The evil that is midterms.

the beautiful view from my picnic lunch this past weekend
(what I did instead of study...)

Midterms this week.
And rain.
And cold.
Can I just fast forward to Dana, London and Barcelona?!

It's been such a rewarding experience that I almost forgot I'm in school and have an evil thing called midterms. We have to attend every class (so don't worry Mommy, I'm not slacking) and I've never been one to miss much class anyway... but it's nothing stressful. It's fun learning about the the culture, history, politics and language of the city that you live in... especially in a place that is or was, at some point so entirely 'foreign.' Still- there exists the evil that is midterms. The thing about midterms is that in my experience, they're not much less important or much less difficult in content than final exams are... but they're much more difficult because while trying to exert the same amount of energy that one would for a final exam, I still have to attend class and maintain all other normal responsibilities. During final exams, life stops for the week and one's only concern is finals.
So I still have to wake up at 6:30 am and attend class every day and be home for dinner (which, if there is a cheese course included, is like.. a two hour affair).. but in the midst of all that, I have to study... study, study, study with no fun or exploring at all :(

Okay so it isn't SO bad. I have three midterms- two in class essays tomorrow for Histories of Paris and French Cinema. For Histories of Paris we had the choice of two questions - I picked the one about the "use of power" particularly in terms of the changes and additions of buildings and infrastructure during three different regimes. Things could change but as of right now, I'm pretty set on using Henri IV (Place des Vosages, Pont Neuf), Louis XIV (Versailles, Invalides) and Napoleon III (worked with Haussmann to 'redesign' the streets of Paris). Sounds rather dry, but I assure you it's quite interesting. For French Cinema we have an essay about Jean-Luc Godard with emphasis on his movie Le Mépris ("Contempt") staring Brigitte Bardot (the French Madonna) and Michael Piccoli. It's a good movie - part of the Nouvelle Vague ("French New Wave") and entertaining to say the least. Thursday I have my French midterm which will probably prove to be the most difficult for me. For whatever reason I can write coherently but language is just not my thing! The past and present are complete opposites that I can differentiate between quite clearly, yet in French, I can't seem to get either tense straight.

Aside from that, all is going well. I continue to receive much more snail mail than I could ever hope to and once midterms are over I will be sending out mail to alll you family :).

Recent accomplishments:
*I found chicken soup! It's amazing... I stocked up.

*I learned how to do all of the accent marks (é, î, à, etc) using my keyboard rather than copying/pasting/inserting it into the document. This is HUGE. Trust me.

*With a bit of Danielle's help, I asked Madame in French if Dana could stay with me when she visits! (Mon soeur me rende une visite pour la vacance, est-ce qu'elle peut dormir ici dans ma chambre juste pour un nuit? Ce samedi? Parce que nous allons partir pour londres dimanche.)

*I found chicken soup.

*Found a new coffee shop close to school... it's adorable and the owner is the cutest little French lady ever. They are super polite and smile when they make eye contact with you. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but it is uncommon, even for store clerks, to smile when you make eye contact with them at any time other than upon entering the store. Strange, isn't it? Eye contact is just avoided unless you WANT to make contact ... if you catch my drift...

*Did I mention that I found chicken soup??

L'opéra / Théatre de l'Académie Royale

(Napoleon III commissioned this new opera house to be built during his regime. The foundations took a year and the entire budget planned to spend on it. After Napoleon III, a grass roots movement protested the Opera House and wanted to turn it into a temple. Fortunately (and unfortunately), the old opera house burned down so they had to build a new one, especially given the recent recognition of Paris as the city of arts and fashion. At the time, it had an eclectic feel to it and has a fancy schmancy hall inside of it that is modeled after the Hall of Mirrors at Versaille).

Beaucoup bisous,
Michele :)

C'est la vie :)

view of chateau villandry from the gardens.

Soo I've officially given up on consistently updating this blog... I don't think I'll make anymore unreasonable promises :)
This past weekend we joined Danielley's parents in Loire Valley and visited the castles there. Among them were Chenonceau, Chambord and Villandry. They were all quite beautiful :)

view of the gardens from a tower in the chateau.

