My So-Called Life in the French Alps

Swedish food

2012-02-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

Ok-here it is... the post about the food here;
They like potatoes- lots of boiled potatoes. That's what you eat with swedish meatballs (which I've had two time already here and it's still just as good.) and with lots of other foods. They also have these stuffed potaoes that are filled with meat. You of course eat Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam. In the mornings I've been eating porrige with lingonberry jam and milk.
They also have this sausage that comes in a red package usually beef but you can get chicken too.

Next the bread-Of course you have "normal" bread but it's just as common to find "hard bread" which is like crackers. You buy it in round flat packages and they have a hole in the middle of them:

(-pictures I took in the supermarket.)

You can also find round, flat solf bread:
They are really big on Pastries here too... Mat made some this afternoon:

You can eat them during "Fika"-which is a coffee break with friends or family and usually with a pastry.

-Last thing, you can buy almost anything in the form of a tube or a sausage form: soup, jam, marzipan... probably more.

The Church of Danemark

2012-02-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed I skipped Monday in my blog posts, so I have to get that done now otherwise you might never get to see my pictures and that would be a shame because we saw some cool stuff on Monday.

Like for example this stone that dates back from the viking ages.
They were carved on by the vikings and then lost in the ground for a long time. Little by little people started finding them and placing them upright where they were found. So from time to time you see one of these planted in the ground.

We visited the Church of Danemark; no one seems sure of why it's called that... It's where Mat's parents were married and it's a very pretty little church:

Valentine's Day 2012

2012-02-14T12:04:00.008-08:00

First of all: Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Today was the first time I celebrated this holiday as a non single person, and it's awesome.

It's funny though how people that are single can be soo bitter about the holiday, it's really not a drama. Don't make a big deal about it and tell us over and over on facebook how much you hate this "stupid holiday". Hey-It's a nice holiday! Stop being mean.

I for one had a very nice day. My sweety took me into town.

And I loved it:

I just loved the vibe of Uppsala.

We saw a really cool museum about life in the town over the ages:

We saw the Cathedral, It's the biggest in Scandinavia!

And after dinner we saw Sherlock Holmes at the movies, which was a cool. As we left the theater it was snowing. There were still Christmas lights and it was really beautiful:

The tale begins

2012-02-12T07:54:00.000-08:00

Here are 1st of all some photos of the plane trip:

Safety instructions in case; you know, the plane crashes and stuff...

Mat playing on my Ipad

This morning started the official tales of my time here in Sweden. Things started off with a nice walk through the Swedish pine trees:

The yellow thing in the background is Ikea.

This in Tuva, Mat's Grandparent's dog, she is soft and fluffy and very cute :)

I'm here!

2012-02-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

I am writing to you from Sweden, and within five minutes of leaving the Stockholm airport I saw cute typical red and white swedish houses, within 15 minutes I saw an ikea. And within thrity minutes of arriving at Mat's grandparent's house I saw two deer roaming in the snow in the garden. This in going to be a good trip!

We are staying for 10 days and his grandparents have been very nice and welcoming. We are planning to visit a lot of museums and don't worry I will take tons of pictures.

One last thing, internet is super fast here! Awesome!

At Last

2012-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

The last week of school before the vacation has arrived, and not a moment too soon! On Saturday morning quite early I will be heading to Sweden with my awesome boyfriend where we will have a lot of fun and be cold and stuff...

I've started to pack my suitcase. I don't think I've EVER had so many jumpers in my life! And my mom insists that I HAVE to bring a pair of snow pants or I will DIE.

So it's really non-negociable you understand...

School has been ok I guess, I'm just really sick of all the child's play that goes on in my class. It's amazing how people that are real b****** (sorry for that but there is really no other way of describing the girls in my class)

They'll just stay that way their whole lives, they never change.

I feel as if I can just mind my own business most of the time, but all it takes is one step over the line to make them hate you even more then they already did.

I know this is totally gonna sound like what everyone says, but, the popular people never liked me- not the somewhat popular people, not the average people. The people that are my friends are not necessarily outcasts but people who, like me, were bullied, hated on or hurt at school in their younger years. Though things get a bit better in high school and I find that (for me anyway) because now I know who I am and can stand up for myself , even now you never really lose that tag: the one labelled: "She's different"

I do pride myself on being different, I'm sure happy to not be like those people.
But I can't help but wish that we could all just let each other live in peace rather than inflict so much pain and conflict all the time for nothing.

Not very good... bad Tya.

2012-02-02T09:53:00.001-08:00

I haven't blogged yet this year, that is bad, very bad. Quite frankly not a great start for this year, I'll try to improve on that. Especialy since so much is happening in my life right now. I've finished filling up my application for my art school in Avignon, I'm ready to send it out!

I've also been hard at work on my art, at school, as well as at my Wednesday art classes, even though one of the teachers is particularly harsh and it's been very hard to cope with some of her criticism. I've actually been exploring a new universe I've never tried before: abstract art. ok-to tell you the truth I had kind of sworn it off. It had never really appealed to me at all, until I started it. I'm really at the begining, I've been doing some sketches of things that could be interesting and I also did three different quick paintings. It really allows so much expression and emotion into your work.

So-much to explore in that domain.

My school art projects have been coming together nicely with this latest addition:

Also i'm leaving for Sweden NEXT SATURDAY!!!! Sooo soonnnn!!! Even though I feel like I'm already there due to the crazy sub-zero temperatures and snow we have been having around here (aparently it's still colder in Sweden, yikes!) I'll have to keep you all posted on my stay there though. :)

Memorable 2011

2011-12-22T05:29:00.000-08:00

2011 has flown by so fast it truely is amazing!!

January: I went through a mad drawing phase, I spent all my spare time drawing and made huge progress on my skills. But I was going through a rough time with my best friend Val, we were hardly speaking to each other.

Febuary: I was still drawing all the time and painting too. This was also the month an aquaintance talked to me about Mathias. And I met him for the 1st time!

March: Mat and I started going out as an official couple. I went to Avignon to check out my future school and absolutely fell in love with it.

April: My German pen pal came for a visit, so I got to go to Lyon for the 1st time everrr!! I also signed up for extra art classes in september. I managed to patch things up with Val.

May: Got our dresses for the Ren fair coming up, spent alot of time in Geneva with Mat and my friend Bérénice.

June: Hung out with the fencing club at the big Andilly Ren Fair! Had my French, Math and Sciences exams for the BAC. I passed with flying colors! I then killed my computer by droping it on the floor

July: Had the most perfect 18th birthday party I ever had! Saw Metallica and Slipknot in concert at Europe's biggest Metal festival.

August: Worked my first summer job at the local supermarket. Painfulllll...

September: Started my senior year of high school along with my extra art classes and singing at the music conservatory. Very busy!

October: Got my new awesome camera. Had an amazing Halloween party!

November: Mat and I bought our tickets for our trip to Sweden in Febuary.<3 Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and Mat's.

December: Signed up at the driving school. Leaving for London the 26th!!

Christmas Holidays!

2011-12-18T04:42:00.001-08:00

Finally all is right in the world!

I'm on vacation, there is 1 week before Christmas...

And it's snowing too!

I went to Ikea yesterday with, my mom, dad, sister Alexa and Mat of course, they were having their Swedish Christmas buffet!

I just love the Christmas decorations they have there! Mat even bought me a pretty one and he also bought one for himself, I just love it:

BTW he left for Sweden about 30 minutes ago so I won't see him for about two weeks, thank god for Skype!

The holidays are coming!

2011-12-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

I feel like I've been so busy lately, it's crazy!

Between school and the holidays coming up I have not had any time to rest. I just feel tired. Literally tired.

I really need this vacation.

Another thing that has been taking up all my spare time: Driving school!

I know, I finaly signed up!

Here in France getting your diving licence is like rocket science or something, they just make the whole thing so long, and hard, and (dear god!) Expensive. Thank you that my parents are kindly paying for it or my whole pay check of 1350 euros from this summer would have been spent. That is about 1755 US dollars! I am not kinding you, it's just crazy expensive!

Vacation tomorrow!

It feels so good to write that down.

I also sang last week end with my choral group, Gloria by Vivaldi, it went well but I'm so glad it's OVER, I can finaly relax.

We organised a gift exchange in my class, which I guess is a nice idea, except the class pervert got my name, (yes, we have a class pervert, and yes, he is scary) I wonder what he got me, I'm afraid, very afraid... ^^

Another thing, I LOVE christmas, I love the decorations, I love the lights, I love the food, the tree, the presents... everything! Even the snow (of which we have had none for now BTW)

Wishing you snow and lots of joy! Pictures soon, I promise!

Turkey time!

2011-11-27T03:59:00.000-08:00

We had a nice time last night, when we finally celebrated Thanksgiving! Mat and his parents were there with us.

We made the traditional "Relish tray". My mom told me that the girls of her family would arrange the tray with little aluminium compartments for the different snacks.

Then of course we had the traditonal meal with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, pumpkin pie and gravy. Mat made a cake for us too.

We ended the evening with a nice game of Pit. We had a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-26T05:04:00.000-08:00

We didn't celebrate thanksgiving on the real day this year.

We are celebrating tonight!

My mom invited Mat and his family over, it's going to be super fun.

I'm really looking forward to getting everybody together for the first time!

Hope everything goes well.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon making homemade mashed potatoes and my mom made TWO pumpkin pies! Yum!

Today we made green bean and spinach caserole, the turkey and stuffing is in the oven as I write this.

It's going to be a great night, with family, friends and the man I love.

Things I want to share

2011-11-22T12:01:00.001-08:00

Here are a couple of things I woud like to share with my readers:

One of my fave youtubers: CTFxC aka Internet killed television

Charles Trippy and his (as of last Sunday!!) wife Alli have been vloging every day for 3 years, without ever missing a day! They are funny and fun to watch go through their everyday lives. They even have a wiki page! here!

Next, just this pretty piano cover of Yellow by Coldplay which happens to be our song. (Mat and I that is)

I'm going to Sweden!

