whoooo

so here I am back from ireland. let me brag to you about my awesome free trip.

We crammed all 53 of us onto a bus with 53 seats, so I was stuck sitting with the old people (aka the proffesors, lol). Our bus driver was a guy named Micheal who I'm pretty sure was recently some gangsters bitch in prison. He had what was OBVIOUSLY a prison tat on his fore arm and a nose that leaned so far to the left I wondered if it impeded his vision. He also liked to talk on the phone and play with his tom-tom while going 80 miles an hour down little country roads.

We took the ferry over which was awesome because I got my own cabin, SUCKERS. We spent 3 nights in Limerick, 2 in Gort (about a half hour south of Galway) and 2 in Killarney. We took the kids to all these awesome castles and museums and historic sites but all you ever heard on the bus was "LOOK AT THE CUTE BABY SHEEP!!!" And I swear I wasn't the only one shouting it.

But seriously, they were so fucking cute I could have puked.

I died of boredom at every meal because I had to sit with previously mentioned old people and all they talked about was school and their gardens. In French. Which, you know, gets tiresome after a while. Though it was fun hearing all the horrible things they say about students they don't like, HA.

When I could I spent time with some of the older students, who like to play asshole with shitty rules and don't know how to shuffle cards. I wooed them with my american rules and amazing shuffling skills. If they were ten years older and I was a man they would totally have my babies.

While in Ireland I got Christophe addicted to the Dropkick Murphys, which was a lot of fun until he started hogging my Ipod. I learned how to play le loup-garou, which is a more complicated version of some game we play in the states whose name I can't remember, but like its when you have a detective, a killer, and one other special character, and everyone closes their eyes and you have to figure out who the killer is before they kill everyone... right.

Saturday was absolutely perfect, so obviously everything had to go wrong on Sunday. The ferry had mechanical problems and was five hours later, so instead of arriving back in montargis at 9 we got back at 1:30.

After today the appartment is mine, YAY. Tomorrow I need to go to Orange and Town hall to fix some things, seeing as I asked Ysmay to ask a question about our deposit but she never did. She never did any of the things I asked, it was so fucking annoying. Before I left, I wrote a note asking her to arrange the inspection and to ask about the deposit and they keys. FRIDAY NIGHT I got a message asking when I would be available for the visit, so when I call I find out she hasn't even called yet. Then on Sunday I get a message from Manuel asking me the same information which Ysmay obviously didn't share, and since Manuel really doesn't speak french he didn't understand me yelling at me. Today I find out that they already did the inspection, but they never asked about the deposit. FUCKIN A MAN.

oh well. I think I might just eat the deposit, since my almost 200 euro rent check probably won't get cashed before I close my account BITCHES. I'm still going to ask, though. I'm greedy, what do you want from me????

I have to go eat shitty cafeteria food now, since I didn't have time to cook me a lunch before I left. YUCK.

today was like the worst day ever.

I did not fall asleep until 6 am, and only after I crawled out of my bed and onto the futon. I was awoken to the lovely sounds of manuel-smoke-a-pack-a-day-rodriguez hacking up what is probably a part of his cancer-laden lung. its worse than listening to a cat hack up a hair ball.

I made myself a cup of coffee, drank about a third of it, then headed out to town. It was a very pretty day and I took lots of pictures. I went to the sous prefecture and picked up my new carte de sejour that actualy has my name spelled correctly. then I went to the tresor public and paid off my last two monts of rent. after that it was town hall to learn about closing down the appartment and all that. I had just two more things to do--cancel phone and internet, then talk to my bank. Everything with the phone goes ok, but to cancel the internet I had to call a number. At the number they couldn't find my name in the system, and the account number I had was wrong. So I go to the guy, wait 5 minutes, he gives me a new number. I call and the woman says "no you can't delete over the phone you have to write a letter, and either ways you will owe for the 7 months you are cancelling"

WTF. Bitch informs me that as of dec1 2007 my account was changed to be a year long contract, and not the month by month we had signed up for. Except I never changed it, I never signed anything, nothing like that. And if they let Manuel or Ysmay change something than I will be killing those two then suing orange for letting nonauthorized users make changes to my account.

