Two bad days in a row, this deal is just not in my favor so
far. This day really rocked the boat though, I actually lost it for a short
period of time. Two good things happened, but there were about four things that
went wrong, including me breaking down. Let's begin at Wednesday morning, oh
how grand. Some info about St. Nicolas that you may or may not already know; we
are far from everything else in Le Havre and our laundry facilities were just
installed a few days ago. I bet you don't know what is supposed to work and
doesn't and wasted a lot of my time? If you were the laundry machine then you were
right! Here's a cookie. Anyhow although there is technically a washer and a
dryer in the dorm, they do not have any instructions, any prices, or anything
useful written anywhere. I also have a lot of laundry to do. My solution, only
practical and cheap option, is to once again use my kitchen sink to clean my
clothes. I'm real sick of having to use my sink as my pre-soak, washer, and
rinse cycle. Lunch happened, this was a good thing. They had butterscotch
pudding which made my heart flutter. I love butterscotch everything, especially
pudding. That gave me a nice boost of happiness, too bad that feeling didn't
last. After spending copious amounts of time in the library trying to lull my
mind with music and youtube, we decided to go to the furniture store to pick up
some furnishings. Shocker right there. That actually wasn't so bad. I grabbed a
few new sheets, some towels, steak knives, and kitchen mat. The cashier was, even
for France, a raging (rhymes with blunt). So to counter attack her horrible
attitude, I was overly nice and happy to the cashier. She did make the mistake
of assuming that I didn't speak any French. Lady, it isn't polite to say, "what
the fuck is wrong with all these damn American bank cards?" in front of
the customer. I may not have been the best cashier, but I knew well enough
never to assume anything about the customer. She stopped laughing at her own
joke when she saw my face. I'm pretty sure she almost defecated, even though
I'm small I apparently can look quite terrifying. After that experience we walked
back to the dorms to drop off our stuff, but decided to detour through Les
Docks. I went to bakery to check one more time if my book was there. The
original woman that I had seen on Monday was there and when asked, she looked
under the counter and handed me my book. Happy moment! We arrived at the dorms,
and as usual, checked our mailboxes. Bad moment. I pulled out a piece of paper
with the word urgent written in red ink with a longwinded explanation of how my
rent was late for both months. Very bad moment. The threat was that we might be
evicted if the problem wasn't solved by the 28th of September. Horrible moment.
It ended with, "our sincerest respects." This is the moment where
Mary boils over. It was an overreaction but chemical reactions can go out of
control sometimes, I was that reaction. Poor Kate had to witness me lose my cool
on the way to the docks, we needed to do some grocery shopping. She actually
acted perfectly. I'm the type of person that wants to be left alone, I will
tell you if I want comfort, and she obeyed my request without question. I
bought my groceries, slunked back to my room, pressed play for Some Nights, and
dove head first onto my bed as the angst/alternative rock filled my room. I
then attended a very strange party at another dorm. It wasn’t really much of a
party, more of a small gathering, and uninteresting to say the least. Also, can
French boys stop trying to do the American “saggin” style with their pants? It’s
not saggin when you are wearing khaki pants belted at the top with your boxers
poofed over the edge. I would love to erase those images from my memory. We
went home after a about two hours, we all were tired, and I once again wrapped myself
in blackhawks blanket comfort. What a crummy few days.
September 25th
Ok today sucked. I know it is unwise to start a story with a
negative adjective, since most readers won't want to continue reading, but I'm
just being honest. It was a day full of small misfortunes that seemed to pile
into a decent sized annoyance. First off, I left my room an extra thirty
minutes early in order to go back to the bakery to retreive my book. Guess who
isn't, and never will be, a morning person. Rikki, my computer, was lucky to be
on my desk as was my phone. I threw some things, slippers and a pig, at both of
them in a half-asleep attempt to turn them off. Heh, I also have bad aim so
both were fine. I then walked to Les Docks to discover that the bakery doesn't
open until 9 am, exactly when my class starts. Come on France, I know you work
to live not live to work but what kind of bakery doesn't open before 8am? Kate,
who also had a 9am class and was willing to walk with me, suggested we go to a
local cafe from some breakfast. I consented, and scarfed down a pain au
chocolat, coffee, and even orange juice. Bad idea. I normally don't drink
orange juice, why you ask? Two reasons; it tastes weird like all juice and it
tends to upset my stomach with its acidity. Yes, my stomach is a pain in the ass
a lot. For instance, I love tomato soup, but really can't eat it without
feeling awful later. Life's curveballs. Anyhow I was not feeling so hot the
rest of the day, especially during littérature comparée. Mme Colin is nice, in
a French way, and speaks very clearly, but dear God her handwriting is awful.