2011-11-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

It's a done deal, I'm heading to Sweden with my beloved boyfriend Mat!

I can't believe this is really going to happen!

We bought our plane tickets last Sunday, and we will be heading out on the 11th of Febuary! And coming back the 22nd.

We will be staying with his grandparents who were kind enough to let us stay with them during our 10 day stay. They live in Uppsala, about an hour away from Stockholm. and it seems like an absolutely beautiful place.

We are also planing to visit Stockholm a bit and see some of the many museums...

Mat tells me so much about his country that he loves so much, and I feel so blessed to be able to share something like that with him.

I sometimes forget to tell him how much he really means to me, in person some things like that are hard to explain, I find that writing comes easier to me.

So I guess, since he reads my blog from time to time that I should tell him in a couple lines how I feel right now:

Mat, you have no idea how you changed my life, how you make me laugh, how you bring joy to everthing we do together. You love me for who I am, and I feel so blessed to have found you. These short lines can, in no way express everthing I feel for you and what I thank you for. There is so much more I have to tell you, but we have all the time in the world to do so.

Halloween 2011!!

2011-11-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

Halloween!

Yet again a holiday ignored by most of the residents of our little French village but not by us!

We decorated the house.

Put on our costumes!

And once again we hosted our annual Halloween party!

Random pics

2011-10-26T03:18:00.000-07:00

Cold

Soap

My cat Dexter

An art project

Drömmar Recipe

2011-10-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

On Monday my Boyfriend and I made cookies. Mat told me that in Sweden it's a tradition to make 7 different kinds of cookies when you have people over. We only made two different kinds, and that alone was enough work.

Here is the Recipe for one of them that we made:
They are called Drömmar, which means dream in Swedish. You need:
-100g of butter
-3 cups of sugar
-2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
-1cup of oil (not olive)
-1 teaspoon of salt
-4 cups of flour

1. Preheat the oven at 150°C. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla sugar together until smooth.
2. Add oil and flour. Mix quickly into a smooth dough. (It's normal if it's quite dry)
3. Press the dough into balls and place on a tray covered with a sheet of wax paper. (This will take a lot of pressing but if the dough is just too dry, add a bit of oil)
4. Bake for 25 minutes.
5. Let them cool on the tray until cold, otherwise they will easily break apart.

Thoughts on breaking up

2011-10-25T04:10:00.001-07:00

I feel wierd when I hear that a couple is breaking up...

Even more so if it's people that have been together for a long time.

At first maybe I feel a bit sad for them, but maybe, in the end, it's not such a sad thing...

They learn from the other, they grow and they love with all their hearts.

Love shared is never lost even when the relationship is over.

The two people got what they needed and now they just need something else.

Sometimes a person just knows that it's time to move on, and there is no use fighting against it.

No matter what happens they were loved, and that is something beautiful.

The people in my life

2011-10-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

The begining of my senior year of high school... wow, I can't believe that I'll be done with high school in a couple of months, that's kind of crazy. To think that in a year I will be far from everybody I know, my family, friends, my boyfriend... my life really is going to change soon.

These past two months have been a lot of work, homework and everything.

But you remember my friend Laura who had to change schools? Well she is back for good! her other school was to unbearable so she came back! I was so happy when I found out.

It's amazing how one person can make your life so happy...

In one second, my senior year went from sad and boring, to fun and full of joy.

Some people might tell me not to base my joy on others that much, but i can't really help it.

What is joy if you can't share it with people that you love?

Sure, I have things that I love to do on my own. Read a good book, do some painting or project...

But what is all that if you can't give you opinion of a good book to your friend, or to show a drawing that you are proud of to your sister?

To me happiness is built with others. That was something I was afraid to do for a very long time.

Once I loved so much that it almost destroyed me. After that, I never wanted to open up again for fear of giving too much... for fear of being left with nothing.

But how thankful I am to have realized that alone was no way to live your life!

People can be kind just as they can be vile. The trick is to know how to find those few special people who will give your life meaning.

Pictures

2011-10-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

I just got a new camera! It was on sale, it's a 14 megapixel Fujifilm. One of those cameras that are middway between a Reflex and a regular digital camera.

I've been having a lot of fun with it:

Bedroom in the forest

2011-10-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Today for a school art project I had to invest, artistically of course, a place in nature.

So I decided to make a bedroom in the forest behind my house. It was a lot of work but I'm really happy with the result! (Luckily I had my sisters to help set up.)

And here it goes again.

2011-09-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

And so school has started up once again.

It's the same class as last year, basically the same teachers so I'm pretty used to the routine by now. All the activities started up again as well, like my extra art class every Wednesday night!

My first class was this week, it seems like it's going to be a lot of work but I'm really excited to get started.

Oh what else?... Things are still great with Mat. We had a date just today out on the town in Geneva, with a stop and Ikea to satisfy his Swedish needs, then a quick stop at the American Market: a tiny little shop that sells American products, to pick up some cans of Fresca (my fave drink) and some Mnt Dew (Mat's favorite drink). Then we met up with my mom and sisters at the Mall. It was really a great day.

Just watched The Notebook, good movie, made me cry, very romantic and beautiful. Great example of a girl struggling with a decision between her first love and her fiancé. Romantic, beautiful scenes, a tragic but hopefull feeling to it. Loved the costumes (since part of the movie takes place in the 50's) But the male character (the first love) Noah, charming and funny at 1st, then seemed a little bit unattached later on in the movie. (In my opinion)

I would give it a 15/20.

Botticelli

2011-08-22T04:46:00.000-07:00

I did some art yesterday, I copied this painting by Botticelli, it was nice to paint again after such a long time...

Word on Travel

2011-08-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

On Monday I suddenly realized with horror that I hadn't left the Valley in almost 3 weeks!

Between going to work at 2, working every night until 7.30 and waking up late I hadn't left the Valley where I live in a long time... Luckily my mom fixed that on Wednesday and took me shopping in the morning, which was very nice for me.
It's true that things have been very calm around here- everyone except me seems to be on vacation!! Mat is in Sweden visiting his grandparents. I haven't seen Valentin since my birthday party and Bérénice left last week for the USA!!! Lucky her!!!!

And me? I have been working... My mom told me that I should choose something to buy for myself with the money I will get- something to congratulate myself for my hard 6 weeks of work. I don't know what yet...

Mat told me semi-jokingly that I should save it for a trip to Sweden with him, but I just might take him up on that offer! It seems like an awesome place, all the TV shows are in English with Swedish subtitles!!! How cool is that!? ;)

It's true that before meeting Mat I hardly even knew where Sweden was. But now I'm a mini-expert. :) Mat tells me every night on Skype about the towns, the museums, the things to visit. It looks so fun and interesting.

I have a newfound admiration for the country.

But the truth is I have so many places to visit!

I really want to go to England: London and all that.

Ireland: I don't know, I've always been fascinated by their music and culture.

USA: There are still so many places I haven't seen there yet, New York, the Grand Canyon......

I have yet to visit any Asian Country, so I'll have to do that too!!!

All these places would be amazing to visit.
So I dream....

Work

2011-07-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

Monday was my 1st day at work.

It was hard. I'm working in the fruits and vegetable section of a local Casino supermarket.

It's very physically demanding work. Always lifting crates of produce and stocking the shelves. It's only part time 2pm to 7.30pm but it seems long to me. I get a 26 minute break around 4 and I have Sunday off.

It's my first job ever, the people I work with are nice and I even have a friend of mine working there too this week.

Yesterday went better, they showed me how to use the cash register so I can help out when they are busy.

Birthday Party!

2011-07-15T02:25:00.001-07:00

I had a great birthday party with all my friends! We played "Rock Band" outside, had a barbecue and even a campfire, FTW! It really was an amazing evening...

Birthday! :D

2011-07-06T02:33:00.001-07:00

Hi!

Today is my Birthday!!! I'm 18 years old!

wow.

I never thought I would see this day.

I don't really know what being 18 in the USA means, but here in France in means a LOT:

1. You can get your driving licence.

2.You can buy alcohol.

3.You are basicly in charge of yourself in all your legal stuff.

4.You can have credit cards, checks, all that stuff.

5. I can get married! If I wanted to. ;)

6.I can vote!

7.eummm...I can sign my own excuses for being absent at school...?

8. As the dictonary puts it: "to be an adult"

Ehhh, I wouldn't go that far...I'm not an adult just yet. ;)

I'm having a birthday party tonight arround 6pm with all my friends. I'm super excited!

Murder

2011-06-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

I am a murderer.

I killed my computer.

Last night I was watching "Dollhouse" on my computer (great series by the way).

I moved and the computer sliped, shattering the screen.

And now I feel like a murderer.

At least I know what I want for my 18th birthday next week...

Relax

2011-06-25T03:13:00.000-07:00

I rarely remember my life being so perfect as it seems to be nowadays. I've been spending a lot of time with Valentin, which is just great.
Our end of the year concert with the band went really well by the way!
I'm kinda on vacation I guess...even though I have my French oral exam left, since all my other exams went so well I can relax a bit.
I got to see Mat a couple of times, he cooked for me (a swedish receipe) he is a great cook!
Also, I'm probably going to work this summer at the local supermarket from the 25th of July to the 4th of Sepetember! So I am very excited about that.

Change.

2011-06-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

I've always had a problem with change.
I think it is because for so many years when I lived in Africa I would see everyone leave. One by one, everyone that had ever been my friend, who had ever been important to me seemed to leave me all alone again.
Every year it would be the same story, the school year would start, new kids arrived, I made friends, and some left at the end of the year. Or the year after, or after that. Every time I would pull through saying that anyway it was just a person, another one would replace them.
This seemed to be true when I was younger, everyone got along, anyone that came along could become a friend.
Only two times in my life I have felt like someone could never be replaced, in the case of my two best friends, Sophie, my childhood best friend and Valentin, my best friend since I came back to France.
When I moved back here I was thrown into a world were everyone had grown up together, been together in elementary school, friends since years... I came along, and people couldn't be my friend. They didn't know me, they didn't want to.
Only one boy came to sit next to me during 2nd period. You guessed it: Val. That gesture won him my instant appreciation and very quickly my friendship. He wanted to know everything, he was interested and let me talk about what I knew best. And I knew that at least here, in France, people didn't move away every year.

