March 21, 2010

on tuesday, i just had my french class. I took my computer to the institute to write the last update. I basically chilled for three hours waiting for Ariel so we could do a walk. We ended up going with Haley and Bart thrift store shopping instead. We were in the Marais. it was pretty chill. The marais is actually really cool because all the buildings are so old and crooked. There were a couple times where i thought i was in toon town. it's pretty neat.

Thrift store shopping, as cool as it's supposed to be, is hard for me. it's super crowded and i hate having to shift through a ton of crap to get to the good stuff. In department stores, it's easy to see something you like and you know it will be in your size. When you have something in mind that you know will be in the store, though, then it's pretty nice to find it.

I went home to have dinner with the family, I honestly don't remember much of it, though. Nothing really interesting happened, i think. Mostly the Julienne's just talk to their children rapidly about stuff and over each other so it's hard for me to interrupt or anything. it's kind of a shame. I did let them know that the internet was still not working but they were useless about it. they really had no idea. they did allow me to use theirs in the basement.

After dinner, i was just really angry that i could not get the up and running. i fiddled around on my computer a ton. basically we were on the network, but it wasn't connecting us for some reason. I couldn't figure it out. I caught Jason on facebook and was asking him for help. his first suggestion was to unplug the router and let it reboot. we tried a bunch of other stuff first. computers are kind of wild. Well, at the end of the night before going to bed, i rebooted the router and voila! the internet was up and running on my computer. idk why i didn't just try that in the first place like jason said. oh well. Jason is at it again, fixing computers from across the globe.

Wednesday, i just had classes and i read as much as i could before my french 362 quiz. i did pretty well on that, actually. I did bomb my french 201 quiz, though. it was just on articles but for some reason i just did awful on it. i felt pretty down and out over that. i keep thinking i have concepts down and then he quizzes us on them. it's really ridiculous that i can't get any of this down. I'm just super frustrated because learning another language has been my one goal since forever and i'm not going to succeed. I think i'm going to take a few french classes, but i'm not going to minor in it. the rest of the minor is all this lit crap. if i wanted a minor in lit, i would have done it in English. I was talking to mom about how i hate school and i figured out why. it makes me feel like a failure and that i'm dumb. i know i'm not either of those, but that's what school has done to me. I love to learn... i hate school. Mom said that that's basically how the rest of the family feels and that i just need to push through and get a major and then enjoy learning on my own. I also think that if i don't do a minor, i can focus more on political science than just history and i can take any other classes i may be interested in. plus i'll be done with school a lot quicker that way.

ok, so not to be all woe is me in this update, but i also realized that i'm not really made to succeed in this world. I'm a night owl which is bad for obvious reasons. I'm suuuper unorganized, i am the queen of procrastinating, useful things don't stick in my brain, and i suck at school. this is kind of funny, but i realize that things i do pick up are the useless information. for example, Ariel and i were at a museum that had audio guides. we listened to the same thing about this painting. what i got from it was the odd details like how the painter converted to Catholicism and moved to spain, but spain kicked him out so he lived the rest of his days in Israel as a hermit. Ariel got the painter's name, the date it was painted, and the name of the painting. She didn't catch any of the details and i sure as heck still can't tell you who the painter is or any of that stuff. It's same with this week's french 362 reading. What i got from it was that during the second empire, there was a huge double standard concerning sex in society. what everyone else got was the work baron houssmann did on paris. Having a different perspective isn't a bad thing, and can actually be really good sometimes, but it is completely useless when it comes to school. I'll just have to find a way to put it to good use someday.

I gave my art presentation in art history, today. It was about the Apotheosis of Homer by Ingres, as i mentioned. Valerie said it was the most difficult of all the paintings done today. She didn't criticize anything that i said. she added on stuff later, that i had missed but it wasn't so bad. of course i was kind of unorganized and rambled on a bit, but like i said, she didn't criticize which is a pretty big deal. I'm also glad that i got an extra week to prepare on it, so i was actually able to find more important information on it. I honestly BSed it. I can't decide if i'm understanding the concepts she's teaching us or if it's just too easy and i must be missing something. It's usually the latter in most of my classes judging by some of the grades i get.

anyhow, enough of THAT Now to Thursday...This weekend i kept waking up at nine thirty all by myself which NEVER happens. so that was cool. i figured i needed my sleep so i would go back to bed anyways... On thursday, i caught up wtih Ariel and we did a couple of walks. we did Place de la Concorde walk and A walk in the park: montparnasse and the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Place de la concorde walk was cool becausewe got to see all the government buildings. i was a little nervous to take pictures because there were so many guards around. I also know that you aren't allowed to photograph the American embassy. It was interesting how there were all these super high end shops on the other side of the street like Prada and so forth. I was mostly just nervous seeing all the police and guard people around. I don't know why they always make me so nervous. The actual Place de la Concord was cool with the obelisk and fountains. the fountains were on so i knew it was spring time! that was happy. We then sauntered through Tuileries and basically just took it easy. It was cool to see how the pyramid, arc de triumphe du carrouselm the obelisk, arc du triomph, and the grand arc are in one line. why couldn't the streets be planned more like that? it was one of the first days where i could walk around without my coat and be perfectly fine. I've also noticed that the French are big on spring time romances. I have no idea where all these lovers came from but now they are on every bench busily participating in PDA. That would normally bug me at BYU, but for some reason here, i kind of like it in an odd way. Maybe it's just nice for me to see the French not being so cold. Whatever it is, PDA will never bother me much again.

