les aventures d'un étranger

is it over yet?

2009-12-12T19:31:00.003-05:00

Well, it's finally crunch time. Two take-home finals. Started one today, but my brain hurts so it's time for a dinner break and Eddie Izzard. My mind needs to relax. Shall I work more on my final tonight? Who can say. We'll see what Mr. Chianti says about it :-)

are you still out there???

2009-12-09T11:27:00.002-05:00

So as finals are drawing near and I should be reading frantically, I sit here in 615 of Ballantine staring out the window at the not so gently falling snow. Oh and I just realized that I have my headphones in, but turned of Pandora about 5 minutes ago, oops.

Problem solved. Gotta love Christmas music on Pandora :-) Is it normal to snow up? So in case all two of you are wondering, I have almost made it through my first semester of grad school. Two days of class left, 2 take-home finals and one in-class exam. I feel that I should be hardcore stressing about now, but oddly I'm not. Hopefully that's a good thing. I'm mainly just looking forward to next semester, no more lit classes. Hooray! I have French Semantics, Morphology and Teaching Methodology. I'm looking forward to the classes, but I'm little anxious about teaching next semester. I will be going from 4 students in an 8am section to about 50 in 2 back-to-back sections starting at 9:05. Should be good times.

As for the holiday break, no concrete plans yet. I have to be in Bloomington at least through the 17th. After that I'll probably stop off in Nashville for a few days before going home and then after Christmas I need to make a trip up to Ktown. Soooo, Let me know what you're doing after New Year's if you're in Knoxville. I feel that a well-deserved trip to Sassy's might be in order.

Another exciting thing for next semester is that I will be playing in a band :-) Given that it's IU I will obviously not be in one of the actual bands, but rather the All-Campus Band. At least I'll be playing though. Rehearsals are only one night a week, so luckily it won't take too much time. I went to their concert this semester to check them out. Kind of reminded me of a high school group (is that mean?), but I'm excited to get to play.

That being said, I'm going to actually try to get some work done now. Hopefully I will update sooner than later.

I'm alive... aka I promise not to use excessive Celine song titles and lyrics to label all of my posts...maybe

2009-08-19T21:41:00.002-04:00

So it's official. I survived my first day of teacher orientation at IU and it was relatively painless. That is, unless you count the massive headache I had this morning, because I'm an idiot and thought that I could make it through hours of sitting in a classroom without caffeine. WRONG! This problem will be rectified tomorrow. Luckily I work for the French department, so at 1030 we had a coffee and croissant break. Nothing I love more than free food and coffee :-) The one downside to being in training is that we actually have homework. I can't remember the last time I actually sat at a table and completed an assignment. Yes, I realize that I JUST graduated with my BA, but trust me... it's been a while.

So, after 2 hrs of sitting at my dining room table with my beginning French book, notes from today and a heaping class of some rather ~~crappy~~ ~~cheap~~ inexpensive red wine, I have come up with lesson plan for 4 days of class which I am rather pleased with. Hopefully Dr. Sax will approve as well. If not, I guess I'll just have a nice chat with Dr. Cabernet tomorrow evening when I get home. :-)

Time for a change...

2009-08-18T13:46:00.003-04:00

Well, here it is. Yet another attempt at blogging. I feel pretty sure that I will actually have some decent material pretty soon, what with teaching college students and all. Frankly, I'm slightly freaking out at this point. We start training tomorrow morning at 9am and I basically have no idea what to expect. Training will last a week and a half, then they throw us in with the sharks. Have I mentioned that I have never had any teaching experience before? Sure. I've tutored, but this is a whole new ballgame. I'm not really concerned about the material, it's more the students. It's strange to me that my students will be basically the same age as me and in some cases, even older. I'm sure that I'm just worrying for no reason and everything will be fine.

Other than that, I'm completely settled into Bloomington now. I really think that I'm going to like it here. It seems to be just the right size. I love my apt and campus is very close (about 10min by bike). Although, the first time I rode my bike to campus, I realized exactly how out of shape I am. The second day seemed better, and I'm going to make myself do it again today, I hope. haha. As for now, I need a break from the computer. Time for a good book. Is 2pm too early for a glass of wine? Books are always better with a glass of wine. :-)

Pierre Corneille, you are my bitch lover!

2008-09-02T01:37:00.001-04:00

so i'm pretty much up to my ~~knees~~ ~~elbows~~ ~~neck~~ hair? in 17th century french lit right now. ahhh. actually i really enjoy it, but i've gotten behind on readings and it's kicking my butt trying to catch up. I just finished Le Cid. Now I'm about to start La Querrelle du Cid (42 pages), which is an essay explaining why these two critics thought Le Cid was awful, but i'm pretty sure they just wrote it out of jealousy towards Corneille. Then I have to read an essay (16 pages) about Le Cid, which is actually laudatory of the play. THEN... I have to read a classmates 3 pages analysis of the play to discuss in class tomorrow. Did I mention it's 1:52am! but hey, i needed a break from all the french. time to get back to the ol' meule à aiguiser (grindstone).

monies

2008-08-10T13:39:00.002-04:00

so it's official.... i have two jobs. i swore it would never happen, but going to europe for 10 months leaves you completely broke. technically my job at abercrombie kids, from this point forward is only gonna be one day a week and only to keep the discount, but still... on that point my saturday was filled with working at abercrombie and WATCHING THE OLYMPICS!!! I'm addicted. It's official. I just can't wait for the gymnastics. That's pretty much occupied my day today until I have to go to work at 3 :-(.

After that there is Jordi's bday pool bash at Tj's. That should be good times. I love swimming and am sad that I haven't gotten to do much of it this summer.

Apart from that include practicing, reed making, and more practicing. Geez, I have such an exciting life. Orchestra auditions are on Saturday and I have to get in some serious practice time in with the contra. yeah, that's right. Fellenbaum is making all of the bassoons audition on contra. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate contra? If not, let me do it now. I....HATE.......CONTRA......BASSOON! Well, pretty much just playing it in orchestra, but still.

