tea time

so i've been learning things about britain and the stereotypes within the UK; scotland, wales, ireland. ha. interesting, you don't quite think there is that much to know from a distance but there are actually a lot of things they do differently. it's interesting comparing Britain to France and the U.S. the fashion here is crazier, many different patters and colors, very unlike french fashion-always tres chic. My french host mother has weird negative sterotypes about the English, which most french have. i personally think it's because the french are overtly selfish and pretentious. i'm especially blown away at how nice the brits seem in contrast.

i've been tasting some interesting things like bread and butter pudding, sticky toffee pudding, english tea, black pudding (blood-soaked sausage) and things of the like.

i went to some amazing vintage stores yesterday. think LONDON 60s. i could have totally looked like a spice girl if i wanted to.

i also feel like watching the BBC version of pride and prejudice again. also, i want a school uniform! they're so cute!

also, i went here today (little moreton hall)! think alice in wonderland.

england!

hello friends! i made it to england after being detained by customs, because chloe didn't bring the address where we staying. haha! they had to page the family we were staying with so that they would know for sure what we would be doing in this country! haha.

tell you more later. heading to the countryside. we're staying at a bed and breakfast somewhere close to where Beatrix Potter lived. :)

bye! the family is super nice! i like the british better than the french.

have a wonderful day!

cheshire cats and tudor homes

hello!

i'm getting very excited, i leave for england tomorrow! i need a change of scenery, my host mother has been getting on my nerves with her selfish endeavors. This week has been enjoyable but i've had too much time on my hands and need more outer stimulation.

today i'm going to meet chloe for a cup of coffee and explore these trails that mysteriously get lost into the woods my by apartment. i've never been in there buy everyday when i walk home i see women, babies, runners, appearing from the thicket clearing.

i'm tired of the french intonation. it's so demanding and annoyingly animated, in a whiny insupressible way. well actually i just said that because as i was writing very clearly in my clean crisp room when MADAME ALLOUCHERIE started nagging me about hanging my laundry. it makes me miss my REAL mother! who treats me like an ADULT who is not a child and who knows how to take care of herself! HELLO! i've lived on my own for three years and like it that way! i have a strong inclination that a french woman would be very difficult to be in a relationship with because they're so touchy and capricious.

luckily, i will have a week of english air to clear out my lungs! then i can deal with two more weeks of pleasantries and artificial flatteries. i have to say, i miss american people the most of all... i am going to feel like everyone wants to be my friend when i return, even the grocery clerk and the barista at starbucks. i like flirting with strangers, even if i'll never see them again or have to attraction whatsoever. at first the idea of the "european private lifestyle" intrigued me, but now i just feel like saying "get over yourself" you're just the same as any one of us, your life isn't any more interesting than mine.

<3

when harry met sally...

aww i really like this movie! haha. can't beat the 90s. there were so many good one liners, i could have died! i need to watch more movies from this period.

so a prominent issue in the movie was the debate of whether you can have true friends of the opposite sex without the "sexual tension". the woman of course said it was possible, but the man said if you're attracted to someone of the opposite sex, that will keep you from truly being real friends and you just couldn't be friends with someone you are attracted to. i feel like this is a breakthrough in the psychology of men and women!!! i really think women can have friends of the opposite sex and think nothing of it, but from personal experience men seem to have troubles having girls that are just friends...

What do you think!? I am VERY curious.

two four six eight update!

if i could put it in an image...

more of you, more of me

well the truth is...

i am becoming more of myself...

the me that laughs ALL of the time
the me that excites imaginative ideas
the me that just wants to enjoy life
the me that wants to play with you
the me that is happy!

In class this week, i was just dying of laughter for some reason, maybe it was the fact that all of these foreigners are trying to sing uninhibitedly to french songs, i do not know. but i'm getting really comfortable with chloe by this time and hour and she just loved it! she couldn't look at me with a straight face, and sometimes when i am talking to her (usually acting something out or ridiculously annoyed or astonished) she just smiles and says "i am going to really miss you" and the real underlying factor is being around people who enjoy you. i just want to love and be loved in return! it's not such a grand request!

