unexpected girls night :)

For St. Patrick's day, we tried to get a bunch of people together, but in the end we ended up with an impromptu girl's night with Nolwenn, Christèle, and myself. We ended up ordering pizzas (sidenote: I forgot how different and AWESOME French cheese pizza is) and watching Nouvelle Star (the French version of American Idol) and then briefly going out in Salon-de-Provence. I think the best part about this time in France is that it hasn't really been touristy at all, it's been more like a normal time, just hanging out and doing normal things with my friends. It's been great seeing them all again, this time I feel like they're my actual friends. It's hard to believe that this time, exactly a year ago, I landed here and met everyone. Oh how things have developed and changed. It's interesting to think about.


I spilled red wine on myself (and a pillow), hence the salt. Then, in order to get the salt off my pants (we were all a little inebriated), I crab walked to the porch. Nolwenn made a video of it. Le voilà:




Girls night at Nolwenn's parents house!






We went to a pub in Salon, which was actually getting ready to close in a half hour. This half hour has created the inside joke of these two weeks: "Brice, c'est mal barré" (translation: "Brice, it's looking a bit iffy.") At the pub, there was a table of 4 rather drunk guys, at one point one came over and tried to hit on us. Then he tried to get his friend to come over (Brice), and I looked at him and said that. Which is a slang expression here and my girlfriends died of laughter. Thus, it keeps getting brought up again and again. Love it.

This photo is of a mailbox in Salon. It says: "Continue to fill this mailbox with ads and you will learn to run." mdr.

Geo-fail.

Well, I made it without hassle back to France. It's been great. My first night here, Michel had an apéritif at the house and (almost) all of my French friends made it. Afterwards, I went to see Oaistar in concert in Salon-de-Provence with Nolwenn, Antoine and Jérôme, which was a lot of fun.

Nolwenn and I also did a lovely scavenger hunt from geocaching.com in old Miramas (Miramas-le-Vieux). The goal is to solve the different enigmas to collect the right numbers of the lat/long. location of the "treasure." We got all the clues just fine... then we never did find the treasure at the end. :( Anyways, here are some photos from our adventure:


The first solution to an enigma--the right kind of pine... Apparently this one here is protected by the French gov't and is over 200 years old.


Me with the tree.


Nolwenn, my partner in treasure-hunting crime.


One clue told us to find the numbers that went with the letters "VC" on this one street... We couldn't find it anywhere, and finally asked a nice guy who works at the ice cream shop at the end of the street--His response? Oh, the VCs (toilets) are downstairs! Then when we explained (the poor guy must've thought we were crazy) he was like OOOOH roman numerals! ... We hadn't even considered that....we are so blond.


A view of the Etang de Berre from Miramas-le-Vieux. If you look at the circle thing, it shows you what you're seeing. Ex. straight ahead is Fos-sur-Mer.


A "post card" type photo of Olive trees then of Miramas-le-Vieux. Took this when we came back to hunt for the illusive treasure a SECOND time.


Another view of our treasure hunt. We know we had the right coordinates, but we never did find it. We even dug in this wall on the right. The boys don't believe us.

Three week mark

Well, three weeks from now, I'll be in France doing my research project. This is a daunting amount of time for the following reasons:

1) I'm just now sending out letters to meet with people. I'm an idiot. I'm starting to freak out.
2) I've learned that I probably have to get IRB certified (if I want to record my interviews, which I do). This leaves me little time.
3) I still have muchas things to do. (French: Presentation, 6-page paper; Linguistics: Lesson Plan, Lesson Demonstration, Observation Report, Journal, 8-10 page final paper, Professional portfolio; French Tutorial: Presentation; Spanish: Essay, Oral, Written Final; History: Books to read, 2 response papers to write, Unknown Final)
4) I just now sent out letters to people.
5) I'm nervous about seeing certain people.
6) Mostly, the daunting amount of work between now and then.

At least the University is going to pay for my gas etc. That's a new development. And if I end up recording, they'll buy me a digital voice recorder (that'll technically be property of the HTC, but still... awesome).

Still, I'm super nervous. Though, interestingly enough, for none of the same reasons as last year.

"To romance you, shall I use the 'tu' or the 'vous' ? Or shall I just say 'you' like the English do?"

Finals = conquered.

