Coucou, les nouveaux AFSers!

So I've come to understand that AFS has been directing AFS hopefuls to my blog, so that I can take them under my wing and guide them. Or something. This surprised me at first, but it makes complete sense. Had I been told before, I might've written the blog more geared towards that audience, thus lacking authenticity. Basically, what I wanted to say to all you (resisting the urge to say n00bs) newcomers is, I hope that my blog has been helpful, or at least amusing. If you have any further questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to find me on facebook or drop a comment on a post, and yes, I'll even see the comments on those older posts. I just want to preface now though that AFS will you send you books (I'm serious, I have three of them on my desk right now) of information, there will also be meetings, letters, that group call, orientations, and all that. So, really, in the vein of orthodox advice, they've got you covered, so I guess ask me the weird stuff. Or specifically me stuff. (Whoo, feelin a little arrogant..."go ahead and ask me about me, I'm very interesting, you know...")

Sunburnt and Rainsoaked

Sigh. Facebook isn't wanting to upload my photos, so I actually have to write a real blog. Heavy sigh.
Well, let's start with the title: I'm sun burnt, and because my family has never heard of aloe vera, I'm getting dry and flaky... But I am in this such sizzled state due to a little something called the Puy du Fou. I guess it means Well of Crazy or something, but whenever I tried to ask Thomas asked "why is the world round?" and then told me it was just a name and didn't matter. It is a theme park, but instead of rides there are "spectacles!" And not the one's that help you see better, my friend. We went for the weekend, this is about what the plan was:
Saturday: 2:45 - 3:15, Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes (The Ball of the Phantom Birds), a demonstration of falconry.
3:45 - 4:00, Le Magicien Ménestrel (The Minstrel Magician), magic tricks and the like.
4:00 - 4:10, Les Grandes Eaux (The Grand Waters), fountains synchronized to classical music.
4:45 - 5:20, La Bataille du Donjon (The Battle of the Dungeon), an equestrian demonstration with sword fighting....and moving, flamethrowing castles...
5:30 - 5:37, Les Automates Musiciens (The Automated Musicians), robots with instruments popping out windows, playing recorded music, while a guy runs around and asks them to stop.
10:30 - 12:30, I don't know what it was called, but it was the epic telling of the story of the Puy du Fou, starting in the Middle Ages and ending sometime after World War Two. It was indescribably epic, words fail me, thus you must wait for pictures (sorry).
Sunday: 11:30 - 12:00, Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes, because it was really the only thing going on at the time and we all liked it. A hawk jumped on Thomas' head!
1:00 - 1:15, Le Legende de Martin (The Legend of Martin. See? French is easy), a musical puppet show. Sufficiently silly.
1:45 - 1:55, Les Grandes Eaux, there was a whole lot less to do Sunday...
2:30 - 3:00, Les Vikings (I'll give you a hint, it's exactly the same), kind of a rip-off of Pirates of the Caribbean. As in for a good chunk of it, they played the music of Pirates and the choreography was the same.. And there was a boat that rose from the water..with a guy standing on it. And then shot giant flames. And then Jesus rose from the water, walked on water, carrying the baby a viking had thrown in the water, then turned into a dove. I am not making this up.
3:15 - 4:00, Gladiateurs, a Roman general turned Christian and fights 40 minutes of gory gladiator battles and does a chariot race, gets locked in a cage and the Christian slave he loves gets tied to a pole to get eaten by a lions, then a tiger, but because she prays, God turns them into lolcats as they roll on their backs and look adorable. Then they kill the Emperor.
4:15 - 4:25, L'Odysee du Puy du Fou, it was like a haunted house, with shields and tapestry and ceilings turning into screens. And statues not actually being statues but real people, and walls that expand, and cool fountain-work. Pretty cool stuff.
4:30 - 4:30something, Le Chemin de la Memoire (Memory Lane, kind of), you walk along a path and look at statues kind of following the story of the Saturday night spectacle.
5:00 - 5:35, Mousquetaire de Richelieu, a guy falls in love with a girl who's a flamenco dancer who wants to be a comedian, but she leaves and he gets in trouble with the law and disguises himself as a hunchback, but fights with the real musketeers and they forgave him because he fought so well. Then he finds the girl in the Orient, and then they flood the stage and they dance flamenco, the guy on his horse the whole time. And Thomas fought the guy when he was a hunchback (he was walking around before it started). Okay, so he didn't actually fight him, but it was funny, they did the cartoony "put up your fists" thing.
And now, the rain soaked: This was Tuesday, a day in which I did many a great thing. Kind of. I tried to visit the Opera of Paris and the Bourse, but I think I got the wrong building each time (it'd help if I looked at pictures of these things before I went, so I knew what I was looking for). Then I went to Cimitiere de Pere Lachaise. A huge cemetery with a lot of famous people in it, like Oscar Wilde (no, I didn't kiss the grave). Oh, the best part about the cemetery, though, was when I was literally walking through the grand door, the wind picked up and it started raining. Then it was the Grande Arche de la Defense, which was indeed a very large arch. And there was a gigantic, mainly underground mall there, with a dome-shaped movie theater. I want to talk about these malls really quick, they always catch me off guard. I'll be walking through the metro station, trying to catch the next one or just looking for the exit, then I find this vast expansive area that bleeds seamlessly into he grimy tunnels I know to be the station. I think nothing of it at first, often one tends to see the occasional vendor trapped beneath the earth's surface, to cater to the needs of all those rushing by who might've forgotten something. Though I continue, and see larger stores, and stores that I recognize, escalators going up and down, multiple stages all existing below the streets and pedestrians above, and these malls are huge. Okay, maybe that wasn't real quick...Oh, I bought Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, and new music makes me happy. Then I went to go visit les Invalides, then I was like, "Hey, I've been here before." So I left. I ran into Darmy though, sorry I couldn't make it to the picnic, I ended up hanging out with Thomas most the day because it was his last day in France before he leaves for two months.
Is that everything? I think so.

Swarm of Pictures! Part Two!

This is another chunk of 131 pictures, but this time all of les catacombes de paris. I'll let you discover this wonder on your own:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83872&id=791249048&l=1194bb29d3

Swarm of Pictures! Part One!

The blog for this is technically the captions. So, I'll let you have at 'em.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83859&id=791249048&l=0bb3e3dc6e

Oh, yeah, there's over 150 pictures there, so it might take a while.

Everything You've Missed

I've done quite a bit, I suppose, since I last wrote, all of it without my camera. Let's start out a week ago (from when I originally wrote this I think a week ago): It was a Sunday. I woke up at 7, went to the hospital, got back and helped prepare for our area in the mass garage sale, went to Notre Dame, went the Hotel de Ville, went to la Bibliotheque de...quelqu'un...Then we went to Fontainebleu (Thomas and Quentin had left that morning, but I stayed to do the giant garage sale thing and the Paris stuff), where we played video games and hung out. L'Hotel de Ville (which is I'm pretty sure is a museum type thing) was closed, because it was Sunday, and the library (Bibliotheque. Since I didn't take pictures, Google is helping me out) was closed just because. This brings us to Our Lady, and I have one or two things to say about her. I should've written this sooner when it was more fresh in my mind.
So, I guess religion is a spectator sport now. There were two lines to get in (both were free), I went in the main one, which was going pretty fast. It essentially allows one to lap the sitting section (which the other line was for), to look at how wonderful the church is without getting involved in the religious part. I find this odd, a little, especially because there was actually service going on. So it makes me think that the sermon is just put on for all those passerbys looking for church-based bragging rights. However, even if all of those people in the pews are there because they feel closer to God in such an environment, what does that make us, the spectators? Imagine this situation in, say, a restaurant: You're eating dinner, and it's really quite good because it's a fancy joint. In fact, it's so fancy, there's a constant stream of people marching along the walls, watching you. They're there because they didn't want to bother to eat, but still wanted to see the place. Tolerable, yes; but odd.
I went to a museum I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. It's focus was Eastern and Southern Asian art, which is really cool because you don't often see art from anywhere but Europe in these museums (except in the main, temporary exhibits). I went with a class of premieres (equivalent of Juniors), who turned out to be really pretty cool, so I ate lunch with them and again a few more times. Then the Grand Palais Tuesday with the anglophone kids, we saw all the Andy Warhol stuff. Andy Warhol: He's got ideas, and he's not a bad artist, but after the 7th or so room of portraits of people that have been painted to look like Joker concept art and the novelty starts to wear off. When I got back to the school, the class I'm normally in had been dismissed early (an hour before I got back), and Thomas had already left. This was all explained to me by the third of the class who stayed. So I went and got ice cream with them and chilled in the park for a while. Then hung out with the premieres again. I also cut my hair last Saturday, it's about an inch long. (Is he serious? Is he kidding? No proof without pictures!) Wednesday was my last day of school, for some, possibly alarm-not-going-off, reason we didn't get up in time and weren't able to go. Actually we could've and I wanted to, it just would've been difficult and we'd be there for less than half the time of both-way transportation. So, yeah, sorry everybody in my French school, that was totally a jerk thing to do and I'm sorry. (Honestly though, it completely sucks and I really wanted to be able to say goodbye and all that).
That brings us to today - Thursday. I sit here waiting anxiously to leave to go pick Mariah up at the train station, for she will be staying here til Monday. The weekend has been more or less planned out. More on this later!
Sorry I haven't written in forever, but I'm here now, so...

