On Thursday I’m flying to Madrid with a friend and fellow assistant, Alyssa, from Chicago. We are going to be in Madrid for four days and then are heading over to Morocco for eight days! I won’t be taking my computer so I won’t be in contact with anyone over the holidays!

I wanted to wish everyone a חנוכה שמח  and a very Merry Christmas! I will be back on the 29th just in time for my mom’s 50th birthday!

The train ride was nice and we arrived in Manacor after an hour and ten minutes of train. We made our way to the center of town as that is where the cathedral was located and where the directions told us to go. After asking a few people how to get there we made it to the Plaza where the “actualizacions” or performances were taking place. We saw the other auxiliar (assistant) Joel who was part of the Casteller team of Palma.

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and description

Castell is the Catalan word for “Castle” and Casteller is the word for a person who takes part in forming ‘human castles’. This tradition of building human castles or towers started in the town of Valls near the end of the 18th century. The typical attire of a Casteller is white pants, a black sash called “faixa”, a colored shirt, and a bandana. The sash which is black, varies in length depending on where one is in the Castell. It wound tightly around the mid area to offer support to the back for those on the bottom and also as a place for climbers to grab onto as a handhold or a foothold as they climb up the tower. The bandanas are also used around the wrists of those on the bottom to offer support and tied around legs, chests, stomachs, and other parts of the body for foot and hand holds for the climbers.  The Casteller’s motto is “Força, equilibri, valor i seny”, which means Strength, balance, courage and reason.

There are different types of Castells and they are named by the number of people who make up each level and the number of levels. Some of the largest towers have been Tres de nou(three by nine) and Tres de deu (three by ten). Many of the Castells that we saw this weekend were Cinc de cinc (five by five) and Cinc de ses (five by six). The bottom level, which is just a large group of people supporting the Castell, is called the ‘Pinya’.  The top most Castellers are usually young children and they are called “enxaneta”.

It was really really cool to see this for the first time in real life. I’ve seen it on television and it was so much better in real life. I’d really like to see a huge actualizació in Barcelona sometime! There was this one group from Barcelona that did this one Castell where they built it from the bottom. The top two levels got up on the “Pinya” and then it was built from the bottom meaning that you saw the top levels rise up until there were 5 levels. Once all 5 levels were built the “enxaneta” raises his/her hand and they begin to dismantle the Castell. A Castell is not complete unless it is succesfully built and dismantled without it falling apart. Below is a video and some photos of different Castells that I saw this past weekend.

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Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and a description

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Click the photo below to watch a video I took!

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Alyssa and I had planned to go back to Palma and cook dinner and make our way to Bluesville, a cafe where a live band plays. We ended up going over to another assistant’s house to have pizza with other assistants. We finally made our way out to Bluesville and by the time we got our drinks the band had stopped playing. I’ve decided that I hate crowded bars and clubs and I enjoy hanging out and talking, than going to a place where I can’t even hear myself speak.

In my last class yesterday at the elementary school there were two German girls. One had lived here for 8 years and spoke perfect Castilian, Catalan, and German. She spoke pretty good English as well. The other girl had only been here 3 months and couldn’t say a lick of anything in any language except German. It is crazy that parents would leave their country when their child is a this age and when the child doesn’t speak the language. I think that it will seriously hinder the girl as she is about 9 or 10 years old.

On Wednesday, I got up and went and opened a bank account. My bank here in Spain is called Santander. I was under the impression that I didn’t have to put any money in to open the account but I ended up having to put in about 30€. I gave my account number to my school today so that they will be able to pay me at the end of the month. On Tuesday night I went to a Basque Cafe/Bar to eat tapas and celebrate the Canadian, Molly’s, birthday. It was fun and I met two really cool people, Kate, and Lucas. After eating our share of tapas we went to get ice cream and then sit by the Parc de la Mar just below the Cathedral. It looks amazing at night and it was my photo of the day for Tuesday.

Today was my first full 6 hour day at the high school. On Fridays, the German teacher, Gloria, doesn’t come in until nine so I had to find a ride with other people. The head of the English dept. Maria, found two teachers who work at eight on Fridays and they live very very close to me. So I got a ride with them this morning. Classes were fun today. I spent most of my time introducing myself and answering their crazy questions. In one of my classes, I was with a teacher who is 24 years old and quite good looking. In this particular class the students were aroudn 12-13 years old. She asked them to ask me questions and they were non-stop. At one point this mischievous boy who was sitting with two other boys in the back asked if I had a girlfriend after he had asked me my age. After answering to him, that no I did not, he asked the teacher how old she was. She told them to guess and didn’t tell her age, but they never really guessed right and just kept saying she was very young. Then they turned to me and the boy asked me if I thought the teacher was sexy. He started to smile and started raising his eyebrows up and down and tried to get an answer from me and the teacher and I were both laughing and trying to change the subject. It was very awkward and embarrassing and for the rest of the class the boys would look at me and do the eyebrow thing while nodding towards my female co-worker!

The last class of the day I taught the oldest students. I was given the task of teaching them the phonetics of English, which proved to be very very difficult under the circumstances. The consonants were fine as they are the same in British and American English. The vowels were more difficult and I found myself trying to imitate the British vowels, which is completely difficult. I ended up giving up and telling them the differences between British vowels and American ones.

Last weekend I put up the following ad on the loquo.com website, which is like craigslist here in Spain, to offer English tutoring sessions.

CLASES DE INGLÉS! Nativo, Titulado en Lingüística (Palma de Mallorca)

-Profesor Nativo

-Con experiencia docente

-Titulado en lingüística (entonces conzco mucho sobre la fonetica y de los dialectos y acentos)

-Para particulares y de grupos (al mismo nivel) de máximo 4.

-Para todos los niveles, todas edades

-Preparación de exámenes oficiales (IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC)

- Precio: A convenir (la primera clase es de 10€ para determinar el nivel y otras cosas)

-Zona: preferentemente cerca de Plaza de España

-Para solicitar más información o pedir una cita: derron.s.borders@gmail.com

(I’m not going to translate it) I got one hit from a guy who is applying to do a Master’s of Journalism and I’m going to be tutoring him four days a week for the next two weeks in order to prepare him for an entry English exam for the program.  I’m going to repost my ad so as to find more tutoring jobs so that I can make more money to supplement my having to travel to S’Alqueria Blanca.

I also just received an e-mail not too long ago, today, that my flight to Barcelona has been moved from 6:30pm to 11:00pm on the night before I take my GRE so I’m going to have to really be prepared so I can be ready and well rested. I’m going to try and find a hotel or hostel really close to the place where I need to take it so I can just sleep enough and get up and walk over there and take it.

Well, it’s 9:33 pm and I need to prepare dinner. I don’t think I’m going out this weekend as I have a lot of GRE preparation and study to do as well as work on Grad school stuff! I need to save my money anyway and tell myself that so that I don’t feel like a big loser! I’m tired anyway and it is actually getting colder here in Mallorca. It barely got above 70 this week and the past few days have been mid to lower 60s. With the wind it makes it worse and at night it gets down to lower 50s. I’ve been sweat pantsing it here at the apartment for the past week.

Click on the image below to watch the video!

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Click on the photo to see a larger version and caption.

Today in my third year they had to look at two pictures which were optical illusions. The directions called them a “trompe l’oeil”, which means “trick the eye” in French. These kids had NO idea what the hell I was saying to them and it was just a big waste of time. It is a huge waste of my time to go to this school and also a huge waste of my money when I could be conversing with older students at the high school who can form complete and competent sentences!

Anyway, enough of my bitching. I’m hungry and I need to eat my late lunch (it’s 6:03pm here!). I also need to take inventory of what else I need to do to finish my college applications. I’ve complete both Utah’s and Hawai’i’s applications and have sent my OSU transcripts to Utah. I need to do the same for Hawai’i. Texas’ website was being funky and they along with UBC require that my Statement of Purpose be finished before I can complete those applications. I completely edited and spiffied up my writing sample about “Ditching” and I’m continuously revising my SoP. I now need to cut it down to three hundred words for the applications that only require that much.

Not only do I have to worry about applications to the Graduate Schools but I need to get my stuff done for the individual departments and also work on scholarship stuff AS WELL AS continue studying for the GRE! I found out my scores were actually average and not totally terrible. I’m still embarrassed by them and thought that I would do better.

Tonight I’m going out for tapas for dinner at a Basque café to celebrate the Canadian, Molly’s birthday!

The Virgina Flag next to the "Ikurriña" (Basque Flag) that says Gora Euskadi, which means "Long Live the Basque Country". This photo was taken in the apartment of another assistant who lives with a Basque guy.

On the 2^nd of October we had our “auxiliares de conversación” orientation where all the English, German, and French assistants from all of the Balearic Islands (not just Mallorca) met at the cultural center, Sa Nostra, and had a day long seminar of advice and general information that we would need to have a successful year. It was great to see new faces and meet new people and also to catch up with people I had already met before but hadn’t seen in a week or so. At the end of the orientation they served us a kind of tapas lunch, which was pretty good.

After the orientation a few of us went to a Chino (Chines) store as they are like dollar stores that carry everything that you would need and everything that you would never need. I got some hangers and some sticky tack and I need to return there to buy a blanket and some curtains for my room. That night a lot of people went out for drinks and to club but I couldn’t join them as I didn’t have keys to my apartment yet and I had to stick around as I didn’t know if or when I would be able to get back in. My roommate Ramón ended up leaving me his keys so I would have them for the weekend. I stayed in the whole weekend catching up on some much needed sleep and doing laundry. I also went grocery shopping and bought some much needed supplies. My roommates go home to their town of Alcudia every weekend so I pretty much have the apartment to myself.

While I was still in the US I registered online to take a Catalan class on Mondays and Wednesdays. I started my class on the 5^th and found out that I’m actually going to be learning Mallorquín the local dialect of Catalan and not Catalan itself. The class is one and a half hours every Monday and Wednesday and it is very very fast paced and all in Mallorquín, with the instruction translating into Castillian only sometimes but even then I can’t understand her as she speaks so incredibly fast!

I didn’t start classes until Tuesday the 6^th.  On Tuesday I got up at eight and ate breakfast and then walked to the Plaza de España to catcha  regional bus to go the one hour and ten minutes to a very tiny town called S’Alqueria Blanca. When I arrived at the school I was greeted by the principal and then taken to see the English teacher who I would be working with. Since I have two schools and I can only work 12 hours a week I’m split between the two working six hours at each school. At the elementary they have me teaching seven “plàstica” (arts & crafts) classes and one English class.

I’m a bit irritated over the whole elementary school situation as I was told that I would be able to get a ride from Campos to S’Alqueria Blanca if I was able to find a ride from Palma to Campos. Campos is where my high school is. I was informed that this isn’t possible as they car pool and there is no more room for anyone else so that I would have to take the bus from Palma to S’Alqueria Blanca and back 4 times a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A one way trip costs 6.50€ and that is way too much for me. Plus, I’m not even helping out with English classes, I’m teaching arts & crafts, which consists of me reading out the directions of the project to the kids who do not understand me only to have what I said interpreted into Mallorquín (Catalan).  I’m a “Conversation Assistant” not a “give directions assistant”.

I’ve written the person who is the head of all the auxiliares in the Balearic Islands multiple times about this issue. I knew this was going to be an issue even before I went to the school. I’m currently waiting on a response from him as he is waiting for his supervisor to get back from Madrid so they can discuss it.

On Wednesday I woke up at 6am and got ready and made my way across town to get a ride with the German teacher who teaches at my high school. Ade and I both caught a ride with her.  I liked teaching at the high school! It was a ton of fun talking with kids who could respond in full sentences back to me and ask me detailed questions about myself. I’m really going to enjoy teaching at the high school and I wish I could just drop the elementary school all together and just teach at the high school. My teachers at the high school are being extremely accomodating and we’ve worked out a schedule where I will teach English for a full six hours in one day by rotating Wednesday and Friday every week.

On Thursday night I went out with a group of assistance to celebrate another assistant’s birthday, her name is Jill. Last night I was invited along with many other assistants to a group of assistants’ apartment to have a little party and get together. It was really fun and I met this really great Dutch girl named Ana.

I’ve really enoyed my time here in Palma so far except that the exchange rate is $1.47 to €1 so it has been a little pricey for me.  The culture is really great but the Mallorquíns seem to be a little closed and difficult to get close to or know.  My Spanish, however little, has improved somewhat and I’m even starting to pick up Mallorquín, having my classes twice a week and also living with three Mallorquíns.  Ade and I took an entrance exam to get into a Castilian (Spanish) course for foreigners but our level was too good to get in the class and they accepted those who needed the classes more so I’ve posted an ad on a craigslist type website looking for an “intercambio” or conversation partner where we can meet 1-2 hours a week and exchange languages. I’ve also posted an ad to give English lessons and need to make fliers and go over to the university and hang them up.

I’ve been eating really well here but getting used to the eating times has been quite the adjustment. They eat much later than Americans and even the French so it has been difficult. I’ve realized that if you don’t want to starve you really have to eat four meals to make it through the day and to eat at the normal eating hours here. I eat breakfast early when I wake up, eat a small sandwich/snack at around 11 during the break at school. I eat lunch around 3pm to 3:30pm and then dinner isn’t until 10/10:30pm.  I don’t know how the kids can make it through out the day staying up that late to eat dinner and then getting up early for school.  Like in the US, Monday is a holiday as well, as it is Spain’s National Day, so everything will be closed for the next two days.

Anyway I’ll try to keep up with my blog and twitter more often so that you can know what is going on! I hope everyone who is reading this is doing well!

The apartment searching was a bit difficult and I used the UIB (Universitat de les Illes Balears) website and looked at ads for apartments that were in areas where I wanted to live and also in my price range of 250 to 200 euros. It was difficult because I had to call the people and they usually spoke extremely fast. If you don’t know, talking on the phone is the hardest thing for beginner speakers of a foreign language. After looking at about 10 apartments I finally found one that was close to Plaza de España that is like the central hub of all transportation in Palma. Since my schools are outside of Palma and I have to take the bus sometimes I thought it would be best to be near Plaza de España. I was told by the people who lived in the apartment that I could move in on October 3^rd as they had a roommate who wasn’t leaving until then. I ended up having to pay 110€ to stay longer in the hostel. I was going to have to pay for two more days upon the seven days that I paid for with the 110€.

On the 29^th I got a text message at night telling me that the roommate that was supposed to be leaving was no longer leaving Palma and that the room was not available anymore. I had to then do another search for apartments and saw the one I’m living in on the Wednesday and moved in on the Thursday. I’m living with three Mallorquíns from the city of Alcudia. One guy named Ramòn and two girls, Lydia and Sara. The room is ok, but I’ve found out recently that I’m actually not considered in the contract and that I am there to help out with the rent. I pay 200€/month for rent not including gas, electric, water, and trash and I have the worst room in the apartment. I have a single dinky tiny bed, with an armoir and a tiny side table and a very small set of drawers. My window faces out to our narrow back patio where our washer is and I have no currents and no privacy what-so-ever. My roommates, however, have nice big full sized beds, with amazing built in closets and armoires with desks and windows that don’t open out into another part of the house.

Anyway, during those first two weeks of being in Palma I hung out with other assistants as a group of us got together on a Sunday afternoon and ended up hanging out for the rest of the day. Adela, Ade and I went to visit Inca one day and then it started to pour rain so we ended up going back to Palma. I also went through the ordeal of getting my NIE which is identification number for foreigners. I went on the first day and waited for over two hours just to be told that I didn’t have everything and that I’d have to come back the next day. I got the copies and photos that I needed and went back the next day and then was told that I needed to come back in 40 days after everything was processed. I do already have my NIE but I do not have my official identity card yet.

Because of Palma’s location there is a huge yacht industy here and there are many Australians, South Africans, and Britsh people who come to Mallorca looking for work on the Yacths. Many of them stay at the Hostel Terramar while they are looking for work as it is close to the port.  I met this really cool Australian girl named Ashleigh who had just flown in from a job in Malta and was in Palma to do an interview for another job. She ended up getting a job on Eric Clapton’s yacht, which is pretty insane. I never even know this industry existed as I guess I always took it for granted as to who did those jobs.  The work sounds extremely difficult but working 4-6 months on a yacht going from the Mediterranean to the Carribean and making about 2,500$-3,000$ a month (and banking it all as you don’t really have anywhere to spend it) sounds quite nice. My second to last night at the Terramar I hung out with all of the yachties and with Ida and Alyssa, two American assistants here in Palma and it was a really really great time!

I was so exhausted after walking around all over Dublin and then having to walk through the very old (and currently unconstruction) Dublin Airport to the very last gate. There was no one there waiting when I arrived as I was a bit early. I tried to get a little shut eye but I felt awkward laying down and wondering if people would be coming. I boarded the plane in Dublin in the evening at around 6:50pm.  The flight from Dublin to Palma, Mallorca was 3 hours and I passed out as soon as I was buckled in and didn’t wake up until we landed.

My luggage all arrived ok and I went through customs in a breeze and set out to find a taxi. A thunder storm was rolling in and I could see lightening in the distance. I found a taxi easily and we were quickly on our way to my hostel, The Hostel Terramar, in the Plaza de Mediterraneo in the western part of the city. Palma is a very beautiful city at night and I was just in awe as we drove along the Paseo Maritimo. The harbor with all of it’s sail boats and mega-yachts looked amazing and I couldn’t believe that I was going to be spending the next 9 months in this place.

Once we were in Plaza de Meiterraneo the taxi driver told me that my hostel was somewhere down this dark alley. I got out and paid her and then got my luggage and headed down the dark alley. It came to a dead end there was no hostel. I started to panic a little bit, thinking I had just been scammed and I went back down the alley to the Plaza and asked these two girls in a car waiting if they knew where the hostel was. One girl got out and tried helping me look. After a few moments a guy stuck his head out of his window and asked me what I was looking for and I told him the Hostel Terramar and he told me it was only 20 meters away around the corner. I felt like Xavier from “L’auberge espagnole” when he first arrives in Barcelona and the door bell doesn’t work and the old lady comes out on her patio and asks him who he is looking for.

Since the hostel’s front desk closes at nine I had to get my key out of a safety deposit type box. I lugged my bags up the stiars (only one floor thank God and two trips) and found my bedroom. When I entered I was greeted by a very enthusiastic “Derron!?”.  It was the German girl Adeline Shumacher who I had met on facebook as she is teaching in the same high school as me. It was so great to know someone there and after I showered and laid down to go to sleep I couldn’t stop asking her questions and talking to her.

We went to grandma’s to eat dinner and after I went home and packed up my last few things I needed as we had to get up around 5:30 so we could go and watch Brady get on the bus for his first day of school. We packed up the van and headed to Christiansburg where we were met by a very enthusiastic Brady, ready for his first day of school.  It was so fun to watch him be so ready to get on that bus to go to school. It was sad to say goodbye to him this time and I think that he and Rylee both knew that I was going away for a little bit again like last year but that I would be back!

Once Brady was safely in the first seat behind the bus driver and off to school, I said my goodbyes to Rylee, Stephanie and Jeremy and mom, dad, and I piled into the van and headed for Chicago. We made really good time and I slept most of the way there. We ended up getting there in time for me to go and pick up my passport. Since we couldn’t find any parking downtown (hmm, imagine that) I just go out and went and got my passport (with Spanish Visa attached) as mom and dad drove around the block a few times. After that we headed to the hotel to relax a little.  That night we met my cousin and her husband (fiancé at the time) at Giordano’s Pizza, the best pizza in Chicago! It was great to see them as I missed their wedding since it was the last weekend in September and I was already in Mallorca.

The next morning we got up very early and took the train downtown. We first went to Wrigley Field so dad could see where the Cubs play. It was right smack in the middle of the part of town it is in. There is no big plaza or anything like in Cincinnati. We made our way to the Sears Tower and went up to the skydeck. After, we walked around the city and made our way to millenium park. After eating some McD’s we took the train back to the hotel and got ready to go to the airport. We took the shuttle to the airport and since there really wasn’t anywhere to site in the terminal we were at I told mom and dad that they could go ahead and leave and go do some more exploring in Chicago and I’d be fine to be waiting for the plane by myself.

I’ve also changed my mind on which schools to which I will officially apply. They are:

University of Hawai’i at Manoa

University of British Columbia

University of California at Berkeley

University of Texas at Austin

University of Utah

Other than being lazy these past weeks, I’ve got to spend some time with Joan and Tom, some. I went with Joan and Megan (a mutual friend) to go to Baja Sol near campus where my friend Tom works a bar tender. Joan and I ended up seeing “The Hangover” after eating dinner and drinking margaritas. It was one of the funniest films I have seen in a VERY long time! I would have, however, rated the film NC-17 as it is pretty raunchy and inappropriate definitely for the two 12 year old boys that were there with their parents. I recommend seeing it if you aren’t too offended by some extremely outlandish things and male frontal nudity!

Last night we celebrated Joan’s 26th birthday at Brazenhead on 5th Ave. in Grandview. After I went to stay all night at Joan’s but ended up coming home early in the morning.

My niece, nephew, sister, and bro-in-law were here from Sunday night until yesterday! It is always so much fun to have them around! We went swimming on Monday and just wrestled and played around the majority of the time. I’m going to miss them again when I leave this year.  It is hard to believe that sometime I’m going to be leaving for a very long time and not get to see them! We will have to get a lot of use out of the webcam and my sister and brother-in-law will have to learn to start taking a lot more pictures and taking video of things I’m going to miss!

I was lucky enough for one of my friends, Visa Warren, to give me her e-mail and password to the My GRE Tutor website. On this site they have tutorials on how to do well on the GRE and the different sections of the GRE, practice questions with hints and help, and practice tests. You have the option of picking different study plans and I’ve decided that I will do the 6 week study plan in the 3 weeks that I have left until I actually take the GRE on August 26th. I will take two hours in the morning to do “one day” of the 6 week plan and two hours in the afternoon to complete a “second day’s” work in the 6 week plan. I’m also using my Princeton Review GRE review book as well. I think that taking an extra hour a day looking at, studying, and learning words should help me to prepare the best I can in the next three weeks for teh verbal part of the test as this is the most difficult.

