mademoiselle ming

Highlights of the last three weeks (in no particular order):

- Hockey sur glace : I went with a couple of assistants to see the Angers Ducs play against some other team in France for the "demi-finale". Thankfully I had already seen a French ice hockey game in Grenoble, so I knew not to get my hopes up for any climactic fist-fights or any spectacular enthusiasm from the "pom-pom girls". Though they ultimately lost, it was still a fun time.


- Cointreau tour : Cointreau is a liquor that (they say) is popular world-wide (never heard of it), and is made right here in Angers! It's made from two types of orange rinds and beet alcohol, and is primarily used in margaritas and other cocktails. The tour was informative, interesting, and the tasting session of a shot and two cocktails served as our happy hour that day.





- Learning to drive : My boyfriend offered to teach me how to drive his manual stick-shift car so I took him up on it one morning. Not until I got into the drivers seat did I realize that I didn't know ANY of the vocabulary related to automatic cars in English, much less in French, so it quickly evolved into me irrationally freaking out and screaming at him in English while the car was snailing alone in the abandoned parking lot. He was a good sport about the whole ordeal and he eventually calmed me down enough to make it all the way up to third gear.

- Battle of the bands : A couple weekends back, we went to a nearby campus to watch bands battle for a spot in an upcoming concert. On the roster included what appeared to be a band inspired completely by Green Day (eye liner and strange facial expressions included), a fur-coat-clad band (they eventually stripped down to silk lacy tank tops for "un moment de poésie féministe"), and finished with a French hand-banging scream-o band (not my fave).



- Prolonged contract: Despite what some of my profs believed, I succeeded in prolonging my contract! I was planning on staying in Angers for the month of May anyways since I had to pay rent for my apartment (and wait for my mom and our friends to arrive in this part of the world to travel to Turkey!) and I'm so glad to hear that I'll actually have something to occupy my time with, even though it's only 11 hours a week.

- Spring!: The weekend before last it was BEAUTIFUL weather. My friend and I went to the market and the boulangerie and then plopped ourselves down to enjoy a nice little picnic next to La Maine for a casual 2.5 hours (I even got a little sunburn on my nose). Although the good weather didn't really stick, I'm hopeful that it might come back soon.



ming.

After that, Diana and I took the Scotrail up to Fife, home of St. Andrew's university and our fantastic hosts. Since our host had class the first day we were there, he left us to discover Fife by ourselves, but not before letting Diana barrow his orangey/red St. Andrew's academic cloak thing, which he assured us was a normal thing to wear, and which, more importantly, would get us into the ancient cathedral for free. Although not completely true, I think Diana still enjoyed wearing it.










After our afternoon beach-side adventure, we went out with our hosts (sans cloak) to discover Fife nightlife, then left the next afternoon. Overall, it was a beautiful place filled with fun people. After that, Diana and I returned to Edinburgh only to spend six hours in a local Starbucks, then east some delicious (even if the entire staff was super awkward) vegetarian Indian food, grab a quick drink, then spend the night in the airport.

After that was a quick trip to Geneva to see my cousin, which will be continued in a later post!!

ming.

As I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to spell the word in the title (praise you, autocorrect) I realized the corrected spelling looked to me to be pronounced more like "heyyyy-shus" than "hi-a-tus" with a hard T, which just confirms my fears that my English is getting worse while my French has plateaued. It's a cruel world.

Anywho, the reason for said title is because of a blogging hiatus that I am currently in the midst of. Literally the day after I posted my last blog entry, my computer went to sleep and never woke up. After seeing two of Angers computer specialists (the term "specialists" being used very VERY loosely) it has been determined that it is, in fact, is unresuscitable ("Say bye-bye" was how one of these guys explained it to me as I fought back tears and the urge to punch him).

So, because of this, and tomorrow's adventure to Scotland followed by a trip to Geneva, there will be a short break in entries for this blog. But despite my lack of Internet presence, I will still be alive (hopefully). 

Also, please don't judge me for spelling/word mistakes, this is actually being written on the two inch sceeen of my iPhone.

Ming.

For the last...ummmm....since I've arrived in France... I've been dreading getting my hair cut. My hair is one of my top three favorite parts of my body (moreso 'extension' than 'part', but alas...) and a decently large part of my confidence and who I am. So as my four month mark in France began to roll around, I realized I really really needed to do something about my scraggly locks. For the last three weeks about, I have been talking to anyone and everyone about how I need a haircut, how I'm scared to get a haircut, how I'm stressed about it, and just general things involving hair that no human should ever talk to another human about at length more than one time. I told a friend for probably the 6th time since we met a mere 2 weeks ago that I was nervous about my upcoming haircut, to which he replied "Oui, je vois" which, coincidentally was also the point at which I realized I have no social skills.  

