Fyoosh

That's a big sigh of relief, in case you were wondering. And the reason I am so relieved is because everyone coming to visit me now has a hotel!! I FINALLY booked the hotel for when Will visits. I was having such trouble with it and I don't know why, but I finally took Ryan's suggestion and split up the stay. So now we're staying in one hotel for the first 3 nights and a different one the second 3 nights. I'm super pumped and I'll show you why. Here are the posted prices of the hotels where we're staying:

Hotel 1 (3 nights): 396.00 USD
Hotel 2 (3 nights): 468.00 USD

For a grand total suggested retail price of: $864 USD.

Ouch.

But no worries! Here's what I actually paid for two 3 star hotels, thanks to priceline and to Ryan.

Hotel 1: $230.78
Hotel 2: $208.05
Total: 438.83

That's a total savings of $425, for those of you who don't want to do the math.

Not bad, not bad at all I say.

Ah, blissful productivity

I finally scrapped tonight using one of the kits I bought for Shabby Princess' grand reopening. Are these not the most fabulous colors you have ever seen? I adore this kit. I have to say, I am very proud of this lo. I know that the "let's list adjectives about ourselves" format isn't particularly original, but I think the design is good and not too overpowering. No that's not facepaint, I took one of SP's Colorful Corners and put it on my face because, well, I just thought it looked cool like that. It was actually a mistake. I was trying to figure out where to put it and I just dropped it right in the middle of the page. I was like hey, that looks kind of cool. So I distorted it to fit the contour of my face and lowered the opacity so it wouldn't look too clownish.

Once again I did a lo with a fair amount of white space and neglected to put a background around it. Well, you're smart people, you can figure out where the lo ends and where the rest of the post begins.

Well, I'm off to bed now. I'm going to attempt to get up early tomorrow. I know I have to buy film before my photo class, but everything else that I'm thinking about doing is a "should do" rather than a "must do." We'll see how much gets done.

Oh yeah, credits. Everything is from Shabby Princess and the font is MA Fishy.

Feelin' the love

Today in fiction class we all read the stories that we had written. I was nervous because I haven't read a whole story to anyone since senior year, and everyone in my class is a really good writer. But man, we were all AMAZING today. Seriously, everyone's stories were so good. And we all couldn't stop complimenting each other. "Your story was amazing" "No, YOUR story was amazing. "No, YOUR story..." You get the idea. And since we all loved each other's so much, I decided to post my story. Feel free to leave comments. It is a rough draft and could definitely be improved upon, but it's not so bad as far as rough drafts go. So here you go!

The Winner

Andy crouched in the shadow of the tool shed, warily eyeing the boy who was leaning against the doghouse in the middle of the yard and counting to 25. He had found his hiding space before Jimmy had even reached “7,” a space where there was just enough room for a small boy to squeeze in between the warm brick of the house and the rough, wooden planks of the shed. He waited anxiously, the sheer exhilaration and anticipation of the game shortening his breath and making his heart flutter.
“Twenty-five!” Jimmy called.
Andy pulled his limbs close to his body and waited. Living at the end of a dead end street, his backyard was larger than most in his neighborhood. Even so, there were a limited number of hiding spots. The most obvious choice was to stand behind the maple tree. That was a prime spot because of its proximity to home base, the doghouse. From there it would be easy to jump out, tag the base, and commence his victory lap around the yard. Andy had shunned it for that very reason; it was the first place Jimmy would look.
The other location was underneath the steps leading up to the second story deck. Andy usually hid there and he usually lost because he would become so engrossed in picking up the fat, pink earthworms that burrowed there in the dark soil that he would forget to watch out for Jimmy.
Not today. Today he felt hopeful as Jimmy called out, “Ready or not, here I come!”
Andy watched as Jimmy set off confidently in the wrong direction, poking into the shrubs that bordered one side of the yard. He balanced on his heels, waiting for his chance to run to home base. He wasn’t sure if he should make straight for the doghouse, legs pumping, chest bursting, his veins flowing with pure adrenaline, relying solely on his speed to carry him to the safety zone. Perhaps it would be best to take a roundabout route, zigzagging unseen across the yard until he could just touch the doghouse.
He chewed his lip as he thought. Suddenly a solid, furry mass nudged his back and sent him sprawling out of his hiding place and into the bright sunlight. That idiot dog! Andy froze, his eyes glued to Jimmy’s back. Jimmy continued his search of the perimeter, seemingly oblivious to Andy’s abrupt appearance in the yard. Andy wondered if it were possible that Jimmy hadn’t heard. He did not move, but maintained his prone position on the grass. He watched as Jimmy reached the edge of the yard and started to turn.
There was nothing for it, now. If Jimmy saw him, there would be no way to reach the doghouse without being tagged. Andy lurched to his feet and exploded into motion. He saw Jimmy start to run, too. If he didn’t go all out, it seemed as if Jimmy would get him before his outstretched hands would make contact with the assemblage of planks and nails that meant safety.
He leapt.
He knew he would win, then. He felt himself fly through the air, past Jimmy’s grasping hands. Even as he connected hard with the doghouse, he was exhilarated. Even as he fell backwards, reeling from the force of the impact, he was triumphant. And even as the sky began to spin and he heard the slam of the screen door and his mother’s footsteps flying down the stairs, he was elated.
He was victorious.
He was the winner.



