ipod

I got an ipod for my birthday back in 2004... recently the battery just doesn't hold out as it once used to... Since I mostly use it in town for 30 min at a time its not a big deal but since I've got an upcoming trip to Oz for Christmas and a 30 hour flight I thought some music might be nice! (and podcasts of course!!!)

So I was toying outloud with the idea of getting a new nano or something and Mystery Guest said, oh well I could just change the battery. :-)

So 16euros later a little battery arrived in my box and Mystery Guest slaved over prying it open this evening and did a happy dance at the end (looking something like this after he got it!) Right now my little po-pod is charging up as we speak and should be all brand new tomorrow!!!

Yeah Mystery Guest! You rock!

thanksgiving wrap up

Just to make you drool....

Wonderful people, amazing food, fantastic time!

Gobble gobble :-)

t-day!

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans out there (and a very belated Happy Thanksgiving to the Canadians...!)

Go stuff yourselves full of yummyness no matter when or how you celebrate this year! Gotta bust open that top button!

:-)

thanksgiving

Well its almost turkey-time! This fall has flown by and now the little American community here is getting ready for the big T-day!

It has now become tradition for Natalie and I to organize a potluck Thanksgiving at her house the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We're in the process of divving up the food list and I'm going to be making my famous stuffing (Apple and Onion), pecan pie, cranberry sauce and probably some biscuits and/or cornbread muffins.

I love Thanksgiving but I've been thinking a lot the last few weeks how I've almost lost that homesick feeling I used to get. I remember reading blogs a few years ago about how some American families in France just don't even bother to celebrate Thanksgiving and I would wonder how they could ever give up my favorite holiday. It is still my favorite holiday, to have wonderful friends and family, food and that cozy feeling of fall... but now I can understand how it could be possible to not feel that desire, or rather need, to celebrate. Maybe at the same time this is because I already have plans and won't be sitting at home wishing I were celebrating, who knows...

Maybe its like how in the beginning I used to crave American products that I couldn't find here and now I can find pretty much everything I want. That sure beats schleping back a big suitcase each year! France used to be unique and different, everything from the language to the grocery stores to the countryside... but now as I drive through Normandy I can't help but think that the little village churches seem justs as normal or even more so than a 24-hour Safeway...

I think all this random reflection was sparked by reading other blogs, those of people who just arrived a few months ago and are now going through the hard part of culture shock. But where does one fit in after spending so long abroad? I'm not French nor am I really American anymore when the last 5 out of 7 years of your adult life is spent abroad...

alive

Well between being sick this weekend and the strikes etc I haven't blogged much but I was having a great time playing with my new camera! Isn't that an amazing picture? No tripod or anything! I'm so excited!!!

More to come laaater :-)

animal fetish?

When reading Poppy's blog this evening I was reminded of an ad campaign that I wanted to post about... does this disturb anyone else besides me?? Something about these sexually-charged animals is just creepy!!

cinema

Last night I saw le Coeur des Hommes 2 which I really enjoyed. As my friend so perfectly put it at the end of the movie "Its like Sex and the City with guys."

tee hee maybe that's why I liked it so much ;-)

greve

On Tuesday night the students at the university decided to go on strike. This mostly is affecting the batiment de lettres (language arts) where I teach English classes on Monday and where more importantly I had my thesis defense on Wednesday morning at 11am!

Talk about adding more stress to the situation!! I got a call on Wednesday morning from Mystery Guest who said, yup the building is completly blocked and see if you can't reach your advisor over the phone. So I did, left a message and hoped we could still do it in another building! Luckly all went smoothly and I passed my thesis and the first year of my Masters!!!! (insert happy dance here!) I got a good grade - if I do say so myself - 16/20!

As far as the strike goes everyone is wondering if this will turn into another CPE situation... any thoughts??

brittany

My feet were itching to travel so on Thursday I called up Sam to see if I could go take a little trip down in Brittany :-) She said no problem so I hopped on a train Friday afternoon and made my way down to the gite! We had the best time just lazing around, just what this girl needed!! On Saturday we finally made it out of our pj's and out of the house in the afternoon and took a walk through this beautiful forest.

Then we made our way over to a nearby town and had a fantastic tartiflette dinner with the lycee assistants placed there. (not to be confused with the briflette they make down in Dubai...!)

