not in much of a mood for long update, so...

here's some bulletpointed stuff that happened to me mainly today.

I went shopping at champs elysees. I walked into LV and felt really really really out of place lolol... but it was so gold and shiny and rich looking. And I was afraid to touch any of the clothes...

at nike, I really wanted to get a pair of regular white+1 colour accented nike courts or low dunks, but when i asked if they had them in size 38 the guy was like... your feet are too small. you should go upstairs ): so i did... and then i saw these babies



I have no idea when I'm going to wear them, but they look shiny as hell and I love them already :)

At sephora the guy asked me if I lived in Paris. I said yes without thinking since I do technically live here right now and he gave me a form to fill out for the loyalty card. Thank god I know the name of Blanche's road LOL.... but now I have a sephora loyalty card that I probably won't be able to use again TT bring sephora to nz!

while i was in sephora i also used a broken cologne tester bottle without realising and when i pushed it down a lot of it went onto my hand... so my hand smelt like man for half a day hahahaaha =_=

I metro-ed all the way to grande arche de la defense to take 1 photo of it, walk around in toys r us (I WISH I COULD BUY A HUGE TEDDY BEAR HERE! IT'S SO CHEAP! BUT I CAN'T TAKE IT BACK...) and buy a haagan-daz ice cream. it was totally worth it :P nahh but there were way too many people to shop properly, and i'd already bought a lot of stuff in the morning.

(for anyone who doesnt know, it's sales between mid jan and mid feb in france so there are a lot of people out shopping. like.. A LOT of people...)

also there was a really really hot security guy in front of one of the shops and I was so busy staring at him that it was only after I passed by the shop entirely that I realised that I had forgotten to even look at what they were selling. He's bad for business... his eyes were so... DDD: -melts-

what else happened this week? well I got 11/20 on that physics test I sat last week, not bad considering the entire first page was blank and it was 0/6 LOL... 19 for art :)... and I think I have to sit the chinese and geo tests on monday. chinese shouldn't be too bad, but geo is going to be crash and burn...

my first week of school in france...

WARNING, UBER LONG AND there is a picture of a dissected mouse below. In case you get squeamish about that.

Well I have survived my first week of school! It's been... a pretty long week I think haha. I'm gonna go through my entiirreeee week, because I haven't blogged in a long time, and I want to spite those who hate my waffling (jokes, ily you guys but yeah, read more. it's good for you :) )

MONDAY:

I don't remember it too well now, but we had badminton in the morning for EPS (PE). You'd think I owned up, but no, they had child sized racquets so I kept missing. It's actually the biggest handicap you can give to someone who knows how to play a sport LOL, give them different sized equipment...

Had maths, found it difficult due to the different notation and french instructions lolol. Example? K, their way of writing x>0 is like this: Xε]0;+∞[
don't even get me started with the unions etc etc, I don't even really get it still lolol.

Went to geo myself since Blanche had another class. A guy offered to help me out and share his book, but he talked really fast and it was hard for me to get anything in that class lol... also since it's the first geo lesson I've ever had in my life haha @@ I skim read the textbook later and learnt some basic theory (ie. society + environment + economy = durable community). It's pretty interesting as a class, and I learn a lot of new vocab from it. As for the actual content... well, it's hard for me to pick much up haha.

French was terrible. They're doing Moliere's Dom Juan right now and ofc I hadn't read it, and I couldn't understand wtf she was talking about, so I just fell asleep. she also did some dictation and I couldn't keep up because ofc since I don't speak french I can't just make stuff up or guess what the rest of the sentence is once I get the general gist of it after hearing it, like you can do in english. Being in a foreign country is really hard! I tried to copy off the girl next to me, but they all have really loopy and fancy handwriting so it was a bit hard at times... Wikipediaed Dom Juan later, as well as Antigone, Les Bonnes, and Madame Bovary. I'm getting so cultured! :P

Went home, I was a bit confused when we started going up into a bakery, but it turns out that's the shortcut through to the main road from school. That bakery must get sooo much business haha. I bought a pain au chocolat :) the first of many that will make me fat, I'm sure...

Met up with the NZ ppl at the bookshop and went out for dinner at an italian restaurant cuz it was will's birthday :)

TUESDAY:

I can't really remember this day, it was largely insignificant I think. Well I had my first english class, it was quite good. There was a cute blonde guy wearing an extremely flamboyant coat (similar to the pirate captains), who I think was in an older class, but he came back for that 1 lesson. I think he did some time in england as an exchange student or something, because the teacher said "you act the same, but you look and sound more english", to which he replied "if looking english means very sexy, I agree with you" hahaha. But he got kicked out later for talking too much :P still, was entertaining.

I wagged an FLE class (french for noobs like me) in the afternoon since the teacher said he was gonna be late and I didn't feel like sitting through 1.5 hours of free period to get half an hour of class. But no, my host parents got called cuz of half an hour of wagging wtf ): gayyyyy.......