Besides using my days to practice and prepare for the GRE test, I’m also studying Catalan using the Parla.cat website. I’ve started at the very beginning of the lessons in the Basic level 1. There are 4 levels: Basic, Elemental, Intermedi, and Suficiència. Each of these four levels has 3 level lessons, which have multiple units. The level that I’m on, Basic level 1, has 7 units.  Within each there is an introduction part, three lesson parts, and an evaluation part. I’m vowing to try and to one unit per day which would put in me into level Elemental 1, unit 2 by the time that I leave for Spain. You can also download a PDF file of the units in each unit. The Parla.cat website is one of the best language learning websites that I have ever seen and I’d love to use its format to creat similar lesson plans of endangered languages that I hope to study in the future!  Along with the Parla.cat website I’m also using the following books to help progress my Catalan language learning along: “Teach Yourself Catalan”, “Llengua Catalana Nivell Llindar 1 i 2″, and “Catalan, A Comprehensive Grammar”.

I also received an e-mail from the English teacher in my elementary school in S’Alqueria Blanca, Mallorca. Below is her e-mail followed by my response in Spanish (which I will translate for the purpose of this blog).

Hi! I’m Marga.

How are you? I am writing from Majorca, concretely from the school you are
going to spend your time in Majorca.
I am the English techer from Mare de Déu de la Consolació, a school in
S’Alqueria Blanca. You are working both in S’Alqueria and Campos, so, do
you know where are you going to live or do you prefer that I give you some
advice? I live in Campos, so if you want to live in Campos there is no
problem in order to go to my school. Moreover there are two more teachers
from Campos working there. So, for the transport, there is no problem if
you want to live in Campos and to the HIgh School in Campos you can reach
it alking or by bike. So, you don’t need a car if you dan’t want to have
it.
Hoping to hearing from you soon,
Marga.

My response:

Bon dia Marga,

Com està? No parlo bé el català entonces voy a escribirle en castellano para practicar lo que ya conozco! Quiero empezar diciendo gracias por haber escritome.  Tengo que decirle que hace mucho tiempo que hablo (y escribo) en castellano. Desde que el mes de septiembre del año pasado, he vivido en francía como auxiliare de conversación, entonce olvido mucho del idioma castellano pero quiero practicar. Entonces, voy a comunicar con usted en castellano.  Si quiere, puede escribirme en catalán como quiero aprender a hablar catalán y quiero mejorar mi castellano. Puedo leer y entender el catalán muy facilamenta por que hablo francés entonces no está un problema si habla y escribeme en catalán.

Bueno, he pensado mucho sobre el lugar donde voy a vivir allá en Mallorca.  El problema es que quiero mejorar mi castellano y quiero aprender a hablar catalán con fluidez. Yo sé que en Palama hay más hispanohablantes (como lengua materna) que las otras ciudades o los otros pobles en Mallorca. Yo sé también que peudo hacer clases de castellano y catalán (gratis) en Palma. El problema es que no quiero pagar por el autobús para ir a Campos o S’Alqueria blanca tods los días.  Ricarod Sanchez me ha dicho que hay quizás alguien qui enseña a Damià Huguet que vive en Palma y que puede quizás conducirme a la escuela.  También, si vivo en Palma puedo hacer más en la tarde y los fines de semana. Si vivo en Campos, creo que teneré una experiencia más cultural y aprendaré más facilamente el catalán. En Palma sería solamente un otro turista y en Campos seré el americano que enseña inglés. Me gustaría ver que piensa.  Quiero también ofrecer clases de particular afuera de enseñar a las dos escuelas.  Pienso que si viviré en Campos voy a ver si puedo comprar un escúter. Por favor de me sus consejos.

Ahora tengo algunas preguntas para usted. Cuantos alumons hay en la escuela Mare de Déu de la Consolació?  Voy a enseñar cual(es) nivel(es)? Teneré cuantas clases?

Bueno, gracias de nuevo por haber escritome! Espero su respuesta.

P.S. Lo siento por mis errores y la calidad de mi castellano.

Translation:

Hello (Catalan) Marga,

How are you? I don’t speak Catalan very well (Catalan) so I’m going to write to you in Spanish to practice what I already know. (Spanish) I wanted to start by saying thank you for writing me. I have to say that is had been a while since I’ve spoken (and written) in Spanish. Since the month of September of last year I’ve been living in France as an English Asssistant, so I forget a lot of Spanish but I want to practice. So, I’m going to communicate with you in Spanish. I can read and understand Catalan really easily because I speak French so it isn’t a problem if you speak and write to me in Catalan.

Well, I’ve thought a lot about where I’m going to be living in Majorca. The problem is that I want to improve my Spanish and I want to learn to speak Catalan fluently. I know that in Palma there are more Spanish speakers (first language speakers) than in other cities and towns (pobles=pueblos in Spanish, I used Catalan here accidently) in Majorca. I know that I can also take Spanish and Catalan classes (for free) in Palma. The problem is that I don’t want to have to pay for the bus to go to Campos or S’Alqueria Blanca every day. Ricardo Sanchez told me that there is maybe someone who teaches at Damià Huguet (my high school) who lives in Palama and can maybe drive me to school. Also, if I live in Palma, I can do more during the evenings and on weekends. If I live in Campos I believe I will have a more cultural experience and I will learn Catalan more easily. En Palmam I would only be another tourist and in Campos I will THE American who teaches English. I would like to see what you think. I also want to offer private tutoring lessons outside of school as a second job. I think that if I lived in Campos I’m going to see if I can buy a scooter. Please give me your advice.

Now I have a few questions fo ryou. How many student are there in the primary school Mare de Déu de la Consolació? I’m going to be teaching which levels? I will have how many classes?

Well, thank you again for having written me. I await your response.

P.S. Sorry for the errors and the quality of my Spanish.

With not having a job, I’ve been EXTREMELY lazy and tired. I haven’t felt like doing anything and that is exactly what I’ve been doing, nothing. This past weekend, though, my sister and brother-in-law got me hooked on this Facebook flash game called “Farm Town”. I’ve basically been playing it non-stop this whole week. Yesterday I started getting bored with it and today I’ve hardly played at all. The concept of the game is you are given a little bit of land and some money and you are suppose to try to grow and expand your farm by planting crops. Each crop takes a certain amount of time, anywhere between 2 hrs (for raspberries) and 4 days for pumpkins. Each crop is bought for a certain price and can be directly sold for a price, harvested by you and stored for a higher price, and even better, once you are at a higher level you can hire others to harvest it for you, store it, and it is sold for an even BETTER price! You obviously earn money when selling your crop and lose it when plowing and planting crops. You can also spend money by buying things for you farm like, fencing, paths, houses. Much of the things that can be purchased can only be purchased at a certain level. To move up a level, one must earn experience points and you do this buy planting, plowing, harvesting, and buying things at the store. The higher level you are the more money you can make and the better you can expand and build your farm. The game is overly addictive and I’m not one to become addicted to things very easily! Anyway, if you have a bit of time you may want to check the game out and see what it is all about.

I’ve decided that I can’t waste anymore time and that I need to prepare the things I’ve been saying I’ve been needing to do for the past few months. I’m going to begin my grad school applications and study Catalan and Spanish. I also scheduled my GRE exam date for the 26th of August so I’m going to devote 4 hours of study to that a day. I really need to be busy for my life to function correctly. When I’m not busy I become lazy and useless and I can’t reach my goals. I sleep to much and don’t go to bed when I can. I’m happiest when I’m studying at school and I miss school so much and can’t wait to get this year in Spain over with so I can go back and start saving languages. I’m currently reading “Language Death” by David Crystal and a thought came to my mind. If 25% of the world’s dying languages are found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, I should start learning Tok Pisin and Bahasa Indonesia, don’t you think?

Anyway, until the next time I get the urge to blog!

I had originally planned on going to Chicago by Mega Bus last Sunday night. I would have arrived in the early morning, applied for my visa and then headed home late morning. The only problem was that I was so tired from traveling home from Europe I just couldn’t fathom spending hours upon hours on an overnight bus. I can’t sleep on buses. I decided I would drive as my parents are renting me a car for the two months I’m home and I have unlimited miles on it. I ended up asking a friend I made in France, Allison Walton, who is working Chicago currently if she had a place I could crash at. She ended up being able to offer me a guest bedroom which is ten times better than a bus seat or any couch or floor. I made my way up to Chicago last Sunday afternoon and arrived at Allison’s in the early evening. We talked a bit and I finished reading “The Kite Runner” and finally went to sleep. I woke up and drove to downtown Chicago and ended up being an hour early for my 9:00am appointment. Lucky me I was let in early and the whole ordeal took only about 15 minutes. They ended up not needing my French background check and a lot of the documents I had brought with me. After the appointment I made my way home.

I’ve been applying for jobs locally and some not so local. I haven’t had any luck finding any jobs as Ohio is one of the most unemployed states in the US at the moment. I’ve been extremely lazy and not felt motivated to do anything. I really need to get my butt into gear and start practicing my Spanish and Catalan. I need to write to my schools and find out where the heck I’m going to be living. I also need to study for my GRE and sign up to take the test really soon! I promise that tomorrow I will post a daily schedule that I’m going to make myself stick to for the rest of the summer or at least until I find a job (if I do find a job)!

This past Friday my brother-in-law had to work in Circleville so he brought Brady, my nephew, with him and dropped him off at my grandma’s. I went over around lunch time and we ended up meeting my mom at Pizza Hut. After, we dropped my grandma off at her house and I took Brady to go swimming at Dave and Bev’s. We had fun swimming with Dave and ended up going home and taking a long afternoon nap. This past weekend was the Borders’ family reunion. I will someday blog my family tree in great detail and you will be able to understand the mess that is my family (not that my family is a mess but there are a lot of us!). As has been the tradition for the past few years, the Borders’ family reunion is a one big camping weekend where one day we have one big potluck dinner. My sister and brother-in-law were not camping but my parents decided that we would take Brady with us to camp on Friday night. The location of this year’s reunion was at Thousand Trails park near Wilmington, Ohio. My parents had rented out a camper for two nights. We ended up going to Wendy’s for dinner and then getting to the park around 7:45. The camper was old but still quite nice. Not all of my family camps so not everyone was there on Friday night. The potluck dinner was held on Saturday evening. All 6 of my dad’s brothers and sisters were there even though not all of my cousins were there. Overall the weather was a lot cooler than last year and the weekend was great. It was a great time had by all and it was really great to see everyone even though a lot of them I don’t really see that much throughout the year anyway, even when I’m living in the US!

I don’t really have any more big plans for this summer except maybe going to Put-in-Bay on Thursday and there is a Rotary “Rebound” meeting in August sometime. We will see how it all pans out!

For now, this is your Midsummer Update from The Glossophile!

This week, I’ve had to make the final preparations to apply for the visa. On Monday, I had to go to the doctor to get checked out to have a note saying that I could travel and teach in Spain for 8 months. Before I could do that I had to renew my driver’s license and my library card. I picked up a book on Romance Languages and also “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, which has been a pretty good read so far! On, Tuesday I went and applied for a background check. I met my best friends, Joan and Tommy up in Hilliard at Red Robin and then hung out with them on Tuesday night. I had been asked to give a presentation on foreign languages for a friend at her work at JCPenny on Wednesday, so I got up and did that and then came back to Circleville and hung out with my niece and nephew in the afternoon. Yesterday I picked up my police background check and pretty much worked on updating and recovering my external hard drive that had crashed. Today I went and applied for two jobs, one as a security guard at a company called Forward Air and the second at Verizon Wireless behind our house! I do hope I get a job soon as I’m quickly running out of money!

Tomorrow, I’m going with my parents to my cousins’ joint graduation party down in Cincinnati and next week we have a family reunion! I’ve made a goal to finish “The Kite Runner” and then read “The Simarillion” and “The History of Middle Earth” this summer before I leave for Spain. I also need to practice my Spanish and continue with my lessons in Catalan. I need to study for the GRE and take it mid August and work on getting my statement of purposes ready and e-mail some professors and ask if they would be willing to write recommendation letters for me for grad school!

Today I woke up around noon to my nephew telling me that I had to get up and eat lunch! We had three-ways (a Greek style chili dish with spaghetti and cheddar cheese) with cheese coneys! It is one of my family’s favorite things to eat, we have it like once a week, usually. Since my nephew came to meet me at the airport we had to take him back home. After lunch we went and picked up my grandma and then drove the hour and a half to Christiansburg where I got to see my sister, brother-in-law, and my niece, Rylee. It was so fun to play with my niece and nephew all day. It was like nothing had changed and that I had not been gone for the past 9 months. We had dinner at Frisch’s and then we headed home back to Circleville. I went over to our family friends Bev and Dave’s to visit them and Nicole, their daughter.

I love being home and like the last time I left, nothing here has really changed and this time it was a lot easier to just come home and feel RIGHT at home!

Anyway, I arrived at CDG at 7:00am and went and found where I had to check in. I waited for a good hour and then got in line once check-in started. My bags ended up being 12 kilo overweight. I was flying with Aer Lingus who let’s you have two bags equaling up to 36 kilo together. They failed to tell me that if I had removed 2 kilo from my bags and put it in my carry-on that I would be charged 40€ less than the €80 that I ended up paying for 12 lousy kilos (really 40€ for TWO lousy kilos!)

Anyway, the check-in desk people were just really disorganized and I think one of the girls was new as it was taking up to 20 minutes per passenger at times. I boarded the plan and sat there for an hour an a half. Our flight ended up leaving and hour and a half late because the check-in was so badly done and people were being held up at customs. Luckily my connection flight in Dublin was three hours after my first flight was supposed to arrive.

So we finally departed from CDG, Paris and flew into Dublin where it was raining and chilly. I had to go through the US Customs there in Dublin as they have their own special “US territory” within in the airport. It was pretty nuts. I was unaware that they did this. It made it tons easier upon arriving in Chicago. I was seated in the VERY VERY back of the plane from Dublin to Chicago. I ended up moving a few rows up into an empty pair of seats. This was great as I had the two seats to myself the whole 8 hour and 20 minute flight! Aer Lingus is an exceptional airline and their in-flight accommodations and entertainment was amazing! They have these remote controls with game controls built into them so you can sit and play games. I played Sudoku, Battleship, Who wants to be a Millionaire? (although it was the British version and they kept asking British questions and I never made it to $32,000!)

Anyway, it was crazy when I arrived to O’Hare, it was a mad rush to get my bags and to check them into my next flight to Columubs. I’ll be arrive in Columbus around 10:23pm EST (4:30am France time). It has been a long day! My parents were going to surprise me by bringing Brady with them to the airport but I actually called them on skype and my mom goofed by talking to Brady and I could hear him in the background! I can’t wait to get home!

I can’t wait to see you all either! Hit me up on my phone! (tomorrow as the voicemail is still set!) The cell number is on Facebook!

P.S. NOTICE this post is categorized under “made in the USA” for the first time in 9 months!

In about 45 minutes M. Martin is going to come and check me out of my room. I’m going to go over to Georgia’s for the rest of the evening until a cab comes and picks me up to take me to the train station so I can catch my night train to Paris at 12:07am. I’ll arrive in Paris at 7:10am and take a cab to my hostel, check-in, drop of my bags, meet up with Alissa, as she is staying in the same hostel, and then spend the rest of the day with Alissa and her parents. I’m pretty excited to say goodbye to France and to Paris. My plan leaves on Saturday at 10:20am local time so around 4:20am Eastern Standard time. I arrive in Columbust at 10:23pm on Saturday night. That is 18 hrs of travel as I have two very long lay overs in Dublin and in Chicago.

I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to upate my blog again so you can go ahead and e-mail me, get at me on facebook, or comment this post if you need to contact me! I’ll see you all on the flip side!

Yesterday I also sent an e-mail to Ricard Sanchez my contact in Palma, Majorca to ask him any advice on living in a tiny town without a car. Below is my e-mail to him and then his response!

Hello Señor Sanchez,

After some research I notice that Campos and S’Alqueria Blanca are very small towns and about 15 km away from each other. Was there an assistant assigned to this area last year? If so, where did they live and how did they go about getting to school? IES Damià Huguet is actually outside of Campos on a country road and S’Alqueria Blanca is a 20 minute bus ride from Campos. I was hoping to live in Palma as I really wanted to improve my Spanish (by taking classes) and learn Catalan at the same time. I could see it being possible to live in Palma if I only had the one school in Campos as I’m sure there is probably a teacher who lives in Palma who could drive me or I could take the bus. With having the school in S’Alqueria Blanca this makes it impossible and I will most likely have to live in Campos. How am I expected to get myself to school? I can’t afford to buy a car there. Also, how am I suppose to improve my Spanish in a tiny Mallorquí town that will most likely be strictly Mallorquí speaking? Could you tell me how the assistants prior to me faired living in the same situation or if you have their contact information I’d love to get into contact with them. Do you have information on how to buy a motor scooter and how I would go about getting insurance for that? Here in France I live in a small town and have been very isolated and have had to live by a very sporadic bus schedule. I don’t think I could do that again for another year. What are your suggestions?

Thank you so much!
-Derron

His response:

Dear Derron

I have been thinking a lot about your situation after reading your email. It is true that both the secindary school in campos and the tiny primary school in S’Alqueria are a bit away from Palma. I am attaching the timetable for the bus line connecting both villages with Palma, so you can get an idea of the schedule.

Your best option is to contact both school and will probably find a way round having to use this line a lot, as normally there are always teachers living in Palma and working in school aout of town. It is true that the primry school is very tiny and it is not very likely that with so few teachers many would live in Palma. Howeever as you only will have to go for two days a week to this school the bus is a good option. Anyway, please contact both schools and find out about travelling arrangements.

As school only work in the morning you’ll have plenty of time in the evening to attend either Spanish or Catalan lessons in Palma.

Please, don’t feel put up because I’m sure you’ll find a convenient arrangement to live in Palma and travel to both schools.

Here you are the email adress of the assistant who worked in S’Alqueria Blanca. He was an Australian man who used to ride his bike a lot. His name was Anthony Kneipp and his email address: (e-mail was removed)

Please, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries

All the best
Ricardo Sánchez Lange
Assessor Tècnic Docent
Programes Internacionals
Conselleria d’Educació i Cultura

I wrote Anthony and I’ll keep you updated on what happens next!

The first school is located in/near Campos, Mallorca:

Centro Educativo 1: IES Damià Huguet
Direccion: Cami del Ravellar, Finca na Llarga 07630 Mallorca
Telefono +34971160085 Mail: iesdamiahuguet@educacio.caib.es
Pagina WEB: www.iesdamiahuguet.net

The second school is located in S’Alqueria Blanca, Mallorca:

Centro Educativo 2 CP Ntra. Sra. Consolacio
Direccion C. del Convent, 13 / 07691 S’Alqueria Balanca/ Mallorca
Telefono +34971654143 Mail cpmarededeudelaconsolacio@educacio.caib.es

Click on the blue balloons on the map to get more information!

View Where Derron will be living in Spain! in a larger map

After doing some research, I fount out that the city of Campos is in the municipality or region of Campos. The region itself has about 8,000 people and the city has about 3,000-4,000 people. The city of S’Alqueria Blanca as around 900 people and is located in the municipality of Santanyí.

When I first saw where I was going I really struggled with the idea. I didn’t know that I had the second school and thought I only had the school in Campos. I considered living in Palma and commuting to Campos (38km) by bus on the days I would have to teach. By having the other school in S’Alqueria Blanca, which is 51km from Palma, it would make it almost impossible to live in Palma. I’ve decided that since the bus schedule to Palma from Campos is pretty good on the weekends, I’ll just try to live in Campos and hopefully I’ll be able to get a scooter and use that to get around in my region and area.

My Ohio license will work in Spain for the first three months and then I’d have to get a Spanish license, which costs about €1,500! I figure that if I ever did get pulled over or asked, the police are not going to know that my license isn’t valid longer than 3 months. The only problem is how much the insurance will be. I’m going to have to look into that once I get there!

You can see the Wikipedia entries for the cities (or their regions actually) by clicking on the city names: Campos & S’Alqueria Blanca

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This weekend was La Fête du Quartier St. Pierre downtown so we decided to check out what activities were going on. We luckily finished dinner right on time as a free Cabaret was about to begin starting with a magic show. The magician was very funny and entertaining and his show went along with very upbeat classical music remixes. He used live animals and rabbits and birds were appearing and disappearing left an right. He was really good and had me fooled the whole time as I was trying to be as observant as possible but couldn’t see through his allusions at all. This may be because of the .5L of sangria I had drank at dinner. After the magician there was a group of Moroccan Belly Dancers that got on the stage.  They were absolutely horrible. I’ve seen MULTIPLE belly dancers in my life time having gone to the International Festival in Columbus many years and even having seen on live at North Commons at OSU during a themed buffet night! We actually saw them practicing for something au Centre Ville the following morning (yesterday) and I took some video! Alissa and I ended up getting up and leaving and making our way through town where we hear accordion music. After some further investigation we found that there was an accordion concert going on in the park so we sat at the fountain and watched. After we grabbed a beer one last time at Byron Bay and may our way home as we had to get up early yesterday.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Yesterday we got up and took the bus at 9:00am into town where we bought some food for a picnic and bought Dax Féria (Dax Festival) handkerchiefs (they wear these at the festival).  We also purchased a CD with typical Féria music on it.  La fête de Dax (The Festival of Dax) takes placed in early to mid August, which is sad since we will not be here.  Below you can watch a video of the opening ceremony where everyone holds their handkerchief (like the ones Alissa and I bought) up and sway them back and fourth and sing “la la” to the song, “Vino Griego et Foulards”, which is a very famous Féria song here in the southwest of France!

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

After doing some shopping and buying some souvenirs at the Saturday market we caught a bus to the train station and then took a train to St. Jean de Luz to go on Le Petit train de la Rhune (Mt. Rhune’s Little Train). Our plan had been to go with Georgia, Fernando, and Isabel but because they all three were very busy preparing to leave France Alissa and I decided to go and had to figure a way to get out to Col de Saint Ignace where the train station for the Train de la Rhune is located.

La Rhune (or Larrun) in Basque, which means “good pasture” is mountain found in the Basque Country on the border of France and Spain. To get to the top of the train one must go to Col de Saint Ignace in France and take “Le Petit Train de la Rhune” to reach the 905m (2,969ft) summit.

