So, here is a picture of my new coat. It was really hard to get a good picture since my camera doesn’t have a timer (as far as I know).

And here is the nonsensical shirt (!!!)

And then here is my new bag, which was not sold?©d.

No teaching (no teaching! I finally got that joke like the fourth time I watched that episode of Arrested Development…) till Friday, and there’s nothing to prepare for that, so I’m going to take a nap and then later do laundry. But I’m feeling pretty lazy so that laundry might be really much later.

I started “range”-ing (as Laura says) all my teaching materials today from the whole year, including a few things I haven’t yet done and a few things Laura gave me. I’m putting it all into a binder with those clear sheets the French love so much. (Btw this 3″ binder is genius. The French have really got binders going on. It clips shut from something that protrudes from the rings. It’s got a fancy thing that snaps all the papers down. It snaps open with this weird hook-like mechanism. I’m really impressed.) I should have done this last year. At least I have it all on my computer. It seems a little bit futile since I won’t be teaching English anymore after this year but you never know. I think I’ll just hold onto it. Plus the binder is, like I said, freaking awesome.

I’m tired but happy to be busy. I bought a new school bag today from Etam. It’s gray. I feel a bit bad for giving in so whole-heartedly to this whole gray trend but I really like it. Hopefully sometime tomorrow or Thursday I will post pictures of bag, coat, and nonsensical shirt for interested parties.

Also, a boy asked me out by text message and I have to figure out how to say no. He’s not French but he’s not American either so I’m in open water here and not quite sure what the culturally correct thing to do is. Also it’s a freakin text message. I mean, I’m better at e-mail.

Also, as usual, there is a pair of shoes at Andre that I want. I tried on the left one in Nancy (the display was, for once, my size) and my left foot felt good and definitely overshadowed my right. I’ve wanted them for a while now and they did not get sold?©d, dangit. What’s more now they have made them in pink and white for the spring (the pair I’ve been eyeing is gray). I just can’t justify 59 euros!

I completely forgot that one of the teachers/directors at work gave me a short document to translate. I should get on that this week.

An entire group of my students didn’t show up today. Well that’s not entirely true–three of them came to an earlier group and asked if they could sit in then since it worked out better for them, and since we were just watching Little Miss Sunshine I didn’t have a problem with that. Then the rest of their group didn’t show up later. I don’t know what that’s about. I find it odd, they’re the best and largest group (13 kids counting those who came) in their year. Anyway it was kind of a dumb day to not come, since I didn’t really make them do much of anything. Also it meant I had to just sit around for a long time waiting. Fun.

In other news my purple bag from H&M broke, so now I need another school bag. I wish the rectorat would hurry up and pay us. I could go buy one now but I like to have a threshold at the end of the month that I don’t use and I didn’t really do that last month because of Christmas.

I’m glad Victorya left Project Runway. She annoyed me, and I knew they would keep Jillian, so I was really worried they’d get kick off Chris (again) and he’s too much fun. And I guess Ricky does cry too much but I liked him better than Victorya. Though I’m not sure he deserved to win. There! If any of my readers DO watch Project Runway then I just gave away last week’s episode.

I’m quite happy right now. I think the weekend in Nancy did a lot of good.

I got back from Nancy a few hours ago. I had a really fun weekend. Laura says maybe we should go skiing in the Vosges during the holiday so perhaps that will happen. Saw Gavin for the first time since May and went to a party where I saw a lot of people for the first time since the break-up (including the ex but that went smoothly). I started working on achieving one of my time-in-France goals, which is to collect t-shirts with English phrases that are either incorrect or nonsensical. The one I found at Zara on Saturday, which said “EVENING LOOK I WANT BE FREE,” was both, and was only 4 euros. Laura and I talked a lot about the French and she gave me lots of stuff to use in my classes which is good because I’m in a mid-year idea slump.

I really like Nancy. Reims is okay to come back to though. Am sleepy though, have been planning a worksheet for watching Little Miss Sunshine tomorrow and I just finished so I think I’m going to fiddle around on the internet and then go to bed.