WEDNESDAY:

Short day! :) French wasn't so bad because we watched a film, so it was much easier to follow than the first day. Then for some reason I was able to not go to the other half of french, so I went to the chinese takeaway to get lunch. There, I met another chinese girl from the school with her friend, and I asked if I could eat lunch with them :) Everyone had a maths test that afternoon so I helped them out a little, then I went to meet the other NZers at louis le grand. We were gonna go eiffel tower, but the top was closed (again...), so I went to centre pompidou with Nick and Olivier.



It was probably my favourite place I've visited so far. I had this moment of revelation when we were going through the mondrian exhibit while olivier was being skeptical about what his squares are really about hahaha. The way I see them, they are not supposed to be pieces of 'art' per se in themselves, but are instead compositions and exploration of the effects of the proportions between closed spaces. He explores the way these spaces affect human perception and whether they make us feel uncomfortable or whether we find them aesthetically pleasing. This explains why he delved into architecture (stained glass windows etc) as well. In a way, mondrian's neoplastic squares were the beginnings of modern architecture. Note how recent buildings are quite square and minimalistic, yet we find them aesthetically pleasing. It is actually quite difficult to design squares in a way that looks good as a building (if you don't know what you're doing). Anyone who has tried to build a house on the sims starting with a single rectangle will know this. This is why I appreciate Mondrian's genius more than most people would (olivier included :P). To have such a good understanding of space and the effect space has on our senses is quite simply awesome :) Anyway though I was pretty tired cuz we spent soooo long walking around in the museum. My feet were really sore when I got home haha. But a day well spent!


THURSDAY:

Jesus Christ. This was such a long day. I started school at 9am, expecting to have english, but it turns out that the teacher wasn't there that day, so we had a free. I ran into Lydia outside the english room so that was nice :) Spent the free period catching up with her. Then I had SES which is like economics, and they had a test which obviously I couldn't take because I haven't done it before so I sat next to Yilin and watched her do it, looked up some words in my dictionary and went to sleep.

The Latin teacher wasn't there either so I spent the free with Blanche and Yilin, then for some reason I decided to follow her to a maths class that wasn't on my timetable and was quite possibly the most boring thing I've had to sit through since French on the first day. They were doing simplication of fractions and surds and indices. And they were just going over homework the whole period so .... =_= i didn't learn anything.

After that was lunch, then I had FLE again. It's getting to be quite enjoyable since all we do is chat haha, and it's a good time to improve my french. Then I had maths for the 2nd time where I sat next to this guy who didn't know how to use his TI83. Despite never having doing programming on my TI, I was able to help him out hahaha :) even though I have no idea what the program was for at all lol.

Followed Blanche to her chinese geography lesson. The teacher was so french looking for a chinese guy. I think it's just the style of dress. Like you can tell he's a Parisian... it's weird, and hard to explain. I learnt a lot of geo, and the class spent about 10 minutes interrogating me as I did my self introduction so they could improve their chinese. I was quite impressed with the level of their chinese actually haha. And some chinese exchange students are coming on the 22nd :) It's so convenient that I'm chinese haha.

Okay so now it's 5pm, most ppl can go home, but nooo I get to go to arts plastiques. I thought it was gonna be pretty cool cuz they did sculpture last week (like, little heads out of clay) and some sketches that I recognised as exhibition pieces from centre pompidou :O what a coincidence... but no, we did abstraction. Ffff... like the only thing I'm completely unfamiliar with and dislike doing. Like wtf... Anyway I had no idea wtf I was doing and my piece ended up looking quite ordinary and random, just like everyone else's.

8pm finish, went home. Bought a pain au chocolat and walked home the long way cuz I felt like it.

FRIDAY:

English first thing in the morning, it's actually rather difficult because we have to translate from french --> english and english --> french. A bit ironic that the reason I find english class hard is because of the french... hahaha can't be helped I guess. It seems everything I do is improving my french though, which is good :)

I was late for physics/chem because I couldn't find the classroom I was supposed to be in and I got pwned by the teacher lololol... I walked in without knocking and he made me go back outside and knock and then come in hahaha, and then he was like "..well?" and i was like ":O I'm late." and he was like "yes I can see that, go sit down" hahahahaah... they had a test that I had to join in as well. The chem questions were easy, the physics one I couldn't understand because they were in french. Also I couldn't respond to the ones I could understand because I had to respond in french obviously. There was a fire drill during the test as well so I had even less time to rummage through my dictionary lol... kind of annoying @@ a girl asked me if I wanted the answers to the test during the drill haha but it's against my morals to cheat :P plus I don't care if I get a shitty mark, so I was like "I understand nothing, but nahhh it's okay :)"

After that I went to Chinese, where we read a piece on friendship. Most people got the general meaning, I was able to read almost all the words which is good. I think my chinese might improve while I'm here as well, since I have to talk to the chinese teachers, Yilin and some others in chinese haha. It's good! This trip to france is so good for me :P

Had SVT after 2 frees, which is like bio. Had to borrow a labcoat from a guy in my class who had physics that period, kinda got some blood and guts over it so felt a bit bad about that, hopefully he didn't notice...