So I get back in line, hypverventilating, and start explaining what happened and how she says I have this contract, but its impossible because we never said we wanted one. We bought everything in october, got it all set up pretty, but noticed our international phone wasn't working. So Ysmay and I went back to ask about it, and aparetly they never entered it into our account, and that she would set it up so that it would start working on nov 6, so other than that we never made contact with orange or france telecom. and at the store they dont know who made the change on my account. but they will try and see what happened, they said and then will call. if I don't get a call by wednesday there is going to be a shitshow

speaking of shit show, of which I am currently starring in, sleeping bills have to be classified as hallucinogetics. even as I type this I see the words shuffling around and bouncing back and forth across the screen totally just took up a good 10 minutes of my time but I've gotten to the point where I can't see words clearly which means knock out shall commense in t-5 therefor I need to end this licketysplit so I don't spend the night cuddling my poor laptop

grrrr I wish I was tired.

have descended into levels of grossness that even I did not know existed.

so I have been ill'n and chill'n these past few days, trying to get better before next week, so really all I do is sleep and watch movies. have been taking a hot bath every night, though last night was the first time I washed my hair in I don't know how many days. wore clothing briefly the other day to run an errand for tinette, but other than that it has been days since I donned anything besides skivs and my yummy scrummy bath robe.

am on to the sneezy runny nose part of the illness, so I am not as fatigued and dizzy as the headachey part, so I think today I will put clothes on (gasp!) and wash the floors.

have fallen ill, always a great way to start off a vacation. it's just a cold, but the headache is killer and I get woozy if I'm vertical for too long. thankfully the appartment is empty so I can be miserable in beautiful silence. it also means I get to cleeeaaaaan once I'm feeling better.

what stinks is that when I'm fiiinally asked out on a date I have to go ahead and get sick! I plan on doing nothing but sleeping so that I can get better asap and be wooed by a frenchman!

hey kids

I had a crazy awesome weekend so I am here to tell you about it.

Heidy and I bought concert tickets in November, and finally the date of the concert had arrived. On Friday I took off for Redon, about 5 hours total from my house to hers. Everything was going perfectly until, on the 40 min ride to Redon from Rennes, some kids 40+ pound duffle fell ON MY HEAD. obviously I was in the middle of the train so everyone noticed and made a huge fuss and I was just trying really hard not to cry, lol. Fear not, however, since I survived.

After a nap and dinner in Redon we took off for Vannes. We deposed our stuff at Rachel's (an assistant friend of Heidy) then took off for the concert. We took the bus there and got right up front. Calogero was AWESOME. He played a really mixed set of new and old, rock and piano, and he played 2 encores. The weird thing was the crowd was much older than we were expecting. Most people there were early/mid 30's which was a bit bizarre and made me feel really old, but whatever. I paid too much money for a tshirt.

THen of course we had to get back in town...but the buses stopped running at 8. We had to call Heidy's boyfriend several times to get taxi numbers, and it took us about 30 minutes and 7 numbers to find a taxi who was anwering his phone. Our driver, though, was super nice. We were starving, so he drove us until we found someplace to eat for dinner, and he cut about half a dollar off the fare. Heidy and I had some delish pizza, although the people behind us were having a loud drunken fight.

Saturday we walked around Vannes for a few hours then headed back to Redon where Heidy made absolutely delicios baked ziti.

Now I am just waiting for my day to be over so I can go back to bed. The sun doesn't set now until 8:30ish so my body is all confused about when to sleep, so I didn't really sleep last night. I reset my alarm on my phone twice after turning my alarm clock off, which is a good things because my alarm when I woke up this morning was 7 hours off--I dropped it something major before I left,and now I can only turn the alarm wheel and switch with a pair of tweewers, and it took a lot of effort to get the battery in. Methinks it is time to retire my cute little alarm clock.

ow. typing, for some reason, has really taken an effort. Damn crap keyboards.

I am very grumpy. Manuel is playing his ugly death metal music in singing along in falsetto and it makes me want to cut his tongue out with a rusty bread knife. We are currently not talking to each other (not that we ever really talked) since yesterday I left him a strongly worded note about his inability to do his dishes in a timely minor, inconveniencing everyone else (aka me).

Today I had a lovely easter at the laundromat and I am looking forward very much to sleeping in nice clean sheets tonight after walking around in my nice clean robe. In the name of savings I have started doing all my laundry in the bathtub (to wash and dry a load of laundry costs about 6 euro, aka around $9) but it takes everything about 2 days to dry, so my heavy duties (sheets, towels, bath robe) I took to the laundromat. It was actually quite a happening place, let me tell you.