RUMI

so, when i was in paris i bought a Rumi book from the famous bookstore Shakespeare & Co. and this book is amazing. it blows my mind every day. here is one of the inscriptions:

Nothing Happens Without You

Should everything pass away,
it couldn't happen without You.
This heart of mine bears Your imprint;
it has nowhere else to turn.

The eye of intellect is drunk with You,
the wheeling galaxy is humble before You,
the ear of ecstasy is in Your hand;
nothing happens without You.

The soul is bubbling with You,
the heart imbibes You,
the intellect bellows in rapture;
nothing happens without You.

You, my grape wine and my intoxication,
my rose garden and my springtime,
my sleep and repose;
nothing happens without You.

You are my grandeur and glory,
you are my possessions and prosperity,
you are my purest water;
nothing happens without You.

It is all Your being, Your gentle good faith or Your seemingly cruelty.
You are everything of mine;
no matter where You are going,
nothing happens without You.

They place their hearts with You,
and You break them;
they repent, You break them again.
You do all of this Yourself;
nothing happens without You.

Were something to happen without You,
the world would be overturned.
The Garden of Eden would turn to Hell;
nothing happens without You.

If You are a head, I'll become Your feet,
and if You are a fist, I'll become Your flag.
If You disappear, I'll turn to nothing;
nothing happens without You.

You've disturbed my sleep,
You've effaced my personality,
You've broken every attachment;
nothing happens without You.

Should You stop being my Beloved,
my affairs would be disastrous.
My Comforter, my dear Companion!
Nothing happens without You.

Without You, life would not be delightful
nor death joyous;
how can I rebel against Your sorrow?
Nothing happens without You.

Whatever I say, O seal of judges,
all seemingly good and evil notwithstanding,
say it Yourself, by Your Grace;
nothing happens without You.

Divani Shamsi Tabrizi 553

in the case that you miss me...

hi.

hello friends.

i miss you. i have most of the day off so i'm doing my own thing, but i just wish you were here and i could show you around, go to cafes, have a pique-nique, meander from fountain to fountain, eat amazing food. i'm getting tired of doing it by myself. of course i do things with chloe but she is in different classes and we have different schedules during the week...i just miss you.

i'm hoping i will find something to do for my first week of vacation which starts friday! :( my plans keep falling through, and i don't want to be lounging around all week. i do enough of that while i'm IN school! haha. luckily the second week is definite and already booked to England! I think the couple took off of work to show us around? :) can't wait!!!

fierce.

there is a part of me that suppressed for others sake, it stirs and is agitated from deep within, and now has been unearthed. well if you want to like me, you can like all of me! there are no obligations! i do not require you to sign at the dotted line.

and the truth is i am a little more ferocious than you think, i am a little more responsive than you want, i am little more complex than you care to accept. so the next time i do something you don't like, don't turn your back to me because i can walk around to your front, and you can look me in the eyes and say it rather than play manipulative games with me. because although i'm fierce and coy there's something i'm not.. and that is conniving and manipulative.

i like to sing loudly to 80s epic love songs, and i will yell things in public and make a scene, and sometimes i like ridiculous fashion and bright lipstick. i liked it before you, and i like it after you. my life did not end when i jetted off to another hemisphere without you. it's just begun.

