I am home. . .

and this is what it's like:

and this is what it's like:

A billboard proclaiming "Wanted: Cooks for Meth Lab"
(picture to come soon)

But luckily this is also what it's like:


PUPPIES!

and this:


ZEDSTER! Oh, how I miss my kitty!

And of course this again:


Are these not just the cutest little pupsters you've ever seen?


I also went to see Harry Potter with David yesterday, and it was FANTASTIC! Which was to be expected, of course. Although Daniel Radcliffe is getting kind of ugly. His thin upper lip annoys me, and he seems to have an extremely hunched back. But that's not important. He did a great job acting, and that is what's important. I laughed and cried and yes. . . fantasticness. I SO can't wait for the last one!

More pictures of cutey animals to come soon! After all, the three B's (Buddy, Bella, and Bugly) and the two T's (Tigger and Tattoo) are missing.

Guilhem et Celine se marient

So, this past weekend, Guillaume and I went to Le Mans (there's the s word that I was always forgetting) for the wedding of Guilhem and Celine, and we had SO much fun!

Although it didn't start out seeming like it was going to be fun. Le Mans is supposed to be a 3 1/2 hour drive MAXIMUM from Paris. Well, there was SO much traffic that it took us *2 HOURS* to go the first 20 kilometers. It was really stop and go the whole way there, and in the end it took us 6 hours. No fun at all.

When we got there,

we were exhausted and

we ended up having to change in and beside the car

because we were running so let. Luckily, we had left extra early.

We met up with


LeAnne, Mounir, Ben, Gamze,

Olivier, Audrey,


Bastien, Yann, Nicole, Brice, and Djenane (of whom I unfortunately did not get a picture).
The ceremony itself was beautiful, in the most gorgeous Catholic church. I just thought it was weird that it seemed to be far more about God than about Guilhem and Celine. Especially considering that they're not very religious people. But I guess that's actually a pretty normal occurence, even if it is one that does seem odd to me.


Guilhem and Celine, just married!


The reception afterwards was in this gorgeous place called the Domaine de Bel Air. It was really beautiful, and they had blankets laid out everywhere in the grass instead of tables, which was actually really cool. And there was a guy dressed up as a jester doing magic tricks and making balloon animals.


He made me a flower!


After a while we all moved into the building where dinner was being served. All of the tables were themed with themes based on television shows. It was really cool. The idea being that Celine and Guilhem were the stars of all these shows and that their marriage is the next "episode" of their lives. It was a really cool idea, and it worked really well. Unforunately, I didn't get any pictures at all after we moved inside.

Dinner was fun, as it was constantly interrupted by tons of activities. We played "Guess that song" with songs from some of Celine and Guilhem's favorite movie. Bastien had prepared a video of all of the previous "episodes of their lives." We sang a song that some people had written about them. It was very cute. There was a quiz about how well we know them. Anyhow, it was fun.

Afterwards, there was a DJ who was playing mostly awesome music (ridiculous, right, as I was in France, and French DJS usually don't even seem to know what awesome music is), and I even managed to convince Guillaume to dance (YAY!). :-) Brice and his girlfriend, Djenane, are AMAZING dancers, and I was ridiculously impressed.
And it's just a testament to how completely uncoordinated I am that, even with Brice's awesome leading skills, I still managed to almost kill him and trip over his feet every single time we danced.
Yeah, that's me for you.

We left at 4 in the AM, and the party was still going strong. I felt like such a wuss because even the grannies and the little kids were still partying away while I was falling asleep.

We stayed in the AWESOMEST place that sort of reminded me of what a French duke's country home would be like.


This is the building.



This is our ENORMOUS bedroom.


I wish that we had had more time to spend in it, but unfortunately we had to leave early the next morning for the brunch, where we learned that apparently they had danced until 7 in the morning and then things had started up again at 10. Who knew that the French knew how to party like that?

Afterwards, I am happy to say that the drive back took infinitely less time than the drive there. And this is long, so that is all.

I laugh in the face of progress

Tomorrow is Celine and Guilhem's wedding, and while I have a dres picked out (I will be sure to post pictures after the fact), I have NO SHOES TO WEAR! It wouldn't be appropriate to wear my Converse or sneakers with the dress, it's too hot for all my boots, and aside from that, I don't really have any other shoes here. So, today was going to be "find shoes to wear with dress day."

It is almost 4:00, and I still haven't left my apartment.

I don't think the finding shoes thing is going to happen. Especially considering I am leaving for home on Tuesday, and since Guillaume has the day off on Monday, and I will be out of town for the wedding tomorrow and Sunday, I have to pack today. I was also wanting to redye the blonde in my hair and paint my fingernails. Oh, and I have to go grocery shopping to make sure we have food to eat while there (where is there?, you may ask. I can never seem to remember. It starts with an M).