That's it! Hope you enjoyed it. Leave a comment! I love comments.

Still got the mojo

Yes that's right, I've still got it! And by "it" I mean I can still write. I'm taking a fiction writing workshop and it's pretty much the coolest class ever, but until Friday we haven't had to write an actual story. We've just been writing short exercises that aren't really supposed to go anywhere. But for class tomorrow, we're supposed to have an actual, full length story. Of course that length wasn't specified, nor was the topic. And if you know me, you know that unspecified lengths and topics freak me out. There really isn't anything you could tell me that would be worse than "write about whatever you want." I find that very difficult. I need rules, I need guidelines, I need specifications. I don't work well without parameters. But in spite of all this and spending a whole weekend procrastinating because I was scared to actually sit down and write, I just finished a story! I will not be posting it here because it's an extremely rough draft. I'm just so happy that I actually finished something I had to share the good news.

Switching topics now. We had Alain's birthday dinner last night at a pretty swanky Italian restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Alain is our director, if you don't know. The food was good and the ambiance was really nice, but we ended up paying more for the dinner than we all expected. It wasn't anybody's fault, it was just miscommunication, mostly. It was just sort of irritating because I ended up paying almost 18 euros for the dinner, and that was WAY more than I wanted to spend.

Dinner tonight was much cheaper. Leslie and I went to a Chinese place close to my house (you know you missed our town, even after one day) and it was only like 9. And they gave us an aperatif! They have the BEST aperatifs at that place. I don't know what it is, but it's pink and tastes a little fruity and has the most delicious berry in it that I've ever had in my life. Seriously, they just drop a giant berry into the glass, and I have no idea what it is. I think somebody said it was cassis, but I don't know what that is. Anyway, it's amazing and I would highly recommend it.

Today was a pretty lazy day. Other than dinner, I only left the house to check out Leslie's new apartment, which is gorgeous. I hung out there for a while with her and Emily, then came home and procrastinated until dinner. But now everything is done! I think I finished everything on the list I posted yesterday. It wasn't an extremely productive weekend, but I got everything accomplished that had to be done (except the scrapping), so I guess that's what counts. I'm really looking forward to not having class Wednesday or Friday since I'm going to be firm with Alain tomorrow and tell him I'm NOT going back to the Sorbonne, so those will be my days for taking photos and scrapping. I am so pumped for all this free time, it's really gonna rock.

I'm also pretty pumped to go to bed. It's freezing here and I'm tired. Here's a useful French expression, and then I'm gonna go: Il fait froid d'un canard. Translated literally, it means "It's a duck's cold" or "It's the cold of a duck," roughly. It just means, it's pretty frickin' cold.

And there's your phrase of the day.

Night, all.

Lists

I *love* making lists. Whenever I get stressed out, I make a list and it really does help me to relax. Overall I am a very concrete-thinking person. I don't really like to deal with abstracts, but ESPECIALLY in terms of what needs to be done. That should NEVER be abstract. In that spirit, I've decided to make another one of my lists and post it. If everyone sees what I *should* be doing, chances are I'll get around to it sooner. I'd hate to think that everyone reading this sees me as a slacker, right?

I am loving the fact that Gina Miller has totally enabled my list-making obsession with her "Note This!" kit. And look! It comes with pink paper! How amazing is that. I love it.

I probably should've titled this list "Things That Won't Get Done Because I Wasted My Time Making To-Do Lists And Posting Them Online," but that's alright. By the way, that is my actual handwriting, and that is the reason why I never include it on lo's. Isn't it awful? And no, the tablet didn't make it worse. That's how my handwriting really looks.

I am also loving Photoshop for its "make me look better that I really do" capabilities. I took this picture of myself a couple weeks ago and it was one of those where it could be kind of cool, if it weren't for that and that and that, etc. So I fixed it up and now I actually really like it. It definitely won't win any photography prizes, but I like it. Here's a before and after comparison:

I probably should've fixed up the hair a little more so it didn't look quite so raggedy, but I didn't want to put THAT much time into it. Hair is hard to fix up when it looks like that! Trust me, I've tried, and it always ends up looking really artifical and weird. Oh well, that just means I need to practice more. Now that I'm looking at them side by side, the white of the eye looks a little unrealistic. But you know what?

I don't care. Haha.

