Danny's life in France

well, here it is folks...my last post from the good old dorm (cuques) computer lab. it's finally here. i started off my day by having someone come by and make sure that i hadn't destroyed anything throughout the year. then...more packing, then i took a bunch of stuff to the office for next year's students (forks, plates, vase, just a bunch of crap). i made several round trips today in the sweltering heat. yeah, not fun. then it was back home one final time to shower and then to head to marion's for 'aperitif.' so after sitting visiting with her a bit this evening, i headed home after a LONG detour because the shortcut that i always take had the gates shut. ended up taking me a half hour to get home instead of 10 minutes. i then went to a movie with isabelle (2 sisters/2 soeurs) and then off to have one final drink. so, i'm exhausted. i'm going to go upstairs and spend one last and final night in my dorm room - i'm leaving at 9am tomorrow morning for miramas.

i got up this morning and went trapsing through aix taking pictures and video-taping the city of aix with jessie. then it was off to see about cancelling my renters insurance, then to quick (france's version of mcdonalds) to get a coke with jessie, ankica and tim. then...it was back home to take a nap, shower and then head out the door to go have dinner with isabelle. now that i'm back from dinner, i've spent the rest of my evening packing. my room is BARE!! it's sooooooooooooooooo upsetting. i just can't believe that i'm leaving already. it's going to be really, really, really hard. anyway, just fyi, i'm leaving on saturday so my internet access will be more and more limited. so i probably won't be able to post everyday as i like (or don't like) to.

i got up this morning to go take my renaissance lit oral final exam. it went really well, i think. then it was into town to have lunch with marion, get coffee with feral from the office to talk about my year abroad, grocery store for wine, home for a nap, then a party! that has been my day. it was behind the restaurant here at the dorms and soooooooooooooo many people ended up showing up!!! so yeah...that's been my day. later, all, i'm off to bed.

i spent the majority of my day...PACKING! can you believe that its here - my departure??? i certainly cant. but i do know one thing - i have absolutely no idea how im going to get all that stuff in my suitcases. but my rooms depressing now. everythings off the walls, suitcases are everywhere, just a mess. so i guess im going to go back upstairs and do some more packing. i have my FINAL final exam tomorrow at 9:30. hopefully itll go well...

i rolled out of bed early this morning to go take yet another in-class dissertation. yeah. i didn't do too poorly, but it wasn't fabulous, either. see, we had to comment on a text that talked about something specific covered in class. since it was something specific and not a broader topic (like exams are in the states), there really wasn't all that much to say. that's why i say you can know basically 99.9% of course material and still fail the course here in france. i didn't fail, but, well, we'll see. after the exam, i came home and decided to get myself out of a mess...literally! i cleaned my room. so after a thorough cleaning, i took a shower and headed into town to get a train ticket to go to miramas for saturday morning. then it was back to the dorm to cook dinner with jessie then back again to town to go out and have a drink with stevie and marion. it turned into marion taking us out to dinner. i had a good time. back at stevie's, i gave her a BIG good-bye hug since she's leaving to go back to the states tomorrow. it's so sad. i just can't believe that it here!! the end of the year! i never thought i'd see this day come, but at the same time, it's upsetting to be leaving. i mean, stevie lives in indy so i'll see her when i get home, but still. however, when i went to bed last night, i couldn't hardly sleep. i was sick at my stomach. it wasn't the fact that i was leaving aix/going home which i have mixed feelings about (not wanting to leave my new-found life, friends, etc but really wanting to get back home to see everyone, blah blah blah) but i was sick because things are going to change...yet again. it's human nature to not like change and here things are going to change yet again...BIGTIME. i'm going to be leaving the new-found life, friends to go home. anyway, just the whole mental soap opera slash drama of studying abroad. but nobody said study abroad was going to be easy. anyways, in other news, the weather has taken a turn for the...wetter and cooler! it's been raining today with (and get this)...THUNDER!!! whoa!! there's a first. but it's kinda chilly outside. for once when the french weather forecasts call for rain, it finally rained!! ok, i'm going to go. nite.