Change.

So when Laura, my only friend in my class told me she was changing schools next year, it was hard, to say the least. It was Africa all over again.

I hate change.

I say that, but it's not true. I, myself have changed so much these past few years: managed to control my jealousy (of which I had very much of), I figured out that I can dress how I want without feeling shy about other people's reactions, I learned that the people in your life ARE important, I learned how to be happy even when things get kinda bad...
I learned to love again. ♥

more exams

2011-06-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hey!

Just taking a break in between studing for my Science BAC tomorrow morning and singing this morning at the hospital. I sing at the conservatory of music with my mom and for the music festival today we sang at the hospital caferetia at lunchtime. kinda awkward...but some seemed to enjoy it I guess... later this afternoon we are singing at the old folks home, where I'm hoping they will be more receptive.

Yesterday was my French BAC. 4 hours long, hard, but it went really well, I was happy with my work. So that's pretty awesome!

Tomorrow is my last written exam: Science, just an hour and a half long. I'm not too stressed about it. I wish I could say I was truely on vacation after that but sadly I'm not. I still have my French Oral test on the 4th of July! (what a wierd little independance day celebration I will be having...)

Andilly 2011

2011-06-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

We just spent two amazing week ends in the 15th century!

I got to wear my great dress... :)

My brother looked awesome in his new armour.

My wonderful boyfriend came to see me:

(this is me wearing chain-mail. It's much heavier then it looks...)

And love must have been in the air because my brother just found a faire damsel: my good friend Bérénice! ♥

On another note my exams started, well...yesterday. I had my BAC of Math. It went really well! I wasn't nervous and I was confident about my answers. So, I'm pretty optimistic for the rest. Next is the 4hour long French BAC on Monday!

Ren faire dresses!

2011-05-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

We received our dresses for the up and coming Ren Faire in June!!!
I'm so excited!
We had them made to our measurements and chose the colors ourselves.
I just LOVEEEE my dress sooo much! I can't wait to wear it out:

Wonderful day:

2011-05-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, it didn't start out that awesome because I had to get up at 6am on a Saturday for my last practice test before the real BAC. I can't believe I only have 4 weeks of school left and then my exams!

Anyway, I organized an outing with my brother, Béré and Mat to Geneva that afternoon. It was raining pretty hard but we poked around the shopping mall and ate at Mac Donalds.

Then we went over to Béré's house to sing some kareoke:

A new member:

2011-05-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

My sister Mallory just joined the blogging community everyone!

How exciting! :D

I was about her age when I started blogging so I was very happy to help her get her blog going.

She going to be reviewing different books she reads.

Her blog is called "Bang Girl's Pages of Truth"

I put a link in the list of blogs I follow on the right, she is working on her 1st post right now so it should be up soon!

Hope you will check it out!

Things that make me happy:

2011-05-03T03:40:00.000-07:00

-Hanging out with Béré and my brother:

-Watching You tube videos.

-Wedding dresses like this one:

-Starbucks:

-Seeing Mat next Thursday after two weeks apart.

-Reading "Jane Auten Mystery"

-Getting random texts at weird hours, from Mat, just to remind me that I'm loved.

-Roses like these:

Beautiful Days

2011-04-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

I had a great time out in Geneva with my brother and Béré yesterday.

We ended up seeing "Source Code", it was annoying.

I don't know if any of you have seen it, but I don't recomend it. AT ALL.

Even though the movie was a bit of a bust for me, the company was great and that was all I needed.

Next we had a little drink at Starbucks:

Ahhh.... I love Geneva. :D

I'm in the middle-I feel small. lol

Movies, vacation and one little disappointment.

2011-04-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

Remember this plan.

Well it fell apart today.

Sadly they were looking for people to work there, not interns, and they wanted people for the two months of June and July. And as my last BAC exam is the 6th of July it didn't work out.

I was pretty upset though. I was really looking forward to that internship. I talked it through with Mat on the phone, he made me feel a bit better...

Then I watched a chick flick with my brother: "Love actually", it's a funny movie- He's been watching a lot of those lately, getting in touch with his romantic side... ;) I plan on making him watch "Ps: I love you" next, were I plan on getting AT LEAST a tear out of him.

Still on vacation and keeping busy...

Sev and I are going to see a movie tomorrow with Béré, probably "The Adjustment Bureau",

It looks totally epic.

Easter

2011-04-25T02:17:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday was easter. We got SOOoooo many chocolates and candy, stuff from the US. Wonder how the easter bunny managed to do THAT!

We decorated a couple of eggs. In the past we would make much more and do it days ahead of time but I guess this year Easter kinda snuck up on us:

In the afternoon we went to an art expo in Evian, though the expo wasn't that great we walked around and I was content with these pictures that I took of flowers:

Hope you had a great easter!

EBAG

2011-04-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

I just got my papers to fill out for the EBAG. The Ecole des Beaux Arts en Genevois. It's an art school not too far from my high school that gives prepratory courses in order to help you prepare for art school competitions.
Here in France you get into schools mostly by "competiton" as they call it- tests and interviews...

At this school, the classes are every Wednesday night, so you can also go to regular school without a problem, but places are limited- so they ask lots of things:
-a letter expressing your motivation to get in
-a short text describing the work of an artist of your choice (the job)
-a dossier of photos of drawings and projects you've done
-the last three trimestrial school papers with your grades
-numerous other papers to fill out...

If you get accepted, you have an interview with a jury and then you can join the class next year.

I'm on vacation since yesterday and last night I got started working on my letter and text, I'm going to do the rest today so I better get to work...

♥ I have an introduction to make... :)

2011-04-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

I have an introduction to make to the blogging community:

I don't know if you guys remember my Valentine's Day post but I happened to say that things were going "very well for me", and I left it at that.

Well THIS is the reason why things are going so well...

Well...more like HE is the reason things are going so well: This is Matt. Short for Mathias.
And he's my boyfriend of just over a month. ♥

A friend introduced us about 2 months ago and we clicked right away. He happens to be just as culturally diverse as I am. His mother is Swedish and his Dad Spanish. He speaks fluent Swedish and French of course and has lived in France his whole life.

He doesn't go to my school, but we see each other pretty often and text every day. We just had a great date today, he took me to a fair that was in town then we hung out at the park. But he started having is pollen allergies again, that's why this is not the best picture of him.The hat is kind of a joke, he's not a gangster, he's more of a Swedish lumberjack! ;)

But I still look good with his hat:

Hope you guys also had a great day! :)

Primary school.

2011-04-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I had a lot of confidence issues, mostly because of school.

When I was in 1st Grade the teacher would scare me just by shouting at other students. She never got angry at me but just the fact that she would shout at other students would scare me SOOO much.

And then in 2nd Grade I had the worst teacher, he was a cool hippy dude but we didn't learn much, he would come in every morning and ask: "So! What do you want to do today? Math, French or Art?"...Guess what was always voted...YEAHHH... we spent most of 2nd Grade drawing.

I ended up doing my 2nd Grade two times, because I wasn't very good at French, yeah. Art, apparently, does NOT count as an international language at school. :(

3rd Grade was the least problematic, nice teacher, all was well.

4th and 5th Grade were weird...at the time I didn't realize anything at the time but now thinking back, I think my teacher was a drunk, we had the same one those two years. Some days he was really nice and others his eyes were bloodshot at he would get in terrible tempers!

LOL

A couple of years later they told us that he had died. The rumor was that he was shot down by his wife's lover... somehow I doubt that.

Still very strange...

Lyon

2011-04-13T04:52:00.000-07:00

It's been SOOO cold these past few days. There has been sun, but there is also icy wind. I had to put a sweater back on... :(

Nothing much has been going on. My German exchange student headed back home. She had a fun time when there was shopping involved...

Me? I enjoyed Lyon very much and hope to drag my mom over there soon for a shopping expedition in the older part of town. It was my first time there EVARRRR and it was great:

Just the begining

2011-04-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we picked up my German exchange student who will be staying with us for a week. Theresia is the best and we took her to visit Chamonix and the Mont Blanc today:

It was a beautiful day. Hope to have many more this week!

Je ne l'ose dire...

2011-03-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

This great song shows what the idea of fun was in the late 16th century!

Good times to be had!

HERE is are the words (plus an English translation).

"Je ne l'ose dire"-Pierre Certon, 1572:

Refrain: La la la, je ne l'ose dire!

Je ne vous dirai,

Et la la la, je ne le dirai!

Il est un homme en nos villes

Qui de sa femme est jaloux

Il n'est pas jaloux sans cause,

Mais il est cocu du tout!

Refrain

Il n'est pas jaloux sans cause,

Mais il est cocu du tout;

Il l'apprête et s'il la mène

Au marché, s'en va à tout!

Refrain

Le mari, a ce supplice,

Dans le grenier se pendit!

Mais la femme par malice,

Chez Lucifer le suivit!

Refrain

La morale de cette histoire,

C'est qu'avant de se marier,

Il faut savoir le jour-même,

Que c'est pour l'éternité!

La la la I don't dare repeat it!

I won't tell you,

I won't say it!

There is a man in our village,

Jealous of his wife

He is not jealous without cause,

For he is cheated on.

He is not jealous without cause,

For he is cheated on;

He gets her ready and follows her

To the market, where all are flirting with her.

Finally, tired of this torture,

He hung himself in the attic!

But his wife, out of mischievousness,

Followed him to Hell!

The lesson of this story,

Is that when we marry,

We must remember that from that day,

It will be for eternity!

24 hours in Avignon:

2011-03-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

My mom and I went to Avignon this week end, just for 24hours.

We went to check out the art school there, which happens to be the only public French school to propose a program in art restoration, which is what I would like to do as a job after my bac.

Avignon is located in the south of France, you know...where they have those crazy accents?...