Ok, that's all for today. It's 1:30 and I'm still in my pjs, so I'm thinking I'll hop in the shower and then get started on the list. I probably won't get anything done today. I'm helping one of my friends move today (well, sort of, there's not that much effort involved on my part). It's kind of a long story and I won't get into it today, but here's to a better second semester! Also, there's a birthday dinner tonight for our director, and after that I'm gonna go check out Leslie's awesome new apartment. I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend!

I'm peacin' out.

Creepy

I found this amazing time wasting site that has a bunch of little mini quizzes that you can take and then it gives you the code to put on your blog. I took this really stupid one about "What's your ideal hairstyle?" and this is what it told me:

Your Ideal Hairstyle:

Flicked Out

What Hairstyle Is Right For You?

How creepy is that? It's pretty much EXACTLY what my hair looks like. And I mean exactly. Creepy.

I also thought this one was kind of interesting. There is only one question to determine what rejected crayon color you are, and that question is: what color underwear are you wearing? I'm not sure what one has to do with the other, but ok, whatever.

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

If you want to visit the site it's called Blog Things.

Hmmm

I use xtrastats.com's free counter service for my blog. I like it because you can actually see the referring pages that bring people to your blog, how many people visited at what time, what their screen resolution is, stuff like that.

You can also see the keywords that someone searched for that ultimately brought them to your site. Although google searches have only turned up 2 hits to this blog, I would like to share a screen capture with you that shows those search terms.

Interesting.

Scrapalamode.

Brokeback Mountain blinkie.

And they both came to my blog.

Okaaaay.

And that ends today's post on "things that make you go 'hmmmm.'"

Caught up

I finally feel caught up, and man is it a good feeling. I've been feeling really behind and sort of off balance the last couple of days because I haven't been doing my morning pages, yoga, or scrapped anything, and on top of that I was avoiding my homework. But today I fixed that! Now I feel much better. I haven't done my yoga yet, I was just going to write a quick post and then do that before bed. Just wanted to share a super duper quick lo that I did for a challenge on the Shabby Shoppe message boards. I'm not familiar with the Naked Chef, but the challenge was based on that. Here were the rules:

1 photo
1 element/stamp/brush
1 lightly textured background
1 quote/word art

and nothing else! Tricky. But it was fun, it was quick, and I think the result is pretty cute. I've been wanting to do this page for a while, I just never got around to it.

Stitches by Gina Miller, paper by Sara Carling. Font is MA Brownie.

Sorbonne, Schmorbonne

I had my first class at the Sorbonne today.

I should probably mention that it was also my last class. After much reflection, I have decided to drop it. Truly, it was pretty much awful this morning. Let me give you a quick list why, in no particular order:

1) It starts at 9:30. That may not seem early, but I have to get up no later than 7:30 in order to get there on time. When you're running on college time, that's early.
2) There is only one other student besides myself. That's right, ONE.
3) It's THREE HOURS LONG. That's too long even for a normal class, but it is soooo much worse when there's only one other person the prof can look at besides you. Do you have any idea how hard it is to swallow all your yawns for 3 hours straight?
4) It's boring!! I am interested in linguistics, but this class is more history than anything. Ugh.
5) The prof wants me to do what are essentially book reports every week. I'm supposed to just pick random chapters that "interest me" from the books she assigned (which I'd have to buy) and bring in summaries every week.
6) I'd have to take the exam. In French. Graded by a French professor. Considering this course doesn't count for ANYTHING (it's just elective credit), I really can't afford to have it bring down my GPA.
7) If I dropped it...I'd have no classes on Wednesdays.
8) If I dropped it...I'd have no classes on Fridays.

Let me reiterate points 7 and 8 for you just in case you missed them.

NO WEDNESDAY OR FRIDAY CLASSES.

Oh yes, it'll be sweet.

Nope, still don't like children

I discovered last night that although I now have a higher tolerance for small children than I used to, I still don't like them all that much. I have a lot of patience in certain areas. I can sit for hours at a time tweaking details on a scrapbook page that nobody will notice but me. That patience is not and never has been extended to small children.

Last night my host parents had a family over for dinner that they hadn't seen in a really long time. This couple has two children, ages 4 and about 1, I think. The 4 year old, Julian, really liked me. I mean, he REALLY liked me. The adults kept asking him if he was flirting with me, but he didn't understand what the word meant. He came into my room like 5 times begging me to play with him, and I couldn't say no. Considering that he is a child, he was actually pretty cute. He made me play hide and seek with his stuffed animals, which was actually mildly entertaining. If you had said to me last week, "Alexis, I bet that next week you will be crawling around your room, holding onto a stuffed rabbit, and calling out things like, 'T'es où, Monsieur Le Tigre?' (where are you, Mr. Tiger?) and 'Es-tu dans ma placard, Monsieur Le Tigre?' (are you in my closet, Mr. Tiger?)" I would've laughed in your face.

No way.
No how.
Not happening.

But I did it.
And it was kind of entertaining.