Since Isabel and Fernando invited us to dinner at 8pm Alissa and I had to give ourselves enough time to get to the train station for La Rhune and get up to the mountain and back down. To go up and come back down takes a minimum time of 1 hour and a half. A one way trip up the mountain takes 35 minutes and if you decide to hike back down the mountain it takes around two and a half hours. There is a bus that does go from St. Jean de Luz to a town called Sare, which passes by the Col de Saint Ignace. The bus is called Le Basque Bondissant and on Saturdays during a school period there are two buses from St. Jean de Luz to Sare and two buses form Sare to St. Jean de Luz. The first time 9:15am was too early for as we would have had to catch a 6am train to make it. The 2:00pm bus was too late as we weren’t sure we’d have enough time once we got to Col de St. Ignace to catch the train and get back before dinner. We decided to take a later train in the morning from Dax to St. Jean de Luz and once we arrived in St. Jean de Luz we took a taxi for €23 to Col de Saint Ignace. When we go there there was a long line as the station was closed for lunch and didn’t open unitl 1:20pm. we waited a good half hour in the hot sun and finally bought our tickets and about 10 minutes later boarded the train to take up to the summit.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

The view was amazing and as we went up we saw a great assortment of fauna, trees, and plants. We saw wild horses, sheep, goats and different types of very larger birds. It was a beautiful day to be going up the mountain. At the top there was a hotel, I believe, and restaurants and a souvenir shop as well as a tiny little monument and a big tower, which I’m sure was used for all kinds of things.  Alissa and I climed to the very summit, took some pictures and then found a spot to eat our picnic lunch we had bought. We had sandwiches, pringles, cheese, and La Mie Câline Super Cookies!  We ate over looking the Spanish side of the Pyranees on two of the many rocks that jutted out form the ground all over the place.We both got stung by some sort of plant or bug and had a stinging feeling for a little while. We went and saw the wild horses that had made their way to the top of the mountain. There were many new mothers and happy new foals and colts. It wasn’t that chilly but we did wish we had not worn thongs and had worn proper shoes.  After about an hour or so we decided to catch the train back down. We talked to a lovely German couple the whole way down the hill and once at the bottom we looked quickly around at the souvenir shop, bought nothing (except I bought a 1.5l bottle of cold water) and then went looking for bathrooms and the bus stop.  We were worried that we would have enough money for the bus and the Post Offic ATM machine was out of service. We entertained the thought of hitchhiking or bumming a ride back to St. Jean de Luz but after we found out it was only €2 for the bus we waited for 30 minutes and caught the bus back to St. Jean de Luz just in time to catch our 5:41 TGV back to dax.

Once we got to Dax we went and sat at a café and got something to drink and talked for about a half hour and then headed over to Isabel and Fernando’s for our last final meal together. Fernando had cooked up a concoction of angel hair noodels, peas, chicken, peppers, carrots, and soy sauce. It was actually really really good. They drove us home late and we said out teary eyes goodbyes as they are leaving us on Tuesday and Alissa and I will not see them before they leave. Georgia will see Isabel at school tomorrow.

If you want to see pictures from yesterday click the photo below!

Tuesday, Georgia, Alissa, and I walked to centre ville in the blazing heat of the sun to meet up with Isabel and Fernando to have one final meal together in Dax. We went to this Tapas Bar/Restaurant, which was really really good and had a good time together.

Click on image to go see the photo album! Photos are at the end!

We were planning on going to take a trip down near St Jean de Luz to take “Le Petit Train de la Rhune” up to the summit of the mountain and have a pic-nic but since Isabel and Fernando are leaving on Monday they need to use all day Saturday to prepare their departure! We may end up having dinner with them on Saturday night, which will be the OFFICIAL last dinner of the year! So sad!  Alissa and I are still planning on going to the mountain on Saturday and tomorrow night we plan on eating at my favorite restaurant in Dax, L’Orange Ball, and then going to this little festival they are having in town!

Yesterday I was supposed to meet Diana in Bordeaux but actually forgot to set my alarm and never woke up in time to catch a train to go meet her so I’m heading up to Bergerac on Sunday evening and going to spend Sunday evening/Monday Morning with her  before heading back to Dax to start cleaning up my room and packing the rest of my things to leave.  I have a meeting with my bank on Wednesday to finalize everything and then I’m going to take a train on Friday morning (like 12am Friday morning, so Thursday night) to Paris and then I will spend the day in Paris with Alissa and her parents and then I will make my way to the airport on Saturday morning to finally fly home to Columbus!

The one thing I do feel good about when thinking about applying to grad school is that I am way ahead of the game as none of the applications for 2010-2011 are out yet. This also makes me weary as I wish I could start now with all the free time I have and get it over with. I am currently studying and preparing for the GRE (not as much as I should be but it will increase soon) and after I type this I’m going to start researching on writing the best statement of purpose!

I’ve narrowed down whom I’m going to ask for recommendations based on which programs I ultimately decide to apply for.

For Romance Linguistics Programs- Dr. Brian Joseph (Dept. of Linguistics, OSU), Dr. Janice Aski (Dept. of French and Italian, OSU) and Dr. Christiane Laeufer (Dept. of French and Italian, OSU)

For Langauge Documentation, Description, Endangered Language Programs- Dr. Brian Joseph (Dept. of Linguistics, OSU), Dr. Judith Tonhauser (Dept. of Linguistics, OSU), Dr. David Odden (Dept. of Linguistics, OSU)

I’ve decided that I definitely want a higher degree in linguistics and I’m going to start out with an M.A. degree so that I may get my feet wet before diving into a Ph.D program.

Some of the programs I’m looking at are:

The University of Arizona- Native American Languages and Linguistics M.A.

The University of Hawai’i at Manoa- Linguistics M.A.

The University of Michigan- Linguistic Anthropology M.A. (I may not go for this one b/c I got a C- in my Anthro 200 class that I hated)

The University of London School of Oriental and African Studies-Language Documentation and Description M.A.

The University at Buffalo- Romance Linguistics M.A.

The University of Washington- Romance Linguistics M.A.

Eventually no matter what M.A. program I do, I’d love to do the University of Hawai’i’s Linguistic Ph.D or the University of California at Berkeley’s Romance Language and Literature Ph.D. This of course can very well change depending on my future!

Please give me feedback on funding options for grad school, any other programs you know that specialize in either Romance Linguistics or Endangered Languages, Documentation and Revitalization!  I’d love to hear your thoughts!!

On Friday, my least favorite school, Les Pins, was putting on their Kermesse and since all of the elementary assistants in Dax have a class there we decided that we would go, except Alissa, who went to the Kermesse at her school Sully, which I’m sure was much more exciting and better organized. Georgia and I walked down to Les Pins as it is right down the road and we met up with Fernando and Isabel. We arrived just in time for the class performances and had missed the “fun and games”.  The atmosphere was nothing different from a normal day aux Pins and it was total chaos. The children were running around like crazy animals and the parents were just as feisty and loud as the children. M. Lesfauries, the principal, had to ask for everyone to be quiet so they could start the show.

Some of the classes did dances such as country dancing, flamenco, Russsian dancing, or just plain old crazy fun dancing. Other classes sang. One class in particular sang but it was impossible to hear them as everyone was talking and children were running around, like I said, like crazy animals! During the show, we were lucky enough to witness  domestic violence episode between a couple, who obviously had been estranged.  The man kept trying to approach the baby carriage to kiss whom I assume was his daughter but the lady whom I assume is the girl’s mother kept pushing, kicking, and cussing the guy to get him away. They were causing a big scene and it was then that I realized that the children act the way they do because their parents don’t act any better!

One particular group of dancers really caught my attention. I think it was either the CP (1st grade) class or on grade lower (kindergarten).  The girls were dressed in white tops and had on red type dresses and the boys wore dark tops and shorts with a light colored vest. There was one boy who was not wearing the same outfit as the other boys and instead was wearing a white top with a red dress.  He was performing all the female parts and when they had to pari up with a male partner he joined hands with another little boy and dance his part. It was really really amazing to see this outward destruction of a gender role in front of a crowd of about 200 people.

I’m not sure what the circumstances were that this boy performed the female role whether it was by choice or they were short girl and asked if one of the boys would perform the girl’s part.  After looking at my pictures again I counted 11 boys and 8 girls.  The little boy made it 9 little “girls”. Whether the boy was asked to do the part or he chose to I think it shows a lot about the advancement of the French culture and especially in a school like Les Pins where there is a lot of ignorant closed minded people. I do think some of the people in the crowd were shocked but no one really said anything negatively and the boy did a great job!

I think it is ridiculous that as a society we force these gender specific roles on our children. “Boys don’t play with dolls!” Blue is for boys, pink is for girls! We should not force these ideas into children’s heads and let them grow up and decide which role they prefer or which things they are good at doing. Fathers should show their daughters how to build things and show them how to change the oil while mothers should teach their sons to bake! I don’t think it should be a forced thing, I think it should be natural and parents and teachers and society should show the role they live everyday to ALL boys and girls!

Yesterday, Georgia, Alissa, and I went downtown to meet Fernando and Isabel at the statue of the matador and the bull in front of the Arena so we could go to the Music Festival that is going on in Dax this weekend. Since we were a little late Isabel and Fernando went inside the Arena. We joined them and watched children from all the schools in Dax sing songs traditional to this area. They sang for a half hour with the local Dax orchestra. After, the official band of the “Corrida” came and played. Isabel and Fernando had to leave to prepare for guests that they were having and then we ended up leaving a small time after that walking through town taking pictures and making our way home finally.

If you want to see pictures of the Kermesse and from yesterday click here: La Kermesse & La Fête de Musique

I was supposed to go meet Diana today in Bordeaux one last time but we are going to meet next week. My life has gotten so repetitive and boring these last few weeks here in France. It is like I’m just trying to hurry and pass the time so that it is all over! I’m sick of my two burner stove cooking and not ever being able to carry enough to go grocery shopping for a long period of time thus having to grocery shop multiple times in a week. I’m tired of my uncomfortable board they call a bed and cannot wait until I am back home in my large queen size bed…oh the joy of it all as I can’ take this tiny bed anymore!

There are so many serious things that I need to start doing blah! I really need to get started on studying for my GRE! I’m thinking of taking it at the end of August and then again right before I leave for Spain! I also need to get working on my statement of purposes for the three types of programs that I’m applying to. I need to apply for scholarships and funding of course and start filling out the applications! I really cannot wait until I get home! There are only 17 days left from this day until I’ll be traveling a whole day and will finally be back on American soil and sleeping in my very own bed! Wow!

I’ve been obsessing about my website lately and the design of it. I want a more sleek minimal theme using only white and grey but I want to have an awesome colorful banner at the beginning that kind of looks like this design here:

I worked on doing Photoshop 3d Lettering but I just couldn’t get the shading and lighting correct like on the big letters! I ended up tweeting the dude who did this one and he said he would put a tutorial up soon and that he used Cinema 4D, a program that ONLY costs like $700! I may have to figure something out! I want to spice up my buttons and make image buttons where they show the link in IPA but when you hover over it it changes to the Latin alphabet. I’m getting my “conlang” gene again and I’m thinking of creating a language and blogging about it the whole way. I’ve decided to create a separate Language and Linguistic blog and blog about all my language and linguistic material on that blog so that those who may want to follow it don’t have to read posts like this one and get bored!

I have the day off tomorrow! If it is nice out Alissa and I may go somewhere. If it rains then I’ll end up staying in, as usual, and working on my website! Look for the new blog on the new linguistic and language page! The funny thing about my personality is that I start one thing and it takes me forever to finish it! I start 20 things at once and some of them suffer and never get finished! I promise by the end of summer I will have my “about me” section totally completed!

Also, I really really want another tattoo but I know I can’t afford it! I was planning on getting multiple scenes from “The Little Prince” on my leg but now I think I’m just going to get the Baobob scene. It represents me quite well. I need it to remind me to not be lazy and to continue with my daily tasks so that my life isn’t taken over by Baobobs!

Stranger: hello
You: hello
Stranger: where are you from
You: France you?
Stranger: finland
You: kyllä?
Stranger: kyllä
You: COOL
You: minä haluan oppia puhua suomea!
Stranger: miksi O_o
You: minä rakastan kielet!!
Stranger: okei^^
You: minun suomen ei ole hyvä
Stranger: no suomi onkin vaikea kieli :<
You: tiedän
You: HAHAh kiitos!
You: missä asut suomessa?
Stranger: ole hyvä
Stranger: minä asun lapissa
You: joo?
You: puhut saami?
Stranger: en puhu saamea
You: oh ok…
You: minä ole amerikkalainen…mutta minä asun ranskassa

Totally ran into a Finn! It was cool!

“Vous avez postulé pour un renouvellement dans l’académie de Bordeaux. Un poste est libre dans les Pyrénées Atlantiques, à Orthez. merci de me répondre rapidement et me préciser si cela vous intéresse.

Cordialement à vous
Bernadette BERNARD
IA-IPR anglais
Académie de Bordeaux
Responsable académique du programme des assistants
de langues vivantes étrangères”

Which says that I had applied to renew my contract to work as an assistant in the Académie de Bordeaux and that there is a post open in the Départment des Pyrénées Atlantiques in the city of Orthez and that I should write back ASAP if I am interested in taking this post!

So many emotions have run through me at once and I felt the need to blog about it so I could sort my feelings. At first I was mad when I received this e-mail as I have ALREADY purchased my plane ticket to Palma de Mallorca. Why would I be interested in returning to France? Well, I guess it is luck I received this e-mail so early as I wasn’t expecting to hear back about France until August or September as I hear that is the normal time when the “renouvellements” get contacted. I could seriously go and meet those with whom I’d be working with next year, get an apartment in order already. Get everything with my bank, the CAF, and MGEN all worked out already and I’d be set to come back! Also, I could leave a TON of shit here and come back and get it.

It would be the ideal place to go as Orthez only has like 10,000 people. I wouldn’t be around other assistants like I was this year and my French would get EVEN better. I would also get 7 weeks paid vacation instead of four! However, I have already purchased my ticket for Spain and already accepted that program! I’m ready for another adventure and DEFINITELY ready to pursue learning Catalan and Spanish!

Au revoir la France! Hóla España!

-I’m going to read and complete “El principito” (The Little Prince in Spanish)
-I’m going to devote one and a half hours a day to Parla.cat Catalan language lessons
-I’m going to devote two hours to GRE study
-I need to send my “Casier Judiciare” to get an Apostille
-I need to cancel my SFR neufbox account and send all equipment back
-I need to send in my reimbursements tot he MGEN for my doctors visits
-I’m going to devote one hour a day to Basque
-I’m only going to watch movies and look at fun websites (excluding FB and Twitter) on weekends
-Starting tomorrow I’m going to go to bed my 11pm
-I will start to throw away junk and packing to return home
-I will not go over my €70/week budget I set for myself!
-I will begin to write my statements of purpose for grad schools
-I will make final decisions on grad schools I am applying to and gather all info and download all materials to start the application process

Anyway! There it is! I’m so ready to get out of France and be home but I’m so not ready to apply to grad school! For some reason it really freaks me out! Plus trying to find a job this summer is going to be ridiculous! Anyone have a job for me? Preferably close to Circleville, Ohio as I do not have a car?!

Yesterday was my neices 2nd birthday party. Her actual birthday isn’t until this coming Saturday but my sister decided to celebrate her birthday yesterday on Memorial Day and had the family over! It is really hard to believe that she is already two!

Saturday, Georgia, Alissa, and I got up earlier tha most Saturdays and went to the covered market to pruchase some items for the breakfast we had planned to make on Sunday. Sunday morning we got up and prepared our typical North American breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, and pancakes! We also had juice, tea, coffee, fruit (pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberries) and we had regular, chocolate chip, and raspberry pancakes! We obviously had invited Fernando and Isabel the Spaniards over to try our style of cooking! After breakfast we played Kniffel and Scategories! It was a great afternoon!

I’m currently off for the next two days and was off yesterday as my classes at the school which I’m usually at all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays are on school trips all week. I wanted to go to Carcassonne a very old fortified city but because of financial issues (i.e. I’m poor) I couldn’t afford to go! I’m going to work on getting links to my facebook photo albums while the fotobook application isn’t working and work on catching up uploading all the pictures I need to!

We made our way back to St. Jean-de-Luz and walked around the town, visiting the old church and walking along the beach. We decided to take a coastal boat tour but ended up not getting the really good one and really didn’t get to see all that much as it was a bit hazy. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day and St. Jean-de-Luz is a VERY beautiful Basque city!

Tomorrow we are going to the Dax covered market and the regular market to buy supplies to make breakfast on Sunday morning!

Parents came to France!
During the second half of my Easter break my parents came and visited France! They arrived on the 19th of April and stayed one week and returned on the 25th of April! It was a long and VERY exhausting week! I had arrived to Paris two days before and took advantage of free entry into the Louvre and spent the whole day walking around much of the ancient exhibits at the Louvre. I then walked from there to the Eiffel Tower which resulted in tendinitis developing in my feet. The next day I hung out with Morgan, an assistant in my department. It was a dreadfully rainy and we ended up just going to see the movie “Chéri” after indulging ourselves on “kebabs”! Her dad was coming to visit her and so we decided to meet the next morning and take the train out to Charles de Gaulles airport.

I had trouble finding where my parents were flying into and ended up having to take a shuttle a few gates backwards from where the train station was to get them. I was a little late and saw them in the distance as they started to move out of sight. I finally was able to catch up and tell them that I was there and it was really great seeing them, yet strange all together seeing my parents in Paris! We took the train back to Paris and made our way through the metro and finally checked them into their hotel. After that we took my stuff to the hostel where I was staying at and went to Place St. Michel where we ate Pizza. We saw the Notre Dame, went on a Seine boat tour, saw the Louvre after and finally made our way back to their hotel where we called it a night as they were extremely exhausted.

The next morning we met and made our way to the Eiffel tower. We went up in it and then walked to Trocadéro and then made our way to see the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysées. We ate at McDonalds and then took the metro to see the Grande Arche at La Défense! After that we made our way to Montmartre to see the Sacré Coeur and to find something to eat. We then returned back to our hotels and decided to get a very good night’s sleep for the next morning.

The next morning we met at the Gare Montparnasse and took a train to Dax. We pretty much stayed in Dax all day and relaxed. The next morning we took a train down to Biarritz and visited there all day and returned back to Dax in the evening where I made spaghetti and invited Alissa over to eat with us. That night at 12:07am we were taking the night train to Paris. When we got in the train there were people sleeping in our place, or so we thought. I had accidently bought the tickets for the previous night and thus we had missed our train by 24hours. I think mom and dad were a bit irritated but the conductors on the train were very kind and we ended up getting out own sleeping compartment. When we arrived in Paris the next morning we had to buy tickets to get to Lille as we were taking the train from Lille to go to Bruxelles.

When we arrived in Brussels my third host sister was there waiting for us at the train station. We went to my favorite place, The Cheesecake Café to eat and visited the Grande Place and Manneken Pis and the great Cathedral. My parents really enjoyed Brussels and preferred it over Paris, which made me very happy as I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Brussels! In the late afternoon we returned to my host sister’s apartment and took showers and then headed down to my third host family’s house in Nismes, Belgium. It was great for my parents to finally meet one of my host families and the dinner my host mom made was AMAZING! After the VERY long dinner we went to bed and woke up the next morning to a BEAUTIFUL day in Belgium, which is quite rare! We walked around Nismes and the park and mom and I went back and rested while dad continued to take pictures of my little town. In the evening my first host mom came and picked us up. We stopped at the school where I went when I lived in Belgium looking fro my English teacher, whom we did not see. We did run into Elisabeth, the host sister of my friend Kate Barry who was an exchange student with me in Belgium. That night we had a nice short AMAZING steak meal and my parents really had a great final night to their week in Europe. The next morning we all woke up early and were taken to meet my third host family at the Couvin train station. I said goodbye to my parents as my third host sister was taking them back to Brussesl to the airport and my host parents were taking me to the Charleroi airport to return home to France. Overall, the week was amazing and I’m so glad I got to see my parents and that they got to experience Europe a little!

Sick

It was nice to return to France after the exhausting week but things with my health had not improved. The cold that I had caught in Italy during my February vacation that had turned to bronchitis still lingered and my allergies that turned into a sinus infection was making things worse. On the flight home my ears became really clogged up and when we landed my left ear was clogged so much that I thought I was going deaf. I had planned on returning to the doctor as I was supposed to meet with the Inspectrice (kind of like School District Superindentent) because of all my absences from the 6 weeks before the Easter vacation due to me being ill. I finally decided to go see a otorhinolaryngologist and not just a regular doctor. The doctor told me it was normal that my ear wa clogged up and told me that the doctor I had seen before didn’t prescribe enough steroids to get rid of my infection the first time. I’ve been taking the steroids the past week and a half and yesterday was my last dose. My ear is back to normal and so far my chest feels as if it is cleared up. I no longer have the sinus infection but my allergies are still a bother. That, I can live with I think!

Departures

The week after my parents were in Europe, Alissa’s aunt and sister came to visit her. This week also happened to be the last for Will and Dasia who are two assistants that were on 7 month high school/junior high contracts. We had one last hoo ha with Will and Dasia at Dasia’a apartment and Alissa’s sister came along! We ended up going to this little bar that was completely dead and actually closed as we left it. I didn’t end up going into the Richelieu but I hear they had a great time! It was sad saying goodbye to Dasia when she came to the residence to tell Georgia and I goodbye. This past Sunday, Alissa, Georgia, and I went over to Fernando and Isabel’s for lunch (IT WAS SOO GOOD) and we ended up calling Dasia! It was great to see that she was doing well and readjusting back to life in Mexico!

My website

If you haven’t noticed my stupid website no longer has photos as the applicaiton I use to import them from facebook is currently not working! I’m totally working on this!

I promise to do better…I REALLY DO! I will start posting a blog everyday even if nothing happened! There are tons of topics I’d love to talk about (about France) that I never have and I can take the time to write my thoughts on them now! I’ll be posting about Spain here tonight or tomorrow as well depending on what we do tomorrow!

Tomorrow is Ascension (when Jesus ascended to heaven) and we don’t have school and so that we didn’t have to work on Friday, we did Friday’s classes today! Four day weekend…WHOO! Tomorrow I’m planning on doing something with the assistants. We are definitely going to the beach either tomorrow or Friday depending on the rain weather we are suppose to be getting!

Time to go hang out with Alissa and Georgia!

