la la la

my favorite halloween costumes in my life.

1. unicorn- i was like 8 and my mom made a great gold unicorn costume with pink and purple. what more could a girl want?

2. nerd- i like digits can i get yours? what is the probability of us getting together later on? i think i used my calculator more that night then my whole life.

3. skunk- i even had a can of scented (good smell) spray that i sprayed at people.

4. care bear - with michelle marinaro. fun times

5. waldo and waldos girlfriend- with phil

6. salesman

7. little red riding hood

8. mime

well i cant remember any other ones. but i hope you all had fun in athens and enjoyed celebrating halloween! dana-i hope you didnt have too much fun.

eat some candy corn for me!

ok off to church. have a good day

special blog

Happy halloween everyone. but this blog is a response to my stepsister and step brother in law. yes raquel lived with that girl and she knows you. this is crazy. what a small world. haha

while i am writing, i would like to share that i wrote a huge long blog about my week, but then i coulndt save it to a cd for some reason, but really i think i am saving you all from reading boringness.

i am sad to miss halloween. its the first time i havent been able to dress up.

heres a quote from madame balletti: "she took the Jesus down? ma fwa" referring to theresa taking the Jesus picture down from her bedroom wall.

today i am babysitting.
hmm... what else. i have internet all day, maybe ill write more later
adios

finally....pictures

a sail boat on isle de frioul
stuff
carmina (the spanish assistant), theresa (my roommate) and me
a view from chateau d'if
this is chateau d'if
vieux port.
this is the vieux port. its really beautiful
my window again
heres my room. looking out the window. (please ignore my underwear hanging outside.)
hmm.. this is a door.
kitchen
this is the kitchen.
this is the yard. there are lots of fruits and trees and stuff.
this is the view from my bathroom.
this is the bathroom. there ya go.
this is the living room. but its a lot different now because theresa moved things around. now the big thing the TV is on is clear and the table is where the chair is. but hey you get the idea.
this is another picture of my room. its not as clean now as the picture. sorry mom.
this is my room. please dont be jealous of my garden...(or closet door. ) we cant all have this. also look at my ceiling. its clouds. its too bad not everyone can live like this.
this is the view from my bed room window. i want to try and climb this mountain soon.

pics

a fort on the isle of frioul
rocks and mediteranean sea
rocks
boats
hmm...
isnt this beautiful?
isle de frioul
isle de frioul
the port at isle de frioul
i thought this was a good picture of ants.

island

Weekly update

So how do I want to begin telling you all about this past weekend? Fun times, frustrating times, random times. It all started sat morning when I went to meet Raquel halfway to walk to my house to wait for our ride. It was a rainy morning and it rained until we arrived in Toulon. Our ride came, and I had to go to the corner to direct them and then Romaric came in to help us carry our stuff to the car. Damaris and David were already in the car and the 5 of us drove off to Toulon. We got to Toulon and we come to this campground area. (Keep in mind, they didn’t tell us any details for this weekend. We knew what time we were leaving, we had to bring some sort of food to share and we may play sports. That’s all we knew.) So we stay in this cabin place and there are quite a few people there. We meet lots of new people but there are many awkward moments for Raquel and I because we don’t understand half of what’s going on, and we can’t say anything profound. Haha. Anyways, then a bunch of us go on a hike and we end up down at this beach area which is so beautiful. This is where the randomness/culture shock begins. We head on down and Raquel and I are surrounded by Christelle and Romaric, the biology teacher and pharmacist. They showed us many plants and leaves and stuff and we smelled some leaves. I have no idea what they are so don’t ask. Then we get down to the beach and some people decided to walk in the water.