I bought a BEAUTIFUL leather coat today. I was looking for a coat for the weather we’re having now (40 degrees and gray) that looks slightly formal and I ran into this coat half off, but of course because it’s leather it wasn’t actually that cheap. Anyway it’s a perfect replacement for the Nine West coat that I bought second-hand in Dinkytown (what was that store called? everyday people?) and that I discontinued because it’s showing its age. Am way excited to wear the new one in Nancy this weekend. Did I mention I’m going to Nancy tomorrow till Sunday? I’m pretty excited. I’m going to stay with Laura, and we’re going to get fondue with Gavin (I think) tomorrow night. Then C (from last year) is having a birthday party that Swiss R invited me to so I will finally see all of the ex-Bar le Duc crowd again. It’s been since, well, you know when.

Tonight the orchestra I just joined is having a concert. We wear red and black, apparently, which actually looks pretty good, I think maybe it’s better than black/black. But I never wear red so I had to borrow a shirt from Doris.

I spent most of the day with the orchestra. The people there are really friendly, it’s very good for my French.

So I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but in the past (almost) year and a half I’ve met very few Europeans, especially French, who have anything against Americans. I really believe all that stuff in the media about anti-Americanism in Europe was pretty much hype. If anyone ever says anything negative to me it’s always a joke and clearly they don’t really believe it. I’ve gotten so used to people being perfectly open and curious and welcoming that it’s pretty unsettling to run into someone who thinks blatant generalizations about Americans or the United States are okay.

There’s an English girl I hang out with sometimes who is in general very nice but said last night in conversation (a conversation explicitly about Americans at least) that she “n’aime pas les am?©ricains.” So I immediately asked “tu en connais beaucoup?” (do you know a lot of them?) to which she of course said no, but I don’t think she saw the gross discrepancy there. And she also said that the French are “fiers” (proud) and Americans “arrogants” because they don’t pay attention to the world around them, which all in all I find irritating and hypocritical from a person who gives baseless blanket opinions on other cultures and who has little clue where anything is beyond western Europe (when I refer to a place in the US she always has to ask where it is, although one could point out that at least she asks), including Africa and the US, which were the geographies in question last night.

I feel bad about complaining, because I’m sure she doesn’t mean anything by it. I try really hard when I’m with her not to let it rub me the wrong way. Probably it would be a more normal (or French) thing to do to just say something to her about it but in true American fashion I hate to offend or criticize anyone in person. But on another note, later on someone asked “alors qu’est-ce que vous pensez des anglais?” (so now what do you all think of the English?) and I realized that this English girl had almost made me answer negatively, which is ridiculous. I had my irritations with R last year about the English language (“Why DO you say pants instead of trousers?” “To bother you.”) but in the end he was actually very curious and inquisitive about American culture. My English friend L in Nancy is one of my favorite people in France. The other English assistant in BlD last year was a riot. So really this is the only English person I’ve ever met who’s so … well, ignorant for lack of a better word, and so ready to impose her assumptions on other people. Really she’s the only person of any nationality that I’ve ever met who’s like that. I don’t know how to respond to it so I usually just ignore it.

Anyway it was a nice but odd evening because there was another woman there who was freely giving her opinion on the US (though to be fair it was an interesting opinion and she did seem pretty knowledgeable in general). Maybe we deserve it since we’re so over-exported, but it’s very weird to hear people who’ve never crossed the Atlantic expounding on my culture.

I guess that’s all I have to say about that for now.

moar funny pictures

I got a very suspicious letter in the mail today from Spain, with no return address. Inside it were, yet more suspicious-looking,

and

Which was less sketchy until I remembered that a decimal point is European-speak for a comma.

Anyway Snopes talks all about it here although of course, this being Europe, it was sent through the normal mail.

I’m sort of intrigued.

I went to see Into the Wild yesterday, and it was really good.

So, FAFSA confuses me. What with the deadline for the 07-08 application being June 30, 2008 and the deadline for the 08-09 application being June 30, 2009. Does that mean that applying for aid for next year=07-08 application? Obviously I’m applying for aid for 08-09 and it makes no sense to wait till June 09 to do that. I find this incongruous. So incongruous that I’m actually a little angered by it.

moar funny pictures

The weather here just turned back to crummy (read: normal). I have cabin fever. I want to go somewhere random. Like Croatia. The Mac alumni are doing a trip there but of course it’s super expensive cuz it’s for like, alumni of fifteen years ago, not me.

This is a bit out of season but I never posted these pictures so here they are.

On the 23rd I hung out with the Ys in Paris and Mrs. Y and I walked to the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. I don’t know why anyone would want to try to drive around there in a car, it was insane.

The pictures aren’t all that great because I took them with my phone. But you get some of the idea here.