Dissections are the only good things about studying bio. :P haha and the girl in front of Blanche and me took her tweezers and made the tongue of our mouse poke out as if it was dead like the animals in the cartoons hahaha. she couldn't do that with her own one because she had a frog. But I thought that the people here are a lot less squeamish about dissections than back at home. well the other girl in our group was quite disgusted but I don't think anyone else was affected that badly. They did smell like dead things though..

Had physics again, we were doing a simulation and modelling a ball in freefall. I found it extremely frustrating because I know how to do it, but I can't express myself because I can't speak french, and when other people make mistakes I want to correct them but I can't because they are convinced that they are correct but I can't convey my logic in a good way because I CAN'T SPEAK FRENCH... arghhh ): so frustrating!!!

went home after that, was pretty tired, bought a pain au chocolat as usual on the way back through the bakery.

ALSO: this cereal is the most addictive thing ever

I took a handful as I got home with a glass of milk. Omg I'm not gonna be able to eat much for dinner tonight hahaha... gonna get fat from cereal hahahahaah...

BONNE ANNEE! 2011!

So yeah. It's 7.30am on 31 December 2010 in NZ. And I thought I'd do this now, because I have nothing better to do. So... Happy New Years! Early, yes. Maybe I'll leave this til actual new years to post so that it's not randomly at the end of my december archives...

This year's been an... interesting one. Went back to read last years new years post and I remember it clearly as if it were yesterday. I find it funny how the lantern came down after it went up, I remember distinctly thinking that it was a bad omen. Tbh it was kinda. This year wasn't that great for me. So much depressing shit happened, but I'm really thankful that I still have some really close friends who I know will stick by me no matter what happens. There have been times this year where I felt really alone, like I couldn't talk to anyone or trust anyone. But I DO have people who are willing to help me out in those times, I know that now :) I owe them all so much. And maybe I'm still not particularly mature, or independent, and I complain a lot, and I'm whiny and all of those things, and sometimes I don't understand why anyone would put up with me, but I'm so glad that they do. So to those people who love me unconditionally, who love me even at times where I hate myself, thank you so much...

Back to last years NYRs? Let's see how I did...

1) Do well on your SATs. I expect at least a 2200. Retake as many times as necessary. -- Done and dusted, first time's the charm :)
2) Concentrate on school! -- I guess we will have to wait for NCEA results to come out. If I get another A, I swear I'll... ... yeah I'll send it back for reconsideration. Maybe even Ms.
3) Don't ignore your friends and social life either! -- wow I ask so much balance of myself. I think at times this year it's been hard for me to go out but nonetheless I try to take time for my friends.
4) Make the most of all the opportunities you've got in 6th form -- ugh... I hope I did this???
5) Mature!!! Know when and how to handle different situations well etc. -- I think this happened. I went through a lot of weird situations this year haha. Don't know if I handled them well or not though @@
6) Get more fit hahahaa -- .........FAILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
7) Be more independent :] -- not sure, probably a bit more independent haha. natural part of growing up? :)
8) GET ENOUGH SLEEP -- YES :) most of the time I have gotten enough sleep. to the point where I was not jetlagged at all when I came to France :D yayyy for sleep

Man I just completely forgot to finish this post, so I will do it now. Probably says that it's posted at 12am on jan 2 but it's ACTUALLY new years here kk :)

SO! 2011 NYRs!
1) Make this year much much better than 2010
2) Become more open :)
3) Do things I want to do, not things I feel obligated to do
4) Push boundaries -- both my own and external boundaries
5) Dedicate myself to the things I love 120%
6) Complain less
7) Get more fit. Because I didn't do it last year. ):
8) Have more reasons to smile than frown :)

days with friends :)

Well in the last 2 days I met up with friends from school, which was really nice cuz I got to speak english again haha. Yesterday we went to Musee de l'Armee, where I didn't understand much since I don't do history, but the exhibitions were cool I guess. Then today we went to the opera, gallerie lafayette and champs elysses/saw the arc de triomphe. It was pretty tiring haha, lots of walking.



So like, picking up just about anything in the luxury section is a bit scary because you see pricetags upwards of 1k euros quite frequently... saw a 3k euro leather jacket today as well. omg rich people... one day I'll be able to afford stuff there eh :P and most of the shoes don't have pricetags. As olivier said, if you have to ask for the price, you probably shouldn't be shopping there... @_@

ALSO, THIS:


ITS A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAINNNNN so cool :)

Between lafayette and champs elysses we decided to look for a nice cheap cafe to have a hot chocolate at because we wanted to go when it was dark so we could see the lights. Felicity had this idea that we would take the metro to a random station and then get off, because it was unlikely to be near any big tourist attractions so they would be cheaper. Evidently we chose the wrong stop because we ended up spending an hour going around in a huge circle looking for a cheap cafe but hot chocolates were all upwards of 4euros (about 8bucks nzd)... also I got stuck between the doors of the metro at chatelet ): second time that's happened now, happened once in the usa as well sigh. I'm just nooooob...