It is like a mixture of third-grade cursive and first-grade print. Honestly I
have to hear what she says before she writes it down to have any hope of taking
concise notes. On the brightside today was pride and prejudice, which was
traditionally wrote in English. Thank you Miss Austen. Lunch was not edible
which meant the rest of the day I was basically starving. On the way home was
when I stopped by the bakery, which was now open, to see if they had my book. Unfortunately
it was a different worker, who barely looked around the store, that told me my
book was not there. Great, I have to now repurchase a ten euro book. It's not
the end of the world, but it sure is annoying. I returned to room to sleep the
hungry away, my fridge was barren, which somewhat worked. I woke after a few
hours of napping under my cuddly blackhawks blanket. I joined Paula and Kate in
an avocado/bread party. The ending was bittersweet, the avocado wasn't very
ripe, and I went to bed wishing that things had gone better. Like the orphans
always say, the sun will come out tomorrow. I'm not going to bet my bottom
dollar.
September 24th
Rain, wind, blew me away, almost in the choppy bay. Le Havre
is not known for its sunshine, and to be honest this wasn't like a mid-west
thunderstorm, but this morning it rained brutally. I had no morning classes,
since it was Monday, but thought that I could go to the bookstore before lunch
to, well, buy my academic books. No such luck. The wind was really the problem,
the rain was standard. When I walk anywhere that is off the St. Nicolas
platform I have to walk by the docking bay. The problem with this during a
storm is the bay area is flat, very flat. If an area is flat and wind is blown
across it, anything that is on the surface of the land is catapulted forward. I
was the surface object that was shoved with wind and rain as I attempted to
walk to the bookstore. My backpack, thank God it is waterproof, was the only
thing keeping me on the ground. My friend Paula did fly, for a few seconds, in
the air. I made it to sanctuary, the library, and decided that the bookstore
could wait for tomorrow. I then proceeded to try and dry myself. That was fun.
If you are familiar with my clothing style, then you know that I love to wear
flare jeans and converse shoes. Flare jeans drag on the ground and my black
converse have holes in the sides. Ah I was soaked. My shirt was the only dry
thing, I wore my fall jacket, but the rest of me was dripping from the rain. I
had to wring my socks out, and just not wear them, and claw my bird nest mess
of hair straight. I then decided, with about an hour until lunch, that my time
would best be spent on the internet. It definitely was a good decision. I also
picked up Orgueil et Préjugés, Pride and Prejudice, at the library for
Tuesday's class. My French culture class went well, the rain had stopped by
then, and I actually made it to the bookstore. Now it took me forever to find
my books, their organization of student books is worse than Iowa's, but after
some assistance I walked out with 4/5. I also bought a non-academic book, what blasphemy!
It was a French book all about British and American slang terms and what they
meant. Perfect. Unfortunately I left it at the bakery on the way home. I'm not
too worried though, it was on the counter so it should be there tomorrow
morning. Fingers crossed. So all-in-all the day ended alright. The start was
unexpected, but in situations with horrible weather the only thing to do is be
obnoxious/ peculiar. I accomplished this by humming my favorite Canadian song
all the way to the library. North Atlantic Squadron, I thank you and you cabin
boy for assisting me in my travels today.
P.S. Dad
please don't kill me <3
September 23rd
The morning was not fun. I spent a good hour scrubbing cider
off my floor with a sponge and dish soap. I did manage to clean it all up, only
to be reminded by Kate that my dresser also needed to be cleaned, and that the
hallway was about 10x more disgusting. The three of us decided to take our
personal 1.5 liters of soda and go to Les Docks for a bite to eat and some
cleaning supplies. I really love making a complete fool of myself it seems. Due
to my groggy state I drank the entire 1.5 liter of Vanilla Coke on the way to
lunch, which was at French Mickey D's. I picked at my food, due to having a
bloated stomach full of carbonated soda, but did manage to not be sick. I
actually, while sitting in McDonald's felt very tired, until Chelsea Dagger the
Blackhawk's theme song began to play. That seemed to jolt me from tired
soda-coma situation. We then slugged to Les Docks where some money was spent on
lazy after party/dorm lounge clothes. No cleaning supplies were bought, naturally,
but the internet was used to both update blogs and check e-mail/facebook. Such
a productive day. Now it actually is time to buy cleaning supplies since it is
neither fair, nor right, to force the workers to have to suffer our American
party aftermath. Time to play Cinderella, in reverse, ball first then clean,
with Kate and Paula. Although it's no fun, I would be lying if I said that it
was not worth it. Such is European college life, or just college life in
general. Til tomorrow readers!
