It's not me, it's you...

So, despite trying hard to find something with a substantial amount of hours for next year, it looks like if I'm going to stay, it would have to take ye olde student route. On verra. I can keep some of my old jobs...actually, 3 or 4 out of 5, which ain't bad and I'm sure I could find some replacements for the ones I can't keep, but the problem is when a lot of what you're doing is tutoring, you can only work during certain hours and so consequently, you can only take on so many jobs. Kinda annoying. There are a few jobs that I'm still waiting to hear about, but time is a tickin and I really should let the landlord know if I'm leaving...umm, two months ago? In reality, the only sort of job I've been avoiding is teaching English at a language school...otherwise I've applied for formations in English, sent out the CV to all the private schools, applied to be a receptionist/secretary/admin assistant, customer service rep, work at a hotel, etc, etc. Basically any job where you teach English or they consider it very important that you be bilingue. Yes, I know I'm not technically bilingue, but ca passe quoi.*

What else can a girl do? I mean, I'm still cherching in case anything comes along, but it seems I keep on just missing out on things. Maybe someone else would take this as a sign that it's not meant to be, but it just makes me want to keep looking even harder to find something. When I really want something, I tend to really stick to me guns. I know I don't want to live here forever, but I wouldn't mind 1, 2 or 3 more years. I don't feel like I'm done here. So much more to learn, see, do and I haven't had enough time. But, I can't seem to find something that would allow me this opportunity. So, I would like to officially take this time to blame my failure to find a job on France. Even I know this is ridiculosity times 5 bajillion, but it makes me feel better to just think, "hey, France, it's not me, it's you!"

*This reminds me of the fact that in the past couple weeks I've had varying reactions from strangers and friends saying I either speak French really well or that they were astonished I didn't speak better after all the time I've been here. One friend of Roomie#2's even interrupted me while I was speaking to say (in a slightly disgusted manner) "mais, t'as un accent, Lea!"** To which I quickly responded : "c'est normal, je suis americaine" and then continued on with my convo. My English friend got told she had a sale accent by a friend of a friend of hers and asked "if there wasn't anything she could do to soigne it?" Umm, is it a maladie? En plus, my friend has an excellent French accent and I would say speaks more fluidly and with more slang than me. My friend was like "I should've asked her to speak English and hear her sale accent." But, alas, my friend is a NICE PERSON and wouldn't try to belittle someone like that. France, I love ya, but sometimes you're a bit too critical, judgemental and loving of the corriger-ing of others. I have many more examples, but please don't get me started!

**I did not, in fact, misspell my name, I go by Lea in French and it just seemed weird to write Leah which is pronounced Lee-ah in case you've been wondering. PS-Don't call me Lay-ah in English unless you want a poing in your gueule. Kidding...sort of.

Paris Highlights

So, in case you were wondering, I headed to Paris this past weekend to visit and stay with Sam and to attend the K&K picnic. I got in Fri night and since the artist was working, I had invited myself, I mean, been invited to Kyliemac's very spacious chambre de bonne with Vivi. We chatted about how "cute" children are and who else in Buffy that K-mac could write her next paper on. Sam finally finished around 23h and I met up with her and she showed me her apt with the fabulous view of the tour Eiffel. We watched a bit of Jay Leno(yay!), I squeezed my a$$ into a French-sized sleeping bag(umm, is that like a fun-sized bag of candy?) and we hit the hay.

On Saturday, we rolled out of the appart around 11 and headed into the city to grab a fallafel and by grab I mean wait approximately 5 hours. Then, we headed quickly over to the Catacombs which neither of us had ever seen before. We got there right around when it opened for the afternoon and waited for another 5 hours(ok, that might be a sliiiight exaggeration) and I'm pretty sure a girl I went to high school with walked by. France is the size of my foot. Anyways, we finally made it down to the Catacombs which was really eerie in the beginning as no one was around and I kept thinking, "Where are the bones? Where are the bones? Are they just going to pop out around some corner?" Luckily, there was a warning engraved above the doorway that kinda gave us a clue they were coming up(see Sam's blog.) I gotta say I felt kinda bad for all the peepz that ended up in the Catacombs all piled ontop of each other and some even had their skulls stolen and probably mounted on someone's wall or something. As bad as I felt for them, though, I did not appreciate the bone water that kept dripping on my head. Eww.

