The French Identity

Well here I am. It's been exactly 2 months since the wheels of Continental flight 32 landed at the Charles deGaulle airport in Paris. I cannot begin to comprehend the idea that I've actually been here this long, but nonetheless here I am. I had kind of given up on blogging my experiences here, since I'm already keeping a travel journal and I AM 2 months behind here. But I was recently encouraged (or nagged) by a friend to continue writing. YOU'RE WELCOME, DAN. Anyways, I'm currently in the midst of a pretty deadly paper on the French identity. 1,500 words down, 500 to go in the next 15 hours. I'm pretty optimistic, which is more than I can say for the feelings of the French towards the burqa. But once that is done, I'm back. Hopefully I will have some wonderful tidbits of European life to share.

I'm Going to France!!

I can't believe I'll be spending next semester in Strasbourg. True, this is everything I have worked for all semester. But it's finally starting to hit me. I like to spend my time wearing tshirts and nike shorts. It probably won't get above 60 all semester, not to mention the fact that the French probably don't appreciate nike shorts like I do. My extreme addiction to Mexican food will definitely be challenged. But at the same time, I get to live a completely different life for a semester. For 3 months, I'll be starting all over again, in a new school, a new country, a new language, new friends... new everything! This is so so exciting. I can't wait. Countdown: 2 months, 2 days.

Breathing Room

I have finally reached the period in my summer where I can sit back and relax. Croatia was AMAZING! It was so beautiful there and the whole experience was tons of fun. The language barrier was way frustrating, considering none of us could speak Hrvatski (Croatian). But it made me feel better about going abroad next spring, because at least I can speak French. Orientation/work week at CBS was also a lot of fun. How many times in your life can you claim to help seal a dock, help push a dock into a lake, play on a ropes course, and dress up in crazy costumes just to go bowling, all in the span of two weeks? The people there are incredible, I can tell it's gonna be an awesome summer there. I've been home for 3 weeks now, with 2 to go until I get to go back to camp. I feel like in a lot of ways my heart is at camp, but it has been nice to be able to take a step back and unwind from the constant motion. Oh yeah, the 18 hours that nearly killed me? I rocked them. It felt so good! I'm never doing that again, but I am super proud of myself for being able to follow through. I've been interning for Midland's congressman, which has been interesting. It's not always a ton of work, but it is nice to get some experience in how political offices work from the inside. Mainly, I didn't want to sit around and do nothing for 5 weeks. Well, that's all for now - I didn't sleep very well last night because I knew my mom was having knee surgery this morning and I was nervous, but now that it's done and everything is fine, I would LOVE to catch up on that sleep!

Spring has Sprung...

I am definitely glad that spring is here. I thoroughly enjoy the warm weather (believe it or not, it does get slightly cold in San Antonio from time to time). I also love daylight savings time, because I love being outside and the longer it is sunny, the better. However, the one thing I do not like about this time of year is the work that the teachers decide to pile on. The past few weeks have been a blur of papers, tests, and endless reading. I might not have made it if it weren't for spring break a couple weeks ago. I slept so much, and when I wasn't sleeping I was cooking. I accomplished no homework and it felt wonderful. I even went to Austin for a day with my mom. But now that I've had a taste of freedom, holding on in school for another month and a half is going to be very difficult. The light at the end of the tunnel is so extremely bright that I just want to run for it! As soon as I take my last final, I'm packing up my car and unloading it at my grandmother's house in Austin. Two days later, my mom, grandmother, cousin, and our friend Cindi are leaving Austin for Croatia. It's probably going to be the most random trip I've ever been on, but I can't wait. We're getting back from Croatia on a Sunday morning and that very next Monday is when I have to be at Camp Balcones Springs for work week. So my mom and Cindi will be dropping me off on their way back to Midland and I will be reunited (even if I'm extremely jet-lagged, which I probably will be) with some of my favorite people! Ahhh...it feels so far away.

Nonsense

It is a rare occasion that I legitimately love Mondays. But this semester they really aren't that bad. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I only have class from 9:30-10:20 and 1:30-2:20. So I spend my morning break hanging out. I came across this ridiculous questionnaire on Facebook but it looked interesting so I decided to try it out. The results were pretty hilarious, since urbandictionary.com does tend to go for the more explicit definitions...

Go to urbandictionary.com and type in your answers to the following questions. Post the first definition it gives you.

1. Your name? Emily.
slang term for a highly attractive and sexually intriguing individual.

2. Your age? 19.
To "be 19", or to have "gone 19" essentially means that something has gone wrong, is just plain weird, or is inexplicable. Derived from Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series. Its true meaning, if anything more than a motif, has yet to be revealed.

3. One of your friends? Kelli.

a down ass homegirl with an extremly loud and very unique laugh.
often found rollin in a very clean (hot) ride.
4. What should you be doing? Cleaning.
(v) the act of shoving everything in a closet and calling it decent.

5. Favorite color? Turquoise

A blend of blue and green, In holistic medicine, the color turquoise purportedly has a calming effect on patients, and is particularly used to treat patients prone to panic attacks or mania. To a lesser degree, mainstream psychiatric hospitals also use turquoise and other light shades of blue and green to calm patients by painting the walls in these colors. Turquoise is perceived by most people as the coldest of all colors

6. Birthplace? Pasadena, California.
a city in the san gabriel valley where you can find all types of people. from thugz to rich spoiled white kids. the city with the most individual "varrios" in the san gabriel valley. also where there is alot of tagbangin cliques and you get hit up everywhere. home of the rose bowl and the famous old town pasadena. each new year the rose parade takes place.