Well, back to watching the olympics. woohoo, powerlifting

Back in the swing of things

2008-08-07T23:32:00.002-04:00

So I realize I missed a lot of posting, but now I'm back in the States and am getting back into a normal schedule. Hopefully part of this schedule will be blogging regularly. Summer class ended today and none to soon. Not that I don't love World Civilization, in fact I'm quite fond of civilization, but that class was too much for me. I feel bad admitting it, but I came very close to falling asleep several times in that class.

Finishing that class made me realize something. I am one step closer to graduation and... the real world. Just so we're clear, by real world I mean I'll be moving out of TN to go to grad school. Not sure where exactly yet, but hopefully somewhere in the NE. My list of applications at this point include Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, NYU, and U of Chicago. Not really looking forward to filling out applications. It's going to feel like applying to undergrad all over again, but this time it'll be a 5-6 yr commitment rather than 4.

Now that class is over, I'll be working quite a bit in the weeks to come before fall classes start. Currently I'm working at abercrombie kids and Calhoun's on the River. Once school starts I'll mostly be at Calhoun's, but I'll probably keep one shift a week at abercrombie so that I can keep my discount, cuz let's be honest, I need new clothes.

As for right now, I'm gonna head to sleep so that I can get up in the morning and hand out PMA flyers to the band freshies.

More to come...

We're friends of Rick or We'll always have....Casablanca or My return to blogging

2008-05-28T08:21:00.002-04:00

So.....If anyone is still reading, here is my long awaited return to blogging. Yes, it has been a couple of months since I've posted. Yes, You will probably still be bored reading this (hopefully not). Yes, a lot has happened in 2 months. No, I will not recount every excruciating detail. I will however write about my last amazing trip. I'm not sure if it's to record somewhere that it actually happened or if it's merely to brag, but here goes.

CASABLANCA, MOROCCO!!!!! That's right. AFRICA. Well technically, not everyone considers this part of Africa to be Africa. When I told all of my French friends I was going to Africa, they all got excited and asked me where. However, upon my response, I got the same disappointing response. "Maroc? C'est pas dans l'Afrique. C'est Maghreb." Mahgreb? WTF??? As I'm sure any Americain will agree, Morocco is attached to the African continent. It's in Africa. I'm guessing the Maghreb distinction is strictly French and is probably spurned from their subconscious anger of losing all of their African colonies, especially when you look at the countries that the French consider to be part of Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania. All of these, with the exception of Libya, where at one point French colonies.*

So anywho...After a delightful 2 1/2 hr flight from Lyon, France to Mohammed V Airport in Casablanca, we arrived 1 min late for the train to the city center. Of course the train only runs every hour so we're stuck in the sketchiest of skecth train stations in the world. Most of it was under construction and dimly lit and there were mosquitoes everywhere, but Claire and Kristen were happy cuz they got to smoke inside. EVERYWHERE inside. We're used to the new French law forbidding smoking in public places, but that does not exist in Morocco. Restaurants, bars, shops, wherever you want, you can smoke. So after an hour of waiting for the train. We had a 40 min ride to Casablanca center in an extremely dimly lit train the windows of which were too dirty to see out of. We arrived at the train station and realized we had no clue how to get to our hotel. Luckily there were extremely pushy taxi drivers who were ready to help us. One thing you should know about taxi drivers in Morocco is that they not only work off the fare they get paid for driving you to your destination, but they also make commissions from hotels. The entire taxi ride which lasted all of 10 min consisted of our driver trying to convince us to stay in a chain hotels in the city center. He told us the hotel we had booked was not nice and was extremely dirty. We survived the cab ride and paid him his 60 dirham(aprx. $8).

Needless to say we were extremely surprised to check into our hotel and find that it was amazing. It WAS in the old part of town (the ancienne médina), which at night I'll admit gets a little creepy, but the hotel just had soo much character. All of the walls were brightly painted and had all kinds of art work hanging on them. Our room had 3 twin beds, a private bath, a TV, a view of the ocean and freshly painted orange-red walls. It was around 11pm the first night when we found somewhere to eat. We decided on the only restaurant that we found that was still open. It just happened to be a quite large seafood restaurant. We thought it was small at first, as it looked like it only had a small terrasse for seating. When we entered we were directed through a bar, a small waiting area and two dining rooms to our table in the back by what appeared to be a bunch of business men. In front of me was a French business man and his wife/girlfriend/hooker with an Arab business man. To our right, was the strangest mix of men. All of them were obviously businessmen who had just met that day. They were all very awkward around each other and kept switching between French and English. There were 8 or them in total but only about 3 were carrying on the conversation. The others either looked bored or confused. Two of these 3 were obviously French from the way they were speaking and the other was OBVIOUSLY Americain, by his very broken French, strong Americain accent and his rather large waist size. For dinner, we ordered 3 menus and split them. One was just fried seafood, but really good fried seafood: shrimp and 3 kinds of different fish, all with the heads still attached. The other was some kind of fish filet as it was called on the menu, but was more like a steak when it was delivered. After dinner, we returned to the hotel and smoked some licorice flavored hookah with the really nice guy that was working the desk. He also served us scotch and mint tea, which is REALLY popular in Morocco, the tea that is, not the whiskey.

Now it's break time. I'll finish the rest later tonight.

*so actually after a little research, i found out that Maghreb is actually the Arabic word for this region, but it is a little ironic, a little toooo ironic, don't cha think (à la morisette)

from bad to worse

2008-02-01T08:56:00.000-05:00

well, last post was about my cold. unfortunately things have only gotten worse. flu season is upon us and it pretty much kicked my ass last night. i've have absolutely no energy for the past few days. this morning i woke up around 3am and i was sweating hardcore. it hurts my throat and my ears when ever i swallow and i ache all over. i guess i should have had my flu shot this year. i've been lying in bed all day, basically cuz whenever i stand up i get really dizzy. jean went to the pharmacy this morning for me. i wrote down all of my symptoms on a sheet of paper and the pharmacist said it def sounded like the flu. so, she gave me some kind of cough syrup to help with my sore throat and some hardcore fever reducer to alternate with ibuprofen. luckily it's the weekend so i can lie in bed all weekend. i'm gonna try to get some sleep now, but just thought i should give a quick update.

