Parisian Roller Coaster Ride

I'm going to start this blog off by saying I'd like to know why I hear a rooster crowing every morning when I wake up. It reminds me of Juarez, Mexico. Champigny-Sur-Marne is definitely NOT Juarez, Mexico. Where in the world does one even keep a rooster in the suburbs of Paris? Most of the apartments here are about half the size of my living room in my apartment at Muhlenberg and barely have enough room for two people to be in much less a rooster!

Hmmmm let's see now where have I left off? Oh yes, the next thing I think I need to tell you all about is my sleepover at my friend Angelica's house. She's Mexican-Argentinian but grew up mostly in California, and she goes to my church here, Calvary Chapel Paris. She's super awesome and I have looked up to her so much since I've been here for advice and friendship. She knew I had been feeling kind of down so she offered to let me stay at her house for a night or more if I wanted for a change of scenery. I met her outside her apartment on her way home from work and we both went to the supermarket together and then came home and ate dinner together (tortellinis- one of my favs!) I spent the night talking with her and filling her in on what was going on and we prayed together numerous times. She's so awesome. The next morning she had to get her "Titre de Sejour" (her french residency card) renewed so I went to the visa place with her. The woman we talked with was so sweet and nice- nothing like all the horror stories I've heard about French Administration who don't give you the right information and take forever and five days to do something that would take 15 minutes in the United States. Although I'm quite confident this lady is in this case the exception and not the rule here in France. Anyway, it was good that I was able to ask her some questions too. I found out that if you get a master's degree in France (as a foreigner) you're allowed to stay in the country without problem for 6 months after graduation to look for employment. Hmmmmmm. That's a good option (for the future), especially when Universities here cost on average between 300 and 700 euros PER YEAR. Yup, you heard me... PER YEAR. I think I paid that much just for 2 classes at Muhlenberg each semester. Had I known I might have just gone straight to France after high school instead of Muhlenberg. However, then I wouldn't have met 90% of you who are reading this blog sooooooo..... I guess I'm glad it didn't happen that way. On the other hand, the second I got that diploma in my hand from Muhlenberg, I swore to myself that I would never go back to school. I hated studying, hated writing papers, hated doing homework and all I wanted was to have a 9-5 job everyday where I could leave work at the end of the day and be done with it all and be able to actually enjoy my evenings. Reality Check. Life doesn't work that way, Gina. Thanks for the reminder, reality. Not.

Anyway, so after the visa place, Angelica and I got some Chinese food (which is absolutely nothing at all like what they have in the States) and then we went back to her house and she graciously let me use her cell phone to make an important phone call. You see, the day before at our Bible Study, there was a man named Guillaume who came. He's the president of some kind of packaging company and when he heard that I needed a job, he told Gilles on his way out that he had a secretarial position open and it would be mine if I wanted it. The job would basically be answering telephones and basic secretarial work but there was room for promotion should I want it and prove myself worthy. He'd be willing to do everything necessary for me to get my working papers; he just wanted me to call him the next day to figure out all the details. Whoa. Seriously? That easy? After I'd been fighting so long? This sounded too good to be true!

Yeah, it was. I called Guillaume at Angelica's house (I was super super nervous about making a mistake or something while talking to him but again, Angelica was there to calm me down and pray with me and ease my fears). He asked me what was necessary and I told him and he asked me how long the process was going to take and I said about 2 months. He unfortunately needed someone to start right away and couldn't wait 2 months. WOMP WOMP. Fail again.

And so welcome to what my life has been for the past 3 months.... one big Parisian Roller Coaster Ride. Really high highs that quickly descend to really low lows. Every time it seems like a door is opening and that something is going to work out, the door gets slammed in my face just before I can get through. It's day after day of euphoria and then despair (okay, so those are extremes but you understand...). I'm just trying to discern where I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to be doing. I want to go down the right path and doing the right things. There's just so much uncertainty EVERYWHERE. Regardless of what country I'm in, things seem to be at a standstill. I honestly have no clue or idea where to go from here.

NO ONE is willing to give an American working papers. Well, maybe I phrased that wrong. Some people are willing, but it's not allowed by the French government. As I've mentioned before, it's not just France I'm competing with but the whole European Union. Any citizen of the EU can work in any country in the EU without needing a visa or special papers. They're actually not allowed (as in it's a governmental law) to give a job to a foreigner (aka anyone outside the EU) if a European is qualified and able to do the job. There is virtually NOTHING an American can do that a European can't do. Even teaching English- there's the English (duh), the Irish, and the Scottish who can do that. They don't need Americans to teach English. I've had so many interviews and job offers and actually, with the exception of Disney, everyone I applied for and interviewed for told me that they were all set and ready to hire me.... until they found out I didn't have working papers. Finding a job is no problem at all- getting the working papers is. I need the job to have the papers (which means a contract and a letter to the French government explaining/justifying why they absolutely necessarily without any exception HAVE to hire you, a foreigner without papers, and why no European on the entire continent is competent enough to do the job; and this whole process takes two months at the very least and who the heck hires someone if they can't start working for two months or more???), but I can't get that contract without the papers. *insert some sort of angry disgruntled frustrated noise that I'm not really sure how to spell out here*. It's a vicious, closed circle. Every single American I've met here in the past three months is either married to a European (and therefore gains working papers as a spouse) or is a student. Those are an American's only options.