It's about a 4 hour drive to get there but if you take the train, (like we did) it only takes 2 hours.

When we got on the train it was rainy and cold in the French Alps, but when we stepped off the train in Avignon, it was sunny and beautiful, with a very strong wind...typical of the south of France, but very annoying.

The first thing I must say is that I fell in love with this town the minute I stepped off the bus into the center of town ( only about a block away from the art school).

It's a beautiful historic city, with a fortified wall all around the central part. Even in the middle of March there were lots of tourists (Japanese, as usual...)

We spent the morning at the art school open house, where we got to talk to students and teachers.
I'm probably going to try to get in after my bac.
The director of the school told us that they base their choice of students mainly on the person's motivation and maturity.

Which, I hope, I have plenty of.

That left us the whole afternoon to be touristy and look around.

We ate at this great little sushi place, that we had, A LOT of trouble finding but was totaly worth the walking around aimlessly:

It hadn't really been our fault- the hotel receptionist gave us the wrong directions. Speaking of hotel, this is the one we decided to stay in:

The Pope's Palace Hotel is in this crazy little old building, overlooking the main square and the Pope's Palace (duh!), which just happens to be the biggest gothic palace in Europe.

And boy... they weren't lying. I'm totaly into the whole museum/castle thing but my mom and I were worn out after an hour and a half of wanding about inside. It was just too big: Different Popes lived here for about a century for security reasons.

We also visited the famous "Pont d'Avigon", the bridge of Avignon. It's super-famous because of the old song: "Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse. Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse tous en rond"

Which means: "On the bridge of Avignon, we are dancing, we are dancing. On the bridge of Avignon, we are dancing in circles." Originaly the words were: "Under the bridge" instead of "On" because people would take shelter under the bridge on rainy days and well... I guess they would dance to pass the time?...

sounds good.

It was also VERY windy up there!

We were expecting to see everyone dancing up there, but not even one... Except for the two of us, which won us a couple of weird looks... XD

We had a great 24hours and I hope to go back very soon. Maybe next year for the art school tryouts! :D

Voltaire

2011-03-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

So we have this oral presentation next week for the BAC. We 've been working on it since the begining of the year in teams of three.

Laura M, Marine and I worked on Voltaire's book "Candide", and the adaptation that was made into operetta by Leonard Berstein!

Next Wednesday we finally get to present our findings to a panel of juges.

We've decided to do that under the form of a theater piece in which, Voltaire, Bernstein and a young fan of both their works meet and talk about the two different forms of the same story.

I play Voltaire...and with that comes the costumes!!!

This is going to be fun... :)

At Last...

2011-03-12T01:38:00.000-08:00

Remember the twins's room?

Yep... well it's been done for over a week now. Here are the pics:

Now the room is a great size for the two girls and they may stop plotting about kicking me out of the house so they can have my room... AWESOME!!

Another thing- remember Mal?

How she looked before:

cute right?

Well after a trip to the hairdresser, she looks even cuter:

Yep...Bangs! They look great on her!

Also we start school again on Monday, vacation is almost done. I went running 5 days out of 14... Kinda fail?...

Twins room: day 2

2011-03-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

Next we had to get all the supplies.

We had so much stuff to buy that we had to rent a van to carry it all. My mom had fun driving this one around:

We were able to start building the wall!

Twin's room: 1st day of work

2011-03-02T06:52:00.000-08:00

Here is the problem: the upstairs hallway:
The door on the left leads to my sisters's room and that hallway had always been a bit like wasted space with a balcony on the end of it. Sure, there was a bookshelf, some plants and a guinea pig cage but all in all it was pretty useless.

Plus, the twins were really outgrowing their room and they were already wondering how they could kick me out of the house sooner so they could have my room too.

So...we needed a solution

Here is what the twins room looked like:

Here the room is already prepared for the operations ahead....

We start with taking the wood off the ceilling:

And then we broke down a whole freaking wall!!!

yep...

We decided to make the hallway part of the bedroom.

When we got the rest of the ceilling off we were greeted by this lovely surprise:

That HUGE thing is a wasp nest, that's right...in the ceilling.

A couple of months back we had kind of like a wasp infestation, we couldn't quite figure it out- they seemed to all be coming from the twins's room.
Mystery solved. :o

When we got it all cleaned up...after just one day's work, the hallway looked like this.

Not bad, but more pics to come.
For now the whole house seems to be buried in dust and Severin has been working very hard.
Everybody is having a busy beginning of vacation!

Some singing, some drawing and lots of fun :)

2011-02-26T04:55:00.001-08:00

It's vacation! Finally, after 8 longs weeks of school. Finally some time to relax and do some fun things which means. Fun things to write about in my blog!

First of all I drew some more on Monday, most of you know

about my love for Beauty and the Beast which I talk about HERE.

Well I decided to do a drawing on that, I had a model but I'm happy with the result, I just have so much fun drawing!

Next thing: yesterday was my last day of school I went directly from school to the music conservatory because my mom's concert was going to start in about an hour! Yep, that's right! My mom's concert, she's a student at the music school and is really a great soprano! :)

The show was great! My mom did an awesome job! Not to mention that she had by far the best costume!(she's the one with the gray wig)
The theme was the Carnaval of Venice, it was like a little play with music and singing, I enjoyed it very much. I even filmed my mom's solo song but I seem to be having trouble getting it off my camera :(

Even some of our good friends, that used to live in Ouaga and then went on to live in Cambodia came to the show. They recently moved back to the region near Geneva so they are like neighbours now! It's kind of amazing how fate makes people find each other again! :) They have 3 kids and the wife happens to be a quite renoun artist: Margherita Del Balzo!

Here is the link to her site, her work really is AMAZING! The works from Africa are really inspired from Burkina's strange but beautiful landscape.

So after the concert we all went to a nice Cambodian restaurant not to far away, the owner was SO pleased to have guests that spoke Khmer!

Also, last update about the vacation: I'm going to be running every day to stay fit.

Ingres

2011-02-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

I drew some more on Wednesday, I based it on this painting by Ingrès:

I think it's my best so far, I used a 2B pencil this time and I think the effect is better:

Valentine's day! ♥

2011-02-14T00:19:00.000-08:00

It's my day today!

Over the years I've had my share of people ask me if I was born on Valentine's day.
The answer is no.

But this was only in the US.

Because here in France today is NOT Saint Valentine's day, but "La journée Saint Valentin!"

I guess that because in the US Valentine is both a male and female name, the day is the 14th.

Here in France the male name: Valentin is today and for the female version: Valentine, is the 25th of July...

I realize that I have a tendency not to talk too much about my "private life"....Well now with Valentine's Day I'm gonna just tell you that things are going very well for me.

I'll be sure to talk more if I judge it necessary... ; )

You guys all have a great day and be sure to tell the people you care about how much you really love them.

And for all you "single" people out there: Valentine's Day is not all about THAT kind of love. It's every kind of love: your friends, your familly, heck even your dog!

So don't spend the day moping and saying that you're single!

Go out there and spread the love!

this dude...

2011-02-13T03:12:00.000-08:00

Other then that not much is going on around here.

Do you guys have anything planned for Valentine's day? :)

Painting, take two:

2011-02-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, my first painting project didn't got so well, I never took a class and I'm not all that good but as my mom always tells me: "Just practice a lot you'll get better."

Well I took her advice and did just that: practice, with a second painting.

Turns out practice really does make perfect, or at least, practice makes less lame:

And my inspiration:

Portrait of a young girl by Petrus Christus (1410-1475)

Even though it's really not perfect it's a big improvement from my 1st one.

More drawing!

2011-02-06T05:54:00.000-08:00

Here is another drawing I did based on a painting by Vermeer:

"Lady and her Maidservant holding letter" -1665

La Sainte Famille

2011-01-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

On Friday, during art class I did a real quick drawing of a detail in this painting by Rembrandt: "La Sainte Famille"

Mermaid drawing

2011-01-27T09:32:00.000-08:00

I did some more drawing today.

I know what you are going to say: "That young girl needs clothing on the top part of her body!" Don't blame me, blame the artist of the original drawing I copied...

Drawing Time!

2011-01-26T07:08:00.000-08:00

I realized the other day that I used to draw all the time when I was younger and now I don't have the habit anymore.

So today I drew...

This took me about an hour and a half and I admit I had a model but still I'm pretty happy with it:

I intend to draw more and to take some classes next year to get better...

100th post!!!!

2011-01-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

So this marks the 100th post on my Blog, I know... a blog that's been around since 2006 SHOULD have more then THAT!!

Well mine doesn't...

Take that! I defy the institution that says otherwise!

So this 100th post will be special because I have new arts for you, well...more like one new piece, that I did mostly with collage but a bit of painting was involved:

I used old victorian era illustrations and cut outs: It's about 35x35 centimeters and could make a nice decorating piece...

Jane Austen Quizz!

2011-01-22T02:54:00.000-08:00

I took a Jane Austen quizz about which character I resemble most and guess what?
I'm Elizabeth Bennet!

"You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of ridiculousness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed."

YAY!

Take the Quiz here!

Chateau Chillon:

2011-01-20T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a lot of future orienting things this week. I will tell you all about in time but today I just sent my application for an internship for this summer.

I applied for a two week internship here: Isn't it just perfect?!

It's the Chateau de Chillon in Switzerland. I can't wait to know if I will get to intern there. It looks so beautiful! Here is the site! You gotta love the Swiss, they even have it in English for you guys!

This I why I love living in Europe: you get the chance to work in a 12th century castle!

Hey! Do you think they would let me come to work in period clothing?... ;)

Weird...Tokio Hotel?! Really?!

2011-01-08T02:17:00.001-08:00

I have this public blog patrol thing that allows me to see how many visitors I have on my blog a day, the pages they look at, and the key words they type in to get to my blog. And very, very often, in the twenty top pages looked at, there are 9 for this post:

This really old post about the German Band "Tokio Hotel".

(sorry no link the post seems to be broken...)

