East Coast Ramblings of a West Coast Girl

We're in the midst of midterm week, thus I have not properly written here in a while. But I don't want to work right now, so let's do this.

My lifestyle here in Paris is full of dancing in fancy apartments after having home-cooked meals. You could call these dinner parties, but I call them "quoi la fete!" And there have been some other really exciting occurrences here. Like, midterms.

So far, midterms have been OK. I say "OK" (a nice medium between BLAH and YAY) because I had a cinema midterm last week, which I found to be thoroughly "blah" because the essay question was extremely ambiguous and it was impossible to answer. Literally impossible to answer. However, I had an art history midterm just today, and it was very nice.

Basically, I had to memorize about 30+ works of art that we've studied in class/saw in the museums (Louvre, Orsay, or Marmottan). These works ranged from David in 1784 to Monet's final batch in the early 1900s. Neoclassicism to Impressionism. What a name for a documentary. It was really an arduous task to memorize these tableaux, especially since the midterm had 10 paintings we had to analyze among the 30+. But, I came out feeling more confident than last week's cinema midterm. Though in the midterm I know I spelled "absinthe" wrong, I think I'll be fine.

Last week, we had an exclusive look at the Hotel Matignon, otherwise known as the Prime Minister's residence. The tours for his place are WAY more exclusive than the White House because it's only open to the public once a year. We had a special little tour, and we were forbidden to take pictures inside. But I took a nice snapshot from the outside:

This weekend, it's off to Nimes! An NYU-sponsored-all-paid-for-because-that's-the-least-they-can-do trip! Hooray! We get to see French Cowboys. I do have high standards for cowboys (seeing as how I'm from America and lived with images of John Wayne dancing in my head), so we'll see how they do.

Think hard, my friends. You may end up being rectified and viewed by millions.

Midterms are finally over, aside from one big dossier that I am 95% finished with and another film critique I need to do for Wednesday. Ah, but all is well in the state of France. All is well indeed.

What is very important for any student in a university (especially if that university is NYU) is to be sure to use all of the resources that the school gives you, to take whatever they give you, and to, most importantly, do so vigilantly.

This past weekend we took a trip to Nimes and Camargue where you'll find the oldest Roman ruins outside of Italy. Fantastic. There was a big aqueduct and the second largest colloseum ever built (mind you, I say this without even knowing for a fact). It was really fantastic to be out of Paris and in the French countryside. After all, Paris is not France, and France is not Paris.

We saw bulls roam around, and then we ate bull for meals. Twice. Yum. Just like cow, except...it was bull.

Last night we went to go watch a play.

It was called "Jacques. Or Submission/The Future is in the Eggs." It was absolutely hilarious and strange.

Apparently this boy is just the biggest disgrace in his family, and you can tell, because he had already fallen through the house into the garage -- his disgrace is just that heavy. His parents are telling him how sad they are to have had him, his father is threatening to leave the family until he submits and tells them what they want to hear:

"I LOVE POTATOES," he screams to them.

Being very happy, the family decides it's time for him to marry. They find him a fiancée, but she has this paper bag over her head. when they unbag her, we see that she has two noses.

Jacques (the boy) is not wanting to marry yet, so to prolong the situation he yells, "SHE'S NOT UGLY ENOUGH! I want a girl with THREE noses."

Out goes the girl with two noses, and in comes the same girl who suddenly has three noses. They are forced to stay with each other in the garage, and after one night, they fall in love. They're both weird. They fall in love with their weirdness.

The second part of the play, the family decides, enough with their lovey-dovey...they need to reproduce. So, Jacques is on a nest, his wife is take upstairs and has tubes sticking out of her. By tubes, I mean pipes. Then suddenly eggs come out of these pipes. Hundreds of eggs. Jacques must warm them (like a bird) as the family raves and decides what type of people the eggs shall become.

All in all, nice. I like when we get to watch these plays, it really makes you feel like you're getting a good chunk out of Parisian lifestyle.

Recently, I've realized that sometimes I can't speak properly in English anymore. The other day i was talking to my mom on Skype, and suddenly I was trying to do weird things grammatically with my sentence. I was trying to conjugate things, and a French word slipped in.

Strange. Once I say a French word, I start going on in a French sentence, which is...just bizarre.

COLLEGE ACCEPTANCES! I know lots of you have been getting them.

If you have any questions about IB, AP credits, do be sure to e-mail me, or leave a comment. I actually can give you all the 411 about questions such as:
1. Should I still take the AP test?
2. Will my IB scores count for anything?
3. What will this IB or AP class get rid of?

=] good luck, bonne chance.

Another weekend in Paris. This time, it was quite relaxing. I went to DISNEYLAND PARIS, which was phenomenal, and then on Saturday I had a nice breakfast of banana pancakes and lots of coffee in mine and a friend's favorite coffee-getting place: Breakfast in America. Who knew that I'd miss America so much?

Then went on to Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) and there was this man singing covers of great songs with his guitar. He was amazing! In essence, we got a free concert. A freaking awesome free concert, to be exact.

I'm just so relieved that the papers, the dossiers, the midterms are finally over with. However, I am not happy that I still need to wait three more weeks for Spring Break. Agh! It was terrible planning on the part of NYU and the French University system. NYU in Paris really gives us a good taste of life in France because it does not give us Spring Break until all of the other universities in France have their spring break. This means that we have a whopping two weeks of classes after Spring Break, which, of course, kind of sucks. It's kind of cool, but kind of not just because we have finals to "look forward" to.

I've made a critical decision in my life: this summer I am going to go to New York to do an internship. I've already applied for housing. I've already sent in my resumes.

I've just realized what a big step this is.

Here I am. In Paris.

Home: California.

Distance: Far.

Just today as I was shopping for jeans (wishing that I could buy jeans at Gap -- simple, American Gap that gives you a plethora of sizes and doesn't assume that all women are under a size 4), I had a pang of homesickness. Maybe it was because of Gap, and the casualties of American lifestyles, the smiles on the streets, and the cheap(er) shopping. I tried on 500 pairs of jeans and each time I groaned and wished my mother were there to tell me if they suited me.

Then I groaned again, wishing I hadn't wished that my mother were here to tell me what to wear.

Basically, once I go home, I'll have two weeks, and then it's off to New York. Or rather, that's the plan. But I'm sure I'll be back home in California for August. Right? We'll see.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm uprooting myself in order to actually get myself rooted. Yes, I've said a mouthful again. Being far from my parents for so long certainly isn't anything typically "new" since I have had already gone through a few 3-4 month spans without them. But this is actually being continually away from them. Away from them, away from my best friends. Why must I be so sadistic, I ask myself. Why?

Sometimes it really is just necessary for me to learn how to grow without them. I do love my parents and take their advice very seriously, but when I end up shopping and wishing that my mother were here to give me their opinion, there's some growth that needs to take place.

Little do we know that we are adults. Somehow being in college, you are liberated, but you still feel that feeling of "I think I need to ask Mom and Dad..."

Imagine what awaits you once you step out of the gates of higher education...