I was supposed to clean my room today but where is the fun in that?? I shall leave it unto tomorrow.. DAMNIT. Tomorrow is a bank holiday which means no postal service which means no package from the parents... I think, let me google. well let me tell you google doesn't know SHIT.


and now I have the hiccups

ooops!!

so it's been a while. things have been ok. I wanted to move my flight back a few days so that I wouldn't, you know, be like homeless or something for almost a week but it didn't really work out so I've been brainstorming ways to survive, LOL.

tuesday was my birthday for which I did absolutely nothing, lol. No one knew it was my birthday except for one of my students, who gave me a gift! yay! she gave me a pretty pair of earrings. The day kind of sucked because claire has kind of turned into a bitch. I told her I was having major problems with the lesson for next week and she didn't help at all. I took the bus home, then passed out in bed from about 6:30 to 8:30. I microwaved a quiche, then spoke to various family members. around 11:30 I took a sleeping pill, but it didn't help much

yesterday I woke up and had no desire to get out of bed, so I sent christophe and nathalie texts saying I was feeling ill and wasn't coming in. then I stayed in bed till 1, HA. then I discovered that someone had tried to deliver a package but it was sent fedex so it wasn't through the post office. I called the company and they told me someone would stop by sometime before 6. So at 6:05 when no one came I called and they had no record whatsoever of my package. !!!! The lady had to ask around until she found someone who knew what happened to it, so she said it would be delivered sometime between 8 am and noon.

So today I woke up at 8 and slept on the couch and miraculously woke up about 5 minutes before the delivery guy showed up. It was an awesome birthday package from Nicky, Kristin, and Hutch! I showered and took off for school, where Christophe was bitchy for 5 minutes. he was all "You were absent yesterday?? You can't just text me, that is such an american thing to do. it didn't even have a name on it, I mean it was in english so I knew who it was, but blahblahblah"

I had my last class with some of my 2ndes. I shared the easter candy that Kristin sent with them and they thought it was the greatest thing ever. They didn't even get mad when I made them take a picture, lol. In class with Christophe he'd forgotten that he was mad at me and just bitched about Bayram. WOOHOO I'm still the favorite kid, lol. He told me another one of his hunting stories, which absolutely kills me. Christophe is a 55 something year old chubby white guy who on the weekends hunts wild boar. And he doesn't just shoot them, he shoots them then slits their throats. It's very Lord of the Flies. But god, he sits there telling me all these crazy stories about being attacked by 400 pound animals and it just kills me. I really love how we just sit there in class while the students are working and shoot the shit, and I must say I'm glad those kids don't understand a lot of slang because we are very offensive, lol.

I got back and took another nap, which was a bad thing, but I have all weekend to readjust. I spoke to the ever loveable Heidy for a while, then had dinner. I don't have much to do this weekend, just some cleaning and foodshopping and hopefully baking if my package from the 'rentals get here tomorrow!

I'm thinking of going to amsterdam over the break

I was very productive the last two days, meaning I have left myself with lots of time and little to do. 大変ですね〜！woohoo! now that I have been playing with the language options on my computer I have been having lots of fun typing in japanese.

私の名前はファヴォリトエリザベット。22歳です。日本語を勉強したいですよ。フランスは楽してでも私のルーモメートが大嫌いです。ちょっと大変です。

hahha I'm such a tool. at least I have been kind and have not been typing in frenglish, though it is a bit difficult sometimes.

Speaking of, I think my french has gotten worse, lol. It's not like I ever use it. I probably spoke more french in my last year at Union than I have here.

Last night I watched Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed and it was incredibe.

that is all.

so annoyed

I don't wanna do woooooooooork

I have a crapload of things to do and no desire to do any of them. I am just annoyed because I hurt my jaw somehow but it's all the way back near my molars and i keep thinking I have cavities but its just the muscle getting mad at me.

I went to bed super early last night, then took a nap today so obviously i am not tired at all even though I can't afford to stay up late tonight and sleep in tomorrow, since Olly is coming to visit and I should probably clean my room. Or at least pick up the dirty clothes, lol.

School yesterday was cute. I got to my first class and there were only four people there--three were my students for the day, the other wasn't. A bunch of kids were absent for this student exchange thing, and everyone else skipped because their teacher was absent. The fourth student just said she had nowhere else to go, lol. I told them they could stay if they wanted and we could talk about whatever, or they could leave. Obviously they wanted to leave. I covered my eyes and said "I don't see anything!!" But when I opened them they were still there, so I laughed and told them that meant they should disappear, so I covered my eyes again and said "I never saw anyone show up for class, they all were excused" and they finally got the point and peaced out. silly french kids.

