Interesting Insights

Let's see:

1. French people have NO idea who John Mayer is.

2. But in every one of my classes, there were people who knew who Ben Harper is.

3. I've run out of interesting things....

But!

This week I:

-ate an avocado with vinagrette, just like that, oh and with salt. Turns out, it's delicious.

-started with new students, and it actually went really well! I had a game made up where they have to describe the pictures on the board, and then the rest of the class has to guess which picture they're describing. Oh! And I did Norman Rockwell pictures to insert a bit of American cultures. So, I think it went really well. And I gave out points, and the winner of the game got an American penny...oooooooo exciting ^^

*Interesting Fact #4: French people make smileys like this: ^^ a lot

-went bowling with a French couple, and tried Billiards, god help me...and I survived

*Interesting Fact #5: French people play foosball ALL the time. And they call it "Baby" (pronounced "BABB-ee") which is short for "Baby Foot" (and since they call "soccer" "football" here, it all makes sense)

-Had a game night with the same French couple and we played a Trivial Pursuit-type game, but it's a game that has the answers online and they're updated everyday, questions like "What was the last film to win the Oscar for 'Best Motion Picture'?" And then you go online to the site, type in the question # and it will give you the answer. So that was challenging (and by way, if you were wondering, the answer was 'Slumdog Millionaire'...I said 'The Wrestler'. Oh! And the highest-paid actor right now is 'Will Smith' and I guessed 'Brad Pitt' (or Weell Smeeff as he is known in this country...on a similar note, Julien and I watched "The Ugly Truth" in French, and he can't help but pronounce it "The Ugly Froof" dear god, I die everytime))

-I gave the French couple some Life Savers to try and they LOVED them, so I sent them home with a roll and a half. The French people I've given American food to, Life Savers, popcorn, peanut butter, Reese's, something else....have loved all of it! Hahaha, one for the States!

So, I can't think of anything else, but there's some interesting stuff that I've done/realized.

Bon week-end à tout le monde!

Bisous!

Meg

Fashion!

So, I did some shopping yesterday because the biggest sales of the year in France started yesterday, and I've been wanting to show you all pictures of the boots I bought a long time ago (when it was starting to get cold), so here's my comprehensive blog on all my new fashions! :)

I have no full-length mirror, so here's me in my elevator. Consequently, I was sitting in the elevator taking pictures of myself (gosh, that sounds awful) and the family of the school nurse who lives on the top floor pushed the button to their floor while I was just sitting in the elevator, so I rode to the top and got out on their floor like an idiot in front of both the parents and the kids. Whoops. Anywho.

I bought the checkered dress yesterday. Toot?

Full shot of the ensemble

Boots!! I love these; I bought these for 20 euro? At our outdoor market we have every Saturday morning. Num.

Zee front shot.

These ones for 15 euro at our market. :) They're like 3/4 of the way up to my knees or something, while the others are like 1/4 of the way up.

From the front

Other cool boots. Steph and I got these together on a buy 1, get 1 for 1 euro deal. They were originally 50, but since we split the cost in the end, got them for 25. Not bad, mah-tad.

And from the side (they're slouchy ankle boots, btw, if you can't tell)

And these are my most sensible pair. They're synthetic so good for snow (no suede or anything). And! Even though I don't like the round toe SO much, I like the little sock that's sewn inside: keeps the cold air from gettin' in duh boots.

Ok, clothes I bought yesterday on sale (everything was about 10 euros, except for this number and the dress, which were a little under 20)

Yup, sweater...

Oh! I like this one! I'm gonna take it back today, to see if they have another one in this size; when I got it home, I realized that one of the top buttons was missing in the back. There's only three buttons at the top of the back, though, so if they don't have another one, I'm just gonna keep it and find some buttons, I like it so much.

BERETS!!!!!!

Yes, it's true. After about 2 months of living in France, I purchased berets. Well, a beret. The coolest thing is that Stephanie, my bestie assistant friend, 's mom made me this one!!!! How cool is that!?!?!?!??!?!?! It's SO CUTE, TOO!!! Oh my lord. And I don't think I've ever owned anything that's been hand-knitted before (well, except for maybe a baby blanket I had, come to think of it). The story is that we were going out to our usual bar, and that night they had like a "hat night" where everyone was supposed to have hats. I thought I had brought my Royals cap, but no. So I raided Steph's hat stash and wore her black beret which is exactly like this one. I liked it and keep telling her, so she told her mom, and her mom decided to make me and send me one! Just like that! How NICE IS THAT??? So, that's like the sweetest/nicest thing that's happened to me here, and I LOVE this beret. Check it out...

It's so cute, iddnt it?

And then this is the one I bought for myself before Steph gave me the one from her mom. And also, it's grey, so it goes with all my non-black outfits. :)

Oh yeah! I forgot about this. So, I bought this top. And I have 7 days to return it if I want. I really liked it in the store, and I still really like it! I think the pattern is GORGEOUS, and I like the cut and all, but it's not QUITE perfect. Do you see how the collar pulls a little at the top? And even though it's tight at the top, the top part of it doesn't lay completely flat on my shoulders and sometimes looks like little wings. Also, it's a bubble top, so it's got like the tight band around the bottom, and since it's so tight on top and loose on bottom, I feel like it kind of gives the illusion that I get blobby as you go down. Now. It was about 9 euros. Do I keep it? I really really like it, but it's not perfect...What do you think?

Oh yeah, and I like the back, too.

Okay, so I feel like MAYBE that's the shallowest thing I've ever written, but I think it was fun. Yeah?? Anywho, I like my new clothes. Lemme know what you think!! Miss you guys! Wish you were here!

Soldes!!!

Get excited!! The sales in all the clothing stores started today. Hehe....pictures to come... >:-)

OH MY GOSH

Okay, so it's been awhile, But! my New Year's resolution is to update my blog more often, so here goes: (and what's more, I'm dying to vent to somebody about this)

If people from other countries hate Americans, I can understand why. They teach them just n'importe quoi, just whatever whatever they feel like about the United States. I just sat through a class where the teacher made me stand up and say the pledge of allegiance. Which! I can understand, to those who don't do it in this countries, this is a very strange cultural phenomenon, and merits discussion, and what's more, I'm sure it's interesting for students to see that on command, I can stand up and say this pledge by heart. Okay, so that's fine.

But then!! This teacher turns and twists everything about the United States! She sees the pledge of allegiance as this militaristic thing, and she kept saying how the United States thinks sees it's mission as one where they have to save everybody and make every other country democratic! And she kept talking about God and Manifest Destiny because she picked the "Self-Reliance" text written by Emerson, which has a lot of biblical references. Because of this, she has decided that all the Americans are crazy, militant, religious nutters who feel it's their duty to convert everyone else. That we supposedly all think (as she said, it runs in our blood), that we each have a divine destiny and that we're going to convert everybody to Christianity and democracy. She took the self-reliance, like, listen to yourself, you know what's best for yourself, trust your intuition, and made the conclusion that that meant: I'm only going to listen to me because I know best and I know better than everyone else!!

BAH!!

Anyway, I'm getting a headache thinking about all this/hunger is setting in....so lemme know what you think about this, because, I dunno about you all, but I just thought it was all a bunch of backwards, uninformed crazy talk.

pffffffffffffff...

But don't worry; everything else is going well!!!!!