Je déteste les rhumes!!!! or Bring on the drugs...

2008-01-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I swear one of these days I'm going to get the hang of regular blog posting, but until then we'll just think of my sporadic posting as, shall we say, random outbreaks of textual diarrhea.

This past weekend, I was definitely the laziest person on the planet. I literally didn't leave my apt after we dropped Mira off at the train station in the morning. My weekend pretty much consisted of me either lying in bed or sitting at my desk and watching movies and/or south park (my new guilty pleasure). Although Mira's leaving was extremely sad and she is now probably frozen in some block of ice in the crazy Minnosotean (is that a word? well, if it wasn't it is now!) winter, thanks to her i now have a really kick-ass wall:

Oh, and check out my new lamp on my desk. 5 euro at Pier Imports! heck yes soldes. But that's all I'm going to say about Mira's leaving, because i don't need to be sad right now. I already have a sniffly nose and tearing up would make it worse.

So things are starting to get back into a normal pattern around Chambs (if our lives here could ever be considered normal). Class started back on Monday. Well, some classes that is. The management classes don't start for another 2 wks (i think) which means that right now I'm kicking myself for being a language student. So far, I have 5 translation classes (i know, right?) 4 of them are written and one is oral, an american cinema and society class* (quite ridiculous, yet HIGHLY entertaining), french grammar, old french, latin, italian, and a 20th century french lit class. It should be an fun semester.

*so this class was aimed at filling one of my gen ed requirements at UT, but after actually attending the class, I doubt that will happen. In the first class, we watched an episode of MacGyver. Yes, that's right. Make-a-nuclear-bomb-out-of-a-paperclip,-gum,-a-half-dollar,-an- peanut-butter MacGyver. Don't get me wrong. I love the show and actually, wednesday was the first time i had actually seen an episode, but the teacher dug further into MacGyver than anyone EVER should. We had to relate this particular episode of MacGyver to the typical American view of colonialism and she made references to Iraq, the native americans, the wild west, Robinson Crusoe and the Bible. Several of her points were valid, however i feel that for some of them, she might have stretched a little too far. Ooooo, and next week is Team America: World Police. Which she told the students on wed. was a depiction of america's foreign policy. should be good times. :-)

Anywho, this crazy Chambéry weather is wrecking havoc on me. I'm finally sick for the first time (well, excluding the unfortunate stomach whatever on the train, which we will no longer discuss. Luckily, this time, I think it's just a common cold. So that means I've been downing soup and hot tea like it's nobody's business, because i'm trying to avoid the suppository happy french pharmacists that Liz warned me about. So for now I will just settle for my quickly depleting supply of mouchoirs.

Well, I guess that about does it for now. It's time to get ready to go out. Today is Sandra's (german friend) birthday and she is making dinner for us. Apparently in Europe this is fairly common. I'm not gonna complain. YAY food!

ciao

Bonne année, bonne année, bonne-ne-ne-ne-ne année...

2008-01-12T16:37:00.000-05:00

So here I am. Finally updating this blog that was intended to be done on a regular schedule, but with all of the goings on in the past month seems to have fallen through the cracks. Hopefully, now i am back with blogging fury and things will actually be posted.

Going back a little bit, I was recently in Paris for New Year's Eve. Yeah. After my amazingly awful trip back to France, Paris was a nice break. After arriving in Paris after midnight, i found out from Claire that our hotel had been upgraded. Originally we were supposed to be in Montmartre on the northside of Paris, but due to a booking conflict they moved us to another one of their hotels (beside the EIFFEL TOWER!!!)

So that's the view from our hotel window. My first night consisted of me passing out and waking up around 11 the next morning. Around 11, our canadian friend jessica came to the hotel and claire and i went out exploring. We saw all of the big sights, but didn't actually go in anywhere because i already had and claire didn't feel like waiting in line. I will say however that it is amazing that even though it's been 3 yrs since i was in Paris, there are still the same annoying men around the Eiffel Tower trying to sell the same annoying keychains. After sightseeing, claire and i were pretty much starving so we headed over to the latin quarter near notre dame to get some cheap dinner (def the cheapest place to eat in Paris). After dinner, we met back up with jess at the hotel to go grocery shopping for supplies for the night (really cheap sparkling wine, classy right?) In the process i realized that i left my pants i was planning on wearing out in the states, so of course that meant we had to go shopping. In case you're not familiar with french business hours, nothing is ever open, EVER. So it was a little difficult trying to find somewhere to buy decent jeans, but at last we succeeded and i highly recommend this store.

When we got back to the hotel we began the festivities, around 7ish. Let's just say that New Year's Eve is a time for excess. If you want to know more about the evenings activities just ask me, but i won't be going into details on here.

That being said, we slept in on New Year's Day and woke up around 2ish. We were all starving and didn't feel like walking anywhere, so i am ashamed to admit that we had lunch at the McDo's across the street from our luxurious 6 story hotel on the outskirts of Paris that didn't have an elevator and in which our room was on the top floor, not so cute. The rest of New Year's Day was spent in the hotel room with the lights off and curtains drawn watching movies and Will & Grace.

The next day we had to switch hotels again and met up with Jean. I really liked this hotel. It wasn't exceptionally nice, but it's location is what did it for me. This was directly across the street:

In case you don't know what this is, it's the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieure de Musique et de Danse de Paris. It just made me happy staying across the street from it. We were also across the street from the Cité de la Musique. This was where Jean, Claire and i had sushi. MMMM. It was the first time in more than a month and only the second time since i had been in France. Sad times i know.