Loire Valley is near the city of Tours and is basically the countryside and it was so pretty getting to see all the little old towns. They all had so much history and the buildings had so much character that walking aimlessly in the residential areas was just as enjoyable as touring the castles. In Amboise, we stopped by an old house of Leonardo Da Vinci and along the way, walked through a suuuuppper old neighborhood that had remains of houses built into the rocky hills... these are called "troglodytes" [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodyte]. I wish I had a picture to show you but unfortunately, my camera had no battery to begin with :( ... I know, Sorry Mommy.

Other things...
*As the new school year is beginning at home, the massive amounts of pictures being uploaded onto Facebook are making me rather homesick! Not to say that I am not enjoying every second of my life here, because I truly am, but it is quite a moment when you realize how much life is going on without you back at home! Last night Dana gave me a bunch of new songs to download as I had been listening to the same ones since I got here... bleh. It's going to be so strange to come home to a radio that is entirely unfamiliar and a blockbuster full of new choices :)

*Although, thank you all SO much for all of the mail :) I felt so so sooo loved, too! It's been wonderful having a reason to check the mailbox! I just bought stamps so I will be responding shortly :)

*Official school started a while ago... forgot to blog about that.. I'm still taking French along with Histories of Paris and French Cinema. Histories of Paris is really amazing... on Mondays we have lecture and on Wednesdays we go on excursions to see those places we are lectured about. It's like applied european history and it's great. Daddy you would love it! For example, we learned about Napoleon... his crazy military successes and his crazy Napoleonic code and domestic policies.... and then went to Invalides where his tomb is that is basically filled with artwork in remebrance of all of his accomplishments.

*Madame Anne (my Fran-mere/ host mom) is speaking almost all French at our dinners now. Danielle converses well whereas sometimes I just smile and nod. It's not that I can't understand, it's just that I can't think up a response quick enough, haha. Although I am getting much better with my French... occasionally I miss the negation in a sentence and totally get it backwards, but I'm no longer falling asleep in class so I know there is an improvement since before, I'd doze off because I didn't know what was going on :)

*I have now officially wasted far too much time blogging and way too little time doing my paper on Invalides.

Love you all!
A tout a l'heure,
Micheley

Porquoi est-ce que ils ne sont pas gros...?

me at st. tropez.

Why aren't they fat? It's one of those things Americans always talk about regarding the French.. and even after living here for two months now, I've come up with a long list of speculation but nothing substantial. Maybe it's because they walk everywhere... or because they aren't fond of preservatives or genetically modified products...? Maybe it's because they eat sooo much, their metabolisms never slow down? Or maybe they're just all freaks of nature. Je ne sais pas (I don't know). But I do know that I can't rely on the French lifestyle to keep from getting myself plumpy soo I invested in some running shoes :)
I have gone jogging the past three days so far and feel great... and how could I not? Look at where I jog:

c'est très jolie, oui?

Love you!
Micheley

Paris as the Aesthetically Pleasing

I woke up this morning around 7 am and opened the metal shutter on the outside of my window (protective measures, I assume). If I don't do this, I will sleep forever because I can't decipher night from day :) When I finally got Danielle and I both up and moving, we decided to go eat a delicious lunch- Parisien style, aka sit at a cafe for an excessive amount of time without ever once feeling rushed to pay the bill. Naturally, we chose our favorite: Cafe Murmure on rue de la Convention down the street from our homestay. Our deliciously satisfying two hour lunch was followed by a three hour walk around our neighborhood and a relcutant return to Cafe Murmure for dessert ;) oh us fat over indulgent Americans just couldn't resist the one of a kind minty ice cream on top of the most amazing chocolate cake, ever. And that was it... that was our Sunday.

my delicious tortellinis :)

danielle's delicious salmon

most amazing chocolate and minty ice cream EVER.

On Sundays, most stores are closed. I've yet to discover the actual reason why, but from what I gather, it's because Sunday is the day of rest... it's for family, it's for friends and it's for yourself. In my opinion, there is a lot to admire about the Parisien lifestyle. I love how they walk everywhere yet they do not appear pressed for time. How they have time to take two hours lunches: they take the extra time to digest and they actually listen when people are talking. Life goes a little bit slower for me in Paris and I'm loving it so so much. I don't wake up with anxiety and I'm never bitter or angry, I never feel like I have too much to do or not enough time to do it. I finally have time to see the things around me and appreciate all of it. The air is fresh and it feels great :)

De Paris, Avec Amor, Micheley <3

Playing catch-up

So unfortunately the internet in my dorm is absolutely terrible which has made the blogging thing more than difficult to do… but now I’ll play catch up and try to stay consistent with the blogging.

