Je Me Suis Trompée... Pour La 864635 Fois!

This time I felt pretty bad, though! I'll explain later.

My day started off like almost every other; I got up, showered, and ate a bowl of "Lions" cereal and "un pain du chocolat" for breakfast. Then I read a little more of Manon Lescaut. Last night I taught myself the "Passé Simple" tense, and I cannot even begin to explain how much that helped me with my book! The whole thing is pretty much written in th "Passé Simple" tense! I've decided that each night or so, I'm going to go over a few pages of my French book (from home) and hopefully I'll finish by the end. Pierre and I did some oral excercises last night, too, which he found hilarious. We also reread one of the stories from class. It was kind of fun doing this stuff with someone who natively speaks French. :)

Today for lunch, my host mom's brother, Jaques, and his daughter, Amélie, came over to eat with us. They are in town visiting until Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure exactly where they live, but it's about 2 hours away, if I remember correctly.

After lunch, Jaques and Amélie left and I got ready to go to the laser game. My host mom brought me early because she and Pierre had to go babysit Thomas's kids for the rest of the day. I assumed it was at the same place as last time. Nope! There are two laser game places in Arras, and leave it to me to end up at the wrong one! Being there early, so I didn't expect to see anyone right away. My host mom left and I went to the store next door to browse a little. I came back to the laser game place about 15 minutes later. I waited for a while... and waited... and after it was time for the game to start, I wondered what was up. Jeremy called me and asked me where I was. I replied that I was there, or I thought I was. He told me he couldn't see me, so we concluded that I went to the wrong place. He ended up coming with everyone else, to the place I was at and we played there. I felt soo bad! I hate being an inconvenience for people! Hopefully that doesn't happen again. No more mistakes like that, sil-vous-plait!

The game itself was fun, though! This time we had teams, so that made it easier than being alone. I did wayyy better than last time, too. We won, and I came in second overall :D! Once the game was over, Jeremy's parents showed up and took us all into Arras. His sisters wanted to go shopping and stuff, so another girl (forgot her name :/), he, and I walked around for a while. Then we went into that same bar/café I went to with Pierre-Antoine, Elise, Simon, and Antoine the first Saturday I was here. I still don't remember it's name. I had a Coke :)! I honestly think I have drunk more Coke and eaten more fries here in the past month than I did all year back at home! I've eaten a tonnn of crêpes, ice cream, and chocolate, too. Haha, I'm gonna "grossir!" :P I still find it cool to get Coke in a glass bottle versus a plastic one, though! I really want to take one sometime :P

We hung out at the café for a while and talked. I had another really good day as far as the talking goes. I have picked up speed and I think I'm getting more accurate with my placement and conjugations, too. I really don't pay that much attention to grammar when I speak. I kind of just let what comes naturally flow out, and if it's wrong, people usually correct me. I focus more on the vocabulary and translating what I want to say into French. That's been getting a lot easier for me, though, so maybe I can start working on the other stuff. I told them that before I left I wanted to lose my American accent, too, and right away they practically shouted, "Non!" Haha, evidently the French like our accents. I guess in turn, I also really like the French accent. I would love to be able to pick it up :D! That's kind of low on my list of priorities, though. Once I finish learning everything in my French text book I'll worry more about that.

Around 6:30 or so, we waited in front of my school where Jaques and Amélie picked me up. They dropped me off with the others at Thomas's house. I mainly just played a computer game with Romane. She's really into those lately. For dinner, I really wasn't hungry, so I just ate a tiny bit of the steak and some potatoes. I helped my host mom clean up a little, and then helped Romane with her game. Thomas came home, followed by Anne a little later, and we left.

Tonight after I get off the computer, I plan on working on my French a little more, and then probably going to bed. I really hate going to sleep after a successful day of speaking. I dream in English, wake up and think in English, then go downstairs and slowly ease into the French again. It's really frustrating. I wish I could just turn the English off altogether. I've started writing my journal in French. That's actually been going a lot easier than I expected. I'll try on here sometime in the near future, perhaps.

