Hey all!
Well, I survived finals week. PHEW!!! I have to admit that schooling here is much more difficult to succeed than back home in the States. Pretty much 70% of your grade rests on your final exam, personally, I don’t think its a fair representation of your skills. How often in life are you going to have to take a test to earn your wages? Never! If you were to become a chemist, which I’m not, but still… you’ll prove your knowledge with papers and laboratory work. Sure you may have to work the mechanisms for an organic reaction to know what products to expect in the reaction, but realistically “dry chemistry” hardly ever matches the actual results in lab. Good to know this for later when I’m a professor. I’ll have to remember to balance out my grading with papers, projects, etc. and not put it all on a test.
I should know where I’m going to be in the Spring time before the end of the week. The Chemistry department chair (he’s the one who hands out grades here, not the registrar) said that he should be able to email me my grades between the 14th and the 16th. That’ll be very nice to have those before starting my “vacation”. This way I can register for classes and start looking for a place to stay (if I need to go back to Spokane that is). I honestly don’t know if the professors will give me any cushion on my grades or not. I could see it both ways, give the exchange student the minimum passing grade, or he’s here to learn and its too bad but he didn’t pass. Just have to wait until this week to see how things are going to turn out.
The exciting stuff is just around the corner too! This Thursday I leave for Germany. Its going to be a blast up there! I get to see Niels for the 1st time in 6 and a half years! I get to meet his family and girlfriend too! I’m not too sure what all is going to be going on while I’m there. I know they have a couple excursions planned for my stay. For example, I know were going to go to Berlin one day, and we’re going to take a 2 day trip to the South half and do some road tripping. Anywho, I’m just going to excited to be out of my Harry-Potter-Under-The-Staircase-Style room and be around people again! I do get out and go do things with people here, but its not an everyday occurrence seeing as they unlike me have jobs, family, and significant others that aren’t 5000 miles away. We did go out on my birthday for an of the semester party. It was an absolute BLAST! We went into old town to a pub and had some drinks and hung out until the wee hours of the morning. Before leaving they got me a poster, which they all had signed the back with little good-bye letters. It was pretty nice of them :) I’ll take a photo of it when I get some and put it up online. I don’t want to unroll it too many times. I want to keep the edges nice, hehe.
Well, I’m off! I hope everyone has wonderful weekends and 1 month from tomorrow and I’ll be touching down back on some home turf ;) sure will be nice to have a cell phone again and an actual kitchen to cook some real food in!
Blessings!!!
Hey gang!
We’re finally getting down to the wire here! I have a final in Thermodynamics Friday the 4th, a final in Organic Chem Tuesday the 8th and LCAO Wednesday the 9th and then I’m done!! It will be nice to finally have a couple days without worrying about passing classes because on Dec. 9th after that final, there’s nothing left I can do. I’ll have given it my best effort and the result will either be going home in Jan to Port Angeles and being done with class until graduate school in the fall, or going back to Whitworth to finish up the credits I didn’t pass. One way or the other I know that God will make sure that I stay on the path He has planned for me :) I do have a little prayer request… if you wouldn’t mind praying for perseverance and motivation to help get through this last week I would really appreciate it. Its been a bit rough. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to quit and say screw it, I’ll finish it up in the Spring back home. This truly has been an eye opening experience. For the first time in my life, things have actually seems unreachable. I’ve never really wondered if I would succeed or not. Its always been will I get an A or a B. And the hard part is, if I go back home I know I can succeed in those classes. They’re in English, I don’t have to combat the language, cultural barriers or the differences in teaching methods (its really surprising how different they do run/grade classes in France). I would really like to be able to go home to Port Angeles in the Spring and have some time to reflect on this trip and experience without having to turn around in a week or two and go back to Whitworth and get geared back up for classes. I know that the most likely outcome is going to be I’ll pass some of my classes here, meaning I’ll go back to Whitworth part-time in the Spring. I’ll be a little upset with myself, but at the same time, how much can I really blame myself? I worked my butt off from the moment I got here. I dealt with them losing all my paperwork. I caught back up in classes after arriving a week late. All of these things I should be proud of, but at the same time, I still feel like I’m letting myself down by failing class. I suppose this is something that God and I will have to work out over the next little while. Well, I’m off to go make dinner and try and relax a bit before calling it a day. I hope everyone is doing fantastically and that you all have wonderful weeks!