A "Before" selfie for your viewing pleasure; also an example of lack of social skills

ANYWAYS, my friend said her friend knew of a really cheap beauty school which is pretty good, and I felt that this woman was a pretty trustworthy source because she's a real adult with a family and a house and makes a pretty delicious meatloaf-type food with nuts and oats in it (and it's still pretty good even with those things included). So I made an appointment, made sure to tell everyone I knew that I had made said appointment, and quickly ran over some vocab with my flatmate so as to avoid looking like an idiot. 

ALRIGHT GUYS, I'm just going to go ahead and spare you my usual "Holy CANOLI, I haven't updated this blog in WEEKS! Life's crazy, so many baguettes to eat, SO LITTLE TIME LOL" schpiel and pretend that I haven't only written once since Christmas. So, moving on, ZBZ.

The past two weeks of classes have been so-so. I'm beginning to feel easily frusterated by lackluster and chatty/rude students and miscommunication with professors alike, but I'm trying to keep a good spirit. There are wonderful moments, however, when students surprise me with a certain drive or desire to learn which makes up for those who could care less. For example, I have had at least two students who have been deemed "unworthy" of spending class time with me by their professor because of a low level or bad behavior, but who have specifically asked their professor to be allowed back into my class, which is nice. In other news, this week is practice exams for my Terminale students (equivalent to American senior's in their last year of high school), which means at least three of my classes are canceled. Impeccable. 

 In other other news, I have had the chance to see snow in Angers not only once but TWICE, and although it didn't stick around long and turned to mush almost instantaneously, I was pretty stoked to see it if even for a short while.

So happy themed parties are still a thing post-grad

La neige!

After a very wonderulf 2.5 weeks in Chicago, I am back (home) in Angers! (Sorry, Dad) Being that most of the people who read this little cyber hot mess of a journal (I'm guessing) are my family strewn throughout the US, I don't see much of a point of recounting what I did, since I was lucky enough to have you all experience it with me. 

I will, however, take this time while I have you all here to express how grateful I am that I got to spend time with you all, and how incredibly fortunate I am to have had the opportunity to see you. I love you all so very much and I literally would not be able to be doing what I'm doing in France without all of your support. You all are incredible, amusing, inspirational, and loving beyond words and I hope you are reminded of that every single day. 

Anywho, not much has happened since I arrived back in France besides a bit of jetlag (and a jetlag-fueled decision to re-arrange my room; promptly cut short by a near-death experience moving a 12-foot armoire all alone), some good classes (some not-so-good classes), a brief potential run-in with the flu epidemic sweeping western France (verdict's still not out on that one...), some nice long walks with friends (some old, some new; see below), and a cutesy wedding-themed party hosted by another assistant who  unfortunately had to miss her friend's wedding back in the States.

Tried way too hard to coax this lil' bugger off this wall.

Christmas season is here! 

Things that are similar in France as in Chicago:
       - The Christmas Market: One in each little French town, little huts much akin to those at Christkindlmarket. However, the things being sold in these markets are MUCH different. Although they do have the standard churros/crepes/waffles/sugary delights, they also have various devices which can only be described as "As seen on TV!" merchandise (read: microwavable pillows, flower stamps for manicures), which I find a little strange to be in a Christmas market....
       - Christmas music: There is a store that I have to ride my bike past everyday to and from my school that, I kid you not, transformed OVERNIGHT from a normal women's clothing store to a crazy everything Santa-themed store that blasts Christmas music. A little part of me gets homesick when the classic "I'll be Home for Christmas" blares at me on my way home from dealing with demon high school students all day.
       - Advent calendar: These little suckers popped up a little too early in the Christmas season for my liking (around the first week of November), but CLEARLY I had to purchase one for myself and my two good friends, Diana and Emily. They truly are exactly the same here as they are in the states -- same weird Christmas scene on the front, same Christmas-themed chocolate shapes, and same shitty waxy chocolate....JUST as I remembered! Diana and I have both lamented about how let down we were about the awful quality of chocolate. I guess I shouldn't have expected much from something that cost 1 euro though.....

10 days into this mess and not so secretly hating every minute of it

Things that are different in France:
        - No lights: Besides the lights that the city installs, there are no Christmas lights on people's houses! I guess it's an American thing....
        - Christmas music: I know, I know, I had this under "similar", but it is also very different and here's why; they play it on speakers on the main streets, and sometimes they play raggae. I don't get it.

Anywho, I went to the opening ceremony of the Christmas market the weekend before last, and here is what I saw:

Whatever these things were supposed to be were literally terrified of my spikey phone case