An Epiphany that has nothing to do with France but rather food

Just a moment ago, I was writing about sushi because last night for dinner, I treated myself to some AMAZING avocado-ginger sushi from this really nice Japanese restaurant. And it was delightful. I was having a particularly wonderful day, in which I got to pet a cat and go to the fair (blog post to follow) so I got some sushi to make the day even better.

But that made me think about how sushi (and other nice things) are treats for when something is going well and also for when something is going the opposite of well, aka quite poorly. I think it's nice that rewards are not exclusively for good behavior, but also to help perk up a day. And it's nice that that perk can come in a little container that costs 4€50 and tastes like ... something really good.

Simple pleasures...

Pictures from my birthday!

A letter in which I express my frustration with my current financial situation:

Dear France,

I would very much like to get paid soon, if you don't mind. I hope all is well with you; the strikes seem to have calmed down, so that's nice, right? Anyhow, if you could deposit some money in my bank account at your earliest possible convenience, I would be forever grateful. It would be nice to have more than 10€ in there at some point in my life.

Yours truly,
KCorn



In other news, I have literally done NOTHING lately.  I am on vacation and need to do something.  So today, I took a shower (impressive, I know), put on some make-up, and I'm going to go into town and ... I don't know what.  Not spend any money, certainly, but otherwise, the sky's the limit.  I might plop down in a café somewhere and study some French because all of a sudden, I am at a loss when it comes to conjugating verbs in the present tense.  It's bad.   Anyways, wish me luck on this voyage from the apartment.  It's a scary world out there, kids, but someone's got to do it.

To sum it up:

I don't quite know where to begin, but I had an incredible birthday and everyone here in Rouen, and at home in Urbana, and in Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas (thanks for the fudge, Aunt Jean!), made my birthday absolutely lovely.  I rang in my birthday on Skype in a twenty-million person conference call.  Literally, my mom, brother, and gramma were all on one computer, Donnie and occasionally his mom, brother, and dad were on another, Gram (Donnie's grandma) hopped on her computer towards the end, and Amy all the way from Pennsylvania.  It was so wonderful, and we all talked for over an hour.  On the call, I opened a present from Amy and it was real real good.  There were some socks and some things that only Amy and I think are funny.  Which was nice.  Then I went to sleep and slept in until around 1, I think.  And I cleaned the apartment a bit, went with Fabi to the grocery store and the post office.  The post office was an adventure and this woman next to me in line told me that some of the people who were sending packages must have been socialists because only socialists send packages because they are government officials.  (?)  After waiting in line for half an hour or more, I picked up my package from mom (who is clearly a government official/socialist. duh.) and went back to the school where two more packages were waiting for me.

I skyped with various people (thanks for the iTunes gc, Hillary!) and Donnie gave me a concert (see previous post).  Then the roomies and several others went out for dinner at this really yummy Indian restaurant, Rebekah (my American roommate) and her friend treated me for dinner which was super super nice, and then we all went back to our apartment.  Lots of people came over, Lisa (the other assistant, not my mom's friend this time) made cookies, and I kind of made an instant cake.  All quite tasty.  Then we went out to a bar, I kind of fell asleep, and Rebekah and I left at 3 am.  The others went out dancing til 5:30.  Guess I'm getting old, because I just couldn't do it...  :)

Anyways, it was really a wonderful day and I was so happy to share that day with so many great people, both in person and far far away. 

And now I'm off to get cleaned up, run to the grocery store, and go to a dinner party thing this evening at one of my teacher's.  Until the next time!  (And don't forget to check out all the new photos I've uploaded in the posts below.)

Photo-a-Day: Oct 23

I really wish this screen shot had turned out better (I was rather distracted), and I hope Donnie will forgive me for bragging about him like this, but I truly have the best boyfriend in the world.  For my birthday, he played me a concert of amazing, romantic songs that have special meaning to us (the Beatles, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Alanis Morissette).  And he's learned to play them since I left for France.  I don't have words adequate to express how talented he is, and how lucky I am.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 22

This is one of the sweetest stories -- in class on Thursday morning (Oct 22, the day before my birthday), the teacher told everyone to sit down, but one girl kept standing.  The teacher said, Please sit down.  But she kept standing.  "Please, I 'ave somesing fohr Kinzie."  And she continued to tell me that the class pooled their money and put it together to buy me macaroons, and then they all sang (in English!).  It was so lovely -- they remembered from the week before, that it was my birthday the next day.  I am a lucky duck, and it was a wonderful beginning to a several day long birthday celebration.  I think teaching is for me.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 21