My other little kids are prepping for the Cambridge proficiency exam, which is a load of crap. It's more confusing than the SATs, and at least one of the answers was completely wrong. They did much better than we were expecting, though, so I'm not too worried. They thing they have to most worry about it choking up the day of the exam.

A little over one week till my birthday. If I don't get any birthday cards in the mail I am never speaking to any of you ever again.

poop

my wireless internet in the flat stopped working 2 nights ago and has not fixed itself like it usually does, which puts me in a panic since it is incredibly hard to make lessons about sports like cricket when I, oh wait, know nothing about them.

according to the mac website if you buy applecare the same time you buy your laptop it is automatically registered, which I guess is a lie because the guy at machelpfrance said I was going to have to pay but after I cried for a little bit he said this one time he would help. He was in the middleof telling me that it wasn't a problem with my laptop but with orange but he could fix it when I got disconnected and the phone also stopped working. So now I am in a bit of a jam and will have to stay later than usual to get me work done just in case things don't get fixed today.

in other news I am very sad and upset with my country. OBAMA ALL THE WAY.

it was very hard not to type this entry in frenglish. anyways, off to class!!

let me bring you up to date

Okidoki here is what we haven't covered:

Venice: was freakin expensive man!! I got there at 9 pm and it was just surreal. I paid an arm and a leg for the vaporetto and when I got off at my stop there was nothing there. Just creapy dark little windy streets. Where people, ya know, don't like speak english or anything. My instructions told me to follow the signs for piazza grassi, but in typical italian fashion there were no signs. I stopped like 5 people until I finally found it. it had NO SIGN, just a little lantern with "albergo san samuele" printed on it. WTF MATE. I ate the worst most overpriced lasagna ever, then went to bed.

The next day I walked to San Marco were people were letting pigeons sit on them and probably all dropped dead a few hours later of some horrid disease. San Marco was amazing, then I walked around for a while, took a nap, then crossed the canal to check out the Accademia, which was obviously closed and underconstruction, so I did some more wandering--all with a map, of course. I had no desire to die.

The next day I lazed around a bit, then headed for the Escuela San Rocco. Then I lost my map. EEK. I weasled my way into the giftshop for free and bought some San Rocco stuff, then checked out another church. I then tried to find my way to the train station to pick up my train tickets and only missed it by a couple hundred yards, WOOT. I am a navigational genius. I then took 2 hours or so to walk back to my hotel from the train station. Then the receptionist was creepy and trying to hit on me so I ran. And by ran I mean I locked myself in my room that he had a spare key to and barricaded the door, HA. TAKE THAT.

At this point I was out of money and tired of traveling, so I ended up canceling my hotel in Milan, and I'm glad I did because I HATED milan. it was ugly. It took me half an hour to figure out where to store my luggage. I bought a map and was trying to orient myself when some girl came asking for directions. I let her look at my map and then she invited me to spend the afternoon with her and her cousins. We went to see if there were any tickets for the last supper (obviously there weren't), then checked out the Duomo, which would have been amazing if it weren't covered in billboard advertisements. I split with them and grabbed some lunch, then walked back to the station and almost missed my train, lol.

Overnight trains are not fun and I am never going on one ever again.

This past week has been busy. I'm too cheap to go to the doctor so I've just been trying to stay off my feet as much as possible. I had some trouble in one of my classes that ended with one student getting suspended and three getting 4 hour detentions, so they all want to, you know, kill me. I tell everyone I'm afraid of getting shived on the playground. Anyways the Dean was supposed to change my classroom and do all this stuff and he never did and things got all confusing so we didn't have class on tuesday. The rest of my week was fine. My thursday afternoon classes were cancelled so I spent an hour sitting with one of my students, Zarema, who is a political refugee from Russia.

Yesterday I finished cleaning my room, and today I am scrubbing our disgusting grease coated kitchen from top to bottom. its a bitch on my skin and nails, but I think well worth the effort.

The rest of the weekend will be spent cleaning and lesson planning and enjoying having the place all to myself.

in the meantime you all need to go to my house and play with the puppy for me.

I got into BU today!!!

vienna

Vienna started out on a shakey foot. Got here, slept, then ate. I thought my roommates were nice, but then they talked all night long, and again starting at 7 in the morning.

