In France!

And I'm finally in France! This should be an especially exciting blog post, then, since being here is sort of what this entire blog is supposed to be about.

BUT: I'm now here! I'm writing from the day bed in my room, having a little extra time tonight because I did not end out going for a driving lesson with the father (I'm going to have to find a better way to refer to the family I'm working for - that's way too awkward). The reason I have to re-learn to drive being that the car I'll have the use of is manual transmission and prior to Tuesday, I'd never driven anything but automatics. But tonight it was raining pretty heavily and since my coordination of the clutch v the gas is still tenuous at best, we decided it was best not to risk me driving around in the dark.

Other than driving lessons, I've been settling in. Le père (i.e. the father, which is better ... but perhaps not there yet) has been working since I got here on Mon, but la mère (starts with "m," rhymes with "other") started work yesterday. So I had the three kids (9, 7, and 5) half the day yesterday and all day today because they don't start school till late next week.

In terms of French accomplishments, I have drunk an Orangina (oh, how I love thee!), eaten baguettes or some other bread with butter and jam for breakfast every morning, had cheese after dinner most nights, and, most importantly, spoken and mostly understood lots of French. I have to take French lessons while I'm here, per government mandate for everyone on au pair visas, but those don't start till late September. So for now I'm speaking French with the family and working on learning some of the basic household vocab that I've forgotten.

I have also been learning to cook various french meals - because they believe strongly in a hot meal for lunch as well as dinner, unlike most Americans (i.e., you know, me). Fortunately for me, I have the help of the oldest child in this, since I'm often uncertain about the meanings of food-words and, when those are clear, about how the French usually cooks said foods. And the 9-year old is a competent cook, or at least a competent explainer, so so far I've done pretty well. All 2 days that I've cooked lunch, that is. But hey, we all have to start somewhere.

In other French news, when la mère got back from work in the early afternoon on Wed she gave me the afternoon off and I walked to a nearby shopping center where I purchased a hair-dryer. I brought my own, but after using in on Monday, I decided that it might be prudent to purchase one that I was sure could handle French electric voltage. Mine blew out the same amount of air regardless of setting, was significantly louder than usual, and emitted and unfortunate and pervasive smell of smoke and singed rubber.

So yeah, bought a new one. And while that may sound banal (o ye of little imagination!), it was actually a minor victory: I found the mall, found an electronics store, found the hairdryers, talked to a sales-person, paid for the hairdryer, and picked it up from the back of the store after doing so. All kinds of French happened throughout that, people. And I understood everything and managed not to make a complete fool of myself.

And this sounds trite, but I think the title of this is blog is actually appropriate now. Because I really am - mostly, except for a few things like, you know, this blog - living in a francophone environment. It's actually kind of thrilling, not gonna lie.

Leaving!

Since the last post, written a day or two after I got to Orlando, I haven't updated. This has been (mostly) purposeful - I've been at home, relaxing, spending time with family, doing last minute getting-ready-to-go-to-France things, and those don't make for particularly exciting blog posts (in my opinion). So suffice it to say that the last week and a half has been lovely - we had an early b'day party for my youngest brother and sister, went to the beach, I got to see a friend from high school, watching Phineas and Ferb, read, and generally lazed away my time.

Now, though, I'm sitting in the airport in Orlando, surrounded by people who are speaking what I think is Dutch (though I wouldn't swear to that) and waiting to board what promises to be a very crowded plane.

I'm a little nervous, I admit. After all, I haven't actually met the family I'll be living with for most of the next year, and I don't actually know anyone in France. It's a lot of newness. But I'm also really excited. I've been looking forward to living in a francophone country for years - and my obsession with French can finally be appeased! I know it will be quite an adjustment, so I'm trying to get ready to be wrong a lot and to learn learn learn - so please pray for me in that, that I'll be humble when I'm wrong, ready to be taught, and a good au pair and role model for the children. And now I've got to run, because they're going to start boarding in a few min; wish me luck!

