it's weird. i hope i can sleep tonight. luckily i've kind of gotten used to traveling and it doesn't seem like as big of a deal as before to get everything organized. i'm hoping they won't make me open my bag for any reason at the airport or i will not be able to close it once again. packing was a joke today. i tried every method known to man... looks like i will be wearing a lot of layers. i may look a little weird at the airport. don't care.
i'm actually strangely excited for my flight... more so the long one, so i can watch new movies and do some reflection on the past four months that have passed tellement vite.
i'm excited to have a latte again! :) and of course to see you!!!!
p.s. i don't want to shut my shutters tonight or my window!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
enfin
tomorrow is.... CANNES int'l film festival 09! i think most of the films this year are foreign so i don't know how many celebrities i will actually recognize, but i'm excited for the big red carpet event and the PAPARAZZI! when would i ever have the opportunity to go to the Cannes film festival again, it's kind of a once in a lifetime thing. my host mom was telling me it's an old money type of place (it's on the mediterranean) and it's really ritzy, i guess many wealthy people retire there (like St. Tropez, Monaco, and Monte Carlo).
it's rainy, which is exceptionally uncommon in Aix-en-Provence. a few goodbyes yesterday, a couple today, more on sunday. i'm having dinner at chloe's house this evening with her host mother. :)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
it's not really over.
today was the last day of class. i feel like i should be sad but i'm not, even though i had an amazing semester. i just think everything is good in its time really. i had an amazing language professor, i wish she was my aunt really. my classmates and i bought her a plant and a little card. she really liked it and went around the room giving "bisous". when i asked to take a photo with her, she pulled me really close so our faces are touching in the photo and then we said our little goodbyes. it was really cute. i think she liked me. i was always laughing in class (imagine that), and she would always say haha, alyssa your laugh is extraordinary, you have a very characteristic laugh!
there were a lot of dynamics going on with all of the foreign students and their responses to questions in french that you actually could tell a lot about a person. for example, today we had to pick out which family structure you liked the best and why (traditional, where mom stays home and dad goes to work, or hippy family that is always outdoors and surrounded by friends and family and listening to music, or childless couple that have good jobs and busy lives). just for reference i choose the hippy family. haha.
*goodbyes are weird. i think everything should end the day before it is supposed to so that you don't have to think about it as in-depth. because while parting, if you knew you were going to see someone tomorrow it's just "see you" but if you don't know when you will see someone again, you have to think about all they ever meant to you and it forces you to become too sentimental, when really some people in our lives are just instrumental (not to say they can't influence you are make an impact on your life) i just think back to jr. high when all of the girls cried on the last day of 8th grade. some people were moving away, others would change, etc. but the reality of it is that at the end of the summer they most likely won't even remember some of the friends they hung out with because it's jr. high! and you can be thankful for what someone was to you, but if you grip everything that comes your way, you might ruin the nature of what it is. For example, there is a teacher from high school that influenced me a lot, and i respect him. at graduations i go to at my old high school i talk to him and update him, and that works. but if i wanted to become friends with him, that would be weird, and not an acceptable friendship. another example, i make friends with a girl studying abroad and although i meet them and get to know them in class a little-- i don't have a lot in common with them. and you get to a point where it can't go any further because you truly don't have deep things you agree on. but maybe that's the beauty of these encounters... to talk to people you normally wouldn't, to be displaced so that you learn that the world is much bigger than you think, and to question what you believe and how you fit into the world. it is beautiful but it isn't always easy when you know you have a life somewhere else.
there were a lot of dynamics going on with all of the foreign students and their responses to questions in french that you actually could tell a lot about a person. for example, today we had to pick out which family structure you liked the best and why (traditional, where mom stays home and dad goes to work, or hippy family that is always outdoors and surrounded by friends and family and listening to music, or childless couple that have good jobs and busy lives). just for reference i choose the hippy family. haha.
*goodbyes are weird. i think everything should end the day before it is supposed to so that you don't have to think about it as in-depth. because while parting, if you knew you were going to see someone tomorrow it's just "see you" but if you don't know when you will see someone again, you have to think about all they ever meant to you and it forces you to become too sentimental, when really some people in our lives are just instrumental (not to say they can't influence you are make an impact on your life) i just think back to jr. high when all of the girls cried on the last day of 8th grade. some people were moving away, others would change, etc. but the reality of it is that at the end of the summer they most likely won't even remember some of the friends they hung out with because it's jr. high! and you can be thankful for what someone was to you, but if you grip everything that comes your way, you might ruin the nature of what it is. For example, there is a teacher from high school that influenced me a lot, and i respect him. at graduations i go to at my old high school i talk to him and update him, and that works. but if i wanted to become friends with him, that would be weird, and not an acceptable friendship. another example, i make friends with a girl studying abroad and although i meet them and get to know them in class a little-- i don't have a lot in common with them. and you get to a point where it can't go any further because you truly don't have deep things you agree on. but maybe that's the beauty of these encounters... to talk to people you normally wouldn't, to be displaced so that you learn that the world is much bigger than you think, and to question what you believe and how you fit into the world. it is beautiful but it isn't always easy when you know you have a life somewhere else.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
music
Expanding Friendship
Money and real estate occupy the body,
but all the heart wants is expanding friendship.
A rose garden without a friend is indeed a prison;
a prison with a friend becomes a rose garden.
If the pleasure of a friendship did not exist,
neither men nor women would be here.
A thorn from a friend's garden is worth more
than a thousand cypresses and lilies.
Love sewed us secretly together.
We owe nothing to the needle and the thread.
If the house of the world is dark,
Love will find a way to create windows.
If the world of arrows and swords,
the Armorer of Love has made us coats of mail.
Love itself describes its own perfection.
Be speechless and listen.
Divani Shamsi Tabrizi
Money and real estate occupy the body,
but all the heart wants is expanding friendship.
A rose garden without a friend is indeed a prison;
a prison with a friend becomes a rose garden.
If the pleasure of a friendship did not exist,
neither men nor women would be here.
A thorn from a friend's garden is worth more
than a thousand cypresses and lilies.
Love sewed us secretly together.
We owe nothing to the needle and the thread.
If the house of the world is dark,
Love will find a way to create windows.
If the world of arrows and swords,
the Armorer of Love has made us coats of mail.
Love itself describes its own perfection.
Be speechless and listen.
Divani Shamsi Tabrizi
Thursday, May 7, 2009
NICE
Hi.
tomorrow morning i leave for Nice for the weekend! i probably told you this 10 X but chloe's host mom's daughter rented an apartment in Nice for the week and offered for us to stay because she isn't there on weekends. i've been very blessed, and have decided that i can't be selfish anymore. and i need to get better at sharing. the weather will be in the 70s from here on out! I might bring my swimming suit along! i heard the architecture in Nice looks very italian... (it is not too far from the france/italian border)
it's funny how you seem to really get close to people once you have to leave for somewhere else. my classmates are dear to me--not even because i hang out with them a lot, because i don't. but we have 14 hours of class together and you start to feel like a little family, plus with the oral activities we do, we learn a lot about one another. but it couldn't go on forever this way. one downfall of french schools is the lack of campus life. it would have been nicer to have event to go to, to get to know people better. oh well, i have a few friends i have the possibility to visit in the future.
too bad i'm dead broke. with a wine induced smile and tired legs.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
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