At the urging of my mother, I am going to start writing in my blog again! These past few months I have been obsessing over graduate school applications, resumes, and personal statements. But today, I turned in the final application and I am DONE (that is, unless I change my mind about applying to the University of California at Irvine). I just feel like a small part of me would die if I had to move to Los Angeles (shudder).
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| Trying escargot (snails)...and I liked it! |
Anyway, now I have no excuses about writing in my blog! So much has happened in the past month (I went to Brussels and Sweden, I dressed up for Halloween, I spent a weekend in Paris, I was mugged, I taught lots of classes, I went to Berges and Dunkerque, I tried escargot, etc etc). I am terribly sorry (not) but I am not going to write about all of these things. I am just going to pick up with the events of this weekend and leave the past in the past. Sorry ya’ll! To make up for my laziness, I will post some pictures from the past month. The assholes who stole my purse also stole my camera, so I am living in one of the most beautiful countries sans the ability to take pictures right now. So all of these photos are courtesy of my lovely roommates! Thanks ladies!! :)
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| My roommate Laura and I standing in front of the Louvre |
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| The stairs inside Shakespeare and Company--easily my favorite place in Paris! Imagine how many literary geniuses have walked on these stairs! |
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| In front of the Sacre Couer |
The theme of the past few weeks has been “budget.” In other words, I am flat on my ass broke right now. Basically I am trying to spend about 30-40 euros per week (which may not sound too bad…but things add up quickly!). This also means that I have not been having the crazy adventures that I had every weekend while I was studying abroad. It does mean, however, that I am spending a lot of time getting to know the North of France and getting to know the people here.
Last weekend Ashley and I went to a Ratatat concert in Lille. It was a-maz-ing. It was so much fun! And after the show, the guys came out and had some drinks with us. Ashley and I totally played up the "American girls working in France..oh so glamorous yet down to earth" card haha. And that was my first night out in Lille since I was mugged...I was happy it was crime-free this time around.
On Wednesday night two other American assistants and I made a Thanksgiving dinner for all of our European friends. We decided that trying to find and prepare a turkey would be too difficult, so we opted for a couple poulet rotis (rotisserie chicken) instead. I was in charge of making a pumpkin pie, my mother’s famous scalloped corn casserole, cranberry sauce and snicker salad. Now, all of these dishes had the potential for complete disaster. The main problem was that I could not find evaporated milk anywhere (I went to four different grocery stores in Douai)—and that was a key ingredient in both the pumpkin pie and the corn casserole. Luckily I evaded catastrophe and managed to make my own evaporated milk. This takes about 2-3 hours by the way—not fun. But I was really happy with how all the dishes turned out! We had the dinner at Alex and Noellia’s apartment in Douai. We had friends from the U.S., Germany, India, France and Spain show up for the dinner—it was such a fun night!
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| The wonderful people I got to spend Thanksgiving with! |
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| Thanksgiving dinner sans the turkey, plus the chicken! Yummy! |
I also had some really good lessons with my students this past week. I am really, really enjoying some of my classes. The students are (for the most part) pretty enthusiastic about learning English, so it makes my job really easy. I am trying to make my classes pretty relaxed so the students feel comfortable speaking English and will gain confidence in their abilities. I have found that is very important to have when learning another language. I always start the lesson by calling role, and I ask each of the students a question—so right off the bat they have to speak English. I keep it simple, like “what did you have for breakfast this morning?” Or, “can you tell me a bit about your family?” Last week, I played a game with my students where we said one true thing about ourselves and one false thing. I started by giving an example about myself. I said I either A) work in Alaska in the summertime, and that I live in a tent with no electricity or running water…or B) was a backup dancer for Lady GaGa in her New Year’s Eve concert in Times Square last year. And guess what every single class always thought was “the lie??!!!” They thought (A) was the lie and (B) was true!!! What in God’s name do these students think of me!!? It has made me very self conscious of how I am dressing and acting. Good Lord.
Next week I am going to talk with the students about stereotypes that the French have for Americans, and vice versa. I already discussed this topic with one of my classes on Friday, and it was really interesting! Here is the list of stereotypes they came up with:
| How the French view Americans/the US (my students made this list) | How Americans view the French/France (I made this list) |
| Eat a lot of fast food, obesity is a big problem | Good Food |
| Lots of rich people | Fashionable |
| Lots of celebrities | Everyone wears berets and eats croissants |
| Everything is bigger | Moody |
| Education (high school, university) is easier | Beautiful women, handsome men |
| Americans are fun and open | Beautiful cities |
| Don’t travel very much | Can’t win wars |
| We drive everywhere/lazy | |
This is all I can remember for right now. I am sure I will add to the list as I teach this again next week! It was very interesting, and I laughed a lot during this class.
On Friday night, I was boring and just went to some aerobics classes at my gym. There is a really good step class on Friday nights that I really like going to. Later Miriam, Saatvika and I watched “Bienvenue a Ch’tis.” This is a very famous movie in France. It is about (coincidently) the stereotypes about people in the north and south. People living in Southern France are supposed to be more intellectual and glamorous than people in the North. They think that people in the North are intellectually slow and all speak with a thick incomprehensible accent. It was a really funny movie, but I could hardly understand what was being said in the film, partly because they were talking very quickly with heavy accents. My roommates were very nice and filled me in about every 10 minutes on what had just happened. And on that note, I think that my French has improved a lot since I first arrived in France. When I first arrived, I couldn’t understand anything at all. Very slowly but surely I am becoming much better about following conversations, and sometimes I can even pipe in with my own two cents!
On Saturday Saatvika, Miriam and I went to another small town in the North called Amiens. There is a Notre Dome in Amiens that is bigger and (in my opinion) more beautiful than the Notre Dome in Paris. There were enormous stained glass windows and beautiful wooden sculptures inside. Another bonus—there weren’t 1243458928 people trying to walk through it at the same time, which is the problem you run into in Paris. It was much more peaceful. We also walked along the canal and found a nice park with some frozen gardens. We had a nice budget-friendly lunch at a fast-food like pasta restaurant, and afterwards had some dessert at the Marche de Noel. It was the opening weekend of the Marches des Noels in Europe (Christmas markets). Basically they are these little wooden houses/stores set up in the middle of the city center. There are tons of Christmas lights and music everywhere—it’s so cozy! Some stands serve vin chaud (warm wine with spices) and chocolate and other delicious goodies. We all gave in and had a dessert—Miriam had a waffle with nutella, Saatvika had a German dessert that was a ball with chocolate on the exterior, and a marshmallow base inside, and I had some churros! I hadn’t had those in years, and they smelled too delicious to pass up! The minimum amount you could order was six, but after three I had to give up due to the protests my stomach was making.
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| The Notre Dome in Amiens. It is larger than the Notre Dome in Paris...and more beautiful too! |
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| Inside the Notre Dome Cathedral |
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| Walking the streets of Amiens |
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| Miriam and I with the Notre Dome in the background |
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| Our budget-friendly pasta lunch. |
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| Christmas Market in Amiens |
Then, today I FINISHED my graduate school applications. That was an enormous relief. Those damn things have been burdening me for the past three months. Ahhh. Now if just one school will accept me…
Anyway, I’m not going to worry about that until February-March. Now I am just going to enjoy the Christmas season in Europe! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and found some good Black Friday deals! My family just got a 15 foot Christmas tree for our new house! I can’t wait to see it all lit up and decorated!
Miss you all so much! But see you soon!! (I’m home on Dec. 17th).
And…who’s up for NYE party in Nevada/Ames/Des Moines/Iowa City??!!