Lazy Taylor Writes Not A Blog For You

Instead, he posts a link to pictures! I didn't actually take pictures of people, or really anything from the party except the giant dish. You'll see. Most of this is Le Musée d'Orsay, for the little time I was there (it closes much earlier than the Louvre...I did not know this before hand). However it is free for those under 18, so I didn't really lose anything. No! I'm not writing a blog! Pictures and that's it!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=78168&id=791249048&l=fedf6014b8

I hide in the shadows

Alternate title: "Il fait trop chaud d'etre vivant"

Yes, apparently it was over 30 yesterday, which is flirting with the triple digits in Fahrenheit. There was a party with family friends (pictures later), in which Phillippe made a giant [insert name of dish that I've forgotten here], and it was delicious. It was langoustine, shrimp, muscles, calamari, chicken, and various vegetables all over brown rice. Or, at least the rice was brown after the oily frying process. I ate too much of it. There was also fruit salad, which was good, but I'm proud to say my grandma makes it better (sorry, France). There was much video gaming chez les enfants, because there was five of us and plusiers de 4-player games for the wii. It's funny, because wii is said the same as oui. Franchement, Smash Bros Brawl is pretty nul with wiimotes; I have lost all my mad Kirby skillz.
Oh, Matty will like this: so, I'm watching Buffy now. I'm not sure what to think about it, but it's grown on me. I usually watch all three episodes after school (French TV compresses it's scheduling, shows don't fit into half an hour time slots, they fit as they please. Shows can start at 5:10 and go to 5:35 or something like that. It's funny, because the commercial breaks ten to be saved until after the episode, or happens only once in the middle, and when there's no commercial after the "dramatic fade to black after cliffhanger" and it just goes back into the show immediately after, it's kid of silly.) I'm keeping this short though, easier on the eyes.

Universally Speaking

That is a song name, however it has absolutely nothing to do with today's topic. I have this theory, you see, about the course of the world. I noticed some trends, and I believe over the course of quite a long time, this will come to be.
Many discussions travel the topic of the popularity of languages. It's said English is the number one most spoken language, followed by Spanish. However, French is supposed to be the number two in business and diplomacy. Essentially what this means is there is more people speaking Spanish, they're just not doing too much internationally with it. I was once told that Mandarin Chinese was the fasted growing language, which I thought was a funny way to measure things, because it was in comparison to itself, implying that if I were to create a new language and teach it to ten people by the end of the day, my language would've increased 1000%. However, what this means in terms of my theory is essentially nothing.
Maybe I thought of this before, though it was catalyzed during a conversation with someone in a German class, someone in a Japanese class, and someone else in a French class. We were talking about pizza. Fun fact: it's the same in English, French, German, (I think Spanish) and we can safely assume Italian. This all makes sense, European languages frolic hand in hand frequently. What gets me is Japanese. As we've seen, Japanese - from the little I understand of it and its rules - is the most to have adapted to this merger.
Oh, yes, I haven't explained my whole point. I believe that all languages are slowly merging into one, universal language. I would definitely get marked down for putting the thesis this far down.
Japanese, as we all know, has certain attributes different from European languages (by the way, I am placing English in this category too, because it started in Europe. Also I don't know about Russian, I don't think it follows the same rules though). For example, the calligraphy in place of our familiar alphabet. In fact, let's talk about this a moment. If Japanese was entirely self-contained and was not being inducted into this one world, one language program (not an actual program), then why would a chart such as this exist? Perhaps it's to write things like this: They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as man'yōgana (from Wikipedia). That word there is a Japanese word, written in a language that is not Japanese. Also, did you know URLs in Japan are in this same form? Excuse my lack of knowledge on the subject, but it looks to me as if Japanese writing system has an entirely new form, which makes it more adaptable to the Western world. That is Japanese being inducted into this system.
We see it also as concepts move from one culture to another; without already having a word existing for it, the new culture will simply adopt the already existing word. For example: "internet," or pretty much anything Japanese (ninja, samurai, manga, pocky, I could go all day with this), "week-end" and "stop" are both common words in French. Let's take a closer look at just English and French, because I haven't spent a couple months in Japan, nor couple years in a class of the language, so I should leave it alone for now. They practically grew up together and both heavily influenced by Latin, therefore it's no surprise that about 30% of the English language is the same as the French translation. Much of the time, when I'm stuck on not knowing how to say a word, I try just saying it in a French accent and it works. Honestly, most English speaking people could probably handle their own at least ready French (it gets tricky with the accent). Take a look at my SVT notes if you want proof. Let's look at one line in particular: "une planète: c'est un corps céleste qui n'emit pas lumière."
Breaking it down we find planète=planet, corps=body (like core, corpse, or in the military), céleste=celestial, emit=emit (and that n' and pas looks pretty negative...), lumière=light (like illuminate, or the candle from Beauty and the Beast). What do we have? A definition of a planet as a celestial body that does not emit light (as opposed to a star, which does). Wasn't that fun?
I could keep going with all these examples, but I figure you get my point. This is essentially how I think it's going to go down: English will become the solvent to this language solution (science pun!), considering it stands as the lingua franca of much of the world already, not because I'm an arrogant American. Also, according to Wikipedia, it's already accumulated words from over 50 different languages. However, I do not believe "English" will become the "dominate" language, or the one and only. What I believe is that English will continue to spread, such as through schools built in third world countries, internet, video games that don't get translated, English-based companies that go international. Though as it grows, it feeds - words from all the languages it slowly replaces get drafted in, and the languages themselves aren't necessarily replaced, but changed to fit certain grammatical structures. As all languages grow as the world becomes more interconnected, they share words, they adapt to the voice of their speaker and the ears of their audience. And slowly, we're all speaking the same language.
Either that, or instant online translator (courtesy of the Google machine) becomes like the babel fish from The Guide and renders every learning a second language completely useless. You know, whatever happens first.

Louvre, Chapitre 2

These are the promised continuations of last time's post. This makes since, for it has a 2 in the title.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76247&id=791249048&l=91f59994f6

And I have a movie to go with this one too. Unfortunately, it has not my soothing voice to carry you along it's magical course, but it still offers a fun though blurry adventures of the Parisian train system. Not for those who get motion sick easily.



This video and the other one can be found in bigger versions at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/video/?id=791249048

Louvre, Chapitre 1

This is part one of the photo tour of the Louvre, it's mainly the Egyptian stuff.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76009&id=791249048&l=2318c0b612

This is a (poorly) narrated video (the narration was added after) to go with the pictures.

La Tour Eiffel

Read about - and see! - the continuing adventures in the Eiffel Tower!

The pictures can be found at this easy-to-remember link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=75322&id=791249048&l=4db40d1e51

(sarcasm is not as common here...I begin to miss it...)

Testing

I'm just going to test something out here. I haven't been writing for a while, and that last post was to be much shorter, but since I haven't written in a while, it more or less exploded forth. I'm going to try and get in the habit of posting regularly, like I said I was going to before I even left.
Thomas and I go to the park about eight o'clock everyday (since Monday) to take Utah (the dog, and in French it's said oo-tah) for a walk. It's not a park so much as a path with obstacles, like bars to climb, and things for sit-ups, and a balance beam, things like that. We usually race through it, almost tying every time, and then we "faire du combat" on the balance beam, and we usually tie at that too. It's fun.
Saturday night we went up the Eiffel Tower. On foot. Yes, we went up (and down) the entire way by stairs. I got a lot of pictures that I'll try to post today. It was really amazing, Though Paris without the Eiffel Tower (because you can't see it from the tower!) is oddly odd. There was an uncomfortable amount of couples making out. There was one American couple (with some friends) who were on the honeymoon and doing a little video about it.
Yesterday I went to the Louvre. It blew my mind. My mind was blown. And then I went into the second courtyard, and experienced a similar feeling. This is all before actually going in. I must've been inside for about three hours, which wasn't nearly enough, but I had to be home by about seven. It's free for people under 25, courtesy of Nicolas Sarkozy, and pictures are allowed (except for the exhibit on the Chinese drawings, or the drawings based on a Chinese poem). I've never been a big fan of the Mona Lisa, it never held much appeal for me, so I wasn't too disappointed to find that it's behind a protection of glass, and you can't get within ten feet of it, and there was a constant group of people around it. Anyways, I'll do details of the adventure in the captions of the pictures...which I will also try to post today.
I don't think I really have anything else to report. Hopefully I kept this short enough. Oh, yes, I learned something in my English class: 'Fun' is only an adjective in informal speech, it's really a noun, that's why you say "more fun" instead of "funner" even though, following the rules of adjectives, it should be the second way.
Well, hopefully I'll post again before too long. Don't be afraid to comment.
~Taylor En France.