I've been noticing this over the past few months and this very strange... I didn't even know people still cared about them... Or that it was the most interesting thing I talked about...

I'm mainly writing this post to check if it's not my imagination, and if my views on my blog will skyrocket as soon as I write about Tokio Hotel.

So here, I will write about their whereabouts these days:

Apparently things aren't going so good for the group. Their 2010 tour across Europe: Norway, Italy, Germany, France and Switzerland was a flop: Half empty rooms. Sucks to be them.

Same for the CD sales, which are very low compared to their 2005 CD.

But they are more well-liked in Malasia, for example, where their concerts were a success.

I guess they should be touring closer to Tokio rather then Europe.... ;)

The Future...

2011-01-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

I HATE German! I'm pretty sure it's the hardest language on earth. The words are all mixed up and the correct order is something worthy of Yoda... The fact remains:

German I hate!

Half the year has gone by and I really feel like I haven't learned anything.

I've been spending most of my time in the art room with my art teacher doing extra work. (btw I spent 5 hours today in my art class. I think I distracted those poor 6th graders...)

So far the year has been more of an artistic thing_ which is normal, considering I want to work in that domain later on in life. I would like to become an art restorer.

But people have be telling me that I should do something with a more creation bent- that a restorer doesn't create, only fixes.

I know that and it's never bothered me until now. I always thought that WAY more talented people than me would be applying for art school and that I should focus on my Art/History combo.

But I guess maybe I should try something where I can paint and draw my own things.... But at the same time, history is also my love and doing restoration work would be a great way to use that.

There are some great art schools in Geneva, near my house- maybe I could start with that and then if I see I want to do more history instead I can change. I could also just go and do some art history classes at University.... The choices are quite vast, but nothing is sure until I hold that BAC diploma in my hands (short for Baccalauréat). You thought SATs were hard? You don't know the BAC. When you click the link take a look especialy at "content" - it has the different exams I need to take and the time to do each one. (I'm Bac L btw)

Can I say" poor me"?

Dreams are my reality: a coca cola love song!

2011-01-01T11:24:00.000-08:00

A little vid I did of my brother on new year's: he was professing his love to a bottle of coke! Go check out the video on my youtube Channel and me sure to comment and give it a thumbs up!

Here's the vid!

2011 is here!

2011-01-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

Happy new year!

SO! First post of the new year! I'll tell you this year I hope to write even more then before and invest myself in my blog! (consider it a promise...)

We went to a new year's party last night, it was very fun and we did all the usual new year stype stuff:

Got dressed up:

Danced:

Got drunk! JUST KIDDING! (kinda...)

We got some AWESOME photobombing done! (thanks Max...)

And everyone had a pretty AWESOME time!

Well, she DID have a good time too!! Just... with a book...

Anyway, hope you guys all had a great time celebrating the new year!

Bacchus Mask

2010-12-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

As I said in the last post I've been working on a mask for the school play, I chose to do the mask of Bacchus, God of wine. I now have the pictures to prove it!
My sister kindly agreed to wear it so that you guys could have the full effect!
<>
I just hope the guy that has to wear it won't think it's too girly...

And then it was over...

2010-12-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

Wow, I don't know about you but I had an AMAZING Christmas!

Christmas morning was full of surprises: My brother with his new xbox 250GB with Kinect,I've never seen him happier!

My sister couldn't believe her eyes when she unwraped a kindle!

And of course we got the new Rock band 3 with the keyboard! We started playing right away!

I got these AMAZING Dr Marten boots that I've wanted for months, I was so surprised when I unwraped them!

Aren't they pretty?!
A huge thanks to Grammy and Grampy our loving grandparents! Wish we could have been together during the holidays!

On a different note I'm working on a GREAT art project! A Bacchus mask for the end of the year play at school. My brother is in the drama club and he was chosen to be Agamemnon in the theater piece Iphigenia.

My art teacher asked me to make the mask as a special favor since I'm third in my art class and she knows I'm invested in what I do-Art wise.

I got some great fake grape vines and gold netting to start from.

Holiday checklist!

2010-12-12T04:40:00.000-08:00

I'm SO happy that we have our Chrismas tree. Like every year I was the one who had to remind my Family that it was THAT time a year, and that me HAD to get our tree soon!

We had so much fun decorating it yesterday morning with the whole family and Max, my brother's best friend, who is over at our house so often that he's just like a second brother to me, so here we go for the Holiday checklist:

1.Familly and friends:

CHECK!

2.Tree decorating: CHECK!

3.Our Stockings hanging on the mantel:

CHECK!

4.Goofy santa suit (and hats):
CHECK!

I think we're all ready for Christmas!!!

My Journée d'Appel et de Préparation à la Défence!

2010-12-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

The French have this crazy thing called the: "Journée d'appel et préparation à la Défence"

Up until a couple of years ago, every French guy, between the age of 16 and 25 HAD to serve a minimum of 10 months in the army. THAT of course is no longer the case, and for the best probably, because when I see the guys of my class that are about my age, I wouldn't want them to be holding a weapon of ANY kind....

BUT it does mean that now every guy AND girl has to spend A DAY learning about France's Millitary Forces. This day is mandatory for everybody. Plus, the diploma that you get for attending this day is needed if you ever want to drive a car or attend a French University!!!

So today my mom drove me to the "27ème Battalion des Chasseurs Alpins" and I spent the day in that millitary base learning well... stuff...

The stuff that they were teaching seemed strange to me because I didn't really see how a bunch of teens were going to help anything, but what I realized was the whole day was actually a recruiting thing.

They kept telling us about the glory of the army, the different jobs and the pay... Plus there was a quiz at the end of the day asking us if we were tempted by any of the positions. They SAID that the quiz was in no way a contract, but, who knows... I answered "yes" to the question: "Are you at all interested in joining the army?" So maybe I'll be taken away to do my service soon. lol

The only thing that goes against me wanting to really join the army is the hats they wear: You know those geeky, flat, stereotyped, French hats? Those bérets...????!!! yeah, they WEAR those! Like on their actual heads!

I know... bad

All they needed next were a couple of baguettes to use as weapons and it would have been a

full-blown Frenchfest!!

They also had a simple French test that asked you things like

"Does the word "Lapin" exist?"

or "Do these two words sound alike?"

Which just kind of depressed me because some people answered no to the first and didn't even know for the second!

All in all the day was très chiant but still sympa because I met a couple of nice people there.

December (and the snow) is here!

2010-12-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

The weather has just been crazy up here in the French Alps! Yesterday it snowed so hard all day long that more then half the students and teachers coudn't make it to school.
Including me.
Buses were canceled right and left and it was just a big bunch of crazy! But all in all:

The snow just wouldn't stop!!!

Finally last night it died down and today we were able to get to school! Oh yeay!

But they are anouncing more snow tonight so we must wait and see. (We already have almost a meter so...)

But as long as that means no school for me I say:

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"

All this pretty white stuff just makes it feel a bit more like Christmas time!

Love me Love my cat: Aix-les-Bain Cat Show!

2010-11-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

So you guys all know about our lovely shelter cats Daisy and Dexter: Well since we went to THIS cat show to help our our friend N. we have been wanting to show them at a cat Expo. All cat shows are open to the public who can bring their house cat to be judged and even win prizes! It's just that not many people know that you can do this... but we do! It's just 25 euros per house cat and it's very fun! So this week-end we packed a small suitcase, woke up at 5am on Saturday and put the cats in their carriers.
Well...not Daisy anyway! That silly cat had managed to climb out the window at night and was running arround outside! Luckily Mallory found her and we could all get in the car for the one hour drive to Aix-les-Bains.

It had been snowing at our house, but at Aix it was worse and very cold! The expo was being held in a very old and beautiful casino. They had a small exposition hall for us- much smaller then the last show but the cages were the same and a lot of the people were already decorating theirs. We were very proud with how ours turned out:

It doesn't show up very well in the picture but the pale yellow really looked good with Daisy's fur color and we got this cute little hammac for her:

N. was right next to us and had got new deco for her cages, a really nice brown and green:
Our cats were the only cats in the house category, but we were also the last ones to be judged. Finally the judges got to prod and poke as they always do- but they also write you a little paper with their impressions about your cat: Dex was very nervous but such a sweet boy, the judge really liked him and said he was a nice young boy with beautiful eyes and a sweet character, so he nominated him for the next round.

Daisy was with a different judge, who also liked her very much, which is a surprise because she's a bit more moody. He said she had great fur (we spent hours washing and brushing her long coat!) and had the same look as a Norwegian Forest cat, as well as great eyes but that her tail could be a little longer and fluffier. She was also nominated for the next round! :D

We recognised a lot of people from the last show and one of the judges from the last show was showing cats at this one. So you can really see that it's one big system. Maybe after a couple of shows people might start to recognise us...
When the next round came up both cats were brought up on a stage by assistants in front of the audience and guess what? THEY BOTH WON!! Mallory and I went on stage to get our prizes and get our cats back! Everyone clapped for us, it was SO fun!
We proudly put our cups on top of our cage for people to see: 2nd day of the expo tomorow, to tired... :)

Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

I had a really rotten day:

-Just finished 3 straight days of tests (including SEVERAL Bac Blancs)

-I had slept very badly last night.

-Today was the longest day, with classes from 8am to 5pm...

I was in a terrible mood when I walked through the door, but all got better when I remembered something: it was Thanksgiving Day! And I had spent ALL day complaining!

My mom was in the kitchen and had made chicken (no turkey in France this time a year...), canned cranberries, mashed patatoes, gravy, stuffing and PUMPKIN PIE!!!! :D

Though I've been a bit down these last few weeks, I just stopped to think and realized that I do have A LOT to be thankful for, even if it's hard to see sometimes...

Just as we started eating it started to snow VERY heavily and it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon- so I guess I'll be going to the bus stop tomorrow through snow drifts...

But it is beautiful...

It was nice just us at table but I still kind of miss the Ouagadougou Thanksgiving. You would think Thanksgiving in Africa would be PRETTY lame right? Right?
WRONG!!!!
Let's just say that the big American Expat community there would get together and we would put together HUGE feasts and have a wonderful time playing Apples to Apples or Cranium all night long.

