Living the Exciting Life

No, that's a lie, I'm totally not. That's partially of my doing because I don't like to go out and youth about on weekend nights, especially when it's 20 degrees. Still.

Saturday
I was going to go to the library with a new friend (yay, social skills!) and get a library card and hang out there. But I woke up sick and Dayquil didn't help. It was one of those days where your whole head feels like it weighs much more than it should. So I had to cancel on her and sit in my room all day and watch Doctor Who. I mean, I love Doctor Who, but I would have rather gone to the library and not been a shut-in all day. Saturday night I went to a little fête at my friend's house--who conveniently lives right behind me. So I figured if I didn't feel well I could just leave and be home in a minute.

But the party turned out to be a pretty fun time. It was hosted by my friend's host brother, so there were a bunch of french youth (20-25 ages?) and then four americans. We had indian food which looked delicious-- I say looked, because I ate rice. But. Then chocolate cake with pears which also looked delicious. We hung out, they talked about politics, I got confused, all the americans sat there with glazed looks, but hey. We made pronunciation errors much to the amusement of all the french. Freaking vowel sounds are so difficult. They're all so close, but if you change it just a tiny bit, it means something totally different! Agh! And it didn't help that my nose was stuffy, so al my vowels sounded even worse. But. It was still fun. I was social for once. (And they said I spoke french well!)

Oh, I did hear a hilarious story from one of the french guys there. He was in the US while he was working for a french airline. He was outside smoking in the designated area. A large american woman came up to him and started yelling at him for smoking, how it was poison, and she goes, "You're french aren't you?" And he says yes. She carries on angrily more about smoking, "Well of course you're french, you're smoking", etc, etc. And then he says, "You're american aren't you?" She says yes. And he goes, "Well obviously," and makes a fat gesture with his arms. We all found it quite amusing. Rude? Maybe. But she was rude first. Good to know that's what distinguishes an american, eh?

Sunday
Homework day! And I had a lack of homework this weekend, so being the nerd I am, I did the homework for Monday and Tuesday already. Winner? Other than that, had some Skype with home folks, ate some good food, read some books, and am going to bed early like the grandmother I am at heart. Too bad I left my knitting at home.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with people about the internship, so wish me luck with that. Hopefully it won't take away too much from my awkward work ethic and lazy time. Oh and fingers crossed that by the end of this week it should be back to normal temperatures! Normal here being 55. Tomorrow is supposed to be 40, so maybe by the end of the week I can stop wearing tights under my jeans everyday. Huzah!

Snow: An Aix-mergency

Things of note today:

- It snowed. Ughhh. This is a very Aix-stopping crisis.
- I had one class. Gotta love Fridays.
- We were supposed to have a walking historical tour around Aix, but they cancelled it because of the snow. And by snow, I really just mean white flurries that melted on the ground. But that was enough to cause a lot of Aix to come to a halting stop. Which is fine with me, because it was about 27 degrees and I did not feel like having an hour and a half walking tour.
- So instead I ate my lunch and many Nutella covered rice cakes, gathered some new friends, and went to Book in Bar. Book in Bar is an english bookstore with delicious tea and awesome smelling pastries--also awesome tasting I'm told. We holed up in there and talked and drank tea for a while.
- Then we went to Crêpes a Gogo which is DELICIOUS. Over 80 kinds of crêpes, affordable, and delicious. And buckwheat. :D We got a banana Nutella crêpe and split it. It was hot and delicious and chocolately and satisfied my week long craving.
- Today at dinner I got corrected in my use of liaisons in reference to words beginning with 'h'. Because I said 'les haricots' and it turns out there is no liaison there. But there is for 'les hôtels' and 'les histoires' but not other words starting with 'h'. And we discussed this and together none of the three of us could discern a rule for when you liaise and when you don't. (Oh, Bonnie...? Can you tell me?)
- I realized how well CMU has prepared me language wise for this program. Snaps for CMU and your high standards.
- I love that dinner is made for me, but hot darn I miss cooking and baking. You don't realize how much you like to do things until you can no longer do them. I looked at food blogs for hours today. Be ready when I come home family-- as soon as I get over jet lag, you will eat whatever food I make. Be ready.
- Going to bed early again, still trying to hold off the plague that has taken over 60% of the school. Wish me luck...