So here's the plan. This is my general announcement and you'll all be the first to hear it, right here at www.MyFlakyPastryWorldOfAdventures.com. I signed up to take French classes at a language school for foreigners here. They gave me a paper to take to the Consulate in New York so I can get my student visa. It's about 10 hours of class and 10 hours of homework a week. What was that I just said about swearing never to go to school again? I guess that's why James says not to swear, because you never know what's going to happen in your future. Sigh. I mean, I guess it can't hurt. Besides, even though I can speak French fairly well, my writing is atrocious. As soon as I sit down to write something, all I can do is think in english and translate word for word into french. Big no no. So, at least I'll get better at that. I know two other girls who are doing the same thing though (my friends Ally and Sonia from church... Ally is an American from Spokane, Washington and Sonia is from China so things are a little different for her). With this visa, I will be able to work up to 20 hours a week. I know a bunch of foreigners who make this work, working only 20 hours a week while going to school and can pay for rent, food, utilities, and have a bit left over at the end of each month. So I won't be alone in this. So yes my friends, here's the news. I will be returning to the United States on Saturday, September 4th. My visa appointment is September 9th, and then providing that all goes well, I will return to France to pick up where I left off.

And I actually already got hired at a job too. It's a school called Les Petits Bilingues (the little bilinguals). I'll be teaching english to children ages 3-12 everyday. The classes are each an hour long, and I'm pretty much given carte blanche to do whatever I want as long as it keeps with the school's "theme". Each year, the school picks a different English speaking country to concentrate on. This upcoming school year is going to be a study of South Africa. Then, each month has a different theme too- directions, colors, parts of the body, etc... so as long as I make a lesson where the children will be learning those things in English, and somehow relate some part of it to South Africa I can structure the class in whatever way I want. And they pay twice as much as all the other jobs I've sought out here. I'm actually really excited about this. I kinda miss teaching dance lessons to kids like I've done since my freshman year in high school. You can bet that I'm going to using a lot of dance and movement in my classes =) ! I'll be happy to be around kids again, dancing around, playing games, using our imaginations, learning and discovering new things together.

This school is actually on the corner of the same block my church is on. As in I've passed it every single Sunday and some Wednesdays for the past two months. When I first started going to Calvary Chapel Paris, the thought never even crossed my mind to consider it as being a job option. Then a lady named Jocelin (who has the most ADORABLE little african baby you have ever seen in your entire life... I think I wrote in another entry about the time she let me hold him and how it made me so happy for the rest of the day) suggested I try seeing if they needed more teachers. I figured that they wouldn't because they weren't advertising or anything that they needed teachers, but as I was becoming more and more desperate I knew I had to try. Turns out they were closed because they were on vacation until August 16th anyway, so it wouldn't have done me any good to try and go earlier. This is another concept that is nice, but weird for us as Americans to think about here in France. Entire businesses and companies shut down for about a month in the summer for vacation. As in the entire company goes on vacation at the same time. This is often without any warning either, so you may go to any organization or what not with questions or what not, and find out that the place is closed for the next month because they're on vacation. I mean, of course employees in the US all have vacation time, but I've never heard of an entire company shutting down for an entire month to go on vacation. The closest I've ever gotten was when I was little and the family owned pizza parlor down the street closed for a week to go on vacation. Yes, basically the entire country shuts down and goes on vacation somewhere between July and August and not a single productive thing will get done throughout the country during this time. But, at least they get to enjoy time with their family away from work and travel somewhere.

So the day after Les Petits Bilingues re-opened, I went into Paris, printed out a resume and cover letter, and headed over to inquire if they were hiring. I must have went at a bad time though because no one was there and the door was locked, again, with no explanation which is typic of France. So I went back the next day. Actually, first I went to an Internet Cafe in Luxembourg, Paris to print out things for getting my visa and what not, then caved into my Americanness (ps- I like how the spellcheck on my computer recognizes "Americanness" as a word) and decided to go to PizzaHut because I really really really wanted pizza and haven't had it in 3 months (except when JC and I made it together at home, but that's not like pizza parlor pizza, and certainly not pizza hut pizza). My general rule for life is that I'm only allowed to eat PizzaHut three times a year because it's so greasy and bad for you. Every once in a while (cough cough ahem) I cheat on this (especially when you walk into target and it's RIGHT THERE and smelling so ooey gooey melt in your mouth cheesingly delicious every time), but it happens. So far this was only my second time this year so I'm still good. I walked over to PizzaHut which was conveniently down the street (and just a little further down the street conveniently is a christian bookstore). They don't have personal pan pizzas like they do in the states... Your options are either a medium, large, or extra large pizza and you get to choose either a pan crust, classic, or cheesy filled crust. Now here's the really cool thing. For every pizza you buy, you get a free pizza of equal or lesser value. So I ordered just a regular cheese medium pizza and got two of them! Less than 11 euros for two medium pizza?!?! Sweet deal!