Here in France, without the expat community, and no Americans close by that I know of, I kind of miss the life and fun of a big Thanksgiving party...

But, come to think of it, it's kinda twisted: But! we were nice to the natives!! See!! we gave them a good meal before killing them off with war and disease!!

(ok, I'm hating now, but... I won't say no to another peice of pie... ;)

Encouter with Evil: an art project.

2010-11-20T04:09:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a little art project of school. Our subject was "Encounter", at first I wasn"t really sure of what I was going to do so I started thinking of a material first.
That's when I realized that I almost never paint, so I decided to paint something using this as inspiration:
It's "Madonna and Child with Infant Baptist" by Raffaello Santi (1483-1520)

So with that I replaced Mary with an elf. Baptist was replaced by a little devil symbolizing evil and the angel-child on the left symbolizes good:
The rose that "good" is handing to "bad" represents the elf's soul.

In a way the elf represents us humans, and the rose our souls: which are always passed back and forth between good and evil.

People are capable of doing wonderful deeds, but they can also do terrible things so I wanted to show that...
When I'm done I'll put up a picture of the finished painting for you guys to see.

Camping USA Part 3:

2010-11-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

The rest of my tale of our time in Desmet, South Dakota:
Let me first say that the people who live there are some of the nicest I've ever met. My little sister, Mal, wants to move to Desmet when she's older and have a petting zoo for tourists!!! She was SO inspired by her time there.
And I found it perfectly charming. We stayed at a camping ground near Lake Thompson. (I didn't know this at the time, but it ended up being the best camp ground of our entire trip: very clean and the personel were very nice)
We were right up by the water:

But HERE is the question, How did we get from this:

To this:

Simple: One night when we go back to the campsite after a small shopping expedition, it was raining very hard, but we thought it would be ok once we got in the tent. We just had the time to get the twins inside when the rain got much worse and the wind, too. The top of the tent started coming off, the metal hooks holding the top of the roof to the rest snapped with the force of the wind! My parents, my brother and I found ourselves standing outside in the rain, stuggling to hold the top of the tent on to the rest. My mom had left to help my brother hold down his corner, leaving me alone with two corners. I quickly found myself screaming to hold on to my side. I seemed to be having the most trouble of anyone. The only way I can describe the wind and rain is: the rain was like freezing blades!!! I promise you that the rain was so hard that I felt like it was piercing my skin! The wind was like a hurricane. (It was actualy kinda epic, once you think about it...)
What we didn't realize at first was that my side was facing the lake: so huge gusts of wind were sweeping across the surface of the lake and the first thing they came in contact with was, of course, my side of the tent. When I finally managed to call to my mom over the roaring wind, she came to help me and...held on for dear life. The wind on my side was at least 4 times stronger than on the other sides! I had never been so wet in my life. Finally we managed to get my sisters out, collapse the tent down, leaving it in a big pile, and throwing a heavy metal picnic table on top of it.
We spent the night in a motel.
When we got back to the campsite the next morning we were greeted with this:

Thankfuly, we managed to fix the tent with a bit of pvc pipe and duct tape from the friendly DeSmet hardware store. We even managed to get everything dry because it was a beautiful day:

Camping USA Part 2:

2010-11-11T02:41:00.000-08:00

Little House on the Prairie: My mom had read me the books when I was younger and more recently she read them again to my sisters and I.

I think it's fair to say that Laura Ingalls Wilder holds a special place in our hearts, that's why the 1st stop during our summer camping trip was Desmet South Dakota, aka Little town on the prairie, where Laura spent most of her teenage years.

Desmet has stayed amazingly small, and actualy it's a little bit lifeless. It was quite amazing to see such a touristy town stay so well preserved.

Of course, once you dug a little deeper there were lots of things to do:
We visited the homestead where Pa and the Familly lived just outside the town, there was an exemple of a dugout and of a claim shanty:

As you can see my mom sewed pioneer outfits for my sisters, they looked super cute!

We even went on a covered wagon ride:

We even saw the original cotonwood trees that Pa planted:

Old School

2010-11-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

I found this picture of my 2nd grade class, I thought it was SO cute that I HAD to share:

Yep this was me :)

Finally Halloween pics!

2010-11-04T11:12:00.001-07:00

I must say that Halloween is one of my all time favorite Holidays:

Look at all this cool candy that my Grammy and Grampy sent us from the States!!!

It sure did freak out the poor french kids that came to our Halloween party...

Our Halloween party was complete with cool, spooky table:

A Special Wizard cat:

My brother disguised as a Mafia dude...I guess...

AND....Pumpkin carving:
BTW: I can't stand the smell of Pumpkin guts so my sister had to empty the pumpkin for me.

-There, you know a little more about little weird me...

Let's not forget my AWESOME Halloween costume: Not much of a chalenge, I just choose something out of my wardrobe:

(And added creepy makeup)

And that's it! I hope you guys all had an Awesome Halloween! ;)

Adventures in Spain: I wish I were on the beach!

2010-10-31T03:43:00.000-07:00

Adventures in Spain: Historical diapers

2010-10-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

When we visited the Amphitheater of Tarragona we saw the usual: cool ruins, neat old things... stuff that I totally love. But.... I was shocked to see this standing amongst the rubble:

"Hey baby!" (He seems to say, no?)

The girls flocked to have their picture taken with him. The boys grumbled and tried to make themselves feel better by saying that he wasn't THAT good looking anyway.

I, personally, was more interested in the 11th century church that he was standing in front of, but, oh well...

Oh-btw, one of those girls, who flocked, was my friend Laura, Of course I took a picture for her, like the good friend that I am: (Doesn't she look so cute and embarrassed? That's my Laura!)

Notice that in the picture that the Gladiator IS wearing a very attractive "historical diaper".

Adventures in Spain: Electricity cuts and Paella contests.

2010-10-28T02:32:00.000-07:00

After a trip to the market, we were led to a big room. We were put into groups of 8 to make our very own Paella!!! Here's what you need:
-Half a green pepper
-Half a red pepper
-One onion
-One piece of chicken breast
-Two tomatoes
-One piece of squid (well... it was weird and white and rubbery anyway)
-An assortment of sea-food like this:
-A big pan
-Rice
-A liter of fish liquid stuff... (ok, the real kind is made with maserated fish heads but a little fish cube in water will work out just fine...)
-Oil.

You start by putting on your very attractive plastic apron:

Then you cut up the red pepper, green pepper, the squid, the chicken, the tomatoes and the onion in small cubes:

Put oil in the pan and fry it up all together:

Have your friends pray for it to work out ok:

Pour in your liter of fish head mixture into the pan:

Leave it awhile:

Pour in the rice:

When the power cuts off for no reason, act out scenes from Star Trek with the shrimp...

Make a pretty design with the seafood:

Act out the last Terminator movie with the shrimp:

Let it cook some more so more of the liquid evaporates:

Then... EAT UP!!!

See? Wasn't that easy!? NOW GO MAKE YOUR OWN!!! (just kidding...kinda)

Adventures in Spain: The Market.

2010-10-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

Barcelona really is a beautiful city.

First off, the different markets are amazing! I've never seen so many colorful fruits and vegetables:

Marine admiring the milkshakes:

Lots of candy... Special candy...

And LOTS of fish and seafood:

Tomorow you will see me making good use of all this when I make my FIRST EVER Paëlla!!!

Adventures in Spain: The Hamster goes Prison Break.

2010-10-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

On our first day with the host family, the husband was the one to pick us up at the bus station.

The first other memeber of the family that he presented us , even before we met his wife, was his Hamster! A cute, small, fuzzy and (as we soon found out) biting Hamster.

That first night, we took a seat at the table while the wife made us drinks and the husband put the little creature on the glass table before us, announcing that it was the "Mascotta"...
Our Mascot?
OK...I guess everybody could use a mascot...
Right.

He then left, leaving us three girls with the apparently suicidal hamster- he was approaching the edge of the table dangerously close. We then decided that we didn't want the couple to come back to a dead hamster, so we made it our mission to block the edges of the table with our arms so he couldn't jump.
All the while being very careful that he didn't bite us.

After about 10 minutes of that, without anyone coming to our aid, Laura and I had to go to the bathroom... so we got up, leaving Marine in charge of the pesky creature.

It wasn't long before we heard: "Aggghhh, no!! Get back here!!" coming from the dining room.

We rushed back to find Marine on the floor trying to catch the animal with the edge of her skirt so he wouldn't bite her hand off. (Which he seemed eager to do if Marine put so much as a finger on him) Apparently Marine had turned her head for just a second and the hamster had JUMPED!!

Suddenly the man appered behind us. He laughed and rushed in to help us.

We finally got it back in it's cage in the hallway!
The man put the hamster in and... LEFT THE CAGE DOOR OPEN!!!!

It wasn't because he forgot eithe...., it's because they leave the cage door open ALL THE TIME!!

We couldn't believe it.

Soon after that, I went to take a shower and when I arrived in my room the man was standing there with the creature's cage, he placed it on the side table:

"Since you're sleeping alone, I thought you could use some company" He said pointing to the cage.

I nodded.

"If it makes too much noise don't hesitate to wake me up. I'll put him in the bathtub." He added leaving.

WTF? The bathtub? Why would I wake you up at 2am so you can put a noisy hamseter in the bathtub may I ask?... But the man had left, leaving me with so many unanswered questions.

I was sitting on my bed, profoundly puzzled when Laura walked in:

"Hey! Where's the rat?"

"It's a hamster." I replied, not looking up.

"Well whatever it is, it's not in the cage anymore."

"What?!"

It was a pretty high jump from the end table to the floor, but we are talking about the same animal that jumped from the dinning table just 10 minutes ago.. so I got on all fours and began the search.

I noticed a bump in the carpet WAY under the bed. So I stuck my head under the bed and stuck my butt in the air reaching my hand further, gently tapping the bump and calling ( mostly for my own benefit, I'll admit): "Come on you stupid creature! Come out!"