P.S. I apologize, a little late I suppose, to any of you who
have taken offense or been shocked by the content of my blog. I did consider censoring
it, but then that wouldn't be telling the truth. This blog is basically
something that updates you on what I am doing, but is also a diary of events
for me to look back at when I'm older. If I left important details out simply
because they are grimy on the edges, then I would be fabricating my memories. I
give my apologies, although in reality none of this should be logically shocking.
Consider my situation; a twenty year old girl living in France for a year who
is surrounded by freedom and friends. It could be a lot worse. Hugs and more
hugs!
September 22nd
Oh man, well that definitely was some party. Good points are
no one was sick, everyone enjoyed themselves, and no cops were called. I'll hit
the rougher points further on, for now let's start with the morning/afternoon.
At around 11am, I was taking a shower when my doorbell, yes our dorm is equipped
with doorbells but no toilet seats, scared the crap out of me. I shouted that I
was in the shower, but knew that no one had heard me. So I did one of the most
painful first-world things, I left my hot shower to answer the door. Kate was standing
there and was a bit shocked to see me drenched in a towel with a sideways smile
on my face. She told me that she and Paula were going to Les Docks, to which I
responded that I would them there in an hour. I then returned to my lovely warm
waterfall to wash the remaining suds from my hair. An hour later I did in fact
meet them at Les Docks, after updating my blog of course. We then marched to
the grocery store and began to stock our inventory with college party goods.
First, chips and lots of them. We grabbed some plain Lays and knock-off
Ruffles, as well as some Bugles. We tried to find some Cheetos, but of course
couldn't since France refuses to house anything that requires a fake cheese
substitute, and settled on a bag of white cheese poofs. They were awful, never
buy them unless you actually want a puffy little poof to taste like real cheese.
We ran into Demetrius there, which was funny since he was also buying things to
for the party. It was nice to see him early since we hadn't seen him in over a
week. The international kids stick together, which makes for good friendships.
Anyways after the chips we stopped by the wine department for a few cheap
boxes. Turns out, in France, that boxed wine is a delicacy. It was more expensive
than almost every bottle there. Paula and I couldn't believe it. Kate picked up
some cheap bottles and we left the 10 euro boxes to rot where they sat under
their overpriced tags. It was then time for the soda isle. I grabbed some 7-Up
for the party, and a 1.5 liter of Vanilla Coke for myself. Finally, we moved
onto the beer. They had some mini kegs, since it was American themed, we picked
out a little 1664 keg. It really is a baby keg, no pump just a tap, especially
since I was able to carry it home. Paula and Kate picked out their beer, while
I grabbed a cheap 6-pack and one bottle of Duff lager. The Duff was mine, and
happened to be delicious. As a Simpsons' fan I simply could not resist. We then
grabbed a few plastic cups, very small weak cups, and a table cloth. In hindsight
we realize that we should have bought a plastic table cloth, but well, we
didn't. After purchasing everything and dragging it home, we all made ourselves
ready for the party. Hair, make-up, table set-up, food, and music was put into
place. The party did not officially start until 10pm, but many people
surprisingly showed up early around 9:30pm. Oh well, it was a good start. And
middle. It's more around the end that bad luck began to happen. My friend
Cristina, a lovely Italian girl, needed to use the bathroom. I told her that
she could use the one in my room. I am such an idiot. I unlocked the door,
showed her to the bathroom, and while I was waiting for her noticed my bottle
of hard cider on the table. I had been saving that bottle for a good occasion
since I really enjoy cider. I am such an idiot. In my party state I thought
that cider was a perfect touch to my night and opened the bottle by twisting
the metal seal off the cork. The cork then flew, rocket speed, into my ceiling
with cider spraying everywhere. Again, I am a huge idiot. Half of the bottle
had exploded all over my room. I thought it was hilarious. I began to start
"cleaning" the mess by pressing paper towels all over my cider soaked
floor. Cristina came out, said an "Oh my God", and assisted me in
cleaning. The entire time I was laughing. I then, after determining that the
sticky mess was now "clean" and after walking around my room which
spread the mess further, that everything was a-ok. I grabbed my half bottle of
cider and left my room with a shocked Cristina. The rest of the party was spent
at a local club where everyone was having a good time dancing. Paula and I
decided that at 3:30 am it was time to go home. Perfect timing too. Kate was
ready to leave as well and we ran into her on the way out. We all somewhat
walked/scurried home in the early morning only to discover a hallway soaked
from floor to wall in alcohol as well as a dripping paper table cloth that was
plastered to our “homemade" dresser table. I opted to clean in the morning
while Kate and Paula tried to fix a bit of the mess. As I walked into my room I
remembered that my floor was sticky with cider, after I had walked through it barefoot.
