Caturday

Is really Saturday and I've pretty much spent the entire day in the library. So good right? Well sorta, I finished this week's journal entries that I had to do for my CM 504 Global Internet class. I actually kinda dig it and I like my journal assignment so far...just hope i'm doing it right! haha we'll see I guess. So I would stay longer but I need to go home and get ready for tonight. Tonight is this girl from my program - Megan - 's birthday party. And she picked a bar called The Great Canadian! How awesome is that! That's 2 Canadian bars in Paris that I know of now. Woot! I only wish I brought my shirt that says "Canadian Girls Kick Ass"!!

Ok I really need to go, I was going to write more but I already wrote like 5 pages today in the journal so i'm done for today! And tomorrow will be spent reading reading reading!

Shiny Objects

I've been looking for this video all week!  I couldn't remember which folder I saved it to but I finally found it (in the most obvious place of course!)  It's really short because it was sooooo cold I could barely stand it.  We were on a night bus tour of Paris that was organized by the school and I took this video and then ran back on the bus!  

TRIUMPH!

I feel I have reached a few milestones in the 2 and half weeks that I've been in Paris.  First off today as I was walking to the bus to go to school a lady asked me in French if I knew where some street was.  So she thought I was French or at least that I knew where the hell I was and where I was going.  Of course I had no idea where that street was and even if I did know where it was I’m the last person to give out directions.  So I said IN French that I'm sorry I'm not from this area I don't know where that is.  "Desolee, je suis pas d'ici.  Je ne sais pas ou est cette rue"  In case you were wondering that's how you say it in French.

My second triumph is a little more important to me.   I can now make it up ALL 6 flights of stairs to my apartment without stopping!  Ok this might not seem like a big deal but imagine you lived on the 6th floor and there were no elevators and you had to climb the windy staircase EVERY single day.  And I should add that I am in no way an active athlete anymore.  Yes in high school I played soccer but that was a long time ago my friend.  And going to the gym is rarer than snow in San Diego.  So making it up all 6 flights without stopping is kind of a big deal to me.  And I’m pretty proud of myself for accomplishing that goal.  Now I just need to do it without feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack each time is the next goal.

School is in full swing now.  I really need to change my attitude about the readings and the essays.  I need to just love it and not wish there was less of it.  I'm in Graduate School for chrissake what did I expect?  So last night as I was reading for one of my classes I started to really take notes on the readings and try to fully understand it and not just skim it.  Then what happened in class today?  He spent all of 5 minutes on the reading I was so prepared for!  Ugh.  Love it.  Must love it.

Oh and on a fun note I just signed up for the cultural trip to London!  We get to go on tours of the BBC and last year they got to go to Bloomberg.  I'm not sure if we're going to Bloomberg this time but at least we get to go to the BBC which I think is pretty cool.  Hopefully it's more interesting of a tour than the ones we used to give at CC!  Also the trip happens to fall on my birthday (March 20th) and so I will have some sort of birthday celebration in London with Molly & Suzanne!!  And I haven't seen them in what feels like forever so i'm super excited to see them again!

Tomorrow is a planned public transportation strike in France.  This means that the metro and busses will not be running.  I have heard though that they will run a smaller percentage of public transportation though so i'm not sure how bad it'll be.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow!  

This.Is.Rad!

http://www.fredflare.com/customer/product.php?productid=4477&cat=343

Must.Love.School.

First week of class. Check.  

I'm in for quite a year.  So much reading and homework and essays and papers and exams.  I wonder what was I thinking?  Oh yeah, I wanted to live in Paris.  I just need to buck up and love my homework, embrace the readings and get back in to writing scholarly and not "for-air" writing.  My Global Internet class seems interesting so far.  The main theory class I could do without though.  The teacher just completely reiterated the readings and basically talked to us for an hour and 20 minutes.   So not loving that class right now.  And in one of my classes i'm one of two people in the class!  There's no hiding in the back of that class!  

Tomorrow Jenn and I are going to the Montmartre area.  It's the artsy area of Paris.  She wants to get some kind of poster to put on her bare wall in her apartment.  My apartment came with some hideous red and yellow poster.  I hate yellow!  I wish I could take it down but I'd have no where to put it if i did take it down.  And it's so huge and I don't want to buy anything more than i have to so i'll live with it.  