Laura had gone to get Marine but I heard a noise in the doorway, followed by :"What are you doing?"

I scrabbled out from under the bed, hitting my head in the process, only to find the husband before me, with an amused look on his face and an eyebrow raised.

"Umm I..." I stammered..... how was I going to say: "Your stupid rat-thing got out of the cage and is now crawling across MY bedroom floor, just because YOU thought, for some WEIRD reason; that I MIGHT be lonely tonight. What the heck IS that all about?! And what is up with the bathtub thing? You're gonna what? Drown the thing if it's noisy??? Plus, what is this thing about leaving the cage door open and then acting all surprised when it escapes? What is the point??? What is the meaning of it all?!!! PLEASE TELL ME!!!"

All that in Spanish?
I don't think so.
So I contented myself with some pointing at the cage and miming a small animal jumping to it's doom... and it worked... The guy got on his knees next to me and started to look on the floor.

"Hey guys? You do know that the thing is in the cage right?" asked Marine who was staring at the furry hell-beast.

Sure enough, the little spawn of Satan was staring up at me with evil, mocking eyes... I slammed the cage closed for the night.

It's offical, I hate hamsters now...

The next night, the cage had been moved to the hallway, (not the bathtub) and I was sleeping in the same room as Laura. Then, at about 3am, Laura and I woke up to a strange noise: we could hear the couple out in the hallway calling:

"Little one!? Come on! Come out! Where are you?"

"Shoudn't we help them look?" whispered Laura from the bottom bunk.

"Let them look- maybe it will teach them something." I grumbled.

"But..."

"Good night Laura."

(PS: I HAD wanted to get a picture of him, but it was kind of hard, with him running all about the house...)

Adventures in Spain: Fried fish in my panties.

2010-10-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

Most of you might be puzzled by the title. Don't worry, everything will be explained in due time.

It may seem weird but my first post of my trip to Spain will be about food.

Food had a big impact on me this week.

The husband of the host familly that I was staying with along with Laura M. and Marine was Italian. (I know right? He didn't even speak very good Spanish- strange choice of family...) so he was the one who was cooking for us all week. May I just say first off that his wife and he were so sweet and very welcoming.

But the food was an issue. Every night he made us pasta with a different sauce. They were always very good, the problem was the quantity that he gave us: Huge bowls that we could barely finish.

It occured to us that we could leave some food in the plate, but Laura, who also happens to be Italian told Marine and I that he would take offence if we left some. Not only that, but there was always a huge entrée before hand. All that food left us really stuffed.
Not to mention that at the bottom of the bowl there was always a huge quantity of oil left. Which scared the heck out of me: Just how much oil was he putting in his food?...

One night as they called us to the table, we noticed there was no entrée siting there- only the pasta. We were so relieved! We finished our pasta with no trouble- it was just the right amount of food. Laura then proceded to bring the plates to the kitchen. As she handed them overto the man , he said in his weird mix of Spanish-Italian that we would have to wait 5 minutes for the next dish.

I was sure that the panic was evident on our faces but the man didn't notice anything.
ARGGG!!! NOT MORE FOOD!!!!

He came out and placed a huge plate in front of each of us. On it was a fried ball ( we soon found out it was a deep fried rice ball... don't ask...) but next to it was the most gross thing: tiny little deep fried fish with their little eyes staring at you, as if calling out pitifully: "Tya! Don't eat meeeeeeeee!"
We looked down at our plates in despair .........and then we got a brilliant idea!

The couple never ate with us, so we grabbed big handfulls of fish and rolled them in balls in napkins. We carefully wrapped them several times while Laura was watching our backs, distracting our hosts when necessary.
The next major problem was where to dispose of them. We were in our pyjamas, so we didn't have any pockets to put the balls in. We had a problem.
The Solution?
Our panties, of course!

It may be gross but you must understand us- we were desperate and really didn't feel like eating fish brains.

We stuck the fish balls in our panties.
Marine, of course, had to show off her bulges and proclaim: "I'm a man now!" causing us to laugh hysterically.

We then waited till the end of the meal, and waddled carefully back to our room where we put the fish balls in quarantine: a closed plastic bag, where they'd stay until the next morning when we could throw them away in an outdoor garbage can.
But by then the wonderfull smell had escaped into our room....lovely!

Other than that, the food was great... ;)

Barcelona!

2010-10-17T03:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm leaving on a class trip to spend a week in Barcelona!

I can't wait, but still it's a bit strange because it's a trip to practice our Spanish and from what I've heard about that region most people refuse to speak "real Spanish" and only talk in their local language: Catalan.
I'm already not very good at Spanish. Actually, I don't have very good language learning skills. (Except for that whole bilingual in French thingy that I have going on.)

My theory is this: (Yes, I have a theory about this.) I never learned to learn a language.

It may seem stupid but it's the truth: While all my classmates were learning English and getting the technique for learning languages down, I was sitting in class wondering what I was doing there.
So then when I started Spanish and then later German, I really didn't get it,-why I had to learn random phrases by heart even though I didn't understand what they meant and stuff like that.
So the result is: I really, really, have trouble learning languages.

I'm hoping that people will be nice in Barcelona and take pity upon a poor French tourist and speak Spanish to me... If they start speaking weird dialects I think I will be traumatized for life.
We are staying with host families in groups of 2 or 3 kids. I will be staying with Marine and Laura M.

I'm really scared though- I hope I won't have to speak to much...
Do you think they speak English?... (wishful thinking.)

What I wore this week, Episode 2:

2010-10-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

I've never been very interested in clothes before. Getting dressed was more a burden then anything. But ever since I found my Gothic calling, getting dressed takes on a whole different meaning...
Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Banana and Lavender Bread.

2010-10-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made this great banana and lavender Bread.

Not to show off but it was surprisingly delicious! Everyone enjoyed it very much, I got the recipe off this great blog:
Wanderlust.

Celeste always has great original recipes and tales.

What I wore this week. Episode 1:

2010-10-10T02:12:00.001-07:00

I thought I would try to post every week about what I wear to school, so here it goes...
Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

AND Friday:

Tell me what you think... :)

Bits of Art

2010-10-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some more illuminated letters lately:

This is a poem that I had to decorate for French class. I drew and painted the background and then I scanned the "F" I made. Then I printed it out smaller to fit on my page:

Lately my room had been getting weirder and weirder.

Want to see?

This is the back corner of my room: It's a mannequin bust!

Don't ask... I bought it for if I'll ever need something like that for an art project, you never know... :)

Le Pèlerinage de St Jacques

2010-10-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday afternoon I left school at 1pm and piled into my religious instuctor's car along with my overnight stuff and sleeping bad. I had signed up along with another girl from the Juvé to participate along with 2 other schools to do a small section of the pilgrimage to St Jacques de Compostelle. Don't worry just 35km of it, considering that St Jacques de Compostelle is in the north west of Spain it's a bit far for a bunch of 16 to 18 year olds and their religious instructors to walk. Even though the Juvé is a Catholic school, the only people that went were me and another girl from my grade named Johanna. We were going to walk 35 km in two days. We started walking around 3 in the afternoon, we were 15 kids and 5 instructors in all. We all got to know each other as we walked along the beautiful French Alps and along the Salève:

We were walking a bit to slowly so we were off schedule a bit but I couldn't help stoping to take pictures:

I decided to go for the historical point a view as much as the religious one, people have been using this trail since the 10th century! Here is the link of the exact trail we followed, we slept in the village called Charly and then continued to Chaumont. The trails are very twisty and are NOT shortcuts that's for sure. At Charly we arrived at 8pm, over 5 hours of walking! We slept in a guest house for pilgrims. We were all happy to have real beds because everybody was sore. That night Johanna and I brushed our teeth in the village fountain beacause the boys were hogging the one bathroom. That's why I love old french villages: you're sure to find a fresh water fountain!

The second day was harder, we were all battered and tired but we had 6 hours to go!

We had walked 2 hours when we realized that the 3 boys that had been ahead of us were not to be seen. When we stoped for lunch were an instuctor had left his car, we ate while one of them took the car to look for the missing trio. An hour latter they came back with them! They had been at the final destination waiting for us! As a result of not waiting they got to redo the rest of the trail over again with us.

I, personnaly, was in bad shape, my left knee was hurting a lot I couldn't even bend it! They told me that they would take me in the car the rest of the was but we only had an hour left and I wanted to finish the trail by foot. I won't lie, It was really painfull and the last km was up a horribly steap slope. But when I got to the top it was worth it...

The Band starts up again!

2010-09-25T03:38:00.000-07:00

So, another year with the Passeurs d'Arts started up on Friday. Our lesson was at 7.15 pm. It felt good to get back into the old band rythm again. The place where we practice ( the basement of an old post office) was greatly improved. The Passeurs d'Art did a lot of work on it during the vacation- like sound-proofing the room where we rehearse and installing a door.
Fancy!
The waiting area still has the same sunken, ancient, musty, faded orange sofa but there are framed pictures on the walls and a lot of the old magazines were thrown away, making the place much cleaner- which is good because when we got there, there were two fathers waiting for their children to finish practice and a mother with her 14 year old daughter who wanted to sign up. It was nice for them that they saw the place as it is and not in the state it was just 2 months ago. Less traumatic.

Our guitarist Max got a new guitar during the summer so he was happy to show off. We started playing right away: The kids aren't alright by the Offspring. Not my choice of course but I was thinking of proposing New Kid in School to my band.

Cat Show in Plastic Valley.

2010-09-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Who would have known that a show based on cute little furry animals like cats was actually a cut-throat industry?

Well, what we learned last week end in the little town of Oyonnax was quite surprising. Almost as surprising as waking up at 5.30 in the morning on a Saturday! -_-

Luckily the town of Oyonnax is only about an hour away, and it happened to be hosting a cat show during the week end. Weird...considering that it's a town famous for it's plastic products...

