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...

Coming Soon to a Sweet Briar Quarterly Near You...

We were sent an email asking to write (in English) for SB's Quarterly, so I volunteered to spit something out. Let me know what you think, my parents gave me 2 totally different answers, one which was positive (thanks Mom!) and one which was less than positive (bu hao, BaBa).

There is little as nerve-wracking as studying abroad, other than studying abroad and living with a host family. The questions are endless: what will they be like? Can they cook well? Are there any pets? And, in my case, will their trunk of their car be big enough to fit all of my suitcases when they pick me up on the first day?

Lady luck (actually, Mme Parnet) was on my side and I got placed within the perfect family for me. That isn’t to say that everything has been easy; the first day was beyond nerve-wracking. After quickly meeting my host at the assigned meeting point, I was whisked away to my new home-away-from-home, smack in the middle of Paris. I met almost the entire family that first weekend, even though I primarily live with the parents and the youngest daughter (the other 4 children are grown up/in graduate school). The beginning was rough – I had to determine what my role within the family was and how I would fit in. Additionally, learning new customs (I’m not too good at peeling pears with my knife) and new vocabulary (it’s a good thing I had the foresight to Google translate what “couilles” meant, instead of asking at the dinner table) took its toll on me, and dinner time conversations were always a bit strained. There were times when all I wanted to do was to fade into the woodwork, as well as times when I thought I was the woodwork. Living with a host family meant that I was sometimes privy to too much information.

Yet 4 weeks and 5 days later (but hey, who’s counting?), I realized that I had been matched perfectly to my host-family. Their senses of humor are compatible with mine (such as when Madame fed me rabbit, when the beloved family pet is a rabbit named Cookie), they are attentive but not overbearing, and they care about me and my well-being. From history lessons during dinner (don’t ask for a resume of 19^th century France and expect to be finished in a half-hour) to watching the youngest daughter’s chorale concerts, I have been fully included in my “maison d’acceuil”.

There is nothing as nerve-wracking as living with a foreign family, while studying abroad. There is also nothing as valuable as living with a foreign family, while studying abroad. My memories won’t soon be forgotten: Madame turning out exquisite meals from the kitchen smaller than my room at the apartment, Monsieur trying to cram as much French history in me as possible, Priscilla asking me what my feelings are about “Gossip Girls” and being happy when I said that I not only liked it, but that I would tell her parents that she needed to watch it weekly to improve her English, too. I have been given the opportunity of a lifetime, thanks to Sweet Briar’s Junior Year in France home stay placement program.

This is Cookie. S/he has not been eaten yet. Keyword: Yet.

Anyway, I decided this would not be the appropriate place to express how agitated I am when they feed me dinner at 10 pm, or how I am sometimes there for their blockbuster fights. But in this case, the positives way outweigh the negatives, and I am so totally luck to be placed where I was.

Things I've Learned (Part I)

So I'm a bit over the half-way mark for this semester (though might stay here longer, more info on that in posts to come) and I wanted to share the following things I've learned while here:

1. Don't buy pastries at 5 pm. They are stale. Don't expect to get your money back, either.
2. No such thing as too much foie gras.
3. There is, however, such a thing as too much chocolate mousse.
4. When you have 5 months to try all of the food in Paris, pace yourself. It's endurance, not speed.
5. Squattie toilets exist in France.
6. Don't try to be French, you'll never blend in. Just try to be a little less American.
7. Everyone eats fruit with a fork and a knife. Learn accordingly.
8. Be nice to your host family and they will treat you VERY well.
9. Be especially nice to the host family's children. They CAN (and will) make or break your stay.
10. Wear shoes at all times in the house. Naked feet are not acceptable.
11. Be adventurous!
12. Don't be so adventurous that you get propositioned at every street corner.
13. Take being propositioned in stride. It's a compliment! Really!
14. You don't have to be nice to everyone on your program. But word gets around quickly when you're not.
15. Relax.
16. Just 'cause the majority of French girls wears Spandex, doesn't mean you have to, too.
17. Travel as much as possible. You'll never get to do this again!

Ca va, Michelle? T'es pas malade?

So Sweet Briar took us to Provence for the weekend - Arles and Avignon - as the weekend trip they schedule us for. It was amazing, minus the 6.45 meeting time at the train station, which made me wake up at 5.

Our 1st stop was at an open air market in Arles, which amusingly, I'd been to before with my first homestay family, the summer before 11th grade. There were lots of sausages!
And bunnies, which I don't think we supposed to be pets...
After lunch, we saw where Van Gough chilled out, after he cut off his ear.
And visited the Pont du Gard, an aquaduct.
Joe and I, a self portrait.
We took that after he used me as a wind-shield.

We stayed at a Monestary overnight, that's the view of it from the hill which overlooks it.This was our dinner the first night. The presentation wasn't too good. But it tasted OK.

My carton of rose, which the directrice of SB won't let me live down. She was surprised that a) I wasn't hungover the next day and b) I lived to tell the tale. (Isn't the packaging pretty?!)

The 2nd day, we went to an old chateau, where I had also gone with my homestay family. Hannah and I role play. She took it seriously. I thought it was a hoot.

But not as funny as this picture!



On the train ride home we played "Lou Garou". No clue if the spelling is right, but it means werewolf in French. It's like the game Mafia for those who know it...

It was a successful weekend!

Random Pic of the Day

Sometimes, you just gotta play with hand puppets.