PS. I eat vegetables here like it's summer. Be jealous.

Make Sure You Pronounce the /ss/ Right

Today's high was 40, so we're getting there. Too bad tomorrow is back to 23 with a 100% chance of snow. Oh, and I have another historical walking tour of Aix for an hour and a half. Good. :|

Today in class we had a CHARMING experience with how a slight change in pronunciation can lead to some dramatically different word meanings.
We were once again in the literature class with phonetics built in when a girl in my class came across the word 'baissant', which means to lower, as in lower one's head. However, she made the incredibly unfortunate mistake of pronouncing the /ss/ as [z] instead of [s]. This subtle difference completely changes the word's meaning. She said it and no one noticed until the teacher started his clucking and yelling as he does when one of us makes a big or stupid mistake.
He goes, "Do you know what you said?!"
And we all just looked at him with our big confused eyes and shook our heads. He went over to the board and wrote 'f_ _ _ _ _ g'. I got it after a beat and the whole class started laughing uproariously (that sounds so dumb, but it's true).

Whenever those little language moments happen I always think to myself how stupid it feels because clearly 'f***ing' and 'lowering' don't sound anything alike. Then I feel extra stupid, because the French obviously don't think of it in terms of what the english word is. Duh.
It'd be like someone who learned english as a second language confusing 'fool' and 'full' because there's really only a slightly vowel difference. Then I feel better about the mistakes I make.

In other news, I'm still trying not to get sick.
And I got an email today that I've apparently been placed in an internship. But... I don't actually want it now (don't act surprised mom, you knew that). I'm having a nice time being lazy and hanging around and that requires speaking more french, being more confused, and navigating more cultural things. As well as getting there somehow, doing work, and existing in the cold. :( Boooo.

Yesterday, I had chestnuts in my stir fry. It was so weird and when I asked what it was he told me it was a chestnut, as in obviously it's a chestnut. String beans, lima bean things, mushrooms, spices, and... chestnuts? Okay. It was good, just very weird. And I had to try and explain to them that we don't just chuck chestnuts around in the US like they do here. Roasted ones hanging out on streets, ones in my stir fry, cream of chestnuts as a yogurt, buttery nonsense of chestnuts as a jelly... It's so very weird.

That's all, sorry I'm not very interesting today. Classes were average, I sat in the school cave and did nothing because I've been so freaking productive that I finished all my homework for tomorrow yesterday. And still went to bed at 11PM. So. Hope you're all doing well, my dear readers of which there are about five. And send me some peanut butter. (Because while Nutella on my daily rice cakes is good-- it's no peanut butter.)

Nope, Still Cold.

What has happened in between Monday and Wednesday? Answer: not much.

Remember when I embarrassed myself by confusing the sides of the bise? Well the other day when the same lady came back she goes,"Today we hug, yes?" I laughed and then we hugged. CULTURALLY AWARE! Err... something like that.

Everyone at school is getting sick. I haven't gone out or stayed up late so I thought the devil would skip over me for a cold. But nope, just throughout today alone my throat has gotten tickley and I've started coughing... NOOOO. So I went and found french Airbourne essentially and I eat about 2 oranges a day. Fingers crossed I can ward it off. Early bed for me tonight!

In other news, my teacher--the one who is super linguisticsy--told me that when I was reading out loud that the errors I made were stupid for my level and that I clearly wasn't paying enough attention. But... but...! Unfair. There goes that idea of needing to be humble again so I can get better. Sigh.

The other day I read Elle à Table for my homework. The cooking version of Elle. So that was fun and then I told the class all about how the French are admiring Miami's cuisine. They reported on news and politics, PUH-LEASE, I reported on food. I was going to tell them all about tea and the uses for it and stuff, but I figured Miami might be more interesting for them.