I treated myself to a dance concert at the opera house in Rouen.  It was a group called Europa Dance, a troupe comprised of 18-20 year olds, and they put on a show called Drôle de Danse.  It really reminded me of some of the November Dance concerts at U of I, in that the dancers were really creative with the props and their bodies and it was good.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 20

On this glorious, glorious day, Rebecca came to visit me!  She and I were in the same program at the U of I and she's doing an amazing, epic European tour right now.  We had a wonderful time catching up and walking around Rouen.  We even found Murphy's (which is apparently in Rouen and not on Green St.) and had to take a picture of it for our Urbana peeps.  Thanks again for visiting, Rebecca!  What a lovely visit it was.  Highlights include: cooking, polishing off a bottle of wine, doing candle, and drinking coffee in a café and watching the rain out the window.  How good.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 19

After a nutso day with the French administration (had to get naked-from-the-waist-up x-rays to make sure we didn't have TB -- and they have no pretense of modesty here), we invited several people over to have tea. Xiao Lu, front and center, had trouble with the caramel sauce she put on a biscuit.  And then, going around the table clockwise from Xiao Lu, we have Fabi (in the grey sweater), Celestina (another assistant in Rouen), and Elias (?) who hails from Chili.  It was a wonderful afternoon.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 18

What's that expression about airing out your dirty laundry?  Well, anyways, whatever it is -- that's what I'm doing.  Except it's not dirty; it's clean!  I have finally managed to figure out a) where the laundromat is; b) how to use the machines there; and c) how to get my laundry to and from the laundromat.  [Answers: a) about a five minute walk away; b) put your life savings into the machines -- seriously, it's 4 euros, or about 5 dollars per one TINY load, and then one euro for each 10 minutes of drying and press some fancy buttons and VOILA; c) HUGE suitcase on wheels.  Yep, I used my massive traveling suitcase full of clothes in both directions.  I felt a little silly but at least I didn't have to drag my entire load of wet clothes home over my shoulder...]

And then I hung up my clothes on our very fancy drying rack, and two days later they were dry.  Hooray!

Photo-a-Day: Oct 17

I went to the Fête du Ventres (Festival of the Stomachs, literally) with Myrna and Fabi.  There were samples of food everywhere, and you could buy ALL of the regional specialties at this festival.  I came away from the Fête with a bag of apples from a nearby farm, some little gifts for family and friends, and some caramels which, I admit I planned to give to peeps back home but... they're gone already.  Oops.

Anyways, the highlight of the day (for me) was this band that played for at least an hour, despite the fact that it was cold and rainy and I saw them all trying to warm their hands between songs.  They were all dressed in costumes like these and it was quite glorious.  I'm going to upload a video of them playing-- they were quite phenomenal.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 16

One day, Fabi, Rebekah, and I really wanted pizza.  So we got pizza.  But of course the French can't do a simple mozzarella pizza-- our four cheese pizza had mozzarella, goat cheese, a cheese with some green flecks in it (?) and some other kind too.  It was super.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 15

For anyone who doesn't know, this is the lovely Lena.  I'm visiting her in Bonn in early November and I'm super excited.  This was during a Skype date in which we discussed my arrival plans.  Woohoo!

Photo-a-Day: Oct 14

Xiao lu, my roommate from China, attacked me with a camera when we returned from ... something, and then buying bread.  This picture is in the courtyard/basketball court area of my school, and the leaves are pretty like this everywhere.  Kind of.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 13

On this particularly gorgeous day, I witnessed this incredible sunset from my bedroom window in the apartment.  And these Irises are just outside of my apartment.  Makes me think of Gramma ever time I see them.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 12

Look!  I have friends!  We spent an epic afternoon/evening attempting to open this bottle of crème caramel (I think) which was wax sealed.  I mean, we did other things too, but oy vey.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 11

Once again, on a Sunday afternoon, I treated myself to un café and sipped it while journaling and looking at the sunflower I bought myself at the market.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 10

I stepped out of my apartment and this is what I saw.  Incredible.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 9

Look how cute (some of) my family is.  Lizzie, the newest addition, likes to climb up on laps when I'm talking to my mom.  So, there she is, being adorable.  Also, look at what a stud my brother is! 