I think I covered most everything. I'll talk a little longer on MSN and then probably head upstairs.

Bonne Nuit!
-Miranda:)

Strangers are friends waiting to happen. -Unknown

Today Is The Day

I finally got my photos on the computer and on photobucket. Actually, Thomas did that for me on Monday, but I didn't have a chance to get them on blogger until today! They are down on the bottom of the page below my posts. That isn't even close to all of them, but it took me a million years to get those on here, so you're going to have to settle with them for now.

Today is also the day I sent out my mail. Those of you who gave me your address before I left will be getting a postcard (or a letter) within the next week or so. If you don't get one and you want one, send me your address because I don't have it.

I didn't do a whole lot today. I got up, ate breakfast, and then Pierre and I listened to music. He tried to teach me how to dance to some strange song, but I really suck at dancing. haha. After lunch, Pierre took a nap and I went up to my room and addressed envelopes and stuff. Then I tried to fix up my coat a little. Two buttons were coming undone, so I asked my host mom for some thread and a needle. She ended up sewing for me! There was only time to do one, though, because Pierre had to go to the Kiné. We dropped him off and then drove past a farm which supposedly had some homeless people hiding out in it. I dunno, it's kind of a complicated story and I don't even know if I understood correctly. What I got was that there were some people who wanted to go to England, so they paid a truck driver a lott of money to have him take them. The guy dumped them off a little ways out of town and drove off with their money. The 22 people took shelter at this farm and refused to leave, so my host mom, the mayor, was called. When we drove by, we only saw one person. Actually, my host mom saw him, I missed it.

After that little adventure, we picked up Pierre and I mailed my letters & postcards. Then Pierre and I walked over to Pierre-Antoine's place, but he wasn't home. We returned here and ate a snack in front of the TV. I got sick of trying to understand what was going on, so I decided to take a break and get online. Haha. I don't have the attention span to watch an entire TV show. Usually I don't get into it much in the first place, so it's hard to follow.

This was kind of a short post, but like I said, there wasn't much going on today. Tomorrow should be good, though! I'm going to play another laser game and then chill out in Arras :D! I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow!

A Demain!
<3Miranda

EDIT: Well! My pictures aren't showing up because it says you need to log in to see them, so I'll just link you to the album- http://s468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/RebelliousRhino/

Whatever you are, be a good one! -Abraham Lincoln

Surprise Party For Sabrina!

I was in a great mood this morning! I slept like a rockkk last night, and didn't wake up at all until it was actually an appropriate time to get up! When I was all ready, I read a little bit more of my book, and then Pierre asked me to help him clean his room. Like I said, I was in a really good mood, so I agreed to help him. Basically, he sang and kind of organized his shelf and had me sweep. I got a little carried away with that and ended up sweeping the whole first floor, the steps down to the main floor, and majority of the main floor as well. When my host mom came home, she was kind of shocked to find me sweeping the kitchen! Haha! I'm pretty sure my parents back at home would be, too, though! I'm not usually a cleaning kind of person. My host mom got the message that I love to clean, though, so that might land me some chores in the future. :P

After lunch, my host mom drove me to Marion's house. Marion, her mom, and I went to pick up Sabrina, and then returned to her house. We played with her puppy a little, and then played darts. The dart board talked in English, which I found kind of interesting, considering she'd just bought it here in France. After eating some apple pie, Marion's mom drove us to the laser game. Virginie and Laureen met up with us there. We went inside and hung out for a little while until the players before us had finished their game. Laser tag here is pretty much the same as it was at Driverz back in the day. It's dark, but there are a lot of black lights, so you can see decently. There is a maze type thing with a bunch of walls and holes, and you can go up ramps to another floor. It's pretty cool! Everyone is on their own, it's not a team thing. I did terribly! You get 10 points for hitting someone and lose 15 points when you get hit! I ended the game with 0 points. I did hit people, but I was also hit a million times by everyone. haha! I'll try again Thursday.