For lunch today, along with my healthy dairy products, I ate rice cakes with Nutella on them. I look so funny sitting in the cave for lunch, taking out an entire jar of Nutella from my lunch bag and then scooping it onto my rice cakes. Whatever, haters gonna hate, and I'm gonna enjoy my inexpensive lunches and Nutella.

Today, I thought I got on the wrong bus, but luckily it took me home, it just went a different route. And thank god, because it's still cold. 20 when I left this morning and 34 when I came home. Unacceptable. It's supposed to be cold until next Tuesday, ugh. My immune system can't hold off that long! I've been wearing tights and leggings under my jeans for about two weeks straight now and generally three sweaters a day. The IAU buildings don't understand the concept of heat, so we wear gloves, coats, and scarves in class. Cheers. Also today, I learned that someone is coming to the house to fix the heaters tomorrow. This means that the heaters have been broken--warm, but not functioning fully. Great. Excuse me while I wear three layers of clothes to bed.

And that's about the most interesting thing that's happened so far. 

Regarde le pingouin!

Since I'm a few days behind, I thought I'd do a short (shortish) recap on the highlights of these past few days.
I dedicate this post to Olivia for making me stop being lazy.

Wednesday
- I learned it is hard to stay in french. First because it hurts my brain, because the other students look at me like I'm pretentious, and sometimes I just miss english. I want to get better at french, really I do, but sometimes you just want to throw down whatever you're holding and yell, " I WILL SPEAK ENGLISH AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME." Luckily I haven't gotten to quite that point yet.
- I was so proud of myself the other day when I went into Orange (phone store) and solved my phone problem! I spoke in french to this nice old man and he helped me out and also put my phone in english again. Which, as we discussed was much better, because the last time I learned technical terms in french was... wait, never. 'turn on global roaming', yeah I've learned that recently. He sympathized though, he never learned english that way. We bonded.
- Dear students in my class, please stop texting in the first row on the first day. Pay a little attention please. And we're in France, speak french. Or speak english in a quiet, polite voice. Social cues.
- Today I ate mushrooms. Dear god I ate mushrooms in a salad form and I kind of liked them. Stop the presses.
- I totally planned on running in the south of France, nice weather, etc, etc, sun, sounds great. Oh, wait. Then it snowed. And was 19 this morning.
- THE SNOW DEAR GOD THE SNOW.

Thursday
- French is hard, dear god, it is hard. It hurts my brain.
- So there's a teacher. He's my literature teacher but he's super into linguistics. Which is awesome for me, because I do love linguistics and find them fascinating. But he corrects us on a level on which I have never been corrected before. Which is great for my french, but after so many times, it bangs my self esteem upside the head. Especially when it's your last class on Thursday after a long week. For example, the tiny yet noticeable difference between /s/ and /ss/. /s/ is pronounced [z] in french, whereas /ss/ is [s]. And the changing between hard /g/ and /c/ depending on the vowels behind it. And thank god I know linguistics and the symbols used and the ideas behind it. Because the students that don't look so confused. They can't understand his corrections and straight up can't understand linguistics. It's a great class and he's awesome and full of enthusiasm, but luckily it's only twice a week.

Friday
- Nothing interesting happened. Had a treasure hunt around Aix for information like store hours, etc, went to a Tex Mex restaurant (thank god!) which was pretty good, maybe a step down from Chipotle, and finally went to a modern dance show. That was... interesting. Let's say that.

Saturday
- Left for Nice at 8:15AM, yawn. Bus ride, stopped in Nice and walked around. It was really pretty and if I can get my act together, pictures will be up tomorrow. But it was freezing cold. Not that that stopped me from eating gelato. Snickers gelato, yeahhhh.
- Stopped at 'Fragonard' which is a fancy old perfume factory. They make amazing smells and I had to buy one. Splurge. :) It was pretty nifty though, I can't lie.
- Went from Nice to our hotel, which was actually a hostel.
- Went to Monte Carlo and the casino there! It was pretty swank and we watched some guy play and loose a million euros, only to gain back 1.2 million. Sooooo.

