So far, so good...

Hi loves <3.

So this week makes it a month since I arrived Blois (BLWAH).  I was trying to decide whether I wanted to recount my adventures day by day. And I don't. Think of this as an episode recap at the beginning of a TV show: summative, concise, and will probably leave out tons of details. The TV show LOST did these a lot - "5 seasons of LOST in 5 minutes." You get my drift...

So I arrived in France September 22nd.  I flew US Airways and  on the plane I sat next to a French student studying translation at some Midwestern state university.  We shared cute transatlantic flight talk and pretended like our 7 hour friendship would last.  I got in a pretty good nap and my legs didn't fall asleep….at all. FTW.

Once I finished carrying my 150+ pounds of luggage down escalators…  through ramps...unloading them on and off of dollies...just to go up and down more escalators… to lug them on and off tramcars...just to encounter more escalators...I really didn't mind that I had to wait 5 hours for my train to Blois.  NOT.  But overall, I can't complain.  My first train came and I shoved BERRRRRTHA!!!! (that's what I'm going to call my luggage) up the steps of the TGV and took a nap.  Switched to a SNCF train, repeated horror but with STEPS INSTEAD OF ESCALATORS to load BERRRRRTHA!!!! onto the  next train.  When I arrived in Blois, my host/land lady met me at the station to help me and BERRRRRTHA!!!! get home. 

During my first few days in town  I walked around hoping to get lost in Blois - learn the city some, see some sites.  So my second day in, I woke up early and trekked into town.  After about 3 hours, I realized that I had been walking in circles, familiar circles.  I passed the same 17 hair salons 17 times.  In short,  this city is not so much of a city.  It shuts down at about 7:30pm.  When I say it shuts down, I mean it shuts down.  There are no pedestrians on the streets and no cars on the road.  The ether was one day when I stayed out (do the air quotes with me folks) "late" and headed home around 8:15.  I decided to catch a bus home and to my horror the last bus left at 7:45pm.  WhaAAAAAAaaaatttttt?!?!?!?!?!  At that exact moment, I realized I was in the twilight zone…. 

On a humorous note, I am a karaoke regular every Wednesday at this restaurant by the Loire.  Every week the language assistants congregate to SHUT.IT.DOWN.  Hahaha, our style of karaoking (yeah, I said it, zero-derivation...) is the polar opposite of that of the French.  For example, they do sappy break-up ballads, we do Kelly Clarkson "Since You Been Gone".  So far, I have sung: Britney S. Pears - Womanizer, Lady Gaga - Poker Face, Pocahontas - Just Around the River Bend, and Ike and Tina - Proud Mary (with said choreography).  Stay tuned for more details of my tantalizing, ground breaking, wine glass shattering performances….

But anywhooooo, I'll move on.  Everything else is working out well , to my surprise I live just around the river bend from the high school where I teach, very convenient.  I work a meager 12 hours a week.  Let's compare that to last year shall we.  Last year, 4 out of my 5 school days were 12+ hour days - went to my internship at 7am and I got out of classes at night at 7pm.  So I should have no reason to complain, but of course I have one….twelve hours spread over 5 days yields lots of inconvenient free time.  For a poor time manager like myself, I will just end up wasting more time than I already do.  So I need to fill up that free time wisely.  I want to take some classes.  So far, I'm thinking Argentinean Tango or some type of cooking class….what do you think?

I do fill up some of my time with exercise.  One of my life goals is to become a runner, for physical reasons of course, but mainly for spiritual ones.  I have been doing pretty well, just up until this past week.  I need to get it together…. But I need some winter running gear, i.e. jacket, gloves, pants, basically any type of water repellent garment you can think of.  So if you would like to donate anything to the cause, please do!  :o)

On another note, I hate my hair.  I know, I know….that Sesame Street song should make me feel otherwise, BUT IT IS 23 YEARS TOO LATE!!!! Just like Princess and the Frog…. Ok, my tantrum is over…. But last week I had a bad hair moment, and it didn't help that I had a bad day overall.  I'm not quite ready to talk about it, but all I will say is that I walked 7 miles looking for a post office just to find out when I arrived that it didn't even accept my (chip-less) American bank card.  Get real….

But back to my hair.  So after I kicked rocks on the way home from the post office, I washed my hair, tried to do this style from a YouTube video tutorial, and failed.  After one hour in the bathroom, I did another no-pooing and went back to the trusty-dusty Kinky Curly Curling Custard.  It is ridiculously ironic that I haven't had a relaxer since my junior year in high school, yet I am still a beginner in the natural hair game.  The patience I had when I was learning how to straighten my hair has definitely gone with the wind.  I need to fall in love with my hair again so I can invest the time and energy it takes to style it.  If you have any positive affirmations I can recite in the mirror, swing them my way….

To conclude, I want to thank Google for being awesome.  They should expect a love email from me soon.  It is without hesitation that I say, that without you Google, I would not be able to communicate with half the people I do.  Keep on doing what you're doing. 

Peace and Love.

p.s. - this post was not as concise as I thought it would be...myyyyy bad, lol