A walk in the park: Montparnass and the Jardin du Luxembourg was a really nice and relaxing walk. I'm glad Ariel and I decided to do it when the weather was so nice. The beginning was a little confusing. It was really cool to see Drayfus's statue. i had been wondering where it was. It really is tucked away from where the normal tourist would go and i did notice that the locals were watching us as we took pictures of him.
Ariel and i were tempted by the Amorino so we enjoyed a good little bit of that in the parc. we just sat there and watched people going about their normal business. Olivier gave us a check list so we had fun trying to find all the things on it. we found the Beehives, the mini statue of Liberty, children riding donkeys, park security men, quite a few couples kissing on benches, people jogging, chess players and then the old men playing Petanque. Ariel and i went over to watch them playing but one of the old men kept looking at us and we both were thinking we weren't supposed to be there or take pictures. I finally heard one of them men saying something along the lines of how we are really pretty to another old man and then one who was playing the game told us to take a picture of him dancing. All the old men were staring so we felt a little uncomfortable and went ahead and left.
Ariel and I had a brain fart moment. we walked past what we thought was the Orangerie and saw a ton of trees in it and figured it was closed to the public and so we skipped it. We'll have to make a visit some later time.

I hardly ate anything that day, so we found some food for dinner before heading off to the world premier of the Ballet, Siddharta. Here's the link: http://www.operadeparis.fr/cns11/live/onp/Saison_2009_2010/Ballets/spectacle.php?lang=fr&event_id=435&CNSACTION=SELECT_EVENT . It was a very modern and very bizarre ballet. there was no traditional ballet dancing which i was sad about because i think that type of dance is beautiful. it was just modern odd dancing. I forgot the name of the ballet we were watching, and therefore forgot that it was about buddha. the whole time i was completely lost trying to figure out what was going on. At first, i thought they were like star wars men in space battling and carrying dead bodies around, then i thought they were fish creatures, then i thought they were in space again, and then a suburban house appeared on stage and i had no idea what the heck was going on. it's ok, though, even the people that remembered that it was about Buddha had no idea what was going on. there were some kind of sexually charged scenes that were odd. Every time buddha came out, electric guitar music would come on and he would dance and it looked and sounded really gay and was uncomfortable. I fell asleep towards the end thinking there was going to be an intermission, but i ended up just missing the whole ending. It was a good nap... well, it was quite the interesting experience! i would say it was mostly a good one. mostly.

Ariel has to go to 12 concerts this semester for the music 101 class (suddenly i'm pretty glad i'm not in that class) and so she invited me to go to this free piano concert on friday morning. i went with her and of course i was fairly bored. I fell asleep on a rail but i had a massive twitch and made a ton of noise as i was trying not to fall off my chair. i spent the next five min trying not to giggle. Chelsea showed up too, and the three of us were the only people there under 60. well it was just another good snooz for me.

We've noticed that french people are kind of odd with curtain calls. they don't seem super efficient. i always thought our curtain calls in high school took way too long but the french are waaay worse. they come out in groups bowing (like we did in high school) but they they would leave and do it again, then they would bow seventy more times and then come out individually and bow, etc. we would end up clapping for a really ridiculously long time. sheesh. It was even odder in the symphony when all the people started clapping in unison.

After the concert, chelsea, Ariel and i went to get lunch at some crappy zupas type place and ate in a park in front of some random cathedral that we happened to run across. it was fun hanging out with chelsea for a bit because we don't really hang out with her that much. Ariel didn't like her dinner so she gave it to a homeless guy. what a gal.