Back at home!

Well, once again I forgot about my blog. In my defense, since my last post I turned 22, packed all my stuff, drove to the top of Pike's Peak, traveled to Birmingham, had a sleepover, met with as many relatives as possible, repacked my possessions, flew to Orlando, had my birthday party, took the GRE and went through all the stuff I'd packed at the beginning of the summer in order to start packing for France.

So I've been a little busy. Also: GRE, you were not particularly better the second time. All that studying I did (and I swear, I did study) and I only raised my math score a measly 10 points. Ugh. My verbal score didn't change at all (not that I was particularly trying to raise it).

Although given that I now think I have to take the GMAT anyway, this maybe doesn't matter that much. But it would have been so gratifying to raise it 40 or 50 points. But I'm letting that go. Really.

And anyway, that day ended better than it began (I took the GRE from 8:30 to 12) because my 19-but-almost-20 year old sister and I had a combined birthday party that night with, and this was her idea, a piñata. See below:

I know. Fierce. But we won. And now have smarties and chocolate to prove it.

In other news, my Mom, Dad, younger brother and I went biking this afternoon while my younger sister read and my youngest sister was in cheerleading practice. It ended up being fun. I hadn't ridden a bike in, wow, several years? A long time, anyway. But we rode around a nearby neighborhood and drove by youngest sister's practice on a path that may, in retrospect, have been verboten for bikes. Oops. And we got disgusting and hot and sweaty (though, being in Orlando, that would have happened even if we'd just sat outside long enough). So went swimming as soon as we got home. Lots of fun. It's good to have some time at home.

Career choices and creepy fortune cookies

It’s my second-to-last week of work. What this has mostly meant for me is that I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to cram in conversations with co-workers about careers, i.e. asking them about their jobs and, therefore, where I should go to graduate school.

One of the best of these conversations was when a colleague took Co-Intern and me out to lunch. We went to this little Chinese place across the street from our office building and had a nice long lunch where the food was good (although Co-Intern might quibble a bit about that – her orange chicken was very, very citrusy, though not bad) and the conversation was better.

Our colleague is about 40, I would guess, and has a lot of experience to share, both personally and professionally. It was a lot of fun to talk to her, and especially to get advice (have I mentioned I’m a little desperate for that? Yeah, because I am). So we talked about working in a nonprofit vs. the corporate world (my personal opinion: just because it’s Christian nonprofit doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be run like a business – it’s just that the profit isn’t in $), about men, about marriage, about being a career woman and a mother. Fascinating, and definitely things I need to think about.

The only thing that wasn’t wonderful about the lunch was my fortune cookie. Apparently someone can read my mind – and I don’t mean that the fortune cookie had insight into my career decision struggles or secret fears. No, my fortune cookie actually read, “Someone can read your mind.” Thanks, creeper fortune cookie. But the worst part is that when I saw it I immediately though, “Oh great, must be Edward.”

Maybe my (apparent) belief in fictional characters indicates a lack of grounding in reality and THAT’S what keeping me from making career decisions (and partner in the apartment o’ awesome, the Edward thing is totally your fault).

Life Crisis

Wow, I am an utter failure at updating. I think that saying I’d update everyday was seriously overambitious – I need to ease into this whole blogging thing.

But, for now, my event du yesterday: life crisis.

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s dealing with this right now. In fact I know I’m not. That does not make it easier. Yesterday’s life crisis was brought on by a talk I had with my boss’ boss about (surprise!) what I wanted to do with my life and career. Not that the talk went badly in and of itself, just that not having a life/career plan really comes to light when you’re having a discussion like that. And that’s pretty much what happened to me.

It does explain why I can’t pick which grad schools to apply to – I don’t know what I want to do with my career, so picking the program that will best help me reach that (nonexistent) goal is a little difficult.