Well, I mean, I have to give a French 211 final at 4:40 for Duvert, but other than that I'm finished.

Now, I just have to clean up the earthquake disaster are that is the apartment after this week.

Ready, Set, Finals.

Approaching finals week, well actually, I'm sort of already there as this is all that stands between me and winter break:

-English Research Paper (10-12 pages) on 'Moby-Dick'
-French Paper (9-10 pages) on 'Antigone' and Satre's 'Les jeux sont faits' ('The Chips Are Down') and how they can be read as WWII novels
-One more day of review sessions in Duvert's classes + 10 more hours of tutoring next week
-Proctoring Duvert's 211 and 213 finals
-Meeting with Dr. Toner about our tutorial Winter Quarter

In other news, received the PURF Grant of $1200 (to be used only for airfare) and booked my ticket for France yesterday. I will be in Miramas/Provence from March 13-30, 2009.

Excitement and anticipation abounds.

Now I just need to figure out what exactly I'm doing there.

New adventure?

So, I don't think I'll ever get around to adding the rest of my vacation photos. If you want to see all of them in their mind-numbingly large quantities, you'll have to see them on facebook: here, here, and here. Sorry about that.

I've been back in the States now for about a month and a half-ish, and I'm used to it now more-or-less. I think I came home expecting for all to feel like it did before I left, but I hadn't taken into account how much I—and my perceptions—have changed, even if things here are pretty much the same. I still, after a month, mix French and English in my head all the time, and according to my French-speaking friends, my English sentence structure is sometimes odd as it continues to resemble that of French on some occasions. Other than that, I think I'm doing very well... even if I do miss French bread etc. very much.

As for missing France, that brings me to my new adventures. First, I've applied (and have already interviewed, actually) to be a Teaching Assistant on a new study abroad program that the Women and Gender Studies Department is offering next July in Paris. It would be focusing on French Feminism and my responsibilities would (and hopefully WILL) be to help Dr. Grant (the head of WGS and coordinator of the program) to organize the excursions and other trip details and to serve as a translator of sorts for the group, as being able to speak French is not a requirement. I interviewed on Wednesday and I think it went really well, so now I just have to wait until the 24th to see who she picks. I feel kind of in a pickle about that as I'm friends with 3 of the other 4 applicants (some better than others, but still)... All I know is that I really want her to pick me. :-P

In other news, I applied for PURF funding to go back to France over Spring Break to do thesis research. Having learned that medieval manuscripts don't really do it for me, I've decided to focus on the modern revival of Provençal (the language) today in Provence. The French Department has already told me (i.e. Dr. Vines) that they can give me $500 for materials etc, but I really need the PURF funding to pay for gas, food and my plane ticket. As with the other possibility, I have to wait until the end of October to see if the committee is going to fund my proposal or not. Currently, I'm just working on gathering research and attempting to learn Provençal. Jérôme (the guy that I went to his wedding) has been incredibly helpful as he is very interested in the language and Major, who is a fantastic pirate, found and burned me a program to learn Occitan (which is incredibly close to Provençal)... So, hopefully this goes well.

That's all for now, now I just have to wait another 45 (probably student-less) minutes before I can go home and make myself dinner (I'm thinking Lemon-pepper chicken and baked asparagus... mmmm). Katy and Em are home right now for Yom Kippur so the apartment is very empty.

La Rochelle aka the first stop

For any of you rare few that continue to check my blog a bit, even though I'm in the States, I thought I'd wrap it up with some of my photos from camping etc. Our first stop was La Rochelle, on the western border of France. We spent 2 nights there, and really enjoyed the city. It didn't rain at all... until we went to pack up and load the tents to go to Lorient. What a surprise.


We paid for parking... then realized that we didn't have to. Super.


A view of the old port in La Rochelle


Some street sidewalk art. Near the old port, at night they have street performers and an open air market. Very cool.


Apparently they're giving tours to *my* island... the Isle of Ré.


Walking around the Old Port.


A little street view of La Rochelle. As you can see, the bottom of almost all the buildings were open like that, creating arcades, or little covered walkways.


Random statue in a random square in the city. Very cool. Very random, as per Europe's norm.


Rémy REALLY enjoyed winding up the lamp that Vanessa gave me for my birthday. I, on the other hand, just plugged it in to charge. Much less time/energy consuming. But it was fun to watch him (see video).