However, there was no way I was going to be able to eat two medium PizzaHut pizzas by myself. Now, truth be told, I have eaten the Dominos 5-5-5 deal (3 medium pizzas for 5 dollars each) all by myself, on more than one occasion. If I were in the States, I'd probably try so I'd have the bragging rights to say that yes indeed as little as I am, I can devour two medium PizzaHut pizzas and risk the impending heart attack that would follow it. But here in France, that's just so frowned upon. They're super health conscious here (with the exception of the insane amounts of pork they consume) and just buying PizzaHut and carrying around the 2 boxes in a PizzaHut bag on the streets of Paris made me feel a bit ashamed. I didn't want to bring the pizza home either because I was afraid of my family judging me for buying it. It was a BEAUTIFUL day (it had been raining for the previous 4 days or so), sunny and in the high 70s, so I went over to the Luxembourg Garden (in my opinion, the most beautiful in Paris), sat down on a bench, put the pizza boxes next to me, and decided to see what I could accomplish. I realize that by doing this, I was basically screaming out, "YES, I'M AMERICAN AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF OBESITY, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES, OR GREASE STAINS ON OUR CLOTHES. HEAR ME ROAR, FRANCE, HEAR ME ROAR" for all the people who could see me to hear. Oh well. Once in a while it can't hurt to accept my identity as not French like I try to be, but American. Rock out the stereotype to it's finest.

I finished four slices of pizza and then a young man approached me. He asked me where some museum that I've never heard of was and I said I didn't know. He said, "oh, you're not from around here?" and I replied no and oh boy here we go. He sat down on the bench next to me, introduced himself as "Maxim" and kept asking me questions about where I came from, what I was doing in France, my thoughts on several different things, etc... all while complimenting how beautiful I looked and how well I spoke French. Hah. Hah. In my head I was rolling my eyes. I lied to him about my name and the state I came from, and said that I was just visiting Paris for vacation. He asked if I had any friends in Paris and I said yes, from the church I'd been attending. He was like, "oh? You believe in God?" and I said yes and he asked if I was Catholic and I said no and then proceeded to explain to him (kinda) what I believed. I asked if he believed in God/went to church and he said that he did when he was younger but has gotten bored with it now. But he thinks the church buildings are really pretty and at least he still goes to make communion on Christmas and Easter. Long story short, I basically shared my testimony with him and why I believed in what I believed and why I believe that everything that's happened to me has come from the Lord. Every time he tried to change the subject, I brought up Jesus again and that's all I wanted to talk about; although I have to admit, part of my reasoning for doing this was, "Well, he's either going to be really into what I'm saying and maybe come to know Christ or he's going to be really turned off at the fact that I'm a Jesus Freak and leave me alone, but that way it's a win-win situation for me and either way he's going to hear the gospel." Interestingly, when he first approached me, I had been reading the passage in Philippians 1 in the Bible on my Ipod where Paul talks about how some people preach Christ with earnest hearts, but others preach Christ with selfish motivations, but either way Paul said he was content because regardless Christ was being preached. But the cool thing was that I shared my testimony with him and had this entire conversation with him IN FRENCH, without speaking a single word of english! I was super super super super super proud of myself, but I mean, not in like, a pompous way but grateful that the Lord gave me the right words to say. At the end of it all though, he asked me if I wanted to walk around the park with him and I was like, "Oh look at the time! I'm actually meeting someone in a half hour and I have to get going." He then asked for my number and I politely told him that I didn't have one. And so he wished me the best of luck and said he hoped we'd meet again in the future. Surrrrre dude, surrrrrrre. Oh, and at some point in the conversation, he did make the remark, "Wow, you sure like pizza, huh?" whilst eyeing the boxes suspiciously; I was like, "ha, haha, ummmmmm..... yeah..........."

