The Latest

Lets see.. Whats new..
I got a bike! Im pretty sure everyone I know here is sick of hearing about it.. but its so cool!  

 Now it takes me only 15-20 minutes to get to school. (instead of 40) I am quite out of shape.. but I hope to be able to take the hills a little faster with time.  The first few minutes after riding it I have to be careful going down stairs... my legs dont quite hold up like I think they will and my legs have almost collapsed a few times! It always makes me laugh.. and shake my head.

We have also learned that stocking up on groceries is not as fun when you have to carry it a quarter of a mile home with you.  We decided we would finally start our grocery budget and wanted to stock up on a few things before we did.. this trip we unwisely got 6 1.5 L of coke, 6 1 L milks, 1 1L orange soda, a 16 pack of yogurt (the best yogurt we have ever had!) ice cream, cereal, bread, eggs.. and some other stuff. We had only brought two grocery bags with us, and while in line we debated whether we should buy another one. We decided not to and we ended up carrying quite a bit of this home stacked in our arms. And it was HEAVY! Even though we were each carrying one handle of our grocery bag we had to keep stopping to put the bag down. We were pretty sure we would NEVER make it home. Now we are more thoughtful of the walk home when we buy our groceries!

 Babybel cheese comes with a thick red wax covering it.  After the cheese is gone you can mold the wax into whatever you want! I am not very good at it, but Kennan is pretty good at making little models with it! We are getting quite a collection. I only have picture of the first two, but I'll post more as he makes them.

 Heres a couple views of the first one he made.. a rose. :)

 Kennan is loving life.  He is in the process of writing a novel. Its quite an interesting story! He hopes to have the first draft done by the time we come home. He is on chapter 5 right now.  He is taking some French classes at the Institut Municipal in town. He is picking it up pretty well! He has gotten a couple new DS games since we've been here and he sure likes to play them! 

 
You can see our litte heater in the background of this picture.  Its a little electric one that does its best.. but our ceiling is about 14 feet high and there is no way to get the heat to go anywhere but up. On cold days its impossible to get our house warm, but luckily days that cold are rare. Normally we stay pretty warm.

At my school library they have a whole big section of movies that I can check out for free. I had had a song from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in my head for a week straight and thought I'd see if they happened to have a copy.  They did!! In a French college library. I had to laugh. Kennan had never seen it, but he enjoyed it.  I think its a great one. It always makes me laugh.

I had my first test in a translation class on Wednesday... I think I might have failed. I didnt realize that is was a real, relevant test so I had done homework for the next section instead of studying what we had already done. I decided not to worry about it, because I was sure there would be a few others to average out my score. After the test, I talked to a British girl who is in my class and found out that in fact, it was one of two tests that make up our final grade... Oops.

Other than that school is going well.. Im starting to get a little better at translating. There are still some awkward moments trying to talk to people, but I'm still hopeful that that will get better.

I think I misunderstood a conversation I had in church on Sunday with a great family who had mentioned it would be fun if we'd come to dinner this week. I got a message from them tonight on our answering machine asking if we were coming to dinner tonight.. I know we talked about it, but didnt think we had made any concrete plans. We had been out grocery shopping and running errands so we didnt get his message until 11pm.. Oh dear. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if we accidentally blew off a nice French dinner. Im just feeling ill about it.

Well, thats the latest from us! Hope everyone is doing well! Its been nice to talk to some of you on the phone!

Kiley and Kennan

Tears in the morning, but success overall

I am 'following' a class called Techniques d'Expression Français. Basically we work as groups to research an approved topic and then present it to the class. 

I had met with my group (2 French girls and me) a couple times this week to prepare our presentation that we were to give today. Each time we met I left feeling like they thought I was a little slow.. and that they weren't sure how much I'd really be able to contribute. I had typed up most of what I was going to say and they seemed to approve.

Today I got to campus at 11:30 to go over what I was going to say and try and print off the couple pages so I could have a guide if I got lost during my speech. 

By the time I was ready to print it was 12h10. I asked the librarians if there was a place on campus to print, because the computers in the library aren't hooked up to printers. I was in luck and just down the hall there is a copy room with one computer and 3 copy machines. I plugged in my USB drive and pushed print. The big copy machine made a noise but didn't print. I noticed on the side of the beast there was a place to insert a card. It didnt say what kind of card, so after a couple of failed attempts at printing I decided my lack of card must be the problem. I tried my student card. No go. In desperation I tried my bank card.. My heart stopped as the card taker made a horrible noise. I was sure I'd never see my shiney French bancard again! Luckily it was able to make its way out. I tried to coax the machine to do what I wished it to, but to no avail. A couple other students came in and hurried through the process. One was buying something on the back wall.. a card! When she was done I went to buy one. The machine only took change. Just like every other machine here.And like every other time I try to purchase something from one of these dreaded machines I only had paper money.  Luckily I found 20 centimes in my wallet! The minimum purchase was 2 euro. 

Luckily there is a cafeteria next to the library! I went in and asked the lady taking money if she could give me change. No, she said they couldn't possibly do that, and she doesn't know where on campus they would! Tears of frustration were threatening to pour out at this point. Things like printing 2 pages of notes should not be an impossible feat at a university campus!

In desperation I ran up to the study abroad advisors office. It consists of 2 nice ladies who are here to take care of all of us foreigners running around campus lost and confused. I asked them for change but they didnt have any either. But! They would let me use their printer! 

We pulled up the file and.. the computer didn't have the write program to open it. Apparently the computers in the library use some random word processor that isn't used anywhere else on earth. 

Its now 12h30. Classes here start between 5 and 10 minutes late so I wasn't too worried. I hoped that I would be able to pull up my file on one of my group members' computers.  Luckily I was able to and we got through our presentation. 

After class the teacher gave us some feedback. I was told by him and my 2 group memebers that I don't need to speak so fast! Fluent French speakers! Telling me that I speak to fast?! I took it as a compliment and slowed down my speech. It is easier to speak when you dont feel like it all has to come out at once. 

After class I found out that my next class was cancelled so I tagged along with my group memebers and their friends. (this is not something Im used to doing. Look at me attempting to be social and speak French!)

We eneded up at the library for the next hour. I understood at least 75% of what was said and even helped one of my new friends with some of her english homework.

Im half exhausted and only through one of 4 classes today but I just wanted to write about my silly struggles and my great successes of today while I am still caught up in the moment. 

Thus far in my experience, even when I am so upset im crying, I cant really feel bad for myself. I am here in France living my dream and not failing completely. :) 

Life Is Good.