AVIGNON

This is where I was today. it is a midieval city, "city of the popes", very fortress-like. I'll add my photos soon. there was a lot of interesting architecture to look at. there is a wall around the entire city, but the moat is now buried with dirt. :( It was so quaint, yet classy. It's interesting that the small towns and the countryside here in France have an art and theater scene and cute boutiques. In the u.s. there is absolutely nothing in smaller towns.

the breeze through my window

if you look through my photos of paris, there is a couple of the trianon (this mini chateau! it was marie antoinette's personal chateau, she also had her own little village made especially for her)

dreamer

i never used to dream at night.. and it used to be rare that i would wake up and remember a dream that i had. but lately i have been waking up in the middle of my dreams (to my alarm)... and in an instant i come our of that dream and i'm really confused. they usually involve serious matters and people from present to past. it's really strange. every since i came here...

consequently, i've been interested in the meaning of dreams. i read an article that proposed that we dream of things our mind has not had time to work out that day, or things left unfinished. but then, if you always tried not to think of a person, you would probably always dream about them because even though you didn't want to think about them, your mind would need to work through their presence in your life... right? so then repressing memories and people would have no effect on our emotional well being. so i don't know if this can be true. but at the same time, it's interesting what your mind can create, that reflects reality in grand exaggeration. maybe our unconscious minds are much more honest than our conscious minds... although i've never been a big supporter of Freud.

only the lonely

I am young. I am free, liberated like a little yellow bird. I live in the clouds but know all that goes on below, but I prefer not to live there. Because those who live below forget to look to the sky, they don’t see clouds or the sun but their feet shuffling on uneven ground.

I know where I am going, there is a little current that I let myself be carried on, once in a while it turns into a little funnel cloud and feel like I’m going in circles. But soon after I am redirected in the direction of life.

If you stand in my path, I will walk around you, if it’s impossible. If not, I will find another way, come hell or high water there is another way. I will find it. I will take it. I may have to walk amongst thorns and thick brush, but I will come out alive, and I will see the sun when I do. And I will remember the sun when in the deep shadows of the night.

Because there is beauty and I sometimes I let people tell me there is not, that love doesn’t exist, that it is some false emotion, an ideal, not a reality, but I know differently. It is the most wonderful feeling/knowing that you are loved and have the ability to love another. And although some believe it doesn’t exist, I shut them out. But so sorry for them, they will never experience it because they don’t believe. They believe they are the biggest thing in this world—oh what a destitute life condemned to loneliness and grievances. But I am me, I start with one person, myself, and can only do what I can for them to see the light. I move on, or my light will be shut out. One little person is only so strong. You need to keep moving. Although my heart still aches for what they will never experience.

life. xxx

so, i have a lot of planning to do overseas, which is fun but is also driving me because it's complicated.

for example, internship...probably not going to happen this summer. i can only find volunteer internships, which isn't so much the problem as much as i have to PAY to volunteer (over $1200 to be exact) without financial aid beacuse it's under 12 credits! i'm already going to come back to the U.S. broke... so it will just not work. but now i don't know when i'm going to do my internship. this last year of school i am going to have many hard upper level psych classes, and i'll have to do my internship on top of that! but whatever! you have to do what you have to do i guess. ( i would do it next summer but then i couldn't graduate in may).

also, i need a job for the summer, luckily i already have one job at the library: 23 hours a week starting june 1st! but i need to find another job. a good one preferably 20 more hours would be good. i applied at some places online, like augustana. if you know of any job openings, let me know.

although this is a fun part of my life, it will be really nice to be able to support myself one day and not have to worry about getting by. but! i have a few more years before i can even wish for that! haha.

hello morning glory

i have a new appreciations for mornings. i like going to bed relatively early and getting up early. opening my shutters, surveying the weather for the day. having my coffee and biscuits and bread with butter and jam and oranges. i feel very at peace with sitting in my illuminated white room, with the window door open. spending the mornings reading, sending e-mails to friends and family and looking things up on the internet, and feeling like i have no where else in the world that i need to be except in this very place. i have a few little cards from friends on my little dresser, to make me think of them often. i have my little drawing of venice across the the room perched next to my alarm clock. it is clear and clean and light.