Well, that pretty much gets us up to date with the Paris trip. I will have pics on facebook soon. As for now, I'm gonna try to get a little studying done, because I still have two more exams left, french linguistics on wed and italian on thurs.

ciao

Half-way around the world and back in 8 days...

2008-01-10T10:27:00.000-05:00

So as you can tell from my last post, I'm back in France now. Surprisingly, I am very relieved to be back. After such a short time, it is amazing how accustomed you can grow to a place.

So here's a brief run down of the holiday events.

Dec. 22nd

train from Chambéry to Geneva
night in hostel with smelly Indian businessmen from London who talk (loudly) in their sleep

Dec. 23rd

wake up at 04:00 (GMT +1:00)
lug a 50 pound suitcase with no rollers to the train station and then to check-in at airport
flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Frankfurt, Germany (1 1/2 hr delay)
flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Charlotte, NC
flight from Charlotte, NC to Nashville, TN
dinner at Baja Fresh (~~Mexican food~~ Tex-Mex doesn't exist in ~~France~~ Europe)

Dec. 24th

Christmas at my sister's 9am
Christmas at my dad's mom's noon
Christmas at my mom's mom's 4pm
Midnight (9pm) mass
After-mass breakfast at my aunt's 10:30pm

Dec. 25th

Christmas at my step-mom's mom's 10am
Christmas at my mom's 4pm

Dec. 26th

American TV!!!!

Dec. 27th

shopping with my mom and sis (babysitting my niece and nephew)
dinner out for my sis and stepdad's bdays

Dec. 28th

HAIRCUT!!!!
WALMART!!!!

Dec. 29th

breakfast at Cracker Barrel
flight from Nashville, TN to Philadelphia, PA
2 1/2 hr maintenance delay for flight to Munich, Germany

1 hr standing at the USAirways service counter readjusting flights to go to Geneva from Munich since I originally only had 45 min between flights
cancel TGV ticket from Geneva to Paris, because I arrived in Geneva 1 min!!!! after my train left
booked new ticket from Geneva to Paris for 122 CHF (appx. $108 US)
didn't use my meal voucher, because i didn't realize i had it

Dec. 30th

flight from Munich, Germany to Geneva, Switzerland
train from Geneva, Switzerland to Paris, France!!!!

on the 3 1/2 hr train ride we were informed that we were being redirected through Dijon, France (AN HOUR AND A HALF OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ugh

arrived in Paris, France around 00:30
found out our hotel had changed, to right beside the Eiffel Tower!!
metro ride to the hotel

didn't have any euro and the metro ticket office was closed.
thus, i bought a 1,50 euro metro ticket with my bank card with my account that had 1,53 euro in it

arrived at the hotel around 01:30
crashed

New Year's update and etc to come after my exam tomorrow. i promise it'll be more interesting :-)

à tout

2008-01-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

Bonjour tous,
Yes. In case you're wondering, I DO realize that it's been more than a month since my last post and hopefully this horrible trend won't continue any longer. Unfortunately seeing as I have a translation exam in approximately 8 hours, this will be a brief post, mostly geared at trying to make me sleepy since my sleeping schedule is all f*d up right now due to hella traveling and to extreme stomach issues (more details to come in later posts, of the former not the latter(i mean come on, I'm not Ysabel ;-) ) ).

Ok, so this blog has one major point which is directly addressed at 3 of my probable 4 readers (sorry Mira). I'm working on planning/preparing for my junior/senior/whatever-you-want-to-call-it recital. Back in the fall, Liz came to visit and I was pretty sure that we had figured out a program, based on French bassoon music. However, I'm starting to debate one of the pieces on the program and need some advice. I'm having trouble deciding between two pieces, the Tansman Sonatine and the Tansman Suite. I had decided on the Sonatine and even got the music while i was home, but the past few days i have been listening to the Suite and am starting to like it more. Ugh, that's where you guys (Benhameen, Ys, and Liz) come in. If at all possible, could you try to listen to recordings of the two pieces and give me your opinion. I know Liz probably knows both pieces by heart and has the good CD. However, i don't think it would be too hard to find a recording or i could try to send you a copy. I know that the Sonatine is available on ITunes, but I'm not sure of the quality.

Anywho, any help would be GREATLY appreciated and now I'm gonna try to get a little sleep. Thank you all for taking the time to read this slightly boring post and i promise i will post again with many more interesting things on tuesday.

à tout!

YAY IT'S THE GRÈVE!!!!

2007-11-21T13:06:00.001-05:00

Ok. So as you may have noticed, my posting has been, shall we say, slacking. Let’s attribute this to my obvious rejection of NABLOPOM. My theory is that Ysabel has been posting enough this month to account for me and all of the other people who claim to have a blog, but are usually too lazy to actually post or post random uninteresting things. (PS I fit both of those categories).

Today I experienced a true cornerstone of French culture. La grève (strike). Yes. Today the majority of France was shutdown. To begin with, the trains (SNCF) in France went on strike last week to protest their retirement age and conditions and are still going strong this week. On top of that the students here are getting pissed due to a little thing called the LRU (Loi sur la résponsibilité des universités). Basically the law wants the universities in France to become more autonomous, but the students are afraid that with more autonomy, the French universities are going to become too commercialized and begin to be run by the corporations that will eventually sponsor them. So today the students joined up with the unions of SNCF along with the French functionnaires (employees who work for the State) and employees of EDF/GDF (the electricity and gas providers in France). Just a side note, functionnaires account for 5.6 million of a total French population of 61 million. Quite a considerable amount.

This was truly a unique experience. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and not the slightest desire to go to class. Nonetheless, I woke up, showered and then went to my first class. My first class today was Sociéte et Culture, which is a course offered by the Department of International Relations. Since there are only foreigners in this class and is offered in a building separated from the others on campus, it went off without a hitch. Ugh, 2 hours talking about the war in Indochine. Anywho, cut to after class. On the way home, Mira, Angelica, and I went to the other main buildings to see what was going on and were surprised by what we found. All of the doors had been barricaded with wooden palettes, chairs, chains, construction barrels and chairs. If I get a chance, I’ll try to sneak some pics tomorrow. So luckily, no classes tomorrow since most of my classes are normal classes with all French students.

