I skipped frisbee to watch American series dubbed in French with my host family.

With less than two weeks left in Paris, I find myself in the gut-wrenching predicament of wanting to/NEEDING to do so many things before leaving the country, and yet cannot compel myself to do ANYTHING when under such pressure.

So as per usual, I guess I'll resort to making a whole nice list so I can better evaluate what I have to do and by when.

Attractions:
- Maison de Victor Hugo
- Musée de Rodin
- Musée de l'art moderne
- Monter la Tour Eiffel ?

Homework:
- Study for art final
- Write draft for benevolat paper
- Study for theatre final
- Study for atelier plume final
- Write Parisian memories
- Finish end-of-the-year song
- Find someone to sing it

Things to do:
- Haircut
- NafNaf
- Pack
- Close bank account
- Make recipe book for host mom
- Pay for frisbee maillots

Those are all reasonable things to do. If I bring myself to do half of those things by the end of this week, I'll be in good shape.

I still can't believe that I'll be leaving Europe for awhile. I can definitely picture myself living here for good. Not in Paris, but somewhere in Europe. I've found through my travels around France that I love other parts of France a lot more than I liked Paris. I can't wait to come back and explore.

I'm also pretty bummed about not having a summer job. I hope that something works out. Being a real live grownup with taxes and insurance and a real job hasn't really sunken in yet. I'm glad I have a year left of college to figure it out.

I might try to write a whole nice resume of my feelings and everything before I leave, but for the moment, I have to get to sleep so that I can wake up in the morning. I have a language assessment in the morning to see if I've really learned any French during my year here. On va croiser les doigts !

Sssssso.

I've learned that I stutter and stammer a little bit. I thought that it was just in French, but apparently it's in English too. If I don't think a lot about what I want to say before speaking, my words come out mixed up, whether it's in English or French. I'm speaking up more now though, which is better than just shutting up. I've kind of resigned myself to being embarassed no matter what I do/say, so it's become easier to just try to get my ideas out!

Greece was INCREDIBLE. I've been dreading writing a re-cap, but I'll try to recall what all was done. Alix and I left for the airport on Thursday evening because our flight was very early Friday morning. I brought my HUGE laptop in order to have a video teleconference via Skype with one of the jobs I wanted. We wound up having to hold the interview at 3:40 a.m. Paris time. Being cracked out and on NO sleep at an airport was NO GOOD. HOWEVER! I found out that they offered me a second interview tomorrow evening, where I'll have to teach a lesson on telling time to non-native English speakers via Skype. I'll let you know how it goes!

After no sleep, we headed on the plane for Athens! We arrived, took a nap, and then headed off. I really can't remember in what order we did everything, but in all, we saw the Ancient Agora, the Acropolis, lots of souvlaki, tzatziki, and free wine (pretty ladies get the free crap wine). We also got to go to a wine festival, which was awesome. There were countries from all over the world, and we got to sample little bits of all of the different ones. One of the wines was so smoky that it reminded me of whisky. I couldn't help but think about how weird it was that here I was at a wine festival when in my own home country, and yet I wouldn't be trusted to have a drop of alcohol for another 4 months.

After four days in Athens, we took a 6-hour ferry over to Santorini. It reminded me so much of an aircraft on the inside that I forgot that we were even on water. The seats were like airplane seats, and watching the world go by from my crouched position, we could've easily been skimming the water from the air. When we finally spotted Santorini, we could tell that it was our island because of the red and black sand all over due to the volcano (which has an eruption once every 50 years or so, and it's due!). There was practically no one on the island except for us two, and so we were treated with the utmost hospitality wherever we went. We had particularly exciting adventures when we went to the black beaches of Perissa, since we were literally the only people on the beach. It was raining and cold, but we braved it to dip our toes in the surprisingly warm water. We also made lots of animal friends, including a very cuddly cat and two dogs. The island animals could've quite easily had many diseases, but I'm still living, and we didn't get bitten, so I'm pretty sure that they were just friendly. Through all of Greece, we saw dogs as if they were any other city rodent. Notably in Athens, they were a big nuisance, barking at motorcycles and going up to bite the tires of moving cars. But the dogs on the island were some of the sweetest animals I ever met.

After braving the rain and cold and realizing the next bus wouldn't be around for another hour and a half, we sought shelter in a nearby restaurant, which I'm sure must be hopping during the summer season. However, we were the only two who came in who weren't locals, and we took every chance to try out our newly-acquired knowledge of the Greek language.