After our 20 minute game, Marion's mom picked us all up and dropped us at Sabrina's for the rest of the party. Her house is decorated so pretty and artsy! I absolutely love it! When we entered the dining room, the table was seriously loaded with sweets! There were eclaires, candies, cookies, crackers, and a bunch of other things i don't even know what to call. It was crazy! I tried a little of as much as I could, but my stomach kind of hurt and all the sugar wasn't making it feel much better. I loooove the chocolate elcaires, though! They were my favorite.

The rest of the night was mainly spent listening to music, dancing, chillin' out, etc. There was an American rap song that came on, and I asked them if they knew what it was about. Sabrina said no, so I told her, and she was absolutely stunned that it was so vulgar! Hahaha! I found that funny! Also, her dad is really into music and has a ginormous drumset and he let me bang around on it a little. Hah. I learned how to drumroll, sorta, on the snare. We played a little musical chairs, too, and I won!! I seriously think that is a first! Sabrina's dad awarded me with a little trophy thing of a biker. haha. At around 10 or so, My host mom came and picked me up. I haven't really done anything since I've been home, so that's pretty much it. I think I'm going to call it a night, because it is, like, almost 11:30 here!

A Demain!
Vous me manquez beaucoup !
(I think I finally got the correct usage of "manquer" down. :P)
<3Miranda

The man who follow the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no man has ever been. -Alain Ashley-Pits

This Vacation Is Too Long

In theory, it sounds great to get two week vacations every other month or so, but to be honest, I really want to go back to school. I can't say I'm overly excited about trying to keep up with the lessons, but I would like to see everyone. I miss them! Two weeks is a longgg time. I could settle for one.

Fortunately tomorrow, I'm going to play a laser tag game with some friends from school. Then, on Thursday, I'm playing again with some other friends. hah. Evidently that's the thing to do around here. It sounds fun enough to do twice in one week, though!

I pretty much caught you all up on my trip, so we'll just start with yesterday. After getting off the computer, I hung out on the veranda with Annick and Pierre. I know Pierre always complains about how much Annick talks and gets really annoyed, but I love that lady! She's really entertaining! She was talking about all the different French foods I need to be sure and try before I leave, like escarot, frog legs, creme brulle, etc. She and my host mom told me that I might be able to go to a cooking class with some of my host siblings, so that would be really cool! When I get back, I'll make you all snails :P

After lunch, we went over to Thomas's house. We ate strawberry pie and then talked for a while. I played a game called Lynx with Lilian, Lou-Marie, Thomas, and later on, Romane as well. There is a bigg circular game board with a million different pictures of objects and such on it. Each person is delt a certain number of cards with a picture that corresponds to one on the board. Your goal is to match up all of your cards before the other players. It's really hard! There is so much to look at! I did manage to win one game, though!

Yesterday was also National Grandma Day! So after we left Thomas's house, we stopped by Grandma's house and delivered some flowers. We didn't really stay that long. Annick came back to our house with us and chatted for a while. I wrote out most of the rest of my postcards. Then I watched TV with Pierre a little, ate dinner, and went up to my room. I didn't get to sleep until midnight, though! I swear I was exhausted, but I just couldn't sleep! It's been like that for the past few nights, actually. I have a hard time falling asleep, then I wake up at some insane time in the morning and about an hour later, I fall asleep again and wake up between 8 and 9. Then throughout the day I'm tired!! I don't know whyyyy I can't sleep and it's driving me crazy! Luckily I've got some aromatherapy for sleep, so I'll try that tonight and see if it works. Maybe I'll make it a full night without waking up. :P

Today was a cleaning day! I woke up at 8:30 with a headache, so I laid in bed until a little after 10. When I finally got up and finished getting ready, I cleaned my room! I got to empty my garbage, change my bedding, vaccuum, and tidy everything up! Normally, I'm not really into this kind of thing, but I actually had a good time doing it. Once I'd finished, I read some more of Manon Lescaurt. I'm only on page 20 or so, and there are like 150 pages, plus a paper to write yet over the break! Ooops! This afternoon, Pierre and I went to a field and played catch with the football I gave him. I found a nice sized stick and used that to play baseball a little bit, too, with his kickball. That was pretty fun.