Tiia and I saw St Peters, which was incredible, and Mozarts House, which was okay. Then we made fools of ourselves wearing crowns at burger king, and walked around for a few hours before returning.

I was trying to nap when the roommates came back and refused to be quiet because "its 4 so I think we'll do what we want." I immediately went to reception and changed my room. After a bit Tiia and I went to eat, and then went ice skating!

It was so incredible. The town hall was all lit up, and they had two rinks with a bunch of paths connecting them, and music going. There were a bunch of venders and stuff, and it was just so magical. We skated for about an hour or so, then came back and got gelatto then off to bed.

Today we headed off to the Austrian Zoo which much to my shock and utter delights has THREE GIANT PANDAS. Now if anyone barely knows me they know I love giant pandas and have never seen one and have been dying to. And now I got to see THREE. We had to stand in line for almost half an hour, and the two adults were sleeping and the baby was in the lair, but for the first few minutes or so he was in the doorway and you could see him. You were only allowed to be in there for 10 minutes before they kicked you at, but as we left the male went to the outside area, so I got to stand there and stare forever and take lots of pictures and video and try not to cry.

Then it was back for another nap, and I just made myself some dinner and am trying to figure out how my bank works because a lot of money disappeared in the last few days, so I am a bit concerned/broke. And I still have 5 1/2 days left.

And now on to MUNICH.

I arrived in Munich around dinner time, so I dropped my stuff off and had dinner at an Italian restaurant on the corner. I used the internet, and when I got back to the room there were two guys there, Adam and Chris. They were tons of fun, and we spend the night talking and making fun of each other (chris is from the south) and they recommended a bunch of stuff to do.

On the 12th I woke up and headed down to breakfast where I befriended two Aussies, Heather and Nikky. I invited them to go on a walking tour with me, but we left late and had no idea where we were going, lol. We heard the Glockenspiel go off so went running to check it all out, and managed to bump into the walking tour we had been looking for!! The tour was a lot of fun, then we went back to Haufbrauhaus (the most famous beer hall in the world) and waited half an hour for service before heading across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe, lol. We checked out a few stores, then it was back to the hostel where I took a nap.

Nikky knocked on the door and invited me down to the bar with her. We started playing asshole with two brits named Rob and Tom, and then Darcy came over and was like "Wait are you guys playing asshole??" Then came Heather, and Matt and Luke, and Tiia and Matt, and eventually there was too many of us, so we played new drinking games. At 9 happy hour ended so just before we all bought like, 2-3 drinks each to save money.

Needless to say around 2:30 I stumbled to bed. I woke up, at breakfast, then went back to bed.

A bit of advice: Happy hour does not lead do happy mornings.

Anyways. Around 2 I purchased my train tickets then tried to take money out of the atm. No luck. Back at the hostel I called my bank and found out I have a withdrawl limit that I had hit, so I had to fight with the bank until they fixed it for me, but I could not touch my money until the next day. So I had to buy euros with dads credit card. EEK. I walked around Munich for a little bit but it was fuckin cold so I went back.

I bumped into Matt and Tiia so I joined them downstairs, then Darcy came over, then at the bar I met David and Lisa from Kentucky and started hanging out with them. Darcy joined us for some asshole, and around 11 we decided we wanted to go to a club.

about 40 minutes of wandering munich later we had no luck so we stopped in some turkish deli, then it was back to the hostel.

Where I discovered that Judd from Alberta, Canada had blown chunks all over the room. And by all over the room I mean on my bed, my scarf, and everything of mine that had been next to the bed. I pitched a fit but he was too drunk to wake up, so I made his girlfriend clean it up while I complained to the hostel. I had to throw away my scarf and rip pages out of my journal, and sleep in his top bunk because he was passed out in his girlfriends bed and even after they changed the mattress and everything I was not getting back in that bed.

I didn't really sleep, and the room reaked of vomit. In the morning when I confronted him about it he didn't really care, but I made him pay for a new scarf, a new journal, and for my room for the night. I worked myself into quite the fury and managed a nice outbreak of hives, but now I'm chill, lol.

I am currently in my hostel in Vienna, Tiia came with me but we couldn't get put in the same room. It took us half an hour to find a hostel two blocks from the station, haha, but I just had the best nap ever and am off for dinner.

brussels

So here is my report from Brussels.

I arrived yesterday no problem, though I have discovered that reservation fees are much higher than the eurail website said they would be.