When did laziness take over my life?

I thought Mike Dirnt should make an appearance in this entry.

In other news, I have FINALLY started putting some serious work into my second novel, which is my summer project along with editing my first novel. Who knows, maybe it will actually happen. Here's to hoping!

Alright! I'm off to start some of my much needed to do list! Wish me luck!(Have you guys noticed how pointless my posts are starting to get now that I have stopped working?)

A Change of Color

So, I just had my interview for the job in Japan with Westgate. I was SO nervous about it last night that I think that I was mean to Guillaume. Oooops! Especially since he thought up some great questions to help me prepare. Quite a few of which I was actually asked today. Which means that, technically, I was well prepared.
I do hope it went well, but honestly, I have NO IDEA!!!!!!!! There were times when I thought she was totally liking my responses and then others when I thought she was totally NOT into what I was saying at all. Oh well. She said I should have a response by the end of July, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Although I gather that the end of July response will be to tell me that they want me to come in September, which I'm just not gonna do.

Okay, now on to other things.

TODAY is hair dying day! YAY!
Now, I am going to go exercise and then die my hair and then post the BEFORE and AFTER pictures of my hair. Hopefully the dying will go well, and it will be beautiful!

This is the BEFORE picture of my hair

Notice how it's all brown with a little blond. The blond is what I'm going for. Now, to dye the hair!!!!



These are the AFTER pictures


Okay, so it didn't quite go as well as I had hoped for. Sure, the blond is pink, but it's a sort of washed out pink. I mean, seriously, it looks like it's already fading. Maybe sometime later this week I will try again to redye just the blond parts. It's cool because in the sun my hair sort of gleams with a pink undertone.

Looking at these pictures is scary, though. I can't help but notice how much older than my years I look because of the ridiculous dark circles under my eyes.

So yesterday, I saw one of the WORST movies that I have ever in my life seen. It's called Sheitan (which is the Arab word for Satan, which is what it is called in English), and I absolutely do NOT recommend it to anyone. I give it a whopping 0 STARS! Seriously, it's even worse than Babel was. And all of the critics that I keep reading about it keeping talking about how hilarious and horrifying it was. I just don't get it. It was SO DUMB that I don't understand how anyone could have laughed even once in the entire movie. All of the characters were lame, and never once did I feel horrified or even remotely afraid. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE!!!! I'm not kidding.

Oh, and don't forget to check out . I haven't posted a lot yet, but for the time being, I am really enjoying it!

Morals in the Workplace and Brizmus Blogs Books

First of all, I know it's a day late, but HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Being in France, I unfortunately didn't actually celebrate. Perhaps there were festivities going on here, but I didn't hear anything about them.

Instead, I hung out with Bastien, my French friend that I met in Montreal (who actually introduced me to Guillaume). He's living in Shanghai now (after a brief stint in Australia), and it was SO good to get to catch up and talk comics, etc. . .

Then last night we went out with some of his friends, and a debate was had about morailty in the workplace. Mostly, the person was attacking me and Guillaume for being vegan and saying that work is for making money, not morals. So we should throw our morals (when it comes to veganism or disliking cigarette smoke, at least) out the door in order to move forward in the workplace. If, for example, I am working with someone who wants me to eat a steak, I should just eat a steak and get over it. Or if I am working with someone (higher up) who smokes, I should just get over it and deal with it and certainly NOT make an effort to get out of the line of smoke. Story of good PR and all. I was mortified. According to this friend, if one is not willing to make these workplace sacrifices, one will end up on the road. I still just can't get over it. I'm not on the road, I don't think I ever will be, and I certainly would NEVER sacrifice my moral values (which are very important to me) just to move forward at work. In the same way that I would not expect for a religious person to denounce their religion in order to move forward at work.

I'm still fairly upset about this conversation. I mean, in my mind, only bad guys think like that. And it's sad for me to know that someone that I know and is good friends with my boyfriend actually thinks that way. He's totally the bad guy in movies. And it's so weird, because he's a nice guy. Well, we're all entitled to our own opinions. I know I certainly have quite a few opinions that most of the people I know don't agree with. It was just. . .unexpected, I guess.

One last thing before I call it a day.
I find that I am ALWAYS wanting to write things about the books that I read. And I'm always having to stop myself from writing entry after entry just about books. So I finally decided to start another blog in which I will write everything I have to say about BOOKS! You can find me at:
BRIZMUS BLOGS BOOKS

More Bows, Blood, and Books

So the bow thing?
Yeah, apparently it's only me. All of the comments/e-mails I have gotten in regards are basically people telling me how cute they think they are.
And not only that, but apparently they're not out of style, either. Which I should have known.
In Louisiana, Kristen says all of the little kids are still wearing them.
And then I was watching the last episode of season 2 Gossip Girl the other day, and I realized that Blair Waldorf is a hardcore hair bow fan - even if they are mostly bow headbands. I'd like to have a word with the Gossip Girl costume designer.