Then we head back up to the path and some go back and 5 of us go on. So now it’s just the people we had in the car ride to Toulon and we are on a …..Mushroom hike. Yeah you got it. The French can eat mushrooms they find in the woods. So we are with Romaric who is the pharmacist or future pharmacist and he can tell which ones are edible. So we go off in the woods and look at all the nice looking mushrooms. We found some deadly ones. We found old ones. There’s a mushroom called beef tongue. Did you know that? Well I do now. Also we learned some mushrooms have a milky ness inside and some are just chalky. Mushrooms are many different colors. We even found a deadly mushroom and took it back to show everyone. Apparently if you eat it, you die. Sooooooooo there’s my science lesson for the weekend. But it was fun and Damaris, me and Raquel just had to laugh. Romaric kept saying… Il est beau! (Its handsome, or good looking) hahahah. Oh my. Then we head back and just talk for awhile and eventually its time to get dinner out. There were about 30 people and we all ate and talked amongst ourselves. It was a good dinner. Raquel and I sat next to Romaric. He told Raquel to try this meat. She asked what kind. Romaric replies “Tu connais Bambi” (you know Bambi) but think of bambi pronounced “bombie” so she ate deer, later to find out it was raw bambi. Yum Yum. Then Romaric and Etienne lead the bible study part of the night and I understood almost everything they said. Then we broke up into small groups and I was doing so well at understanding. Then we all discussed stuff as a big group and we roasted chestnuts on the fire. I’ve never done that before. They were good. Then we all got ready for bed and slept. Day one was more or less a success. Now on to day 2

So you know that whole detail thing I talked about earlier, like how we didn’t know any details? Well it would have been nice to know that we were actually going to a church and a more or less conservative church so Raquel and I go…in our jeans. It’s no big deal. Just funny how every other girl is wearing a skirt and we are wearing the same jeans we hiked in the day before. Hahaha. Oh well. We know for next time. Church is alright we sang and I understood like half. Then we all went back to the cabin place to eat lunch together. It was good and I was sooo full. Then we went back to church (Raquel when back to Marseille earlier) so I went and it was alright I understood a lot of it…however afterwards everyone was standing around talking and I can’t understand anything because it was so loud. So I just stood around acting like I understood. Then we came home. On the ride back it was a frustrating time for me. I want to understand so badly. I want to be able to communicate. Our friends are so nice to us and patient and we can’t say anything much. I miss profound conversations; I miss people knowing the real Jen Eureka. I can’t be myself in French right now. No funny comebacks (not that mine were funny in English). But it’s a learning experience. So ill learn.

Monday there were still no buses or metro so I had the day off and I decided to go to town and look around. I walked 1 h and 30 min to the open air market and looked around. Then I went to vieux port and I walked around. Then I went to a book store and spent a lot of time there and bought a book. Then I walked to Raquel’s place and took a break from walking. Then I had to walk 1 and a half hours back. Sooo. I left at 9:30 and returned at 8pm. Long day. Then I read and went to bed. Tonight I have bible study and Olivier will pick me up at the school and we will go from there.

So Tuesday was a long day. I had 5 hours of class. I had a couple breaks but I stayed at school for the whole day. I read, I talked to other Profs, and I planned some lessons. Then Theresa and I did laundry together. We will never do laundry again. She’s anal. Enough on that. Then I waited for Olivier to come get me. We went to bible study and had soup, pizza, cheese and apple tarte with ice cream. Yummmm. I had a good time. I understood more then I had anticipated. Or maybe I’m just getting used to not knowing anything. I’m hoping for the first scenario. (Side note: I keep messing up because now I am used to the French keyboard. Oh la la) I got home at 1 and then I had to get up at 7:30 because I had class at 9. Or so I thought

I really had class at10 so I got up a lot earlier than I needed but oh well. I went and taught and I only ended up having one class because the other class had a test and it was cancelled. So it was good. We played a game with candy and then we looked at some funny sentences in English and then we played hangman. Good times for an hour. Then I went to the grocery store for some milk and then I came back, watched some TV, took a nap, and wrote some emails to send out.

Today I heard the strike is going to last through break. That makes me not so happy. So far it’s been 3 weeks of strike with another 2 and a half to look forward to… at least. So I don’t know what I am going to do fore break. I think I may stay around here and just walk a lot. Ill go to Montpellier for a few days. But right now I don’t have tons of money to travel for this break. I need to get paid Haha. But it’ll be good to go to Montpellier to visit friends and then I can just explore around here and maybe go back to isle de frioul to hike one day and maybe see a movie or something. I’m not sure yet. But oh well. I can also work on more lesson plans. I can read some more. Yes.. That’s what ill do.