So at that point I got back on the métro and went back to Les Petits Bilingues to see if anyone was there. I got right outside the door, and then realized I still had the PizzaHut bag with two PizzaHut boxes in my hand. Great way to make a first impression Gina. They'll be able to tell right away what country you're from and what your values are as a not-health-conscious-dont-care-how-clogged-my-arteries-get American. I quickly looked around for something to do with the pizza, but I mean, I was alone on the street. So I just put it on the ground right outside the building and left it there. When I walked in, there was a young man arranging toys in a classroom who asked if he could help me. I explained my situation to him and handed him my resume and cover letter. He asked me to follow him outside where he walked over to his truck and took out his planner and asked if I would be available for an interview that Friday. When we were inside we had spoken in French, but outside he switched to English and WOW was he English English. His accent was so thick I had to ask him to repeat what time he wanted me to be there three times (it sounded like he was saying "CaRRRRthee" instead of "A quarter to three"). Mucho embarrassing. Perfect way to make a great impression, but at least he was going to give me an interview. I thanked him and turned to leave, then realized the pizza was still outside the door. I couldn't just go and pick it up because he would see me. So I walked down to the corner and turned around and looked. The guy was still at his truck. I turned the corner and walked halfway down the block, then went back to the corner and looked again to see if he had gone inside yet and he STILL was outside, blocking my opportunity and standing between me and my ooeyness gooeyness melt in your mouth and then solidify in your arteries cheesy deliciousness. He looked up and I quickly jumped out of sight and prayed he didn't see me standing there staring at him. I'm SUCH a creeper. So I turned around and made a complete loop around the block, and when I got back to Les Petits Bilingues he had FINALLY gone inside. I picked up my PizzaHut bag, got on the métro and went back on my merry way back home. I ended up going to church later that night for the Wednesday night service, and brought the extra pizza with me. Although now as I've been typing so much about it, I kind of wish I hadn't given it all away because I'm craving PizzaHut again. gahhhhhhhh.

The next day I went with Silvia and Yadira to visit Yadira's French grandparents, Maurice and Claudine Colin. I was super super nervous because these are about as French as people can get here in this country, and I wanted to make a nice impression. The whole train ride over I was worrying about what possible mistakes I could make with the French language and how they could possibly judge me. They ended up being such nice people! Especially the grandfather, Maurice. We sat next to each other at the table and he spent hours and hours telling me about what life was like living during WWII, and then about when he and his wife spent time living in Argentina and Brazil and all sorts of stories about his life and even showed me old black and white pictures of his life. It was too too cool. I love hearing stories from older people about what life was like in the past. And I never really knew either of my grandfathers, so I loved having the opportunity to hear an older man's point of view and stories about life too. At one point in our conversation, Claudine asked me where I lived. I asked, "Right now?" and she was like, "Well yes, what else would I be talking about?" and we explained to her that I didn't really live in Paris, but that I was American and I was just staying with Yadira's family trying to establish a life for myself here. Then she said, "Oh, you're American? Oh I didn't realize, I thought you were French!" and then she and Maurice began to tell me stories of the various relatives that they have who moved to places like New York, Virginia, and Kentucky and their various escapades in the United States visiting said family members. But wow, what a compliment, if some of the most Frenchiest of French people thought I was French, I must be doing something right. Although granted, I didn't do very much talking, so they didn't have too much of an opportunity to hear my probably terrible accent. Claudine also showed me pictures of her great grandson, Mathis, and of an Apple Festival (La Fête de Pomme) which used to be held in Normandy (in northern France, where Maurice and Claudine are originally from) every year. Unfortunately they don't have it anymore because it was too expensive, but the pictures were AMAZING! I tried to find some pictures on Google to upload here, but sadly could only find one =( The pictures Claudine showed me were of sculptures SO much bigger and intricate than this one, just try and picture it!


Then Maurice asked me if I had ever been to Père Lachaise. I said no and he gasped and said, "Ah! Well then we must take you!" and we all set out. Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery here in Paris and apparently one of the most visited cemeteries in the World. It holds the bodies of celebrities like Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Molière, Oscar Wilde, Paul Eluard, Chopin, Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller (for all the Berg dance majors out there), Marcel Proust, and a man named Victor Noir. Victor was a french journalist who was killed in a duel with Napoleon's nephew. The grave is green, except for the tip of his shoes, his lips, and well, take a wild guess what other part which are bronze. It's a local legend that if you rub said bronze parts and kiss his lips, you'll have good luck with romance and fertility. There's also monuments to various soldiers who were killed in all the wars during the 20th century. Anyway, the cemetery is HUGE. Silvia and Claudine ended up staying at a cafe nearby because Claudine wasn't feeling very well, but Maurice took charge and played the role of tourist guide for us and brought us all around and showed us where all the different famous people were buried. It was SO cool.



















