Inappropriate Lab Time Use.

Technically I'm signed up to be using the lab right now to pay my bills online and research grad schools. But as once again I have become locked out of another online account, I can't pay my student loan bills... I will now have to do the dreaded phone call at night from the evil and cold phone booth in the court yard to explain that I'm in France and their website sucks! (Side note, my cute little french flip mobile phone battery just died and as it was shutting off it did something I didn't realise it did-- little animation figure of a witch on a broomstick - said broomstick emitting pollution stars into the cellular air- and saying "bye!" "bye!" with little downscale melody in the background... bizarre.) And as I've been receiving mail from various schools, I feel that enough process in the grad school hunt has been achieved to allow me time to blog.

Tidbits from the last few days or so...

Chili was made by me for a successfully nostaglic dinner on Tuesday night!!! YAY chili!! I even managed to make cornbread!! Not for lack of panic moments though- first I couldn't find baking soda, so I just grabbed some yeast hoping that if I only added a smidget then the desired effect would occur without issues; second problem arose when I was about to bake the first pan and realised that I wasn't sure if fleur de mais was actually corn starch instead of just super-finely grounded cornmeal. After much consultation of useless dictionaries that didn't tell us the neceassary answer, Jennifer and I just decided to try the first pan and go from there! Luckily, it must have been ok because it worked! Granted, it wasn't the crumbly, yellowy cornbread of my childhood, but was still just about as good. And Louise who's never had cornbread loved it!! Even after her mum informed her of the number of calories in it! Muahhahahahaha... my plan of converting all Scottish people I meet into pseudo-americans has sucessfully achieve its first phase!

Yesterday was an exciting day as I received a package from my mum, including my package from Amazon -thanks to the wonderful Christmas generosity of my uncle for a lovely Amazon gift certificate!- and I am now the proud owner of a new 2005 Ansel Adams Engagement Calendar, a fabou copy of Mansfield Park (so I can finally read the story behind one of my most beloved movies!), and speaking of movies, the immensely pround owner of my own DVD copy of Wet Hot American Summer!!!! My plans for Thursday afternoon had been to go do shopping at Norma, but all plans were immediately cancelled to enjoy the great brilliance of said film!

Today, I enjoy my first trip to LeaderPrice for grocery and decided to splurge on this fabulous cereal called Top Miel, which is just corn cereal balls coated exceedingly with honey! Is there something similar in the States, as I think the first time I had this yummy cereal was last year with my middle host brother in an afternoon snack conspiracy.

Vacation in ONE week!!!!!

Where am I going??? NOWHERE!!! hehehe... just hanging out in Metz, economising, and planning for PRAGUE in April and my family's visit in MAY! I already know we won't have enough time to do everything we want to do. I believe I've picqued (?) my brother's interest in Luxembourg with a postcard of an amazing bridge (probably the Pont de la Grande Duchesse Charlotte)... and now he wants to see it. As it is in the middle of most of our destinations I have no problems with this, though I had thought to delete it from our travel plans if we didn't have time, though it takes like four hours to walk the entire centreville and see the important bits of it. Tiny city... I don't think it's even the size of CR.

Well now I'm going to throw on my posts from the last week that I've already written and honestly, it's just loads of ranting so if you feel a need to ignore the rest of this post, I have no reason to blame you! I'm honestly trying to keep the ranting to a minimum on this blog, but occasional you just have to let loose I guess.




Down from the Sugar High…

Le 27 janvier 2005.
My current mood is one of pure frustration. I’ve been beating my head against a brick wall this week trying to figure out how to deal with this frustration, and not figuring that out makes me doubly as frustrated. I can only conclude that it’s from being half way through the program. The realization that I only have about three months left to do all that I wanted to do, to settle into the routine and relationships I’ve sort of formed, and to have any cohesive pattern in my life now and in the upcoming ten months.
The CAF has been taken care of, my Securité Sociale is pretty much finalized now, I’m a legal temporary resident for a few months now, thus all my bureaucratic hoopla is finished. I’m left with free time now to achieve my other goals of finding a job for next year, a grad school to attend in a year or two, start taking german at the collège and to find volunteer work a couple of hours a week. The volunteer work seems to be the hardest thing at the moment. I can’t visit the Red Cross until Tuesday or Wednesday again next week (I know, I was always contre the Red Cross from bitter vengeance reasons, but I’m working on the gracious thing in my life) and I want to visit them before I visit the Catholic Aid- which is where everyone keeps basically telling me to go. But once I have something decided on that front, I’ll start working with a friend’s uncle for a few hours a week at his recording studio. At least I’ll get to see how the music industry sort of works. The rest of my goals just take time to sort through and get done in a step-by-step method.