I've been afraid of you, Blog

I had a feeling that when the time came to sit down and write this inevitable blog, it would need to be a masterpiece, epic a length and glorious in the lavish descriptions of my daily adventures. I decided, in lieu of (lieu is French for place. And now you know!) delaying further this post, thus mounting ever-continuing metric tons of pressure on the necessary quality it most contain, I went for the simple escape.
I will tell you a few brief things. That will relieve pressure, and I will be less intimidated by the Most Recent Post's date slipping into the past.
I went on vacation, from April 12th to the 26th. First we went to Vatan (you may remember this unfortunately named city from a previous blog, for within this city lies the home of an Uncle and his family unit). We went to this very uncle's house again, where we stayed for two nights. I read comics, played cards, ate, pas grands choses. We left on Tuesday for Ile d'Oleron. It was a 4 to 5 hour drive. Quentin, Thomas et moi slept in a room smaller than my room is now. There was one bed and two air mattresses, we switched each night. Nothing really happened those first few days, Tuesday to Thursday, and if anything did happen it was drowned beneath the sea of anticipation that was crashing its waves within me. Thursday, we drove an hour to La Rochelle, where I got on a train which I rode for two hours. Medwin died during the third song, so the word 'hours' could effectively be replaced by 'millennia.' (Note: this is getting really annoying thinking of the words in French first and not knowing how to say what I want in English. You come second, French, know your place). I descended onto the platform, retrieving my cellphone from my pocket. It had been off to conserve battery for I had forgotten my charger in Oleron, so I turned it on and a bouquet of messages flourished on the screen - mounting degrees of worry, questions as to my status - and as I began my response, it suddenly and very pleasantly, became absolutely pointless. Because that's when Mariah hugged me.
Saturday was Mariah's birthday, so I got to stay til Sunday. (For another fun word swap activity, replace 'got' with 'wanted' and 'Sunday' with 'forever'). This weekend was a solid chunk of pure happiness. My words are entirely inadequate in expressing it.
The rest of the vacation was stressful as my personal space was eroded into nonexistence and my physical health suffered more in a matter of days than the last few years, I believe. This is the part where you assume I'm exaggerating so you don't worry (..mom). Not only was I was sick with a cough and a cold, I fell of the bike and had the pedal cut into my leg (I have pictures for all this too, don't worry), I bodysurfed too far onto the beach and sanded a patch of skin from my hip and tops of my feet, and the cherry on top: while handwashing a glass (no dishwasher there), it broke inexplicably and cut my hand in four places. The worst nick cut just over two sides of triangle skin flap from the side of my hand below my pinky. I suppose the quantity of blood emitted thenceforth, in addition with the plentiful existence of important anatomical things contained in the hand and the possibility of a little glass squatter still chilling in my wound, Magdeleine and Phillippe wrapped my hand craftily in several layers of paper towel and drove me to the local island medical center place. Which was closed. On a Saturday mid-afternoon. So we drove about a half hour to the nearest pharmacie, which, now this is weird, I was supplied medical attention equivalent to that of a nurse. When we got to the counter, the lady cashier was like, "Oh, let's take a look at that," and lead us into the back part of the pharmacie where she cleaned, examined, and bandaged the wound. Fortunately, it did not require stitches nor did it contain morsels of glass. We got home Sunday, technically Monday, at 00h30. Five and a half hours later, I woke up for school.
There was no school last Friday (the first of May is an important and flower-giving holiday). We went to Magdeleine's parents house where fun and delicious happened (fun - playing tag on a giant hill covered with giant rocks; delicious - I love macaroons) then we left around Midnight between Saturday and Sunday (you see a trend here?). Nothing much happened on Sunday. There is no school this Friday, I think it's the French Labor Day. I'm not sure if there's anything planned. Next week is normal, but the week after there's no school Thursday or Friday. This makes me happy. I believe we will be roasting a pig.
I saw Wolverine. I kind of need to talk about it with someone, who if you've seen it comment or email me.
Oh right, I have to tell about all the weird things I ate. I can't really remember anymore. I already talked about the escargot, right? We had raw oysters with almost every lunch and dinner in Oleron, that got old. I ate squid, it was good until I accidentally crunched into the beak. Lots of delicious shrimp. Oh, I went fishing for shrimp, which is kind of fun. You stand out in the rocks in the water with some nets laid in some holes, and when a shrimpy or two wanders in, you snatch up the net really fast. Oh no, now I have to talk about words.
pêcher - to fish
pécher - to sin
pêche - peach
dépêcher - to hurry (to dispatch, literally, but it's almost always used for 'to hurry')
There you go, I think there's another, but I can't remember. But seriously, francophones, is peche just a really cool sounding word that gets to go into a bunch of otherwise entirely unrelated words?
Another French language thing that makes Taylor upset: encore. Encore is french for 'again,' 'still,' and 'yet.' And according to Google translator, it also means 'anew,' 'even,' 'furthermore,' and 'over.' It must be some weird form of 'over,' but I mean...That's a total of seven words. Seven. And they're not even the same word! Also 'top' and 'bottom' and unlikable: 'dessus' and 'dessous,' respectively, and said almost exactly the same. Okay I'm done ranting about that for now.
Oh, yeah, food. I ate rabbit tonight. I ate it's liver. (No fava beans, no chianti)
Other stuff too, I just don't remember. I will eventually, and I will right about it later, which will hopefully not be after another month gap. I hope it was only a month. Anyways, I'm alive. How are you doing? No diseased pigs kill you yet? (Yeah, why did no one tell me about this Mexican/US plague that's already killed like 20 people?)
It's good to be back,
Taylor en France

Mot en Haut!

No, that's not a real phrase. At least I don't think...
Anyways, I have a present for you: Pictures!

Non, ce n'est pas une expression réelle. Au moins je ne pense pas...
Alors, j'ai un cadeau pour vous: Photos!

(the links are the same, by the way)
(les liens sont les mêmes, par la voie)

Dear AFS,

When I made this blog, you had me send you a link, so I figure an AFSer is reading this. I'm going to set the tone of this note as not in the least bit complainy: As I've said before, this is an incredible opportunity I'm more than fortunate, and happy, to be a part of. That being said, I have to bring this up:
You're kind of giving me some mixed signals here. It seemed that a key theme was going to be the complete cultural submersion and becoming a member of a French family, and while that's generally what's going on I seem to be a little put off by all these events. Now, I know they're not obligatory (in that you're not the one making me go), and I do enjoy them, it just makes me feel like a tourist all over again. There's an overwhelming urge to speak English, and I feel alienated from the general French cultural I'm supposed to be bathing in.
I don't really know why I said all this, but I suppose I adopted this as a personal blog above being a France journal, and I'm bound to discuss things on my mind. I do look forward to tomorrow night's dinner, I did enjoy last week's balade and I assume I'll be at the next. It was great meeting all the other AFSers in the program too, and the energy and atmosphere is always positive.
Again, I have to admit my point is moot in that you're not the ones making me go, so don't let this be at all accusatory.

And just because I've already started one blog, might as well throw in some more thoughts: It's unfortunate that American culture has put it's fingers into everything. This is actually the main reason why I've been feeling deprived of a nice soapy soak in the bath of French culture. Whether it's some of the games that are still in English with French subtitles and text, or the American TV shows, the music in English filling the radio, the billboards and advertisements that use English slogans. I've always thought a familial world culture would be beneficial in the whole "world community" vibe, but I feel almost disgusted by hailing from the main catalyst of this movement. I suppose there's always things the receiving culture will reject, allowing a customization of the influx of all things alien, but it's by no means a stopper in the bottle - the bottle that is the delicious syrup I enjoy on my crepes. And where is that syrup from? Well, Canada, actually, but...it's close enough I guess. Terrible analogy, sorry.

Really needs to sleep before his babble becomes too incoherent,
Taylor en France

Long Time, No...Anything, really

Firstly, the country of France, perhaps all of Europe exists in a different time frequency. Much like radio frequency, this means the undulations of the "time waves" is different, in this situation: sped up. As a result of this entirely proven scientific phenomenon, time passes more quickly here. I think it's because I'm living in the future now (except if you live far enough East of me. Time must be even faster for you guys!).

I have a lot of things to say, and I'm going to try and do most of it without going and finding emails and copy/pasting the stuff for everyone else. Here we go!

J'ai beaucoup des choses pour dire et je vais essayer faire ca sans cherche dans les emails j'ai deja ecrire. Allons-y! (note, that was terrible french)

What kind of things do you want to know about? I've been meaning to say this for a while: it was like the second week, I had 6 different cakes in 9 days. It was awesome.

Qu'est-ce que vous voulez savoir? J'ai voulu dire quelque chose depuis longtemps: c'etait la seconde semain, je crois, j'ai goute 6 gateaux differents dans 9 jours. C'etait tres chouette. (by the way, I'm using my lappy, and I'm too lazy to use accents)

I bought pants, they're really cool. I wore a tie and the only one who said something was some authority member guy, but he wasn't really nice in general. And a CD, but it's Mika, which isn't French but whatever.

J'ai achete des pantalons, ils sont tres genials. J'ai porte une cravate et le seul person qui dit quelque chose etait un homme d'autorite, mais il n'a pas ete sympatique. Et un Cd, mais c'est Mika et c'est pas francais mais c'est pas grave.

Clippit from an email (I'm getting lazy):
They don't have substitute teachers in most French schools. When a teacher doesn't show, class is canceled and either replaced by another class if that teacher is available or all the kids go to "permanence." "Permanence" is a giant room full of seats where you just sit, be quiet and work for what should be your hour long class. I thought it was pretty cool, and I still kind of do, but it's happened like 5 times this week. Also, all my afternoon classes were canceled yesterday because there was this "regulations" thing we did. It was about 10 students and 3 teachers and it was supposed to be a dialogue about how to make the class better (i.e.: how to make the students behave better). I guess it was the first time it's ever happened. Oh, and every now and again, random authority members of the school (intimidating graying men in nice suits) come into the class and talk to us about stuff. Today I think it was about how the class doesn't take Histoire des Religions seriously. Which they don't. At all.

Oh la vache, je ne veux pas traduire ca, c'est trop dure. Donc, je ne vais pas. Desole.

Okay, that's all for now, maybe more later

Okay, c'est tout pour maintenant, peut-etre plus plus tard.