also spent ages going around banks trying to get change for me 500 euros but they refuse to deal with me because I don't have an account at their bank. siiiigh, I also tried going to the currency exchange but I have to convert to another currency and then convert back, and lose some money in the process =__= so I still have the money problem. I'm running out of emergency money too ): ahhhhh why dad whyyyy...



champs elysses at night is sooo pretty at xmas. the lights are like *___* even though I was so tired when I got there I was happy because the trees were so sparkly :)

MERRY CHRISTMASSSS

23rd december -- ~10pm

OMFG I am tired. Blanche and 2 of her second cousins are in another room watching a movie (Tellement Proches, it's quite funny, although I think I only understood about 30% of what is said lol) but I decided to come back and go to sleep, except then I washed my hair and now I have to wait for it to dry before I can go to sleep.

Today we went to the town of Rouen in Normandy, where the famous cathedral is. It's sooooo big and pretty :O I probably won't have any photos at the time of posting because I am lazy and tired. Wikipedia it? We also visited the place where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake. Now there's a very modern looking church there shaped like an odd mushroom and some christmas market stalls. It's weird to think that something of such historical importance happened at that place where you are at that very moment. It really hit me that wow, I'm actually in France right now :O I also met Blanche's maternal grandmother, who is very nice and tries to speak english with me even though it's quite bad, and she speaks slowly in french which is a good thing haha. She explained a lot of stuff to me.

Today also was the first time ever in my life that someone asked me where exactly in Australia I came from =__=

Tonight, we had a special cake dessert for a great aunt who's celebrating her birthday today :) It was so nice, the extended family + some random exchange student singing happy birthday to her. And the cake was quite nice as well. Coming from someone who usually dislikes cakes that's saying something :D

Christmas is so soon!! Well 12 hours sooner for my friends in NZ than for myself, but still, so soon! Another year gone ): when are NCEA results coming back? ...It's so sad that that's my natural line of thought after thinking about Christmas.

----

So, now it's the 26th. A few hours after typing all that ^ I got up in the middle of the night and threw up. then went back to sleep and repeated again a few hours later. I would rather not spare the details but I spent the whole of the 24th in bed, not eating but sleeping, reading the 3rd harry potter book, listening to music and feeling like I was on a ship out at sea.



Christmas was actually really nice. Look at all the presents under the tree! :O And this isn't even when all the presents were there haha. Shows exactly how big the extended family is eh? @_@ I was surprised that I got a few presents from my host family :) I got some rosewater tonic, a little box of cakes, 2 french comic books (tintin and the like) and felix got me a sketchpad :) cute.

At night was the big concert, I had 2 lines in the play and I played River flows in You on piano for them :P hahaha it was nice to be included though. Also watched many french films and american movies dubbed in french while I was in Normandy, including Le petit nicholas, neuilly sa mere, enchanted, devil wears prada... ... i think that's it? oh and the 2nd half of percy jackson.

It's kinda sad how quickly the sun sets in the winter. I'm really missing the nz summer sun ):

I also kinda realised today as we were driving back to Paris that I have actually never seen a scarecrow in my entire life. Has anyone actually seen one? In real life I mean, not in movies and books and stuff. Random thought of the day I suppose haha...

okay screw this its way too cold, im gonna go take a hot shower and hope that i dont throw up after dinner tonight cuz we're eating out at a restaurant.

by popular demand, a short update

I got food poisoning

threw up 3 times on xmas eve morning

stayed in bed all day, no food

ate a bit on xmas

probably got drunk on tiramisu

threw up 3 more times on the 26th (today)

fuck yeah it's been a great xmas. GG

jokes guys, real update coming soon. obviously havent had time to do anything due to being sick.

another update from normandy

Ah... today is my mum's birthday and since I'm not there nobody gets cake ): poor brother. Even though usually I don't even eat that much cake haha. Well I did send her a txt and go online earlier this morning to tell her again :) to which she nagged me about being more polite and joining in and asking blanche's mum about her life and how she became so successful... right, I can't even understand when Blanche asks me what time I want to wake up let alone ask her mum about her university degree and job =__= Things I have discovered so far: she has green eyes and wears a blue sweater while the father has blue eyes and wears a green sweater. It's kinda cute :) and she must have a certain type of coffee in the morning otherwise she gets grumpy. She wears chanel no. 5. Yes that's all I've got.

I've been having the weirdest dreams while here. The other night I dreamt I pierced my ears but the guy missed and instead pierced my face (yeah, wtf?) and I left without paying accidentally. Also Tony and I stole packets of salmon and tuna from Mrs Reid's office, and Yujie and Jamie were running in circles around in the quad randomly (I'm sure anyone on facebook probably knows all this already though hahahaha).