We also went to the red beaches, which weren't as red as we would've expected, and we came across a dredlocked dog who showed us around. Alix named him Hercules, but he looked a heck of a lot like our dog, Maggie.

He led us up on top of a hill to get a view of the other islands, and then we met up with him after grabbing an authentic dinner at a "restaurant", where the whole family was gathered, doing sewing, drinking, watching TV, doing their own cooking, and ironing. They sat us in the corner, where we watched Hercules and his assumed wife with an underbite and their two babies.

Afterward, we waited for the bus with our Japanese friends who were also staying at our hotel, and Hercules sat with us until he got too bored with getting pet to death.

After Santorini, we took the ferry back to Athens, stayed in an AMAZING hostel for 15 euros where we had a room to ourselves (I LOVE the off-season), and took a plane back to Paris in the morning.

Anyway, here are some more pictures!

Acropolis

Athens, theatre, and the new, not yet opened museum of Greek history in the back.

Santorini


Now that vacation is over, I've been surprisingly productive! I'm excited to see more of Paris once my family gets here, and I still can't believe that we only have three more months here. This Thursday, I'm going to an apéro (apéritif, or basically an excuse to have people bring you wine and food for a party) for the girls' frisbee team, Friday I'm going to see my first opera ever, Saturday I'm going to Reims for a champagne tasting, and Sunday we're going to Reid to watch one of my favorite movies, "Kirikou et la sorcière", which I learned about in high school from my bilingual school in New York. My host family and I are on pretty good terms as far as I know, and I've got a bunch of good friends and acquaintances. And the weather is starting to look more like spring every day! As much as I complain sometimes, there's no where else I'd rather be at this moment. Je suis contente, in the Frenchest meaning of the word.


Tonight, I'm going to polish up my lesson plan to show the directors of the program tomorrow night, and maybe finish some homework. Tomorrow, I'm off to hang out with Yael, see an art expo with Abby, rehearse my lesson plan one last time, and show it off to the directors at 9:15 my time! Thursday, I'm probably going to check out if Le Roi Lion still has student rush tickets (how great would it be to see The Lion King in French???) and maybe even just chill out and explore Paris on my own. I've learned that I always like being with someone when going anywhere, but maybe flying solo wouldn't be a bad idea for me to see what it's like.

Je ne le crois même pas. On a moins de trois mois qui nous restent, et je ne me sens toujours pas accoustoumé à la vie parisienne. My goal for the coming week is to see something in every arrondissement, just to get a feel for them. I might even descend at Bonne Nouvelle and see what really goes on at that metro stop!

It has been SO LONG.

I apologize for abandoning my blogging career for what feels like forever, but while I haven't been blogging, I've been making sweet vids! Here is my latest one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf5fIlOvSHc

School has been pretty darn awesome. I'm glad I made the oft-mocked choice of not taking any classes at the Sorbonne this semester, because Paris higher education IS ON GREVE. In other words, there's a whole lot of shit going down in Guadeloupe, President Sarko is trying new reforms to get (socialist) France to be more like capitalist America, and people are going CRAZY! For Smith peeps in Paris, that means that the girls at Paris 7 (Denis Diderot university) haven't had any second semester classes, and that the rest of the people at Paris 4 (the Sorbonne) are having classes on and off depending on whether the teachers and/or students happen to be striking on that day. I had some crazy videos and pictures that I took from when the protesters were going down Boulevard du Montparnasse right next to Reid Hall (where Smith classes are). I'll post them soonish. Hopefully.

I've been having trouble feeling a solidarity with my protesting peers. Although I think that Sarkozy is making a hella dick move by trying to capitalize France's system of higher education by putting all of the good teachers in certain schools and not continuing the democratic system of a similar education for all by thereby making students pay more to go to "better" schools, I really don't know how I'd feel marching with these students and teachers who are more or less directly related by the outcome of these reforms. Also, since I'm not feeling the repercussions of the striking and the protesting in any real way, I don't feel very strongly for participating. I'm going to try to educate myself on the whole situation further to see what's going on. For living in a city with so many pertinent issues that affect so many, I feel rather dumb on not knowing what's going on with the current French events.

In any case, although my classes are all within the confines of American universities' take on French education, they are all wonderful so far. I'm taking a theatre class, where I've already seen Hamlet IN GERMAN, IN FRANCE, DUBBED IN FRENCH. It was INCREDIBLE. The players were all wonderful, and the modern adaptation did not glaringly take away from the story in any way.