Ha sido adjudicada la plaza en – Islas Baleares – España a su solicitud 09_2AXC001533 del programa de Auxiliares de Conversación.\n Si desea renunciar a esta plaza comuníquelo lo antes posible a mercedes.vidal@mec.es\n

The rough translation: “You have been awarded placement in -Balearic Islands, Spain for you applicaiton #09_2AXC001533 of the English Assisant Progam. If you would like to decline this placement please commnicate this ASAP to mercedes.vidal@mec.es.

This e-mail means that I definitely have been awarded a teaching position in Spain for the 2009-2010 school year. The only problem is that I got my third choice place instead of my highly hoped for first choice, The Basque Country. I really had my heart set on learning Basque and Spanish at the same time. The reason I put the Balearic Islands as my third choice was because it was the only other region of Spain that spoke Catalan that was in a separate category from Catalonia and The Basque Country.

If you haven’t noticed, I did say the Balearic ISLANDS! Yes! Las Islas Baleares or in Catalan known as Les Illes Balears! I will be living on an island where the majority of people communicate daily in Catalan and not in Spanish. At first I was shocked to see that I was placed in the Balearic Islands. It is a very big tourist destination and I did not want to be anywhere near where “English” would be spoken. Also, it is an island! Meaning, things will be more expensive and if I wanted to see the rest of Spain I have to take a Ferry or fly to Valencia or Barcelona to go anywhere else.

This also causes more of a problem because all assistants have a week long orientation at the beginning of the year in Madrid. So, I will have to fly to Madrid, take a train to Valencia or Barcelona (which isn’t that close btw to Madrid) and then take a plane to which ever island I am placed on.

I have very mixed feelings about it all. I’m excited to learn Catalan as well as Spanish but also I’m freaked out by knowing that I will be living on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

As I’ve spent more down time at this hostel than any other hostel I’ve ever stayed at andI’ve had time to observe and reflect on an ongoing phenomena of social interaction. It has to do with lonely single travelers who stay in hostels. Everyone knows that hostels are great places to meet other backpackers such as yourself and that passing on knowledge is all part of the hostel experience. Sometimes you find a connection with said backpacker and since YOU yourself are traveling alone you decide to visit whichever city you are in with your new companion. The problem is that maybe the only thing you two may have in common is that you are traveling and you are doing it alone! As you are walking down along the Champs de Mars you may realize that you have absolutely NOTHING in common with this person and that it was a big mistake to agree to visit the Eiffel Tower with each other.

You are then put in the dilemma of making up an excuse to ditch your new friend or being courteous and sticking through with it for the rest of the day, only to find out that he is staying in Paris just as long as you are. Sometimes the lonely backpacker tries to join another groups of travelers.

So far I’ve observed this twice since being in this hostel and once when I was Greece. In the case of the hostel here in Paris, I’ve watched a group of people talking together and then when one person leaves the group quickly discusses why they ever decided to let “that guy” join their group or how annoying said person is only to return to smiles when “that guy” returns. In Greece my friend, Diana, met a guy named Liam and they started hanging out and once Diana got to know Liam more and more she realized how much she really had nothing in common with him and even suggested ditching him a few times to Alissa and me. Liam was a nice guy but it was no secret that he was a little off and had weird ideas and wanted to talk about things that we weren’t so eager to discuss!

Just now I saw a guy here in the computer lab start the convo up by “Hey, where in the states are you from?” then moving to “Oh, you are going to the catacombs today? Me too, I’m scared to go alone, can I join you?” The girl he was talking to told him he had to ask another girl in their group and once he did the other girl said “Um, well we don’t know when we will be going, we have TONS of stuff to do before then, but, um, sure?” Luckily the guy took the hint and was like “that’s cool I’ll just brave it, it can’t be that scary, right?”

This obviously isn’t always the case and there are people who find each other in hostels and really connect and become life long friends if not lovers but I think this “lonely backpacker” phenomena is part of a bigger social “thing” where people always yearn to be part of a group and will use anything that is a common factor to place themselves in a group. Just because two Americans find themselves in Paris doesn’t mean they are going to get along based solely on the fact they come from the same country.

This social “thing”, which I have no idea what the technical term is, is also a good thing. I first noticed it when I was an exchange student in Belgium. No matter how much I disliked some of the other exchange students, if I was ever stranded in a town where one of them lived, I counted on them to help me out. This was based solely that we were foreign exchange students living in a strange country. I think because I’ve been so sensitive to this “phenomena” that I’ve never expected much of friendships I’ve made in hostels and I know that everyone has their own agenda!

Anyway, after getting his tattoo we split ways and I went to the main bus depot at Place St. Pierre to wait for my bus in the rain to return home for the evening. As I was standing there waiting with three French ladies sitting next to me I noticed that a moped had tipped over not far from the bus depot. I couldn’t see the rider(s) as they were blocked by a big flower bed. I stood for a minute waiting for the bike to move and when it didn’t I dropped my stuff and started running over to the moped. I saw a woman half way under the moped and a guy strewn a few feet away off the bike. A car had stopped and a gentleman had gotten out and approached the couple at the same time. The lady was holding a plastic bottle that had some kind of liquid in it that was half drunk. The guy laid motionless and as I approached the lady started to correct herself by getting up trying to screw the lid on the bottle back on and pull the bike back up. I yelled out “ça va?” (everything ok?) and she looked at me and the other approaching man and held her hands out to keep us away stating that everything was ok. I noticed that she had scraped her chin and it was bleeding a little bit and also that when she spoke she slurred her words. As the smell of alcohol waifed over me I look to see the guy laying on the ground trying to get up. The other gentleman returned to his car and drove off. I watched the guy on the ground struggle to get up but he was really really drunk and could barely get his balance. The lady who was equally intoxicated straightened herself up on the bike and looked at me and told me everything was fine. I decided at that moment that it wasn’t any of my business and I walked back to the waiting women. They asked me what was going on and I informed them that I thought the couple had been drinking a little too much. I was wondering to myself it we should call the police or if we should stay out of it. The women expressed themselves in the typical French way with a lot of “oh la las” and “c’est malheureux!” None of them expressed the least bit of concern.

We watched as the man succeeded in getting up off the ground and he stumbled around trying to make his way back to the bike. Somehow he got himself back on the bike and they started off again, with the man leaning heavily and drunkenly to the right. After a few feet the bike almost came to a stumbling stop again. After more “oh las” and sarcastic remarks that “c’est l’heure d’apéro” the coupld finally rode off with the tiny moped swerving back and forth as it disappeared from sight.

As soon as they were gone I thought to myself how I should have done something. My phone had died a few hours before so it wasn’t like I could call anyone but I shouldn’t have let the couple get back on the bike and leave. When is it someone’s duty to protect the world from drunk drivers and even drunk drivers from themselves? This is when I realized that this wasn’t the first time I’ve seen people make fools of themselves in public due to alcohol here in France. It got me thinking period about alcohol in France. It wasn’t like this incident was an isolated incident to France or even to Europe and that one could definitely see this in the US. Alcoholism is everywhere! I just think that there must be a higher rate of alcoholism here in France than in the US. Why do I think this? Well, I think more alcohol is consumed here in France than in the US. More kids start drinking here in France earlier than most Americans.

I come from a family who doesn’t drink. My parents don’t drink and never have drunk. I don’t really know what the drinking culture is like in homes in the US as I was never around it. I know there are families in the US who, like the French, may drink wine with dinner almost every night, but I think it is less common than it is here. I’m not really sure how it all works, so this post is based purely on MY observations.

The French love to drink. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been walking through the street and have walked past and elderly gentleman who wreaks of booze, or an older woman who is sitting all alone at a café with a glass of wine. There are times when the local supermarket owner breaths a goodbye and you get a whiff of his breath that smells of alcohol. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been shocked to see the teachers pouring a glass or two of wine at lunch in the teachers lounge or sharing a bit of alcoholic cider. Alcohol is everywhere in France and you can’t get past it. I didn’t even mention the baraqués who, along with having their dogs constantly with them, have a bottle of alcohol with them as well.

I do see this being a problem as I feel the French kind of shrug this off as humorous. Today, when I saw that couple struggling to get going, obviously drunk, the three ladies next to me snickered and shook their heads in disapproval, yet they did nothing to stop it. If that couple were to go on and cause a fatal accident, who is responsible? I’d like to think that the bad decision of drinking and driving is responsible, yet I turned away and said nothing and minded my own business and let them go to manage for themselves when they obviously were not capable of doing so. I’m not judging anyone, Lord knows I’ve been intoxicated and have drunk irresponsibly, but I think that this is a serious problem plaguing this country and the French turn a blind eye to it. After looking into alcoholism in Europe I found out a few interesting facts.

* alcohol is the third greatest cause of avoidable deaths in France.
* Nearly all 15-16 year old students (>90%) have drunk alcohol at some point in their life, on average beginning to drink at 12 years of age, and getting drunk for the first time at 14 years.
* The heaviest drinkers account for a substantial amount of the alcohol drunk in a country, with the top 10% of the population consuming one-third to one-half of all the alcohol drunk.
* The EU is the heaviest drinking region of the world, although the 11 litres of pure alcohol drunk per adult each year is still a substantial fall from a recent peak of 15 litres in the mid-1970s.
* alcohol was directly responsible for 23,000 deaths a year in France, and indirectly responsible for a further 22,000.

I wonder to myself if a lot of the things I observe in the culture here are because I’m more out and about here than when I’m home in the US. In the US we are either at work, school, home, or with known friends in relatively known places. We don’t spend 5 out of the 7 days of the week in the grocery store, we don’t take public transportation as much, we aren’t in public as much and I wonder if this is why I see alcoholism a lot more here than I do at home. Sure, in college I used to see people beyond the stage of drinking responsibly but when it is 7 in the evening and I’m watching a guy stumble around who can barely walk on a Tuesday, I have to raise some questions. I guess I’m just feeling bad that I didn’t stop those people from getting back on the moped and leaving. Even if I had insited that somone call the police or something I’m sure I would have been told that it was none of my concern and to mind my own business, “they had just been drinking a little.”

What do you think? Comments?

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Well, it has been one year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds (roughly) since I arrived home from the most amazing experience of my life. A lot of people were able to come home and forget Belgium ever happened. Some were able to hold it in their memory and move on with life. Some of them, like me, have thought about Belgium almost everyday of their life since coming home. How can I not? What has happened in the past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds to make Belgium only seem like a memroy? Nothing. When I got back from Belgium I had to start looking for a job. My third host sister came and stayed with us for a week and then went home. I found a job in a plastic molding factory where I worked about 6 weeks until I started school at Columbus State Community College. I got a job working at Abercrombie and Fitch Customer service and I lived about an hour away from both job and school. I have lived with my parents for the past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds. All of my highschool friends are gone at school and I lost touch with them while I was in Belgium. Life has not been so exciting this past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds. A lot has happened really. My parents and I have grown closer over the past few weeks and I lost my job at A&F two weeks ago. So now I am just sitting at home doing nothing with no real friends to do anything. I did get accepted to OSU which I knew I would and will be starting at the end of next month. On Tuesday I have to go to orientation and meet with and advisor and take my French and Spanish entry exams. The thing that is such a pain in the a** is that I am pretty sure I will test out of the prerequisite courses for both French and Spanish. So I will not really be able to schedule on Tuesday because I will still have to meet with both individual departments and apply for Majors. Then I will have to take the EM credit exams to get credit for the courses that I pass up! I am glad I am doing this now instead of waiting next fall to start with all the incoming Freshman. I need to find a job here quick because I cannot pay bills with my savings. I am definitely going to work at my dads factory this summer and will make a butt load of money there. I need it. It is going to get rough over the next few years paying for OSU. Plus I want to live on campus. I want to experience the REAL college dorm life. I mean come on. I have hardly any friends that I can actually do anything with on a regular basis. All of my friends live at least 45 minutes away and if I want to do anything it ends up costing a lot more than it has to. Maybe I am just going through a depression period and I suppose it feels good to write. I miss my Belgian mates. I miss Diana, Aaron, Katie, Drew, Heather, Mary, Karla, Victor, Caitlyn, Kate….I miss all ove them SO much especially Diana! Sorry guys…but Diana and I are soul mates! lol I really beleive that. I was reading my journal today and I was reading about how Diana and I wanted to learn Swedish and we went to Charleroi to look for a Teach Yourself Swedish book, what dorks! The thing I am really struggling with I cannot really discuss on a public blog that just anyone could read! It just would not be right! I am sure everything will work out fine I am just stressing a little because of school, because of this issue I am having with my parents, and plus being lonely!

Bueno voy a escribir un poco en español. Hace dos trimestres que comienzo a aprender el español. Es facil para me por que es como el francés. Ahora estoy tratando de estudiar el portugues que es como es español. Tengo que practicar mi francés, por que haces un año 6 meses 12 días 21 horas 18 minutos y 9 secundos que lo hablo courammente en una situación de todos los días!

Ben aujourd’hui on a fêté l’anniversaire de ma soeur. Mes granparents, mon nieve, mon beau frère et mes parents ont mangé du jambon avec des pommes de terres au fromage, des haricots, et du pain. Après on a pris du gâteau à la glace de Dairy Queen. Il fondait mais ça va on l’a tout mangé quand même. Putain, je travaille toujours sur mon livre des memoires de la Belgique. Je fais seulement les pages de ma première visite de Liège. J’ai encore 8 mois à faire! Je me suis dit que je l’aurai fini par le fin de mars!

Speaking of March I turn 21!! Yay I will be a real legal adult here in the US! I need to find some friends before then to go celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate dance to the music! Well anyway that is all for now.”

With that said, here we go!

Alissa and I had been planning a trip since December to Italy (specifically, Rome) and Greece! Well our vacation period started the 14th of February and we had to return to school on the 2nd of March. Alissa and I had bought out plane ticket from Paris to Rome back in December but stupid us didn’t reserve a train ticket from Dax to Paris ahead of time. We ended up doing in the night before we actually let. The cheapest ticket we could find was leaving das on Feb 14th at 12:07AM. It was a slow night train that would arrive in Paris at 7:10am

Here is alissa climbing into her bunk on the night train!

Both Alissa and I had planned on meeting up with people that day and spending the day with our respective friends in Paris and then meeting up later that day to take the bus to the city of Beauvais where the airport we were flying out of was located. We got breakfast at Le Petit Pont é, which was amazing. It was a buffet style breakfast with lots of fresh fruit, toasts and breads, hard boiled eggs, ham, juice, coffee, and tea. As we indulged ourselves a man arrived with a big plate of scrambled eggs and like 6-8 pieces of bacon each! It was ridiculous!

Breakfast at Le Petit Pont Café

I had planned on meeting up with my friend Kate Barry whom I actually met back in Belgium back in 2003. She was an exchange student with me and actually lived quite close to me in Belgium. She was considered my newy and it had been six years since we had seen each other. We spent the day mostly exploring Montmartre, the Marais, and the Centre Pompidou, chatting and having a lovely afternoon. I left Kate and I met up with my friend Aurore, who is French, and then I met up with Alissa and a friend of her sister’s. We all went to a café and had a drink before Alissa and I had to leave to take a bus to Beauvais to catch out plane.

Kate on the metro in Paris!

We arrived in Paris around 11pm at the airport called Ciampino and had to take a 45 minute bus ride to the city center. Luckily our hostel wasn’t far from the Station Termini where the bus dropped us off. When we found our hostel it seemed a little shady. The hostel was located on the fourth floor of this building and the doors were locked so you had to buzz to be let in. The people on the other end of the buzzer were really shady and wouldn’t let us in telling us they didn’t have any reservation for us. We finally convinced someone to come down and a Tamil guy finally came and let us in. We took the tiny (barely two person) elevator up to the 4th floor with our bags and knocked on the hostel door (the Tamily guy stayed down and said he would be up in a second). We were greeted by a guy on a computer that was sitting right next to the door. When we walked in we could see that the walls were completely covered by people who had stayed here. The hostel was tiny like a little apartment building with one small common room with a booth style table and doors, which lead to rooms. Finally the Tamil guy (who said he was from Africa the whole time we were there, jokingly) came up and checked us in. The hostel wasn’t the nicest and when the guy brought us our blankets I about croaked as they were absolutely disgusting. Alissa and I were completely drained from the day and prepared for bed. As we were preparing to go to bed these Polish people who were sharing our room with us asked if we would like to partake in some vodka drinking with them. We agreed even though I’m not much of a vodka drinker and let me just say it was absolutely the best vodka I have ever had in my life. Everyone was drinking it down with orange juice as a chaser but I drank it straight with no problem, it actually tasted really good!

The next morning we got up and started making our way down to the Colosseum. We passed the Santa Maria Maggiore and made our way to the Fori and around the huge Monumento e Vittorio Emanuele II and back do the Via dei Fori Imperiali towards the Colosseum. When we got to the Colosseum we were approached by people offering tours. We decided for the 5 euros more it was worth it and we didn’t have to wait in line to get inside! The Colosseum was everything you imagined it to be and much more! It doesn’t really come as a surprise to you as most people have studied it pretty intensively before ever seeing it! It is exactly how I’ve always imagined it was! The one thing that was really cool about the tour is that our tour guide had a book with him and would show us things how they looked in the past and then compared it to their current state. It makes you sad to think about!!

After seeing the Colosseum, Alissa and I went and ate and then decided that we were way to exhausted to trek anymore so we paid to go on a bus tour that we found out we could use the following day as well. Our plan was to take the bus tour and see as much as possible and then return to places of interest the next day on foot!

The next day we ended up seeing the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Piazza del Popolo, the Piazza Navona, the Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum at night! We went back to the Hostel and ate dinner there as it only cost a Euro and hung out with the Poles and the Dutch girl we met there. I started feeling ill at this point and I went to be early.

The next and final day in Rome we spent in the Vatican City touring St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum. It was quite and amazing experience. The Vatican City is beautiful but it makes me wonder if God would really want all that wealth to be kept in a city like that and not to other things like feeding the hungry throughout the world!

The fifth day of our trip was spent traveling from Rome to Athens via Milan. We took a plane from Rome to Milan and then sat in the Milano airport all day waiting to go to Greece. I was feeling tons worse that day and was coughing and sick and was going to the bathroom every two minutes because I drink the Rome water! (NB it’s ok to drink European water. I just think it didn’t agree with me!) When we got to greece we had to take a bus to the city center to Syntagma and then take the metro to near where our hostel was. My friend Diana Barger from my exchange in Belgium was already in Greece and waiting for us at our hostel/hotel. After some confusion and a few screaming phone calls to Diana we finally made it to the hostel. I was totally drained from the day’s travels and went to bed as soon as I could.

The next morning we all got ready and joined up with a friend that Diana had made, Liam, and made our way to the Archaeological Museum. Liam was really good with directions and ended up walking us there. From the time I had begun to get sick up to this point I was making regular visits to Pharmacies trying to make it through the day without feeling like total crap! After spending a few hours in the museum we made our way to the Agora and the Acropolis. Alissa and I split up from Diana and Liam to let them see the Agora has they had already visited the Acropolis. It was amazing to be up there next to the Parthenon and to see all of Athens below us!

After that we walked to Plaka and then made our way back to near the hostel where the train station was. Diana and I bought our tickets to Turkey and because I was feeling like complete crap I went back to the hostel and went to bed. The next morning Alissa, Diana, and I went to the Piraeus port and found a ferry to take us to the island of Aegina. We spent the whole day on the island. I was able to talk Alissa into renting mopeds and riding around the island! It was one of the best parts of the trip! The island was absolutely beautiful and it was great to get out of the city and to see a small town perse. I definitely need to go back to Greece and visit more of the islands!

The day after visiting Aegina we all got up early and made our way to the bus station to take a bus to Delphi! The trip took eight hours and it wound through the mountains until we reached a small mountain city called, Delphi where the ancient oracle of Apolo used to be. Walking around the ancient ruins was probably my favorite part of the Greece trip by far! Our bus ended up breaking down on the way back and we had to wait for another bus to come and get us, so we ended up getting home later than we thought. The last day in Greece we spent it walking around Athens. I ended up getting tired and going back to the hostel leaving Alissa and Diana to try and explore celebrating “Mardi Gras”! The trip in Greece was a lot of fun and there is so much more I’d love to go back and see!

The next morning Diana and I left Alissa in Athens and took a train from Athens to Thessolinki. We spent a few hours in Thessolinki (in a Starbucks) and then took a night train from Thessoliniki to Istanbul. We were woken up on multiple occasions at the border to purchase visas and such. Now that I think about it, I should not have been so trusting to hand over my passport like I did. Once we arrived in Istanbul we went to a McDonalds and got breakfast and looked up where the hostel was. We spent the next hour taking the tram to Sultanahmet and wondering around trying to find our hostel. A nice man who said he knew where it was pointed us in the completely wrong direction and so we realized that you had to ask unexpected people where things were if you wanted a straight answer. We finally found our Anzac Wooden House hostel which was basically a four story old wooden house that had NO heat! We were originally put in a room on the ground floor but then were moved to a private double room becuase they needed the other room for another reservation. The hostel was FREEZING and had NO heat, like I said, the only heaters were litter space heaters that did barely anything! We visited the Blue Mosque and Mosaic museum on the first day we arrived. The coolest thing was hearing the Adhans Call to Prayer, which we heard 5 times a day! We also ate at this place thinking it would be cheap but ended up costing 40 lira!

The next day we got up from our warm beds and went out into Instanbul and visited the Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar, which was really awesome! I used my bargaining skills and bought a Turkish flag and an evil eye for more then 75% the price I was first quoted on each thing!

A friend of mine from OSU, Lindsey, is studying in Turkey and we decided to meet up with her later that evening. We made our way over to Taksim and ended up waiting for her out of the rain in a little coffee shop. When Lindsey arrived she took us to a cool place to eat and then we went out for some drinks. We ended up meeting some other exchange students there in a bar and hanging out. We left before the trams and metro stopped running. The next day it was raining and freezing and because I had no coat, Diana and I decided to hang out all day in Starbucks. I definitely need to return to Istanbul and visit more of the Asian side and see the Topaki palace! I took a shuttle to the airport the next morning and flew to England. I stayed in a hotel and caught a plane back to France early the next morning. I was still ill (and still am to this day) with bronchitis and a cold but it was really good to get home as the trip was exhausting!

To see all the pictures from my 14 day trip go to the photo section of theglossophile.com! Sorry this post was not as concise as I had hoped it to be! It was definitely not detailed in anyway! I left so much out! Anyway, on to my next trip…Mom and Dad come to Europe!