Right now it's right after lunchtime and the guinea pigs are free to roam around the room :) This morning, after I got back from the cafe, they were practising a play in the theatre. I have 2 lines hahaha. Well it was nice for them to include me but I'm sure I'll stuff up haha. Last night after dinner we also did a canon choir of sorts with 8 people haha. It went like this: Everybody loves Saturday night, Everybody loves Saturday night, Everybody, Everybody, Everybody, Everybody, Everybody loves Saturday night. :) my daily dose of english I suppose haha.

LATER –



Well I had to stop there cuz we went to this little village about an hour's drive away. It was quite pretty :) I am transferring photos as I speak. Blanche just commented on my fast typing. Now I feel somewhat self conscious @@ Hmmm... well as we drove there was just a field of white snow. Her dad told me that normally it's all green :O It's amazing how even after a full winter of snow things can still grow abundantly. I guess there's a kind of moral to be learnt there too haha. Somehow that reminds me of something that happened on the way here... While still in Paris and we were driving here, a man randomly fell over in the middle of the road. After that, a lot of people came to help him. I thought that was really nice. Blanche's dad even got out of the car to call the ambulance. There were a lot of people tooting and just driving past, but a regular woman helped to direct the traffic while everyone else helped him up and tried to find out what happened. I thought that was really nice :) gave me warm fuzzies haha. Oh and the ambulance arrived in like 1 minute. I swear, so efficient here :O

Can't help but feel that today was much more productive than yesterday. I learnt a lot more of her cousins' names and her dad told me what the situation was anyway. Apparently he doesn't even know some of their names so ALLLG.... haha. It's pretty much the extended family up to second cousins. That explains why there are so many people... and he told me about his grandmother who was a violin teacher, which is why the whole family is very violin-centric. It's actually really cool imo. His aunt (father's younger sister) used to be a professional musician and now she conducts when the family plays. His uncle plays viola and his father plays cello. About ½ of my 'generation' in the family plays violin including Blanche and Felix, who had his debut on stage with the family orchestra tonight :)

There's a real big range of ages here which is nice. There's even a set of baby twins haha, one boy and one girl. It's pretty full on. Aww the cutest 2 year old arrived today as well, one of Blanche's 2nd cousins. He makes the :C face when he's just staring at you, and after the orchestra is done he does a little dance and claps and says BRAVO!! haha :) so cute

A few more people talked to me today, which was good. Except, cue many faces of confusion as I have no idea what some of them are saying @_@ A cello cousin who I differentiate as the one who wears chucks because he looks a lot like his younger brother asked me about school and stuff and I found it very difficult to answer because the school system is so different... Oh and I also passed him an empty carton of milk this morning so I felt a bit bad about that. I was gonna say there's no more milk as I gave it to him but he took it and said thank you and tipped it upside down and realised it was empty before I could piece the sentence together in my head.... but I think he's nice. I don't really know, he seems quiet. Then again compared to him I'm probably still considered to be an antisocial recluse zzz... whys my french so shitty....

A few people asked me if I understand everything HAHA I'm like noooo only a little bit D: but I think it's good that a lot of people know how hard it is for me haha. The piano cousin told me how when he spent 1 year in chicago last year he couldn't understand anything or respond haha. So I guess I don't feel toooo bad haha... progress is slow though haha still get a lot of awkward situations, but they have decreased in frequency, probably because I have learnt to accept awkwardness more than anything else tho...

It's snowing outside.

They're having a kind of party in the theatre right now but I left. Maybe I should have stayed? But Blanche is in the room atm resting and reading so idk. It's weird to be around the rest of them without a reason to be there lol. Oh and I'm tired. -excuses to not speak french-

Yessums. I suppose I will sleep now? I'm sure I've left out like 99% of what happened but I have a terrible memory ): I think that I actually enjoy seeing a wall of text that I have written, despite how others think it's too long LOL. It makes me think that I have actually done a lot of work I guess? Still missing Auckland though. ):

an update from normandy

Yesterday I also read the whole of Chobits. It was shorter than I thought it would be :O less than 100 chapters. But it made me remember why I love CLAMP :) their art is so nice~



Well anyways here I am in Normandy. We're at this... resort place? I guess. It's very music based, even the curtains are music related :) and there are like 10+ pianos that I have seen just randomly around the place. It's snowy and pretty and completely different to everything I'm used to. I met a lot of Blanche's cousins (and she has a lot) and I'm pretty sure I've already forgotten all of their names @__@



It's quite cold here, and walking in the snow is both tiring and fun haha. But not when you fall over... not that I've fallen over yet :) well, nearly. But haven't actually yet hahaha. They're taking random photos now lol. I wish I could speak more frenchhh... either that or I wish I had an infinite amount of credit on my phone so I wouldn't feel bad about txting people back home zzzz.