The next morning I took off and made my way over to Rennes where I had a two-hour wait. Leah braved a dull Sunday morning to meet up for a sandwich at Subway and showed me around the city, all the half-timbered houses and rue de la soif ;-) The town hall was beautiful and I just couldn't resist catching this mohawk dude in the picture hehehe. I took the little train back to Caen Sunday afternoon and had 2 belated birthday presents waiting for me!

geocaching

Yesterday Mystery Guest and I took advantage of the day off (All Saint's Day) to brave the grey skies and drive around in the countryside. We saw some amazing little villages around Caen, I just love love the stone houses around here all made from pierre de Caen and are just stunning.

I've totally got addicted to geocaching, its such a great way to see regions, cities and countrysides that you normally wouldn't go check out. Yesterday we found 2 different caches :-) Here are a few pictures...

Near one of the villages we couldn't find the cache, but we did find this tumulus which was so cool, built 4,000 years ago and not a soul in site to mess up our pictures ;-)

pumpkin bootie

happy halloween!!!

birthday weekend!

Wow its been a busy weekend! But I had the best time celebrating my birthday for three full days :-) On Friday Mystery Guest and I kidnapped Sarah and Natalie and took them out to la Manche. Everyone had me surprised though when we took a different exit than usual and treated me to a fantastic pre-birthday dinner of galettes and crepes! The restaurant is fantastic, its an old mill and all of the crooked old beams and stone walls date back to ... well, they're old :-)

We continued on to Mystery Guest's parent's house where we crashed for the night. Up and out the door at the crack of dawn (according to Sarah) we headed out to Saint Vaast to wander through the marche and this wonderful little store they have there.

The rest of the day was spent picnicing and visiting lots of different places. The weather couldn't have been better for the end of October!

We dropped the girls off in Cherbourg at the end of the day and headed off for a birthday dinner of sushi!! I love love love the restaurant in Cherbourg, its the best sushi I've had in France :-)

Sunday it rained which was fine with me, I just wanted to veg and hang out inside, which is exactly what we did. Of course we had to celebrate my birthday again (Yeah, its hard isn't it??) so Mystery Guest's mom made a fantastic Sunday lunch and I blew out the candles on the chocolate-coconut cake and managed to blow bits of coconut all over the room!

I had a great weekend, it was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday :-) Thanks guys!!

DONE DONE DONE!!!!!

Look! Here it is!! All printed out and beautiful :-)

My memoire for the 1st year of my masters. I have to defend it probably in 10 days or so (my prof has yet to fix a date) and as long as I pass I'll go into the 2nd year of the program (I already started the classes but am not officially enrolled).

DONE DONE DONE!!! I put it in my prof's box and the other member of the jury about 1 hour ago and now it is time to RELAX! I'm leaving tonight for the weekend to celebrate my birthday on Saturday with some fab friends and I can't wait to get away from it all and not think about this anymore :-)

Now I'm gonna go veg... Don't forget to "fall" back on Saturday night for daylight savings.

les dieux

This picture has a story - as they all do!

I tutor 2 people during the school year, a French woman and a Russian man. They have almost become friends, especially the woman. She's great, she invited me out to her house this summer for lunch and since the "class" is conversation and she's already fluent in English we just chat for an hour every week.

She knew my birthday was coming up so yesterday she showed up with a birthday present! It was very sweet, I opened it up and she gave me the Dieux de Stade calender !! We howeled with laughter as we went through the photos one by one...

I remember when the first calender came out and the photos were quite tasteful and black & white. This year I swear its more gay porn than anything else.. so cheezy! Of course it will have to be displayed... ;-)

(If you want some pictures, type dieux de stade in Google Images)

fall ... falling

The weather here has been stunning the last few days, those crispt fall days :-) It's nice to see the sun before it goes away for the winter!

To take advantage of this beautiful weather I'm off with some friends for a bike ride to the beach - photos to come!