Notice that it is not only in her hair that she likes bows

So yeah, it's just me.
I blame it on my traumatic childhood experiences with bows. Being FORCED AGAINST MY WILL to wear bows larger than the size of my head no matter how much I protested against it - yeah, I think that could make a bow hater out of anyone.

Enough about bows, though. Today is officially my second day of freedom since the end of my job. Last night Landry, one of my students, called me. It was very cute. He misses me already. :-)

I have been definitely taking advantage of having nothing to do. I declared yesterday and today "Official Catch Up On Comics" days, as I haven't really had that much comic book reading time lately due to all of the great real books I have to read (and due to the fact that with my measly pay here in France, I can no longer really afford them).

Unfortunately, though, I started this new book from my summer reading list "Samurai William: the Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan," and it is SO good, so it's been hard for me to actually put it down to read comics. It's definitely a must for anyone interested in the history of Japan. I have been learning SO much from it. In a good, fascinating way. Not in a boring, history text way. Although comics are also good. :-)

I also went to see Blood: The Last Vampire yesterday, and while *I* loved it, I'm not sure how much other people will love it. The special effects were amazing as was the plot, but the actually story line (aka dialogue, ways of passing from one scene to the next) could have used some work. It was definitely BETTER animated, but still. . .I think it was good.
I also FINALLY got around to making some ice dream yesterday - chocolate coconut with flecks of chocolate in it. Talk about YUM! It's so nice to finally have tons of time on my hands. :-)
And now, to do something productive with that time - back to reading Samurai William. Can that be considered productivity, I wonder?

The Horror of Bows

I know I just posted, like, 2 seconds ago, but then I came across this very old picture, and I just had to post again.


The second one from the left is my sister. That is a bow on her head (there is also one on Lizzie's head - Lizzie was one of her best friends at the time). Most likely, our mother MADE her wear that bow. You see, she for some reason LOVED these hideous bows. If I'm not mistaken, I HAD to wear them up until 6th or 7th grade. I assume that it was the same for Kristen.

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade (it may have been earlier, but I kind of don't think so), my mother made a deal with me. She said that she would allow me to dress myself IF AND ONLY IF (IFF for the mathematiciens out there) I would wear a bow. It is the biggest shame of my youth that I had to wear one of those hideous things basically every day.

It's not just me, is it? They really are horrible, right? I am SO glad that they are out of style, and I do hope that they NEVER come back into style!

Last Classes and Missing Baseball

Today was my last day of work in France (if you don't count the private lessons that I am going to continue giving). To celebrate the end of a good school year, I decided that the kids and I would play BASEBALL, as it's an american pasttime. That doesn't exist AT ALL in France.

We had a great time, and I discovered 2 things.

1)Baseball is complicated!

There are a ton of rules, which I unfortunately didn't realize until I was trying to explain the rules to French students, most of whom had never before even seen a bat, ball, or glove. No matter how many times I explained it, they for all some reason wanted everyone who was not on a base to be immediately out when the pitcher got the ball. And they had trouble understanding the concept of "out." They also didn't understand why there needed to be a pitcher and a batter. They thought that the "batter" should just throw the ball into the field. Suffice it to say, when we played, we didn't exactly follow ALL of the rules - they just couldn't understand them. Even their regular teachers had trouble. Oh, and we also played with a raquet, because the bat was just an impossibility for them. And I certainly didn't go into anything like stealing bases or being out by touching a runner with the ball.


2)I miss playing baseball!
Okay, so I never really played baseball. When I was little, I played on a softball team for a few years, and, despite the fact that I remember loving it, I was horrible at it. Then I didn't play again for a while until the softball games at Universite Ste-Anne, where I learned French. Again, I loved it, but I was afraid to get too into it because of how much I remember sucking before. At NYU I participated occasionally in the monthly "Punk Rock Baseball" games held in central park. So the last time I played was in 2004, which was a very long time ago.
Today, showing them how to bat and run the bases, I realized that I desparately want to play again. I played soccer practically MY ENTIRE LIFE (with 1 year of pause my second year of high school and then 4 years of pause at NYU. And then I haven't played since moving to France. But I played between NYU and France while I was at McGill), but oddly enough, I think that I always PREFERRED baseball (or softball - whatever), which I very rarely played. Hmmmm. . .