The hostel I am staying in is quite nice, very clean. I was the last one in the room so I got stuck on the top bunk, goddamit. I dumped my stuff and took off.

Brussels is a good walking city. It's quite fugly though, lol. I walked down and saw the stock exchange building, then popped into the church of St. Nicholas. Outside of the church some guy was singin La Bamba and it was fantastic and gave him some change...and he just kept singing La Bamba. Over. and Over. I think it was the only song he knew, lol.

I walked some more and went into some lace shops, then to the Musee de la Ville. There really wasn't much there until you hit the second floor, where they house all the costumes for manniken-pis (the famous statue of the little boy peeing). The costumes were fucking awesome, man.

I wandered some more and went and saw the manniken-pis in a cute little tuscan costume, then tried to find the Costume and Lace museum. On the way I found english bookstore, and obviously spent money I don't have on things I don't need (duh). Unfortunately the museum was closed to set up for a new exhibit.

I strolled through Brussels, then returned to the hostel and took a nap. After my nap I got an overpriced personal pizza at pizza hut, then hung out downstairs and read magazines and drank crappy Belgian beer. I went to bed around 10:30, expecting the rest of the room to be out partying. NOPE. I was the last one in the room, lol.

Today I woke up and got off to a bit of a late start (that happens when you have 5 girls trying to use one shower/sink/mirror). I had a walking breakfast then tried to go to the Tourism office to buy a museum pass, but the SOB was closed. Thankfully there was another one around the corner.

My first stop was Autoworld, a super awesome car museum (probably better than the one in Monaco). The coolest thing there was probably the early model camping car--it had a little porch on the back, and is really no bigger than a minivan. Obvi I took pictures of it.

Then I tried to go back to the Costume and Lace museum, but it was still closed. So I pulled out my map and managed to find my way to the Comic Book Museum, a gorgeous building in the sketchiest neighborhood. It was superclass!! They had a huge exhibit on TinTin, and though it was tiny their exhibit on the Smurfs was beyond hilarious. I stopped and got a coffee in the cafe, then took off for the toy museum.

The toy museum is an old townhouse filled with 14,000 toys dating back from the mid 1800's. it was fucking AWESOME. The rooms were somewhat organized, but you'd find random teddy bears sitting in the middle of the train tracks and things like that. They were even selling some old toys that I totally wanted to buy--but I didn't have enough money.

This is where the day turned sour for a bit. I went off to find an atm, and on the wall I fell and twisted my ankle rather badly. Then the atm building was closed so I said fuck it, I'll go back. But I couldn't find the metro. SO I walked about 10 minutes (without finding a single open pharmacy to get something to wrap my ankle in) then went to the train station to book my trains for tomorrow. The booking part was easy, but then I tried to buy a phone card to call Mom but they only had the dumb payphone cards, and then they wouldn't take my bank card so I spent my last 5 euro on a 2 minute long phone conversation with mom. Then it took me about 20 minutes to find an atm.

I got back to the hostel and lay down for a bit, then experimented. My phone DOES work (Since I managed to talk to Heidy), it just won't connect to the states. I chatted a bit with my new roommate, then had more crap food at Pizza Hut, then bought a delicious personal sized haagen dazs and now I am quite cheery and off to read for abit then drug myself to bed (hahahah).

Tomorrow I spend all day traveling to Munich, talk to you in a few days my friends.

don't worry am safe here in brussels, though I must say the city is quite ugly. have a killer headache so I am going to lay down a bit, then take a look at my budget and go out to eat. am regretting that I did not bring my anxiety pills with me, oops? this keyboard is weird for some reason, its a standard qwerty keyboard and the setting is on english but none of the punctuation is in the right place. I think because it's set on british english and those brits can't do anything right. must phone home now.

this quick post is dedicated to gnana simon who finally answered her fucking phone today, and informed me that she had problems making comments on this blog because she is stupid, and by stupid I mean because for some reason the blogs language was set in french and for those who do not speak french it was a tad bit confusing.

hearts to yoouuu


I go to bed now and in the morning leave for my kibitz. ciao.

now in technicolor

today was fun.

I putzed around the appartment for quite a bit, then headed off to school. The bus ended up being 10 minutes late, so I did not get to school until after the bell. By the time I made it to my hallway, the second bell had already rung. There are the end of the hallway were all my little secondes. They saw me rushing down the hallway and all started clapping and cheering. I love those kids!!