The most hilarious part of the evening was definitely when he found the "Dark Vador" (that's Darth Vador - the French can't pronounce "th" so his official French name is Dark) window cling that I have on my bulletin board. He obviously wanted it, so I told him he could have it. This is how the conversation went after that (in French, of course):

Me: Julian, you can have that if you want it.
Julian: Are you sure? You should ask Guillaume.
Me: It's mine; I don't need to ask Guillaume. You can have it.
Julian: No, it belongs to your parents (he points downstairs to where Guillaume and Alexia are).
Me: It's my gift to you. You can have it.
Julian: No, go ask your "faux parents."

I almost died laughing. Go ask your false parents. I think he said that because I had just had a conversation explaining to him that my real parents were in the States. I used the word "vrai" which also means true. So I guess that makes sense. If Mom and Dad are my true parents, then Guillaume and Alexia must be my false parents.

Any fond feelings that I had for the kids quickly went away as soon as I went to bed. The baby was sleeping in the guest room, which happens to share a wall with my room. She was coughing and crying ALL NIGHT LONG. Mon dieu. I don't think I slept more than 2 hours consecutively the whole night. Honestly Mom and Dad, I don't know how you resisted the urge to put a pillow over my face when I was little. I didn't sleep through the night til I was over a year old; I'm sure the thought must've crossed your mind. Haha joking. Sort of. lol. So rest assured, everyone: I still don't like kids and don't want to have any of my own for a long time.

And even if I do, we'll see how long they last.

KIDDING. SO KIDDING.

Anyway, enough with that, lest somebody call the police on me or something. I made a lo today! You should look at it and be at peace and not think about screaming children anymore.

Everything is from Sara Carling's AMAZING AMAZING kit, "Authentic." You should all run straight to the Shabby Shoppe and buy it. It's so easy to work with and everything in it is just so cool. Fonts are Minion and Pierre Tryout.

Cutest desktop EVER

Hi, my name is Alexis.

Hi, Alexis.

I have a problem. I'm addicted to buying digital scrapbooking supplies online.

Fortunately this is a lot less expensive than my other addiction, crack cocaine.

TOTALLY KIDDING. No seriously, my other addiction is buying paper scrapping supplies, which is a lot worse for the wallet than digital scrapping supplies. And I actually seem to be USING the digi scrapping stuff that I buy.

For example, today I went to Scrapbook Bytes and I bought Gina Miller's Build Your Own Bulletin Board Kit, Note This add on, and Perfectly Imperfect Stitches. I was so inspired that I decided to make new wallpaper for my desktop. I give you the cutest desktop EVER:




The space on the right is for my icons. Everything on the board, except the photos, obviously, is by Gina Miller. Oh, that pink and green flower is by Shabby Princess. I wanted to have something that has some of my favorite pictures of my favorite people on it. If you didn't make the cut, I'm sorry. Either I didn't have room on the board or I don't have a picture of you. Remedy that and send me one! I can't promise that I'll make a new bulletin board, but I will seriously give it some thought. Provided, of course, that I know who you are. But I don't really think any strangers will be sending me photos. At least, I sincerely hope not.

That's kind of a disturbing tangent and I'm not really going to follow it. Just look at the bulletin board and throw up if you have too, 'cause I know it's just that cute.

Scrapping Sites

While enjoying my lazy Saturday morning, I stumbled across several way cool scrapping sites that you should check out. And without any further ado (or any ado at all, really), here they are:

The Shabby Shoppe
Ok, I know that I already have the Shabby Princess homepage in the sidebar, but I just had to add this. She had a grand re-opening of the Shoppe on Valentine's Day and has added a ton of new products (a few of which I now own, they were so gorgeous I just had to do it) and even a gallery and a message board.


Digi Pick of the Day
This is a cool blog that features a different kit or lo every day. Sometimes there are even freebies - watch for those. Lots of inspiration here, folks.

And speaking of inspiration, I give you my last find of the morning, the Digi Scraplift Blog.
Once a week she posts a lo, and it's your job to scraplift it. Email her your take on it and she'll publish it on the blog. How cool is that? Inspiration and exposure for your work. Love it.

Check 'em out.

Le Nouveau Monde

I went and saw The New World today. You know, that movie with Colin Farrell that tells the same story that pretty much EVERY studio, including Disney, has done. I realize this is probably old news for those of you in the states. It just came out in Paris two days ago. They're a little behind as far as movies go.

It was pretty good. I have no expectations for it, so I guess I can say it was better than I thought it would be. I thought it moved a bit slowly and I found the ending to be a bit disappointing, but whatever. The important thing is, I only paid 7 euros to get in! This is big news. I have never gone to the movies at a time when the student discount applied. Normally it's 9 or 10 to get in, so to get in for 7 was thrilling. Plus I split a bag of candy with my friend and we only had to pay 1.50 each.

Sweet.

Anyway, I would say that The New World is a good rental. I wouldn't pay 7 euros to see it again, but I might rent it.