Only if you have been in the deepest valley can you know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

-Richard Milhous Nixon

"king me"

i don't need anything at all!!! today i was just thinking about how i've been honest, which sounds a little hauty but it isn't. it's just that i am very happy that i have been forward with people and said how i felt and who i am. because i said it and i meant it, and i will not take it back because it was honest and it was true. and i did not fake anything. and for some reason that made me very happy. i'm not bottling up emotions, it's because i'm letting them all out like the bakers keep their doors open to let out the aroma of fresh bread into the streets. and soon it's not about this or that but it's about the sky i see, and the birds chirping in the windows, and the little flower buds perking up, and the scent of lavender in the air. and you know life goes on.

In Normandy (northern France) at the battle grounds of the second world war, there are still half-destroyed bunkers and and in the fields, hills created by bombs and however horrific it is to see, there were innumerable tiny white flowers covering the battlefield as though the corpses of the dead bodies had little seeds planted in them. and of all colors white, the color of peace and surrender. it was beautiful, it is over. but of course it had to first be tragic and a painful and disheartening at times.

------------------------------------------------------

ok... i heard this song and i just kind of thought to myself, this is how love should be. it isn't complicated, or hurtful, or malintentioned. i need to be much more apprehensive when getting into my next relationship. because love isn't a chess game, and i shouldn't have to guard my pieces as if in opposition. or make them sidestep in some type of formative pattern in order to get what i want or need.

this song may seem a little cliche, but with all universal emotions, it's bound to be:

hello neighbor!

so in class today, we talked about neighbors. i guess in france they have like "neighbor month" when everyone from their quarter gets together for a party...

but... i guess it's not common for neighbors to become friends here. because we were asked what we look for in a neighbor and i said "someone who is friendly and invites me over for dinner" (limited french knowledge, ok!) and Madame said that it isn't common in French because they are so private with their lives. they will be polite and say "bonjour" in passing but they retreat to their homes. which, made me very sad.

thinking about my parents and how they are friends with all of our neighbors, even some who are in their 30s! and they are truly good friends. there is no boundary line and they don't have guards up. for a while i like that french people were more private... "the european way" but after really thinking about it... it really stifles community. yeah, there are a lot of idiots in America, and there are superficial people, but there is an easiness when communicating with each other that builds community and crosses lines. i like this. i like that my neighbor just walks through our yard and knocks on our back door with his little kid in a superman costume, or that my mom yells things to "bella", the neighbors dog out her back window, or that my dad exchanges tools with guys in the neighborhood, or that my parents have newlyweds over for a campfire in the summer, or that my neighbor brought me over gourmet coffee because he didn't like it, or that my family makes christmas cookies and goodies and we bring them to our neighbors just because we want to. i feel like this is the way things were supposed to be...

miss list!

1. pumping the music and dancing/singing/looking at myself doing ridiculous things in the mirror. haha!

2. wearing heels...( i walk everywhere so i can't).

3. wearing short little dresses and strutting around uptown (wait i never did that)

4. this is turning into a seduction list?!

5. (i continue) do you have to do something in order to miss it?

6. because i'm missing things i never do...

7. like working out and wearing low riding jeans with big belt buckles (ok i did that when i was like 16) and having long hair

8. and going to large outdoor festivals where i can scream and push people around! and yell the words to the songs?

9. and giving people seductive anonymous glances...

something is VERY wrong.

favourite new artist.

"to try"

try |trī|
verb ( tries, tried)
1 [ intrans. ] make an attempt or effort to do something : [with infinitive ] he tried to regain his breath | I started to try and untangle the mystery | I decided to try writing fiction | none of them tried very hard | [ trans. ] three times he tried the maneuver and three times he failed.

trying:
it does not mean anything to me. in some languages the word "try" does not exist. i don't want it to exist in my language. i will or i won't i do or i don't. i live or i die, i'm loud or i'm shy. i hate the word try. it signifies such obscurity, it doesn't mean anything. because who knows how hard you're trying, or if you're appearing to try all while wanting the inverse of what you're working towards!

(breathe)