Sunday, May 29, 2005

One thing that has become a huge part of being in France right now is the vote for the European Constitution, and I've completely neglected to mention it. Really, its something that is very highly debated here. I started out thinking we needed a "non" vote, and now I'm for the "oui" side. I can probably talk about this subject for hours, I've listened to a billion people fight over it. I think its good that its controversial, and not a clear cut "oui", if you think about it, this is a CONSTITUTION. Not just a law. Its a very big deal, and its important that people know what they are doing when they are voting for it. Like I said, at first I believed that they should vote "non". I have many reasons for thinking this way, and the main one is that the constitution is 500 pages long, and extremely complex. Its virtually unreadable, and I've heard that one of the points of making this constitution was to bring the people more into the process of creating the union. If the people can't even understand the document, this clearly isn't working. Its important that it be simpler and less complicated, people need to know what they are saying oui to before they say oui.

In my class we had a little vote last week, the first run we had eight "oui" votes, eight "non" votes and one "ouon". Next try we had nine "oui" votes. I voted "non".

Now my mind has changed. I still think that the document is too complex, but I've realized how important it is that France accepts this constitution and doesn't close its self off to the rest of Europe. Saying no would be a major setback to the European Union and to France.

Today, after swimming, boating, and a barbecue with some of my friends, I went with my host parents to vote. We went into the place and there was a table with stacks of paper. One "oui" stack, one "non" stack and a bunch of brown envelopes. You take one of each and go into the little stalls and put the one you chose in the envelope. Then you go to the front, sign your name, and drop in in the box. Since my host sister is in Paris, my host dad had a paper that said he could vote for her. I probably broke a few laws, but I did Emilie's for her, I put the "oui" paper in the envelope. So, now I can say I "voted" for the European Constitution.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Its been a fairly busy week, on Wednesday night an American came and ate dinner with us, which was a strange experience for me, because my host family spoke entirely in English for an evening. It made me realize how different I am in English because I'm so much more proficient in it, I had a lot more control in the conversation, it was like my host brother and I switched places. I wasn't the one responding when spoken to, but adding my own ideas. Its nice to do that every now and then, it makes me remember I'm not a vegetable.

Thursday night I had an "American Night" with the other American at my school, we presented our Rotary presentation to about 35 students and teachers from our school. We also had food for them to eat- jello, chocolate chip cookies, oreos, jelly beans, tootsie rolls, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, popcorn, etc. They loved the food. I think I did my presentation a lot better the time I did it for the Rotary. It was stressful to do it in front of my friends, and it was very hot, and I was so tired. And after that I went to gospel... long long day.

Friday night I went with my friends to the 24 heures de Natation, a benefit put on by my school. I believe the money goes to a hospital for the diabetic and disabled (or something) it goes to a good cause, thats one thing I'm sure of. Anyway, the whole deal is that the pool is open all night long, from 1 pm Friday to 1 pm Saturday. I ended up going from 8:30-10:30pm on Friday night, and then again this morning with my english class from 8:30-10am. Some people stayed the whole night, and they said it was extremely annoying because the pool decks were uncomfortable to sleep on, and the teachers kept waking them up because SOMEONE has to be swimming at all times. There was food, and a DJ that played music till 11pm. Then he started again the next morning. It was really a fun experience. One irritating thing was that in a HUGE pool(length= 50 m), with probably six big lanes, only two were open, because we didn't pay for more than two. And if you slipped into lane three, you got yelled at. My school is fairly large, and it was EXTREMELY hot out, so there was a bazillion people there. We were pretty much swimming on top of each other. This morning was more tranquil.

Today I went back to the pool in the morning, then I had Course d'Orientation from 10-12, running in the woods in such hot weather wasn't great fun. I figured I did pretty well today too, but our group ended up getting a 12/20... disappointing. I ate with my host family in town, and then my friend (and Hugo's) William came over. He played his guitar with Hugo on the drums and then played the drums. I was impressed, he was quite good. Then we swam (again! it is hot) and now, tonight I'm going to one of Hugo's friend's houses for dinner. He was going by himself... but his parents are eating at someones house, so I wouldn't have anyone or any food to eat, so I'll be tagging along on boy's night.

(Tomorrow: Mother's Day and the Oui/Non vote on the European Constitution... i have a lot to say about that, and I'll write about it.)