Sunday
- Went into Monaco where there was no one because it's off season for tourists. Oh and did I mention it was cold? It's even cold inside restaurants. I have at least three layers on at all times. We did see the Princess of Monaco however!
- Left for another little town and walked around in the cold and my friends and I just ducked into every free art gallery we saw. Which was actually a lot of them and saw some nice pictures of country sides, flowers, poppies (not puppies, mom), and lavender. Quite nice.
- Finally came home.

Monday
It was 19 degrees when I left this morning. Fahrenheit.

So today I helped my friend with her french and she's at the very beginning level and she doesn't even understand the beginning concepts of conjugation and -er verbs. But her homework was to conjugate -er verbs, but the special ones too that change accents and stuff. Which I thought was ridiculous. I appreciate the teaching a little extra than you've taught in class, but that's just a tad extreme, no? She doesn't even know what an -er verb is and you want her to understand that 'préférer' changes accents and 'manger' adds an 'e'. Sigh. (Also, as I sit in the cave doing homework, the maintenance man on the coffee vending machine just gave me free hot chocolate! Oh hoho, the benefits of speaking french and sitting in the cave [basement]. )

On another positive note, people are getting more open to speaking to me in french. I hear them talking amongst themselves and they say, "Well, I guess we should speak in french, I mean it's probably a good way to get better, right?" Yeah, probably. No, but all snarkiness aside, that's good and I'm glad. Also, today I went to read a stupid poem and it was easier! Hooray! Thus, that is good.

Finally, just had an hour and a half long dinner. So long but it's always fun and nice to try and understand more french. But I will never get the hang of the bisous. I know it's only two here in Aix, but I can NEVER figure out which side is the right one. There was extended family over today and luckily they're really nice and joke with me about stuff that would otherwise be a cultural faux pas. So it's only mildly embarrassing. :) I think it's you go for their left cheek, so to your right first? Dear god, who knows.

More Observations!
- Literal translations from french are so funny. I keep laughing in class and people probably think I'm crazy but when I think about exactly what the french are saying in english it's amusing.
- 'truc' is the best word in french. It's like 'chose', only the french actually use it. It's essentially used as 'thing' in most situations. You can cook a truc for dinner, you can do a truc, you can buy a truc, etc.
- Saying a simple 'bonjour' and then 'au revoir, merci' to the shopkeepers makes all the difference in the world, changes a rude person to a nice person. But I mean, let's be real, if you were a shopkeeper, wouldn't you appreciate that?
- The sounds the French make are different than our sounds, like sounds of indifference, confusion, and greetings. I think it's fascinating. There's a lot more clicking--you know, like disappointed mothers? But it's just a thing and I'm picking it up, sigh. They also say 'coo coo' as in 'hey'. Coo coo as in coo coo for Coco Puffs, yes.
- Today I learned that if you say 'Ah, regarde le pingouin' (look at the penguin) (Also 'pingouin' is a great word to say. Try it. Go ahead, right now. ) you are in fact referring to a male who is wearing clothes that are too big and don't fit him right so he looks like a penguin wandering and wobbling around. Lol.
- For one of my classes, finals here are only ten minutes of discussion. We'll prepare a list of 15 topics, pick one out of a hat, have time to prepare, then talk for ten minutes. Everyone was freaking out, but I was just glad it was ten minutes and not thirty. Sooooo, calm down.
- There are some hilarious religious based superstitions, such as: if you step in dog poop with your right foot (you know, the good foot) then you'll have good luck all day. Left foot? Bad luck all day. Also, your baguette has to be upright--with the designy stuff facing up-- or else it's like you put the body of Jesus upside down. So someone will usually turn the bread right side up. Interesting.

And that has been a whirlwind of information. 

A Confusingly Snowy Day

am I in Pittsburgh again?!