Before we started our tongue twisters they wanted to know what the prizes were. When I showed them 2 american dollars they were all so excited. silly french kids!! It was a very good class, overall.

Then Christophe side-lined me by inviting Bayram to class and not telling me, the asshole. I felt kind of bad for the students, since Bayram is a very strict teacher and Christophe was in his dominant male mode. This meant that the comments were a little meaner and the grades a little lower, though I did my best to keep morale up. I really wish I had been grading because I wasn't really able to make any comments, and poor Melissa who at the beginning of the year couldn't do a roleplay without having a panic attack first made it through without stuttering once, and even managed to start right away. I was so proud!! I made sure to comment on it.

I did make a point of it, however, to get back to class early to warn the students of what was to come. They all seemed thankful. Then I had my usual thursday hour with Jordan, the american student at the lycee. We like making fun of the french and their inability to speak english, lol.

I am almost ready for my vacation!!!!! Tomorrow I need to go into the center and sniff out the store that is supposedly selling flipflops (I need shower shoes) then I just need to pack.

Tonight I watched Alvin and the Chipmunks and it was beyond incredible. I had so many (horrific) childhood flashbacks, and it reminds me that I need to steal that record from Nonna.....

P.S.

WHERE'S MY F-'IN MAIL????????

Elizabeth Favorito
logement des fonctions
Ecole Jean Moulin
Rue Jean Moulin
45200 Montargis
FRANCE

DO IT. RIGHT NOW.

I didn't sleep last night for some reason. I would like to blame it on election stress, though I am honestly not quite sure as to the exact cause.

My drama at school is pretty much done with. yaaaay!! I am still a little nervous about some things, and avoiding social time with claire like she is the plague, but other than that I really don't give a fuck. wo0t. thankfully Christophe has enough of his own drama to deal with to even think about sticking his nose in mine (though I don't think he would).

Yesterday was a looooong stressful day and was rainy like fuck. If the weather is like that on my vacation I will murder someone. Today I am going to start organizing my paperwork and such so that all the info I need on trains and hostels are all in one central place where they will not be lost.

I still haven't decided what to do about my laptop. The crucial problem here is that no laptop = no way to charge my ipod. But I just really don't feel good about bringing it with me. I think I am going to charge my ipod just before I leave and use it during emergencies only (aka 7 hour train rides).

I am a bit pissed because the bill bryson book I bought that I thought I hadnt read I have indeed read; just the fuckin brits changed the title when they published it. they do that alot, I really hate it. they're just trying to steal all of my (dad's) money when they do that!! luckily I have a few big books left that I can bring with me, and most big bookstores have an english section.

lala what else? I am waiting for the bus, then I am going home, having a sandwich and taking a nap. Maybe I will watch another episode of west wing. It is a good thing I am leaving for vacation because I am running out of television shows. I think all i have left is two seasons of west wing and one season of greys anatomy which I kind of dont want to watch because it's so whiny.

Ew it's starting to get windy. why is it the weather never stays the same throughout the day?? it was so beautiful this morning so I didn't wear too many layers but now it's going to be cold while I beat off vicious high school kids so that I can get a seat on the bus.

The wednesday afternoon bus is insane. You wait around for it to arrive, and the second it does the crowd surges forward and knocks you off your feet. It's worse than a bunch of fan girls at a justin timberlake concert (or so I imagine). it's VIOLENT. The bus driver always looks horrified, and even on the days when they send two buses it's a stampede. the problem is, if you miss this bus there is not another one for an hour, but the school day ends at 12.30 so you are basically stuck doing nothing for an hour until another bus shows up.

I'm going to go cry over the fact that my state betrayed me and voted for clinton.

the last few days have been a lot of fun, despite all of the drama currently going on in my life.

Yesterday I wasn't planning on doing much, but I made a quick run into town to check on my bank account and hit up the end of the month-long sales. I was walking down the main street of town and bumped into the chinese new years celebration that apparently three of my students were performing in. I bumped into a few others on the street. I ran home and called Tinette (the german assistant)

We met up and watched the spectacle the students put on and I bought a pretty rice paper umbrella to decorate my room with. We then went out for some coffee and discussed all my current woes. Tinette is being awesome and lending me her sleeping bag because....drumroll please

Over my break I am going to Brussels, Munich, Vienna, Venise, and Milan. I am SUPER excited even though housing for 4 nights between Venise and Milan is costing me the same as housing for 8 nights in Brussels, Munich, and Vienna. Fuckin' Italians.