I think there is free wifi here at the mill but it's a bit far away so I probably won't go down there again today (I went there already but I didn't bring my laptop). But, good news is, all the photos are now already on my laptop and ready to be uploaded :)



Arrived last night here at about 9pm reallllyy tired and hungry. But it's allg. This place is pretty nice :) I think everyone in her family plays some kind of instrument... There is one very cute male cousin who plays the piano very well :) Now you see why I want to know french? Hahaha jkjk. But seriously, everyone is sooo musical x.x I feel completely out of place haha. Actually it inspires me to go back to playing piano. There's not much I have to offer except a noob's rendition of Beethoven's fur elise and river flows in you @.@ I really want to play some other famous classical pieces. But ofc that's what I always say and I never act on it. Maybe this time will be different? Idk, it's really cool to be able to play music. It's like the universal language. No matter how much I'm sick of hearing french, music here is like my escape. I can listen to the music everyone is playing and understand it better than I can understand the french that comes out of their mouths haha. Some pieces I've always wanted to learn are Beethoven's moonlight sonata, Debussy's clair de lune and a few Chopin pieces...

I'm finding it quite hard to express myself as well as understand what other people are saying. Lol it's quite awkward at times when people ask me stuff and I have no idea what they said. I think it makes them think that I'm stupid or something. Well I guess I can see why, it's just natural to think that of someone who doesn't speak your own language. I think I can take this experience to treat foreigners better when I get back to NZ as well hahahaha... but at least nobody is actually mean to me I suppose. WHY CAN'T SOMEONE SPEAK ENGLISHHHH... I think it's a bit hard for me to get really close with most of these people anyway though as well. Like, they're a bit younger than me. Typical 14 and 15 year olds I suppose. Different interests I suppose? ): I am too old and mature...

On the other hand I think complete submersion is also good for me. My dreams are now occuring in franglais that doesn't actually make sense but that I know the meaning of in my head (well I would hope so since I made it up in my subconscious haha). I've had quite a lot of strange dreams since I got here. Many of them make me miss my friends at home badly ): I'm usually not one to get homesick, and it makes me realise that it's not the place I miss, but the people. I think you can go anywhere in the world and have fun if you're with the right people :) But right now I'm not with the ones I love the most TT So I miss them all and sometimes I feel quite lonely, especially when I see how close the family is here. Makes me think I should have postponed my flight to after new years like Clare and Lydia. I kinda can't wait for school to start lol, which is probably kinda weird for most of you haha.

Why do people keep saying that my blogs are too long anyways. They're not that long are they? I think it might just be the text size? I'm sorry if I have a lot to say LOL...

omg now I'm at the mill cafe. blanche left me here and expects me to get back to the main area by myself D: its about a 15 minute walk, and now it's 5.40pm and it's DARK.... and I'm planning to stay here a while since I need to upload photos. so, if I don't update again, assume the worst. ): I ADMIT IT, IM AFRAID OF THE DARK TT

k to finish here's girolle and truffe :P

day 2 in paris

Not sure whenabouts I'll get to post again after this entry, since we're leaving for Normandy this afternoon and I think there's no internet over there. Although at this time of writing it's still Sunday night. I'm just taking into account that I'm going to post this tomorrow morning. Gosh that's confusing.

Well I guess Sunday afternoon, Blanche, Marin and I went to meet one of her friends and she took us to a museum of sorts which actually turns out to be some rich guy's house in the 18th/19th century. I found it really cool cuz I found a print of Jean Baptiste Chardin's monkey “Peinture” on the walls :O I used him as one of my artist references this year in printmaking haha. It was pretty surprising to see it on the wall... but it was such a beautiful big house/mansion. I can't imagine anyone living there though, it's really big and so... rich? Tapestries on every wall, vibrantly coloured carpets and furniture and gold plated candlesticks with motifs of griffons and dragons and stuff like that. Really rich people... there was probably enough paintings and prints on the walls to start a separate art museum @_@

Then we went to Aude (Blanche's friend)'s apartment where we had some cake and then went on youtube. It's interesting to note that the same popular videos back home and popular here :P we watched potter puppet pals' mysterious ticking noise and some of Remi Gaillard's videos. Hahaha some things never change.

Came home, oh yeah, they have this white harpsichord with black keys and wooden sharps/flats. At first I thought it was a piano with very little keys but it turns out it is a harpsichord. It takes a bit of getting used to because the keys feel very different. I played on that for a while because I'm supposed to have prepared something for some kind of musical gathering in Normandy. This family is very into music. The mother and father both play violins, Blanche plays the violin and the 2 brothers play the harpsichord :O As for me, I haven't touched the piano in like 2 years so yeahhhhhh a bit out of practice...

Anyways the father had some colleagues over, which was nice because there were 2 german people and 2 japanese people, so I wasn't the only one with imperfect french. If anything it was a good opportunity for me to listen to more french, especially by other people like myself haha. Marin let the guinea pigs loose, and their names btw are Champignon and Truf – mushroom and truffle (sorry, I have bad french so I heard it wrong the first time). Well a truffle is another kind of mushroom anyway haha. Yeah, then we had duck for dinner. It was sooo nice :O I realised that it's the first meat I've had since I got here, but it was so good. It was cooked steak style, in the oven. A bit raw on the inside. I like this way of cooking duck, I've decided :)

Hmmm it's 9.40pm. I should probably get to sleep and update this for real tomorrow morning. Ummm yeah. Laters.

