City mouse, country mouth

Listen, it’s me, not you…but I have to go soon.

No doubt you’ve been amazing. I never knew I could have such good times in any one place, but now it’s time for me to move on.
Back to America.
I know, I know you dont like us too much, we’re trying to work on it.

I will miss a lot about you.
Your trains, bread and wine…
But what I will miss most are the memories that I have to leave behind.
I realized the other day that I will never be here in this place again, at this same age, with these same beautiful people, in the same circumstance…nothing.

That’s almost terrifying, you know?

I feel like you’ve changed me in ways that I cant wait to figure out. You’ve forced me to adapt and be confident in what I want to do.
You’ve showed me that no question is really that dumb.
You’ve also schooled me on your intricate language and culture.
That grammar will never be easy, but it’s easier thanks to the past nine months.

Now I have to go home…the flight is confirmed for May 11.
It is difficult to think that I wont be here even in one month, basking in your summer sun, eating your awesome foods, laughing with the host family that you provided me with, laying in the hammock, riding your trains down south, bitching about one of your many unnecessary strikes…
Paf.
Gone.

As quickly as it began it ends.

Dont lose your joie de vivre, your je ne sais quoi, your belle vie.
I’ll be back really soon, ready for you to wash over me once more.

Santé,
Liz Sendejo
DAF-A 2009-2010

Joanna Newsom.

Bought all of the train tickets this Saturday to head out to Italy. Looks like we’re hitting the South of France first, then the second week spending a few days in Venice, Florence and then Rome.

It took us an hour and a half just about to get everything organized for the trip at the train station. The guy that helped us was awesome, gave us every discount available.

This is a lifelong dream coming true folks.
I get to cross this off the list.
Hopefully more than once.

Cheers

I think I’ve figured out how to get myself out of this rut.

Who came up with that expression?

rut

rut

golly, i’m stuck in a rut.

After a late night skype talk, getting beaten around by a pretentious French tennis player today, a couple of McChickens (yeah a couple. shit…they’re smaller here?) and a visit to the train station to talk through our trip to Italy, I have found some sort of inner…OK-ness.

Inner peace is also stupid.

Inner OK-ness is about all I can ask for at this point.

I’m ready to see COLORS. Not grey anymore.

Color like this:

I’m ready to hop around and pretend like I’m Italian.

And sing Figaro.

Because I feel like that’d be inherently Italian…

32 days until Venice

2 months until I’m home. To the exact day.

Cheers

sometimes i cant make myself care whether its des oeufs or les oeufs

or les exersices as opposed to des exersices

sometimes i think french can get a little out of hand with all of its details.

a lot out of hand.

I listened to the “Where the Wild Things Are” soundtrack last night

There’s a song on it that goes

L-O-V-E it’s a mys-tr’y

something

all is love.

I think I might buy it.

Its Karen O and the Kids. Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, that is.

She did a lot of the soundtrack. It was perfect.

The only reason I talked about des and les earlier was because i was getting yelled at in front of my entire class about. That gets old.

There’s a girl in my classes from some extremely small Russian spin off country. She’s not very nice. But, the best part is when she tries to correct people and she’s wrong. I feel like I’ve won a tiny battle or something.

Sorry this post isnt too riveting, but I did eat a huge bacon cheeseburger today and it was awesome. The cook at this resto is American, so it was real.

Kind of.

There’s a yellow crane (crain? crap)  outside the window. There is so much wind that is swaying really quickly back and forth. That is more interesting.

…was awesome.

Chiefly, I got to go home and surprise everyone. Id planned it since November, and I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was to be at home and not be stared at when speaking english.

I surprised everyone. Friends, boyfriend (yes, boyfriend…I know!) hell, even the dog.

It was nice to be home, I cant really describe it. But, it was just what I needed, not sure if I would have been able to keep it together all nine months without doing so.

Spring is rearing her pretty little head here in France, honestly, I doubt that there is a more beautiful place to be during this time of year.

SO

big news was found out when I got home.

I graduate on May the 15th.

HO-LY

So, just a quick recap for you.

I have 9 weeks left here, 7 in school (two week vacation y-e-s Easter go go) and I return on May 11, turn around and graduate on May 15.

Right.

This being said, it’s hard to keep still for more than two seconds over here. I find myself wanting to speed up my time here, instead of enjoying the remainder.
I must admit that it has a lot to do with the weather.
15 mile and hour winds at minus 20 degrees Celsius makes your bones feel pretty dang hollow all day.

But, the sun it out, and that’s one beautiful thing.

_____

So about this 2 week vacation coming up in April.
I’m going to Italy. With my sweet friend Dane.

Specifically. Night train from Venice to Paris (lifelong dream over here), Florence, Rome and then back to chill on the beaches of the south of France the second week.

I’m so excited about all of the things I will see.

The aquas, the peaches, the bronzes, the reds.

It’ll be nice to get away from the 7 floor limestone buildings for a while.

I guess they’re limestone in France.
Stone, whatever.