I plan on using this first week of vacation to continue recovering from my bronchitis and sinus infection. I also plan on getting my website up to date to where I can begin designing and implementing the “Languages” and “Linguistics” pages, which are the two main pages for the website in the first place! I would like to finish documenting winter vacation in my blog post tomorrow and use the first week of this vacation to restart my Basque lessons and also to start reading the fifth Harry Potter book in French.

Next Friday I’m taking a night train from Dax to Paris and plan on visiting the Louvre and Versailles on Friday and Saturday before my parents arrive on Sunday. Below is a complete detailed itinerary of what we will do the second week of my vacation when my parents come to visit for a week!

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Sunday, April 19, 2009
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Mom & Dad Arrive at 10:10am

-Take RER B to Paris Gare du Nord
-Take Métro #4 to Strasbourg Saint-Denis (Dir-Portes Orléans)
-Take Metro #8 to La Tour Maubourg (Dir-Balard)
Walk to hotel, check-in, shower, etc.

Take Metro #8 to Madeliene (Dir-Créteil)
change to #12 and take to Pigalle (Dir- Porte de la Chapelle)
change to #2 and take to Anvers (Dir- Nation)
take Funiculaire
Visit Sacré Coeur and Montmartre

Take Metro #2 to Villiers (Dir Porte Dauphine)
switch to #3 (Dir- Gallieni) to Opéra
Look around Opéra (Palais Garnier)

Walk to Metro Station Havre Caumartin #9 and take to Trocadéro (Dir-Pont de Sèvres)
Walk from Trocadéro to Eiffel Tower
Visit and go up into Eiffel Tower

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Monday, April 20, 2009
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Get up!

Take #8 from La Tour Maubourg to Invalides (Dir-Créteil)
Take RER C to St. Michel/Notre Dame
Eat breakfast at Petit Pont Café
Walk to Notre Dame and visit

Walk to Louvre along the Seine and visit the Pyramid Courtyard

Walk towards La Défense and visiting the Tuileries Gardens and Place de Conorde
Walk along the Champs Elysées to Champs Elysées Clemenceau on the #1 and take Metro #1 to Charles de Gaule Etoile (Dir- La Défense)
Visit the Arc de Triomphe

Take Metro #1 to La Défense
Visit Grande Arche

Take Metro #1 to Châtelet and walk around get dinner and return home!

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
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Must bet at Metro Station by 6AM at the latest!

YOU MAY HAVE TO DO THIS ON YOUR OWN!

Take #8, Direction Créteil to Invalides
Take #13 to Montparnasse Bienvenüe (Dir- Châtillon-Montrouge)
Follow signs that say “Grandes Lignes” and “TGV”, which will guide you to the actual Gare de Montparnasses (you will have to walk a little ways underground on long conveyer belt type walkways)

Take the TGV at 7h15 (7:15am) to Dax and arrive at 11h30.
Take #14 bus at 12h55 to St. Pierre and walk to Hotel Ibis.
Take bags to hotel and check in.
Get lunch, and visit Dax and St-Paul-lès-Dax and my schools.
Hang out, relax, sit a café

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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Get up and take #3 bus to Gare at 9h25
Take train from Dax at 9h52 and arrive in Bayonne at 10h21
Walk around Bayonne for a couple of hours.
Take #2 STAB (Bus) from Bayonne Mairie (Côté Adour) to Biarritz Maire
Walk down to Casino area and beach (maybe to light house)
Take bus to Gare de Biarritz
Take Train back by 17h00 (5:00pm)

Get bags from Hotel (if they let us hold them, if not we can arrange to get them to my dorm before we leave)

Take bus #9 back to Gond to my residence hall and make dinner and pack stuff of mine that you will be taking home.

Get taxi around 11:15pm to go to Gare de Dax

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Thursday, April 23, 2009
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Take night train at 00h07 from Dax and arrive in Paris at 7h10.
Take Metro #4 to Gare du Nord (Dir- Porte de Clignancourt)
Get train at 7h58 at Gare du Nord and arrive in Lille-Flandres at 9h00
Take Belgian train at 9h30 from Lille-Flandres and arrive in Bruxelles-Central at 11h31
Put bags in lockers, meet up with Virginie and explore Brussels for the day.
When Virginie’s fiancée/boyfriend gets off work we will drive down to Nismes and have dinner with my third host family
We spend the night with my third host family

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Friday, April 24, 2009
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Get up and have breakfast and show you around the farm.
Look around Nismes for a little bit and then take bus to Couvin and then to Chimay.

(We may be able to take our luggage and put it at my first host dad’s office for the day.)

Once my host mom get’s off work she can pick us up in Chimay and we will go to my first host family’s house. (This is all tentative as I have yet to hear back from them and need to write them again)

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Saturday, April 25, 2009
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Virginie and her BF will take you to Zaventum Airport and my third host family will take me to Charleroi Airport.

I got a ticket on Ryanair from Charleroi to Pau on Saturday the 25th.

After vacation I really need to start studying on the GRE and working on my Résumé/Curriculum Vitæ and statement of purpose for grad school. I’ll make a separate post about my grad school search! There are so many things I want to blog about but I totally forget to do it! I’m going to work harder on blogging and keeping up with it, so don’t worry!

Other than that I’ve been busy working on getting my application in to teach English in Spain next year. I finished the online application last Wednesday and sent in my hard copies today and paid €56 to have them expressed to New York. I better get that JOB! If I don’t get that job I’m going to have to hopefully try to become a substitute teacher! I’m trying to update my website and get all the loose ends worked out and finished before I start the bulk of it. For some reason it is really hard for me to sit down and accomplish one thing at a time as I have all my ideas running through my head. I see that I am this way and I know now that I could never write a book…well maybe I could…and hopefully some day I will…I know that I have to write a few theses at least.

I’m so unmotivated to work here and have missed a few more days than I should have but right now I’m at my last week until Easter vacation and then only nine weeks to go. I can’t wait to go home! I’m going to start studying for the GRE and getting the test taken and over with ASAP when I get home so that I can start working on applying for school. I really have my hopes set on going to the University of Hawai’i! I’m starting on my CV and my Statement of Purpose so it will be done and well revised by the time I get home and ask my professors for recommendations. I’ll write more about this later! I just wanted to update everyone and let everyone know that things are going well and that I can’t wait for two weeks to pass as I’ll be able to see my mom and dad again!

The French for some reason LOVE American politics and love to discuss all of our business. I remember when I was going to Belgium and Rotary told us we would be ambassadors for the US. Well, that same thing happens to ANY person who travels away from their country. The French don’t stop pestering about our politics and the going-ons in the US. I’m not overly political but why does every conversation I have a with a French person seem to turn to George Bush and how he sucked and how they hope Barack Obama can do better. When they talk about the US, they lump us all into ONE big boat like we all share the same ideas about our country and its politics. It is ridiculous and I’m a bit sick of it! The Jamaican was leaving one of her classes on Jan. 20th and the teacher started saying, “kids do you know what day it is today? The United States is getting a very new president.” Georgia couldn’t believe her ears!

One Saturday, Alissa and I headed down to explore Bayonne for the day. It was really nice and I’m thinking of taking mom and dad there when they come. You can see pictures in the photos section!

Last weekend (not this past weekend) France was alerted by the meteorologists that a huge storm was coming into France and that the South West of France would be hit the hardest. They were expecting 130-150km (80-95mph) winds. Well the storm started around 3am on the Saturday and I was woken by the high winds. It was horribly loud and just spewing rain from the sky. The winds lasted ALL day and didn’t die down until the evening of that Saturday. On the news they were saying that people in northern Spain and southern France had been killed and that there was destruction all over the South West of France. I was stuck in my room for 4 days as there were no buses and schools had been canceled and tons of people had no electricity (around 1.7 million people without electricity). I didn’t realize the storms full affect on my region until I took the train this past weekend to Bergerac and saw whole forests just completely blown over. Les Landes, the region where I am in France, has the largest forest in France and someone told me they thing maybe in all of Europe. If I were to make an estimate of how much of the forest(s) have blown over and been destroyed from just what I witnessed on the train, I’d say a good 30% at least if not more!

This past weekend I was invited to go to Bergerac to have dinner with the assistants there. I stayed with my friend Diana (my best friend from my exchange in Belgium) and we hung out all weekend and watched old Belgian Exchange videos. The dinner was really good. Everyone was suppose to make a dish that represented their country. Diana and I made read garlic potatoes but it turns out that the Irish girl made potatoes as well (go figure an Irish making potatoes). We even had escargot (snails) and frog legs, which is suppose to be “sooo” typically French! It was a really good time!

So Christmas and New Years as come and gone and we are in a new year. I’m not really good at keeping up on my website or updating my blog! It’s a bit “pénible”! I have so much time on my hands here and I’d rather lay around and do nothing but watch movies and stuff. I need to motivate myself to really get out there and start studying Basque more, learning Occitan (Gascon), and begin making my site more language oriented like I meant it to be!

Anyway, the last couple of weeks of school before break weren’t that eventful. I taught on christmas vocabulary, we made christmas cards, and I taught them how to make snowflakes. I taught my brightest class how to make the 3D snowflakes that I learned to make last year! It was great! We started chrismtas break on the 20th of December. I had decided to go to Paris on the 23rd with Alissa, the Canadian and her friend, Julie, who is teaching English in Korea. Julie had never been to Paris so we went and saw all the normal touristy things. Will, the American and his friend Josh were suppose to meet up with us on the 24th but they didn’t. We visited the Eiffel Tower and the Père Lachaise cemetery where people like Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, James Morrison, Chopin, etc. are buried. We had planned to go to the Midnight Mass at the Notre Dame and little did we know that we would be sitting right smack in the front. It was pretty cool. The choir was exciting to say the least as one girl fainted and two boys were asked to leave during the performance. The French are weird!

On Christmas day tons of things were open. We got a nice Christmas brunch and then headed up into the Eiffel Tower. After that the girls wanted to go ice skating but it was too busy so we decided to find some place to go and sit as it was cold. We found a cafe and finally met up with Will and Josh. That night back in the hostel, or perhaps I should say the next morning, we were awaken by a boy vomiting all over the floor. Apparently he had drank a whole bottle of red wine by himself and it was the first time he had ever had alcohol in his whole life! The smell was putrid and sickening! Julie got up and left the room along with another guy who was in our hostel bedroom. Alissa and I toughed it out. Alissa never went back to sleep but instead got up and decided to take an earlier train to Germany with Julie. I was suppose to be catching a train at 4 with Will and Josh but they ended up being late and missed the train a half hour after mine already left for Lille and didn’t end up getting to Lill for another hour and a half as I waited around for them.

We had planned to go to Belgium together from the 26th to the first and had all bought tickets for €24 from Belgium back to France. Well because of complications I ended up returning home to Dax by train on the 28th. I met up with my best friend from exchange, Diana, in Bordeaux and we celebrated the New Year there. It wasn’t that exciting but it was definitely better than being all alone in our respective little towns!

I promise and make a new years resolution to keep up with my blog and start writing about more fun things than just my stupid life! I swear! This is suppose to be a blog about Glossophilia (as well as the the glossophile) anyway!

Hope you are all doing well! Love you!

So as the city of Dax prepares for Christmas by hanging up snow flake lights and goblet-looking-type-thing lights and begins playing it’s Christmas and sometimes NOT so Christmas music (i.e. Akon) on loud speakers throughout the city on market days, I can’t help but feel that Christmas is coming. There won’t be any snow down here in Dax but since I will be in Paris for Chrismtas I may just have a white Christmas yet.

I had waited and put off my plans for Christmas and New Years and I’m ending up returning to Belgium and Paris. I’m going to Paris from the 23rd until the 26th and then to Belgium from the 26th to the 1st of January. I found a cheap Ryanair flight for 19,00€ after tax and baggage from Belgium to Pau, here in the south of France. I don’t think I will be seeing any of my host families this time around and I’m going with Will, the American assistant from Hawai’i and his friend who is visiting, Josh. We got a hotel in Brussels.

Nothing much has happened since I last posted. I’ve been teaching of course and I joined the local library and have been studying Basque, Romanian, and Occitan like crazy. I think I FINALLY decided on what I will go into. I plan on doing a Masters in Romance Linguistics at the University of Buffalo and then a PhD in Romance linguistics at the University of Berkeley. I’ll have to work hard in learning Spanish and Catalan (as well as Basque) next year so I will have Minority and Regional Romance language credit when I arrive at Berkeley, which will make me a stronger candidate for their program! I’m looking into doing a Gascon (Occitan) course here in Dax but we will see how that goes. In the future I would love to work with Non Profit Organizations which try to promote and protect minority and regional languages. I’m going to see if maybe I can get an internship with an association/organization here in Europe next year when I will be in Spain!

I’ve started the process of filling out the application to become an assistant in Spain! I’v really had to remember my Spanish and I wish I had kept up on it after all these years of not taking it! Hace casí 3 años!

Well that is all for now! Once I have my new camera I’ll upload a lot more pictures to my posts! Keep on the look out for a new podcast! I’ll eventually start doing them again! I have so much to gripe about here in France! Some possible topics are…

“Dehors! The French System of Discipline”

“Honk Honk! French Men and Their Lack of Respect Towards Women”

“The French Education System”

“The Language Assistant Program”

“Les Bises! A Cultural Minefield!”

I spent the last two days of the week last week giving my lesson on Thanksgiving and explaining what it was and why we celebrate it. I gave the kids mazes and a turkey to color and they loved it! They behave so well when they don’t actually have to learn and retain anything!

Last Thursday I didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving but instead Diana, my best friend from being an exchange student in Belgium who lives in Bergerac invited me to come there and celebrate it with the assistants of Bergerac. I invited Will, the other American here in Dax to come along as last week was his birthday and I had heard him mention how he wished he could have gone home at least for last week. He and I decided to take a train at 14h19 from Dax to Bordeaux and then take a train in Bordeaux at 16h04 but when we got on our first train in Dax we were told we would be delayed for 40 minutes. After about 40 minutes they canceled the train and we were told to go to a different platform and wait for another train. The train we were orignally going to take was a TER (Slow Regional Train) and the train we ended up taking was a TGV (High Speed Train). We got to sit in first class, which was nice. Once we got to Bordeaux we had to wait for another train and we finally made it into Bergerac at around 7 o’clock! Diana was there to meet us at the train station and we made the short little walk to her amazing house! Hopefully she uploads the pictures soon so I can show you how amazing Bergerac is! It is so much older looking than Dax and so much prettier.

Will and I had brought our pillows and blankets as Diana had nothing and we had to sleep on her floor. It wasn’t too bad but the second night I came down with another cold and supposedly I snored SOOO badly that the both of them couldn’t sleep! Saturday we got up and ran around getting ingredients to make girddle corn bread and sweet potato pie. Diana was a slave driver in the kitchen and is an amazing cook. We headed on over to the American and British girl’s apartment where the other assistants had not yet arrived except for Diana’s roommate, Virgina who had left before us. It was nice meeting other assistants and talking to them! A lot of champagne and wine was drunk and through are tipsyness we came up with a book idea that we are going to write (I think now that I’m the only one serious about writing this book and getting it published).

The book would be titled The French Kiss -A Cultural Mine Field. The book would talk about what the French call “les bises”, which we Americans know as the French air kiss when you go to one person’s side and kiss the air and then alternate sides. It is a very awkward thing for foreigners and there are many unspoken rules. I think it could be a great publish!

Well I’m off to enjoy my books from the library that I got today and plan my life!

I’ve been getting a ride from one of the teachers that I teach for. His name is Nicholas. He is a really really nice guy and I work with his wife who works at one of my other schools. He is a pretty good looking guy and relatively young and so everyday at the end of the day when we try to leave it takes us like 10-20 minutes as ALL the single (or maybe even the not-so-single) moms are like “Oh! Hello Nicholas!”. They stop him and give him “des bises” (air kisses) and talk and flirt with him. Some of the women are so pathetic. I think they may put make-up and dress themselves up just to see him. It makes me laugh secretly because I can see that he notices it but he has never once mentioned how it annoys him and I personally don’t think it is appropriate to bring it up.

David, the Scottish assistant left today to return home because of medical complications with his dad. All the assistants had planned on meeting at 7:30 at the Australian bar, Byron Bay. I knew that if I went home I would have passed out and not made it so I decided to go to Byron Bay and take advantage of the free wifi since I had my computer with me. David was there waiting on one of the teachers he worked with who speaks like PERFECT English. I hung out with him and Will and when Valérie left we ended up going across teh street and getting ourselves some pizza from this place called Pizza Maïté! It was soo good! I got blue cheese on my pizza…mmmmmm! The rest of the assistants arrived and we watched a football (soccer) match on television. Alissa had made David a card that we all signed that we gave to him and we all signed a U.S. Dax Rugby Team rugby ball and gave that too him. It was really sad to say goodbye to David. He stayed over at Will’s house so that he wasn’t so far from the station. Isabel, Fernando, and Dasia ended up taking him to the Gare (train station) in Fernando’s car at like 5:30 in the morning!!

David, if you are reading this, WE MISS YOU!!!!! Seriously! Thank you so much for the Scottish Flag! It’s definitely going up in my room so we can always be reminded of our trollied little scotsman! Ok, so you weren’t that trollied too often but I had to use some Scot slang!

Today, I got up at 11 to get ready and catch the bus to go to this city called Mont de Marsan where the Préfecture is located. I went with Georgia and Dasia. Georgia and my bus was of course running late and we thought we weren’t going to make it to Place St. Pierre on time to get the bus to Mont de Marsan. We arrived just in time and took the 1 hour and 42 minute bus ride throught the hills of the department of Les Landes. If Jeremy (my brother-in-law) or David Sours (family friend) had been on the bus they would have been puking their guts out. The driver drove so crazily through the hills and valleys and was going so fast. It was a bit scary!

When we go to Mont de Marsan we weren’t dropped off where I thought we would be dropped off and had to make our way down to the center of town to find the Préfecture. We were under the impression that the last bus to return to Dax was at 4:00 pm so we hurried and walked at a fast pace to the Préfecture. After asking a few people and stopping in at the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) we finally made it. We took a number and waited. When my number was called I went up to the window and told the lady I was there to get my Carte de Séjour. She told me that I didn’t get it there and that I would have to go and ask this guy at the “Welcome Counter”. We went back to the counter where there was no one to welcome us and waited. We saw him in an office talking to someone. This is typical of France. They have no concept of customer service. You will go in somewhere and the workers will be talking among themselves as people gather and keep gathering around waiting to be helped. It is ridiculous! Finally when he came back I told him what we needed and he pointed us to a office that had a sign “Etrangers” (foreigners).

We went into the office and a lady came and helped us. She was extremely nice! I was worried my birth certificate wouldn’t suffice but it was all ok! In total, to get my Carte de Séjour I had to of course have a VISA, my passport (with the visa inside), a copy of the visa and the passport, a proof of residence, a paper that stated that I had been to see the national medical association, a copy of my arrêté de nomination, and four identity cards (which they are VERY VERY particular about here).

The lady talked to us as she processed our paper work. It was nice that we could sit there and let her process all of ours, one right after the other. She asked if my last day was the 30th of June like it stated on my Arrêté, which I responded yes but I told her I planned on staying some days after that (as I have to teach on the 30th). She told me she couldn’t give me any more days than 15 and I’m set to leave on July 15th. I need to start looking for a plane ticket! I asked her if I could stay longer (not that I was planning to) if I wanted on my American Passport as Americans can travel to the “Shengen” countries on their passports for up to 3 months without having a visa. She told me that this rule didn’t apply if he had been here for longer than three months on a visa already so that I would have problems if I stayed much longer after the carte de séjour was up. I don’t plan on staying much past the 14th anyway but we’ll see.

After we got our passports processed we made our way back to the train station where we found out that the online schedule for the Dax-Mont de Marsan bus is wrong. The last bus wasn’t until 6:25, so we went to a cafe to keep warm and waited for a good 3 hours.

Another thing good came from this day, I was paid my last paycheck by Voicebox for a considerable amount, which makes me VERY VERY VERY VERY happy!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone back at home in the US! I plan on going to my friend Diana’s house on Friday in Bergerac (like Cyrano de Bergerac), France to have Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday! It should be awesome!

Btw- I had to pull the coat, scarf, and gloves out yesterday and (should have) today as it got close to 30 (0˚C) here! BRRRR I never thought I’d need it here!

Last night we went out to eat a this place called the l’Atrium. I got onion soup as an entrée (entrée means “entrance” in French so it makes sense that it means appetizer), duck with a salad and fries as my main course and this chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert. It was absolutely amazing. After we went to this café called the Sax y Rock where this band was playing. It was absolutely ridiculous and it reminded me of how much I really missed the US and confirmed how I could never live in France forever. We met some Spanish students who were doing internships at the local thermal baths. Georgia and I ended up walking home relatively early like 3:00am as the others went out to a dance club.

Friday I struggled getting out of bed to go to class but I of course went and my first school was great as usual but the second was absolutely terrible. The kids in this school are just rotten. I cannot believe they act the way they do and show so much disrespect to me and the other teachers. I was getting fed up with them and I may have a nervous break down if they don’t calm themselves down!

I’m not looking forward to this week! But I guess I could say that every week!

I didn’t do anything today except work on my new website, which is where you are reading this. This one works out a lot better than the old one and it isn’t as tacky and more aesthetic I believe.

Tomorrow there is a national grève (strike) for all educators who would like to participate. That is right, a teacher has the choice tomorrow of not showing up to school to teach. I’m not sure why they are striking as I didn’t get the detailed memo. Unfortunately only 2 of the 5 teachers for whom I teach are striking tomorrow so I have to go in and work. We assistants don’t get a choice of striking unless the whole school closes down for the strike. I don’t want to go in tomorrow, but bof…c’est la vie!

Today and last Thursday, one of the teachers at my school offered to drive me back to Dax and drop me off in the center of town so I didn’t have to wait for the bus. He is really really nice! He has been the one teacher of all of the teachers I work with who has tried to get to know me. It is really hard forming relationships with the teachers when I’m at 4 schools and at 3 of those schools I’m only there about 2-3 hours a week.

