Hmmm…what to say. I feel like I have simultaneously so much to say, because everything is so new to me, yet nothing to say because it just sounds repetitive if you aren’t experiencing it firsthand. Wow, that really wasn’t supposed to sound nearly that condescending at all.

Class today was good. We were working on grammar, which was nice. Here’s what I don’t get- why to teachers insist on teaching grammar in French? I’m talking about at Clark obviously, because here it makes sense because not all of the students speak English! But at Clark…wtf is that about? I’m all for immersion, but some things make better sense (so that you can USE the foreign language) when taught in one’s native tongue. Ugh. I’m just cursing Odile Ferly right now. Especially now that I’ve had some French professors IN FRANCE, I’m realizing that Odile Ferly is just actually a horrible person (obviously), and that her teaching personality has nothing to do with being French.

I learned an important fact today! That’s that one must not say “Je suis excite…”, which when translated directly to English means “I am excited...”. It’s not that the sentence is grammatically incorrect or anything, but rather that it apparently carries a highly sexual connotation, and is only used under “those” circumstances. Lol, I learned this the hard way. No pun intended.

Supposedly there’s a big festival in centre-ville tomorrow. Adi invited Jeremy and I to go with him to get drunk and see some live music at the festival. Oh god. I don’t know if I can do it. I’m pretty sure that everyone knows that I hate live music. We’ll have to see. If I feel up to it, and maybe if I’m drunk enough, it’ll be okay. Definitely getting fucking obliterated before I even attempt that though.

I also have an appointment to open up a French bank account tomorrow at 11:30. I apparently need quite a few things before hand! Jeremy had his today, and he said it wasn’t very productive. Whatever. I’m not in any rush.

Also, I found out that I might be able to come home for Christmas! This is because Veronique told me that if I were out of the house entirely for longer than 2 days, she wouldn’t charge me for those days! So if I’m gone for like, 2 weeks, then I can use those 300 euros (about 450 dollars!) to help buy a plane ticket, which would be AMAZING. Veronique also told me that nowadays, she doesn’t really care to see her children or family for Christmas lol, and that the holiday practically means nothing to her. Apparently she just enjoys going skiing during that time. She just cracks me up sometimes.

The bus was packed today, because it was also back to school for all of the high and middle schoolers. Sort of cute actually. I NEED to get a bus pass for the month. This is ridiculous. I’m wasting time and money.

Also, my professor, Agnès (pronounced almost like añes) help me to decipher cellular lingo, so that I could potentially buy a phone. I was going to just buy the phone and get a phone card for it, sort of like pay as you go, but she said that apparently that’s really expensive because you pretty much get screwed as far as the ratio of minutes to euros is concerned. She suggested a plan “forfait” where I buy the phone, but also purchase x amount of minutes per month on a contract, which are automatically renewed at the start of each new month. That sounds like the best plan to me. She said it can be as cheap as 25 euros a month (and a contract for forfaits are anywhere from 4 – 12 months, which is awesome!) and that the 25 euros give you plenty of minutes and text messages.

I’m at home now, and it sort of sucks because I only have internet at the school. Well, I HAVE internet here, but my mac won’t connect for some reason. Whatever. I can’t even really care right now.

Tomorrow I’m going to see a movie with some friends, and hopefully going out to eat and getting drunk for the festival. I’ll get back to you all very soon!

Elias