Random question, does anyone know why England keeps singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at their rugby games??? So weird... Hello!!! Not English!

manif

If you only look at recent blog enteries between mp3 players and bike tires I guess you could say my life is fairly boring right now! But to be honest not too much is going on these days... I'm trying like a madwoman to finish my thesis by Monday to get it off and printed and in between that I'm planning lessons and getting interupted by protests ;-)

I was sitting at my desk yesterday when I hear a manif going on in the street below... I was surprised because today is supposed to be the big strike. When I looked out the window I realized it was the med students who were striking. According to the med students I know they are protesting new plans that would force young doctors to work at least a year or two in the countryside where doctors are scarce these days. I can see where the government is coming from, most civil servants don't get to chose where they are placed their first few years (teachers can be sent anywhere in the country when they've passed their teaching exam) and fewer and fewer doctors are in the countryside which is hurting the village populations... Plus it isn't such a bad thing for young doctors to have the experience of working in a small town situation, that's a whole different kind of medicine than working in Paris or other big cities...

Anyway back to the thesis... anyone want to write my conclusion for me?? :-)

ups and downs

Well the down is ... remember my beautiful fixed bike tire? Yeah, I went to go take my bike to the pool the other day and it was flat again... I guess my bike fixing skills are not nearly as amazing as one would guess! Stick that back on my todo list!

But the up is that I've been to the pool twice this week with my new -straight - from - America toy! I ordered this waterproof MP3 player to swim laps with. I was really curious to see how it would work, if you could actually hear the music while underwater, its great!! I swear I swim twice as fast with a little Paul Simon Concert in the Park pumping in the background :-)

Otherwise not much is new around here... lots of work. I started teaching classes last week, I've arranged my schedule to teach all my hours Monday/Tuesday so that I can go to my masters classes Wednesday/Thursday and have Friday free for the library (read 3-day weekends hehe). I always think I'll have something interesting to blog about but all that's exciting today is that I'm going to the market to get a pumpkin for pumpkin soup :-) Enough to make this girl happy!

I rock!

Before I went to the states I noticed that my bike had a flat tire... :-( I didn't have time to try to fix it (read: con someone into fixing it...) before my flight so I just left it.

When I got home I decided to go up to Decathlon to get a bike repair kit and finally today I had some time to try it out. I realized that if I put it off any longer I just wouldn't ride my bike all winter, and that my friends is sad!

So I off I went. Let me tell you - that is a PAIN!!! I know people complain about it all the time, but oh my GOD what a pain!! I finally (after about 20 min!) wrangled the tire off so I could get started. Fixing the inner tube was the easy part, it was all the other mess that was annoying: taking off the brakes, getting the outer tube off but worst of all once it was all patched and the tire finally back on the rim the stupid thing wouldn't inflate! It must have had a kink somewhere so I had to take it off - again! Once I got everything back in place and inflated it was a royal pain getting the brakes back on...

But hey! Now I've done it! Whoooo!!! Bike meet your master! :-)

rugby

Who needs a TV to find out sports news? Just live in town and you can hear the result, if you need help I'll give you a hint:
1. Calm late in the evening = France lost.
2. Horns honking, people screaming, firecrackers going off = France won.

So when I heard latter going on a few minutes ago I didn't even need to check the websites/tv to confirm what I suspected - France beat the All Blacks (apparently the best rugby team).

Not much going on in other news, its just a crazy busy month that has started and other than lots of work not much to post about... but I'm around :-)

California #2

I've spent the last couple days at my grandparents. It's been really fun to see them and spend a relaxing few days. My aunt and uncle were up Friday night and then left Saturday after lunch, but it was great to see them and my little cousin is getting so big! He's already 9 years old and since the last time I saw them was 2 years ago the change is really striking! My dad and step-mom stayed through brunch today and we all went out for a nice eggs benedict ;-)

Lots of short visits but lots of fun. Since then we haven't been doing too much since my grandma hurt her foot a little and so she's trying to get it better by staying off of it. This afternoon we sat outside on the patio enjoying the 80F temps!! It will be hard to go from this weather back to France! Then this evening we watched Mystic River - it was excellent! I've got all day tomorrow (Monday) and then fly back to France Tuesday. I'm all ready for my flight, tons of books and I just need to make sure that my computer and ipod are all charged ;-) Not looking forward to dragging my very full suitcases around the airport and into Paris to get to the train station though! I wish they'd start a train service directly from the airport out to Caen like they do to other cities... that would be so nice!

Other than that not much new, it has been a great break and I think my batteries are mostly recharged to start up the semester!