If nothing else, I’m learning tons about myself living and working over here. Primarily, I’m getting old. I know that’s a bit pathetic to be saying at my young age, but it’s true. Maybe it’s just that I’ve always been old, or just that I’m happiest on my own or when I can easily detach myself from a group. Either way, my biggest lesson has been that my desire for my own and completely separate residence is still extraordinarily strong! Staying at the foyer is just an easy, convenient, and long-term financially sound decision. No need to deal with the furniture issue or reselling items I can’t transport back to the States. The minor inconveniences can be overlooked- it’s nice to not have a landline in the sense that it makes it harder for me to be contacted, except when I need it to be easy so I can arrange a phone interview! But I can not wait for that apartment that is truly and completely mine! Efficency or not, it will be marvelous to have- though definitely routing for the one-bedroom place! Secondly, I’m probably destined to live in a rural area. I enjoy Metz, and I love Toulouse, and Cedar Rapids makes me happy, and I’ve yet to live in a major city of the world (as in my fairy goddaughter in Paris), but I miss the country here- I miss living less than a quarter mile from a corn field, and gravel roads, and county parks, and state parks. As long as I have a car, I know that I will probably choose the country over the city- though maybe something like 20 minutes to an hour from a large-ish commercial centre will be nice (like MV from CR and IC!).

Well I’m getting distracted in my thoughts, so I think I’ll sign off… my closing thought is that I’m turning into my parents, and while scary as it might be, I’m not too worried- it’s one of those inevitable conclusions. Destiny is such a twisted thing.


This Is Me Ranting…. Or Please do not throw coins in the baptismal font.

Le 31 janvier 2005.
Grrr!! I am super frustrated with Dell Financial! I checked my statement today to make certain my monthly payment went through alright- like a good, responsible, young, newby to the Real World- only to panic because their little initial non-statement thing said something about payment before due date and listing still the due date for which I was making the payment. In major panic, I downloaded the real statement in its lovely PDF file and found out that back in December when I had to call Dell to make my payment because THEY had locked me out of my online account for two weeks that they had charged me a fee to make my payment by phone! I DO NOT REMEMBER sweet little customer service girl telling me this! Luckily I had to do this all by conference call with my dad because something about being in EUROPE means that lovely little 800, or 888, or 877, or even 866 numbers so not work with my phone card! Lucky being that my dad can vouch or not for this little fee information availability. Thank you Carrefour for not having phone lines in our studios- because I’m not a responsible, university degree holding young adult! Argh! I hate phone booths! If I was the responsable for this place, I’d have at least put the phone booth in the inept salon de television, especially as that room is now empty due to someone STEALING the tv! Point being that it’s been a shocking and frustrating internet session tonight. But now that I’ve calmed down and emailed my parents for confirmation or at least to see if dad remembers if they said there would be a fee, I’m beginning to think that she did say something but I was so frustrated to have to had called dad to link me to the 800 number and to have been locked out for two weeks from my account… desperation, not the best situation to be in. Also, frustration is not so great, as it makes you write insane, run-on sentences that might not make sense to anyone reading my crazy blog.