Also I dont know a lick of Italian. Dane does, though.
“The thumb is a finger on the hand” wont get us too far though.

He knows more than that I’m pretty sure.
__________

I applied for graduation/internships/private scholarships (for grad school)/grad school/awards for graduation

it’s crazy.

I cannot believe I’m done with my undergraduate education and will have two degrees.
I dont think anyone ever gets used to how quickly things move.

I think I might make a Tumblr this week. I just wanna make sure I know what I’m doing on it.

OK that’s it really.

Alright, bye.

Hello.

I’m bringing you a Sunday Night Special.

Cat Power is perfect for Sunday nights. Calming you down from the weekend full of eating Galette, shopping and buying 23940293 CDs for cheap, and laughing.

This one is called “Good Woman”

and good lord, is it good.

good.

Want me to say it again?

What’s the galette you ask? Well, it’s like the king cake. Eaten for the new year, and instead of a baby, there is some over commercialized thing instead of it. This year it was Avatar figurines.

Lame.

I think I’m the only person that hasnt seen it, and doesnt care about seeing it.

Originally in that sentence I typed seent it.

whoa.

Anyway, it was nice to see all the classmates outside of the university climate. We’d just had a grammar test the Friday before, so it was like a collective sigh of relief for everyone.

We’re currently learning the subjonctif, which translates directly to- really hard for Liz to do.

But, again…I’m trying to maintain the feeling that if I can get through last semester I can get through just about anything this semester.

Though the homesickess has set in, in such a way that I find it difficult to sleep at night.

In the words of many rappers…

you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.

That’s the biggest life lesson I’ve learned so far.

To quote another rapper

Smashed up the gray one bought me a red.

Good night

###

L

Hi,

It’s 2010

The last time I wrote it was 2009

I’m sorry I’m such a lame o when it comes to this blog.

I think about it a lot.

And then I get tired and go to sleep.

I’m going to attempt to bring you from November to now…

Cue fuzzy flashback mode.

Things got a bit easier after November. The first couple or three months required a lot more adjustment that I’d anticipated, but in reality, no one could have prepared me for this process.

It’s not a bad thing.

It’s really good.

Christmas in Orléans was pretty nice. We ended up heading up to Paris and had a HUGE family dinner with 20 members or so of the Lancrenon family.

We started eating at 8 on Christmas Eve and did not stop until 1 in the morning.

JAM.

A couple of days after Christmas my family came and we moved and shook all over the place.

Started with a few days in Paris, headed then to Reims to ring in the new year (champagne capital of the world…did you know it cant be called champagne if it’s not from the Champagne region of France? Hm?), then to Amiens, Honfleur, Mt. St. Michel, Chartres, Tours, and back to Olivet for a sweet little dinner with my host family.

I discovered that I do not have enough patience to be a real translator.

It was really lovely to have my family here. It went so quickly, however.

It was hard to  re-acclimate back into the weird normal that I’ve made myself over here.

I was looking at the calendar the other day and realized I will only be here for three months and some change.

I cant get over how quickly life started moving.

But, I’ll be ready to be home.

Just in time for baseball, summer shows, new jobs and normal.

Cheers

Liz

I’m sorry about the hiatus.

Seriously, mentally I think I’m still back in August.

Here were are, November.

The past two months have been a ridiculous whirl of getting to know people, figuring out (and still not figuring out) French grammar, taking little trips and trying to figure out what exactly I’m doing here.

Please note that I think part of what I’m doing here is learning to have patience with myself, and patience with learning French grammar, which in and of itself is something that is challenging.

Even for French people.

Let’s have a lesson, shall we?

In French, everything is assigned a gender, from this keyboard I’m typing on to the nose on my face to the shirt that I’m wearing. It’s all…he or she, respectively.

Spiders are girls, birds are boys.

I’ve found that in general, if it is unpleasant than it is feminine.

Like, the word feminine itself, is masculine.

The word for a men’s shirt, you ask? is feminine, while the word for a women’s shirt? masculine.

Here you have, in essence, what I’ve been dealing with for the past couple of months. And, dont even get me started on the tenses.

I tested into a pretty good level, DAF the third level (fourth being the top). I have to say, one of my prouder moments. But, it has not been without it’s challenges, of course.

I have also seen some fabulous things, and met some colorful folks.

Things and folks:

That’s Paris. This was quite the adventure. I went with, essentially two strangers, both from Detroit…

We left Orléans at 5 in the morning, intending to spend the entire day in the city. Meaning, because I live in Olivet, I was walking out of my house at 3:30 a.m.

Long story short, we walked upwards of 15 miles this day…came home with bleeding feet, but were exhausted and happy. Plus, we’d become pals.

Let’s see, bypass that, and we arrive to the Festival de Loire. It was beautiful. Wonderful… so wonderful, that I didnt take really any awesome photos.

Sorry.

Let’s see…

I also went to the lovely town of Tours, because I needed to get away from Orléans during the Toussaint vacation. I’ve got to say I love that place.