This afternoon we decided to profit from the strike and went into town. I bought a new scarf and then Angelica, Mira and I went to an amazing candy shop while we were waiting on Claire and Jean to sign up for internet at their apt. On the way back to meet them, we met all of the people who were on strike. Boy, was that a sight to behold. The street was completely full of probably about 3,000 people (Mira, help me here. I’m bad with numbers.) Several of them were really pumped up and chanting while waving placards and brandishing roadside safety flares. However, the majority of them didn’t look very enthusiastic and probably would have preferred to be somewhere else (such as in the candy shop buying the marvelous violet flavored candies that I had today). I saw several of my teachers and French classmates amongst the crowd. Namely one crack-head teacher that teaches a class that I dropped.

In other food-related news, I branched out today and made mashed potatoes for the first time today. MMMM. Luckily the hardest thing was peeling potatoes with a knife. It’s true that you don’t miss things until their gone (ex. potato/carrot peeler). Oooo. And Jean’s mom sent her a package with Kraft Mac & Cheese in it today. So we had that for dinner. I also had the best pizza of all time tonight. Angelica and Pierre went to this pizza place downtown and brought 2 pizzas back. They were made with a fresh cream sauce and topped with mushrooms, foie gras and filleted duck breast. Mmmm. Okay.

Well I guess it’s time for bed now to prepare for my long day tomorrow of doing nothing since there are no classes. Hooray. Hopefully I will get a chance to post this at some point tomorrow if I can make it to building 24 since all the others are barricaded and the library is closed. Anywho, happy grève-ing to all.

I mean, Slovakia is pretty much the Paris of eastern Europe...

2007-10-29T09:56:00.000-04:00

As Benhameen so bluntly reminded me, I have been slacking on updates. And now as I sit here in the library attempting to update, my mind is blank. So in the future I'm going to make a list each night of the things I intend to put in my blog.

A la une this week, Liz is coming to visit. She arrives tomorrow at 14h00, which means that I'll be sleeping til about noon. Then I'll head down to the train station to meet her when she arrives. We've been trying to plan out some activities while she's here and now I think we have it all planned out. Tomorrow night we're going to go to a traditional Savoyard restaurant. Wed. will be a tour of Chambéry day including a tour of the Château. As you well may know, Wed is Halloween and one of the nightclub's is actually having a Halloween party. Not too sure about Thurs., maybe a day-trip to Annecy (the Venice of France). She leaves Friday morning and then it's off to Aix-les-Bains to go to the hot springs.

In style news, Claire put highlights in Jean and Angelica's hair yesterday. That was pretty much an all day affair. My role was very important in the whole ordeal. I laid on the bed and supervised, which means I studied a little, read HP6, and played Snake Xenxia on Claire's phone. They tried to put highlights in my hair, but I refused. However, I am letting my hair grow out. At this point I think it is longer than it ever has been and it's about to drive me crazy. I don't know if I'll be able to make it, but we shall see. Anywho, I can't really think of anything else to post right now so I'll stop writing. I promise the next post will be much more interesting.

Ciao

La nuit tous les chats sont gris...

2007-10-17T05:35:00.000-04:00

So obviously it's been a while since I've posted. Thanks for reminding me, Beckey. Anywho. I have a little time to kill while I'm sitting outside the class that I just decided to drop. Yes, that makes two classes that I've left after the pause. What is wrong with me? I'm tired. That's what it is. I guess. Monday I decided not to take the lit class over the Middle Ages, because I would seriously all asleep every class period if I stayed in there. The teacher was so freaking annoying. He's one of those professors who really doesn't like his job and he is not enthusiastic about the subject at ALL. I was in the front row and it was still hard to understand what he was saying. Plus, he likes to ramble A LOT. Normally, this isn't a problem for me. Most of my teachers back home get off on tangents, even in HS. Beckey, all I'm going to say is "castles." But something seems a little strange when we're studying lit of the MA and a student asks a question about lit OF THE MA and the prof responds, not to the question of the aforementioned student, but rather by talking about his love of German pre-romanticists. Don't get me wrong. I love romanticism as much as the next person, but in the wise words of Mary Poppins, "there is a place for everything and everything in it's place."

Ok. Enough with that. What's going on this week? Tonight, there is a potluck dinner for all of the foreign students in one of the bars downtown. We're all supposed to bring a dish that is stereotypical of or from our country. What is stereotypical of the US? Initially I thought hamburgers, but then was yelled at by the germans :-). So as per the suggestion of my French roommate, Pierre, I am taking pancakes. I do believe I have the easiest dish ever, except for the fact that whenever I make pancakes, I use Bisquick. Therein lies the problem. It doesn't exist in France. Ugh. They have crêpe mix (mmmm, crêpes) out the ass; but alas, it's not the same. So I went to monoprix and found some prepackaged pancakes which I hope will do the trick. I also found maple syrup (mmm, maple syrup). It's no Aunt Jemima, but it will have to suffice. As for the other Americans, Jean made like 50 grilled cheese sandwiches (to which my roommate insisted we add some ham that he had in the fridge which would just make it a French croque-monsieur) and Claire made a green bean casserole. And to answer your question, apparently you can cook a casserole in a toaster oven.

Tomorrow is a big ERASMUS party at the RU and afterwards I'm sure we'll all end up at Charly's. As for the weekend, which I would like to take the opportunity to remind you starts on thursday night, no big plans. Just a tour of the cathedral on Saturday.

Now it's time for lunch so I have to go beat the line. More later.

Ciao

Excuse me, sir, but do you realize that you're sleeping on the street?

2007-10-05T09:56:00.000-04:00

So this has been a fairly eventful week. Let me start off by saying that I love not having classes on Friday. Especially considering that Thursday is the main party night in Chambéry. So let's start with last night.