A bientot!
Taylor en France

The Alps: Part 1

Dimanche: 22 fevrier

I went snowshoeing in the Alps today. It was incredible. Incredible doesn’t cover it. I would stop, and just look around, just to try to take in everything around me. It is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen nature do. The best part, I didn’t have my camera.
Correction: I had my camera, but it didn’t have a battery. I hate to be so accusatory, but when it comes to an action that results in someone missing what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to photograph some of the most breathtaking and famed landscape on the planet (I don’t think I’m over-glorifying the Alps that much, I mean, they are the Alps), then I feel I have just cause to be a little remorselessly angry. The story: Last night, Quentin decided it would be a kind gesture to charge the battery of my camera. So I see him pop the battery out, and this surprises me, I say, “Qu’est-ce que tu fait?” (What are you doing) and he explains that he’s going to charge the battery. I try as best as I can to make clear that it is entirely unnecessary as the battery is full. And it was. I see him put it back in. I guess he popped it out again when I wasn’t paying attention and threw it in the charger. Again, a generally nive gesture, however he didn’t actually plug the charger in. (I have American plugs for my chargers, and one converter, which the lappy was using). Thinking that I was going to sky today I didn’t bring the camera, I was afraid I’d break one of the many times I was bound to fall. However, the plan was to go snowshoeing (faire des racquettes, or something). We stopped at the house, condo, rental area place briefly to drop of the skis we’d rented too, so they weren’t left in the car. I took this opportunity to scootle on upstairs and snatch my shutterbox, then it was out of the house in a flash. So, we get to the stop. I’m wearing sunglasses, which I’m in no way used to, and I have to take them off. There was no way I was going to see what I was going to see through filters. Immediately I wanted to start taking pictures. At first I think it’s funny that the camera doesn’t turn on: I figure it’s because of my borrowed gloves that are awkward, stiff and bulky. I take them off and when it still doesn’t turn on I recall with horror the happenings the previous night that I’ve just recounted. I open the bottom and say “Quentin! Òu est la battery!?” I immediately feel bad because he had already gotten in trouble for losing one of his gloves. But I was pissed, excuse my language, but I was. So I left the camera in the car and tried not to make too many comments about how beautiful everything was, and if only I had a camera. If you feel like that is an immature or snide way to behave, see the beginning of this paragraph.
I will, however, have my camera the rest of the week. I believe we will be snowshoeing again, but I think it’ll be at night by torchlight or something. Awesome, but not the most photogenic of events. But thoroughly awesome. And not the weenie synonym for cool, but I’m sure it will inspire awe. You can look forward to seeing plenty of scenery and essentially no pictures of me. I didn’t bring my snow gear because frankly I’d didn’t think February through July was going to wield enough occasions of need to warrant spending that much weight and space in my already overweight suitcase. The rest of the family all has their cool, personal gear, and I have what the cousin grew out of and left behind. It’s a robin’s egg blue, light lime green, and pasty yellow jumpsuit.
Now, I don’t want to complain. I really hate to do that, considering the incredible experience and the great wealth of generosity that’s been sent my way. I am grateful and thankful for everything. I’m having a good time, enjoying myself, and participating as much as I can. That being said, let me repeat myself: a robin’s egg blue, light lime green, and pasty yellow jumpsuit. Every time I put it on, Thomas laughs at me, using the French words for “ridiculous” and “clown” (which is the same as the English version, just said differently). But it keeps me warm as I trek through gorgeous mountain terrain, so at least I have something.
Fondue: we ate it for dinner. It was delicious but I have a little bit of a stomach ache now. Tonight was the melty cheese one where you dip bread in. Two nights ago was the boiling oil one you dip raw pieces of steak and it cooks them. That is delicious. Matty, I’m going to make it for you sometime, I’m sure you’d like it. The odd thing was, the oil is made from the seeds of grapes. The seeds of grapes. That’s like drinking a glass of water collected from the dew which dripped from the first harvest of the wild lemons. How many grapes does one need to obtain enough seeds to make enough oil to fill two fondue pots? I figure they’ve got plenty of grapes getting squished around here anyways (unfortunately, I dislike French alcohol the same as American), they probably started squeezing seeds from boredom. Then when oil came out…they decided t boil it…and dip meat into it? I guess? I don’t have internet here, so I can’t verify that story, but it seems likely so I’m going to go with it.
And now, I sleep.

Taylor en France

Sacre bleu! it's Valentine's Day!?

bleu rhymes with dieu (probably spelled it wrong). It's like the difference between saying "Holy Cow" and "Holy Sweet Jesus!" or something worse, I don't know.
As you can infer from that slew of posts that lies beneath this one here, Robonator is online. Not in the way I'd like him to be (wireless), but in a way that'll do for now (...with a wire...that connects him to the router). From now on though, I'm going to try and post in French too, but I won't say anything in French without saying it in English too. Actually I can't make that promise. But Magdeleine wants me writing in French, and I figured I need to practice and all this English isn't helping me none.
Updates on the week: The kid who triggered the pop quiz in Physiques last week was late yesterday, and I guess coming in 20 minutes late after lunch was the last straw because he got expelled. The day before vacation. Not only that, but the very next class (he had to finish up the day) after the one he was late to was "Group de Partage" (je pense) which is like Transitions as far as I can figure. We sit in a circle and talk about things. Le sujet de cette classe pour cet jour etait "reussir" (it has an accent agu sur the e, but I'm not going to bother right now). Reussir is the verb that means "to succeed." The following hour of class was talking about what it means to succeed, the definition of success, what success means to you...
I know, harsh, right?
I participated a little. It's frustrating to not be able to express my ideas at all. Even in English I have troubles getting the point across, right now I haven't a hope to handle myself in a discussion in French. Euh, I guess that means I have to get better. That's my hope, to be able to properly participate in a discussion. I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned how I've been mistaken for a French person a couple times, but once I start talking I ruin it.
Vendredi Thomas went to his Grandma's so I made my way home by myself. And I did it, without hitch, without getting lost, panicking, anything. Perfect. Oh, have I told you the path home? I think I might need to remind you anyways: From the school - two block to the train station, the train for ten minutes, walk a block and sprint the second block to catch a bus, ride the bus for about ten minutes, get off, a block to the next bus stop where I catch a second bus, ride that for about 5 0r 10 minutes, then walk 2 blocks home. And it's not just like, "oh, here's a bus, let's get on," because Ile de France (the "state" I'm in) has Paris in it, it has it's own special mega public transportation system. Mega mega mega, there's buses and trains everywhere. But I did it, without hitch. Which, unfortunately, makes for a boring story.
Vacation! Next two weeks are off! I'm going to Paris and I'm going to buy things! And see cool things! And I might go skiing too, I don't know.
Vendredi there was no EPS (piscine - the swimming class) because...again, I don't really know. Thomas, Nicholas (not the cousin) et moi sommes allé à chez Nicholas, là nous avons fait nos devoirs de physiques et joué Unreal Tournament. Which I'm surprisingly good at, usually I'm terrible at those kind of games.
Ah, I want to be done typing...Do I have anything else to say? Trèsor is a cereal (this is for Matty) here in France, it's like coco puffs, but 2 - 3 times the size and filled with fudgie chocolate brownie stuff. It was good, but I had it only once, it's too much for me...
Okay, okay, I'm done now,

Taylor en France

Les reves

Mercredi: 11 fevrier
J’ai eu 3 reves le nuit dernier, ou 3 reves je souven. 2 were of Mr. Pringle’s class. It was weird, because not a whole lot of special happened, Mr. P was just telling a story about when he was young. Except, the second physics dream, he was asking my about the voice acting I did for a spin-off of The Simpsons, which focused on Bart and his friends when they’re a little older (none of this is real, this is dream stuff). The last dream freaked me out though. I can’t remember, but it may have been in the physics room, too. Anyways, somehow or another I had managed to stick 3 or 4 needles through my first 2 fingers, because the dream began with my complaining about the needles. I reached to pull them out, but whenever my other hand came near, the needles wiggled and moved. I conclude that my hand was magnetized, or as I would yell later in the dream “magna-effing-tized.” So, I tried again but it hurt too much, so I went to someone else, I asked in some way for assistance in removing the numerous metal spines that pierced my fingers; however, when he moved his hand near, the needles yet again painfully twisted and writhed. This is the part where I ran around the class, adding extra profane syllables to otherwise harmless words and showing my needled fingers to everyone who dared to look. Oddly, there was no blood. Eventually, much like Arthur and Excalibur, I was forced to tough it out and wrench the things from their fleshy holding place. Due to the twist or my desperation, the first needle came out sideways, ripping my nail nearly in half - whoo, gotta take a breather here. If anyone knows how I’m like with damage to nails, you could understand the twitchiness and nausea that’s accompanying this recount. Why recount it, then? Maybe I’m a sadist. Anyways, it’s starts bleeding a little, and I realize I pulled it out wrong. Oops, back to swearing. At this point, someone much bigger then me grabbed my wrist and slid another one out. Trop beaucoup pour moi, as I figure, parce que j’ai reveillé.
Not actually sure if I finished this one or not, oh well,