I have a creative writing class, which is a good outlet for working around the structure of the French language in a more playful way. Liking it a lot, although we have so many vocabulary words to learn.

The volunteer experience class is ever interesting, though it always makes me feel bad for not volunteering at the soup kitchen more often than I do.

My art and architecture class with the Middlebury consortium is GREAT. We go on tons of field trips around Paris to discuss the intricacies of the city's art and architecture. Although the teacher is sort of presumptuous about our knowledge of the French language and tends to undermine us by showing off her grasp of the English language, I love being able to discover/rediscover places in Paris in a new way.

In other news, frisbee is going great. I love the team, and although I still feel kind of uncomfortable speaking up in the group setting, I like that I'm being included as one of the gang now. It sort of happened without my realizing it, and I'm glad that it came without forcing it. I feel like some students, particularly the American ones, think that because they know how to do the double-cheek kiss, they should automatically be integrated into the circle of friends, and it just doesn't work that way. All the same, I'm glad that I have people outside of school.


Like Abby said in her last post, I really want to see the things that I've missed from Paris. I'm going to start by reading up on exactly what's been going on with Sarko's reforms and what's happening in Guadeloupe, with the continued promise that I'm going to read up on French news once a day.

Other things I need to do:
- picnic along the Seine
- go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
- see Sacré-Coeur
- memorize exactly which arrondissements are where
- take the Montmartre train
- actually stop at Bonne Nouvelle on the 8/9 and see what's there

I'll add more and cross things out as I do them. A la prochaine!

BONNE ANNEE!

So it's been a crazy time. I got back from America this morning at around 8:30 a.m., Paris time (2:30 a.m. EST), and there were soucis getting from the airport to my apartment. Apparently, there was a bomb scare (I tried looking online for a news story about it, but I came up with nothing and you get this instead). Someone left his or her suitcase in a restaurant in the Charles de Gaulle airport, and they had to call in the bomb squad to take care of it. After a lot of hubbub and panicking, I finally got to a bus to take me back to Paris (luckily it was free with my Navigo pass, since they wouldn't let anyone get to the RER station to catch a metro).

I finally got home, took a MUCHNEEDED shower, and slept for awhile, since I couldn't sleep on the exciting plane night plane ride back to Paris.

It doesn't need to be said that I had an excellent time in America. Highlights:
- Gifts: UKULELE/Guitar Hero/Wall-E/everything about DeniseBee
- Maggie
- Christmas with the crazies, I mean, my family
- Mom and Chuchie's rapport and ability to make each other laugh very hard (but don't ask me how hard)
- My dad fixing everything that I've ever broken
- Seeing my brother turn into a complex, interesting, caring person
- Bolt in 3D (I don't care how shitty a movie is; I will love it in 3D, AND we're hilarious and I love you guys)
- Benjamin Button with Gia
- medium iced caramel lattes from Dunkin Donuts
- strawberry surf rider from Jamba Juice
- a less-stressful Christmas period than previous years, thanks to minimal minimalizing of the outrageous work my family puts into the holiday season
- Christmas cookies
- Going to Cubby's for half of a pulled pork sandwich and birch beer on Christmas Eve
- Ben and Jerry's Fossil Fuel pint
- New Year's with Denise


New Year's Resolution: Stop being a whore.

I tried to find definitions that would be appropriate to my idea of what this means to me, but I can't find them. So just know that I'm going to hunker down, get my shit done, and do the right thing.


And, with that, a to-do list!

This week:
- Finish study sheet for France + Europe test on Monday
- Study
- ACE TEST!!!! DONE.
- Talk to Maddie about benevolat project
- Do research for project
- Read Sylvia Beach's book for methodology essay
- Write methodology essay
- Write conclusion for dossier
- Fill out frisbee polls they don't exist anymore, but that's okay because I couldn't go to any of those tournaments, anyway!
- Go to LaChorba to volunteer making soup Literally cannot, so I'm not going to try. Will do work instead! Yayyyy
- Talk to Rosalie about coming to London this Friday afternoon!

Next week:
- Study like CRAZY for Art History
- Figure out what I'm going to do about missing history class on Monday since I'll still be in London X_X
- Write/e-mail all the people I've been meaning to update

And with that, going off to pretend to work! But more likely to SLEEP.