November 13, 2005
Not much has been going on with me. I do find myself having trouble typing on both American and French keyboards. I went food shopping on Wednesday afternoon. I got a lot of food and I was very pleased that the total was under 50 Euro. I got food for dinners that would last me about two weeks. I bought myself a new cooking pot, because the guy next door still hasn’t given mine back. I’ve seen him for the past few days and he now tells me that he’s going to give it back, but I still don’t have it.
Thursday is my long day of classes. I tutored Mathilde after lunch. Mostly, I showed her Family Guy and American Dad episodes. During my last class, I had a student who loved learning English, but from rap songs. During his introduction, he told me that he likes the east coast, west coast and central coast. I had to explain what a coast was and how it’s not possible to have a central coast. He is probably the most animated student I’ve ever seen. He made class go by really fast. I went home, made dinner and worked on the stocking. It’s about two days from being done.
There were no classes on Friday, another vacation for something. I don’t know what, but then again, I probably wouldn’t understand it. I went for a run in the morning. I did some shopping in the afternoon. I bought minutes for my cell phone and some red ribbon to work on a side project that I have. I went babysitting on Friday afternoon/night. The family picked me up in the afternoon, after they did their shopping. The daughter was out playing at a friend’s house. Brigitte took me for a walk to show me around the opposite part of the mountain. We went down an abandoned road. She said that roads get abandoned quite often in her town because the soil easily gets washed away. I saw what she meant after a few steps. The road dropped about 18 inches. I asked why the town didn’t come in to fix the road. Any equipment that would be placed on the road would cause a landslide. We walked about 15 feet further and I was really surprised to see a five foot long piece of road, which was also the entire width of the road, was completely missing. In its place was a seven-foot deep hole. We walked along the hole until it was about 2 feet wide and only 2 feet deep. We jumped over the hole and kept walking. We passed a farm with a bunch of horses. Two horses came up to the fence on our way back to the house. I guess they were used to people feeding them. I got to pet one for a little bit and then the two started fighting. Valentine, the girl I baby-sit, has had a cold for the past couple of days. Luckily for me, she wasn’t that sick when she went to sleep.
On Saturday, I occupied Valentine while her parents assembled her new bed. I caught the bus that got me back to my place around 1 pm. I ate lunch, took a long shower, and got ready to go out. I went out to find Christmas gifts, but I came back empty handed. Unfortunately, I think the majority of people that I know will probably get wine. Anyway, I bought a small loaf of bread to make a French bread pizza for dinner because I forgot to defrost any of the meat that I bought at the store the other day. It’s not the only thing I eat, it’s just easy to make when I don’t really have anything else. I didn’t feel like soup or mac and cheese. I cleaned my room because it really needed it. I ended up going to church because I had nothing else to do. I didn’t really understand anything. The reverb on the priest’s microphone made it impossible to hear anything let alone understand it when you’re from another country. I got home, watched some cartoons on my computer, did some of the stocking and went to sleep.
On Sunday, I slept in and woke up. I usually take Sundays really easy because I can’t go out and go shopping or anything. The only thing I can do is go to the internet café and update the site. Unfortunately for me, I kind of screwed up with my phone minutes and I barely have enough to call home. I have two phone cards, but both cards have a combined 2 Euro, which isn’t much at all. I have to wait until Monday to go out and buy a phone card. Since I really can’t do much today, I think I’m going to make myself some soup and work on my stocking for a little bit. I want to go to the computer place around 3 or 4 just to be able to talk to people online from home if they woke up early. I also have to start looking for a job online for when I get back and I need to get a hotel room for the Thursday night in Paris before I go home. I know that I’m going to need to buy new clothes and new sneakers when I get home so I’m trying to save up money in order to do so. I mean the majority of my jeans are starting to form noticeable holes in the butt of the jeans. The pockets are starting to tear where there are sewn onto the jeans. I’m starting to thing that I should sacrifice one pair of jeans to patch up the rest. Clothing is ridiculously expensive in France. Actually, it’s almost the same as the US but they really don’t have sales here. Jeans were 65 Euro in a store that I went to the other day. I just don’t understand why it’s so much more expensive, all of the clothes in the US and France are made in the same place (China). So what makes it so much more expensive in France?
Well, I’m off to my vegetable soup and my stocking until later. Oh, it’s my dad’s birthday today. : ) HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!!
Five minutes later….
Well, it looks like I’m out of luck today. Someone blew the fuse in the kitchen and nothing works. There is no way to heat up anything. The stovetops and the oven have no electricity going to them. I guess I’ll be going out to eat for dinner tonight. I guess my steak dinner and soup will have to wait till tomorrow when the repairman will come in. Maybe they’ll turn on the heating sometime, too.