We left the Catacombs about an hour later and headed to Aimee's cafe, L'Oisivethe, to meet up with Karina. Aimee is incredibly adorable and so is her cafe, what an awesome dream come true! There was another blogger, Andie, who was there with her kids. She's in the midst of doing her student teaching year for CAPES, so I really feel for her with all the Anti-Americanism and Pro-Frenchness that I'm sure she's going through. We liked the cafe so much apparently that we ended up staying way too late especially since we still had to pick up goodies for the picnic. Sorry, everyone! We didn't really have any good excuse except that Karina had to pick up a liter of maple syrup, haha, and we haaaad to get some wine, bien sur. We finally made it to the tippy top of the Ile de la Cite and stumbled upon all the familiar, yet new faces. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much plant life to hide behind, so I was forced to talk to people minus a certain Frog who was at the other end of the blanket(the intern competition is still going strong!) I did get to talk to The Late Bloomer, however, for a bit who was adorably clad in a cute red number showing her little baby bump and I was happy to meet because she also writes novels on her blog and in comments just like, umm, someone else we know...

We chowed down on St Moret with Ritz crackers, hummus and bread, Rice Pringles, Mint Slice, Tim Tams(!!!), wine and some other stuff(including cough syrup...or that was maybe just me.) That night, we headed out to the Marais to a few bars. Well, we intended to stay at just one, but kyliemac is very very allergic to smoke, so a few of us went inside another bar where it was smoke-free. I finally got to talk to Katia that night and (attempt to) do my imitation of an Australian accent. Yikes. We met a Welsh guy who had just bought an appart with his bf right near to where we were who claimed that all of the famous Welsh people were related to him. I totally believed him...ish. All in all a fun night with some fun people.

Sunday, I was only there until about 15h and plans to hit up Breakfast in America were quickly squashed when people...ahem...slept in a bit. So, a few of us headed to Starbucks to get bagels and coffee drinks for 9 euros. That hurt the purse strings a bit, but it was def worth it. Next time, I'll have to do B.I.A. for sure, but at least I got my Starbucks fix for now. So, voila, that was my "little" summary of my weekend in Paree. Be back soonish, hopefully with news on what the heck I'm doing with my life. Ya know, just minorly stressful stuff. A+

Little Snippet

I'm back from Paree after spending the weekend staying chez the artist and meeting up with a few lovely Bloggers at the K&K picnic. Since I am lazy, I mean, oh so very busy, I've decided to share a vid of the awesome view from Sam's appart and fill you in on the pique-nique later...ish.

Cookie Cuestions

This is a message to all you cordon bleus out there. Actually, I lied, it's two questions. I've decided to have a little Chocolate Chip Cookie Workshop with my little kindergarteners for their last class, but I don't have any good recipes I know with me in France and I'd rather use one that I or someone else has tried before rather than just finding one off the internet. So...

1)Do any of you have any good recipes you could recommend?

Also, one of the kids in the second class is allergic to produits laitiers, but her teacher is unsure just how allergic she is and if it's to everthing or moreso milk and yogurt. So, I want to have a good recipe onhand au cas ou that she won't be able to have one with beurre etc. So...

2)Do any of you have any good dairy product-free recipes you could recommend?

Merci in advance!

Photo of the Week

Umm, did she really think she was doing a good job of hiding?

Will YOU be there?

What: The KnK picnic extravaganza
Where: Paree
When: Sat, June 14th at 17h
Who: The lovely hosts, this fwabulous grenouille, the AFKASDB, maybe her, me and otherz.
Why: Why not?
How: Train, plane, bike, moto, bus, walk, run, horseback, camel, stilts, unicycle, pogo stick?

Since I'm not bringing my kitty, those of you not on facebook will be able to identify me as the one hiding behind some sort of plant life because meeting all these bloggers is scarrrrry! I'm definitely excited, though, and I hope to see you there!

Sundayness

YOU CAN ONLY TYPE ONE WORD!

Not as easy as you might think. Change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It's really hard to only use one word answers.

Umm, I'm not sure what happened to number 8, but thought I'd entertain you with this little quizzie I found, feel free to do it yourself!

1. Where is your cell phone? adjacent

2. Your significant other? somewhere

3. Your hair? biiiiig

4. Your mother? sweet

5. Your father? cool

6. Your favorite thing? love

7. Your dream last night? crazy

9. Your dream/goal? happiness

10. The room you're in? cosy

11. Your hobby? cards

12. Your fear? loneliness

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? settled

14. Where were you last night? here

15. What you're not? employed

16. Muffins? yummmm!

17. One of your wish list items? haircut

18. Where you grew up? CT

19. The last thing you did? eat

20. What are you wearing? clothes?

21. Your TV? Roomie#2's

22. Your pets? cuuuuute

23. Your computer? mort

24. Your life? alright

25. Your mood? tired

26. Missing someone? indeed

27. Your car? what?

28. Something you're not wearing? shoes

29. Favorite store? target

30. Your summer? hot

31. Like someone? always

32. Your favorite color? purple!!!

33. When is the last time you laughed? today

34. Last time you cried? unsure

35. Who will repost this???? Bloggers?