Now we're just kind of chillin' out. My host mom is going to go grocery shopping soon, so I'm going to go with her. Tonight I think Jean-Marie and Susan are coming. Susan's friend is in the hospital in Arras, so they will be staying a couple days.

Since I didn't have the time to do so yesterday, I'm going to do a little one-month reflection today. At the end of each month, I plan on just kind of looking back at some of the things I learned, both good and bad. I'll try to just list things that I forgot to mention in my blog, too.
-First off, French people sometimes make their Ms look like Ns. When I met with the school admin, I corrected the secretary's handwriting, because I thought she wrote Niranda. The I realized she wrote Minnesota the same way! Oops! haha.
-I have the Marsaillase on my ipod, and when some of my friends were looking through my French playlist, they gave me major crap about that! :P
-French students don't staple their paper, or at least that I've noticed! They have paper that is kind of book-style to write tests on, or they stick loose sheets in a page protector, binder, or folder. The folders are different from ours, though, too. They fold all they way open and you tuck your papers into one side. I'll try and bring one back with me. They're kind of cool.
-The drinks in vending machines are upside down.
-The French really aren't as high fashion of people as I was expecting. They mostly just wear dark clothes, whatever label and whatever style. I dunno. It all kind of looks the same to me, and it's not exceptionally classy like I was expecting.
-I've noticed that in general, French people don't wash their hands after using the toilet as often as I'm used to. I hardly ever see soap in public bathrooms. It kind of irritates me. I've gotta get some Purel (sp?)!
-I really haven't picked up as much French as I had hoped by the end of the first month, but I can definitely say that I've improved my comprehension by a lottt! I'm kind of at the stage where I can comprehend almost everything when people are talking directly to me. It's a little harder when I'm sitting at the table with a bunch of adults who are going on and on about who know's what. I've gotta work on that, yet. I'm much better at forming sentences and can ask for things and say quite a few things without much thought. I still have a longgg ways to go, though! My writing is terrible, not to mention my grammar! That needs quite a bit of work! I'm not going to worry too much about that for now, though. My goal for the next month is just to work on talking more in conversations and saying more than just a sentence or two at a time. I've also started thinking a lott in Franglais. When I have an English song stuck in my head, I usually end up translating the lyrics as best as I can. Haha. When I'm thinking about other things, I do that, too. I think they words I know well in French, and everything else stays in English.

I think that's about all there is to say, though! And Thomas just came over, so I'm going to get off!

Au Revoir!
<3Miranda

Every person you meet knows something you don't; learn from them. -H. Jackson Brown

I'm Back!

And today it has been exactly one month since I left home. I really, really cannot believe it went by so fast! That is crazyy. Anyway, on to my trip.

Thursday: We got up and left for Paris at 11AM. The ride on the TGV only lasted about an hour, but I enjoyed every minute of it! That is seriously such a fun way to travel! The landscape, however; really does not look a whole lot different from a drive through North Dakota or Minnesota, though. It mainly consists of grassy fields and small towns (although the buildings look different).

When we arrived at the Gare Nord in Paris, we met up with Jean-Marie. He took us to Susan's appartment (which we would be staying in). Susan is a good friend of my host mom's, and Jean-Marie is Susan's boyfriend (pretty sure). The appartment was really tiny, but really nice. The whole thing was smaller than a hotel room, I think. The only real closed off room was the bathroom, which I should add, had both the shower & the toilet in the same room! That's the first time I've seen that in France. You basically walk into the main room, and to your left is the door to the bathroom. If you walk in farther, you can turn left again into the kitchen. The main room has a table for eating and a couch and TV. The table is folded up at night and then a bed pulls down from the wall for sleeping. The bed is a full, and it takes up majority of the room. Like I said, this place was small. There was a lot of light coming in, and the room was painted in light colors and had lots of mirrors, so it really didn't feel squishy, though. I actually really liked it.