NEXT DAY

I realise that I should probably upload more photos, but I keep leaving the cord downstairs and I can't be bothered going to get it. Typical lazy me eh. Leaving this afternoon at about 6pm apparently. I still haven't got a simcard or exchanged my 500 euro notes which I have been told nobody will accept because nobody uses them. :O thanks dad, now I have a lot of money that I can't use.

Otherwise I have nothing of note to report. I guess I'll update with a massive update in 5 days after I get back from Normandy? I think I'm going to take my laptop with me so that I can write as I experience things rather than trying to include everything at once which will probably lead to me missing out 80% of the stuff I wanted to talk about (Yes this always happens when I put off blogging).

DAY 1 IN PARIS

Well today... I pretty much bummed around online for a few hours, talking to dad and some friends. Then due to the 12 hour timezone gap a lot of people went to sleep. Then I went to play a monopoly style boardgame with the 13 year old brother whose name I now have learnt is Marin :) I lost cuz I'm noob lololol... I guess those games between 2 people don't last very long @_@ I wanted to play real monopoly but he couldn't find the board for it. He tried to speak english with me which was very nice. Then we had lunch and I had the most terrible tasting raw vegetables. They were seriously so bitter I wanted to denature my tastebuds. Idk if it was the dressing on them or just the vegetables themselves. The worst thing was everyone else just ate it like it was normal. DDD: but other than that we had chilli con carne, which was very nice and somewhat made up for it, and some biscuits and coffee.



After lunch, Blanche, her dad and I went to the louvre :) It was soooo beautiful and way bigger than I had imagined. And I'd already imagined it to be pretty huge... the Mona Lisa was also bigger than I thought it was. Some paintings were just downright ENORMOUS though. :O I really love Italian renaissance paintings though. And the sculptures are nice as well... I especially liked Mercure Volant and La Victoire de Somathrace, even though it's not exactly in 1 piece haha. They don't have a very large collection of prints (I'm guessing, from the map, the areas allocated to prints and drawings are quite small, since I didn't actually get to see any), but I would like to see them... idk why printmaking is such a small medium in terms of popularity. It might actually be my favourite art form... or it might be sculpture. Hm.

Blanche's dad knows quite a lot about renaissance paintings, and she recently returned from Florence, so she knew quite a lot about Botticelli etc. Maybe all europeans are just very artsy? Idk haha but if I lived in Paris I would visit the Louvre every month or something. It's so beautiful D:

I found it quite interesting how there were so many people crowded around the Mona Lisa, while there was pretty much no one looking at Da Vinci's other paintings. It's as if everything is so beautiful and epic, and there's so much of it, that you only have time to look at the 'most important' pieces? I also think that 99% of the Mona Lisa's fame is derived from its fame. It's famous because it's famous lol... I'm sure a lot of people just go to look at it because it's famous, rather than because they have actual fascination. Personally I've already seen the image way too many times for it to be that important to me compared to other pieces in the gallery, many of which I find much more fascinating than the Mona Lisa.

Came home on the metro, took a shower, felt like sleeping but then figured I might as well go online when I can, but then I realised that it's 5am in the morning in nz and that there would probably be nobody to talk to, but when I logged in I remembered that my msn list has no life and 17 people were online. Also when I logged into MS to do ring quest there were 4-5 people online in the guild.... I'm pretty sure my friends are insomniacs.

NEXT DAY

Well I decided to go down after I wrote that ^ cuz I felt a bit antisocial and my ring quest was up haha. I have quite a lot of photos that I can't be bothered uploading... Today it's snowing really nicely and I think we're going to go to the Seine because apparently it's quite rare for the snow to get this thick (about 10cm is what Blanche's dad said). I'll try to take some photos. I didn't bring a camera though, so I'll have to use my phone haha.

Let me tell you all about more of Felix's hawwwness. At dinner last night after dessert he just went up behind his mum and hugged her from behind and started kissing her on the cheeks like muah muah muah muah like a little puppy :) it was sooo cute. And everyone was laughing and the mum was like okay okay that's enough, it's time to wash up now and he was like POURQUOIIII~~?? muah muah muah muah... hahaha so cute :)

After dinner, Blanche, Marin, Felix and I watched a french movie that failed cuz the projector kept going blue. But we managed to see half of it. Felix brought in 3 blankets that were bigger than he is and said they're to share :) hawww but his mum told him not to because they were dragging along the ground but he was like “noooo we'll get cold!”

But yeah after that I went to sleep and now it's the morning. Oh yeah they also have 2 guinea pigs called 'mushroom' and 'another mushroom'. I will upload that photo maybe tomorrow :P LATAS BROS I think I should wrap this up now cuz I actually have people to msn now hahaah.