Well there really isn't any other news here....I'm still not really doing any work. My classes are just starting to get rolling (yes I realize I've been here for a month). I'm not going to know how to do any work or right papers or anything like that when I go back to school for my senior year. It's gonna be pretty much awful, I think. You want me to do what? A 5 page paper? Sorry, I'm on strike right now, no can do.

Ok this post is rather rambling and pointless, I'm gonna stop it here.

A toute à l'heure. Peut-être.

Elle va terminer en prison!

Yes, you're probably translating that right: she is going to end up in prison. Or maybe, she is going to die in prison. Something along those lines. And yes, that was said about me. But why, you might ask yourself?

Did she...

Get arrested for dealing drugs at her friendly neighborhood Quick?
Get caught smuggling 40 kilos of mac and cheese into the country?
Stab a waiter with her fork when he brought her steak that was supposed to be "bien cuit" but was, in reality, bleeding and twitching on her plate?

Actually, I'm going to go to prison because I went to the France Telecom HQ and I harpooned everyone that works there. That's right, harpooned. Ok not really, but I do fantasize about doing that every once in a while. You're probably a little confused, so let me give you the backstory:

At the beginning of last semseter, I lived with the meanest, most miserable old French woman I have ever met. She was awful and I was unhappy being there and I thought that if I had access to the internet, I would be able to put up with living there for a semester.

I was wrong.

Pretty much as soon as my housing director made the call to get internet installed in my house, life got unbearable with Crazy Old Bat, as I affectionately refer to her, and I decided to move. I moved BEFORE there was internet.

There was nothing hooked up.
There were no cables, no modem, and no phone line.
I HAD NO INTERNET.

France telecom wanted me to pay several hundred euros for a service that i never even used. A couple weeks ago (and we're talking several MONTHS after I moved), France telecom finally relented and graciously lowered the fee to 55 euro. I guess that's supposed to cover the initial installation fee or something like that, which just for the record NEVER HAPPENED.

Anywhoo.

I paid them. I was pissed off, but I pai

d them. But apparently, they're still not happy, and they think I still might be living with Crazy Old Bat and sneakily using the internet service that they never installed. My program director and the housing director are currently in the process of proving to France Telecom that I don't live there anymore. They have to send them all these official documents and write letters and go through all this other crap just to prove that I don't live with Crazy anymore.

Sheesh.

I've got an idea. I'll go to their offices, grab them by their stupid little French moustaches, and drag them to Crazy's house.

I will show them the bed that I used to sleep in.
I will show them the toilet that I used to scrub.
I will show them the floor that I used to vacuum.
I will introduce them to Crazy.

And using their superior reasoning powers they will see for themselves that I no longer live there.

(clean room + no luggage + Crazy Old Bat = NO STUDENT)

So that's the story of why I'm going to termine en prison. At this rate, I'll be back home before they even start to prosecute me, and I highly doubt that I'll be extradited for an unpaid internet bill...oh wait...I PAID THEM. Good lord. Well, if that happens, I guess that I won't ever be able to come back to France again after this semester because I'll be a fugitive from justice.

Oh dear...

;)

Kidney breathing and other things your body is not supposed to do

For those of you who may not know, I've started doing yoga again. I was really into it for a while in high school, but then I just let it fall by the wayside. It wasn't really a priority, but every so often I would do a few sun salutations or something like that. At school last year and the year before I tried unsuccessfully to join the yoga club. Well, I joined, I just never went. The practices were always on an inconvenient night, I had work to do, I was tired, etc. I think I was trying to find excuses so that I wouldn't have to go and accept responsibility for the fact that this is something I should be doing for my body. Let me just tell you, I feel GREAT. I've practiced it nearly every day for the last two weeks, sometimes twice a day, and I feel amazing. Granted, I have loads of free time so it's much easier for me to do things for myself than it is for all you people who have annoying things like jobs or real classes or families that get in the way of your free time. And I am very grateful that I can take this semester and use it to do good things for myself, like get out and explore Paris, work on my scrapbooking, do yoga, etc. I'm just amazed at the amount of energy I have now. If you know me, you know that I HATE to work out. I have this fear-bordering-on-phobia of people seeing me working out. That's why yoga is so fantastic! I don't go to a class, I just do it in my room every morning and most evenings. Granted I have gone to a few classes so I know about proper alignment and I know that I'm not going to hurt myself doing it, so if you want to start I might recommend actually going to a class before jumping into it alone.

There is this way cool CD, however, that is now on my list of items that I would have to have if I were stranded on a desert island. It's called "Yoga Sanctuary" and you can find it here. You could also buy it as an audiobook on iTunes. That's what I did, because the copy that I actually own didn't make the Paris cut. I wouldn't really recommend buying the audiobook if you've never done this before, because the real version comes with a big double-sided poster that illustrates every single pose and gives you a much better idea of what you're doing.