The morning is going to be fun.
September 21st
What a long dragged out day. Poor Kate had to walk to the
police station, which is a few miles away, at 8:30am to avoid missing classes.
I had no morning classes and was so exhausted that I slept in until about
10:30am. So lazy, though to my defense I went to bed at about 4:30am due to
Kate's stolen wallet situation. I tried to meet her for lunch, but due to my
room apparently being made of lead, she didn't receive any of my messages until
it was too late. I did meet her and Paula after class at the library and then
treated Kate to some hot chocolate. Class went very well today. I understood about
90% of the lecture rather than 65%-75%. My Friday class is medieval French
literature, aka Arthurian history. I have studied king Arthur stories several
times in various classes in the past, so it is a topic with which I am not
unfamiliar. Also I was able to communicate with the teacher perfectly; I
understood every question that she asked me. However, I did still feel as
though someone had shot me in the head when the class ended; three hour
lectures tend to do that to anyone. Still I enjoyed the class and treating Kate
to hot chocolate, even though the hot coco kind of sucked. It's the thought
that always counts, I suppose. Afterwards we went to the local mall, which is a
legitimate mall, to buy a few accessories for Saturday night. On Saturday we are
hosting an "American" theme party. Everyone is expected to dress in
red, white, and blue, or at least one of the three. At the mall I picked up
some white bracelets and tights for my outfit. Paula, Kate, and I are a bit
worried that too many people have been invited, but we will just have to see.
We are having the actual party in the hallway, as to not make any of our rooms
disgustingly messy, so it should be ok. Tomorrow we will buy the
"refreshments", cheap beer and potato chips, and some red styled
cups. For tonight though, it is just good to relax and go to bed early.
September 20th
Schedule change, again, this will probably happen more times
too. Anyways I apparently do have a morning class on Thursday, great, but
fortunately I have no Monday morning classes anymore or Tuesday afternoon as
well. This is due to the fact that I will not be taking bibliographie or
philosophie. Why? Well they don't satisfy any credits at Iowa, at least none
that I haven't already fulfilled. Social geography, I somewhat apologize for
complaining about how boring you were to take, but I am now happy that we had
last semester since it means I won't have to take an 8am class here. Thank you
social geography. My class today anyhow, Thursday morning, is the lecture for
medieval history. This teacher was wonderfully nice and patient, just like
yesterday's professor, and I am actually looking forward to attending this
class from now on. It helps that Paula is there, but the content is interesting
and for the most part easy to follow even though it is all in French. I'm also
starting to notice many parallels between the two languages, primarily with
vocabulary. This makes it easier to take specific classes since words like
paradox and rhetoric are the same, besides spelling, in both French and
English. I also had a FLE class, required foreign student classes, with Kate at
5:30pm. This was a bit irritating due to the fact that we were meeting at a
quarter to eight at the university to go to a club. We all were so tired of the
week that we decided to celebrate the weekend early, which is known as thirsty
Thursday in American college towns. Basically the problem was that Kate and I
went to our FLE class dressed in clubbing attire. There actually was a theme
for the night at this club, Olympics. The idea was to dress in attire that best
matches the country that one supports in the Olympics. I chose Canada since I
always root for them in the hockey division, dual citizenship, and Paula was
already representing the stars and stripes by wearing American flag leggings.
My outfit was very tactful if I say so myself; red shirt, white scarf, brown
belt, jeans, and brown shoes. It was definitely an outfit of which any father
would approve. Class was interesting, not due to Kate's and my attire but
rather our teacher was odd. It is a grammar and phonetics class, yay for me. He
loved teasing me about how I don't know the difference sound wise between
dessous, under, and dessus, over. Not my fault that the French thought it would
be a good idea to have two anonyms sound exactly the same to everyone, even the
native French. Regardless of the teasing, the professor had good humor which
does make class thought-provoking, good thing too since it's a night class.
