!

Blahhhhh

2006-09-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Bonjour mes amis,

Well, things are getting better here in la-la-land…or should I say blah-blah land. Since my last post, I’ve received my luggage (Wahoo! It felt just like Christmas), but I still have not received a single word from my host family. I’m a little discouraged because I’m really getting comfortable here at Bernard’s. According to M. Faure, my family should be back today. I guess we’ll see…

School “started” on Monday. The other first year students at l’ESC (Ecole Superior de Commerce) will join us next week for a larger orientation, but for the present, it’s just our group from Kalamazoo. So far we only have one class, “French language and civilization”, which we have every day this week from 9h00 to 17h30 with a 1.5h break for lunch. That’s one class for 7 hours with the same professor, who just happens to look like a tres chic female version of Professor Snape from Harry Potter. She’s terrifying. Her name is Mme Fox-Muraton and she is very French. So far in this class, we’ve practiced our pronunciation, conjugated verbs, read the newspaper, watched the news on TV, listened to music, completed lots of grammar exercises, and who knows what else. It’s basically a crash course in all things French.

After class on Monday morning, we met the other faculty members with whom we’re going to be interacting. Of the four people we met, two are British and the other two are American. The two British people are the coordinators of the international program, and the two Americans are English teachers at l’ESC who are to be our “tutors” if we need help in any of our courses. While all four of them obviously speak English, we have to speak to them in French at all times. We all went out for lunch together and it was the strangest thing to me to be speaking in French with a large group of people who all spoke English as their native language. One of the Brits has a very pronounced British accent when she speaks French. It’s very different sounding!

My head is absolutely swimming. I find that I never know what language I’m supposed to be speaking and when, nor do I ever know what exactly is going to come out of my mouth. I do alright when I’m just speaking French, but when I try to revert back to English to talk to my friends and family or to write anything, like this post, I get confused because I’m still trying to think in French. My Kalamazoo friends and I try to speak to each other constantly in French, but sometimes we just can’t express ourselves the way we’d like to, so we give in and speak in English. This is going to have to change. I’m thinking it’s got to be all or nothing. Franglais does not truly exist!

I feel pretty good about the whole language thing so far. I’ve received many compliments from French speaking people, which is encouraging, until I realized tonight that I’ve been responding to them with, “j’essaie”, which means “I’m trying”, but sounds a lot like “je sais”, which means “I know”. Unfortunately, I fear that I’ve been pronouncing “j’essaie” as the latter… What I might as well be saying is “Hello, I’m arrogant.” I know for sure I made this mistake on Sunday night when Josh, Bernard and I dined with Bernard’s girlfriend and her neighbors. There were at least 8 people at our table, excluding Josh and I, who all were speaking rapid-fire French. They all talked over one another at the same time; I hardly understood a word. I came away from that experience very discouraged. Ah well, I’m learning. I hope that in time, I’ll be able to keep up with conversations like those.

I suppose that’s enough for now. I’m sorry if these posts are too long, but I have an awful lot to say! Au revoir!

P.S. The French are very good looking! Bernard has a couple of good looking sons himself, including two that I’ve met. For this reason, I like les bisous (the two customary kisses on the cheek when you meet someone)! J

The first couple days

2006-09-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness. I'm here, in France, without my luggage, and without my host family! Things don't always go according to plan, do they? Here's how the story goes…

We left Detroit at 7 pm on Thursday and arrived in Paris at around 8:30 am Friday. We had a 7 hr delay before hopping on our plane to Clermont-Ferrand. We arrived an hour later and while we waited for our luggage to arrive, we could see the families and the program director, M. Faure, waiting for us on the other side of the glass. Long story short, 3 out of 7 of us received our luggage; I was not one of them. We left the carousel to go meet our families and M. Faure informed me that the father of my family lost his step-mother the day before and that I would be staying with Josh’s host-father, Bernard, for the time being. So, there you have it: no clothes and no family. Luckily my Mom and Dad convinced me to pack an entire extra set of clothing in my carry-on bag. Unfortunately, I don’t have any toiletries because of the whole no liquids thing. Supposedly the airline will deliver my luggage in the next two days. We’ll see about that.

Bernard is really nice. He’s divorced and lives on his own in a very small apartment. He has four grown sons; the youngest is 20 and is studying medicine at one of the universities in town, where he has an apartment. The next youngest is Julien, whom we met yesterday. Julien is 24 and went to film school and now edits films somewhere. The other sons are 27 and 29; one is a doctor and the other is a journalist. Of course they are all athletic and musically talented too... Bernard better watch out! Bernard is a "professor du sport"... my best guess is either a P.E. teacher or coach of some sort. He also referees rugby games. I guess he played rugby for a number of years. Anyway, he loves sports, and he loves to talk about sports. If you know me, you know that I don't love sports, so I'm trying.