I am going by myself, and most of the times I will be staying in dorms. eek! Never done either of them before, but it should be a lot of fun. Especially since I finally got my camera working properly since when I lent it to Dad he changed a bunch of the settings and I could no longer get my flash to work *shakes fist* BUT he did buy my eurail pass so I will keep my lips (mostly) sealed.

Today I actually got dressed!!! Thats a big thing for a sunday, let me tell you. I even played with my hair and tried to make it look nice. If todays hair works out, I think I will have finally given this hair cut the thumbs up (1+month later). Today I am heading to Tinettes for coffee then we are going to the movies at the brand new movie theatre!! OOOOO. It actually looks like a movie theatre, instead of the last one which was really just a house/appartment building that was renovated and turned into a tiny little 4 screen theatre.

Anywho. I am going to go play with my hair some more. ciao.

I'm baaaaaaaaack

ok so I haven't really been writing in this thing for a while, but things have been super busy of late.

My classes are going well, and they will be better by the end of this week, muhwahaha. what I mean by this is that the bain of my existance, aka TSTG1, will soon be off my schedule foreveeerrrrrrr. Which is a shame really because they were really good these past few weeks, but on tuesday one of the dumb shits made some crude and very impolite gestures in class and I refuse to have anything to do with them anymore.

I still haven't met one of my classes, but I don't need to ever prepare anything for them so that is fine with me.

In other news vacation starts up in a little over a week. I've been trying to figure out what to do, but I think I'm going to do it true backpacker style and just go wherever the wind blows me--as much as my little OCD self can manage. I'm going to book a train and hotel in brussels, then when I arrive in the train station I'll book my next ticket, use the internet at the hotel to get a room, then keep on with this basically until I run out of money. It will be blissful solitude, which we all know I enjoy greatly.

I can't believe its almost feb. vacation. after that its 6 weeks of classes, then I'm basically done. Damn time flies when you ain't doin' much, lol. Though I'm still trying to figure out where the crap all my money goes. Not into buying me pretty things, I can tell you that.

I have officially applied to grad school. Come back in 4-6 weeks to see if I was officially rejected. wo0t

the last few weeks have been crazy, commuting a lot between montargis and paris and organizing and just trying to reorganize my life. aka get back on track, get into the right mindset, etc. my room is a wreck, which is really the first thing I need to get under control. I need to go foodshopping and buy real food so that I can start eating proper meals again. then I have to deal with more government crap. I finally got my carte de sejour, but the french bastards spelt my name wrong.

I also went through some recent veronique drama. she had asked me to chaperone a trip to hungary, but a little over a week ago she told me it was just going to be me and three students, not a big trip like I had been expecting. everyone I talked to said it was a bad idea, so I told her I just couldn't do it anymore. of course she made a big huff and puff about it, but theres no way I'm putting that sort of responsibility on my shoulders. there are not enough anti-anxiety pills in the world to make that work out for me.

ireland on the other hand is going to be a lot of work, but a lot of fun I think. all my students seem super excited that I'm going, so I really don't think we'll have too many problems. and I won't be the only adult there, which was my main problem with hungary. and at least the irish claim to speak english, lol. poor french kids are in for a suprise.

in the meanwhile I need to work on soundproofing the walls in this damn flat. am tired of hearing about every aspect of everyones lives through their telephone calls

I know I have a loud voice, but this is ridiculous!

I have an ache in my belly and its name is you

so here I am back in france. YAWN and I'm so freaking tired. jet lag sucks, but it sucks even more when you have no time to recover from it! I obviously did not sleep at all on the plane, so I stumbled my way through paris and managed to catch a taxi from the train station in montargis. my taxi driver totally wants me. as a tutor, that is. HA he says he's a good cook so maybe I will take him up on the offer.

This is what my life since then has looked like.

Tuesday
3-6 sleep
6-11 eat, unpack, think about sleeping
11-4am sleep
4-7 eat roommates food, read
7-1.30 pm sleep
1.30-3 unpack
3-6.30 sleep
6.30-11 unpack, go foodshopping, eat, take sleeping pill

and then I woke up at 4 am and have been awake ever since. I tried to sleep on the couch but all I got out of that was a back ache. In other news my schedule is way better now since Claire changed one of my classes, whooooo.

shit man my back hurts owowowowow. ps I might go to hungary