After getting out of our perfectionnement de français class, Claire, Jean, Angelica and I went to the RU for dinner. Apparently NOONE eats there at night. There were literally 3 other people eating in there. After that, we went back to our apts to get ready to go out. Sandra (the German) came over at 20h30 with Jean and Claire. This obviously mean pregaming at Eric's. Oh, Captain Morgan, how I miss you. I went to the grocery earlier in the morning to get some liquor. Yes, liquor from the grocery store. :-) Claire and I were craving Capt. When buying rum in France, don't be fooled by what appears to be the Captain, because believe me...it is NOT. What I ended up with was Rhum ambré.

Horrible liquor aside, it was a good night. After pregaming, we went into town around 22h30. We met up with Annika and Christoph (the other Germans) and Peter (Slovakian) at Charly's. We had a few drinks at the pub and left there about 00h30. OMG!!! Let me just say that drunk, nasty French guys piss me off!!! Especially when they vomit on me and Annika. :-( Yes, this is correct. Some random French guy was walking by us and just let it fly. That was not cute. So after that drama, we all went to the Cocktail Club. This was more like an American club than Opéra. There was a lot of American music. Particularly 80s music. Oh and the biggest shock was that they played Cotton-Eyed Joe and that every European seemed to know the words. We left the Cocktail and went home around 03h00. PS. Claire gets very talkative when she is drunk, hence the title of this blog. We saw 3 students passed out on the street and Claire tried to wake up all of them. But all in all, it was a good time, but that's enough about drunken times in Chambéry.

Today has been rather uneventful. I slept til 12h00 and then went to eat at the RU with Claire. And now we are in the library so that we can help Sandra with her English homework. How is it fair that her English homework is watching an episode of Desperate Housewives on the net? Well, I should probably try to be productive now and go to Carrefour or something.

Ciao

Gene Kelly, I need some inspiration

2007-09-28T08:59:00.000-04:00

Rain, rain, rain....

That's the general run of the mill here in Chambéry. It's been raining for about 4 days straight now. I'm not talking about general rain. It's tricky rain. It won't rain hard until you decide to go somewhere, but then the bottom falls out. Oh yeah, and it's cold. Yes... It's about 53 degrees outside and tonight it will get down to around 38!!!! ugh... i'm ready for some snow already. The clouds here are sooo low. You can't even see the tops of the mountains :-(

oooo. good news!!! I have pics posted now. there are quite a few. there are also some on facebook too. so this is a really short post, but now it's time to go for some café.

Chambery. Home Sweet Home

2007-09-20T08:05:00.000-04:00

So I'm finally here! It took a while and took me a long time to get settled, but I absolutely love it! The views are spectacular! (I promise to post pics as soon as I can connect to WiFi). The first morning of trying to get moved in was uber stressful. OMG!!! I actually almost broke down into tears. First, there is soooo much paper work in France (i just love the bureaucracy). After lugging 105lbs of luggage, a backpack and a bassoon up the huge ass hill to campus, the housing office proceeded to tell me that I needed to go back to town and buy housing insurance (40 euro) and that the housing deposit was 350 euro!!!!!! I definitely was not expecting that. That's the main reason I was almost in tears. I'm actually very surprised that the ATM let me withdraw that much at once. The secretary tried to comfort me by telling me that I would get it back at the end of the year. Geez, thanks a lot. That really helps me NOW.

But, all is good now. When I was going back to the office to get sheet and blankets, I ran into the two girls from TN, one from Knoxville and one from Chattanooga. I realize that I didn't want to hang out with Americains all the time, but they have been a huge help. They have kept me sane. We have also been hanging out with a girl from Mexico, a guy from England and a girl from Italy. They have all been really nice.

I still haven't really met my roommates yet. There names are Mohammed and Pierre and they are rarely ever at the apt when I am. However, the first night we met the neighbors who were really nice. We went over to their apt and drank with Greg, Jonas, and Thomas. Greg doesn't live there, but he is there a lot. Jonas was very keen to practice his English, and sought out Jean as a target. Meanwhile, Claire and I were talking to Greg and Thomas. They were really cool. We downed the two bottles of wine, a bottle of whisky and quite a bit of pastisse. mmmm tastes like licorice.

well i have to go to a meeting now and i'm sure the other internationals want to use the computers now. i'll write more later.

ciao.

i LOVE Geneva!!

2007-09-15T13:35:00.000-04:00

So i could probably make this the longest post ever, but considering i'm running out of time and i'm really freaking tired, it probably won't be very long. first, internet over the next few days could be sketch. stupid eric didn't even look at his transformer that he bought from radioshack. my comp has a three-prong plug, but the transformer only has place for two. this should be interesting. anywho, geneva is amazing.

i was really tired when i got here, but i forced myself to go explore. and boy am i glad i did. by far the thing i was most excited to see was the united nations, otherwise known as my future employer. :-) i really wanted to run through the fountain, but i controlled mzself (i realiye that i tzped a z instead of a y and vica versa, but until i'm back on mz computer, just switch them :-)) anywho, the onlz bad experiences i've had have been mostlz of mz own doing. first off, i packed waaaaz too much, which caused me to take a taxi a few blocks to mz hostel, because i looked like a fool trzing to carrz mz luggage. second, despite what the sncf website might have zou believe, there is definitelz NOT, i repeat, there is NOT an automatic ticket machine for sncf passengers in this train station. there is a sncf office next door, but alas, thez are closed on sundazs. so, i had to buz a cff ticket to chambérz and cancel mz ticket from sncf. luckilz i did this 4 hrs before the train leaves, so crisis averted.

i have determined the favorite pasttime here in geneva is lzing on a bench on a bridge with zour significant other's head in zour lap. guzs and girls both do it. dogs are verz popular here. thez are all soooo cute (except for one reallz old ladz's dog who apparentlz had never been groomed, pauvre chien) and i want to pet them, but worrz that that might be a little awkward. i haven't been talking a lot because it seems weird to just start talking to strangers walking down the street, but it's fun to eavesdrop on buses.