today i ended up getting out of bed at 12:30. it was nice to sleep in. i bummed around my place for a bit and then cleaned up to head into town to a study session with kirsten. we've got another big exam tomorrow, but i'm not really worried about that one, either. so now that we've finished going over our notes, i think i'm going to go upstairs and relax before our exam tomorrow morning. yet another long in-class dissertation. only this time it's 3 hours long instead of 4!

well, the party last night was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy. i get there and start off by having a glass of wine and just chillin', talkin' to people. then more and more people started to show up. then marion got there with a bottle of tequila. she showed me this thing called a 'tequila sunrise.' it was soooooooo cool! what you do is you put some salt on your hand, put a shot of teq. in a glass and an equal amount of schweppes. you lick the salt, place your hand firmly over the top of the glas, slam the glass 3x on the table to mix it all up (it makes nothing but foam) and then slam the drink. wow! a powerful drink and a good one at that, too. you're supposed to eat a lime afterwards, but we didn't have any. but i'd say that there were like...40-50 people at this party. then random people started to come up to the apt...people we didn't even know. the party kinda got out of hand. LOUD, man was it loud! anyway, i got to bed late and then up at 630 this morning to head back to isabelle's mom's place with her to finish weeding her garden. back in aix, i came home, played around on the internet in the computer lab, went back into town to burn some cd's off of caitlin's computer and then now just got back. the weather outside is nice. there's a FAST, cool wind blowing but it feels good after 95+ degree days. it's a litteral differenc between night and day. and if just by chance any of you follow the weather over here, you might as well quit now. it'll say it's a nice, sunny 75 degrees when it's anything but. sunny, yeah, but you can usually add...20 or 30 degrees to what it says online. french weather forecasts are UNPRECIDENTLY unreliable. it's amazing to know that people even tune into the weather forecasts to see what's going to go on!! sheez! now that it's after midnight, i think it might be prudent of me to go to bed.

today i got up and headed into town with ranya and her friend who is here from the states. we first of all started out by eating lunch at the dorm cafeteria (which was a first since fall) and then they wanted to go to a travel agency to find anything last minute. and they did - $400 for 7 nights 8 days all inclusive resort on an island in tunisia in northern africa, air included. i was sick that i couldn't go because of exams (i would have charged it if i would have had the time). but there was a problem - darcy, her friend, was leaving before the chartered trip got back. the charter plane only makes one round trip so she would have been stuck. anyway, they found the same thing but in spain. they're leaving tomorrow morning. i then went to my back to collect the money that i had in my account when i closed it. the woman informed me that i had to come before 4:15 because the cash drawrs were closed. i mean, it's a BANK!!!!! what bank in their right mind closes its cash flow before the bank closes itself?!?!?!?! i hate crédit lyonnais. boy was i pissed. and i told the teller, too. anyway, now i'm about to go to an end of the year party above the bureau. i just realized something - i'm leaving aix next saturday!!!!!!!!!!! where has it gone???? i used to hate aix when i was going through some SERIOUS culture shock but now, i don't want to leave!! it's going to be hard. people on the program are dropping like flies (leaving to go back to the states, that is). i can't believe its here. but i'm taking the train to miramas next saturday and will be at elyane and christian's until thursday. thursday i'm taking the TGV up to paris and staying with anne-caroline over night because i'm going to leave the majority of my stuff there. then the 25th i'm just taking a small bag to go out and see my host families (another TGV trip) and will be there until the 8th of july. the 8th i'm coming back to paris, staying yet again at anne-caroline's and flying out of paris on the 9th. so yeah...and the weather - one word: HOT!!! but now it's clouding up like it wants to rain, which would be a first in like...a month of sundays. it's actually kinda cool out - feels good. oh, and get this - guess where i went for dinner last night. yeup...frieda's!! can you believe it? she personally invited me to come over with another group of students and eat. so i went. she was nice last night. but the usual bitching about the program, Mme Féral (the french woman who is the on-site director), etc. too much for me because i just so happen to personally like jeanine (féral). oh well. the food was good and yeah. as for the company - eeeeeeeeeeeeeh, that left quite a bit to be desired. but i came home and read theonion.com for the first time in quite a long time. HILARIOUS! ok, i'm going to go back upstairs and put on some pants then head to the party. later, folks.