I finally got a blanket yesterday!  So much nicer to sleep with a blanket and not shiver under A sheet.  I have a radiator in my room but it doesn't do such a great job of heating the whole room so at night it's pretty freezing.  Hopefully this cold weather won't last too long.  I know summer will be boiling hot so I'm just waiting for Spring so i can enjoy some decent weather here.  And once it warms up I think we're going to go on the Bateaux Mouches so we can stand on the outside deck of the boat.  

Thursday was just a downpour of rain and so much wind!!  Some friends and I went shopping on Thursday (day off!) and I caved and bought an umbrella.  Mistake.  It was so windy that my umbrella kept flipping inside out and eventually broke!  12 euro down the drain!  Same thing happened to Jenn and Crystal's umbrellas.  Both Jenn and I dumped ours in the trash but Crystal somehow managed not to break hers.  I've decided i'm not buying another umbrella.  I don't think they can withstand the winds here.  So when it rains i'll just suck it up and get wet.  A little rain never hurt anyone...right?  Oh well I guess...c'est la vie!

I got to Skype with my parent's today!  It's pretty cool if you have a webcam/mic to use.  If anyone wants to Skype me my screen name is WaterLily_Lily.  I don't think that many people use it but it's totally free to call skype-to-skype and very cheap to call an actual landline/cellphone.  

I took some more interesting (at least i think they are) photos the past few days but I haven't downloaded them yet.  I hope to do that soon and I'll post the links again to facebook.  

~N

PICTURES!

Finally I have internet at home in my little apartment so I have been able to upload pictures.  I've uploaded them to Facebook for now.  You don't have to have a Facebook account to see the pictures, just follow the links.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=212260&l=a58fc&id=705000542

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=209909&l=14f5f&id=705000542

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=212269&l=7bf46&id=705000542

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=212278&l=b2e5a&id=705000542

one week!

Well I have been in Paris now for one whole week! Orientation is over and what a week it has been! Tomorrow is the first day of classes and I still can't believe that I'm back in school. What a weird feeling to be 29 and back in school. I have found some more students closer to my age though so that's nice. Last night my new friends and I went out for what was supposed to be one drink with our student advisor Javier who has been in our program for a year. He's really nice. So anyways it was one of the girls in the programs birthday and there were quite a few MAGC that's the Abbreviation for our program- students there. We got to meet a lot of the other prole in our program who started in September and they are all super cool and nice. And so this little bar that we were at turned in to a karaoke bar and then around 1am it turned in to a dance club! And I left around 330am with Javier and another girl who lives by me. We shared a cab home. Jen ended up walking home with the others and didn't get home till 4! And the bar wasn't even closing! No last call here! Oh and we met 4 french guys who were hilarious! Pictures to come soon!! Saturday we also walkrd around montmart where the moulin rouge is and up to the sacre coeur church. We also had fondue for dinner and OMG it was so good!

gimme back my money bitches!

I hate the exchange rate! I just changed 300 dollars and only got 180 euro!

on the bus

I'm on the bus now heading home. Looking out the window and I see the eiffel tower. Not a bad view to go home to every night eh? I think ill grab another baguette from the champs tonight. Not a bad dinner for 3.80 euro!

My Paris Apartment

I was able to take a few photos with my cell phone to post for now online. I have much more photos on my camera to post but i haven't downloaded those pictures yet. Here's my place!

Kitchen

"Closet"

Bed/Futon

The last few days

Ok, I finally have a moment to catch up on the last few days! So the trip over here was fine, the plane to France had much smaller seats than the plane from LAX to Philly! I didn't sleep on the plane, i tried but I just couldn't. There were student advisors who met us right when we got out of the baggage claim. The carts were free to use! And i definitely used one. But once we got to a certain point of the airport we couldn't take the cart anymore so i had to drag my two bags for a while and that was hard. There was a group of us and some were walking faster than others. With my 200 pounds of bags behind me it was a little hard to keep up! But i managed. They had a shuttle to take us to the FIAP which is the student hostel that they had us in. Right away I met another girl her name is Jen and she's in the same program as me. She's younger, 24 years old and she's from upstate NY. She's very sweet and more mature for her age. I also met another girl from India and her name is Kamini. She's also 24 but they are both more mature than some of the other girls here. There are a group of girls who act like they're in Highschool. My student advisor's name is Javier. He's been here a year and he's been helpful. Everyone here is really nice and helpful. I met 2 of the professors today for student advising and they were very nice.