I'm really quite proud of myself for sticking with this for so long (yes, two weeks is a long time for me). Usually when I try to make a commitment to some kind of exercise/fitness goal, I keep at it for maybe 3 days. My goals are not quite as lofty as Shiva Rea's (the instructor on the CD), I have to admit. She wants me to breathe into my kidneys, my feet, my shoulders, pretty much everywhere except my lungs. At one point, she even instructs me to "move the left kidney into the body." I sincerely hope that isn't necessary...if you're practicing yoga in lieu of seeing a surgeon because your kidney has found its way outside of your body, it may be time to seek help. Anyway, that's what Shiva Rea wants me to do. Kidney breathing and other super exciting stuff like touching my heels to the floor in Downward Dog. My goals, however, run a little more on the...hmm...superficial side. Kidney breathing or killer shoulders? Relocating my inner organs or being able to do as many pushups as my boyfriend? Hmm, which is more important to me right now. I wonder, wonder, wonder. But the important thing is I'm taking better care of myself, even if I'm doing it for reasons that Ms. Rea might not agree with.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find any other organs that might've popped loose after this morning's practice.

It says "I choo-choo-choose you..."

...and there's a picture of a train.



Ribbon and hearts tag from Robin Carlton's Sweet Shoppe kit. Fonts are MA Sexy and minion.

All better!

That definitely didn't take as long as I thought it would. Everything is back to normal now, plus I added a few things. There's a list of blogs that are worth checking out in the sidebar. Michelle Malkin is news, dooce is just...well, you just have to read it. It's absolutely hilarious but I can't really describe it. All the others are scrapbooker's blogs.

I also had to get a new counter because I couldn't remember which site the other one came from. I put the new count at 300 because I think that's about where it was before I lost half my blog. I'd still like to figure out how I managed that one.

There's also a blinkie that's linked to an awesome No Piracy blog. If you scrap or design you should definitely visit this site!

Anywhoo, that's all for now. Other than fixing the blog, I haven't done ANYTHING productive today. Haven't done my yoga, or my morning pages, or even showered, for that matter. So I think I'll go take care of that stuff now.

You may breathe easier now. All is right in my blogging world.

ARGGH

Ok I'm not quite sure how I did it, or if it was even my fault, but somehow half the template for my blog got deleted. THAT would explain why nobody could see anything - there was nothing there. So I had to copy half a template from a new blog and paste it into mine. Most of the personalizing that I did is gone and I have to put it back in there, including my banner, links, colors, etc. So please bear with me - hopefully I'll get it fixed by the end of the day, but I do have work to do.

Ha ha you got me, of course I don't have any work. But seriously, hopefully by the end of the day it'll be back to normal.

Things that make you want to throw up

This lo might be one of them. Again, no apologies. I've stopped doing that lol.


All elements are from the latest Shabby Princess free kit, Splendor. Download it, it's amazing. All her work is. Visit the site! The link is in my sidebar. Font is Minion.

The joys of not having class on Fridays

Or ever really, for that matter. Our real classes start on Monday. Orientation is officially, we took the exam yesterday. And today has been a blissfully free day. I slept late, cleaned my room, went to a café with Emily and Leslie, and now I have the whooooole evening to myself. My host parents aren't here, so I'm making pancakes. Unfortunately I will not be eating them with syrup, as the only syrup in the house was my gift to them and I feel weird opening it up with them not being here. So I'll be having pancakes with some amazing homemade jam that appears in my fridge from time to time. Yummy.

I also did this today.

Patterned paper is by Shabby Princess from the Shabby Mommy kit, font is CK Mindy. The background is white, so it's kind of hard to see. I was just too lazy to put a border around it before I uploaded.

I heart French bureaucracy...haha

I went and registered for my Sorbonne class yesterday. Quel cauchemar (what a nightmare). The Sorbonne has several campuses all over Paris. The one that I had to go to is almost an hour away from my house, so I spent an hour experiencing the joys of public transportation before I even got there. After that I spent another hour wandering around and trying to find the right office. I had a little piece of paper with me saying where I was supposed to go and who I was supposed to see for this class, but it didn’t really do me any good. It sort of reminded me of Hogwarts – I swear to you, the hallways shifted behind me and the staircases switched sides whenever I turned around. Not cool. Not only that, but no one in the whole freakin’ school seemed to know where I was supposed to be going. I asked 5 different people and they all sent me to different places, only one of which I was actually able to find. The guy there seemed to know that he was talking about, and he told me that I needed to go to Malesherbes at 2pm (it was noon at the time). I was like oh, ok, and which hallway is that in? He gave me a funny look, pulled out a student guide to the Sorbonne, and pointed to a blurb about Malesherbes – another campus on the OTHER FREAKIN’ SIDE OF PARIS. I was so mad. I spent all morning wandering around completely for nothing because not only was I in the wrong hallway, I was in the wrong arrondisement. Turns out Skidmore’s infallible secretary hadn’t looked at my class closely enough and sent me to the wrong school.
After lunch I reattempted the enrollment. It was much less painful than the first time around. I waited for probably half an hour in the wrong line, but after that everything went off without a hitch. I think, at least. There seems to be a problem with the TD section that I picked. [TD = travaux dirigés. It’s the French equivalent of a smaller, seminar-style class. The other part of the course is the cours magistral, which is basically a big lecture.] The students doing the registration were trying to convince me to come in at 8:30 on FRIDAY MORNINGS to take this class. Not only that, but I would’ve had an hour break, and then TWO HOURS of CM. That’s 5 hours of that class, all on one day, that day being Friday.

