Thursday, December 8, 2011

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

PHRASE OF THE DAY
as of today: au jour d'aujourd'hui

I'm gonna do something a little different . . . because there's a reason I chose this phrase as the phrase of the day. It's not because I just learned it or because the etymology is super interesting. Rather, this phrase just sounds fantastic. When French people say it, it's like music. Ah. But we've run into a dilemma. How can I prove this to you? The text alone doesn't provide you with the auditory splendor that is "au jour d'aujourd'hui." But have no fear! The linguistics major is here! Last year in class we worked a bit on a speech generator website. So I've taken it upon myself to provide you with the link.

Step 1: Select Juliette . . . French.
Step 2: Type "au jour d'aujourd'hui" in the space provided.
Step 3: Click SPEAK.

I know this is involved. But I believe it's worth it. Enjoy. Oh you will.

**To feel cultured, click here**

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Mooooving right along . . .

I'm chock full of excuses. (and love.)

But my excuse for having disappeared from the blog world for a week is this:

I wanted to have photos to supplement the post. And I am a thoroughly unreliable photographer. So I was waiting for a friend to post her pictures on facebook.
This + last week of class = "IIIII'll get to it later."

Buuuut BREAKING NEWS!

I'm finally feeling settled in Nice! Woohoooo! And it only took 3 months!

I feel like I might remember my advisor at UT telling me this would happen. That I should go abroad for the year because it would take the whole first semester to get settled in and then the second semester to actually experience experiential experiences. But since I'm obviously a devil-may-care invincible superhuman, this advice was utterly ridiculous. This was petty advice for normal people. And it didn't apply to me.

Psh. She doesn't even know. I'm so adaptable! I can out-adapt a chameleon! Back up off me! She's probably just required to say these things. These silly silly things. I'll play along. But secretly I'm awesome.

Well, touché, Mme McAlpin. Touché.

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Regardless.
Things are looking up here in the old F, R, of Ance.

So guess what time it is! STORY TIME! . . . also really early in the morning.

1. Last Thursday night (right after I posted the previous entry, as a matter of fact), I attended a self-organized dinner with about 30-50 other exchange students at the residence! Everyone brought food, sort of like a potluck. Actually, exactly like a potluck. And we all paid someone a few euros in advance for, you guessed it, alcohol. Since about 85% of the attendees were either Italian or Spanish, you can imagine that the food selection was very disappointing. If you chose to imagine this, then you're wrong. It was freaking delicious.

Leaving my bedroom and meeting new people,
Proving to everyone that I'm bilingual,
Realizing French people rarely wear jeans,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Smelling aromas and trying new dishes,
What is that? Oh my god, that is delicious.
Those coffee cookies make me want to sing.
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the booze bites,
When the unfair stereotypes and perceptions people have of Americans sting,
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Tada! So here are some pictures!



It was a fun night.

Aaaand I finally met my first American! She's from Vermont. And apparently she's here in a program with 6 other Americans too. Who have all evaded me. Somehow.

(Funny story: I found out one of the guys with her program was actually the guy I saw staring at things back in September! The confused guy! Staring at things! Because he was confused! I knew he was American. Or I had a feeling.)

Another funny story:
When I was chatting with the girl from Vermont--talking about typical things like hometowns, majors, French moments, Thanksgiving, blah di blah di blah--something happened to me that I can't really explain. Basically my brain stopped working. It was just like "sucker!" and peaced out. (Note to Brain: this is not okay. You can't just take five whenever you want. You need to do what I tell you. This is imperative. Or we both look like idiots.) But Brain does not always listen to Molly. Brain's been quite incorrigible lately. I'm hoping it's just a phase.

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"So what are you majoring in?"

"Oh, French . . . obviously. And linguistics. And I'm minoring in theatre, but that confuses French people. They don't really understand minors."

"Haha yeah. Mine is kind of confusing too. 'Cause I'm studying geography and sociology here, but I'm studying something else in Vermont."

"Oh, what are you studying?"

"I'm a psychology major."

"Huh. I don't think I've ever heard of that."

. . .

. . .
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I have no idea what happened. Basically the word "psychology" momentarily evaded my auditory lexicon and I just stood there thinking:

Psychology? What is that, like the study of psych? That's peculiar. Maybe she can explain it. I'll ask.
Okay asking was a bad idea. Why did you do that? Now she's looking at you funny! Think, Molly, think! Why is this so challenging?! Why is this word missing from your vocabul . . . OHHHH! PSYCHOLOGY! hehe . . . whoops.

Thankfully I danced it off rather nicely. And we laughed. A lot.

2. I was pleasantly surprised this week to discover it was the last week of class. Why didn't I know this? Welcome to my life.

3. Dear Abby, 
Are you supposed to water your cactus? I haven't watered Fuzz Lightyear.
He's still looking very chipper. But I don't want to kill him.
Sincerely, My green thumb's kind of brownish

4. Pasta pasta pasta. I eat so much pasta. Pasta pasta pasta. I'm tired of pasta. Pasta pasta pasta. Are you tired of pasta yet. Pasta pasta pasta. It doesn't even look like a word anymore.

5. Downtown Nice is SO Christmasy! There's lights and Christmas trees and a ferris wheel and an outdoor ice skating rink and a German village and everything awesome and Christmasy and wonderful and merry and lovely and ahhhhhhhh :)

6. 11 more days. 11 more days til I get to see Amy and my mama in FRANCY PANTS!! AGH! Excitement is oozing out of me like . . . well, anything I say is going to be icky. But I'm still SO EXCITED!!! 

And I just can't hide it!

But for now I must finish this Archeology presentation. Until I'm free again.

Amitiés :)

1 comment:

  1. I so enjoyed reading that and loved the dancing penguin! Phyllis

    ReplyDelete

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