When we got home, I quickly grabbed a sweatshirt and went to meet my friend Tsing (pronounced kind of like Ching) and Florence at McDonalds. They're both going through a book called "Captivating" about understanding the heart of a woman as we were created to be and invited me to grab dinner with them and discuss the book. Tsing asked if I could come to her office during the day so I could read her copy of the book but since we were at Maurice and Claudine's all day I didn't have time. Funny story about how I met Tsing- one day when Paul was here and I was going to meet him on a corner, Gilles was accompanying me because he was on his way to work and just by chance, we came across Tsing, who is friends with Gilles. Gilles introduced us and explained to Tsing what I was doing here. Tsing said that she would like to help me and said that she would get in contact with Gilles so we could meet up sometime. That sometime happened to be the day after I slept over Angelica's house. I left Angelica's house and got on the métro to go back home (I was supposed to meet Tsing at her office which is a couple blocks away from where we live). When I got out of the métro, it was downpouring. I mean raining raining raining. I had my computer with me in my bag so that meant I couldn't walk home. But, I was 5 centimes short to be able to get bus fare. GAH. I searched all over desperately to see if anyone had dropped money on the ground but to no avail. So I ended up just having to wait almost an hour for the rain to stop so I could walk to Tsing's. And of course, I don't have a cell phone or any way of contacting anyone to tell her I was going to be late. I ended up getting to her office an hour and a half late and she was just about to give up on me and go home, but thankfully she didn't. I felt so so so so bad, but she wasn't angry or anything. We walked to her house together (which, turns out, is right next to the train station I was waiting at for an hour waiting for the rain to stop) and she made dinner and dessert for us (Chinese chicken, chinese seasoned rice, a sweet vegetable soup, and apple pie for dessert) and she and I literally spent 4 hours doing all sorts of research of different job options I could have (especially with missions organizations or dance-related Christian things), making phone calls to various friends she knew to see if they knew of anything to help me out (one of those friends was Florence, the other girl we met up with at McDonalds), and also just talking and getting to know each other. Turns out, we have a lot in common. Tsing is such an awesome girl and I felt so blessed that she was willing to do everything she did for me, especially after only meeting me on the street. Anyway, fast forward a week or so. So Tsing, Florence, and I all meet at McDonalds (and I was on time this time!), get food, and spend the night talking about this book which is FABULOUS. I'd recommend it to any and every woman I know, and even to men so that they could better understand the women work, think, and process things. Then they spent a good 20 minutes praying for me (right in the middle of McDonalds!), for my life, for my future, and everything that I'm going through, and I thanked God for bringing these wonderful girls into my life and for all the other blessings He's given me here. And it's true, even though it's been terribly terribly challenging, I have been so so so so blessed with so much here and I can see how God has provided me with so many good things in the midst of it all. I left feeling like I was on such a high, so joyful and grateful for life as it is.

Friday I woke up in an extremely bad mood for no reason at all. All morning long I was little miss Peggy Pessimist. Like I said, it's one big Parisian Roller Coaster Ride. I'm up, I'm down. When I left for my interview with Les Petits Bilingues, Gilles walked me to the train station (since he was going out to the library and headed in the same direction as I was) and tried to give me encouragement but I was in such a foul mood; I didn't want to hear it. Poor Gilles). I arrived at Les Petits Bilingues 15 minutes early and there was a receptionist there this time. I told her I had an interview and she asked me who it was with. I then realized that when I had spoke with the man the other day, I never asked him what his name was and he never told me. So I just told her I didn't know and tried to describe what the man looked like. She said a name that I couldn't understand, and I said I didn't know and she said the interview was probably with him and brought me upstairs. Sure enough it was the right man, although I still didn't know his name because I couldn't understand the woman when she said it. He was interviewing someone else so I waited outside. When they were done, he came out to get me. He shook my hand and asked, "How are you?" I don't know what I was thinking, well, truth be told there was no thinking it just came out, but I responded with, "Hi I'm Gina." He was like, "Um, yes, I know," and invited me into his office. Crud. Not off to a good start, and not helping my pessimistic mood. He asked me if I wanted tea or coffee. I politely declined, and then he asked if he could get me some water so I accepted, but as he walked out of the room he added, "Because you know, you arrived very early and I was hoping to take a break between interviews." Crud again. Now I was certain I was not going to get this job, but that made me feel less nervous because I just detached myself from any and all hope of succeeding and was like, "You know what, who cares if I say all the wrong things anyway since I'm not going to get this job." The man came back with my water and sat down and began asking me questions. Actually, he only asked me three questions. For the first question, he didn't agree with the answer I gave and I realized I had been wrong too. Crud x3. The other two questions, I gave answers and he said, "Yes, that answer suits me just fine" in his thick British accent that I almost couldn't understand, then would elaborate on my answer and both times his summary of my answer as he took it was something completely different from what I had intended to say. This almost made me laugh though, it was as if the interview couldn't get any worse. But after those three questions, he asked me if I had any questions , to which I responded with 3 of my own which weren't about very important things but I know you're supposed to ask questions anyway so I just said whatever I could think of. At the end of it all he said to me, "Well, after you gave me your resume and cover letter, I sent copies of it to both our founder and CEO, and they both gave me the go if I found it fit to hire you. I would very much like to give you a position in one of our schools if you would like to accept it." Wait. What? After all that pessimism and determination NOT to make it, you want to hire me?!?! I graciously accepted the position and he began to tell me about training and such. I can't sign the contract until after I have my student visa, so after I get my visa, I need to scan it and email him the copy and then I will be able to sign my contract. I used this opportunity to ask if he had a business card with his email address on it, to which his handed me one and I FINALLY learned that his name is Xavier Dumont. Training begins the last week of September and my classes start October 1st. After it all, he mentioned that he admired my motivation and dedication to be able to stay in France so much (I ended up telling him about my whole escapade of trying to find work since I've been here, and he said he was blown away at my determination and being willing to go back to the US for just 2 weeks just to I can get my visa to come back and work.), and also that I had shown up at the exact perfect time to hand him my resume and cover letter because any earlier, they wouldn't have been seeking anyone new and any later, all the interview slots would have filled up. Praise the Lord!!!!! Woooooo hooooooo!!!!