I don’t think so.

Ugh. The scheduling, or lack thereof, drives me nuts. At Skidmore, they have the course listings posted halfway through the semester and you can easily make your own schedule far in advance of the following semester. Not here. I’ve been here for almost 3 weeks and my class schedule isn’t even set yet. The French universities just barely released the course scheduling information last week. ARRGH. I need to be organized, I need to have a plan. I do not enjoy flying by the seat of my academic pants. It makes me crazy, it really does.

I say again: quel cauchemar.

Going Somewhere?

Then you should definitely visit this site:

StudentLux.com

It's a site that gives travel advice mainly geared towards students, but it's good for everyone. There are SO many people that have no idea how priceline works or are just afraid of it, and it's such an amazing service. This site explains priceline and gives hints on how to travel cheaply but without sacrificing comfort...dare we say luxury? One of my best friends started it - he's so awesome (hi, Ryan). Check it out...I really think this site is headed somewhere, no pun intended.

Creating Fiend

That's me! I have so much free time on my hands, I mean seriously, what else am I going to do?

Here is the lo of Will that I posted about earlier. Isn't he so cute? No, you're not going blind, I blurred out the journaling. Granted, the page kind of loses something without it, but too bad. It's for him and not for all of you, so I don't really care if you can't read it. So there. lol.


And here's what I did this morning. Actually it only took about 15 mins, so keep that in mind if you don't like it. Or not, like I said, I don't really care what you all think. lol. It's a quote from that amazing book that you should ALL BUY!! I was just so inspired by it, because it's so true. Just ponder that one for a minute.


There should be a black border around the whole thing but for some reason it's not showing up. Just use your imaginations, ok?

A little "me" time

I went to the Pompidou Center yesterday, just me. It was a very enlightening experience. Not because of the art, or really anything in particular...just the fact that I can go somewhere by myself and have a good time. Looking at art is a really subjective activity anyway, and it's hard to get the "full experience", whatever that may be, when you're worried about rushing people or holding them up. I found it to be extremely enjoyable. Those of you who know me probably know that it's somewhat difficult for me to do things on my own. It's not that I'm an extremely sociable person, it's just always felt kind of awkward for me to visit places by myself. It just seems like when I go somewhere, it's more enjoyable to go there with friends.

Totally not true.

Ok, not completely untrue. Friends are fantastic (love you guys, especially if you're taking the time to read my blog lol), but there is definitely something to be said for going solo sometimes.

So do yourself a favor this week. Go somewhere just for you, all by yourself. Doesn't have to be for a long time, but it does have to be alone.

This may be sounding familiar to those of you who took my suggestion and bought "The Artist's Way" (Hi Mom and Dad). Yes, it was an artist date. And it is such a good idea!!

So go do it. Right now. Or if you can't go right now, think of where you want to go, and then do it this week.

You'll thank yourself later.

See, I do actually scrapbook

Here is a lo I did for a challenge at thedigichick.com. We were supposed to use "Sweet On You" as the theme. Really, it's not my fault there weren't any left to take pictures of...they're so magically delicious.

Mmm....forbidden holiday candy....



I also did a lo of Will, I will talk to him later today and see if I have his permission to post it.

Weird...

Yes, I know that someone else's post is in my blog. I've contacted blogger support about it. I'm not going to change the post until after I hear back from them. Thanks for the heads up, guys.

A Birthday Celebration, aka Is Eeevverybooooody Happy

Yesterday was Emily's birthday, and we celebrated in traditional Parisian fashion by....going to an Italian restaurant. No seriously, the food was amazing. I got steak and fries, but I forgot to ask for it to be "bien cuit" (well cooked). Just for future reference, for those of you who might be visiting France sometime soon...if you like your steak medium, ask for it to be well cooked. Always ask for one step above. If you don't specify, they run the cow by your table and it's up to you to catch it and wrangle it to the ground. That's pretty much what happened to me last night. The upshot, however, was that there was so much delicious sauce that it really didn't matter how it was cooked. Practically our whole program came to the dinner, and we all split the cost of Emily's dinner. That nearly broke the bank, it came out to an extra euro per person. Whew.
After dinner, eight of us found a really cheap resto/bar and stayed there til about 1:30, then caught the night bus home. It was definitely a good evening even though I was sick yesterday. You would think that staying up til 3am would make you sicker, but nope! I feel great today. I think I'm just as happy as the guy me and Leslie saw in the metro yesterday.
On the way to the restaurant, we were waiting on the platform at St. Paul. There was a guy, probably 50 years old, sitting on a bench on the other side of the tracks. We're not sure if he was a little slow or just drunk, but he kept looking at me and Leslie and singing, in Engt concerning quotes, he's the Sox version of the NHL, "yesterday, we skate hard; tomorrow we skate harder."