My apartment is really nice and everyone who's heard about it (that already lives here) has said that's it's in a really good neighborhood. My landlady is really nice and she speaks english very well. I told her that i want to practice my french so she's speaking to me in french. Last night she gave me a comforter that she said i can keep! I just need to buy a pillow now. Last night i used my airplane pillow. It worked but i'd like to get a real pillow.

I paid her my deposit of 670 euro and prorated for January was 429 euro. So I'm paid up through the end of January! I finally have my ATM card! And I should be getting my cell phone today and with the cell i can BBM other blackberry's for FREE anywhere and make free calls to landlines in the US and Canada. Anything Free is good!

And once i can get my laptop set up at home i will start posting pictures!

=)

Another day!

I registered for classes today. I'm taking 3 core and 1 elective classes. The elective is an Advertising Practicum. Should be intersting. The campus is divided in to a bunch of buildings around the 7th. There are 3 main buildings and they're about a 5 - 10 min walk from each other. Not too bad except on 2 days i have back to back classes in different buildings. But they do give you 15 minutes between to get around so that's good. I'm walking now more than ever in my life! And i live on the 6th floor with no elevator. ugh! But at least hopefully that'll keep me in shape! Especially after eating all the bread! I finally had crepes last night. YUM! And i've been living off of baguettes and ham and cheese for the past few days. And "Coca Light" which is diet coke which i'm obsessed with, it's actually better than diet coke, the taste. I don't know what's actually different but it's good stuff!

So many things to do! I have my bank account and now i just need my cell phone. Once i get my cell phone i can BBM (blackberry messenger) to anyone for FREE! And I can make free calls to landlines in the US!

I'm Here I'm Here!

Wow, ok I have not had a chance to write in here like i've wanted to. There's so much to tell so far and it's only Wednesday! Luckily there are computers at school that I can use since my internet at home is not set up yet. There's so much to do, so much to set up, so much to take care of this week. It's kinda ridic. I will have to come back to the computers later to go in to more detail on everything. I haven't downloaded any pictures yet but I will try to do that as soon as possible. For now, i'm here and i'm alive!

50 people 1 question...briliant

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

Pack pack pack

I started really packing for Paris yesterday and by last night I had one suitcase almost done.  And to my utter surprise almost all my clothes fit in one suitcase.  Wtf?  I thought I had way more stuff than that.  Well there's a lot that I'm not taking.  I'm not taking about half the jeans that I have.  I decided that if I have worn it less than a handful of times in the last year then I probably won't wear it in Paris.  I still have one empty suitcase to fill with my sweaters, jacket, shoes and other personal items.  And once that is done then I'm done packing!  It's really hard to believe that I'm leaving on Friday!  I mean today is Tuesday that's not very far away!

And this morning I woke up with a sore throat, I haven't tried talking yet but I can't imagine that it would go very well.  I need to take something to get rid of this cold before I leave.  I really don't want to be sick on the plane.  

I got my US passport yesterday.  What a pain in the ass this has been.  Over the weekend I got a letter saying there was something wrong with my certificate and they couldn't finish processing my passport.  On Monday I had to go to the Federal Building in LA to get my certificate straightened out (the problem was that the idiots in SD forgot to stamp my certificate.)  So my dad and I went to the Federal Building and it took about 2 1/2 hours but I walked away with my passport in hand.  The saving grace was that I was able to get my passport the same day.  Now I have a Canadian passport, a US passport and a French Visa...I'm so international!  

~N

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

I ended up spending New Years Eve + the end of the week in Lake Arrowhead.  Simeen, Shannon and I decided to go sledding through the forest and here's the video I put together...

Video of my munchkins!

I got to visit with Dawn, Jason, Harlow & Zoe before the New Year.  And since i'm in to making these little videos now, here's what I put together!  (I tried to upload it to blogger but it won't upload so watch it here:  http://www.facebook.com/v/110404685542