After dropping off our luggage and eating lunch, my host mom, Pierre, and I took the metro to the hospital for Pierre's appointment. That didn't really last as long as I'd thought, so that was cool. I just hung out in the waiting area and listened to my ipod durring that time. Afterwards, we walked a short distance to the Eiffel Tower! Pierre didn't want to go up, so Jean-Marie and Susan met up with us and took him while my host mom and I took the elevator to the top floor! She pointed out a million different places to me, and I really don't remember them all, but it was cool. It was dusk, too, so the lights were starting to come on. On the inside portion, there were different signs that told you how far away different countries were, and you're all about 6000KM away from me. We then went down to the second level, and the tower lit up! I got some pictures of it, and seriously do plan on putting those on soon. My host mom told me that she didn't know how to do it, so I'm going to have Simon or Thomas help me next time they come over. I think I'd probably be able to figure it out, though, if my options weren't in French. I don't want to click the wrong thing! Ha ha!

After descending the tower, we met up with the others. The five of us walked to an Italian restaurant and met Luc and Alan, my host mom's brother and his friend. Jean-Marie and Susan left, and the rest of us ate together. It was really fun, they were nice. I learned that Luc is a playwright and is actually pretty well known. They also told me that French people generally don't like to travel. They do within the country, but most of them don't leave France very often. Luc told me that he thinks it's because a lot of people are really happy with where they live and don't feel the need to travel. That kind of surprised me. If I lived in Europe, I would travel to different countries ALL the time. I can't imagine living this close to so many different places and not wanting to visit them! Anyway, Luc also told me that he would be going to Quebec in April. I've noticed that a lot of French people go to Canada. That makes complete sense and everything, because they speak French there, but for some reason that still surprised me. Once we'd all finished eating, we said goodbye and Alan gave me a chocolate bar. Then we got on the bus and headed back to the appartment.

FRIDAY: We got up and hung out at the appartment for a while. Pierre was really tired from walking around yesterday, so he stayed at the appartment and my host mom and I went out to buy postcards. If I have your address, you will be getting one. If not, it's not because I don't miss you just as much, it's because you didn't give me your address before I left. I haven't sent them yet, and it takes about a week to get overseas, so don't expect them for a little while. You should probably receive them within the next 2 or 3 weeks, though!

After lunch, my host mom took me back out and this time we went to Notre Dame, the Champs Elysees, and she pointed out a lot of other buildings along the way, too. On the Champs Elysees, I went into the Louis Vitton store, and I seriously don't think I could even afford the air I was breathing. The prices of that stuff is outragious. A coin-purse would have set me back nearly 300 Euros! I also saw the restaurant where the celebrities would eat after the César Awards that night! (That's kind of like the Academy Awards in France.)

We stopped at a fastfood place called Quick for a snack, where Pierre and the others met up with us. After that, Pierre, my host mom, and I went to the Palais de Sport where we would see "Cléopâtre: La Dernière Reinne d'Egypte." That was a musical similar to one that you would see on Broadway in New York. I bought a program book and read through the act descriptions before the play started, so that I would be able to follow it better. I'm really thankful I did! That was probably the only reason I knew what was going on! I really enjoyed the music, though! That was really good. I want to buy the CD, but I don't know if it will work when I get back to the States since CDs are "zoned." :/ It was really late by the time that finished, so we went right back to the appartment and went to bed.

SATURDAY: Yesterday, we kind of took it easy. We got up late, took our time getting ready, ate lunch, and then chilled in the appartment for a while. Late afternoon, we went on a walk through a beautiful park, which reminded me a little of Central Park. It was a big green area in the middle of a huge city. This park was much smaller, though, so I dunno. It had a tonn of lakes, little streams, waterfalls, hills, and a few cliffs and stuff. The landscape was gorgeous!

That evening, we went got ready to leave and then headed to back to the train station. Our train went out a little after 6, and we arrived shortly after 7. I didn't go to the computer thing, because it got over early, so instead i just ate and went to bed.

I really hate to do thisss, but I've been on the computer for hours and my host mom's sister is over and I really feel like I should get off. I'll finish this up later on, hopefully! If not today, then for certain tomorrow! Sorrrrrry!
<3Miranda