Birthday Halloween Party!

So France, in honor of my birth of course, has a 2 week holiday! Ok, so it's for "All Saint's Day" and my birthday happens to be the same day... :)
Well this is all good, but most of my new Paris friends have taken advantage of this time to go places...London, Scotland, around France, back to the States...so we decided to celebrate Halloween AND my birthday a little early this year and have a little "fête" on the Saturday night before Halloween. Now it just so happened that my friend (and former Skidmore Intermerial dodgeball teammate) Matt and his friend Greg who had been traveling through Europe for 2 months arrived on Saturday to spend their final days in Paris at my apartment. We threw together some costumes...and all my Paris friends arrived, for the most part, in costume! (Gypsy, Definition, Artist, Devil, Dog, Annie Hall...) A good time was had by all! And we even had candy corn (thanks mom!)

Highlights from the Party:

The Festive table


Rachael and Becky...or Annie Hall and a black dog


The Conestoga High School kids!
(Greg, Katie, Matt)


My thrown together pirate outfit...not too shabby matty!

The girls in costume
(Eiren, Rachael, me, Stephanie)

Skiddies unite!!
(Katie, me, Matt)

my new French friend Guillaume (he's a fellow history nerd...and because he's french not in costume)

Me and Greg...because he and Matt arrived at my place from Spain that morning, they were also not in costume....or "American tourists" if you will :)


The party at its hight

Apartment...22 Rue Feutrier Paris 75018

My door is at the bottom right (closest to the edge of the photo), our widows are the 1st floor windows (right above the door)...and yup, that's Sacre Coeur behind it in the top left, what can i say it's a nice walk home at night :)

my "room"...since this photo was taken I have fixed the "leaning problem" that started to happen. But that's my area of the sejour!

aren't my curtains pretty?? (they are technically shower curtains hehehe)

Our bathroom after I bleached the crap out of it...it was a little moldy (Ash, wish your mom had been here to help! :)

The laundry machine/Susan's bedroom

(note: the blue handle is just stuck on their for show...i broke that...but it's in the process of being fixed I hope...cause the last time it took FOREVER for me to get the door open with pliers! What's more scary than thinking ALL your clothes are wet and locked in the washing machine and you don't have money to buy new ones...NOTHING, that's what!)

Rugby! Fete A Lire!

Yesterday was the World Cup of Rugby, hosted by Paris. England played South Africa....and to celebrate Susan and I decided to go meet a friend of her friend at a bar/restaurant near Les Halles to watch the game. Cynthia (my new Chinese friend, the cousin of my Qufu friend) also called me and decided to meet us with 2 of her friends! Now, I know nothing about Rugby...but it's fun to watch with passionate fans and the players are cute...
Susan's friend's friend (AKA Bert) was really nice...and Cynthia's 2 friends (a Chinese guy from Jinan!!! and a Chinese girl from Shanghai) were super awesome! We had a great time chatting in 3 languages...French, English and Chinese! It made for some interesting sentences and lots of laughs. I hope we all get together again soon!

Then Susan and I caught the metro home...only to be surrounded by a bunch of old drunk Scottish rugby fans celebrating the loss of England to South Africa. They noticed that we were laughing at their jokes and then decided to include us in their hilarious banter. One of them decided to "speak Scottish" so we couldn't understand...but I understood enough to know that he was saying something about us being "sexy" so i laughed and they got a huge kick out of it and told everyone I could understand Scottish. Then an Australian Ruby guy got on the train, and proceeded to sing a funny...and obscene...song about Ruby...and the hilarious Scottish guy that said we were "sexy" in Scottish covered my ears so I "wouldn't understand" and hear the "bad" words! It was hilarious!! For all the fans of the movie Old School out there...A drunk Scottish man in a kilt gave me earmuffs on the metro!! AMAZING! :)

Then today Rachael sent me a message and randomly invited me to go to a presentation/lecture by a bunch of authors as part of the Fete a Lire at the Memorial de la Shoah. As it turned out...they were all authors of various works about the Holocaust/World War II...which is right up my alley (yaaaaay history nerd!). Rachael had no idea, but we realized that we both have a strong interest in Holocaust lit and so have made plans to return soon to the Memorial de la Shoah (a museum/library/center for everything Jewish/Holocaust oriented). I'm psyched! The lecture/round table was really interesting...and I especially loved this older author who wrote a memoir about his experience as a young Jewish boy in Fascist Italy. He was really interesting, not as pretentious as some of the other authors, and spoke French with a delightful Italian accent. It was great to find connections in their work and discussions to my classes with Matt Hockenos at Skidmore (especially the class I took on Nazism, Fascism, and the Radical Right...and my thesis on History and memoir). After the presentation, Rachael and I bought books and had them signed...I bought 2: "Pour Violon Seul: Souvenirs d'enfance dans l'En-deca 1938-1945" by Aldo Zargani (aka my favorite) and "Recits d'Ellis Island: Histoire d'errance et d'espoir" by Georges Perec and Robert Bober (Bober was also on the panel, and was one of my favorites). It was a great afternoon...I feel content and cultured now!