Monday, May 23, 2005

rehearsal


rehearsal
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Gospel workshop in the Chapel at St. Michel on Saturday afternoon.

smiling


smiling
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Sophie and I

me and sophie


me and sophie
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Sophie and I at gospel.

st michel view


st michel view
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The beautiful view from the top floor of St. Mich

gospel women


gospel women
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Women from gospel, eating food at St. Michel

Bride


Bride
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The bride at the wedding I sang at on Saturday

Sunday, May 22, 2005

I'm completely exhausted, this weekend has been too busy for me. On Friday I went out to dinner with Eric and his friends. Eric has two friends from Canada visiting Annecy for about a week, I ate lunch with them on Thursday and laughed like crazy, they are funny kids. And its extremely bizarre to hear Eric talking in English, he sounds different, and his sense of humor seems different in his native language. So on Friday night I went out and ate mexican food with Eric, the two Vancouver boys, the two mexican girls, maite, and eight of his French friends from school. We had a great night, eating lots of Chicken Fajitas and talking in a mix of French, English, and Spanish.

On Saturday, I got out of school to go sing at a wedding with my gospel choir. I personally didn't think we did a fantastic job, but we didn't ruin the wedding. It was just fun to be there, singing and hanging out with my friend Sophie. We ate a picnic lunch near la Visitation, a church in Annecy, and then spent the afternoon at St. Michel. We spent the afternoon doing a "workshop" where we worked more intensively on some songs, watched a gospel DVD, ate lots of food, etc. I thought I knew my school pretty well, but apparently I was wrong. We sang in the chapel, which I never even knew existed. It's located on the top floor of the old yellow school building, where the sixièmes have class. And its really, really nice, I was impressed.

Last night I came home and Colombe, Hugo, and I decided to go swimming. The day had been really hot, but the night wasn't really, and the water was 18°C, which is not warm. The others kinda dipped their toes in and whined about how cold it is, I ran and jumped in. Eventually they followed suit. After that we ate pizza and decided to play monopoly, and then realized that Colombe had the monopoly game at her house. We ended up playing Trivial Persuit, despite me protesting that I could never handle it. It turned out that none of us could handle it, and we probably got about five answers out of fifty questions right, so we ended up giving up.

My mom thought she broke our digital camera a while back by dropping it in some water, and my parents went and bought a new one, then realized the old one still works. (The story gets complicated here) My gospel teacher's daughter goes to school in Montana, and ended up staying at my house in Seattle earlier this week because she had a stopover. My parents gave the old camera to me, and now I have it. I took the camera with me this weekend and took lots of pictures of gospel and eating with Eric's friends, came home, and realized that the card reader doesn't work with this computer, for some reason. Also, the battery charger doesn't work, even with my adaptors. So it looks like all my wonderful weekend pictures will just have to wait on that card for a while... which is quite dissapointing.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Me, Bronwyn, Maite


Me, Bronwyn, Maite
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

On Tuesday night, Me, another American, Bronwyn, and Maite, gave presentations to our Rotary club of our hometowns. My presentation took my lots of time and work, and I was really nervous I'd completely forget how to speak French, but everything went really well.

Seattle Table


Seattle Table
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Here is my "Seattle Table" I had various Seattle related things laying out, and after my presentation people came and ate the smoked salmon my parents had sent. They loved it, the table was crowded with people.

Space Needle


Space Needle
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Me giving my presentation of Seattle. It went over really well, I was expecting them to be quiet and listen to me talk, but it was actually more interactive. They all asked questions through it, were extremely impressed by how big the city was, thought Mt. Ranier was beautiful, and booed and made lots of noise when I talked about Boeing.

Bronwyn's Presentation


Bronwyn's Presentation
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Bronwyn trading her Lander, Wyoming flag for an Annecy flag. Every Rotary club has a little flag, and all the clubs are obsessed with getting as many little flags from around the worlds as possible. My club in Annecy has a bazillion.

Maite's Presentation


Maite's Presentation
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Maite showing everyone where Bariloche is on a map of Argentina before her presentation.

banners


banners
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Trading banners with my Rotary club after the presentation

Monday, May 16, 2005

This is what is now positioned right above my bedroom:
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

... and he can only play one rythm.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Today was another exam day, I had just English in the afternoon. Last night I went and saw Tannia and Molly's Rotary Presentations, complete with cookies, guacamole, chips, lots of Mexican decorations, the singing of the US national anthem, and tequila. They both did a brilliant job, and I'm so proud of them! Mine is next Tuesday... it should be quite interesting, as I've been procrastinating a tiny bit and have barely begun. Thats what the weekend is for.