Taylor en France

I apologize for the unedited state these posts are in

Le week-end: 7 - 8 fevrier
The French cheat. They stole our word. “Weekend” en français est “le fin de la semaine.” Which kind of has a cool ring to it, so I don’t know why it got replaced with “weekend.” I guess weekend is easier to say. The letter K, however, isn’t terribly common in the French language, I’ve noticed, actually I noticed it year two of French class, but never had the go-juice to look into it further. I’m stalling.
Thomas had school Saturday morning, I didn’t. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t have to, but I don’t. I don’t really tend argue against the ability to sleep in and not to go to school, consequence-free. Thomas, Quentin et moi avons regardé le film Final Fantasy: Advent Children en français. C’est un très bon film (I’m pretty sure “bon/bonne” is one of the adjectives that gets to ride in front of the noun). In fact, it’s one of my favorites. One of my favorite works of art too, it’s just so nice to look at. We didn’t get to finish, we went to the market with Phillippe. It was disappointingly similar to Pike Place Market, and I hope I didn’t disappoint them by not being as overwhelmed. Sometimes I think they want to overwhelm me as much as possible, sometimes I think it’s just France. Either way, it’s kind of fun. Anyways, the market was fortunately covered, because it snowed for the third time since I’ve been here, however the snow doesn’t stick. It’s probably all the concrete and cars. There was an old man playing an accordion in the courtyard area by the market, so that was a nice Frenchy addition to the experience.
Scene missing.
I went to the mall with Phillippe and Magdeleine, to buy a present for Guillaume (the nephew of Magdeleine, who’s birthday party we were driving to that night. Fun fact: He lives in Vatan, which is said the same way as a phrase meaning “get out.” For the longest time I thought they were saying his name was Vatan, and I thought “why would anyone name their child a homophone of a phrase such as that?”). We went to the Virgin store. I’m not exactly sure what Virgin is. Is it just the company of some eccentric guy who wants to own the world? Or a group of people-savvy entrepreneurs? Aliens sent down to usher us into the future 1960s sci-fi movies painted for us? Whatever it is, and whatever their motives, I think it’s kind of cool (I typed “scary” the first time…). Anywho, the Virgin store has comic books, books, CDs, video games, electronics, movies, stuffed animals (yeah, I did a double-take too), and I’m sure plenty of other treasures. Well, we (I say “we,” but I didn’t buy anything) bought 3 comics (one of which a dirty one) and an underwater themed book (the ones filled with cool pictures that you never end up looking through the whole thing), then they bought some things for themselves, then we left. This was the shopping adventure that was supposed to also include the purchase of my maillot de bain, but I got to commence the awkward conversation of “je ne peux pas nager.” But, I can’t. I can’t swim, every time I do I have to be re-taught and that’s because I don’t like to swim, I just don’t. D’accord.
And then we drove. For two hours. That’s about an hour and 40 minutes longer than I was expecting, but I slept, so it’s all good. C’est tout bon. We got there about 20h00, I was still drowsy, and I was introduced to 20-30 French-speaking family members. Most of them were nice, but I did get a little bit of the “you need to speak slower for him” (tu as besoin parler plus lon pour lui) I even got from a kid probably a year or two younger than me “I don’t speak English” (je ne peux pas parler anglais) when I was trying to speak French. Okay, I’m no good, but I try. I’m pretty sure it was all in the best intentions, or at least good humor.
Dinner lasted several hours, and involved multiple leavings and returnings to the table, but it was pretty good. There was 7 teens (including me) present, some of which (not including me) were playing a computer game that they seemed very interested in that I wasn’t awake enough to want to be taught how to play. That sentence was very poorly structured. I didn’t really do much and was happy when they wanted to watch a movie (la Voyage á la Centre de la Terre), because then I could go sleep guiltlessly. Of course, I don’t think any sleep commencing around 1h30 should carry a burden of guilt.
Oh wow, that was a week ago, I really fell behind in these blogs pretty quickly. The time has flown by…
Moral of the story: too many French people talking at the same time hurt my head, the meals can take upwards of a couple hours, Twilight is equally popular here, and Magdeleine’s sister fixed the torn pocket on my jacket. So I ended it so abruptly, I…I actually have no excuse, I’m just lazy.
Lazy, lazy, lazy,

Taylor en France

I'm still sad the tables don't work...

Vendredi: 6 fevrier
So I fell a little behind in writing these, as it’s now Monday evening as I write Friday’s post. I won’t be so detailed in the future though I don’t think, so this shouldn’t prove to be a continuing problem.


Time Class Comments
8h30 - 9h30 Histoire - Geo Blur.
9h30 - 10h30 Espagnol Lv2 I like the music for their movies. Yeah, that’s about all I got out of that class.
10h30 - 13h00 EPS (Piscine) Piscine = pool. As in swimming class. Yeah, it’s like 2 hours of swimming. Fortunately for me, I don’t have a French swimsuit (the almost speedo) so I didn’t have to go. I stayed in the library, read stuff, did stuff online, chilled. Later, when my family set out to purchase my swimsuit so I wouldn’t have to sit out again, I had to explain, much to my displeasure, that I can’t swim. I don’t like swimming, and I just want it to be okay that I don’t like to swim. I guess most French kids don’t like the swimming class, but I’m not sure how they feel about it as a recreation.
13h00 - 14h00 Dejeuner! I don’t know, it was probably cordon bleu or steak (no, that was today). I don’t, it was something more delicious than one would ever expect at a school. Yet the students feel the same about school food as Americans do! What a laugh!
14h00 - 15h00 Mathematiques Vectors and stuff. Or vecteurs et stoof. (note: “stuff” in French is not “stoof.”)
15h00 - 16h00 Histoire des Religions I guess no one likes this class, I was told not to pay attention. In fact, most the class didn’t. About half the class was present at the beginning, and trickled in for the next half hour. (note: this is a school where everyone stands when the teacher walks in a waits to be told to sit. They really don’t like this class). Moral: I drew.
16h00 - 17h00 Physiques I think the teacher was still upset at us. I don’t really remember what happened. Vectors? No, that was math…


Was this the day I finally remembered to give my family their presents? I think it was. So, I got them a pretty cool coffee table book of Whatcom County, and tried to make it as interesting as possible. I made sure to look through it before I gave it to them, so they didn’t see my surprise at all the places I’d never seen featured in this book. Nextly, I got them a Marvel Encyclopedia: hardbound, super cool, because they’re into comics (as I’m sure that you read in the post about the family). Followingly, I got them candy. Delicious American candy. I did say it was my mom’s idea (it was your idea) and they thought it would be a funny idea to send back home the same candy but in French…Proceedingly, I got them peanut butter. They have peanut butter here. It’s not as common, sure, but they informed me France was in fact civilized…Accompanyingly, I made them a little photo book of me and my family and stuff; and since it was made the night before I left, of course it was missing a page because we couldn’t find a decent picture of the kitties in hard copy and Rite Aid was closed. Moreoveringly…okay, that’s all I got them, but I enjoy inventing transition words (that’s right, none of those words are real, but feel free to use them anyways, they’ll make you talk smartingly!) However, I did mention the supposed lack of mashed potatoes, which turned out to be a complete fabrication, and to prove it they bought delicious mashed potatoes that had been made and mixed with fish (the Cod kind) and we had that for dinner the next night.
Saturday and Sunday are going to have a mondo posting, I believe, so I’m going to stop writing now and save myself for that.
Frustrated that he can’t read French people’s handwriting,

Taylor en France

I've gotten in a habit of not using apostrophes all the time, because they're on the complete opposite side of the keyboard in France

Jeudi: 5 fevrier
Today was certainly a day, that much I can say. I read a poem in French and was happy because even though I didn’t understand all of it, I was able to appreciate it. I once read a poem that was translated from German and it was terrible. Well, it wasn’t too bad, it just didn’t sound very good. Next to it, fortunately, was the German version and though I know only a handful of completely useless German words (I’m not saying that German as a language is useless, just that I have no idea how often I’ll need to talk about gloves, things being too bad, or me being the prophet, in a German-only area), I was able to sound it out as best I could and figure out that it did sound halfway decent (here, however, I am making a crack at the German language. I just think it’s not the most poetic). So, that was a giant, generally irrelevant anecdote to contextualize my original anecdote which, truth be told, happened two days ago anyway.
I drew a ninja today. Apparently the French think drawing is really cool. But I drew a ninja of my own creation and Thomas thought it was so cool, that he wanted me to draw Sasuke from Naruto (I forgot, have I told you about watching Naruto and South Park in French? Naruto isn’t as bad in French, I don’t think it’s only because he doesn’t say “Believe it!” However, I don’t believe the French voice actors for South Park have ever actually seen the show). So I shamefully drew fanart. I drew him in the most boring static pose, too. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing though. Then he was like “dessin Naruto! Et Sakura!” and, true to the words someone very wise (and so artistically inclined) once said - “Artists make lousy slaves” - I said no. Non. Jamais. Pas pour moi. (Maybe one, two people will get that last little part)
Mariah said that, by the way.


Time Class Comments
8h30 - 9h30 Anglais This class didn’t actually happen though. The teacher’s mother passed away the night before, so the teacher wasn’t there. Fun fact: interesting trivia can be found in the school newsletter, such as members of the staff’s family who died in the last few days.
9h30 - 10h30 Espagnol Lv2 Spaced off.
10h30 - 11h30 Physiques The teacher exploded at a student, then the entire class because the kid didn’t do his homework. So after yelling at him, lecturing the class, distributing an impromptu pop quiz (I believe he asked the questions off the top of his head), lecturing the class some more, he then went and talked to the principal. He was still mad the next day. Moral: I will never not do my homework.
11h30 - 13h00 Histoire - Geo I know something happened here…
13h00 - 14h00 Dejeuner! Food. Food happened.
14h00 - 16h00 Module Anglais, Module Math I’m not sure what the Module means, nor was I able to learn considering these classes didn’t happen either. There was an assembly type thing that, at the beginning of it was told that it was regarding the principal’s deceased father or something (as I vaguely recall from the obituary right above the advertisement for the religious club), but it turns out it was about the Sophomore/Junior equivalents having to plan what track they’re taking next year. Boyo, was I confused.
16h00 - 17h00


I think the rest of jeudi was the same as most my other days. I don’t know, it’s Sunday as I write this, and my attention span has been suffering. I guess things in French are harder to remember. Fun fact: occasionally I remember something that happened before I left in broken French, it’s bizarre and I don’t like it. Also, I had a dream in French. It was the family explaining stuff to me. It was one of those annoying dreams that for a while I can’t remember if it actually happened or not. Fortunately, I don’t remember what the dream people told me, so it’s all good (c’est tout bon).
Calling it good for tonight,

Taylor en France

I'm aware fevrier has an accent, but my american keyboard doesn't facilitate that...