That brings us pretty much up to speed, I suppose. I dont want to bore you with long drawn out descriptions of these places, because I hope that you’ll go one day and make them for yourselves.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot. About how I havent been taking very many pictures of events or things. I think some things, sometime are best to be preserved in my memory.

Because, truthfully, some of the places I’ve seen are utterly indescribable.

Not even pictures would do them justice.

Back to school.

I’ve quickly learned that even though at the end of each day, I’m exasperated, embarrassed, struggling…whatever…I’ve found that when I got to bed, I’m happy. I’m satisfied with what I’m doing and where I’m going with this.

So, I decided to stay the full year. Because frankly, I was more comfortable staying here than I was with thinking I’d be back at UALR next semester.

Dont get me wrong, it’s a great place to be…and the homesickness for me never really leaves…

But I think this is where I need to be right now.

And, that feels good, comrades.

This is how it feels:

“I hadn’t understood how days could be both long and short at the same time: long to live through, maybe, but so drawn out that they ended up flowing into one another. They lost their names. Only ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ still had any meaning for me.”

— Albert Camus, The Stranger
Hows about I’ll write more often?

Cheers

L

So, I’m all installed into the new house/family.

They told me the other daythat their house is someting like 145 years old.

That’s pretty dang old.

The Lancrenon’s (and me, too) live in a smaller town called Olivet.

It’s kind of the Benton to Little Rock, but not as far away…and not as stupid as Benton.

Olivet is very very small, but extremely charming. We live just down the street from a small church, as well as a middle school and ecole maternelle. Needless to say, tons of little kids and big kids and people and dogs walk past my window everyday, and I’ve found that I really like people watching.

The backyard is also ridiculous. HUGE. With apple trees, mirabelles, tomatoes potatoes…all of that stuff. And, our own fork of the Loiret ( the little river).

I havent yet, but I do plan on kayaking. It’s pretty dang awesome.

Claude (my host father) I think is decended from some quite upper bourgeois here in Olivet, he works from the Marie (the government) and is extremely into nature. Biking, running, walking, being generally awesome and healthy…all of that.

Emie (the host mom) and I seem to always be on the same wavelength. She and I talk quite a bit about different things, and I see a lot of my own mother in her…which is very very comforting.

They have two daughters- one that’s living here named Melany and the other living in Canada.

The son lives and works in Paris, and will be coming around with more regularity soon.

____

As for me, I’ve found that weekends here in France, right now are extremely difficult.

Lonely, is the word.

I always hate using that word because I feel like it’s been turned into a bad word.

Lonely.

Ugh, it’s stupid but I am.

To go from having a car, and mobility and friends and a bar and a life- to sitting on the couch on Saturday night trying to figure out what’s going on in this mystery show while eating awesome cheese and sipping wine by myself is quite hard.

I guess I’ll always have a bit of ole Liz Lemon in me, and right now I dont really mind.

I look forward to school starting on Monday, I tested in the DAF A, which is the level right under the top level…and I was super surprised at that.

But, while I know it will be tons of work, I realize that that’s what I’m here to do, and know that other things will just have to fall into place.

Can’t have it all right away.

I’m off to go clean up the kitchen.

Parents home from dinner soon.

Then, a movie or so.

If you’re reading, thank you.

I’ll update soon about school and things like that.

Also, I bought two new sweaters the other day.

Yes.

Hey folks,

Things over here have gone quite well the past couple of days.

I got to the airport without problems, ate a gross sandwich in the Houston airport (see ya Amercian cuisine!) and was picked up on time.

While it is a bit lonely, I echo what the last entry said. Just knowing that I have people at home who are thinking of me and supporting me makes the trip and experience better.

As for the past couple of days, they have been quite lonely.I cant really explain the shock that the brian goes through for the first couple of days at least. Leaving a country where things come very easily for you…(like buying stamps or simply asking where the bathroom is) to coming to France, where everything is French French French is difficult.

Luckily, there are American TV shows dubbed in French.

We’ve been watching the shit out of “Chuck”, which I find is funnier in French.

My temporary host, Julien has been very welcoming and easy to get along with. He’s introduced me to his friends, and we went to a party the other night.

At first, I felt like a leper.

But, it’s hard to hide when you’re sitting in a big circle. Word travels fast when there’s an American in the house.

Everything was fine though, I got over my shyness (thank you, liquid courage, only a little) and soon found myself talking some with a couple of the folks.

Had a technical difficulty with the mouse on my computer, but have since purchased a new one and got a couple of essentials.

Like band aids.

Hello, blisters.

Let’s see let’s see

I’ve also discovered that running for the tram is not much fun.

Listen, I cant run in French and I cant run in English. Let’s get that straight.

Other than that, I move in with my host family today, they are still on vacaction (luckyyyy) but my host sister is going to get me today.

It will be nice to see where I’m hangin my hat for the next few months.

And, as for a decision on how long I will stay, I still don’t know.

You’ll be the first to know, though…after me.

***

L