I assured my host family that I could find the bus stop and make it to Annecy in time for my test this afternoon, and got to sleep in and sit around all morning. I assummed that if I can take the bus to downtown Seattle, I can make my way from Pringy to Annecy. I was wrong. I ended up walking 10 minutes down the wrong road, and completely missed my bus. I called my friends and Hugo was astonished- how could I have possibly messed up something so easy? I felt like a little bit of a loser. Then I managed to misread the bus schedual too. I told my friends that there was no way I could make it to Annecy, because the next bus left when the test was supposed to begin. I went back to the house, got something to eat, looked at the schedual, realized I was wrong, and ran to the bus stop. My connecting bus was a little late but I managed to make it to St. Michel only twenty minutes after the test started. Not a problem though, I finished the test an hour before everyone else anyway.

Every day when we get home from school I sit down in front of the computer and Hugo sits down in front of the TV and plays video games on the X box before he goes to work. Now, he's started to teach me how to play Pro Evolution Soccer 4. Its extremely complicated, for me at least. You need to use almost all the little buttons and knobs on the controllers. After about 45 minutes today, I started getting the hang of it, and actually doing things right, which was extremely exciting for both of us... I may eventually turn into a worth opponnent for him.

Today is my host mother's birthday, a fact I learned yesterday. I'm currently debating on whether I should give her the gift my mom sent for Mother's Day today or not. Tonight my host sister, Emilie, who is at school to become an architect in Paris, will be coming home. I've never met her, so thats a little exciting. Colombe's also coming over for the night, so we'll have a pretty full house.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

All has been going well with my new family, I have nothing much to report on.

This week we're having les epreuves communes, tests, again. I didn't have to go to school today (the french kids took a French test for four hours). Tomorrow I have a two hour math test and then a physique/sciences de la vie et de la terre test for another hour and a half. Math'll be fine for me, I'm much more advanced than them. But science... everything on the test is something that we did at the very beginning of the year, when I payed no attention and did nothing. I'm putting forth an effort, but there is no possible way I can learn all about alimentation and procreation in one night. I only have to go to school in the afternoon on Friday to take a English test for three hours. Then Saturday I only have an hour in the morning! Its pretty nice.

Wednesday afternoon I went into town to eat with other exchange students. After listening to my ipod, Eric came to the conclusion that he had waited long enough and he had to have one of his own, at that very moment. So the two of us went to FNAC. He looked at all the other models and I convinced him the ipod was the best choice and he decided to buy it. We went to a cash machine to get money. It ate his card and then broke. We were both extremely dissappointed.

Hugo and Philippe


Hugo and Philippe
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Hugo and his dad, Philippe, fighting after dinner

Hugo and Colombe


Hugo and Colombe
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Hugo and Colombe sitting around the house last night.

Monday, May 09, 2005

New View


New View
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Voila! Pictures of my new house. I couldn't install the program I normally use to post pictures on this computer. If the pictures are too small, click them and they'll get bigger. This is the view from my house towards Lac d'Annecy.

Pringy, France


Pringy, France
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

This is the pretty countryside view of my new neighborhood, which is actually really suburban, it just happens to have a couple fields.

bathroom


bathroom
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Me in my bathroom at the house of my new host family.

bed


bed
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

This is the biggest bedroom I've ever had in my life, its twice as big as my host brother's. This is the part of the room with the bed in it.

bedroom


bedroom
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Half of my new bedroom

Kitchen


Kitchen
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The kitchen in my new house

diningroom


diningroom
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The dining room

The View


The View
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The view from my new house.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

And there it is. Now I've finally changed houses for the third time, something I wasn't really sure was ever going to happen. I feel like the changing houses thing is so anticlimactic. It should be a lot bigger deal than just packing, driving to the place, kissing each other on the cheeks, and moving in. Anyway, I'm really happy that this all worked out, it might be taking place a little later than all the other exchanges, but it should be worth it. I'll put up pictures once I take some!

Thursday, May 05, 2005


I'm most likely moving houses this weekend, and since we had no school today, this is my day to pack. This is my room before... Posted by Hello

And after. Posted by Hello

The lighting was so cool last night. It looked like the light was coming out of the lake.  Posted by Hello

Monday, May 02, 2005

All the secondes came back from the US this past weekend, and today, around 75% of them were wearing Abercrombie T-shirts. I managed to get my hands on some reeses peanut butter cups and an oreo. The Euro class had been in towns in Washington and Oregon for the past three weeks, and were in Seattle at the very end of the trip. My dad sent me an email saying he heard kids talking in French at the exact time that they would have been in town, and I'm certain it was them.

I only had classes until 11am today, so it was a pretty nice way to ease out of the vacation and into school.

Mom, Mother's Day here is May 29th. You'll have to wait. ;)