We all stayed a bit too long and Ariel and i headed off to do another walk. we did Eighteenth-Century Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Musee Jacquemart-Andre, Musee Nissim de Camondo Museums, Parc Monceau by Corry Cropper. We first stopped by Musee Jaquemart-Andre which was really interesting. It was cool to hear about the relationship between the couple who lived there and how good and equal it seemed to be. The audio guides were hilarious because they were just over the top flowery and English. "now imagine that you are at the beautifully illustrious ball.." etc. i was cracking up a couple times. The really cool part was that they had a temporary art exhibit of Spanish painters, which of course meant that there were some original paintings by Dali! that was really neat.
Parc Monceau is the most beautiful park in Paris that i have seen yet, i think. I think i like the English style gardens much better than the ridged symmetrical french gardens. There were fake ruins everywhere and just a lot of locals enjoying a bit of sun and some making out. I just liked it a lot there. it was almost a bit of wilderness brought into paris... even if it was fake. It was much prettier than Tuileries or Luxembourg in my opinion. Ariel and I spent far too long enjoying ourselves in Musee Jacquemart-Andre and Parc Monceau, so by the time we got to Musee Nissim de Comondo, it was closed. It is another museum on my list that i need to go back to.

Yesterday, I met up with Rebbeca, Shaina, and Ariel at Saint-Ouen's flee market and did the Saint-Ouen's Labyrinth: Navigating the World's Largest Flee Market by Marc Olivier. I enjoyed this walk a ton, actually. I was expecting it to be crowded and full of creepy men trying to sell me crap. It was a pleasant surprise for that to not be the case. It was full of cranky store owners who didn't want to be bothered with our presence... which i will never understand. what a bunch of cranks. But they were selling beautiful antiques everywhere. I wanted to buy myself a really nice antique ring but they were all so expensive. Us girls also had a fun time looking at all the vintage dresses. The whole time i was there, i just knew that mom would love all the china and furniture that was there. It's really too bad that Saint-Ouen is so far away from town. It was also too bad that we couldn't really take pictures. It was just beyond neat. I also love how we can kind of get to know the authors through these walks. Sometimes Olivier comes off as a tad pretentious, Erickson doesn't like fancy titles, and Cropper is kind of a goof. I'm almost sad that i'm done with all the guided walks, but also really relieved to get those out of the way so i can work on the harder assignments i have in my other classes.

Church was nothing too special today. In relief society, we had a lesson on Adam and eve that was actually really good. As far as i could understand, i agreed with just about everything they said. I know this is silly of me, but for some reason, i always kind of figured that they didn't go too in depth on certain subjects because most of them are pretty new converts or something. it was nice to hear them go into depth on a subject like that. No weird ideas really came up either. I wanted to participate but for some reason, i couldn't really understand the questions she was asking. By the time i figured it out and formulated a good answer in french, they had already moved on. it was still a really good lesson and i was glad to understand it. i didn't understand sunday school or sacrament meeting, though. I saw todd there but didn't recognize him because he didn't gel his hair. it actually looked much better that way, though.

After that, i came home and took a little nap. I was in a not super comfy position because i didn't want to have another coma nap. I also cleaned my sheets cause this morning i spilled makeup on them... they are the type of sheets that go around the blanket which are kind of nice, i guess, but it sucks trying to put the blanket in them. I also always wait for sunday nights to do laundry, but i actually think that that's their laundry night as well so i have to wait until they are in bed before i can put my cloths in. that sucks. and i should prob take them out of the dryer at night rather than waiting till the morning and feeling like a jerk because they saw that i took their cloths out of the machines. Now i'm just waiting for Mme Julienne to correct my French composition and then for dinner.

Just got back from dinner. Their oldest daughter and her fiance, Remi, were there. They pretty much ignored us the whole time. oh well. I think they were talking about... now i forget, but i understood a little of what they were talking about. Mme. Julienne asked Lorene something about me and Courtney and she looked all disgusted and said "no no" and i think it was about facebook. I guess i don't blame her now that she thinks i'm a puritan. Tristan burped and Fmom gave him the most awesome glare. reminded me of home.

After dinner, FMom helped Courtney and me with our papers. It took forever, and it was really hard trying to let her know what we meant with the language barrier. the whole modesty thing threw her way off. I realize now that i wrote about a topic a little awkward to have her read. oh well. c'est la vie. she read one line and was all "oh la la.." haha. my paper is much more french like now. At one point, Lidwin came downstairs crying and Fmom had to go help her out. poor Lidwin. It's hard being the youngest. She was heading to bed and she came and did the kissy cheek thing but she actually kissed my cheeks. she's a sweetheart. i think i like her the best.

I sometimes hate sundays because i dress all nice but no one ever takes pictures on sundays! silly reason... i know. And Todd thinks i have green eyes. now he's going with gray which i guess is ok. what other randomness can i throw in here before rapping this up... ok, well i'm getting a lot more on edge still. i think i'm just having a little bit of a hard time always being with the same 16 people and always feeling awkward when i'm home and getting stressed with school. I'm going to miss Paris so much when i leave but i am getting more and more excited to get home!

well, now all i have to do for the night is finish my homework than i'm off to bed. it has been a long yet uneventful day. I still have so much to do and i'm insanely tired. ugh. :( I miss and love you all!

Ps. will this link work for you, Katie? http://hannasparis.shutterfly.com/26