Mercredi: 4 fevrier
As of 3h00 I have officially been away from home for one week. I miss the other AFS students that I met, because I probably will never see most of them again. Actually that’s not true, because there’s the going away orientation. So, I will see the,. Okay, I don’t feel so bad anymore.
Thomas et moi bonded over internet flash games (Flash, as in the animation program). As it turns out though, I’m pretty good as Captain Falcon. And not too shabby with MetaKnight. Like two people are going to get those sentences, oh well. That was to David anyway (Gandleforf is on the out, switch him with Steve-O and I’ll be golden). I like that table idea for the schedule, it simplifies things and makes it look like I wrote more.
Time Class Comments
8h30 - 10h30 Devoir This is a time slot reserved for doing homework, but Thomas had another test so he went to school at 8h30, and I didn’t go until later. Actually this is a story in and of itself, so we’ll save that for later.
10h30 - 11h30 Histoire - Geo Geo is for géographie. Groups presented their projects today. The first group’s presentation was about the US, and I got to participate…by explaining to the class what a “doggy bag” was (yeah, whatever you don‘t eat in a restaurant in France gets thrown away, it‘s not tomorrow’s lunch), explaining the productivity of American agriculture, and providing a counterexample of the US’s weight problem.
11h30 - 13h30 Français Woo, talk about a class losing it’s novelty. Actually, that is what I’ll do. This class has totally lost all novelty and coolness because it was about theatre. Apparently none of the students like it. In fact, there was a class groan when the homework was assigned. I doodled. I could only copy a little of what was written and what was written was only a little of what was said. The reason for not being able to copy down what was written: the teacher’s illegible handwriting. Apparently everyone in France insists on writing in a stylized cursive, fitting for the language, but incredibly hard to read. Even for the French, considering a few students had to ask the teacher what she had written. Everyone except for Gregoire though, he sits next to me in Math and I can actually read his writing so he lets me copy his notes, also he lived in the US for a few years I guess, and his English is pretty good so he helps me understand things too.


Oh yeah, every Wednesday is a half day. It’s a double bonus that it started late for me too. Oh man, I have to tell that story now, don’t I? I’m proud, because I can tell this story in French. Well, kind of. It’s fractured broken French, but I ended up telling it enough times and got corrected enough times where I have it pretty good I think. Anyways, I’m going to tell it in english now. So, Phillippe drove Thomas to school in the morning, then Magdeleine drove Quentin et moi to our respective schools. I get to the school at about 9h30 but my first class doesn’t start until 10h30. So I’m like, “poop. What am I going to do now?” So I went to the library, but it was locked and closed and lights off, so I decided to just wait in the room. However the room is also locked and closed and lights off. So I whipped out my schedule (which is the same as Thomas’) and decided that I couldn’t just sit in the halls, so I’ll go find Thomas. Problem: My first class and the secteur I was in was D1. Thomas was in A5. I have never been in C secteur, let alone B ou A. So, being the responsible-minded individual I am, I decided to roam the halls in the area I could navigate about and ask someone for help instead of inevitably getting lost on one the four floors (I think it may be higher in some places. And I think the whole thing is shaped in a big square U). Eventually I found a group of teachers and I tried my best to ask simply where the class I was looking for was. Then they started with all sorts of fun questions: Why? Are you a student here? Yes, we figured you’re from the States. Who are you with? Why aren’t you in class? Tu aime l’omelette du frommage? Et cetera. They took my to the head principal guy, who called a guy, who took my to another guy, and that last guy was a guy that I knew from before. I think he’s the French equivalent to the Vice Principal or the Dean of Students. He’s like: Are you lost? Where are you going? I’ll help you find where you’re going. Let’s go to the library. And once we get to the library, he discovers with unsettling surprised that it is in fact locked and closed and lights off. He then recalls that, Oh yeah: the library is closed on Wednesday. Every Wednesday. And today is Wednesday. So he takes me to my class, and I wait there for the remaining half of my hour, somewhat relieved I didn’t have to spend the whole thing bored and sitting. Of course, I was also worried that I may have gotten Thomas in trouble, but I don’t think I did…
Well, Wednesday isn’t actually over yet, and I have to do my homework. For English, the class had to summarize Obama’s inauguration speech in English. Since that would be too easy for me, the teacher decided she’d help me learn my French by making summarize it in French. I haven’t done this yet. It’s due tomorrow (but was assigned yesterday). So I have to go do that now. Then I’ll probably eat around 21h00 - 22h00 again, which I don’t really mind considering I won’t be hungry until then. Realistically, I won’t even be hungry then, but at least it’s enough time to ward off an exploding stomach.
Yay, Thomas helped me! But he did too much, and I feel that I didn’t gain anything out of that experience. Well, maybe I gained not having to worry about that assignment, but now I’m worrying that the teacher will think my French is better than it really is.
For dinner I had pâté du lapin. Which is pretty much blended rabbit. Rabbit sausage stuff. I kept thinking about Hazel and Fiver, Thumper, Bugs and Babs, thinking about how wrong it was for me to feasting on such a substance that was once a hoppy little bunny. The absolute worst part is that it tasted good…
I suppose sitting here, waiting for the bathroom to open so I can go to bed provides a good opportunity for me to write. Oh, I went to the supermarché avec Phillippe aujourd-hui. Actually, I come to find out, it was a hypermarché, because it’s bigger than a certain number of square meters. Man, I need to get a better memory.
I’ve packed my love in special wrappings of hugs and sent them out to all of you! (It’s a metaphor, as in you’re not getting real mail).

Taylor en France

So, the table didn't copy/paste

Mardi: 3 fevrier
Before I forget: les pantoufle. I have no idea how to spell it, but that’s generally the word for the slippers we have to wear in the house. C’est bizarre. Also: the bathroom, which is always warm, has a pretty sizeable tub, with a shower head like apparatus of significant length, but it’s not a shower nor doesn’t it at all facilitate cleaning oneself in a standing position. I haven’t taken a bath since I was very little and honestly I don’t know how. Oddly enough, it takes me about the same amount of time (I don’t’ wait for it to fill all the way). But the second bathroom is under construction right now and should be done in about a month. I’m not sure if it will have a standing shower, but it’ll be nice to be able to go to the bathroom at night or in the morning when I’m about ready to stain my shorts and other people are in the bathroom for 30 minutes to an hour. I’m a generally patient person, but when it comes to bowel movements I can get a little anxious. Moving on, school: ooh, let’s make a table!

Time Class Comments
9h30 - 10h30 Anglais The teacher made me read Obama’s inauguration speech to the class (in English). I was later informed that the teacher was giddy, because she like Obama so much (oh yeah, we didn’t have a first class today, I don’t know why not)
10h30 - 13h00 Education Civique, Economiques, et Module Français I have little to no memory of this class happening (it’s Wednesday 17h40 as I write this, so that could be why). I don’t think I particularly enjoyed it though. Wow, that’s really strange…
13h00 - 14h00 Dejeuner! (Chicken in this sauce stuff on…noodles? Maybe? And a crepe, and cucumbers in crème sauce, and yogurt, and bread) J’ai mangé avec Thomas, Éric, et Noäh, then I got a tour of the school (again) from a strange group of individuals, none of which wanted to talk in French nor wanted me to talk in French. Now, when I say tour, I mean of the small little wing of the floor that I’m on, which I think is the third floor (out of four). And I’ve only seen about a third of that floor, so I haven’t actually been through most of the school.
14h00 - 15h00 Mathematiques Blur. It wasn’t inequalities though. Which is odd, in fact I remember no transition between what was discussed yesterday, and what was discussed today.
15h00 - 17h00 Umm… Thomas had a test in français which I didn’t have to take and it would’ve been terribly boring for me to sit in that class for two hours, so I chilled in the library. I wrote, I internetted, I read.


So that was my school day. The way home was the same, even though we caught the second bus but missed the first - so instead we took a different bus which follows a similar route. In fact, there are four 186 Buses that I saw. Four buses that adhere to the exact same route, all of which passed the same stop within minutes of each other. Chaos, I tell you. More Naruto in French…it’s really funny actually, but I still can’t get over how horrible those ninja clothes are…(Fun fact: “Ninja” in French is pronounced “neen-jah”) (Another fun fact: similarly, when they say “fish,” they pronounce it “feesh.” I have myself a little giggle to myself every time I hear it.)
It got to the point, though, where I was too tired to continue mashing buttons on Brawl or squint at silly French ninjas, so I went upstairs to read in bed with every intention of passing out for an hour or so. So I did. It felt good. Then dinner. Okay, so I’ve tried some weird stuff since I’ve been here, and I’ve generally enjoyed most of it. Not this, this was too much, I didn’t like it. Sea Urchin. In the spiky little half-shell. It wouldn’t have been so terrible had my bite (you have to scoop it out with a fork or spoon) not contained a few spines. I didn’t feel so bad wiping my tongue on the napkin to rid my mouth of that evil (I swallowed the actual bite, but not the shell/spines) because Thomas et Quentin had already refused to eat it, and Magdeleine informed me that she only eats the red parts (about half). It was all in good humor. Then there was…meat? Er, I really need to remember these meals better. The rest was good. Oh, there was salad. And noodles. Yeah. Then I slept again.
Am I already unable to think of a statement to end this blog entry with? It’s like the third day, this is shameful.