I think I’m coming down with a mild cold or a sinus infection as I’m getting drainage and a sore throat. It could be because of the heating system here in the residence hall (and in most of Europe). Since all of Europe still uses cinder blocks to frame their houses (meaning no wood) everyone still uses steam heat and radiators. First of all, the heat wasn’t even turned on before I left for vacation and it got down in the 30s a few times at night. I’ve noticed that my room is a lot chillier in the evenings and at night than in the morning. It could be that I just get used to the temperature and I can’t get it to go any higher or it might be because they turn off the water heaters at night. Usually before 6:30am you can’t get a really good hot shower as I think the water heaters here are on a timer.

I didn’t feel like eating dinner and I started to cook spaghetti but stopped it and decided I’ll eat it tomorrow. I took some tylenol PM and passed out until the other assistants woke me up. Now I can’t go back to sleep and I feel drowsy. I’m pretty sure Diana gave me her cold now that I’m thinking about it. I have the day off tomorrow thank God! I’m going to relax, try to stay warm and work on rebuilding my website that I deleted last night. I’ll work on adding more photos and put up the links to the albums ASAP! Please comment and let me know how you are all doing!!!!

The monday after my grandfather passed way we had our orientation with all the other assistants. There are a few Spanish assistants and one German assistant and of course many English assistants. The orientation was for all assistants teaching every level.

At the orientation they introduce our region and the way the French education system works. They helped us fill out many important forms and we started learning a little about what we should be teaching. On Thursday of that week we had a little training session where we talked only about what we should be teaching to the primary aged kids. That Friday night Alyssa made fajitas for all the assistants in Dax. There is Isabel (Spain), her boyfriend Fernando (Spain), Dasia (Mexico), Wil (Hawaii/Washington State), Georgia (Jamaica), Alissa (Canada), and David (Scotland). We drank like 7 bottles of wine between the eight of us! OH France!

The following week we started school. My schedule was like this:

Mondays- 3:30 to 4:30 at Ecole (School) Henri Lavielle (two classes for 30 mins each)

Tuesdays- 8:45: to 9:30 at Ecole Marie-Curie
11:00 to 4:30 at Ecole Barrouillet (three classes for 45 mins each)

Wednesdays- Off (French primary/maternelle aged kids do not go to school on Wednesdays)

Thursdays- 9:00 to 10:00 at Ecole Henri Lavielle (two classes for 30 mins each)
11:00 to 4:30 at Ecole Barrouillet (three classes for 45 mins each)

Fridays- 8:45: to 9:30 at Ecole Marie-Curie

I started off with all my classes by teaching them the common commands that they would need to know and understand to make the class function like: stand up, sit down, listen, be quiet, look, point, raise your hand, walk, come here, i know, i don’t know, stop, color, draw, repeat, show me, pick one, etc.

It has been pretty exhausting teaching and having to take the bus for more than 5 hours a week gets old as well as my schools are the furthest away than anybody else’s.

We only taught for two full weeks before having vacation. The first session I taught the commands. The second session I reviewed and taught on the Pumpkin Show. The third session we reviewed the commands and the fourth session I taught about Halloween. Those weeks went by fast but they felt long. The weekend between those first two teaching weeks Dasia invited us over to eat at her place. We ate out on her huge balcony and then played games and went out after. Here in France they don’t go out until really late and when I say really late I mean that just this past Saturday we went to a club and showed up at midnight and it was dead. By 2:00am people started coming and it was hopping! The night before we stayed out until 5:00am! Our choices of places to sortir (go out) aren’t that great as Dax is a spa town with TONS of old people.

We started a school break for Toussaint (All Saints Day even though the break was like 10 days) on the 25th of October. I had planned on going to see my host families in Belgium and visiting Amsterdam. My first mom told me I could find flights pretty cheap from this city near me called Pau to Charleroi, Belgium. I got on and saw there were flights for about 24€ and 9€ for aller-retour (return trip) but I waited to get my plans all settled and waited too long as I ended up having to take a train there and getting a reasonably cheap flight for 40€ back to France. On the 20th I took the train from Dax to Paris Montparnasse and then took the Paris Metro to Paris Nord where I then took another TGV to Lille. From Lille I took a train to Tournai and then at Tournai I bought a go-pass (10 on way trips for €46) and took the train to Charleroi. From Charleroi I was taking the train to Couvin which is where the line ends and where i was going to have my host mom meet me at 20h49 (8:49pm).

Half way through the hour trip the train’s horn blasted and we came to an abrubt stop. We all sat around looking out the windows wondering why we had stopped for a good 30-40 minutes. Finally the “contôleur” came and informed us that we had hit a man who had been working on the tracks and had killed him. He told us to sit where we were and that it would be a good one to two hours before we would be leaving. I started to freak out as I didn’t have my host family’s number in my phone (first mistake). It was horrible I tried getting other people to try and call their parents and have them look up my host family’s number in the phone book but the only thing other people would do was text and I never got a response from anyone. Finally a bus arrived near where we were. They guided us off the train right past the blood and gore smeared on the front and side of the train and made us walk about a kilometer on the train tracks and then led us down a hill to the bus. The bus drove us to the nearest bus station called Walcourt. I explained my plight with two girls on the bus and the one told me she was from Chimay and that her dad had come to Walcourt to pick her up and she could drive me and this other girl to Couvin. Upon arriving in Couvin, my host mom was nowhere to be found. I told the other girl that had gotten a ride with us that my host family was not there and she told me her friend could take me to their house despite it being 23km away and in the middle of nowhere. When I arrived at my host family’s house my host brother and host dad said my host sister and mom had moved to a different train station to intercept me earlier as they were freezing. I would say they weren’t too happy. We ate dinner (at like 11:30 at night) and I finally ended up going to bed as I was exhausted from being on trains for more than 10 hours. The next day they invited my host grandparents over for dinner and my host dad’s son came and it was nice.

They drove me to Nismes to visit my third host family. Everyone was there except my host brother. My host mom had to call my host sister Virginie (the one who came to the US) and tell her to come home as she had just left to return to Brussels when I arrived. It was great seeing them again! Really great! The next day I hung out by myself at my host family’s house as my host brother had returned to Charleroi to school, my host dad worked and my host mom and sister went to visit my host mom’s family. That night my host dad took me to my second host family’s house.

It was great to see my second host family even though it is still difficult for them after losing their daughter. They took me to the European Space Center and to this town that is full of book stores. I bought some books (as they are my weakness). It was a nice trip. The next day I hung out with them and went on a walk and saw the giant windmill they had installed in Couvin. Overall the experience of going back “home” to Belgium was nice. Nothing really has changed and I really really had a good time.

I went to Amsterdam on the 29th and stayed until the 1st. It was a good time although traveling by yourself isn’t fun at all and most of my pictures from that part of my trip are gone.

On the first I returned to Belgium and made a stop in Antwerp and then continued on to Brussels. I had made plans to meet up with two friends of my friend Elizabeth Lemons in Brussels, Melanie and Britta. Dumb me, I forgot to put Melanie’s phone number in my cell phone and I had no way of contacting her to meet up with her. I called Liz over skype to see if she could get me the number. While I waited in the cyber cafe I was in to call Liz back I suddenly hear my name and look up and it is Melanie with Britta! It was unreal! We had a good time. I took them to my fav restaurant in Brussels “The Cheesecake Cafe” and then we went to the Mannekin Pis bar and I made them taste amazing Belgian beer.

I had made plans to stay with my Belgian friend Olivier who was an exchange student in Logan, Ohio the year before I did my exchange. We were going to go out to a club but I didn’t have any chic clothes so we ended up going home and chilled. It was SO great to see him again, wow! I had a really good time the three days I was at his house. That Sunday I met up with Paola who was an exchange student in Belgium when I was. She is from Ecuador and is going to school in Belgium and dating a Belge. It was such a fun day acting like tourists in Brussels. She cried when she saw me and it made me feel really good. The only crappy part is I got my camera pickpocketed. I was pretty angry that I didn’t have it secured better. It was sad saying goodbye to Paola and we had a great time. I returned to Olivier’s that night and the next day just chilled in a cafe all day in Brussels. The next morning I got a plane at 11:20 and flew from Charleroi to Pau. I got a taxi to the train station and took the train to Dax where I then took two buses to finally be HOME!

It was great being home but I was not ready to teach on Thursday and I ended up having stomach problems/24hr bug on Thursday and not going to school. Friday I went to my first class but forgot about my second class. Before we left on vacation, Madme Dubroca, the foreign language coordinator assigned me, Georgia, and Alissa to another school. This added 10:45-11:30 for me on Mondays and Fridays. That weekend we were invited to Isabel and Fernando’s for dinner. It was a great way to catch up with everyone about their breaks. David’s girlfriend was visting from Scotland.

On Tuesday it was Armistice day (Veterans day) so I only had to teach Monday, Thursday, and Friday. David’s brother came on Wenesday and we all went out on Friday until 5:00am on Saturday morning. We David, his brother Stuart, Alyssa, Dasia, and I went to another Dax rugby game at 2:00pm on Saturday and Diana, my best friend from Belgium who is doing this program and who lives in Bergerac came to town that night. We ended up going out again to what we had heard was the best place to go out to in Dax. It was pretty lame with almost everyone being over the age of 40. It was fun having Diana around and catching up with her. We had Indian for lunch yesterday and then had a coffee before we split up to walk our separate ways.

Today I had my new class of CE2s (8 and 9 yr old) and my CPs (6-7 yr olds). We played “classroom command” bingo. Tomorrow I’m giving a test to my one school and playing bingo with my one class at the other school.

I’m really going to try hard and update this as much as possible! I promise!

Thursday I got up and took the bus from the residence hall to St. Paul les Dax, which is a smaller city that basically touches Dax. We were only suppose to go to our first of three schools on Thursday and we’d visit our other schools on Friday and Tuesday as we have our orientation tomorrow (Monday). Well I got to my school and actually went into the maternelle (very young age) and was directed to the elementary school. I went in and found the principal’s office where a secretary was sitting. I told her who I was and she took me down to the classroom where the principal was teaching. Here in France, the principals usually are teachers as well. When the secretary explained who I was the principal become almost irate and I could tell she was very frustrated. She told me (in a screaming way) that I wasn’t expected until November and they weren’t ready for me and no one had told them that I’d be arriving that day. It was horrible. I was so embarrassed and I thought it was a horrible way of handling the situation. She told the secretary to take me to meet the teachers and then to tell them to meet me in the teacher’s lounge at 10:15 to make up a schedule. I met the teachers whom were extremely nice and even had a little kid tell one of the teachers that m French was so much better than the English girl that taught them last year. Though he was quite confused as to why I was teaching him English since I was an American and a little girl next to him quickly reminded him that Americans speak English.

I met with the teachers during the “recreation period” and we made a schedule that I quite liked for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Later when I told my contact that I had gone to the school and made the schedule she informed me that it was the principal’s task to put the schedule together by calling the two other principals at my other schools and that the way I went about doing it (which is how I thought I was suppose to do it) was wrong. That kind of bummed me out as I really do want to have a part in making my own schedule as the two other assistants in my residence hall got to put their schedules together.

After I was done at my first school Diana, my best friend from Belgium told me to come see her in Bordeaux since it has been 5 years since I’ve seen her. I ended up going and accompanying her to the ANAEM doctor’s appointment that all immigrants must do before getting their green card. As we waited I went up and asked if I could go ahead and do my appointment as mine was set for this coming Wednesday and it would save me time. The lady said she would see and I ended up getting mine totally completed. It wasn’t the best doctor’s visit I’ve ever had but whatever, I got to keep my chest x-rays. I did however get in trouble for leaving the “inspection” during school hours, which I didn’t know was a problem as I was finished with school for that day. I only stayed until around 5 something and then I had to take the train back and catch a bus as it was raining.

The next morning I got up and got ready to go to my second school. As I got out of the shower my phone was ringing. When I saw the number that was calling I knew what had happened before I even heard my dad’s voice tell me that my grandpa had passed away. I kind of in my heart knew that this could happen and when I last saw my grandpa I told him that I loved him very much and thanked him for everything he had done in my life. I cried then and I certainly sobbed when the words came out of my dad’s mouth. I was in such pain and I cried most of the day on Friday. I wrote Mme. Dubroca and told her what had happened and I wrote my school to inform the what had happened. I looked for flights to go back home on Sunday and return here on Wednesday or Thursday. I was devastated. If I decided to come home I’d have had to go to the inspection office and fill out some forms but since I decided that it would be so exhausting to make a trip like that and expensive, I decided that I wouldn’t return for my grandfather’s funeral. I’m still struggling with the fact that I’m not going home and I can’t go and hug my grandma and it hurts me to know that my grandma lost the love of her life. I know that grandpa would have told me to stay here and not worry about it. I’m not worried about him anymore, I know he is up in heaven with his maker and with his little girl, Karen.

Alissa came by and hugged me and told me how sorry she was and she even made me dinner Friday night which was really nice of her. We had been planning on going to a grape picking festival not far from Dax on Saturday and I decided to go so that it would take my mind of grandpa. A Scottish guy moved in the residence hall and we invited him to come with us and all four of us took the bus to Dax, looked around the market for a little bit and then took the bus to Monfort en Chalosse to la fête des vendanges. It was a lot of fun but when 3 o’clock rolled around we were ready to get out of there.

When I was in the hotel in Soustons I had received an e-mail from my first host mother telling me that a tragedy has struck my second host family and that my host sister had passed way the night of the 19th and morning of the 20th of September. I was sitting down in the restaurant area of the hotel when I read this and I had to get up and go to my room as I was struck with such grief. I had not idea how she passed away but after talking to my host brother and hearing that it made national news I researched it and found out just how tragic it was. My host sister and I think her boyfriend were crossing a double bridge (each direction is it’s own bridge) and my host sister’s b/f lost control of the car and it slammed into the side of the bridge. They quickly got out of the car so that they could climb over the bridge railing to safety in case another car came and hit them. They chose to climb over the middle railing which faced the other bridge. What they did not know was that there was no platform in between the bridges and when they climbed over the wall they fell 165 feet to their death on railroad tracks below. I’ve written my second host family and given my condolences but I don’t know how one can ever say sorry for losing someone in such a fashion. I fell asleep last night crying thinking about my family and my second host family and mourning the loss of my grandpa and second host sister whom I liked a lot. This has been a very rough few days and I look forward to the future when things will get better.

Mme. Dubroca called and told me that I would no longer be living or teaching in Soustons and that the “rectorat” (which is like the board of education) was going to move my appointment from Soustons to a school in Dax. Mme. Dubroca came and picked me up last Thursday and brought me to my new home in France. It is about a 15m squared room with bathroom and shower and a kitchenette with a mini fridge, two burner stove top, and sink. I have a table, desk, closet, bed, shelves and cabinets. I’m paying around €325/month for it but after I get my carte de séjour (kind of like a green card) I can apply for the CAF, which is a thing that will give me a percentage of my rent back to me each month. Mme. Dubroca said it would be around €150 which means I’d only be paying around €175/month for rent and this also includes electricity and water!

There is a Jamaican and a Canadian living here as well. The Canadian, Alissa , lives right next door and the Jamaican, Georgia, lives in another part of the residence hall. The residence hall has internet but it is SOO slow and not that good so I’m tying to get this thing called a neuf box, which is a package deal where I get internet, tv (120 channels), and phone (with unlimited calls to over 55 countries) for €29,90/month. It is a really good deal. The only problem is I have to have a number to set it up which is a bit of a problem as the hall director here doesn’t have the number for room and there is no such thing as free customer service numbers in France!

The center of town is a 20 minute walk, 5 minute bus ride and the super market is just as far. I’ve gone to the grocery store twice thus far. In France you have to bring your own bags and bag your own stuff so I’ve used my duffle bag and book bag to go grocery shopping with. It is a long hall and takes at least 2 and a half hours to do the whole walking there, shopping, then walking back. My schools are actually in a town connected to Dax, called St. Paul Les Dax. I’ll have to take the bus to get to my schools. I don’t actually start teaching until the 10th of October. I’ll be teaching in three elementary schools. Tomorrow I have to go observe some classes in my first school, Friday I have to go to my second school to observe and next Tuesday I go to my third school to observe. Monday we have our orientation and we will get to meet all the other assistants in our area. I don’t teach Wednesdays as the little kids are off during this time and next Thursday Mme. Dubroca is going to go over what we are to be teaching in the schools.

I haven’t had really any difficulties after arriving in the residence hall. Things are going pretty well. It is weird not having a dinning plan anymore and having to shop and cook for myself. I’ll do all right I suppose. Well for now that is pretty much all that is happening! I’ll be sure to write soon and hopefully get into a routine where I can begin podcasting again!

My train departed from Paris *Gare de Montparnasse at 7h15 (7h15 =7:15 this is how I’ll express time as that is how they do it here). I’m on one of the infamous TGV, which means Train à Grande Vitesse, which translates as “Fast Train” or “Train at great speed”. It is nice to be out of Paris and seeing the small little towns with their beautiful churches. I got up at 5h15 (5:15am) this morning and had everything prepared to leave last night.

*Gare means train station in French.

I got dressed got my stuff and went downstairs and waited for my taxi. I called last night to reserve the taxi and I felt that last night confirmed how good my French really is. I’ve had no problems with communication and not once did someone respond to me in English when I presented myself in French. Thank God for the French exchange students this past spring! I think the taxi driver took the LONG way around to get to Gare de Montparnasse as it cost me €18,50 (in France they use , where we would use .).

I’ll tell you day by day what I did from my departure to now.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Since my parents had to work on Thursday they couldn’t take me to the airport to depart and I really didn’t want to inconvenience them to take a day off as there were many other factors involved. We planned to have my best friend from college take me the next day and I’d just stay with her on Wednesday night. My grandpa had his double by pass surgery on Wednesday so I woke up around 10am and got all the final preparations ready. I left around 1pm and went to Wal-mart to return a camera battery and then headed into town to my mom’s work where her boss’ mother-in-law had brought some pumpkin show souvenirs for me to take and buy. I took two large ziplock bags full of pumpkin show pins and magnets and I bought some pumpkin show bags and pens and pencils. I went to the bank and deposited all my cash and checks as I wasn’t taking any cash with me and I would just withdraw some money when I arrived in France.

I drove up and waited with my parents, grandma, cousin, uncle, and great uncle in the waiting room while they performed the surgery on my grandpa. After the doctor came out and told us everything went well and we’d have to see how things went from there on my parents and I decided to go and pick up my friend Joan and go to dinner. We drove across Columbus and picked up my friend Joan and went and ate at Outback Steak House. It was really good and fun. We drove back to Joan’s apartment and unloaded my bags. I said goodbye to my parents and surprisingly I didn’t break down. I think I was cried out at this point as it was very emotional to say goodbye to my grandpa and niece and nephew the day before.

On Wednesday night my best friend from high school Tom came over and hung out with Joan and I as he lives 2 minutes away by foot. We watched The 40 Year Old Virgin and just hung out. Because of the high winds and power outages from a few days before Tom didn’t have school on Thursday so he offered to take me to the airport so I wouldn’t have to get there at 9:30am when my flight left at 1:30pm. It’s funny because my parents took Joan out to thank her for taking me and she didn’t even take me. She offered to throw up dinner but I told her that would be worse and that I’d buy Tommy dinner when I got back!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

I got up around 10am on Thursday and took a shower and got everything ready for when Tommy got there. Joan had a presentation she had to do at school and that is why Tommy was taking me because her class was at 11:00 but she was meeting her group at 10:30 and would have had to take me to the airport early and I didn’t want to sit there for four hours as I already had to sit at Chicago for 4 hours. Tom arrived aroudn 10:15 and we loaded up his car and I said a teary eyed goodbye to Joan and we were off to the airport. He dropped me off at the check-in level and I was off.

There was no one in line at the United counter. One of my bags was 4 lbs overweight and I had to take out my bookbag and a bag of pumpkin magnets and stuff it in my carryon to get one bag down to 51 lbs. The lady at the counter accepted the 51 lbs and she put on my checked baggage stickers and I gave my bags to the people to scan them and have them given to United. I hung around and e-mailed mom and then at noon I ate at Wendy’s. After I ate I went back to my gate and waited to board.

On the plane I sat with a farmer from Kansas who had been in Ohio for a farmers’ convention. He was really nice and we talked the whole time. The flight lasted about 45 minutes and we flew over Chicago as we arrived to Chicago O’Hare Airport. When I arrived I just sat and waited for my flight’s gate number to be posted. I talked to Joan on skype for a little while and people watched. Once I found out where my flight was I headed down to the gate and waited. I talked to some French women who had traveled the globe and finally it was time to board.

On the plane there was a group of forty 60+ men and women who travel together all the time all over the place. Some of the people, I thought, should not have been flying and the 60+ year old woman I sat with agreed. It was fun sitting next to her. She was a hoot. Even though the plane ride was long, it was bareable because I had her for conversation. I had decided at Columbus that I was NOT going to be taking the metro to my hostel and that I would take a taxi. This probably was the best decision of my life as MOST Paris metro stations are NOT handicap accessible, which means no elevator or even an escalator.

Friday, September 19, 2008

We landed on time in Paris at the Charles de Gaulle Airport around 9:00am. It took another good 15 minutes just to get to our terminal on the ground. Once there it was a race to get off and go through to get our passports checked and to claim our luggage. As we were landing the captain mentioned that it was 5°C (≈40°F). I was wearing a short sleeved polo and shorts with flip flops. I couldn’t change until I got my luggage. Once I got my luggage I had to sit down and get everything how I wanted. I transferred some things to my bookbag and then put my computer case in my suitcase. Since I couldn’t find any place to change on the level I was at and it was too much of a hassel to look for a bathroom I decided I’d change when I got to the hostel.

I gathered all my things and went outside to where the taxis were. A taxi pulled up and helped me load all of my stuff into the car and we were off towards Paris. The ride was exciting and scary at the same time. In France people drive with no respect. (Disclaimer: I’m not generalizing here, I’m sure there are some very respectful drivers in France but it did not feel like it everytime I saw traffic or was in a car). Everyone is trying to get to their destination the quickest way possible. In the US most of these drivers would be stopped for reckless driving, my cab driver included.