It's pretty hard to imagine anyone filling the quote gap left by Johnny Damon, who seems destined for a rendezvous with angst and disappointment as the latest Bronx Bomber mercenary. Johnny must really be an 'Idiot', as he didn't have his contract negotiated in currency other than dollars.

We can only hope that some of the youngsters on the horizon have not only ability but communication skills. With management somewhere between the Cone of Silence and 'Hakuna Matata' mode, we're going to need excitement from somewhere. Oh, you say, it's all about winning baseball games? Well, that won't necessarily be as easy with a revamped Blue Jay roster, youngsters maturing for the D-Rays, and the ever-lurking Yankees, the 'Jaws' of the AL East.

somewhere. Oh, you say, it's all about winning baseball games? Well, that won't necessarily be as easy with a revamped Blue Jay roster, youngsters maturing for the D-Rays, and the ever-lurking Yankees, the 'Jaws' of the AL East.

The Price of Happiness

How much is happiness worth to you?

This is my happiness:



And it's worth 10 euro for two family size boxes.

Leslie and I went to The Real McCoy today. It's a tiny, ridiculously overpriced American grocery store close to the Eiffel Tower. Both our host parents were going to be gone tonight and we wanted mac and cheese and hamburg. The Real McCoy is possibly the most amazing store I've been in in Paris. It's packed with fruit roll-ups, lucky charms (which I might have to go back and buy after the next lunch money distribution - they're 8 euro a box), hot chocolate, stove top stuffing, cake mixes and frosting, and pretty much anything else that you might get a craving for. Man, the next time I get homesick, I know exactly where I'm going.

Straight to the pop tarts.

Take Note

This is an amazing book. Buy it.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

My copy arrived yesterday, two weeks early and much to my surprise. I started reading and could not put it down. I finished the entire book in 3 1/2 hours, then re-read the introduction and chapter one this morning. Reading the description on Amazon, it does sound kind of corny. I admit that. But just read it. Trust me, ok?

It's not just about being an artist or whatever. It's about enabling yourself to achieve your goals, whatever they may be, and giving yourself permission to do whatever it is that you truly want to do.

Do yourself a favor and either check this book out of the library or buy yourself a copy.

Comments

Sorry guys, I thought I had changed the settings so anyone could comment, but apparently I only thought I had or else I didn't save it. Anywhoo, I think it really should work now, should you want to leave a comment.

*ahem*

Eeeee!

That is my 'Eeee-I'm-so-excited-I-can-hardly-contain-it' noise. My Dover books came today!! Like a month ago I ordered 3 books from the Dover Electronic Clip Art collection. I know, some of you are probably thinking "clip art? wtf, mate?" but seriously this is SO cool. Each book has like a thousand different things that I can use for my as-of-late-neglected designs. I got 3: calligraphic ornaments (swirls and swoopy things), 1500 decorative ornaments (everything from turkeys to plants to art nouveau motifs), and floral, folk, and paisley designs.

Paisley!! How can you not get excited? I'm going to go eat dinner now and then I HAVE to play afterwards.

I mean, seriously. Paisley.

'Nuf said.

Wow!

So I found out this morning that there are people out there besides my parents (Hi Mom, hi Dad) that read my blog. This is good news! I just barely put the link in my aim profile. Not that I really think many more people will read it that way, but who knows. I read people's blogs if they have a link in their profile. But then again, I have been officially diagnosed with AMPWS (Away Message/Profile Whore Syndrome). It's a chronic condition bought on by too much free time that drives me to obsessively check people's away messages and read their profiles. They might have changed since five minutes ago.

I know that my counter (did you notice, I got a new one! I didn't like the Bravenet link on the other one) keeps slowly going up, but I have no idea if that's because I refresh the page every couple of hours to see if more people have visited (that's another sympton of AMPWS) or if it's only because my parents read this almost every day or if there are actual new people viewing. So here's what I think you should do - reply to this post with a comment. I changed it so you don't have to have a blogger account to post comments, anyone can do it. Just say "hey," or anything, really. If I know you, say something so I know it's you...like "crackwhore" or "shortcakes" or "I really wanna lose three pounds." If the results are really depressing I might go into the comments section and make stuff up for my own amusement. That would be fun, ya?

And thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me something else to be obsessive about. Lord knows there's nothing else to do in this city ;)