We went along to help N.- the mother of Max our guitarist who happens to be a cat breeder. She breeds Orientals, Cornish Rex and Siameese cats, along with other naked-y races of the usually furry animals.

She was showing 5 cats total. The whole place was set up with tables put up in squares. On top were metal cages. As we decorated the two cages that were for N.'s 5 cats, we looked around. The other people were decorating their cages as well, and most were doing a good job. Ours turned out nice, N. Had some nice orange fabric and signs to put up.

But right away we were faced with a problem- I didn't like N. neighboor. From the moment she spoke to N. I could tell she wasn't a nice person. I get these vibes sometimes... XD

You could tell she was breeding cats for the money, not because she loved cats. It's sad in my opinion.

When I told my mom about it she was very surprised, she told me:

-You know your sister told me the exact same thing just 10 minutes ago. I didn't sense anything though.

I guess my sister and I can tell that kind of thing.

Other than that, it was a great week end! We learned so much about the different races of cats. Some of the judges were very interesting to listen to. Now I can tell you all about the right length of a MaineCoon Tail, and the right ear placement of a Ragdoll, or even the right shape of face for a Norwegian Forest Cat...
N. did very well with her creepy cats and won 5 prizes!

One time, her Cornish Rex beat her neighbors' and her neighbor was furious. Mom told me she looked like she had eaten a sour pickle right after they announced the winner. haha!
I would have loved to see that!

We are planning to enter Daisy and Dexter in a cat show in Aix les Bains in a couple of months! Can't wait!

Cleo + Camping USA part 1.

2010-09-10T10:54:00.001-07:00

Finally the weekend! It's only our first week of school and some of my friends are already deaming of the next vacation. It's true that we have over 6 hours of French a week. I wouldn't mind it so much if I had a better teacher... This week end my mom my sisters and I are spending the week end at a Cat Show. It's about an hour away from our house and we are going with the mother of Max our band guitarist who is showing some of her many cats.
We were planing to show our cat too but poor little Cleo got hit by a car last weekend. Yes it's true... I didn't have the courage to talk about it in my last post but that's what happened. It happened fast, right in front of our house. We buried her next to Mr Darcy next to the hillside at the back of our yard... It's been hard for us all, espacialy so soon after Dear Mr Darcy.

But the sweet little shelter cats that we picked up are great. Daisy and Dexter, who so far, is showing no indication of killing bad cats during the night (for all you Fans of the series "Dexter" out there ;) btw I named him, I'm a big fan of the Series.) They are a great confort and addapting very quickly to their new home.

I realised that I haven't posted any pictures about our epic camping trip and vacation in the USA so I'm going to post a few everytime I write. Here it goes:

We rented a Huge Van, Yes I meen really big, it was accualy a 15 passenger van that had the two back rows of seats taken out. We packed it FULL of struff: tent, sleeping bags, food, clothes...

And we headed to our 1st Stop:

That's right! Little town on the pairie: DeSmet South Dakota!
haha, more next time! ;)

School Again.

2010-09-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while, I admit.
And I had told myself I should be writing more regularly too...
Anyway school has started up again. It was nice already knowing what class I was going to be in before hand. There is only one class of 1ère Littéraire. I've got two great friends with me- Laura M. and Marine, who you can see on the side bar btw.
I was not the new kid, so I was not stressed.
In fact, it was the best first day of school I've ever had!

I'm starting up Advanced English this year. The teacher announced proudly that we would be reading our first book in English cover to cover.
LOL !
Big Woop. I can't wait, I thought to myself.
My first book in English!!!??
Considering the fact that I read more books in English then in French, I thought it was pretty funny...
Art class also started up. We 've already got our very first project... which reminds me that I have to get over to the Emaus (french thrift shop) as soon as possible to pick out meterials. The project is: Create your portrait without using a human figure. In short: represent your soul. I've already got everything planned out.
Pictures soon to follow...

Birthday...

2010-07-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Finally we are here in the good old USA!
We arrived two days ago at 7pm but for us it was about 3am! Already the next morning we were busy at the Walmart marvelling over Pop Tarts, root beer and the huge quantities this food came in. I decided to take pictures of all of those huge packages and compare them to their French equivalents when I get home. We went to Super Target where we already started to stock up on clothes.
Today is my 17th birthday and we are going to Walmart again to look at clothes, then tonight we are going to the Valentino's buffet. And then we are going to see 'Eclipse' at the movies.
I like Twilight ok? XD
We were always first in line at Geneva to see the first two movies that's not about to change...

Lycée Art Exposition 2010

2010-06-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

All year long we have preparing for the end of the year art exposition at my school.
Each student who takes art class at the lycée gets to present 1 piece that they did during the year. So, two weeks ago on Friday I went to give my projects to the art teacher for the show. Already the teacher had given me permission to present more then one project. As I went to drop it off, she begged me to stay that afternoon and help her set up. (The exposition was later that evening). My classes finished at 2pm but I agreed to stay and help entil the opening of the show at 6.30pm. So for 4 and a half hours I helped the teacher set up along with 20 other students.

Some Terminal kids (last year of high school, NOT dying!) had decorated the entryway. They made it look very nice- sorry I've got no picture of it. It was a red carpet theme with roses and smoke machines!
There were some very cool projects, but my mom took the pictures and they are only my projects:

This was a project my whole class did together, we each were given a little 20cm x 20cm square. We had to insert a photo of us and blend it into a picture. Each student's square was followed by another one and a red thread went through all the squares. Mine was the first one, so I got to start the thread. The person after me continued it, and so on... So mine is upper left. :)

This was my "Crucified Doll" project. It's something I did to denounce child abuse. Every form of it: war, famine, racisim...
Childhood betrayed.

Some of you may recognize my "unusual support" project that I talked about in an earlier post -that also was in the exposition.

A big part of what I did that afternoon was this:

Along with another girl we decorated one of the staircases at my school that we have nicknamed "the tower of glass". Everyone loved it because they were so used to seeing it all white. A bit of color was surprising.

Pics of me:

2010-06-27T02:23:00.000-07:00

I've been having fun taking pictures of myself lately so I thought I would post some today:

Video:

2010-06-26T02:12:00.000-07:00

I decided to post this very cheesy vid I made with windows video maker. I had never used it before so I wanted to try it out. So then I wondered, what is the thing I have the most pictures of? Well the andswer is: Me and Valentin, hands down. So I made a vid about me and my best friend. So if you have 6 minutes of your life to waste check it out: lol

Summer at last...

2010-06-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

School is finally out. I'm enjoying my first day of vacation. I'm accepted into 1ère L next year( 11th grade)! But as a result the French teacher gave us the longest summer reading list EVER!
Ok- I like to read and all but this is a bit too much. I'll post my reading list if anyone wants to read one of them...lol : (Sorry, titles all in French.)

-Voltaire: -Micromégas*

-L'ingénu-Zadig*

-Balzac: -Le Père Goriot*

-Le lys dans la Vallée*

-Le colonel Chabert*

-Maupassant: -Bel-Ami*

- Une vie*

- Le Hola et d'autres contes fantastiques*

-Zola: -Pot Bouille

-Au Bonheur des dames*

- L'Assomoir*

-Stendal: -Le rouge et le noir*

-L'abbé Prevost: -Manon Lescaut*

-Wilde: -The Portrait of Dorian Grey (my mom had a copy in English)*

-Orwell: -1984*

-V. Hugo: -Notre Dame de Paris*

- Quatre-vingt-treize

-Dumas: -Le comte de Monte Cristo

-Les Trois Mousquetaires*

-La Reine Margot

-Racine: -Andromaque*

-Iphigénie

-Cocteau: - La machine infernale*

-Marivaux: -L'ile des esclaves*

-Beaumarchais: -Le mariage de Figaro*

-Anouilh: -Antigone

-Beaudelaire: -Les fleurs du mal*

-Laclos: -Les liaisons dangereuses

There are a couple of books I didn't write from the list but I also added some Shakespeare and Horace by Corneille to my personal reading list.

All the books that have a stars next to them are books I've already bought. I found them at the Emmaus thrift shop. They charged me 30 euros for ALL of them! Other people in my class, were complaining that they had spent over 150 euros for those books in a normal book shop!

We are the only future class of 11th grade that has as much stuff to read for the summer.

That's because the L section: Literary, is based on French, literature, art, history and languages. So we have to read A LOT.

The ES section: economy, is based on math, economy, history and forein languages.

The S section: Scientific, is based of Physics, Chemistry, Math and Biology.

That his how the French Lycée is divided up from the 11th grade on up. That means that next year I will have, for example, 6 hours of French and 2 hours of math but for the S, it will be the opposite.

Anyway I guess I will be doing a lot of reading this summer, wish me luck!

Summer! Or not...

2010-06-21T03:46:00.000-07:00

It's the first day of summer! And I'm freezing... as I write this my fingers are threatening to freeze over my keyboard. There's this crazy icy wind everywhere- I don't know were it's coming from but I want it to stop.

It's the last week of school. We finish on Thursday and are working till the bitter end. Valentin (my BFF) is out of school working in a publishing house for the next two weeks. But last week my brilliant BFF broke his arm falling out of the cherry tree in the courtyard of the school! It's a common thing- all the high school kids, when bored, never hesitate to grab some cherries out of the tree even though it is forbidden. I happened to be absent the day it happened but we talked that night on the phone and he told me that he was trying to get to the higher ones and had the genius idea of jumping off the bench that was nearby... He grabbed the branch with his left hand and slipped. He landed on his right arm: dislocating and breaking it... great job. XD
Now he's getting along without his right arm- hope he will be able to work correctly... It's gonna be a long summer for him.
Anyway I said that I wasn't there the day of the accident and actualy I was absent a couple of days doing a couple of other things.....

We went to Chamonix, the town near the Mont Blanc with MLW who arrived from NYC with her daughter and her 18 year old neice from Texas to stay with us.

The weather was too rotten to actually see Mont Blanc as you can see in this photo from the fog in the distance.

A cute little hotel in Chamonix:

I can't wait for summer to really begin...