ONE MONTH FROM TODAY!!!!! yes folks, one month from today i'll be hearing 'ladies and gentlemen, welcome to indianapolis.' so, to mark this one month countdown date, justin and i went to cassis today to go to the beach. the train station is about 2 miles from the beach so we had quite a bit of walking to do in the sweltering heat. no, i didn't go there to celebrate the one month mark, but we went to celebrate the worst of our exams being over, the renaissance lit final that we took yesterday. anyway, the weather was hot, the water was excellent and we had a good time. back in aix, i showered and headed to the office library to study. i've got an oral exam in the morning. haven't really studied but i think i'll do fine. it's going to be kinda laid-back, i think. so we'll see. that's about it for today. nite!

yesterday i spent basically the entire day studying for my renaissance lit final that i had this morning. ummmm... then this morning came the big day. it was a 4 hour written dissertation in class from 9a-1p. i knew exactly what to study since the prof had given us pointers for studying. when i got to the test, i read teh question and spent the next 3 hours writing nonstop! man were my fingers sore at the end of it. i then came home and tried to take a nap (2 hours worth) before heading back into town. i went to credit lyonnais to close my bank account and then headed to the bureau to hang out with the people that live in the apt there. then justin and i went out for a drink and saw stevie walking past while sitting there. she joined us and then it was off to monoprix to buy something for dinner. stevie and i had quiche and potato wedges. yum. we studied some and then talked about people on the program. i was invited to frieda's for dinner tonight but declined because frankly, i wouldn't have been able to put up with her. sure, i would have gone to eat free food and drink free wine, but 'merde.' you say 'merde' when you've had enough of someone/something. it literally means 'shit' but it's in a stronger sense when you say it when you've had enough of something. anyway, justin and i are going to this GREAT beach tomorrow. i've never been there but from the pictures i've seen it's really pretty. so i guess that's where i'll leave it at for tonight. later, all.

i got up today and headed to the program office's library to study for my huge renaissance lit exam that's on tuesday. then it was off to the park this evening to play capture the flag, semester girls vs. year long students. well, after a while nobody was getting anywhere. oh, and there were 10 of them and only 6 of us. so we decided to change flags (all white) so it'd be easier to see in the dark. well, leah cheated and watched us hide our flag. 5 minutes later, they found ours and ran back over to the other side. but caitlin (on our side) had gotten their flag LEGITIMATELY and almost made it back across the boundry. anyway, after that we tried playing a game of hide and go seek in the dark in the park (the same park where we were at last night) but we were all tired and wanted to go home. we got home around midnight and now it's shower time. tomorrow i've got to be up early to go do some more studying.

again again, nothing going on here. i'm just studying like a mofo and just hoping that i'll do well on my exams. last night i went to bed at 430am and was out of bed at 745am. i was studying, not partying, mind you. i went to isabelle's mom's (with isabelle) to weed her rose garden. it got so hot that we had to quit. it was 104°F today!!!!!! i came back, showered, and took a 2 hour nap when i was hoping for a longer one. then stevie called and wanted to know if i wanted to meet up with the rest of the bunch to sit in the park after dark and hang out. so i went. and got drunk. they had brought wine and we drank and rolled down the hill. it was a lot of fun. and it's sooooooooo nice outside! well, after a day of 100 degree temps, it's understandable. after going back to stevie's place for more drinks and chilli concarne, i'm back to go to bed. kirstin and i have a renaissance lit study session tomorrow at noon to do. so let's just hope that i'll be able to make it. ...

well, nothing big going on here. it's hotter than hell and i'm about to go nuts worrying over my exams. i start on tuesday and i'm screwed for this one!! oh well. i'll study and pull through somehow. ummmm...yeah, that's about it. nothing big. can't think of anything. maybe something interesting will come up within the next few days. oh! i went out and bought michael moore's STUPID WHITE MEN. a HIGHLY recommended read - he talks about the stupidity of our governmental officials and how bush STOLE the elections of 2000. and be sure to go see his film 'farenheit 9/11!!!!!!' it's set for release on june 25. rest assured that as soon as i get home i'm going to see it (providing it doesn't come out here in europe sooner).