Forgotten Posts

Hello!

So, I spent three hours in the library today. I love the library so I really don't mind much, but I did use the time productively. I published a few posts from months (or years... hello there, post from 2009) ago that I had forgotten about. Thank goodness that blogger saves them automatically, but still, I had forgotten about them, these small moments of time where something was going on and I just had to blog about it, but when it came down to it, nothing was actually said.

All of these posts ended up where they would have been had I actually published them on time, but you won't know where they are so.... here's a list!

1. Five days before I left for France, I wrote this post. I was going to write something else, probably talk about my week, but as I looked at it today, I realized that I really didn't need to say more. Read it here.
2. On May 1st of 2010, I had a lot to talk about, mostly reflections on April, where I didn't post much. I started to think about what life would be like when I got home, but I never finished writing. I finished the post today, but didn't finish up where I had left off because I have long since forgotten what I had to say. Read it here.
3. In December, there was a lot going on in my life, and I had one particular conversation that stuck out to me. For some reason, I preserved it in a poem in a blog post that was never published. It's vaguely poetic, and talks about forgiveness. Read it here.

Well, that's it that I remember immediately! (Ha. Ha. sorry, unintended pun.)

OH WAIT. I forgot about the MAlly Chat blog! I wrote a few posts on there while I was in France, if you never saw those.
1. Jan. 2010: A letter-in-blog-form I wrote to Molly at the beginning of 2010. Read here.
2. Jan. 2010: A post I wrote about my fail with buses and frolicking. Read here.
3. Jan. 2010: I ranted about how things seemed to be swallowed by the room I stayed in for the first four/five months I was in France. Read here.
4. April 2010: Talking about growing up & change. Read here.
5. May 2010: Part of my birthday present to Molly, a blog post. Read here.
6. May 2010: A ridiculous post about the smelliness of cheese, for no apparent reason. ... Yeah. Read here... xD

While I was at the library I realized that I never mind spending hours at the library. I have always loved the library, probably because the children's section in the library I went to as a child was ridiculously epic (it had a GIANT TREE on the inside. I mean, come on, guys. A tree. Though I don't remember if it was just a painting, a fabric tree, or a real TREE.). I remember having storytime in this little trailer, sitting in a circle and listening to stories.

It may just be because I love books. There was this used bookstore in that same tiny town in Florida that my mom would take my brother and I. It smelled wonderful in there. (I love the smell of used/old books.) I'd sit between the aisles and pick through the paperbacks, finding Goosebumps books or whatever it is that I was reading. I don't really know, but I just remember that store on the corner in the older part of town, where I could get lost in books.

I went back to that store a while ago; it has moved, but it still smells the same.

...

I completely lost where I was going with that.

Anyway, read those old posts and marvel at the productiveness of the library.

(I also added the tag NaBloPoMo, so it should be easier to find all the NaBloPoMo posts from August/September and this month! Yay.)

-Aly

French Sickie

Hello, everybody!

I've been here in Fréjus for ONE MONTH! I've been in France for a bit longer, but still. I've made it through one month, and I'm beginning to think that the time here will be passing too quickly. This scares me-- I feel like there's so much more to learn, to see, and to experience. I've got to learn, though my vocabulary, pronounciation, and general knowledge is improving as I spend more time surrounded by French culture and words. This isn't a long-overdue update, but I'm working on those! (After I finish the Week One post, I probably won't be worrying about going back and filling in all the mundane details of my life.)

At any rate, right now I'm sick (I have a cold), so I haven't done anything interesting this weekend. I didn't have the time/energy/willpower to run at all this past week at the beautiful Ville Aurelienne. One of my friends has said that he might run with me some Saturday though, so that's awesome because I don't have a running buddy here. This next Saturday marks the beginning of Winter Holidays here, which last for a couple weeks (I think). I don't have any plans, but hopefully I can find something other than reading and/or watching movies to entertain myself.

(I've been reading Harry Potter books; my friend Charlotte H. gave me the second, fifth, and sixth Harry Potter books in French, for which I will love her forever because HARRYPOTTEREEP! I read the first chapter of the second book yesterday.... and then watched the first two movies.)

Being sick in a foreign country is particularly unpleasant, as all the things you do when you're sick may not work so well or be quite the same, since you're elsewhere. The medicine isn't the same, and I've been sucking on Ricola/Coldeeze that Dad left me (again) because I've been hacking all over the place. I may head over to the Pharmacie down the street (if Nathalie and Olivier don't think I'll collapse or suddenly catch pneumonia along the way...) and hunt for some meds that Mom looked up that are the French equivalents of familiar things (like Motrin, except not really).

(I've been taking this stuff called Doliprane, which is similar to Tylenol-- you dissolve it in water and drink it; not yummy. It's supposed to get rid of my fever, not that I know my exact temperature because 1) Celsius???? and 2) I refuse to use their thermometer... but I generally know when I have a fever.)

My friends here are quite awesome; they use MSN, rather than AIM, so I spend a lot of time on there now, even though I haven't used that email address in years. My expressions don't translate well into French, but they seem to understand some of them ("happydance, anyone? no? Okay, errr... danse de bonheur? oui? YAY!!!!!").

I love to go downtown-- I always walk the same way, because I don't know which way is faster and the path I take is the one that Laure showed me when I went to see Avatar in French with her and her friend Anais. I ran at Base Nature a couple weeks ago, and decided that it'll work in when I'm in desperate need of running, but it's like the beginning of the Wendy's course (flat, field; when it's not marsh-like, it's probably dusty). But Fréjus is qute a nice place, if a bit sleepy. I'm looking forward to summer, because there seems to be NOTHING to do here in the winter!

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm doing well; I'm speaking in French to my friends at school more, and actually participating in some classes (such as some of my 9-hours-of-French-classes, where I'll read out loud a bit of a poem or story excerpt). I'll be attempting to make Toll House Cookies at some point (I have to save some for my English teacher, actually, haha), and things are more-or-less settling down at Chez Chasson now (11 year old boy = never true calm), and MY FRENCH IS IMPROVING (or so I've been told by quite a few people, though I believe that Corentin may say otherwise based on the amount of correcting he does... xD).

Hope all you North Carolinians are enjoying your SNOW (!!!), and that everybody is well & happy :)
-Aly