After many gasps and sighs we finally made it to my hostel, Auberge Internationale des Jeunes. There was a HUGE amount of people inside when I got there all waiting at the desk and I had no idea where to put my luggage so I just sat is over to the side and waited patiently as more and more people spilled in. Once it starting clearing out, since most people were just returning there key for the day, I approached in the counter and told the girl I had a reservation. She gave me a ticket and told me that the hostel was closed until 16h00 (4:00pm) and that I could leave my baggage down in the locked luggage room and come back and pick my key up at 16h00. I kind of knew that it was closed from 11h00 to 16h00 but when you have been up for over 24 hours straight, it is hard to digest that for the next 5 hours I’d have to find something to do.

I took my luggage down to the luggage room (sounds so much easier said than actually done), changed in a tiny bathroom into some jeans and put on shoes, and then headed out into the city of Paris not knowing really where the heck I was! I finally found the metro station close to me, Ledru-Rollin, and went down and bought a 3 day Paris pass. I took the metro to see the Paris Opéra house, Palais Garnier, which was actually the thing I was most excited about seeing. It wasn’t as great as I thought but that was only because I was totally exhausted. I’ll definitely make a trip back up to Paris and see the Paris Opera again and go on a tour.

From there I made my connections to the Eiffel Tower, via les Ecoles Militaires (Military Schools). When I arrived near the Champs de Mars I was approached by a girl who had a speech impediment or wasn’t actually French who was offering me a gold ring that she supposedly had just found on the ground. She kept saying it was real gold and that she found it and I could have it. She stuck her hand out asking for money and I in return told her that if she wanted money and if the ring was really gold, that she should take it to a bijouterie (jewlery store) and try to sell it there. She tookt he ring from my hand and quickly went off to her next victim. Two minutes later a guy reaches down in front of me and picks something up. Can you guess what it was? YES! It was a gold ring. I told him his sister already tried to con me and to leave me alone. He laughed and went off looking for some other person to try to scam.

The Eiffel tower was beautiful. Right below it there was a huge map of the European Union that you could walk on and I of course took pictures of Belgium! I decided to kill some time by going up into the tower. As I was walking towards the line to go to the “sommet” (top) I saw some firemen climbing up ropes from the ground to the first level of the Eiffel Tower and then falling back down. It was nuts! There is NO way I would have ever in my life done that. I don’t have a fear of heights but that would probably cause me to. I got in line to buy my ticket. The line was pretty long but I expected it. While I was waiting in line I saw the French police take down some people who were selling souvenirs out of duffel bags. It was pretty cool.

To get to the top of the tower you take an elevator up to the first or second level and then you take an elevator from there to the top. The view was amazing. Paris is a HUGE HUGE city and is SO spread out. Unlike New York, where it is all compact on an island, Paris spreads out as far as the eye can see, at least from the Eiffel Tower. It was really chilly up there but the view was amazing. I spent probably an hour up there looking and taking pictures.

After I came down I headed to nearest metro station and headed back to my hostel as it was around 15h30 at that time. Once I got back to the hostel I took a shower got some things from my bags down in the luggage room and went to sleep. The beds were SO noisy and squeaky that I didn’t sleep ALL that well. I also had three other roommates. One was an Italian guy who talked in his sleep as well except it was really scary because it was in Italian and it was really really fast and I thought he was actually yelling at me for being too loud talking in my sleep.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

I woke up at like 4h00 the next morning and just laid there until around 7h00. I got up took another shower and went down and had breakfast. I had planned to head down to Versailles for the day. On the train down there I met some Americans from Colorado who were just traveling around. When I got to Versailles I made the five minute walk to the palace. I was told it was going to be free as it was a special weekend called “Les Weekends de Patrimoines”. There was actually nothing free. I went to see the gardens first. The gardens were amazing and along the main path to the canal there are buckeye trees. I have a buckeye from one of the trees.

There are tons of fountains in the gardens but they aren’t on all the time and actually are only turned on for a set perdiod of time (1 hour or so) and only on special days or weekends. I was lucky as the Eaux Musicales (water show) started at 11h00 and went till 12h00. There are speakers all throughout the Versailles gardens and there is classical music playing the whole time. It was really a great atmosphere and really beautiful.

After I toured the gardens I went and waited in line for over an hour to get a ticket to go into the palace. After getting my ticket I went and ate a sandwich and then I went in and took the tour of the Palace. I wasn’t really TOO impressed and I felt it was a bit overrated but what I thought was amazing is that I was standing in a place where so much rich history took place. It really was amazing to me. My camera actually went dead before I could take a picture of the infamous Hall of Mirrors. By the time I had toured the castle it was going on 16h00. I decided I would go back to the hostel and catch up on e-mails and everything. I got back near 18h00 and decided to go ahead and get a mobile phone as I hadn’t had a watch or any way of telling time since I’d been here and also it would be beneficial to have a mobile phone ASAP. I went into an Orange store and pruchased a phone and prepaid plan. After that, I was able to go to the little market and get something to eat. I sat and talked with my French Canadian roommate who was also downstairs eating. I responded to e-mails and did some other research and then headed upstairs to take a shower and then go to bed.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The next morning I woke up pretty late at like 7h30 and got ready and headed downstairs for breakfast. I had planned to go see the catacombes. I made my way to the metro station closest to the catacombes, which ended up being right across the street. I got there 45 mins too early and I just sat on a bench right in front of the entrance and waited. I ended up meeting three other Americans who were going into the catacombes. We were all at the front of the line. Two of them were in the military and the third was their friend visiting them for a while. They were SO nice and I really enjoyed having someone around to talk to and explore with as I had been alone the past two days. The catacombes were AMAZING. I really can’t believe how awesome they were. I just never thought I’d be that close to 6 million skulls and the hundreds of millions of bones that lined the walls. The climb out of the catacombes was rough as I think there were like 186 steps. What made me laugh at the end was there was a defibulator!

I parted with my new American “friends” and headed for the Eiffel Tower as I had planned to meet another assistant there at noon. We agreed to meet on “Belgium” on th big EU map. She was a little late but it was ok. We walked and got lunch where I ate a mushroom omlette and she some crêpes and then we decided to go see the Sacré Cœur. Never had I thought that I would have to climb up so many stairs and steep hills in my life than in Montmartre where the Sacré Cœur is located. When we first arrived to the metro station we thought would be close to it, Abesses, we had to climb like 200 stairs. It just kept going and going and going. After some thinking you can understand why there are SO many stairs in this particular metro. Montmartre is the highest point in Paris and the metro runs at a certain level under Paris. So, if you get off at Abesses and it is in Montmartre that is a lot HIGHER than the rest of Paris you have to climb HIGHER to get out of the metro station.

It was ridiculous! It has definitely motivated me to lose weight (and also helped me START to lose weight as I probably lost 3 lbs just climbing to the top). Allison and I had to climb about 3 more sets of stairs and 3 more hills before we actually made it to where the church sat. The church was AMAZING. We went inside and it was just beautiful. I lit a prayer candle for my papaw and we exited to now find a huge set of stairs right in front of the Sacré Cœur which led down to a lift which took you to an even CLOSER metro. After taking picutres and fighting people to get down the stairs we finally made it down where some Sénégalais tried to sell us bracelets. I invited Allison back to my hostel to take advantage of the free wifi that was there since she hadn’t had luck getting connected at the free wifi at McDonalds. We hung out there for a good two hours and then she was off to see La Défense and then to stay on someone’s couch. I really should have done what she did. She paid to have her bags kept in a locker at Gare du Nord and then couch surfed a few places in Paris. (Couch surfing is where someone offers you their couch for free.)

Monday, September 22, 2008

The next morning I got up at around 9h00, took a shower, and then headed out. I took the metro to La Défense which is the skyscraper district of France. It also hosts the giant Défense Arc. I took picutres and then got back on the métro and headed to the Arc de Triomphe. It was an amazing thing to see in person. I also took video of the horrible traffic which circled it. After that I got back on the metro and headed towards Le Louvre. After eating my lunch and taking pictures I started walking along the Seine towards Ile de la Cité. I crossed the Seine a few times and finally came upon a boat tour company. I paid €11 to go on an hour boat ride on the seine along all the major monuments. It was a really amazing thing. Great investment as I got TONS of pictures. After the boat ride I walked along l’Ile de la Cité to Notre Dame where I was suppose to meet a group of other assistants for dinner and a chat. I ended up finding an amazing bookstore and buying a Basque Verb Conjugation book.

I went back to the statue of Charlemagne in front of Notre Dame at 17h00 and started meeting the other assistants. I was the only guy in the group. Once everyone was there we went and got some drinks and some appetizers at Le Restaurant de Petit Pont. I had white wine with cassis juice and shared fries and garlic bread with three others. It was so great to talk to other people and to know that I wasn’t alone in my fears and doubts. We ended up going and sitting in the grass near the Eiffel Tower which was lit up all blue and chatting. While we were sitting there, the French police pulled up and shined their lights in our faces. They got out of the car and came up to us with their flash lights. I had read that France was trying to cut down on public open container and I asked the policeman if it was forbidden to sit in the grass, which he responded no. I then explained that we were not drinking and he smiled and told us to have a great night! He and his ‘friends’ moved on to the huge group of French people who had about 20 bottles of champagne and wine.

After a while people started saying they had to go and I thought this would be a good time for me to leave as well. I headed back to the hostel and got my luggage keys back that I had lost temporarily and then called to have a taxi come pick me up the next morning and the rest you know.

I’ll write about my arrival in the region and my nightmare for housing! Soon!

Arrive at CDG Airport, Terminal 1, level five and go through customs and claim baggage.

Find an ATM and take out €200,00

Mail is located on level two in case you need to mail out any letters. Take pictures of the Airport for your blog!

Take the CDGVAL (located on leel 2) to the Paris Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1 (Roissypôle) Take pictures for your blog!

Ticket => “Billet Ile-de-France” Aéroport CDG – Paris (Zone 5 -> Zone 1)
Cost => 8,40€ (full fare)

Take the RER B from Roissypôle to Gare du Nord (Direction Massy-Palaiseau) Take pictures!
From Gare du Nord take the number 5 line to République (Direction Place d’Italie)
From République take the number 8 line to Ledru-Rollin (Direction Creteil-Prefecture) Take pictures!

1.Head east on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine toward Cour de l’Ours
2. Continue on Square Trousseau
3.Continue on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine
4.Turn left at Rue Trousseau

Check in and pay for hostel. Ask if they have a luggage room. Take pictures!
Take your computer and put it in your back pack as well as your important documents and camera and set out for the Louvre!

From Ledru-Rollin take the number 8 line to Bastille (Direction Balard)
-Here you want to see La place de Bastille (July Column) and the Bastille Opera House

From Bastille take the number 1 line to Palais Royal Musée du Louvre (Direction La Défense)
Visit the outside of the Louvre!

From Palais Royal/Musée du Louvre take the number 7 to Opéra (Direction La Courneuve)

Walk around the Palais Garnier and take photos!

From Opéra take the number 8 to Invalides (Direction Balard)

Take photos of the Les Invalides (Hospital and Dome)

From Invalides take the “C” to Champ de Mars/ Tour Eiffel (Direction Versailles)

Take pictures of the Eiffel Tower and then go to the top and take more pictures. Try to hang out there for a while and if it gets dark take more pictures! (at some point get a baguette with ham and cheese and a bottle of water and eat)

From Tour Eiffel take the “C” to the Invalides (Direction a bit confusing)
From Invalides take the number 8 line to Ledru-Rollin (Direction Crétil-Préfecture)

Go back to the hostel and get settled in and SLEEP!

Saturday, 20 September 2008

Wake up at 7h00, get breakfast, go to the grocery get another sandwich (use water bottle from previous day and fill it up)

by 8:00 Take #8 from Ledru-Rollin to Invalides (Direction Balard) arrive by 8:30.

Purchase Ticket to Versailles and maybe a ticket to get into Versailles (maybe online)

Take Train on C line to Versailles try to get there about 9h30 and stay all day.

Take the Train on C line to Invalides.

Take the #8 line from Invalides to Ledru-Rollin (Direction Créteil)

Go back to hostel, rest and update blog!

Sunday, 21 September 2008

Get up at around 8h30 get breakfast and then go and buy another sandwich.

Take the #8 from Ledru-Rollin to Daumesnil (Direction Créteil)

Then take #6 from Damesnil to Denfert-Rochereau (Dirction Charles de Gaulle Etoile)

Take tour of the Catacombes (1hr 30 mins) Price: 3,50€

Then take #6 from Denfert-Rochereau to Bir-Hakeim (Direction Charles de Gaulle Etoile)

Walk to Eiffel tower to meet other Assistants at 12h00

Depending on how long you hang out with assistants you can take a walk down the Champs-Elysées and walk along the Seine.

Depending on where you are get back to Ledru-Rollin

Get back to the hostel and go to bed!

Monday, 22 September 2008

Sleep in until about 10h00

Take the #8 from Ledru-Rollin to Bastille (Direction Balard)
Take the #1 from Bastille to La Défense (Direction La Défense)

Walk around La Défense for a little bit.

Take the #1 from La Défense to Châtelet (Direction Château de VIncennes)

Walk around La Cité and see Notre Dame

Take RER B from St-Miche-Notre Dame to Gare du Nord (Direction Charles de Gaulle Aeroport)
Take #4 from Gare Nord to Barbès Rochechouart (Direction Porte de Clignancourt)
Take #2 from Barbès Rochechouart to Anvers (Direction Porte Dauphine)

Visit Le Sacré Cœur.

Take the #2 from Anvers to Père Lachaise (Direction Nation)

Visit the Père Lachaise Cemetary and use map that you found online!

Take the #3 from Père Lachaise to wherever you need to go to meet the assistants that are meeting on the 22nd.

At the end of the day got back to the Hostel

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Get up at 5:30 get ready, eat breakfast.

Take Taxi from Hostel to Gare Montparnasse

Catch the 7h15 TGV from Paris to Bayonne!

Au revoir Paris (for now)!

şi vreau să estudiez limbă română din nou! Poate o să aduc carte mea din limbă română!!

I don’t know what to do at this point. I feel so overwhelmed by French bureaucracy that I want to cry! I’ve talked to some seasoned “assistants” and they are telling me that this is all too normal and very frequent. They said I’m not the only one who may arrive in Frane not having a clue what the heck I’m suppose to be doing!

I feel like I’m spending tons of money! I ended up buying my train ticket from Paris to Bayonne for the 23rd of September. I got an e-mail from the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs de la Côte Basque telling me to send them the information sheet ASAP. I filled it out immediately then and sent it back to them by e-mail. Hopefully they will have a room for me by the 23rd. I will probably need to e-mail them back ASAP and tell them to tell me if they don’t have anything so I can set something else up just in case. I found out that it was going to cost $175 to cancel my phone plan so I’m going to keep it and my parents will pay the bill for me. I also bought a phone card to call over to France to call my school to see what the heck is going on but I forgot that they were off on Wednesdays so I’m going to have to get up early again tomorrow and try calling again. Whatever you do don’t buy a 1000 minute phone card from Walmart! It costs $42 and you only get 250 minutes to Europe! What a rip off! My parent’s would probably have paid less if I had called directly from their phone! I have to buy a few more things and then I’ll be ready to start packing. I’m feeling more and more prepared for this trip and I can’t wait to just get it started. Whatever happens the stress better be worth all this hassle!

I went with my grandma today to visit my grandpa. He is still up at Mt. Carmel and they are still planning on doing the open heart surgery. He was moved to the rehabilitation center for the time being so he can get stronger for the surgery. He is still having trouble breathing and he is still pretty miserable and wants out of the hospital STAT! It has been over a month since his heart attack. We’re glad he is still around and I’m sure going to miss him when I’m across seas.

So I’ve been waiting for a response from the school for which I’ll be working and haven’t heard a thing. I’m told that they don’t start school until tomorrow and that the teachers don’t really come in early so I’d have to wait until this week. I’m getting down to the last few weeks and I’ve been urged by other assistants (those who have already done this program) to start looking for a place to stay for myself upon arrival in France.

I went ahead and booked a hostel for 4 nights when I arrived in Paris. The information is below:

Name: Auberge Internationale des Jeunes
Type: Hostel
Address: 10, rue Trousseau – Paris, France
Telephone No.: (+33) 01 47 00 62 00
Fax No.: (+33) 01 47 00 33 16
E-mail: paris@aijparis.com
Web Address: http://www.aijparis.com

It is going to cost around €94/$130 for the four nights which is kind of steep but it was the cheapest place I could find that didn’t have reviews where people claimed they were harassed and raped. This one girl who will be on my flight offered for me to stay at the hostel that she is staying at and she said it was “only €78/night”! I was like WHAT?!

I’m looking to purchase my train ticket for Bayonne and to reserve a room at Les Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs de la Côte Basque which is like a “dorm” or “residence hall” for young workers.

I have a lot of things that I have to do as soon as I arrive in France but I need to plan out what I’ll be doing in Paris those first 4 days and then go from there. I really hope someone from my school contacts me! Blah! Please let money fall from the sky!

I haven’t been enthusiastic about France lately or enthusiastic about anything really. My job has not paid me nor have they given me any more work to do so I’ve kind of been doing nothing lately. I’ve been spending more money than I’d like to admit and don’t really have all that much to spend to begin with. This past weekend I went to my friends’ wedding, which was quite beautiful and touching. I then hung out with Joan my best friend from college at her new apartment. We went to a going away party for this girl going to Turkey, which was cool and hung out with my friend Tom.

My grandpa was moved down to Berger Hospital in Circleville on Friday but suffered from yet another heart attack on Sunday and moved back up to Mt. Carmel. They will keep him there and he him rehabilitated there to have the open heart surgery.

I booked my hostel in Paris today and last night I sent another e-mail to my school in France asking the same questions as before but revising some of the e-mail as I now have my plane ticket and stuff. I really need them to get back to me ASAP so that I can start planning other things. I need to get my butt in gear and start making a list of things I need.

I’m selling my car to my cousin before I leave and I’ll be getting rid of my cell number as I won’t be using it for a while. I’m going to check into see how much it would cost to save the number for me for the 9 months so that I don’t actually lose it. I need to take my car in and get the oil changed tomorrow as the tags run out on the 31st. It was sad taking off my bumper and window stickers out of my car and removing my buckeyes from my window. I’m sad to be losing that car. I really liked it! It has been through a lot with me!

We had some trouble finding a parking spot on the side of the street and ended up having to get gas as I was almost empty. I ended up parking in a hospital parking lot for $30.00/24hrs. It was great to see Katie! She lives with her brother in a really nice apartment only 3 miles north of downtown. We hung out and caught up and looked at Belgian pictures and videos and reminisced about years past! It was really fun. I think Tommy was a little bored as Katie had run a marathon earlier that morning and didn’t really feel like doing anything but lazing about! She talked about how she was having her birthday celebration on Friday night and how she hated how ugly the table where her TV sat was. Her and Tommy discussed some remedies and then she talked about moving the furniture around. We ended up walking to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and buying a TV stand and some table cloth to cover the old ugly one so her apartment looked nice and presentable for her birthday.

After we rearranged Katie’s living room we decided we should all go to bed. I slept on the couch and Tommy slept on cushions on the floor. I set my alarm fro 7:15 am as we needed to leave by 8:00am to catch a bus for downtown to be at the consulate for my appointment at 9:00am. When we woke up it was thundering loudly and then it just started pouring so we decided to drive down to the city and park when we go there. We parked in the millennium apartments parking garage. I thought I’d pay $18.00 for two hours since we got there at 8:00 something and we’d be out of there before 10:00am. Tommy walked to take Katie back her key she loaned us and I went ahead to 205 North Michigan Avenue to the 37th floor where the French Consulate is located.

When I got up there it was closed and there were people sitting there waiting for it to open. I was the third in line which didn’t matter as they called us by name anyway. A lot of people started to arrive after me and the hallway filled up. Tommy, after being lost for a little bit, finally made it up to the 37th floor to join me. When the door opened we all shuffled in and sat down in a small room lightly decorated with maps of France and Paris and with a huge cloth artwork hanging on the wall. I was the first to be called to the little window. I gave her all the documents that I was suppose to have and she told me to come back after 1pm. I was shocked a little but then again I kind of expected it as I was told that one would have to wait a little while before getting their visa!

Tommy and I walked around Millennium Park for about an hour. We stopped and looked at the infamous bean and then made our way back up into the city where we found ourselves underground and somehow got back above ground. My feet were hurting as I hadn’t clipped my toenails and I was wearing shoes that made my toes dig into each other. It wasn’t pretty. We ended up going up and sitting at a fountain waiting for the infamous Giordano’s Pizzeria to open up. Tommy went and look at a book store and finally at 11 we went into Girodano’s and ate. It took about an hour to get our food and then eat (this is normal as it takes the pizza a while to make and cook). We made our way back over to the consulate (which was right across the street) and I went up and asked if my passport was ready but the lady told me not until after 1pm. About 10 minutes later (around 12:30pm) a man called me up and gave me my visa! So the six hours up, the rain, the exhaustion, and the trip back produced a tiny little piece of paper that was stuck inside my passport (on the opposite side from my Belgian visa) so that I could live in France for 9 months.

The ambulance came and put him on oxygen and it wasn’t really helping any. The one medic got as much info as she could from grandma and they took him away. Grandma and I followed. I called dad before we left and told him that they were taking him to the hospital and to meet us there. Grandpa had wanted us to call his pastor and grandma forgot so we called Beverly Sours on the way to the hospital to have her call Pastor Williams to let him know my grandpa was going to the hospital. Grandma didn’t have the pastor’s number saved in her cell phone.

When we arrived at the hospital that had already taken him back and grandma and I went and registered him. Mom and dad arrived and we sat and waited. We were moved from the main lounge to a private consultation room. The doctor finally arrived about an hour and a half later and told us that my grandpa had suffered a heart attack. He wasn’t sure how sever it was and he thinks there may be some damage done to his heart. He contacted Mt. Carmel West to get him a room up there to see a heart specialist. They were going to life flight him but because of “supposed” thunderstorms (that never did come btw) he had to be sent up in an ambulance. They were going to have an intensive care unit be sent down but that would have taken too long. Since I’m leaving for Chicago tomorrow (actually later today) dad wanted me to just go out to grandpa and grandma’s house and make sure everything was locked up and then go home and go to bed. Mom, dad and grandma went up to Mt. Carmel West.

I ended up going to Stephanie’s to tell them what happened. We tried to contact our cousin but she never answered her phone. I just talked to dad and he said the heart specialist would be in first thing in the morning. They were heading home. My great aunt and uncle had come up from Cincinnati already and they will stay with my grandma tonight.