7. Month of your birth? July.
A month when mostly the hottest girls are born.

8. Last person you talked to? Becca.
To be hit in the face with an artificial penis.

9. Last thing you ate? Nutrigrain bar.
so there was no definition for nutrigrain. However, nutrigraining:
The act of shoving 8 nutrigrain bars (prefera bly strawberry) into your mouth with full force and keeping time of how long you can keep them in. <---------------sounds unpleasant. =( 10. Last music you listened to? Maroon 5.
A band of the rock/indie/adult alternative/funk genre. Fronted by Adam Levine. Some of their best hits include 'This Love' and 'Sunday Morning'. Previously known as Kara's Flowers.

11. One of your nicknames? Schatz
A member of a small group of highly intelligent and good looking individuals.

Haha. Well that entertained me for awhile. Back to reading Plato? Sounds good.

Oh PS... apparently I'm going to Croatia for a couple weeks this summer! I'm pretty excited. I had no clue what was even in Croatia, so I googled it... it is SO PRETTY! I'm so excited.

18

In high school, I thought 18 was a magical number. Since I have a summer birthday and am very young for my grade, turning 18 meant that I was a month away from college. 18 meant that I was an "adult." Both of these things were a little scary, but intriguing and exciting at the same time. December 18th is my best friend's birthday. Although 18 turned out to be a year extremely different from anything I could imagine, it turned out to be just as exciting (both good and bad) as I had thought it might be. So with such good feelings about the number 18, I had no problems with deciding to take 18 hours this semester. One week in, I can say this much: maybe I made a huge mistake. Maybe I thought I could handle 18 hours and I will fail miserably. But maybe I can do it. Maybe I'll have to stay up late a lot, maybe I'll become even more dependent on caffeine to get me through the days (and nights), but maybe I'll come out of it successfully. Either way, I can already see myself changing. In high school, I did barely what I needed to get by. Extra credit was not my type of thing, and neither was studying for tests. Clearly I did not slack off too much, since I did get into a good school. But I was completely unprepared. So I did what I had always done - barely enough. This semester things have changed. I'm actually caught up on the reading... even a little ahead! And although I get so overwhelmed when I look at all my course work at once, when I take it step by step... it almost seems... achievable. My classes:

Symbolic Logic I ~ So the LSAT has 2 logic sections on it. Since Trinity does not have a pre-law major (only a pre-law focus in the political science department), you take classes from all over the board. Such is the life of a liberal arts college. But anyway, taking a logic class is supposed to improve LSAT scores and hey, who could say no to that? I was a little scared at first. I mean, this is really mostly a class for computer science and math majors. But I'm actually kind of good at it - it's a lot of puzzle work, sort of.

Classical Political Thought ~ Basically, I'm tired of reading about Socrates questioning everything. However, it will be interesting to see how his views play out into the future... aka now.

African Experience ~ Super interesting course about african history and what modern africa is up to. I don't know very much about Africa, so I'm excited to learn.

The Individual in World Politics ~ Never in my life have I felt like I was where I belonged AND like I was way out of my league at the same time. But this class should be really interesting. I'm reading a book for it about world health, and I'm researching President Sarkozy (the president of France)

American Literature: New Realism-Moderns ~ This class goes by so fast. Hemingway is pretty depressing (so far we have covered a really sad break up and some deaths) but I don't get bored. It's so interesting.

French Civilization ~ I would love to be fluent in French (I'm getting there...) and hopefully this class will help. Although the professor sometimes goes on mini-rants, it does offer comic relief at the end of my longest days (4 classes on tuesdays and thursdays!!)

So we'll see how they go. And how I go. Hopefully I can do this. No... I WILL do this!!!

Disneyland Lied.

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
-Nelson Mandela
After these past few days, I can safely say that Disneyland is wrong to claim it is the happiest place on earth. In my opinion, it is Camp Balcones Springs. I went down there on Tuesday for a counselor reunion, and the moment I stepped out of the car, all the second thoughts I was having about working there a second summer vanished. This is where I belong. It was so great to be reunited with close friends and just spend time together and relax. Tuesday we ate dinner, worshipped, and stayed up til about 2 in the morning talking. Wednesday we had a devotional, played 3-Ball (a game played on a baseball field involving a kickball, frisbee, and softball), and had lunch out by the lake. After lunch, a few of us drove out to the ropes course because we had missed it. That night we took a hay ride out to Lake Travis and watched the most amazing sunset. The sky literally looked like it was on fire. After dinner we worshipped and hung out more. We played knockout a lot (a game played on a pool table involving the 8 ball and the cue ball) and it got extremely intense. People legitimately got injured. Thursday we woke up, had a devotional, ate brunch, and then it was time to say goodbye. This wasn't very hard to do because I knew I would see these people soon. I'm just so excited to be going back this summer. I'm only going to be there for the last 2 terms, or 5 weeks. I wish I could be there the whole summer, but I really need to get started on building up my resume and getting an internship. UGH growing up. Why can't the real world wait?