I was so excited, I tried to go to the library to see if I could find Gilles and tell him the good news. The library is 3 floors and each floor is gigantic, so I easily spent an hour eyeing each and every person at each and every table and cubicle to see it if was him. Like I said, I'm such a creeper. But unfortunately, I found out I had just missed him. I did stumble upon another Christian bookstore though. I went in to see if they had a copy of the book Captivating for me to buy, but they didn't. They only had the study guide/journal that goes along with it. So I went back to the first christian bookstore I found here (the one by PizzaHut) and they had one copy left (although they had two copies of the French translation). Then I finally went home and shared the good news with everyone. Yay!

Saturday morning I had another interview with a man that I unfortuately still can't pronounce his name because it's so chinese, but the english equivalent is Vincent. He goes to one of the other chinese churches in the area and my friend Pascale worked for him before she moved to California. We met to see if there was anything he could do for me to help me with my visa/work situation. Once again, I was so blessed with someone else who didn't even know me but was willing to do what they could to help me out. When I met him, turns out he had already drafted up a contract for me to sign to work at his company! Although, I then explained to him that the process wasn't quite so easy and began to tell him about the complicated and long process of getting a foreigner working papers. The plan that we came up with was that he is going to go to the "Pole D'Emploi" and post an ad for an open position with his company. He is going to create this ad based on my resume which I gave him. As in, "I'm looking for a native English speaker (preferably American) with the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and French who has spent considerable time in France, can speak French fluently, has knowledge of French culture, and has experience giving dance lessons etc..." Hah. How many Europeans do you think are going to respond to that ad? But even if no one else responds to it and all that's left is me, the process is still very very very long and personally I don't think we're going to succeed on the first try of just trying to get me working papers, but we'll see. It's worth a try. Saturday was also the day we celebrated our friend Fanny's birthday. Fanny has Celiac's disease so she can't eat anything with gluten in it. My good friend Michelle has the same problem, so I have quite a few gluten-free recipes stored up in my recipe box. I had made her a gluten free chocolate cake (with homemade vanilla icing) on Monday at our bible study, and then for her birthday I made her gluten free peanut butter cookies. The peanut butter cost me 5 euros and 36 centimes, but I don't like peanut butter so I figured it was justifiable to spend that much money on it just once. Both the cake and the cookies were a huge hit. I love it when people love my cuisine.

Sunday I got to church and the pastor's wife, Becky, asked me if I could teach children's church so she could translate the sermon into english. I jumped at the chance. I was supposed to teach (in French) the story of the ten lepers and how even though they were all obedient, only one of them was grateful and he was the one who was really healed, so the importance of being not only obedient, but grateful as well. We had play doh, songs, stories, coloring activity, and a snack to run the Sunday School for a 2 year old, a 3 1/2 year old, a 6 year old, and an 8 year old. Now you know, with kids that age (especially the 2 and 3 year old (the pastor's kids) who had just gotten back from a 12 hour car ride late that night before and were quite cranky) nothing ever goes like you plan it to. But we had fun and they learned the importance of being thankful. Mission accomplished. After church, a group of us went to our friend Sonia's house (the chinese girl who's going to the same language school I'll be going to) where she had prepared duck, duck wings, pork ribs, some kind of fish that she didn't know what it was but just picked it up and decided she'd prepare it some way or another and hope it turned out tasting good, dumplings, and various chinese side dishes for us. Wow! It was a great meal (although I didn't eat any of the pork or fish things) but duck is my favorite so I was very very happy. And I very successfully used chopsticks as well. Sonia is such a sweetheart. She lives outside of Paris but more northwest (whereas I'm outside of paris but southeast) and we had to take this really ghetto looking train to get there and we kind of got a little lost but it worked in the end.

But remember- this is a roller coaster ride and roller coasters obey the laws of gravity. What goes up must come down. My friend Ally informed me that any student wishing to study in France has to get pre-approved with an organization called CampusFrance before they can get their visa at the consulate. What?!?!?! Nobody told me about this! Welcome to France. No one ever gives you the full story the first time. And as I mentioned earlier, when they change laws and such, they don't tell anyone so then no one knows. GAHHHHHHHHHH. At this point, I only had 16 days before my visa appointment. What if that's not enough time? Then I went on their website to start filling out an application and they want all my transcripts from college AND high school and physical proof (in the form of a letter or something) of each and every job/internship/position I've ever had. WHAT????? How the heck am I supposed to get all that here in France? And even if I was in the United States, getting those things all takes TIME. Which I don't have. Why why why oh why can't anything just be easy in this country, just once? Just once, I'm pleading, please!!!!!!