This is really hard to deal with especially for my grandma. I’m getting extremely emotional right now typing this. It is a horrible thing how the mind plays the “what if” game on us. I’m not prepared to lose my grandpa and I hate to think what Brady would say if his papa passed away. Please pray for my grandpa and my family as we go through this. I really love my grandparents and I’d be devastated if I lost any of them. It makes me have second thoughts about my future and about my going abroad and being so far away from my family but I know that my grandpa would tell me to go and what is in my heart and not to worry about him. I love you grandpa. I really think that everything will be ok. I will post more information when I get it.

I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t already have a job. I think I mentioned before how I received an e-mail from the Depart Chair of Linguistics about a linguistic related job for a company called Voicebox Technologies. I applied for the job and had to do a few tests and was accepted to do it. I basically transcribe street and city names for a “text-to-speech” system which will be used in various “voicebox” things like GPS systems. Basically a list of city and street names are fed to a program and the program transcribes how they are supposed to be pronounced in English using this phonetic alphabet called SAMPA. A lot of the times the program does not transcribe the words correctly and a human must go and verify and correct the transcriptions. Below is a picture of an example list that I’ve done!

The weekend before last my parents and I went to Springfield, Ohio for a family reunion weekend. We left on Friday and stayed until Sunday. We went to my brother-in-law’s new church in Christiansburg, Ohio. This was his second Sunday preaching at his new church. My sister and he are preparing to sell their house and move over there. It is sad for my grandparents and parents who hate to see the kids leave. It isn’t as sad for me as I was already leaving. I think that this time around I’ll be a bit more sad living abroad and be more homesick because I really adore my niece and nephew, a lot! I will really miss them when I’m over there. I’m getting a little choked up just thinking about it.

Since receiving my “arrêté de nomination” I’ve been learning a lot more about the program. I’ve looked at websites about the city of Soustons and about the academy of Bordeaux. I’ve looked at train schedules and bus schedules and I’ve concluded that I’ll most likely have to live in Bayonne. There is another city called Dax that is closer to Soustons than Bayonne but the bus ride from both cities is the same length so I think it would be better to live in the bigger of the two cities. Plus, I’ve dreamed (and even requested) of/to live(ing) in the Basque Country. I had been looking for a place to live and went on this website called www.appartager.com (appartager means to share) which is a roommate/flatmate website where you can search for places where people are looking for roommates and are renting out rooms. I found this one below which seemed great! (Sorry if you don’t speak French)

Informations Générales
Rue: rue carlito oryazun
Quartier : Marracq, 64100
Ville: Bayonne
Loyer : 280€ par Mois,150€ par Semaine,0€ par Jour
Disponible le: 31 Juil 2008
Durée minimum: 1 Semaine

Description du colocataire
Sexe : Homme Orientation : Non indiqué(e)
Fumeur : Non indiqué(e) Situation: Etudiant
Age : 18 ans Animaux : Non indiqué(e)

Description de son colocataire idéal
Sexe : Peu importe Orientation : Hétéro
Fumeur : Peu importe Situation: Peu importe
Agé(e) de : de 18 à 29 ans Couple : Peu importe

Description de la chambre et de l’appartement
Type de logement : Immeuble rénové Etage(s): 0
Nb de chambre(s): 1 Chambres dispos: 1
Nb salle(s) de bain : 1 Parking: Oui
Animaux : Non indiqué(e) Superficie appartement: 14 m²

Concernant la chambre :: Meublée, SDB privée, Propre, Calme, Internet/Wifi, Entrée privée
Concernant l’appartement :: Proche commerces, Balcon/Terrasse, Proche transports, Calme, Cuisine équipée
Commentaires :
je suis le propritaire Jamain Jean-louis, j’ai des Studios ou chambres en colocation à loyer dans un quartier très tranquille Marracq, proche des transport et des commerces, 5 mm à pied Fac de Bayonne et 200m de l’hopital de Bayonne
Tarif de Periode de location:
Studio:
Du 01/09 au 30/06 est 350€/mois
Du 01/07 au 30/08 est 500€/mois, et 150€/semain,

un appt duplex 7 chambres en colocation, au première étage, cusine américane équipée avec machine à lave vaisselle et linge de 16m2, salon 18m2 + verenda A 16m2 et il y a 3 chambres qui sont déjà occupées par 3 étudiants de FAC de Bayonne,
Le tarif par mois du Septembre au juin(au deuxière étage)
- 1 chambre à 14M2 280€
- 2 chambres 15m2 + accès direc au véranda de 8M2 au deuxière étage à 330€
- Chambre 16 m2 à 300€

I contacted “jean-louis” and corresponded with him through e-mail a few times. He insisted that I call him and I told him that I did not have a phone card and that it was expensive and so he offered to call me. A girl ended up calling and leaving a message on my phone. I ended up telling them that I was no longer interested at this time because I was informed by other prior assistants that I could be moved (city wise) when I get there and that many of the primary assistants receive more than one school after they arrive and since I don’t have this information it is better that I wait until I arrive in France to find a place to live. It is very stressful and I have no idea what the heck I’m going to do! I went ahead and bought my plane ticket for $487.00 one way from Columbus to Paris. I’ll be leaving September 18th. The Itenerary is below!

Thursday
18-Sep-08
Air United Airlines. Flight: UA7539. Confirmed
Class: Economy. Seats: 1.
Aircraft: Embraer Jet
Airline Ref: P60TN6
Depart: Columbus Port Columbus Intl Apt at 1:34PM
Arrive: Chicago O`hare Intl Apt 18-Sep-08 at 1:56PM
Terminal: TERMINAL 1.

Thursday
18-Sep-08
Air United Airlines. Flight: UA942. Confirmed
Class: Economy. Seats: 1.
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300
Airline Ref: P60TN6
Depart: Chicago O`hare Intl Apt at 6:00PM
Terminal: TERMINAL 1.
Arrive: Paris Charles De Gaulle Apt 19-Sep-08 at
9:20AM
Terminal: AEROGARE 1.

I made an appointment for August 4th (this coming Monday) to get my visa. In order to get a visa for France, one must go, in person, to the nearest consulate and apply. The nearest consulate for Ohio is Chicago. To apply for a visa one must:

Please provide us with the original + 1 copy of each document

1. Passport valid for at least three months after your return to the US + 1 photocopy of the identity pages. Make sure your passport has blank pages left to affix the visa.

2. Processing fee : the visa is free of charge

3. Two long stay visa application forms fully filled out and signed – Note that this form is only available in French and must be filled out in French

Long Stay Visa Application Form

4. One picture glued/stapled onto each application form + 1 picture left loose. All photographs must be recent, in color on a plain white background, of full front view, taken facing the camera. No side or angled view are acceptable. Chin to top of hair should measure about 1″

5. For “assistants de langue vivante” : Your “Arrêté de nomination” stamped by the French Ministry of Labor (Direction Départementale du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle – D.D.T.E.F.P.).

For “lecteurs de langue étrangère” : either

- an agreement from ANAEM. For more information contact the University in France that will host you or the ANAEM. This document is usually sent directly by the ANAEM to the Consulate.

- or a “protocole d’accueil” for scientist, to be provided by the university.

In both cases, make sure you get these documents before coming to the Consulate.

6. If the visa cannot be issued on the same day according to your citizenship, a pre-stamped “express mail envelope” from USPS for the return of your passport and visa.

The consular administration has full authority to evaluate and request more documents than those submitted by the applicant. Please be aware that submitting the aforementioned documents does not guarantee the approval of the visa.

Since I only had 2 passport pictures left I went and got some more taken today. The picture is just hideous!

Agur!

Speaking of France, I received my arrêté de nomination which is a form that basically says that a certain school is hiring you to work for them. One needs this form so they may apply for a visa. The bureaucracy of it all is just obnoxious. One needs the arrêté de nomination to get a visa that lasts for like three months and then one needs the visa to get a CDS (carte de séjour) which is what one needs to stay in France legally for the 9 months.

So my arrêté de nomination told me that I’d be closer to the city of Bayonne than I would be to the city of my académie, Bordeaux. I’ve been assigned to a school district that has its main office in a little town called Mont-de-Marsan but the actual school that I will be working for is called Village Scolaire Isle Verte. It is a primary school and my contract runs from October 1st until June 30th. The school is actually locatd almost an hour from Mont-de-Marsan in a very tiny town called Soustons that has near nothing, transportation wise (i.e. no train station). I’ve done some research and found that the closest train station is about 8 miles (at €0,75/km 8mi=11km) away in a town called Saint-Vincent-de-Tyrosse but that 8 miles equals an hour bus ride to Soustons and the train schedule that I saw wasn’t that great either so I’m leaning towards looking to live in the city of Bayonne which is the biggest French speaking city in the Basque Country. The bus ride from Bayonne to Souston is about 45mins so I thought that living in Bayonne, a semi-big city with access to the TGV and a great bus system as well as the cities night life, would be better than being stranded in a tiny town such as Soustons proper. Even if the school were able to offer me a room for a small fee I’d rather pay €100 or more to live in Bayonne where I can learn to speak Basque, I hope!

I hope I can find a reasonable apartment for pretty cheap. It is quite scary and stressful to be looking for an apartment in Europe. I’ve looked at some “roommate” sites to see if I could possible try living with a Frenchman/woman but I haven’t seen anything recent. Maybe I’ll have more luck when it gets closer to school starting. I need to get working on my website so I’m going to end this post. I’ll try to do a podcast soon!

http://www.newcompass.org

Please tell every Rotary exchange student you know about this website! It could become the greatest connection between exchange students ever! It is all up to you! It takes like two seconds to register so what are you waiting for…

….or have you forgotten your year abroad? You know, the one that changed your life forever!

P.S. Sorry to all of those that I could not tag in this note! (Pass it on to anyone I may have forgotten or couldn’t tag because of limits)

NOTE: I will mark present day notes in parentheses with the acronym PDN:. I will put translations of French in parentheses immediately following the French passage.

24 August 2002

When we arrived in Brussels everyone was excited. After I got my bags, Kate and I decided to go ahead of everyone. So we went and we looked for customs but they did not check our bags we just went on through. We saw hundreds of people with signs with Rotary and Names on them. Her family was right there but I could not find my family. I told them that I would have my State (Ohio State) Flag out but it was buried deep in my carry on bag. Finally Bernard Bleus (PDN: my Rotary counselor) saw me and said, “Derron?” I was glad to hear that voice! I met my first mom and brother and my second host family Les Bastins. After I helped a gentleman find his exchange student we were on our way. We stopped at a little restaurant where they ate breakfast and I just drank orange juice. After we ate I said good bye to the Bastins and we were on our way to my new home. Bernard speaks really good English. The house is big and my rooms is nice. I was tired all day yesterday and I took a nap. We went to Jean-François’ sister’s house where I used the computer (PDN: the keyboard was hell…it took me like 20 minutes to write a small paragraph to my mom and dad!). We came home and I watched Harry Potter in French. After that we ate chicken nuggets and French fries (PDN: Belgian Fries I should say…Belgians are the ones who discovered the “fry”…and Belgian fries are amazing…especially with mayonnaise or this cocktail stuff they have…mmm!). I drank wine with my meal, big culture shock for me! Before dinner JF (PDN: Jean-François) gave me whiskey and it was absolutely horrible. I went to bed at about 11 then woke up at 3, went back to sleep at 5 and slept until 11. (PDN: From 3am to 5am I sobbed. I began to have second thoughts about what the hell I was doing in this strange country. I sobbed and cried and made a decision that I was going to go home the very next day. That decision was totally forgotten when I woke up the next day!) I got up and did nothing for an hour then we went to Chimay where I saw the Bank, the post office and other things. We went to the house where Karla is staying (PDN: Karla was the other rotary exchange student in my town) and I met her and her host family. Her host sister Elaine went to Ohio on foreign exchange.

25 August 2002

Today I went shopping with Patricia (PDN: My host mom) and JS (PDN: My host brother). I took a tape of the house (video tape) and I went fishing with JS and a friend of his. The water was cold! I actually walked in France today it was cool! Tomorrow I leave for Ardèche, France at 5 in the morning so I need to go. I caught two fish today and Megan (PDN: An exchange student from Australia living near Liege. She knew Kate who was doing her exchange back in Ohio and I had talke dto her on MSN before I went to Belgium) and I finally got to talk so all is good. I cannot wait to understand the language and to have friends!

NOTE: I will mark present day notes in parentheses with the acronym PDN:. I will put translations of French in parentheses immediately following the French passage.

June 6, 2002

My friend from Belgium once said, “Exchange does not start from America, it starts from Belgium!” Well, my exchange is the other way around. Mine will start here in America and I believe it will never end! I sent my Rotary Application in like 3 days before December 1, 2001 (the deadline). That is when my exchange started. I was not excepted right then. It was not until I got an e-mail inviting me to come to Belmont (a county near Wheeling, WV) that I did find out that I was going to Belgium. I had received my first choice place. My first thought about the weekend was so scary. I was nervous and I was not sure what was going to happen. I wasn’t sure who was going to be there and what I would have to do but mom and dad and I drove the 2 hours to Belmont to the February weekend. The first person I met (that I actually cared meeting) was Haley. Haley is American and going to the Czech Republic. She seemed very shy and sheltered but I probably came across the same way. I also met Kris Wilson, my district chair person. She said she was not sure where I was going but I found out that I was going to Belgium, I think it was the next day. I met the most wonderful people at this meeting. From Germany: Katarina and Veronica, Austria: Sophie, Switzerland: Claudia, Hungary: Dora, Belgium: Olivier, Sweden: Carina, France:Tristen and Pierre, Italy: Lorenza, Spain:Pol, Bosnia:Dina, Mexico:Emmanuel, Columbia:Andrea and Tato, Brazil:Gustavo, America: Ian and Haley, Australia: Kate, Japan: Chiaki, China: Chad (Chien-Liu), Turkey:Isil. I also met a girl named Erin Moore who was American who had already went to Belgium on foreign exchange, so she was a lot of help. That weekend we went to Big Bear and hung out while the manager flipped out. We also went and saw a hockey game. It was my first hockey game. I was in love with this new life that I had just discovered. We sat around and talked and listened to music. At like 4 in the morning I finally went to bed (sleeping bag and pillow). Kate (from Australia) slept on m pillow with me and we talked about Australia and laughed until we finally fell asleep and slept like an hour. I went home and I really felt like I was going back to my old like. My friends seemed “boring” haha. I could not stop talking about all the people I had met. The next weekend in March was in Dublin (Ohio). I met two more people, Nelson from Brazil who is here for 5 years staying with his uncle and the other person was Berliot from Costa Rica. She was with Rotary also. We were all in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. OMG I forgot Prachi! Prachi is from India and I met her at Belmont. The St. Pat day parade was sooo cold. We stayed in their rec center, it was awesome. I grew closer to all the foreign exchange students. The next weekend was down at camp oty-okwa. I and the rest of the foreign exchange students thought it was only going to be us, but then when we arrived there were other Americans and other foreign exchange students from different programs (AFS, etc.). The weekend got boring at times but other than that it was awesome. I met some more people who will probably be my friends for life too (PDN: how I was naive). There was Johanna, Dace, Marianna, Hanai, Gadi, Iavor, Ana, Leo, Thiago, and Anette. There others but I am guessing we did not become good friends. After the Globaly Issues weekend Neslon a eu une boum. Il y avais beaucoup de personnes là!(Nelson had a party and there was a lot of people there) (PDN: I sucked at conjugating my verbs then!) I met Ines from Brazil there. Nous buvions une bois qui s’appelle capirinya (I don’t know the spelling! C’était awesome!)(Literal translation is “We were drinking a wood which is called capirinya” it should have been Nous avons bu une boissons qui s’appelle Caipirinha (it was awesome!)). Iay otgay runkday (PDN: Pig Latin figure it out!). haha! The weekend after that I was in Cambridge at Salt Fork Lake. It was I thought my last weekend but it wasn’t. This past weekend I went to Chad’s house. The past two “weekends” were the last for me to ever see my FES (PDN: Foreign exchange student) friends ever again. I never ever thought it would be like this when I was filling out my application. I have been having fun already and I ahven’t even left yet! After the Global Issues weekend I received my first actual letter about foreign exchange from my Belgian contact her in Ohio, William Linkhorn. He is SOOO old! He talks so slow and he cannot hear anything! He told me in my letter that I was going to the French part of Belgium in District 1620. Soon after that letter, I got a letter from my counselor from Belgium. He said I was going to the Flemish part!!! AHHHHH! It was awful! I called Mr. Linkhorn and he fixed everything for me but I have been waiting for my visa and last week I received my visa application and I am working on it now. I have never ever really written a journal but I guess I need to for this trip so I can remember and savor every detail. Someday I hope to be able to write in this in French! Hopefully!

July 12, 2002

I received the name of my family about a week ago. Since my guarantee form had not come in yet I was unable to contact them but as soon as I got an e-mail from It’s Your World Travel saying they received my guarantee from I called William Linkhorn to see if I could call them. He said that I could and it would be ok to do so. I bought a calling card and I attempted to but unfortunately it didn’t work. So William gave me the name and e-mail address of my counselor in Chimay (oh yeah, I found out that I will be living in a town called Chimay). I e-mailed Mr. Bleus and told him to tell my family that I tried to call but it did not work. The next day I received an e-mail from Nathan Fleshman. He is an American staying with my first host family. He told me about them, Patricia Collignon-the mom, Jean-François Salmin- the father and Jean-Sébastien-the son of Patricia. He told me to bring an erasable pen for a thing called a go-pass. I guess I will find out when I get there. Tuesday the 9th of July I got a hold of my host family. Well, it still was not working but some how my dad got a hold of them. I thought he was joking cause he said “Bonjour” but there she was, Patricia on the phone. It was hard to understand her but she was very nice and spoke very slowly for me. I also talked to Nathan and he told me that Jean-Francois and Patricia were not married so I was kind of like WHOA! He also told me that Patricia had a daughter also and Jean-Francois had a son. I enjoyed the conversation immensely. I called again today and I talked to Patricia for a while. I had so much fun I love talking to them! They do not speak any English so it is great! Also, today was the first day of my conference for all the out bounds. It is pretty cool. I have met 7 other people going to Belgium, it is fun! I got my cards and my name tag today so I am excited about that too! Well I will write more tomorrow I am sure!

Me at the Otterbein weekend pointing to where I will be living in Belgium!

14 July 2002 (PDN: Notice I start writing the date like they do in Europe)

Today I got up too early and now I am hot and tired. I talked so much today to everyone and I met more people it was so cool. I have to not let myself get too attached to these people here because a lot of them I will never ever see again. Some of the French people (PDN: This means people who are going to France) I want to see again. The Canadians are really cool. Today Mr. Linkhorn flipped out on me it was like so crazy. I do not want to even talk about it! Ohwell, I shall write more later I need to go to sleep now!

22/23 August 2002

I just spilled my water and had to rip out the wet pages. (PDN: In my journal there is a big water stain and some of the writing has washed away and there is about 5/6 pages missing out of the journal that got wet). It is now exactly 3h15 (PDN: 3:15 AM) Belgian time and I have been on the plane for almost 4 hours. We have like 1952 miles left to go. I am hoping I can survive. I am sitting with Chris from my region. He speak both Spanish and English. He is all interested in these movies so he isn’t really that fun! The people next to me are like talking amongst themselves and let no one join in. I am really bored so I am writing. Well, last night Sarah Dennis came over and visited me and she cried but I did not. I cried last night when or after I talked to my grandparents. I cried today when I said goodbye to my mom, Steph, and dad. I cried all the way through security. Beth Gorby (PDN: My neighbor) was on the other side of the security check (PDN: she worked security in the airport). I sat with the people that are going to Costa Rica until my plane started to board. The plane was like a 30 passenger propeller propelled plane. It was an uncomfortable trip when I arrived to Washington I was almost afraid of what to do but I found my flight and I got on a shuttle to take me to where I had to go, “Gate C6″ and there was everyone (PDN: All the other people who were going to Belgium. There was about 30 other people there)! We got pictures and pretty much talked. well I need to use the potty so…

Hi Derron,

At this time I would like to offer you a Summer RA position at the Stone Lab. The interview process was a challenge with so many awesome candidates. We are looking forward to an energetic season. Your first Island experience will be April 20th–April 22nd for a paid “work weekend”. We will transport you to the Island from Columbus on Friday afternoon and return you to Columbus early Sunday evening so mark your calendar!

Please respond through e-mail or you may call the office to let me know if you accept or decline the position. Thank you for your patients and I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks–Shanny

Shanny O’Rourke
OSU Stone Lab

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!!!!! This is going to be totally cool! We were suppose to receive the e-mail at the end of last week but it took them a little longer than expected and I was soo anxious and ready to find out that I could barely contain myself! It is going to be a great summer I can tell!

I don’t want to be over confident but I think I got the job which will be amazing. I can’t wait to live on an island during the summer!

The actual name is The Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory. It is located on Gibraltar Island which is in the Harbor of Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island. It was created in 1895 and is the nation’s oldest freshwater biological field station. It was recently featured on the Discovery Show “Dirty Jobs”. A reasercher, Kristin Stanford, who works with Lake Erie water snakes was the theme of the show which highlighted Gibraltar Island. You can read more about Kristin and time on “Dirty Jobs” here.

To read more about Stone Lab and its history click here.

The official e-mail to apply for the job came out about two weeks ago where I promptly sent my resume and cover letter to both Ron and Shanny. I talked to Eric Emch who had done it last year at the Building Renewal Fair and it made me want to do the job all the more. I’m not afraid of hard work or labor I mean come on, what did I do at Kenworth my first summer? I also met Jessica Boor who will be returning to the Island and she seems so cool and I really hope that I will get to work with her. I’m sure it will be difficult at times to be on a new staff but she will handle it because that’s what us RAs do!

Tonight was the first information session for the job and I basically heard everything that Eric had told me. I can’t wait for the interview that I scheduled on Friday, February 2, 2007 (which is two days but I wanted the date to clarify to my readers.

I decided to start this blog now in case I get the job. It will be a great way to keep up with my experience on the Island if I actually do get the job. I can set goals to writing each day and to sharing my experience for whoever else gets the opportunity to do the job! I will let you know how it goes when I find out if I get the job next week! For now I will leave you with a beautiful picture of Gibraltar!