What I do every Wednesday night

I promise that I will do my Morocco update soon...but until then I will leave you with (another) video. It's a really short clip of what I do in my phonetics lab every Wednesday night, and the reason why I am so self-conscious speaking French...thanks Denise...

ps - yes, I got my haircut...more on that later

Cooking with Monsieur & Michelle!

So I am back from Morocco, but legit dying with some type of cold/allergy/whatever...and don't feel like doing a real post about Morocco. Therefore, I am leaving you with a video of Monsieur and me "Cooking", aka, Madame (and Lara and Priscilla - everyone who can cook) left us to go to the country house for 2 weeks, leaving him and me to fend for ourselves...

"At least her passport was full"

Romanian Flag!

So the Night before I left to go to Romania, I had dinner with Ann, Alain and Eva. During dinner, Ann turns to me and asks:

A: Michelle, what possessed you to want to go to Romania?
Me: ...'cause it's cheap...
A: Have you ever thought there might be a reason for it being so cheap?!?

Well, the moral of the story is, yes it's cheap in Romania and I never have to go back...ever, ever again.

The blog title is what I told Joe I wanted as my epitaph, if I died during the trip. (Joe stated that there was a 50/50 chance of one of us dying during the trip...I told him that it sure as hell wasn't going to be me, but just to be sure, I wanted my epitaph to be good...)

Joe and I started in Bucharest (sad, depressing) and went to Braslov (not as sad and depressing) to see Dracula's castle...and that was it. For real. We ate tons of Italian food (I don't know, all the restaurants were Italian/Romanian?!?) and managed to navigate the language barriers.Fake Hollywood-esque signHey! I'm standing in front of Dracula's castle! There is nothing else to do in this city!

From Brasov, we went to Rasnov (see a pattern with the names here?), where we hiked up to that fortress pictured above.The view from the top of the fortress

So it was a fine trip, nice to get out of the city for a couple of days, and nice to be in a REALLY REALLY cheap area. We leave for Morocco on Thursday....

Where In the World?!?

So my spring break starts now. Or, to be more specific, started at 3 pm today, after my last class. What am I doing this spring break? Traveling!

Instead of coming home (my break is a lengthy 2 weeks long), I've decided to go to Romania and Morocco. Why? Cheap! And there are beaches! Interestingly enough, I'm not quite sure if I like the beach, but we shall see...

I will be Romania Saturday through Tuesday with Joe, then going to Morocco the following Thursday (a week from today) and will be there until Thursday the 23rd, with Joe, Sarah, and some other kids from Sweet Briar.

Therefore, there will be minimal posting for a while...sorry...but the photos will be good (hopefully!) upon my return.

Also, for those who don't know, I will be staying in Paris this summer, through mid-July. I got an internship here, and will continue to live in Paris, so if any of you are in the area, tell me! I love visitors!

Au revior, until my return...

Why French?

before this entry, I want to clarify the Safari problem: It is best to view the blog in Mozilla, there's some issue with Safari and not seeing more than the first post...

So when people ask me why I study French, I normally give them the simplest answer possible (even if it’s not 100% accurate): I like the food. Sure, it’s true (and it’s also the same response I give for why I study Chinese, too), but there’s a lot more than that.

For as long as I remember, my house would become very busy for several weeks every summer when Ann and her family would come to visit. Ann, her husband, and 2 daughters would come and I’d ALWAYS hear French. No clue what they were saying, but I knew I wanted to learn. The language barrier was never an issue but I would hear them speaking French amoungst themselves and I WANTED TO LEARN DAMNIT.

So in 6^th grade, when we had the option to choose our language (French or Spanish), I naturally chose French, with the end goal of being able to speak with Ann et al.

The process to learning French has not been easy. I actually think I had a harder time picking up the basics for French than I did for Chinese. I have learned French through sheer determination and immersion. 6^th grade came and went, and I did very well, without actually learning anything. In fact, I even thought you were to “irrigate verbs” not “conjugate” them. I don’t know where I got this idea from, but trust me, I remember when my mother called me out on that and I thought she was DEAD WRONG.

The whole “doing-well-in-French-thing” ended on the first day of Seventh Grade. Dr. Schaeffler promptly told us that we were all too old to be learning French and our accents would never be any good. She then promptly ripped up Ali Lane’s homework, when she caught Ali doing it in the middle of class.

7^th grade was a turning point, and it is because of Dr. Schaeffler that I wanted to not only learn French, but learn it well. She took us back to the basics and built us up from there. Could I speak to Ann et al the summer after 7^th grade? No, but I was on my way to that goal.

From them on, my French teachers ranged from amazing to really fucking awful.

10^th grade was another turning point in my French education: I came face-to-face with Mr. Rizzuti. Mr. Rizzuti is to my actual French skills as Dr. Schaeffler is to my desire to learn French. I left his class crying on multiple occasions, but I learned. It is because of these 2 teachers that I decided to spend a summer abroad in France.

My first time abroad in France improved my French the most. I lived with a family, took cooking classes, and came back with a solid grip on French. So solid, in fact, that I was one of the best students in my French class junior year (that wasn’t saying a lot though, ‘cause the best kids were already in AP French Language…). Senior year in High School brought about classes in both AP French Language and Literature, in order to catch up with my peers. And then, I realized I could start to talk with Ann et al.

College French classes have been good as well. A great professor (I’ve taken 3 of his classes) has helped me enjoy the language (although he hasn’t really added anything to my French skills, but that’s not his job at this point) and I was already in the 300’s (highest level at MHC) by first semester sophomore year.

I came to France this semester after not speaking French since April. It’s important to me to continue what I’ve learned. My French is pretty good (minus my accent, Dr. Schaeffler was right about that) and I can hold my own at dinners or parties or just talking with Ann’s daughter Eva (though admittedly, I normally just talk to her in English…). But the moral of the story is, I set out with the goal of being able to speak with Ann, Claire, Eva (and Alain now, too!) and it has been accomplished.

Retrospective

When I identify to people that I spent last semester abroad as well, the inevitable comes up:

Do you wish you stayed in China?

The answer in a nutshell: yes.

There isn’t a day that goes bye that I don’t miss China. The people, the food, the classes, the cheap DVDs. The ability to knock someone’s socks off when I bust out my Chinese…really, I miss it so.

But the answer is more complicated than that: had I stayed in China it most certainly would’ve been different. And not necessarily for the better either: my closest friend on the program, Emily, wouldn’t have been there, my classes would’ve been totally different (and I would still have had to have class with a kid I really REALLY disliked) and I would’ve been in a homestay, which might have sent me over the deep edge.

But I miss the daily servings of DanDan mien, ice cream and Tsingdao. The pouty-face that Zhong Laoshi would make when we were being annoying, the jokes John Cho would make in class, walking down to Emily’s room and persuading her that, infact, it’s a good idea to travel ½ hour across town for dinner, even though we have a test the next morning.

Do I regret coming to France? Not really.

I get to travel in Europe, eat amazing food, meet more cool people whom I would’ve never met had I stayed in Beijing. I get to live in one of the chic-est arrondisments in Paris, learn how to properly peel my fruit and how to properly entertain men at a luncheon, when being the only female at the table (tip: be witty).

I learned that I like “developing nations” more than the first world. I learned that, at the end of the day, no matter where I am in the world, I still love NJ more than I love that place. (True. I love New Jersey. As I travel to all of these cool places, NJ is still my #1 love…sorry Mom….).

It was exactly a year ago that I decided to spend my year 1/2 in France 1/2 in China. Things have changed since then...but I still love me some foie gras...