When we returned home from the airport, Bernard showed us around the apartment and told me that I would sleep in his bed... He told me it was big enough for two people, and that I could borrow his pajamas. Oh, and that his son shares the room too. Oh mon Dieu. Naturally, I assume the worst and think that he is telling me that he and I, or Julien and I would be sharing his bed. Fortunately, I was wrong. He meant that the bed was two matresses pushed together, therefore making it a very large bed. I haven't figured out the part about his son yet because as far as I can tell, he doesn't live there.

Last night was very calm. We walked down to the park where there were tons of people playing basketball, volleyball, and tennis. Julien and Josh played for a while and Bernard and I watched. Bernard made us dinner... boxed mashed potatoes with cheese, a pork chop, toasted sliced white bread, cheese, and salad. A little surprising, but good nonetheless. After dinner, we pretty much went to bed; Bernard spent the night at his "friend"'s house... I get the feeling she's a little more than a friend.

I slept for 12 hrs last night! It felt great. Bernard made a very good lunch: sausage, cheese, bread, baked chicken (with a few feathers), salad, yogurt, and cookies. I was glad to see that the boxed mashed potatoes didn't make a reappearance. After lunch, Josh and I headed out to see what we could see. Wow. It's so awesome here. The downtown area is so much fun - shops and cafes everywhere. There's a giant cathedral in the center of town built in the 13th century and made of volcanic rock. It's beautiful. You can see the volcanos from pretty much everywhere, and the tallest point, le Puy de Dome, has a giant TV antenna on it. It's quite a sight. Josh and I prefer to think of it as a giant castle on the top of the Dome. We walked down the street that I'm going to be living on and it looks so cute. It looks like apartments over store fronts. I can't wait, although I must say, I'm getting a little too comfortable at Bernard's. I have to do the awkward get-to-know-the-host-family thing twice. Well, on our walk about town, Josh and I also happened to stumble upon a WiFi hotspot, Cafe Cosy. It's exactly my type of place. A trendy little coffee shop with free wireless access. That's where I'm sitting right now!

This post is probably already too long, so I should probably move on. There is so much more I could say! Another time. Hope all is well and I miss everyone tons already!!

Zut Alors!

2006-08-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Well hello! For those of you who don't know, in less than 48 hrs, I will be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, shaking in my boots! Yup, I'm leaving the comfort of home and not returning to the "Zoo" this Fall, but hopping on a plane to Europe instead, where I'll be for the next 6 months! I'm going to be studying abroad at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The ESC is actually a graduate school of management, but I'll be taking French language courses and classes in European history. I think I do actually have to take at least one management related class, plus participate in a really intense group project where I and 8 other French kids have to design a management plan for a business and present it before the entire school. I've already heard horror stories from years past!

Anyway, you might be asking yourself , "why the heck is she studying at a graduate school of management when she is majoring in biology?" I don't really have a good answer, other than Kalamazoo College offers a program there for those who have taken advanced-level French classes at K. I'm at the very least minoring in French; we'll see whether or not I decide to pursue a major... All of the courses that I'll be taking at the ESC will be taught in French, so hopefully I will be able to get myself through! I have this awful fear that the minute I get off of the plane, any ounce of French I've ever known will be gone from my brain. Hopefully that's not the case! Anyway, classes start in mid-September and go until the end of January. I don't have to be back in Kalamazoo until mid-March, so I plan on doing lots of traveling!

For anyone who might be interested, Clermont-Ferrand is situated pretty much in the very center of France in the Auvergne region (hence the title of this blog). Surrounded by a chain of volcanoes, it is situated on a plain in the Massif Central, a mountain range in south-central France. Clermont-Ferrand is also surrounded by a major industrial area and is famous for it's Michelin factories.

History lesson aside, I'm so excited yet so terrified! I'm living with a host family whom I know nothing about! I've done that whole bit before and it was wonderfully successful, but these guys don't speak my language! So scary. Oh well, they can't be that bad because they wouldn't take me in if they didn't want to, right? I just keep telling myself that. Anyway, I decided to create this blog because knowing me, I'll have plenty of adventures worth sharing. I also thought it would work out better than clogging up everybody's inboxes with email updates. More than anything, this journal is designed to document the life and times of a lowly foreign student, including the many cultural mishaps and awkward moments that shall surely ensue. Enjoy!

Just FYI, I will be keeping my K email account while I'm over there, so please please write to me! Also, I'm going to be posting pictures. The link is posted right over there on the sidebar ->

:) Wish me luck! I'll miss ALL of you!!

-Nessa