After class was mixed, bit of a roller coaster of a night out. Good news is
that the club was only five minutes from our dorm. Bad news is that when we
left our stuff to go dance, meaning our coats and bags, with some friends who
then also left to dance, the staff lovingly moved our belongings without
telling us. The only way I was given back my purse was because I knew that
there was a mirror in the front pocket. I had no I.D. on me, in France it isn't
needed, since I had left it at home for security reasons. Good news is that we
then checked our things properly at the coat area and went back to the dance
floor. Bad news is that due to the purse/coat situation we were all in bad
moods. Good news is that alcohol fixes the problem. Bad news is that Paula left
early to go to bed. Good news is that I danced with a cute French boy. Worst
news is that Kate lost her wallet. That really is what sucked. I tried to help
her but there really wasn't much to do. She was having trouble communicating
with the staff, none of them spoke any English; plus loud music doesn't make
good background noise since it bleeds into the foreground. Luckily the boy that
I had danced with spoke English well enough to act as a translator. Unfortunately
we still weren't able to find her wallet. In the morning Kate is going to the
police station before class to report it missing and will be canceling all of
her cards. Good news is that her passport was safe in her room. The bad news,
her wallet is still gone.
September 19th
No morning classes, yippee! I love that about Weds, Thurs,
Fridays. Unfortunately on Monday my new "bibliographie" class starts
at eight o'clock, grrr, but such is life. I'd rather have it on Monday than the
alternative 8 am Friday slot. Although today I was able to take my time
becoming ready for the day, it was a rocky start outside of the dorm. For meals
at my French university I need to either pay in cash or with an electronic card
called "carte crous". In order to have one of those magical cards I
need to fill out a form, show my student ID, and give them a statement from my
French bank. The last part is where the problem lies. I went to the LCL bank
this morning in order to pick up both my bank card and the crous statement. Of
course I left empty handed. Apparently my LCL account will not be ready until
late this afternoon. Great. So once again I paid for lunch out of my own pocket
with cash, which everyone secretly or not so secretly hates. Fortunately my
only class today, medieval history, lets out at five, one hour before the bank
closes. I have a feeling that after five is late afternoon for the French.
Luckily my feelings were correct and everything was ready for me. I was able to
receive both my new LCL bank card as well as my lunch card approval form. I
hope I don't have to go back to the LCL any time soon though, simply because a,
it is a bank and because I've hated having to be there every single time.
September 18th
Day two was much better than day one, thank God. I did start the day a bit rough though, due to mixing up class times. I had though that Litterature Comparée started at 10, apparently it starts at 9, whoops. At least the teacher was very polite about it when I explained that I had written the number down wrong. I actually understood class too. Apparently it is just rhetoric in French, and although rhetoric is not my favorite subject, it is something that I have studied for many years. All the terms are the same as well as the analysis process. I did make sure that I saved some lists of literary terms, schemes, tropes, and fallacies to my computer just for reference purposes. I am actually excited for this class since we are reading "Pride and Prejudice" in French. How long that enthusiasm will last, I don't know, but I think that I will be able to make this class work. My other Tuesday class was more difficult; philosophy. The teacher seems very relaxed about things, he constantly talks about how beautiful the world is, but since there are only six of us in the class, he speaks very softly. I made the mistake of sitting in the back, shyness always happens at the worst times, and could barely make out what he was saying. It also did not help that there was a classroom behind me that was an English class. My poor head was trying to concentrate on the French while random spurts of English were mixed into the jumble. Also due to me only being "demi-couramment" (semi-fleunt), I can't keep up with the lecture. I am able to write bits and pieces down, but definitely not as much as the native students. I sympathize with the Asian exchange students who journey to the states, they are brave. However, this is perfectly normal, especially for the first week of real classes. I am learning a lot and becoming better and better at French everyday. I called my mother, she always cheers me up, to unload some crestfallen emotions on her and felt like a million dollars after. I keep telling myself that I'm in the same boat as every other foreign student and that I'm not expected to perform in the classes at the level of the French students. Now, although I keep telling myself that, I rarely listen to the advice. It is hard to cheer up when you are singled out as a foreigner and are struggling purely due to the language barrier. There is some wisdom that does always cause me to smile though; regardless of my French level, I do not sound nearly as silly speaking French as every French student does when they attempt English. I hope that the American accent's difficulty never falters, because it is hilarious to hear phrases like, "yoo doNT lewk welle" or "sorey I doNt knough". My apologies France, but since I deal with your French "politeness" you may as well become used to my crude American behavior. After all eye for an eye, or in France is it cigarette for a cigarette?
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