Taylor en France

Le premiere jour d’école

Lundi: 2 fevrier
J’ai reveillé á 7h00, j’ai mangé petit dejeuner. C’était deux crêpes, un jus d’orange, et un chocolat chaud. C’était très delicieux. Ma mère française conduit mon frère français (Thomas) et moi á la station de train. Nous avons voyagé en train á l’école. D’accord, that’s enough français maintenant. The classes I had today were “Accompagnement” (8h30 - 9h30), “Mathematiques” (9h30 - 10h30), “Sciences Economiques” (10h30 - 11h30), “Francais” (11h30 - 13h00), dejeuner (13h00 - 14h00), “Sciences Physiques” and “Sciences Vie et Terre” (14h00 - 17h00). During most of the first class I was getting a tour of the school, which is a very big school. I guess there’s about 3-4000 students, but they’re of all ages. It was bizarre to see little kids in the hall walking around with all the high school aged kids, especially when they’re all dressed too. Oh yeah, everyone dresses like 5 notches higher on the fancy scale in France than people in the US, even the little kids. However, we’re not supposed to wear ties. I’m not entirely sure why not, but my host mom explained that it’s a major faux pas. Math wasn’t bad, because numbers are numbers, however they write a lot more for each problem, as in each problem not only do you have to find the answer you have to write up to a paragraph about how and why that’s the right answer. Sounds intense, right? Well, my homework was p60, # 113b, 115b. They were both solving inequalities. Someone still in math can verify this, a homework assignment of two inequalities (we didn’t even have to graph them) is so small in comparison to our average 10, 15, maybe 20 problem assignments. But I suppose the French stay in school for two and a half additional hours. I’m just going to settle on “It’s about the same” because my school starts a half hour later than school in US and lunch is a half hour longer here. Economiques was very hard, I really didn’t understand anything. They kept asking me questions: What I thought about Obama, what I thought about the recession, how Boeing was doing, things like that. In English, I feel that I am relatively equipped with handling such questions, and BSing whatever I don’t know. Not in French. Ne pas en français. Le classe de français was about théâtre classique, et je comprende (I know how to say the word for about, but I haven’t the slightest how to spell it) about half of it. I know many theatre terms, so that came in handy. Dejeuner: oh mon dieux, il y a beaucoup, beaucoup des gens á mon école. (Fun fact: when you say “mon école” quickly, it sounds like “monocle.” I have a little giggle every now and then). With 3000 students, the school is about twice as big as mon école dans les états unis. I had… oh what did I have…I had food. I can’t believe I forgot. I ate with Thomas but partway through lunch he had to go talk to a teacher about something (side note: the teachers are generally nice, helpful, friendly, and occasionally funny. They acknowledge students in the hall, and answer questions before and after class. I say this because I was told many times over that most teachers won’t give you the time of day, they march in, give a lecture, then leave. That’s really not the case at all, even the principal is helpful and friendly), so he left me with some of his friends (Éric, Noäh, and others) and I was supposed to wait there with them until he came back. Well, they hadn’t eaten yet so they were like, “Come on, you can chill with us while we eat” but not really because it was in French, so I did that. Then we went back and they tried to teach me how to play Magic: The Gathering. A generally short story even shorter: I didn’t learn, maybe from lack of trying. Physiques was not physics, but chemistry, and I understand chemistry, so I had fun, especially because we got to build molecules with the little model sets and I’m really good at that. I actually got to help Thomas, and that made me feel less like a stray puppy following him around all the time. However it didn’t help that I had a nosebleed in that class (Oh, je suis malade, j’ai une rhume, et quand j’ai une rhume mon nez saigne souvent - I have a cold, and when I have a cold my nose bleeds frequently. Yes, I’m using the Neosporin, mom) (another side note, I like telling gruesome bloody nose stories - the first night here I woke up in the middle of the night, and I could feel that my nose had just started bleeding. I tried to make sure to guide the runoff so that I didn’t stain these new pillows, but as a result I ended up having to desperately wipe away the blood that had pooled over my left eyelid. I had to act quickly, you see, because once it dries I can’t open that eye until I scrub and wash it. I managed to keep my bedding clean, as well as make it to the bathroom without anyone noticing my bloodied face. Did I successfully gross everyone out?) Wow, this is lasting really long. Where was I? Okay, Les sciences de vie et terre, or biology and geology. I almost fell asleep. As I believe I said before, the afternoon (about 3, ou 15h00) is when jetlag (I think) hits me like a, well, a jet. This particular class was about reproduction as far as I could tell. I recognized the word “blastula” and the other terms that I’ve forgotten at this point because I never liked bio. There didn’t appear to be any “terre” this time, which is strange to think about because the class was about 2 hours long. The way it works, the reason I put it in the same time slot as physiques, is because it’s supposed to go physiques, then vie et terre, then physiques again, then finalement vie et terre, at least that’s what it says on the schedule. Then the way home: Thomas et moi walked a block to the train station, rode a train for a while, got off, walked a block to check a bus - oh, did I say walk? I meant sprint because we were about to miss it - then rode that bus for a while, got off, then sprinted to catch the next bus, which we missed. So we walked home, it only took about 20 minutes though so it wasn’t that bad. And all that running made the snow negligible. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my first night there it snowed. It was pretty much melted by afternoon though. Though generally sunny, the temperature has been flirting with 0°, bouncing on either side throughout the day. Mais, c’est la même á Bellingham. So, school: I got made fun of a little, but it was funny and I didn’t really care. Way home: I would get lost if I had to do it by myself. Home: watched Naruto and South Park en français et c’est très bizarre mais assez drôle aussi. Played a little Smash Bros Brawl, Thomas pwns as Kirby…puts me to shame…fait mes devoirs des Mathematiques, et j’ai mangé at like 21h30 or something. It was fish eggs in bread or something. I think it was fried. It was good. There was a bunch of other stuff too. Dinner always includes: appetizer, first course, bread, second course, desert. (Desert is usually pudding or yogurt or the like). Then I slept. Oh, how I slept. And the rest will be saved for Tuesday.
Á demain, mes amis!

Taylor en France

Le premier jour

Dimanche: 1 fevrier
Je. Suis. Fatigue. I’m also very, very full. I’ve been fed so much delicious food, it makes me doubt whether I should continue eating because obviously at this point any food consumed hereafter will be a comparative disappointment. But I am so, so very full, I may just explode. Growing up, I never had that pressure to finish everything on my plate, but somewhere along the lines that got implanted in me. It would be a much easier feat if I saw all the food at once. Dejeuner was between 2 and 3 PM (for sake of reference: 5-6 AM Pacific US time). It began with appetizers, or..uh…the French word for appetizers (desolé, my brain crashed and burned around that time). There were mini pita sandwiches, mushrooms avec la beurre de escargot (not actually escargot, just the butter sauce that usually goes with it), little bread things with an assortments of other things piled on top, then these plastic/rubber sleeve things stuffed full like mini sausages with bread doused in pork blood - actually not as gross as it sounds, but I have a thing about extracting food from a tube, call me old fashioned…and I think there was other stuff. After that I thought, “well, okay, I’ve been generally satisfied hunger-wise, I can get used to this.” But after some time, we moved from the salon (living room) to the salle de manger (dining room), and began our full meal. This consisted of bread (that we had purchased à la boulingerie (okay, I’m not actually sure how to spell most these words, so bare with me here). Then there was this awesome meat stuff that actually stopped me in my tracks. I think it was beef, it may have been pork, though what I am sure of is that it was a life-changing experience. I will not describe it, and unfortunately I do not know what it was called so you can’t look it up for yourself. Oh la la, j’oublier les autre répas (FYI - répas was not the right word to use there).
I would take pictures of my awesome room to show how awesome it is, but I guess we’re not supposed to do that? Because if someone were to see it on the internet, they could be like “hey, their computer is by a window and it looks unlocked, I could totally get in there” (Note - l’ordinateur de ma famille n’est pas près une fenêtre et c’êtrais beaucoup difacile to totally get in there). The tracks lights along the ceiling, the lava lamp on the dresser, the LED lamp on the glass-top desk, the orange neon rave lamp in the corner and that Sharper Image like circle lamp thing beneath by bunk bed (the bottom bunk is my couch/dresser) are all controlled independently by one of two remotes in the room. Ce n’est pas important.
The photo game. This is really cool, and would’ve been much cooler were I not on the brink of passing out from jetlag and general fatigue and were it not Freezing Cold degrees centigrade (it’s pretty much the same for Fahrenheit, if you’re looking for a conversion). I guess ma famille had tried to tell me about this a number of times and I wasn’t quite picking up on it, but I figured out the rules as we went along. So, a bunch of people meet up at this place, then at this place they divide into groups of about 4-6 people (there were 6 groups this time) and then the assignment is given. Three one-word/phrase categories are given out and each group needs to take a picture for each category, then everyone comes back at a certain time, picks their best for each category, then they put those pictures on this guy’s laptop which is connected to a projector. He then projects all the pictures for each category, and after a few times through, everyone votes for their favorite. Then each category has a winner (the group I was in one the first two categories), and then everyone hangs out and eats cake (you know the kind with the toy inside? Then whoever gets the toy est le roi?). The categories this time were Cuoak: it was spelled something like that, it literally means the sound a duck makes, but is used to express something strange or bizarre; Bling - Bling: I guess this also means something strange, or something, I don’t know. I know I’ll get it terribly wrong, so I’ll just say what it means in English: Up and down, or upside down. This last category was the one we lost. Our group was among the several that took some sort of variant of “this picture contains someone who is upside down.” The winning picture was the photograph of the address that had the numbers “69.”
I want to sleep, but I have to use the bathroom and the bathroom is taken…I have to go to school tomorrow…whiny whiny whiny. Good, glad that’s over with. I wondering at what point a torrent of hate and unhappiness and homesickness will hit me.
So I believe that about wraps it up. I know for the first few days I’ll be able to write a whole lot easily, but as time goes on, I’ll probably step down to a weekly schedule.
Merci beaucoup!