In other parts of my internet world today, things were surprisingly nice. Mum’s mailing me a package with the lovely things I bought off Amazon.com (not Amazon.fr- as I wanted to order my dvd for zone 1) with the lovely gift card from my uncle for Christmas. It’s great when aunts and uncles give you gifts even though they really aren’t suppose to anymore –given that I’m well beyond the age limit of ten. Yay, I will so be the proud owner of my own dvd copy of Wet Hot American Summer!!!!!! I will also have my new yearly planner so maybe I can be slightly more organized than recently! In addition to this great celebration of capitalism and consumerism, I also had a lovely little note from Katie C. asking if I was truly the person she thought I was- meaning if my blog did belong to the person she thought it did. I adore getting comments so that simply made my day! So, yes, Katie, it is me! (Check out her blog- see Links!) And I also had an email from this cute little up-and-coming Cornell freshman. She’s currently studying as a Rotary Exchange Scholar here in France, only a few hours from me. I’m quite envious of her at the moment, as she’s living with a host family (a fabulous situation- albeit a little difficult at times, I know) and has just gone skiing in the Jura and is going to Brittany over February break. I wish I could do any of the above, but little problem of a below-starting level salary or lack of hours (depending on how you choose to look at it), student loans, and saving for Prague (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Hopefully we’ll get to meet sometime before I leave though, as she sounds lovely and is apparently as Francophile as the rest of us in the French Club at Cornell. (So you guys, new member coming soon!) Anna was also a Rotary Scholar in France before she came to Cornell. Though I think February break will be a good time for me to take a little day trip to Saarbrucken – a splurge, but what’s life without the little splurges. Plus I want to shop in Germany- as I think I like german clothes better than some of the French brands. Speaking of Germany, I haven’t yet blogged about the day trip to Trier in mid-January. Victoria, Jennifer and I decided to bust out of Metz for a Sunday and drive Baby Blue (for sale, available in July if you need a good car in France!) to Trier (Trêve) for the day. It was a darling little city- maybe the same size as Metz or smaller. It also reminded me loads of Metz, as it’s on a river in a valley and the hills surrounding it sort of look the same. Also in similarity to Metz- being on the confluence of the Moselle and Seille Rivers, Trier is on the confluence of the Mosel and Saar Rivers. Mosel is, btw, the same river but Germanic spelling of Moselle. Getting there also took us through the lovely wine country of Germany. So Trier has the most Roman ruins of any city north of the Alps, though I only saw one, the Porta Nigra. Interesting place, with a fascinating history I’m sure though I don’t really know it. Trier is also on the same Roman route as Metz I believe. It is also home to St. Gangolf church (ok, so I was definitely thinking of Gandolf when I saw that) and two lovely basilicas. The funniest bit of the day was looking into the HUGE baptismal font in the newer basilica and seeing the sign “Please do not throw in coins.” Ok, lol, I know that there are loads of people who are not catholic, but it sure does make me laugh that anyone would think that a christian church would have a wishing well in it! Hehehe… still giggling. I’ll try and get some photos posted soon. The main experience of that day trip being that I still do not know German, nor did I pick it up after one day of visiting with other Anglophones, and I am still inclined to just speak French when not in an anglo speaking area, regardless of the actual country or language. In other words, time to start on my second foreign language now. Do you have time in grad school to take things like language courses, does anyone know?

Ok, so I really feel as if I had more to write, but I’ve vented and that was my main point tonight. Apologies to everyone who endured it, but thanks too! And I’ve also babbled the rest of my way through another page of typing. Hope everyone’s enjoyed it! Enjoy the photos of Trier!

Also, for Laura. Thanks so much for your lovely updates of Alias! I truly do appreciate them, whenever you have the time to get to them! I’m content that you do not allow the desperation of a temporary ex-pat to dictate your time schedule! Louise and I are on pins and needles to we read your full description, but it’s great exercise! So thanks thanks thanks! Et merci beaucoup!