I can’t believe that the 21st I’ll have been here for 1 month. Time flies by here. I really do enjoy it and even with the strike. I should buy a scooter. Oh yeah there is a lot of wind here lately. The mistral. Today’s not soo bad but yesterday it was sooo windy. The weather is really warm but the wind makes it so cold. Ugh. I guess winter is windy here. But today is warm. Like 22 degrees Celsius.

Have I mentioned how much I love Madame Balletti? She is so nice to me. I love talking to her and I can understand about 90% of what she says. I’ve come a long way with understanding her. She’s so kind and I really really really enjoy her. She makes me feel like I am at home here. She’s always willing to talk and to hang out. I love her. She’s always worried about me and makes sure I eat enough and then the laundry situation the other day with Theresa, she found out and was mad, so she told me she could wash my towel for me with her towels. “Just don’t tell the other girl.” I wish I could bottle her up and carry her around with me. But sometimes I worry about her because she’s old and lately she’s been looking really tired. She says it’s the weather and I hope she’s right. I really don’t want anything to happen to her.

Speaking of weather, there’s a hurricane headed for central Florida. Family members, can you please tell my why you live there??? So tomorrow I need to pull an E.T. and phone home. (I thought this was a clever joke and laughed out loud…feel free to do the same) but hopefully all will be ok. Pray for my family.


Thursday I had 2 classes and they were good. My students were chatty in French and English and I had to tell them to be quiet a few times. Then I met up with Raquel for the afternoon. We went to a bookstore and then we at lunch at a park. It was nice to talk to her and spend time with her. She’s nice. Then I came home and hung out with Madame Balletti for awhile.

While I was out, I saw my students all around town. It’s really funny to see my students and they always say Hi!

Friday I only teach till noon. I don’t know what ill do in the afternoon. I don’t feel like walking but I better get used to it because if I want to do anything in this town for the break, I have to walk a lot! If its nice ill probably go to the park and read for awhile. I don’t know. Its nice and calm there – not that my life is hectic here. Haha. Raquel is leaving for Paris for the weekend so I really don’t know what I’ll do this weekend. Maybe I will go hiking maybe I will read a lot. I just finished Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and I really enjoyed it. I already read Crime and Punishment this past year and so I went and bought The Poor Folk, in French, to read some more of his books. They are really good.

Well anyways, I think this blog is long enough its 3 pages in the word doc. So I hope you have a good week or so till I post again. God Bless!

holler

i am currently working on another long post and itll be up on friday. then i have vacation for 2 weeks and cant use the Internet.

i hope everyone is doing well.

The strike endures. So far it’s been more than 1 week with the public transportation on strike. I am super happy that I bought the 40 euro bus pass for the month. I walk a lot and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Last Wednesday, Theresa and I walked 2 hours to our meeting. 2 hours. Then the metro was working so we took that and had to walk 1 hour back to our house. Then Thursday, I stayed around the house. Friday, Theresa and I walked to the metro (1 hour) and we went to vieux port. Here in France, you have to pay for a library membership. Not only that but you have to bring a past bill for the house to show you live here. So I am still debating on getting that. I think I’ll call and see if I can take my computer there and use the internet it may be worth it. I doubt it’s like that though. They probably want to charge you even more to use the internet. Sorry friends but its really hard and I am trying to find a way that I can use the internet without using all of my paycheck.

Anyways, Saturday, Theresa, Carmina, and I went on a little excursion, to chateau d’if and isle de frioul. The isle de frioul was amazing! I plan on going back really soon. We took a boat there and it’s only like 30 min away but it would be so awesome to pack a lunch, and swim and hike all day there. I took a lot of pics. Amazing. Hopefully I will get to post some pictures with this post (I am writing the post at my place hoping to be able to take my computer somewhere and post it with pictures) keep in mind we walked 1 hour to the metro, walked and hiked all day then walked from the metro to home 1 hour.