IM IN FRANCE

On my first half day in Paris, it snowed. :) After 27+ hours in the air, 2 transfers in Sydney and Dubai, I am finallyyyyy in France. I'm actually typing this out in a word document right now because I can't really update my blog since there's no wifi. But, I will try to publish it asap. It's been like almost 2 days since I have been cut off from the internet ): IT'S SO HARD TO DEAL WITH... TT I miss going on the world wide web (WWW) --- obviously we are meant to be together, our initials match. ):

Anyway I had an awww moment in Sydney while waiting for my flight cuz I was drawing in my sketchbook and this little boy sat down beside me in front of this pillar. He must've been around 8 or 9? Anyway as they were starting to board I closed my sketchbook and got up, and he showed me this notebook he'd been drawing in, and on the bottom he had written “you're a really good drawer”.... awwwwww it was so cute :) I was also contemplating whether I should buy Yujie that koala she asked for since I didn't actually initially realise that I had a stopover in Sydney, but I realised that I had emptied my wallet of all foreign currency and so I actually couldn't buy anything =.=

I'm sooooo sick of planes now. It was pretty much drifting in and out of sleep, watching a lot of Friends, and eating. I didn't really have enough attention span for a movie. Well I did watch the Liar Game movie, but that's Liar Game. I tried to watch The Other Guys after that, but then we had the stopover in Sydney and I never actually finished it. I fell asleep about an hour into Salt and just kinda gave up after that. There weren't that many films I wanted to see anyway :/ I actually got to have 2 dinners and 2 breakfasts because of the stopovers hahaha. Like, Plane A – dinner. Stopover in Sydney. Plane B – dinner. Plane B – breakfast. Stopover in Dubai. Plane C – breakfast. And technically only about a day has passed since I got on the plane (accounting for timezones and all that :P...). Ahh time screws with my head @_@

It's kind of weird to listen to everyone speaking French. It's like allll around me, and I can only really understand about 10% of it. In all other cases I just have to nod and smile. If they ask me something I hope to god I know what they're asking, otherwise I end up blank staring and juggling Oui..? Non...? Je ne sais pas...? Qu'est que c'est...? Je ne comprends pas... Anyway though hopefully I will soon get used to it and improve my French. It's totally exhausting though...

After I got off the plane at CDG at about 12.30pm, had to go through passport stamping and baggage claim, then there was no customs? o.o I just walked out. I actually threw away half a bar of Cadbury Old Gold before that because you're not allowed to take dairy products, but they didn't even check. What a waste of good chocolate! Anyway, Blanche's mum took me on the train into Paris where we met up with Blanche who has just returned after a trip to Italy :O Then I was allowed to the apartment where I had a shower and then Blanche took me out again to meet her friend Caterine-Marie and they pretty much showed me some of the streets and shopping places around the area. All on foot. @_@ SO TIRING... I'm not used to walking so much, especially 3 plane rides and trying to understand a foreign language hahaha. So tired now. Although... must be said, the type of good looking guy you see about once in a blue moon in NZ is in overabundance here. Pretty much 1 in every 5 guys is like :O niceeeeee. :P But I think it may have to do with the style of dress as well. Guys in scarves and double breasted coats :) nice.

It's SO COLD HERE though. My grandma was all like “nahhhh it won't be that cold.” TT cannot deal with cold or hot weather. NZ summer when it's not humid please............... have to go out with a hat, gloves, puffer jacket, sweater, thermal, jeans, socks + boots... I need to wear leggings or something tomorrow I think. Although, when you walk into a store it's like an instant heater~ so nice haha. But I'm probably gonna catch a cold soon. On the flight to Dubai this kid was walking down the aisle and TURNED TO ME to sneeze in my face ): lame kid.

NEXT DAY.
Okay so now it's about 9am here (about 9pm in NZ). I woke up about an hour ago. Heard it's been raining ever since I left. Awwww :P misses me. The kids in this family are SO RESPONSIBLE... :O I still haven't even seen the father, but Blanche (who's only 15/16?) and her brother who I still haven't figured out the name of who's 13 made dinner last night @_@ and it was so nice as well. I just got owned in cooking skill hahaha. And the little boy Felix, who's 10, is soooo cute. Last night he came into my room with this little stuffed hedgehog and put it under the shelf and was like SHHHH.... so cute :3 and also last night during dinner the 2 next door neighbour's kids came in to say hi to me. I feel so special and useless @_@ I can't really talk to anyone because my French is too shitty so I can only say oui or non ): and that's only when I can actually understand what they're saying. It's like they open their mouth and I expect something I can understand to come out but then it's French and I realise oh that's right, I'm in France now.

I wish I had some other way of taking up my time and hawww I miss the internet so much, but I can't take my laptop and ask them how to get on yet because it kind of died during the night since the battery doesn't last more than an hour on standby without charging so now I'm charging it. Oh look I just got a txt from my parents. My mum invites me to msn. ): INTERNETTTT....

Omg the father is a god. He speaks english to me. AND. He connected me to the internet. K time to publish this.