Photo-a-Day: Oct 8

Oops, this picture was actually October 8.  Anyways, these old men are always out playing Bocci ball.  Or Boule?  I don't really know the difference.  They're really cute.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 7

You might need to click on this one to see it in better detail, but one of the churches near me (or maybe this is the cathedral, I can never remember) had TONS (tonz) of birds flying around.  Donnie said, when I showed him the picture, that it looked like the church was breaking into pieces and flying away.  Pretty cool, huh?

Photo-a-Day: Oct 6

The day we got internet (but we hadn't gotten it working yet), I was desperate to use my own computer with the internet so I could post some pictures.  So, Fabi and I went to this really cute internet cafe called Café Cheri and I got an apple-grapefruit (I know, it was as good as it sounds) smoothie, and Fabi got us a "house cake," which turned out to be brownie, fresh from the oven.  YUM!

Photo-a-Day: Oct 5

I went on a really hardcore Pilates kick.  Guess that kind of stopped.  But I'm going to hop back on over break, because I saw a dance show last night and the dancers had hot bods.  I want a hot bod too.  But anyways, here's my little set up, with my rug and a towel on it in lieu of my yoga mat which took up too much space to justify packing...

Majorly needed update

Hello dear friends,

I am sorry for the serious lack of posting recently-- I have begun teaching, the administrative process has struck again, and Orange (more in a moment) has bitten us in the butts.  Oh, and I have a raving social life... jk.

So first, teaching: I feel a little bit like things are happening very fast and I don't know much about what is going on.  It's not like anyone is explaining things complicated-ly; it's more like no one explains anything at all.  For example, our vacations are written Oct 23-Nov 5.  Apparently, this means you come back to class on Nov 5, not that your last day of vacation is on Nov 5 and you resume on the 6th.  But I've only heard this through my roommates, and not through anything official, but now I've looked it up, and it's true.  WTF.  So now I'll be missing a day due to the fact that I wasn't told about how the schedule worked (I'll be in Germany still).  But what can you do?  Otherwise, though, I love teaching.  I feel a little awkward in class, because I just kind of do what the teacher wants me to, at this point, but soon I will be taking some kids to work in another room, etc.  I'm looking forward to developing my own lesson plans. 

Cute stories that have happened so far:
-They usually ask if I have a boyfriend, and when I say yes, they all (literally, ALL) go "ooooohhhhhhhhh!"
-One girl, when I showed a picture of my senior prom group, said "Oh, elle est en bonne forme!"  The teacher said, "In English, please!"  And the girl goes, "Euh... she 'as .... euh, a good figure!"  And I blushed a lot.
-I spent about 30 minutes describing my life to a class, complete with pictures.  I told them that we have a lot of corn, showed pictures of The Bean in Chicago; I described Meijer's sheer size to them, I showed pictures of my 96 year old great grandmother... I asked one boy, "What is one thing that you learned today, or one thing that was interesting to you?"  He replied, "I learned nothing."  :)
-Today, in class, I was sitting at a table with one of the students who is very good at English.  The kids were giving presentations on famous quotations, and this kid (who seems very... nice and polite) was mumbling under his breath, in English, about the faults of each person.  But not their faults in English, no.  Their faults as a person -- like, "Oh, 'e nehver prepares, I don't uhgree wiz 'iz assessmunt."  I had to work hard not to laugh (or agree!) because I think he's a little funny.

Anyways, enough of that.  I need to do a lesson plan for some classes for tomorrow, so I should go, but basically my life has otherwise consisted of dealing with Orange, the phone company that we were required (by our school) to take out an internet contract from.  They have screwed us over royally, charging us up the wazoo for things they said they would not charge, billing us earlier than they said they would, and (get this) giving us a different, and more expensive plan, than we signed up for.  I am so upset by this, and we have been fighting it to no end.  They have conceded to reimburse us 60 euros, which is something, but... not much compared to how much they're demanding of us.  OUCH.

And finally, I have been trying to plan a birthday for me and my roomie Xiao Lu.  Her birthday is tomorrow (!) and mine is on Friday (!) so we're having a joint b-day party on Friday night with some assistants.  It should be fun, I'm thinking.  I'm going to try to make a cake; we'll see how it goes, with the few cooking utensils I have here, and the modified ingredients I have to use. 

OK, off to plan a lesson on American high school stereotypes (goth, nerd, jock, band geek, prep, artsy kid, etc.).  And then get some other lessons ready because WHO KNOWS what I'm going to do in my other classes.  On verra...

photo-a-days

Ok, not quite there, but I'm getting caught up.  Enjoy these few for now and expect another update with some more pictures in the next day or so (or maybe even tonight!).