Friday August 29, 2008

THE BASIC ROUTINE
So far Paris has been super amazing. Seriously. Most days work similarly… on a school day Danielley and I wake up around 7:30/8:00 and sometimes Skype with family or friends while we get ready for French class. Then we go to our French class from 9-12. I am in French 3 and Danielley is in French 4 (this is about the only time we are separated from each other, haha). At noon we go and get lunch and take our books back to the dorms. Then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we walk back to the ACCENT Center (which is where our classes are) by 1:00 and have excursions where they take us to places around Paris to help us see different parts and learn a little about the history of it. It’s a great time but the excursions leave us all exhausted and most everyone takes naps from 4 until dinner time. After which we may go out, do something mellow, or just stay in and attempt to use our ridiculously slow internet to watch TV shows from ninjavideo.net (courtesy of Daren). Every day is something new and I’m loving it.

SCHOOL
School is kinda funny… The ACCENT Center (ACCENT is the program that does the lifestyle part of our stay here) is located in a small courtyard on rue d. Faugbourg Saint-Antoine. It’s cute and the people are very friendly. It’s the center of our lives basically… it’s where our mail is sent, it is where we meet for group activities, it’s where the computers are and where we can print… etc. Next to that is the UC Center building (UC Center is the academic/school aspect of our stay here) and it’s a very small, simple building with classrooms and a few computers. Our classes are in either the ACCENT or the UC Center. The first two weeks is the French Practicum intensive class which is meant to get you back into being comfortable speaking French.. so you go through a lot of basics and have three hours of French daily (plus the 3 hour excursions on MWF), homework assignments and excursion reports to write. This class is usually the class you stay with into the regular school period when our other content courses start. There are about 18 people in each class so it becomes a very small community of people and you get to know them really well. On September 8th we start our content classes (yay!)… I am taking French Cinema and Histories of Paris (I dropped the French Art class because I didn’t need the credits). I’m super excited about both of them! The histories of Paris class takes you on excursions as well which is cool because we will get to learn about the history and then go see the actual places. That is maybe one of my favorite things about Paris/Europe… The history here is not really history. It is still so much a part of their lives and they do so much to preserve it. It’s quite different than America where they choose a few monuments to preserve and then destroy the rest constantly to keep modernizing the cities. And as much as the cities may be much higher tech, they’ve lost sight of the passion that architects here used to put in their work. The buildings here display an attention to detail that is completely lost in modern America (whose buildings I don’t even pay much attention to). The architecture is so elaborate (which would be considered gaudy in the US) and beautiful and even though much of it looks the same in my pictures, it’s overwhelming to see it in person and I looove it.

THE LIVING AREA
So the dorms are dorms. They are small, crampy, and only have the basics. The kitchenette is terrible (as in the water never gets to boiling point) and the frigo [fridge] never gets cold enough, although that may just be a French thing?

Our HOMESTAY is absolutely amazing. Danielle and I got super lucky and we were put in the same homestay together, yay! We each have our own rooms and we share a bathroom. Many of the other students have to share the bathroom with someone else in the family so we got very lucky. The rooms are small but a good size for what we are here for. There is pretty much nowhere to put our clothes, haha so for girls like us, it was a tough task figuring out what to do with it all! But we managed of course. The couple, Anne and Bruno Montalembert are super super nice. Bruno works for a bank and I’m not sure what Anne does but I think she does work somewhere. They have a country home in Fontainebleu that we’ve been told they visit on most weekends. The have a daughter who is 27 and a son who is 23. Tonight (Dimanche, le 31 aout/ Sunday August 31st) was our first night here. We got here and Anne was very welcoming and we sat in la salle de séjour (living room) to chat a little bit with her and Bruno. Anne then told us to go and unpack and that dinner would be at 8. It was cute because she would check in on us while we were unpacking like, every 10-15 minutes and say ‘ça va?’ to basically ask if everything was going okay.