Monday, in a panic, I tried calling the US CampusFrance office (which is in Washington DC), but all I got was an answering machine telling me to look at the website. There wasn't an option to talk to a real person- I tried calling back and pressing 0 and # and hoping that I'd eventually be put on hold and answered by someone but to no avail. So Tuesday, I went to the CampusFrance office here in Paris to see what to do. I got to the building which, of course, wasn't marked at all. There's no receptionist or anything like that, but I did see a sign on the wall saying that CampusFrance offices could be found on the first through sixth floors. Wonderful. I go into the elevator and press the "1" button (because the ground floor here is 0). Nothing happens. I press the door close button and the doors closed, then pressed the "1" button again and again nothing happened. I then proceeded to press 2, 3, 4, and 5 but again, nothing happened. Now, I don't like elevators as it is. I'm not scared of them, I just generally prefer taking the stairs if possible. This probably has something to do with the one time Jessica Baron and I got stuck on the top floor in an elevator at NJCU and it started shaking and the door wouldn't open, or Junior Year when I was in the elevator in the TP at Muhlenberg and there was a power outage and I got stuck between floors by myself in pitch blackness. But I'm not scarred for life or anything. I'm okay with elevators, I just prefer not taking them if not absolutely necessary.

Anyway, I pressed the door open button and the doors opened. I looked for a stairway but all there were were unmarked doors with handles and locks on them. So back to the elevator (which is about a quarter of the size of a typical American elevator- made for about 2 or 3 people only to fit in) I headed. This time, I pressed the "1" button, the doors closed, and the elevator brought me up to the third floor. Whatever. I walk out of the elevator and a young woman with blond hair looks at me and asks me if I'm Anisetta. I replied that I wasn't, and she asked me if I was meeting someone for an appointment and I said no, I just had a lot of questions and wanted to talk to someone. She replied that normally I needed to make an appointment if I wanted to talk to someone, but she told me to follow her and she'd see what I could do. We got back in the elevator, pressed "5" and the doors closed and took us up to the 5th floor (what the heck was I doing wrong???). We went to another lady's office where two women were talking and the blond women starts telling them that I wanted to talk with someone. The woman who's office it was started speaking French faster than I've ever heard any other person speak French in my life (thus far...) saying how she was busy and normally people have to make appointments, and then her phone rang and she started speaking even faster (which I didn't think was humanly possible) to the person on the other line. I heard her ask if the other person was on their way, and then she said she'd see them soon. At this point, the blond woman went away because she still needed to wait for and have her appointment with whoever that Anisetta girl was. Thinking there was no hope, I started to walk away too but the lady behind the desk called me and told me I could come in and sit down, and kindly asked what I needed. I explained my situation- that I had signed up for classes but nobody told me anything about CampusFrance and now my visa appointment is soon and I'm panicking. The other woman who had been in the office the whole time came over too and exclaimed, "Oh you poor thing!" and put an arm around my shoulder. The woman behind the desk informed me that I needed to talk with the Washington DC office and that unfortunately they couldn't really do much for me here. I told her I had called them already twice and only gotten an answering machine. They both said this was strange and proceeded to ask me a few more specific questions about my current status and my visa situation and such. These women both ended up being so sweet and kind- they both told me not to worry or stress out and that everything would work out. They printed out the number for the DC office again and gave it to me, and told me to try calling again and in the event that I couldn't get in touch with them, they both gave me their phone numbers and email addresses and told me to let them know and they would get in touch with the DC office for me. I thanked them a million times and the lady behind the desk said she would walk me out to the elevator. On the way out, she told me not to feel bad because A LOT of people run into the same problem I have. Often, when they change laws in France, the government doesn't tell anyone that the laws changed, so then no one knows. What a wonderful system. At any rate, I thanked her again and she smiled and put a hand on my shoulder and told me everything would work out. I tried calling CampusFrance after dinner, but again, got the same answering machine.

Wednesday Silvia, Yadira, and I went to their French cousin Christine's house. Christine is so awesome. She spent 11 years living in Venezuela and 18 years living in the US, so she speaks French, English, and Spanish very fluently. This woman has such an American attitude though. She greeted me by saying, "hey baby how you doin'?" and throughout our (French) conversation throughout the whole day she would frequently slip in english phrases like, "Do you know what I mean?" but in a real, New York, Tony Soprano way of saying it hahaha. She is so so so energetic and lively. She actually reminds me a lot of my high school english teacher, Mrs Singler, and actually kind of looks like her too although Christine is slightly younger and ever so slightly less crazy than Mrs Singler was (but in both women I mean crazy in a good way). We once again went through the whole "French lunch" with appetizer (cantaloupe soaked in some kind wine), entrée (fried potato balls and pork (which I unfortunately again had to admit that I couldn't eat)), bread and cheese tasting (and I actually really liked the cheese this time!) and then dessert (Vanilla Ice Cream with chocolate fudge, which technically gives me a stomach ache too but I felt so bad about not eating the pork that I figured I could put up with a stomach ache for one day. It wasn't too too bad I just didn't feel like moving much throughout the rest of the day). Christine will be visiting New York the same time I'll be back too, so we exchanged contact information so we can hopefully meet up. She's got so much spunk, she's a ton of fun to be around.