Blessings!!
Hey gang!
Life has treating me alright for the past couple weeks. There’s been the usual end of term stress with finals and all. But that I know will come and go just like every semester :) My last exam is on Dec. 9th, then I’m FREE!! I’ll have a lovely week of nothing in Nice, before I head up to Germany to spend the holidays with Niels. For those of you who don’t know, he’s the German exchange student my family hosted while I was in high school. It should be a pretty exciting holiday. I get to catch up after not seeing him for 7 years. We’re going to do a tour of Germany in 3 days lol. We’ll hit up Berlin, Nuremberg, an a couple other places I’m sure. I’ll get to spend a traditional German Christmas with his parents. It should be interesting since his parents speak pretty broken English and I don’t speak more than 10 words of German. ;) Then on the 28, Niels, Lina (his Girlfriend) and I will take off for Paris. We’ll spend 5 days seeing Paris and watch the New Years happen on the Champs-Elysees or the Eiffel Tower. Which ever floats our boat at the time. On the 2nd, I’ll say farewell to Niels and Lina (with a few tears I’m sure) and take an overnight train to Rome, where I’ll go touristing from the 3rd to the 7th. Then is a train back to Nice to get everything squared away to head home on the 13th. I’ve just gotta make it to this weekend, when Ashley, Jerrah and Ted get here. After Thanksgiving week, they’ll head home and its that final stretch to the finish.
I’m starting to have some interesting feelings that I didn’t really expect. I’ve made several friends and I fit in just fine, but I still feel a bit on the outside. While I’ve learned a ton about the culture and adapted, this still isn’t MY culture. It just feels like something is missing or not right. I can’t say I’m unhappy with anything, or frustrated, but at the same time I can’t necessarily say I’m totally content. Its odd. Just a general feeling of discontent. I don’t want to leave yet, and I know that if I did leave I would be horribly upset with myself before I even touched down in the States. I guess it might just be that I know I’m not staying here and that this is only temporary. I don’t have the mindset to be a nomad or a wanderer. I love to travel and explore, don’t get me wrong, but I think what might be lacking the most is a home base. Over the past couple years I’ve had so many places that I call home. My dad’s house, my mom’s house, my house at Whitworth, Kalaloch, Glasgow. All of those places felt like home (and Glasgow I was only there for 2 months, but I still felt at home). Where as I’ve been here in Nice since Sept. 9th, which is now 2 months and a week and it still feels temporary. 2 months is anything but temporary! especially since I’m going to be here another month before any traveling really happens. I would have thought that Nice would have felt like home after this amount of time. I’ve always made friends fast and fit in with whatever group I’m with, and yet, it still feels foreign.
I know my thought process may not be the most interesting thing to read in the world, but putting all this down where I can go back and reread it will help to better understand who I am and what my soul is trying to tell me to do. Where God is trying to take me. Ultimately, what God wants me to do is what’s going to make me happy in the end. He never promised the journey would be a basket of flowers, just that in the end comfort and happiness would be waiting.
I hope everyone is having a marvelous Fall and is excited for Thanksgiving! I miss you all! Bisous!
and VO = version originale = in english. YAY!
just thought I would share a few fun photos :) we may not have the same mother language, but it doesn’t matter.
PS - this while we were at a water polo match. One of my friends here, Adrien is a “professionnel” it would probably be the equivalent of semi-pro, or minors in the States. Also Lauriana’s boyfriend, Perrick (I hope I spelled that right), is on the team.
PPS - Lauriana, is in the gray tanktop, Fatime (Adrien’s girlfriend) is in purple, and Guillaume is the other male in the photo… I’m the one with red hair in case you were wondering ;)
Random thoughts from people 20-35 years old…
More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?
Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.
There is a great need for sarcasm font.
Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.
I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.
How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
LOL has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.
I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.
How many times is it appropriate to say “What?”before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?
I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”
What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.
MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
Bad decisions make good stories
Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!
If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….
You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.
There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my document that I swear I did not make any changes to.
I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’
I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…
Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.
Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…
My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?
It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.
Suck it is not an answer