Well, it wasn't a nice morning, but it wasn't a bad morning. It was cold and snowy to start off with, which was ridiculous considering 1) it's the south of France and 2) it's actually warmer in Pittsburgh right now. Sigh. That snow up there is what I woke up to this morning. Then right before I left the house I realized that on Tuesday I start at 10:30, not 9. Thus, I was 1.5 hours early because I thought it was Monday. But I decided to head to school to work on my paper anyways. Which, it turns out was a good decision, because I walked the wrong way for the first 7 minutes. So then I turned around and headed to school the right way at last. When I got to school I went down to the cave--which is the basement/lounge with vending machines, huzah! They're cheaper than the stores and have Evian (!), Orangina (delicious), and Snickers (my savior). As well as a hot beverage vending machine, I'm so excited to try that out. It's the little things in life.

Today I had three classes. First advanced french conversation and composition or something. Essentially a writing, speaking, and some grammar class. The teacher seems very nice and hopefully it'll go well. I feel like my level of french is appropriate for the class but I felt bad for the kids who seemed a little lost. Luckily CMU prepared me well. (shout out to the french department!) Second was the French Honors Program seminar, a weekly one hour class to discuss our progress in french and how classes are going, things like that. We also finally signed our contract to speak only in french the entire semester! Which means french to all my teachers, administrative people, classmates, french family, people in town, etc. Except if there is a student who can't understand enough french to understand me, then I can speak in english. Thus, it's okay to write in english on here, because not all of you can understand french. :) Lastly, was my french literature class, where I discovered I will be reading 13 poems, 4 bits of fiction, and 3 bits of theater. To which I heave a sigh, because poetry is not my cup of tea. But I'm trying to keep an open mind because I want to do well in that class. It's funny, because that teacher is also the teacher of the phonetics class and he is very much into linguistics/ phonetics. He corrected our pronunciation mistakes and then taught us small intensive lessons about the difference between /s/ and /ss/ in french and whether they're voiced or voiceless consonants. It was pretty cool but a little intimidating. I'm just glad I understand french as much as I do. A few girls in my class looked like they were in way over their heads. Ooh, and for lunch today I went to the bio (organic food store) and got corn cakes (like rice cakes, only made of corn) and some cheese and called it lunch, so tasty. Oh and candy obviously.

Now on to notes for today. First comes my inability to keep changing languages. Recently, when I've been writing in english, I forget how to spell an english word and can only remember the french word. My grammar structure sometimes looks awkward because it's more like a french translation into english. Which is so weird for me, because english is my native language and should come more easily to me obviously! For example, I typed out 'dramatique' today and was confused for a few beats why spell check was trying to correct me. Then I realized it was french, not english. That's annoying. I'm trying to write a ten page paper in english for the J Term and my brain keeps getting confused.

And the weather. It's freezing cold. I severely underestimated how cold it would truly be. I had to close my outside window shutters, got an extra blanket, wore many many layers today, and am still cold. In fact, it's 30 degrees F colder than usual in AeP right now. It's supposed to be 50, it's about 30 right now. Tomorrow is staying around 30, but Friday drops to 20 and snow. Again. Gross. Take pity on me... speed FedEx me sweaters and woolen socks!

look at this nonsense!

Enfin, two little things about my host family life. Normally, I don't like olives.  In fact I kind of hate them. But I never told them this, because back home, olives don't show up much. However, they keep showing up in my food in inconvenient places, like sauce. It's hard and kind of rude to pick olives out of the tomato sauce, so I've just been eating them. And the more I eat them, the less they taste repulsive. I'm afraid that by the end of this I'm going to end up liking olives. Gulp. Ooh and today for part of dinner I had a cooked artichoke, typical of the Breton region. It was quite tasty. Because uncooked small purple artichokes are more typical of AeP. I do like those, but I prefer my cooked artichokes. And lastly, today I got home from school and what was in my room? A garbage can! Or rather, a wicker basket. That I'm assuming is a garbage can. Hmm. 

I'm gonna call it the garbage

Sadly, as the day wore on the snow became rain slushy mess nonsense and hopefully it's not too icy when I attempt my walk to school tomorrow morning! Snowy Aix is yucky, but much prettier than rain and gross snow Aix!

rain and gross snow Aix

Good Morning!

IT'S SNOWING IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE!