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