With that conversation in mind, I have decided to change the way I approach the issue. Instead of worrying about what grad schools to concentrate on, I’m going to focus solely on figuring out what I’m good at, what I like doing, why I like doing it, and where those intersect. After that my hope is that an idea will come to me, like a bolt of very inspired lightning, and I’ll know how to make a career out of them.

Yeah, it’s pretty fool-proof.

White water rafting!

Today I went rafting! It was my host mom's (HM's) idea, and we spend several weeks getting everything organized. And today was finally the day.

So my host family, minus host brother #2 (HB2 - which I maybe shouldn't use, because isn't that a kind of pencil?), myself, 9 other interns, 2 friends-of-an-intern and 1 significant-other-of-an-intern drove out to Bighorn Sheep Canyon and spend 3 hours rafting 14 miles. I'd never gone rafting before, and it ended up being a lot of fun. And fortunately it was hot today (upper 90s) because the water, like all water here apparently, is runoff from the mountains and therefore very cold.

Anyway, there were 6 of us per raft plus the guide. It wasn't a particularly intense rafting experience, since none of rapids were above a 3, but quite a few of us (myself included) had never rafted before, so I can't say that was really a downside.

I'm told that we passed several bighorn sheep on the way down, but my raft only managed to see one. Still, it was exciting because it was up on a hill at the top of the canyon and you could see the silhouette outlined against the sky. Very picturesque and whatnot.

And the canyon itself was pretty. Somewhat brown, but lots of bushes and trees and dramatic rock formations - it looked exactly how a canyon in CO ought to look, especially one that had witnessed snipers and fighting over building the railroad through it. Very Tombstone, but without, you know, the town of Tombstone or the actual outlaws or Val Kilmer.

What was especially nice was that in places where the river was calmer and deeper, we got to get out and swim - although you still had to be careful of the current.

The rapids themselves were a lot of fun. Random rocks and water spray, and bumping and small drops; it was fun and a little exciting, and it just felt so good to be outside (which is not something I always embrace). And I didn't get sunburnt and afterwards we went to this hole in the wall hamburger place where I got a milkshake called "the grasshopper" that contained mint ice cream and oreo chunks. It was a kind of fabulous end to a Friday spent on a river, not in a cubicle.

I now feel like I've had a very CO-y experience, and even have something eventful to post about!

Today I made a decision

Today, in an attempt to overcome my blog-writer's-block and blog-writing-angst (it's been what, a month since my last post?) I have decided to do something different with this thing. My new goals is to write a short post every day (good luck to me on that!). The operative word here is short. After all, the original goal of this was to keep family and friends up to date on what I was doing while I work/travel over the next year.

So, in hopes that this will stick, here's the first event du jour post!

Okay, it's actually an event du yesterday, but one can't have everything in life. So: yesterday I studied for the GRE!

Yes, I am aware that that is neither a CO-specific nor an interesting activity (trust me, I KNOW studying for the GRE is not quite a thrill ride), but I decided it was better to do a boring event than not post at all. Probably.

Anyway, I bought a prep book to help study because, after taking the GRE in Nov I realized that while I'm totally awesome at the verbal section I'm, well, less totally awesome at the math section. And now I'm very glad indeed that I bought the book because in the course I studying I realized that:

1. I really need it - because:

2. I remember almost nothing about math. I can barely remember how to multiply. And sometimes I have to think about the multiplication table a disgracefully long time.

Oh math, I seriously don't love you. But last night I was feeling pretty good about things. I was going through the math section, and I was sure that I was going to go into the GRE saying, "Take that, GRE! I will destroy you! I laugh at your "hard" math problems!"

And then I did the 10 practice problems at the end of the section. And got, oh, about 5 right (which is .5, or 1/2, or 50% - maybe the studying is paying off!).

Yeah.

So, unfortunately, I foresee quite a few more evenings spent in the company of my fabulous GRE prep book. But hopefully something else will happen on those days so I won't have to keep writing about them!