there's lots more i could write about genève, but i'll wait til i can post pics and when i don't have to paz for internet. ciao

ps. in case zou were wondering, the kezboard here is almost exactlz the same as home, but the z and y are switched. it has a couple of extras too but obviouslz for zou guzs the z and y are the most noticeable. :-)

Flughafen frustration

2007-09-15T02:25:00.000-04:00

So here I sit in the Frankfurt airport. damn i wish i spoke some german... where are you, Liz, when i need you? anywho, apparently blogspot likes to switch over to the german version when you're in germany. i know. imagine that. convenient if you're german, not if your last name is german, but don't speak the language. i'm pretty much in love with the appel soda, lift. apfel-schorle, mmmm.... well, this was a very short and pointless post, but at least you guys know i'm alive. and in EUROPE!!! needless to say, the 15 minutes of internet that i paid 2 euro for is about to run out, so i will try to post when i get to genève and can actually communicate with people.

ciao

Demain!!!!

2007-09-13T11:27:00.000-04:00

Yes. That is correct, everyone. I leave tomorrow!!!! Sure it might be helpful if I already had all of the stuff I needed and didn't have to make a Walmart run. Sure it might have been a good idea to already be packed, but for anyone who knows me, that's not how I operate. *Cut to me starting my 5 page French paper at 11pm the night before it's due. That being said, let's recap the last few days.

Tues PM.
My family all went out to celebrate my bday/leaving (or as they like to call it, abandoning them). My mom had this wonderful cake made:

So just to let you know, my mom doesn't know the slightest bit of French, so this cake was quite an undertaking. While I was in Knoxville for the weekend, she rummaged my room and took a French-English dictionary and one of my hs french books. She tried to compose "Happy Birthday and Goodbye" on her own and produced this, "Heureux anniversaire bon adieu." So apparently she wanted to personify my bday and thinks it's a good thing that she won't ever see me again. Hooray for translation. Needless to say, she broke down and called my hs french teacher, Elaine Thompson (Madame). Let me just say that she was almost my fav hs teacher, a close tie with my AP English teacher, Mrs. Joiner. Madame was able to offer some help to ma mère and you can see the finished product. Oh, and my mom almost used the Union Jack instead of the Tricolore. :-(

Wed.
This morning I started off my day by babysitting my niece, Layla, for a while.

We watched the new Charlotte's Web movie and then I had to take her to the hospital, because ma grand-mère was having knee surgery. They told her to be at the hospital at 8h30, but she just waited in her bed until they took her back to the OR at 13h30. Slightly ridiculous. During this wait time however I went to visit Madame. In case you have never gone back to visit your hs after graduating, it is a VERY weird feeling. Anywho, she was very shocked and happy to see me. We exchanged contact info and talked all about my year abroad. She said that she expects postcards so I guess I'll have to send her some. OH, and her daughter lives in Karlsruhe, Germany so I'll probably need to make a stop there to say hey.

Then, last night consisted of packing. By packing, I mean I took all of my clothes, books, etc that I'm carrying with me and spread them across the living room and opened my suitcases. Tonight will consist of filling these suitcases and praying to God that they meet the weight restrictions.

Well now it's time for the dreaded Walmart run. I'll post again when I get to Europe and have internet access.

Salut!

Only 9 more days....

2007-09-05T00:46:00.000-04:00

Tick tock... It seems like each passing day is going by slower than the last. I only have 9 days left in the states and it is sort of surreal. It seems like I have sooo much to do and yet, I'm not worried. For once in my life, I'm just letting things work themselves out. I've wasted too much time in the past worrying myself to death over little teeny tiny unimportant minuscule details and I've had enough. The past two weeks I have decided to just breathe and enjoy myself, and I have. I've made to trips to Knoxville and they have been incredibly enjoyable. I reconnected with my long lost love, sushi. If you haven't met her yet, you should. She will do things to your mouth you never dreamed possible...

So now we're leaving the slightly philosophical, preachy, and beginning to get creepy part of the blog to get to more substance. aka. The Life of Eric. After all, who really needs the Life of Pi??

The day has finally arrived... and by the day I mean my bassoon. Yes. I'm sooo happy. When it arrived today at my grandmother's I was very sad, because I ripped open the box and realized I didn't have a reed with me to try it. I know... sad times. So I proceed to drive home, bassoon in tow, and practically run everyone else off the road in the process by driving 80 mph all the way. (Yes, I know my life is boring when I am that excited to play a new bassoon). Anywho. I get home, soak a reed, put my baby together, begin to play and beautiful music erupt from the horn until I play that ill-fated note. No, not an Eb, but alas, a G. That is correct folks, probably the first note I ever played on the bassoon will not play. In a prolific panic (isn't alliteration fun?) I call my stepmom and she calms me down. I notice what is wrong, the spring isn't working right, but surprise surprise, I don't know how to fix it. Luckily, after 10 minutes of conversation with Barry Trent (thank you, Mr. Trent) I am able to readjust the spring and all is right in the world. Except for this post which most of you have quit reading at this point.

Now onto France related news...

One word.... Skype. Download it. It is quite amazing. I can call any other Skype users anywhere in the world for free. I bought a USB phone today and made my first call to France to reserve a hotel room. It is amazing that the desk attendant understood everything that I said just fine, yet he had trouble with BEUERLEIN. Looks like my name is hard for everyone, not just US Americans. I actually had to spell my name for him 5 times. But finally he got it right and I now have une chambre simple pour une nuit when I arrive in Chambéry the night before I can move into my dorm.

Time to go to sleep, so that I can wake up early in the morning and make some gas money to go back to Knoxville yet again for football weekend!!!! Heck yes for going to the game as a normal student and not wearing a uniform. But I might shed the slightest tear during pregame. For now....

Bonne nuit
Ciao
Auf Wiedersehen

How fast can I laufen through the Munich Flughafen??