Sunday I went to a different church. Because of the strike I didn’t feel like walking 2 hours to church and walking back, so I went to a church closer to me and I really liked it. There were many younger people there and people were nice to me. That’s always good. I met a girl, Ruth-Lise, who goes to the Tuesday night bible study (but she hadn’t been able to go for 2 weeks) and she offered to drive me there. So that’s good news.

Today, Monday, was my first day of class. I am just observing for the most part, but I get to do some stuff with the class. For example, this morning the students asked me questions and I told them about Ohio, but they weren’t really participative. They won’t be my students this semester anyways. The second class was so good. This class I will have this semester. They all asked questions, even if they didn’t know all the words in English. They were willing to try. So a little French a little English. It was good. Then I had a 3 hour break and I was going to go to the bank to pick up my card, but the bank is closed on Monday. I forgot about that. So tomorrow. I went to the park instead and read and relaxed in the beautiful sunny weather here. Then I went back to the school to my other class of the day. These students won’t be mine this semester either but they were really talkative and asked a lot of questions.

Some of my favorite questions and comments of the day were:
-I thought all Americans were fat
-There are a lot of McDonalds in the US
-Do Americans eat eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausage, etc. for every breakfast?
-When I asked if anyone wanted to go visit the US, one of the classes unanimously answered…No.


I am really happy I am at the high school. The kids are really fun and I like that I am still cool to them. They seem interested to get to know me. Their accents are cute. I really hope I meet a French guy-not a high school one- and marry him because I love when they speak English. Hahaha

I have classes and observations everyday this week but my schedule for the rest of the semester is:

Monday: free
Tuesday: 8-9, 10-11, 11-12, 3-4, 5-6
Wednesday: 10-11, 11-12
Thursday: 9-10, 10-11
Friday: 9-10, 10-11, 11-12

Not bad huh? Plus I get 2 weeks vacation starting next Saturday.

Well that’s about all I have to get you all up to date on now. If you are reading this and have a car, be thankful. If you are reading this and live in Athens and don’t have a car, still be thankful. I think buying a month bus pass in France is similar to buying a month pass at a gym…You get a good workout.

Oh yeah, French is getting easier. It’s still hard to communicate and I get frustrated a bit, but overall it’s good. The hard parts are big groups, technical words and cell phones.


Ok now it’s Wednesday and I still love teaching. Some more funny questions and comments for the week are:

Do you have a boyfriend (the boys ask me this one) ha-ha
Will you stay in France? I say I don’t know. Someone says...if she finds love.
The US has a bad government doesn’t it?
Is it true that American guys don’t take French class because they think speaking French is feminine?



The students are so cute and when I see them outside of class they all come up and talk to me. Today, one of the boys came up to me and was really nervous to talk to me and his friend was making fun of him for being nervous (sometimes they don’t realize I understand what they say in French ahhaahah.) Many of the students have asked for an American pen pal sooooo if anyone wants to be a pen pal, let me know! Email me!

The other English professors are really nice. I think there are about 10 or so, and I have met almost all of them. They are all willing to help me, answer questions, they have offered to take me places with their families and they are just all around kind.

Last night Raquel and I went to the bible study. Each time it gets a bit easier. Last night we were at Olivier’s place. We had salad, and this potato onion omelet (minus eggs)/crepe (but thicker)/pancake thing. It was good. Then we had fresh pineapple for dessert. Then we read a passage in the bible and discussed it. Man o man it’s hard for me to understand everything. It takes a lot of energy each Tuesday night for the 4 or 5 hours we are together to focus on French. All of my foreign friends in the world who speak English or other languages, I am impressed. It’s really hard.

This weekend Raquel and I are going to Toulon with the bible study. I hope to get to know the others better. I am really thankful that Raquel is here. Even though we haven’t seen each other that much since the strike, its nice to know that she’s here and I can easily tell her things and we can be lost together or fill each other in at times.