A Chinese morning in Paris

Today I met my little Chinese friend (Charlie's) cousin! Her name is Qin Zheng Ran. She isn't from Qufu...but she's from Shandong Province, went to undergrad in Jinan...and is now doing her masters in Chemistry here in Paris!! She is super sweet and we had a fun time chatting and walking around by Sacre Coeur. And...I've been invited to eat Chinese food with her after she finishes the English exam she is taking in November! I'm sooooo excited!! :)

Today was a pretty good day...had a full day of "teacher training"...which was pretty useless (they made me sing "the hello song"....it goes "hello, hello, hello what's your name? hello, hello, hello! My name is _______, my name is _______, hello _________ hello ________ hello!"....yeah it is pure evil and gets permanently stuck in your brain!) But I met a bunch of cool new people (all assistants) so that was cool.
Then I babysat Ryan...we played house and I got him to remember the words "sun" "moon" and "raspberry"...then his mom came home and he went crazy-hyper and started climbing all over me :) goodtimes
Then I went to the cocktail party at the Skidmore Center, which was fun! Saw Gils!!! And finally connected with Patty which was awesome! (Patty, my french prof from Skidmore for all you guys who don't know her). She is teaching in Paris for the semester...so I can't wait to see her again and have a coffee or something!
Then I came home and decided I should figure out the washing machine...and that's when things went bad...i put pretty much all the clothes I have in there (cause they are all dirty)...then turned the dials I thought would turn it on...well a light came on but nothing happened...then i tried to open the door and it was locked....then i proceeded to freak out that i broke it and all my clothes were stuck inside...so i pulled a little harder...and the i broke the handle off!!! ahhhhhhh disaster! but i got it to start...i think it is actually washing my clothes (i hope) and that i'll be able to get them out when it is done (i think with some pliars i can get the door open). I hope maybe...maybe i can superglue the handle back on...cross your fingers...cause i'm not sure what i'll do if it can't be fixed.
In addition...susan broke the handle off our fridge the other day too! (what's with us and handles???) but she managed to fix it with super glue...

well that's all for tonight....need to rest up to watch the big rugby match tomorrow night (France v England!!! should be CRAZY!!! allez les bleus!!!

I heart French 4.5 year olds

So I started my new babysitting gig, which is a supplement to my regular teaching job (i only teach 12hrs a week...and the pay isn't great so every little bit helps!)
I am babysitting for a nice couple who have 3 children (2 are older and take care of themselves after school) but 1 is only 4.5 so my job is to pick him up at school 4 days a week, give him his after school snack, play with him, and try to get him to speak as much english as possible.
His name is Ryan and he is probably the most adorable little 4.5 year old I have EVER met!
Why do I love 4.5 year old french kids, you might ask? Well to start, within 30mins of meeting the little guy he told me in a very serious voice that he loved me and that I was very beautiful. YES! this is exactly what I need after being in China for a year where everyone told me I was beautiful and then coming to France where I'm not as special/a rock start. It appears that I am a rock start to this little guy, and i love it already!
Today we played a game with colors and I sang him the Itsy-Bitsy Spider while he died with laughter mimicking the gestures that go with the song. He also tells me the most ridiculous stories in French (often more than once). He is really smart and has quite an imagination. I think this will be fun!

Teaching is going well. Now I have taught all my classes once and it's not too bad. It's much harder to maintain order when trying desperately to scold little kids in a language that is not your 1st...but some of my classes are really great. They get so excited about everything...writing their names, having a "what's your name-my name is" competition, or doing TPR gestures like Jump, Eat, and Spin. It's fun...a lot of work...but good overall.

So besides starting to get a cold...things are going well.

Here we go again...

So another year post graduation begins...and this time you can find me far away from China (sniffle sniffle)...in PARIS, FRANCE!!! (weeeeeee!)
I am here doing a 9 month stay in Paris, teaching as an assistant in 2 ecoles primaires (elementary schools...my kids are around 8-11 years old).
While I thought some things were disorganized in China last year...France confirmed that ANYWHERE (even if they think they create bureaucracy) can be disorganized and a little crazy!
Finding an apartment in the beautiful "city of lights" proved to be a seriously difficult feat! After not speaking French for a year (and still at times lapsing back into Chinese when speaking French) I dove back in and immediately started calling EVERY landlord posting an available apartment in our budget (which is REALLY small thank you French gov't). It was hard, stressful...and i really don't want to relive it through this blog...so suffice to say, I had a real life experience this time...and in the end succeeded in getting a pretty nice place in the 18eme (Montmatre AKA the area where Amelie takes place). Sacre Coeur is literally in our back yard pretty much...and it is a super cute area! The apartment is a 2 room place with a bathroom. I am sharing it with a girl named Susan (also an assistant and from Boston). As she is married and her husband is coming to visit, i graciously gave her the bedroom and am in the process of making myself a little nook in the "sejour" AKA living room/kitchen. It's not so bad actually....i like not living alone and this is the only way I could afford that. Also, above us in almost an identical apartment live 2 other assistants who I LOVE named's Eiren and Stephanie. So it's going to be a fun year I think!

And now what you've all been waiting for...PICTURES!

Nuit Blanche...a night where Paris stays up LATE/all night....metro runs late, museums are open late, and there are lots of shows and things to see. We headed over to the Tuleries and took in the sights. It was really beautiful...lots of torches and lights!!

ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!! not only was it Nuit Blanche...but the French Rugby team pulled off an amazing victory over the All Blacks (New Zealand maybe...??) and people were going CRAZY!

My New place (so far, we are still putting things together...it's only our second night!! 22 Rue Feutrier, Paris 75018!!!