2007-09-01T23:34:00.001-04:00

So yesterday was fun. Well, if you consider spending $800+ on an airplane ticket. The good news is that now I can make it back to France for my second semester. The only issue that I'm concerned about is the depressingly short layover that I have in Deutschland. Typically I wouldn't be concerned about making a connection with 45 mins between the flights, but due to USAirways horrible delay record I'm slightly besorgt.* Liz, I know how proud you must be of my progress with the German language :-). I leave the states for the second time on Dec 29 and won't be back until June 30!!! Did I mention that I'm slightly excited? In case you're wondering, my flights for the second leg are Nashville>Philly>Munich>Geneva. Now it is time to schlafen**. Gute Nacht.

ps. I'm STILL waiting on my bassoon...

*worried
**to sleep

Things that make me happy...and not so much

2007-08-29T17:55:00.000-04:00

Happiness-

Receiving my excess financial aid check
Shopping for clothes for France
No work for 3 days
Going to Ktown for those 3 days
Jones Cream Soda

Not so happiness-

Waiting on my bassoon
Achy feet from work
People trying to buy my clarinet for $200, I mean really?
My room and the time it's going to take to clean it
Packing
Still waiting on my bassoon

Luckily this list tends to balance itself out. The official France countdown is 16 days!!! I'm purchasing my second round of tickets tomorrow. Hooray, Orbitz. I was really skeptical about travel sites at first, but so far I've had good experiences. I'll post more after I actually get to France.

Well, time so go shopping.

ps. I'm still waiting on my bassoon. :-(

2007-08-26T23:17:00.000-04:00

NEW BASSOON!!!! Well, almost...

So I have big news, sort of. haha. After waiting two years, actually 6 if you count high school, a bassoon is finally within my grasp. No really... it's in the living room. There is only one problem. They* mailed me the wrong model. I know right? Sad times. What makes the situation even worse, is that I played the bassoon and absolutely LOVED it. Since I found out about the mix up, I've refused to play aforementioned bassoon anymore to help reduce separation anxiety. Of course I'm sure I will love the new bassoon even more. I mean, come on. The only difference is long bore vs. short bore and really, who can really tell the difference.**

So in about 2 days I should have the new new bassoon of my dreams. Let's hope it works out. I'm really happy because this means that I will definitely have a horn to take with me to France. Believe me, that is a big relief. About two weeks ago I was extremely stressed out about it. I'm pretty sure I would kill myself if I had to go 10 months without playing and there is always the possibility that I would have given it up had I not gotten my own bassoon. Alas, crisis averted.

So I was in Ktown this past week and it was really strange. First of all, I know that eventually I have to get older, but does that mean that the other college kids have to get younger? I mean really... I had 2 kids stop me and ask how to get to Ayres whose combined age had to be about 18. Not to mention the fact that they would randomly stop and ask me when I'm not even in classes this year due to the France thing, much less Ayres. How can you not know where Ayres is? I'm not going to lie, it made me a little sad to see people going to classes and not getting to myself. It was odd. What's worse is that I missed marching band. Well, that is until I heard the new pregame and was like, WTF?! How do you change pregame that much?! oh well. I'm sure 'twill be divine.

Anywho, I will be back in Ktown on Thursday until Saturday for a quick trip. so I'm looking forward to more awkwardness/good times. As for now, it is bed time. Damn you, morning shift. :-(

*American Bassoon Company, Inc.

**Long Bore vs. Short Bore

For decades Fox has built two styles of bassoons: The long-bore models, liked for their warmer tone, even intonation and stability, and the short-bore models preferred by many orchestral players for their greater flexibility and projection.

In the early 1990s Fox added an additional variant: The thick-wall models which sought to
combine some of the most desirable characteristics of each of the other styles, while
providing a brawnier character to the voice of the instrument.

Instrument makers must consider and balance many physical aspects in the acoustic design
of an instrument: bore length, bore size and shape, as well as the diameter, length, shape and
positioning of the tone holes.

2007-08-16T16:13:00.000-04:00

29 days!!!!

So it's official. I leave in 29 days. I think the fact that I'm going to be away from my comfort zone- friends, family, school - is finally starting to sink in. Of course I can't wait for the opportunity and have been anticipating this for so long. Yet, it's a little surreal that it is getting so close.

Today I was helping sis put some random crap on eBay and I realized how much contempt I actually have for that website. It's just not convenient at all. We put 11 items on there and it took approximately 4 hours. That's 4 hours of my life gone. Sure, if I hadn't been doing that I would have probably just been watching Top Chef or playing on the Word Reference forums, but still. ;-)

Yeah, Top Chef. Um, if you haven't watched it, shame on you. 'owie and 'ung both drive me crazy. I really can't stand them. I hope either Brian or Casey wins. Casey is my favorite so of course she will win.

Well, I should probably try and be productive now and clean my room. It is for real starting to look like a disaster area and if I don't start cleaning now, I won't be able to find any of my crap to pack for France.

Wow! 2 posts in 3 days. I'm proud of myself. More to come soon.

so here it goes...

2007-08-14T23:18:00.000-04:00

ok. so here's the deal. i've tried blogs in the past and they normally last about a week. we're ( by we, i mean i) am going to actually try to be dedicated to this one. so if i'm not dedicated, someone yell at me. yes, go ahead and yell. i can take it.

what's going on here in what i like to call the cultural mecca of the united states?* absolutely nothing. work's a bore, there is almost nothing to do, and i am eagerly anticipating my long awaited departure. T minus 31 days...

so here are the travel plans. i leave BNA on 14 sept. i fly BNA-CLT CLT-FRA FRA-GVA. sad news... i will be in genève all alone on my bday, 15 sept. i stay in genève for 2 days and hop a train to chambéry on 17 sept. orientation is 18 sept and classes begin 20 sept.

hopefully, i will have many new and exciting experiences in the land of the gauls. and with any luck i will remember them the next morning to share them on here. ;-) as for now, it is def bedtime and just let me say that sleeping in is probably my new favorite pastime.

*sarcasm (n)
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
2. a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark: a review full of sarcasms.
dictionary.com