I like watching French TV. I think it’s good for me. I watch Monk in French and also Malcolm in the middle and other French shows. One of these days, I think I’m just going to be able to understand things completely.

Yesterday, I went down to talk to Madame Balletti and she started telling me how last year all the assistants who lived in this apt, shared food to save money. Theresa doesn’t really want to do that plus she’s vegetarian and doesn’t eat many of the same foods as me. No big deal right? Well Madame Balletti decides she doesn’t like that so she gives me a bowl of something or other she’s cooking for lunch and says “don’t tell Theresa. Meat is good for you.” I love this woman.

Well I am going to write emails and save them all on a CD and take it to the school tomorrow and put them on the computer along with some pictures. I hope it works as easily as I think it does.

ok so i hope you all are happy to read all this: i have a few more funny stories. today is friday and i just finished my last class: they talk a lot and asked so many questions: then one boy thought i was cute so everyone started asking questions like do you like french boys: Do you like french boy in this class: ......wants to know if youll go to lunch with him today. do you want a french boyfriend: it was halarious: i love my job:

well i am off to toulon this weekend:
adios*

i forgot

i forgot my blog today but i did remember pics so you can look at pics today and read tomorrow:

peace out

ok nevermind it takes to long ill have to try again tommorrow... sorry

i am still alive

hi im alive just so you all know: i typed a long blog on my computer so ill save it to a disk and bring it to school and post it:

i walk a lot here but the weathers good:
be patient with me

i am still alive

hi im alive just so you all know: i typed a long blog on my computer so ill save it to a disk and bring it to school and post it:

i walk a lot here but the weathers good:
be patient with me

and i will walk 500 kilometers...

my day has gone like this: 6:15 wake up leave the house at 6:45 with my roomate
walk for 1 hour and 20 minutes tot he dr office. 8:30 my dr appt 9:30 leave office walk 30-40 min to raquels arrive at 10:10

then i hung out we walked to the grocery store and then tonight we will walk to bible study then i somehow have to walk home tonight. lets hope i can find a ride home.

so to make a long story short, i ate a box of cookies for lunch.

strike

tomorrow there will be a transportation strike: my first one: so here i am taking a break becaudse i have a dr appt tomorrow morning at 8:30 and i have to walk there: i stopped at an internet cafe to take a break: i am timing the trip so far ive been walking for 30 min and i still have about 40 min to go: what are ya gonna do?

anyways this mrning i had an orientation at my school and i met the italien and spanish assistants: they are really nice and i think we will have a good time:

today i called my mom from the pay phone and some guy asked me how long id be so i answered and when i was leqving; he told me i have a delicious accent: who says that??? made me laugh:

i am understanding better and better here: i like it when i know whats going on: tomorrow is the dr appt and wed is the welcome meeting which is at 9 and really far::: lets hope the strike ends so i cqn get to these plqces: if not; i guess i can eat all the chocolate i want:

ok well thats all for now: ta ta

oh la la

my roommate came yesterday! she seems really nice. so i havent seen much of her yet, but i am going home in a bit to hang out with her and clean.

today we had quite a morning. its alrways great when the landlady's son tells you that the rent is going to be 100 euros more than you thought. its even better when you argue and tell him its impossible for you and then he goes back tot he original price. so no worries, im back to the origional.

then this afternoon i helped raquel move in to her place and then i went with one of the american missionary ladies to help her shop and we had lunch together. it was a nice afternoon.

i really enjoy living here. i really like it and i am happy but to my freinds, i am sorry if i dont email as much, but i dont have internet. i go to my friends place a couple times a week and respond to some things. so yeah. just miss me or send me letters throuhg the post office, ill send some back.
hmmmm

well i need to get home and clean. be patient for pictures. ill get them in a few weeks.

the weather is perfect here. like 85 well actually i dont know. its 25 degrees celcius and a nice breeze from the mediteranean.

well thats all for now. i am goign to head on home. hopefully i do some exciting things this week to write about. im sure i will. miss you all!