Dinner was super delicious. They started with melon, which I don’t particularly like but I ate it anyway because it was like the first course salad type thing… as in it had it’s own plate, haha. So I didn’t want to be rude, and it turned out okay because it was very fresh and tasty. For the main course, they made us poulet (chicken), pomme de terre (potatoes), and sliced up pain (bread), avec d’leau (with some water). Bruno also offered us vin (wine) but we both declined the offer. For dessert (yes, they even baked us dessert!) Bruno had baked a prune tart. Honestly, I was a little worried about this because I’m not sure I like prune, but I ate it anyway and il est trés delicieux! (it is very delicious!) so that was great. After dinner Bruno insisted on taking us around the neighborhood to show us the two metro stops closest to us and the one he suggested we take to school. We also had to buy the monthly pass (since tomorrow is the 1st) and he urged us to buy it tonight as tomorrow everyone would be crowding around the pay stations to get theirs. We got to the Boucicart metro stop and they unfortunately no longer sell the carte d’orange. Paris is in the middle of upgrading their systems to electronic cards but it isn’t mandatory until January. It’s a more complicated process and you have to order a card that doesn’t come for a fort night (says Bruno, although I’m not sure what a fort night indicates exactly) which is probably why the school provided us with carte d’orange instead (the easier, older system). So Bruno, as kind as he is, buys himself a metro ticket to take us to the next stop to buy it. He’s great. Then we came back home and did our homework. Honestly, we couldn’t have gotten a nicer couple or house. Danielley and I are so pleased and we feel incredibly lucky ☺.

Phew! That was a lot... but I had to do it because I promised Mommy I would :)
More interesting things to come soon....

De Paris, Avec Amor,
Micheley

Day 1: Arrival

us at the airport

Bonjour Tout!

So Danielley and I made it to Paris! That is.. after three hours at the San Diego Airport, a three hour plane ride to Texas (that included Kung Fu Panda and a chicken sandwich with ceasar salad), followed by what felt like a three mile walk from one end of the airport in Texas to the other end, then of course the 9 hour and 45 minute plane ride to Paris (that included What Happens in Vegas, peanuts, orange juice, House, chicken and pasta, The Cosby Show, and Narnia: Caspian Prince). But it was definitely all worth the journey because I can already tell that Paris is an amazing city!

Upon arriving at the airport we struggled somewhat to get our overweight bags onto the cart but didn't mind because we were just happy they made it! Then we got approached by a man in a very nice suit asking us if we needed a taxi, Danielle replied yes and he immediately grabbed the cart and led us to a "taxi." I say "taxi" because it had no signs or licensing or any indication whatsoever that it was a taxi. Catching on to this quickly, Danielley asked where the meter was and what his rate was and he told us he had a fixed rate of 70 euros. We both looked at each other a bit hesitantly because we were told it would only be 30-35 euros. Unfortunately he packed our bags into his car so quickly it didn't seem as though we had much choice but to get into the sketchy man's car. It may have been a bit pricey (80 euros total) but it's better than what some of the students went through. One of the girls told us that she and her friends took the metro and it took them three hours and several miles to get here- including much of what was spent lugging all of their bags up stairways! Eeeeekkk! So yeah, it was worth the 80 euros.

We got to the ACCENT Center where we were given our key and told the code to get into the dorm building. Once we got to the dorms we found a few other students trying to get into the building which turned out to be quite the difficult task. Nowhere in their directions did they tell us to push the door... haha.
So Danielley and I are sharing a teensy little dorm room for two weeks until the 31st where we will then part our separate ways to the still unknown homestay (dun dun dun...). Mom wasn't kidding when she told me I would learn to live a lot less luxurious.

our 2x2 shower.

the dorm room.

Love you all,
Micheley :)

Ecrivez moi, s'il vous plait! (Write me, please!)

*e-mail: micheleyoshioka@yahoo.com
*skype: micheleyyy
*skype phone: 916-378-5007
*gchat: micheleyoshi
*aim: micheley1O

Yay for Paris! This is probably the single most exciting thing that has happened to me yet in my 22 years of existence. I'm beyond grateful that I have amazing parents who have made this trip possible for me :) Above is my contact information. I'm not entirely sure how available internet access will be to me, but I'm fortunate enough to have my trusty little blackberry with me so I will have access to my e-mail and to gchat. Gchat is a nifty feature that gmail has... so if you create a gmail account, you can use gchat! I'll blog and put up pictures as much as possible... So check back when you can, and keep in touch! :)




De Paris, avec Amor (From Paris, with Love), Michele