Taylor en France

From the Hostel in Paris

Paris - 1 fevrier

As far as hostels go, I’d have to say this one isn’t bad. Well, this is my first time in a hostel, but no sadistic businessman purchased me for the purpose of gruesome torture, so I’m deciding that I got one of the good ones.
My sleeping schedule has completely shifted: I am now a morning person. I get really tired around 10 PM and well pass out if not steadily stimulated. Friday night I woke up in the complete dark, fully clothed on top of my blanket, music still playing in my headphones, book open laying on my chest. Out like a light. I’ve been waking up around 5 AM and falling back asleep off and on until about 6:30 AM when I simply can’t do it any longer and must rise and join the world of the wakeful. Saturday morning I did have an epic lucid dream via music-induced meditation (lucid dream meaning the unusually kind one has conscious control over). I went around and visited all of you. When you asked why I wasn’t in France I stated frankly, “I am, I curled up sleeping on my bed in a hostel right now, I’m just visiting you in a dream.” To which you completely understood. So, if I visited anyone, you must let me know.
I won’t go through the details of the itinerary, it’s usually various ratios of eating, sleeping, orientations and socializing. And ridiculous singing and dancing in parks (side note: I got to teach theatre games! Yay for being a theatre geek!) We also had a bus tour (our guides were the AFS local volunteers, they made the whole thing a lot of fun) of Paris, of which I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures of - my camera was dying. However, many other people took pictures and will be posting them on Facebook. In such event, I will steal them or link to them. That is as soon as I get internet (oops, I realized the anachronistic nature of that sentence, in that I don’t have internet at the time of writing this, but by time anyone reads this I will have internet…because I’ll need internet to post this. Oh well).
I met all sorts of fascinating and awesome people. Actually, four of the students were at one point in their lives models (two guys, two girls). Yeah. That happened. New Zealanders are really cool people: when we were divided into smaller groups, I got to be in the group with most of the people from New Zealand. I’m not sure if they represent all of New Zealand in that way, but they were fun. One such Kiwi, Francis, brought Flight of the Concords on DVD as a gift for her host family (because they’re New Zealand’s claim to fame right now) so a group of us watched a few episodes.
Sometimes I feel a little intimidated, I suppose, of the frequency at which these other AFSers have traveled. I mean, discounting the travel that happened before I was forming cognitive memories, I have never left my time zone. Most people here would need both hands to count all the countries they’ve been to or lived in. Oh well, we all have to start somewhere, right?
Discounting plane food, I am ashamed to say that the first place I ate in France was…McDonald’s. I’m not sure if it was to ease the culture shock or what, but the AFS volunteers decided that that would be the best place to start. Well, I didn’t eat anything there considering the food’s tendency to make me physically ill, so I suppose the first food that I ate was here in the cafeteria of the hostel. It was generally pretty good, even though I didn’t really know what most of it was. Ooh, this is bizarre: the French don’t color their yogurt (later edit: actually they do, sometimes, but not all the time). Therefore, no matter the flavor, it is always white and the same consistency (no fruit chunks). It’s a trifle disorienting to be eating something that obviously tastes pink or red but is unmistakably white. Also, mineral water: still gross in France.
It’s pretty quiet right now - my roommates are both sleeping and all but 5 or 6 of us have gotten on buses and trains to take them to their families. In about 30 minutes time, my family will arrive to pick me up. I will meet them, then I will be part of their family. There’s something odd about just hopping into a situation that usually grows from, quite literally, a fetus. Je vais être son fils. C’est etrange.
Lastly, to clear up confusion due to my misinformation: when I received my Visa information, I was uner the impression that I was going to be in Poitiers, so when I received my family information and the address said Cachan, I figured that it was a suburb of Poitiers. This, however, is not at all the case. Cachan is a suburb of Paris, about 10 or so km outside the city. Much to the jealousy of many other travelers, I will be staying just outside of Paris. I find this ironic because often times when other people would talk about my exchange, they would say I would be living in Paris and I would correct them by saying France, I’m not sure where in France yet. So, people who would say Paris, instead the more general France, it turns out you were right. Annnnd… I have to go downstairs now…to meet my family soon.
Wish me luck!

Taylor en France

Bienvenue à l'Hotel California

my family listens to The Eagles. In English. Music in english throws me off...

ma famille ecoutent de The Eagles. En anglais. Musique en anglais est difacile pour moi.

I try to listen to music without words, that why I can think in french.

j'essay écouter à la musique sans mots, donc je peux penser en français.

Ah! I'm talking like a little kid! I just want to be better at french already! I want to be able to talk quickly again, and be able to say what I want to say and not a butchered mesh of blah!

Oh la la! Je parle comme un bébé! Je veux etre meillure...at...français! Je veux pouvoir parler vite encore, et pouvoir dire quoi je veux dire et ne dit pas un ... butchered mes de blah!

Wow, I was hoping to quit out halfway through that, and start throwing in random, french words instead.

Wow, j'ai ésperer quitter aprepres, um, melieux, et commence, uh...au hasard...mots français...

...baguette?

So, here it goes

The Excuse.
It started in New York. I wrote a blog on my laptop, didn't finish it, and just saved it to the computer. Then again in Paris, at the internet-less hostel, I wrote another blog and saved it to the laptop. You can see a habit forming: I'd write a blog and save it until I got internet access. It worked.
It worked especially so when I heard my family would have wireless internet. Prefect, I thought. And perfect it would've been except for one detail: my family doesn't know the password for their secure wireless connection. So, on my laptop right now sits about 10 pages of blog, just eager and waiting to explode into the world. And wait they shall.
I tried using my flashdrive, but it turns out that the little thing doesn't speak french. I'll keep trying different file formats, to see if something works. I believe Magdeleine is in the process of working something out. With all hope, Robonator will be up and online soon, and then ye shall receive a torrent of status updates. I even have charts.
Please, bare with me here. Once this ailment is remedied, we will see some normalcy.

Taylor en France.

Ma Famille

Ma famille francais!

as relayed in an IM conversation

Taylor says:

the last name is "chabennet"

the poppa is phillipe

and the momma is magdeleine

they are 44 and 43, respectively

then they have two boys

Thomas is almost 16 and Quentin is 14

Mariah says:

nice

Taylor says:

25 years ago, phillipe spent a year (senior year, I'm guessing from the math) in tacoma, wa

which is pretty cool

Mariah says:

oooh

that is pretty cool

Taylor says:

they live in the suburbs

in an "average" house

a recently remodeled old one

with "period" furniture

Mariah says:

everyone has period furniture

did you get pictures?

Taylor says:

some of the pictures were in the house

but they were all in one room

they have a tv, a compy, email, and a library

Mariah says:

k

Taylor says:

now remember that library thing for later, it comes up again

Mariah says:

do you sleep in the library?

Taylor says:

no no, something else

at least I don't think I sleep in the library....

they have a family car and otherwise I can take public transport

normal stuff right?

so far...

Mariah says:

k

do they have a dragon?

Taylor says:

no, just a dog

a black lab named Utah

Mariah says:

utah?

Taylor says:

yep, utah

out of "regular schedule" "active" "calm" "relaxed" or "orderly"

they checked the "regular schedule" box

I'm not sure what that means....

it's in the "general atmosphere" section

they do not practice any religion

Mariah says:

maybe it'll be like boot camp or something

Taylor says:

no no, something else

I'm getting there

Mariah says:

well get there faster!

Taylor says:

they wanted an american boy with no dietary restraints or smoking

Taylor says:

which I so happen to be

Mariah says:

true

running tests on you?

Taylor says:

and I will not have to share a room

Mariah says:

nice

Taylor says:

which, when I think about it

they have two kids and boys that age wouldn't share a room

and I get my own room

the parents have a room

we're talking at least four bedrooms

oh, they also have a garden

Mariah says:

possible or the two boys are just sucking it up for a year

gardens are common things

Taylor says:

okay, here we go

the rest is all in quotes

"we are a family of 5 peoples

Mariah says:

are they counting the dog?

Taylor says:

magdeleine, the mother: she runs a travel agency, working a lot, but close to our home

(anything in parenthesis will be me talking) (yeah, counting the dog)

so she manages to be available for the family when it's needed

she loves to cook for the family and friends

thomas

he is the oldest boy of the family (nearly 16)

thomas plays badminton on saturday afternoon and is attending scuba diving on wednesday evening

Mariah says:

oooh! badmintion!

Taylor says:

he likes to play with his video games - psp, xbox, wii, and computer -

Mariah says:

so they'll have video games too?

Taylor says:

(yeah, it gets even better)

he likes to read comics and he is the biggest friend of our dog called utah

quentin

he is the youngest boy (nearly 14)

quentin plays judo on monday and thursday evening and like his brother he is attending scuba diving on wednesday evening

he plays video games with his brother and likes to read comics also

phillippe - the father:

he is working for a company which produces and sells women's underwear -like victoria's secret

Mariah says:

lol

Taylor says:

he works all over france and isn't often home except the weekend

he likes to cook, read lots of comics - we have about 4000 comics - and play video games with his boys

Mariah says:

sweet

Taylor says:

he also enjoys to look for mushrooms in the forest when it's the season"

(okay, we now go back a little...remember that library I mentioned? 4 thousand comic books....)

(you know all the comics matty and I have, all of them put together?)

(yeah, we have maybe 500)

Mariah says:

but yours are also tiny little magazine things

i don't know how many i have...

Taylor says:

you have a couple hundred

but they have four thousand....

and they play video games as a family!

it keeps going though

"Utah: it's the family dog and the keeper of the house. it knows every person of the family

all the family likes good food and to cook

Mariah says:

fat taylor!

Taylor says:

we play all together video games and read comics

the boys seem to fight all the time, but are missing each other if one isn't there

we all enjoy travels abroad - canada, australia, st martin - and going to our summer place near the sea - oleron island"

that's all