I’m just such a nice person…

Le 4 fevrier 2005.
I am just such a nice person that I almost forgot to rant about this, all until she made the error in judgement to depart and return to her next door studio, but neighbor French girl is insufferable. Not only did this girl decide about two weeks ago to mount a sign on the landing outside my door reminding everyone to be quiet past 11pm (aren’t there signs in everyone’s rooms stating 10pm???? Who here is illiterate in their native language?), she also posted this lovely little piece of “art” only in English. Hmm… at whom could she be ‘directing’ this little notice? Honestly! What are we, freshmen in the monk dorm? So after my eight hour day dealing with little French monsters I was not in the mood for an exhibition d’art nouveau, thus did the only imaginable thing possible and obeyed the “rules for peaceful living” in this …um.. place. I torn down the sign and took it to the administration. I proceeded to tell them I found the sign disrespectful and inconsiderate of others, the author intolerant and childish. It would have been one thing for the sign to be in French and English- at that point no harm could be presumed, and another all together to only be on my floor and quite obviously (from the yellow highlight used to make the sign) not from the direction. In my opinion, quite obviously someone did not have the capacity to act like the adults that are suppose to live in this part of the residence to at minimum approach the presumed transgressors and remind us of the quiet hours or to talk to the direction as the stupid contract we sign states we are suppose to do (it also specifically states we are NOT suppose to approach the other residents with issues but to go directly to the direction -????). I swear we live in a freshmen dorm. I also informed the direction that I felt it was extremely aggressive to be written only in English and made me feel completely unwelcome as a foreigner. I later found out it was my neighbor, and she was supposedly going to visit me to talk about the situation. (I of course couldn’t have just spoken with her as she didn’t even have the balls to sign her stupid little hall decoration!) Then about a week and a half later, after I’ve calmed down and decided that I was tired and over-reacted a bit, she bumps into me as I am arriving at my studio and she is leaving and we talk on the stupid cold landing. I say oh, well I probably over-reacted, sometimes we’re a bit loud but not purposefully so, and we understand the need for quiet, and she proceeds to tell me she understands English if I need to speak that instead (the nerve! And duh, the stupid sign was in English… do you think I’m blind, didn’t I see the sign which caused the problems) and goes on and on to tell me that she’s always woken up by loud footsteps and loud English in the middle of the nights and that there are people she knows in the building who have to be up at 5 am to go to work, etc etc etc… and at this point I start to get angry again. I mean I’ve just tried to be compromising and considerate, and she starts a rant about how rude we all are. What is it with people just putting every member of the same culture (in a small area) into the same group! Hello, stereotyping much! Haven’t you ever heard of being non-discriminate and thinking independently! In reply I calmly state, while this is quite true, we all (I must now defend the entire assistant colony in Carrefour, though we are NOT all Americans (of the United States variety) nor even Anglophones!) get up at about 6am on mornings we have to work. Hence, it’s irrational for her to think we couldn’t understand early morning rising! And that in addition to hearing English late at night, I have been kept awake by enough French at midnight or 1am on nights before I must rise at aforementioned 6am! Her reply to this is predictably, “oo, j’ai jamais entendre le français qui me reveiller.” Right, possibly for several reasons, ie : you don’t ‘want’ to hear it or you don’t notice it because it’s your native language ! O, for heaven’s sake! Right. All of this leading to me now paying attention to her comings and goings and I’ve yet to notice the girl wake before 9am (because there’s so much sound proofing in these walls!)… and finally to my need to rant tonight being that if I had needed to be asleep before midnight tonight, it definitely would not have happened because of loud FRENCH voices! And from where did they eminate???? Not the other next door neighbor, who is occasionally loud, but never after 12:15am—but NO, from evil, complaining, all-knowing, jerky next-door neighbor French girl. Not only which it was definitely past 12:30 when these LOUD French visitors did finally live making enough noise on the landing that I would have woken (regardless that I can sleep through tornado sirens). So in the sake of graciousness, thank heavens tomorrow is not a Friday I work and thank heavens for two-faced little 27-year-old French cretin girls who still live in a residence and not a proper apartment like a true adult. Grr.

Final note from the other week: I realized how quickly things become familiar. As I was walking through Place St. Louis and up rue d’Enfer and En Jurue, I noticed how comfortable I’ve become walking on the cobblestone streets, how easily it is for my feet to adjust automatically to the uneven rhythm of the road surface. Mostly I was noticing how familiar the buildings and walls and windows and rooflines of my neighborhood have become to me. I simply adore living in the oldest part of this 4000-year-old city.