Thursday I FINALLY got in contact with CampusFrance in the US. I sent them an email and they gave me a new number to call. Why they don't just put this number on the website or give it to their offices in other countries I have no idea. I've said it once I'll say it a million times I've just stopped asking questions with the French. Anyway, the lady told me that I needed to fax my registration form from the French Language School here and send them a money order (which I unfortunately can't do here so I had to ask my mother to do it from the US) and then they will be able to "hopefully" process my application. I sent the fax on friday and my mother overnighted the money order too, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

First Visitor!

Ok working on catching you all up and all..... I have 2 weeks to catch you up on so here goes the first week!

So remember how I was saying how I went to HSBC to try and deposit my checks and I couldn't do it? Ok, well obviously the checks need to be deposited, so I had to send them back to the United States. And it needed to be ASAP since I was running low on cash, so I ended up sending them via ChronoPost for 56 euros which guaranteed that they would reach the United States within two days. Gilles came with me and we walked to the Post Office together bright and early in the morning so we wouldn't have to waste the whole day. Ha. Haha. Famous last motives in France. We walk about 15 minutes to the post office and it's closed, with a group of people standing outside also wondering why it's closed. The hours of operation sign says it should be open from 9 am to 7pm. There's no sign explaining why it isn't open. It's just locked and all the lights are off and no one's inside. It's just closed for no clear reason. Welcome to France.

So we had to go to the one in Joinville Le Pont, about 40 minute walk in the other direction, but Gilles paid the 1,80 euros so we could both take the bus. We get there and wait in line... and wait in line.... and wait in line... until we finally get called up to the window. The post office here is also a bank, so whether you want to send a package or deposit a check, it's the same line. It's set up like a bank with all the tellers behind bullet proof glass and you have to talk to them through a small window. We finally get to our "guichet" and explain to the woman that we'd like to send my checks via Chronopost. Remember that insurance I was supposed to get on it? Well the woman explained to us that it's actually illegal for me to get that insurance since I'm sending checks (with a monetary value) and not another kind of document. There were a whole bunch of reasons why but I don't remember them anymore. All I remember is that I started to really stress. I was already stressed out for several other reasons and I just wanted to lose it. I had very very little money left in my bank account and was going to need the money very soon. But in the event that it got lost in the mail (like the two extremely important pieces my mother tried to send over via the US Postal Service which apparently BOTH got lost in the mail and the fact that I don't have them is continually screwing me over) I was REALLY going to be in trouble. And I was going to need the money to be used soon. I don't always stress about a lot of things but money... that stresses me. And I don't care about having a lot of money, that's not it, it's just having enough for the bare necessities. I started having flashbacks to all of my financial problems from junior year in college and started to panic. Gilles kindly asked the woman if we could have a few moments to think about what we were going to do and pulled me aside to calm me down. Thank God for that boy because I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been there to calm me down and talk to me and assure me that all I could do was make the decision I thought was best and pray about it. Maybe I should start taking him to the super market with me when I'm shopping for ingredients too.....

Anyway, we got back in line and said we'd like to send the checks via ChronoPost like we had originally planned anyway. The woman got up to go get the envelope.... and returned empty handed. They were out of the specific type of envelope needed to send the package. Seriously if Gilles hadn't been with me I would have screamed. But to prevent that, Gilles quickly took me out of the Post Office and walked me to another bus stop so we could go to the Post Office in St. Maur, the town where they go to church (remember from my adventure my first day here... it's a whole hour's walk away). On the way to the bus stop, Gilles prayed for me which also calmed me down more, thankfully.

Ok, so third time's a charm right? Normally, I know you're all waiting for that haha yeah right and my explanation of how that didn't work and the country of France kept me running around for the next three days on a wild goose hunt just to send a few pieces of paper back to the United States. But in reality, I was quite surprised. The third time actually was quite charming. We went inside and there was only one lady ahead of us in line. There were no bank tellers behind bullet proof glass- the man who worked there was out on the floor with a nice smile on his face. When we told him what we wanted to do and the problems we'd had during the day, he said that he would double check for us and see if there wasn't some way we could find a way to give me the insurance. In the meantime, I filled out the address form and Gilles made copies of everything I was sending. Unfortunately, I still wasn't able to get the insurance but the fact that the man made the effort and that he was so happy and smiling and pleasant in nature; I felt so much better when we left. And it actually did only take 2 days to get to the United States. Why don't you take some pointers, USPS? Like seriously, before I make a special trip back to the states just to flip out in your office for losing my important mail.

And in case you're all wondering why I needed the money so urgently... I had my first visitor from the United States come and visit me! Paul, who I know from Calvary Chapel Quakertown, arrived Wednesday morning. His plane landed at 7:55 am, which meant that I had to wake up at 5:30am to go and get him, but it's okay. I was gently reminded that my flight to Paris came in at 6:30am and my ever so wonderful self-sacrificing loyal true blue friend Gilles had to wake up even earlier to come and get me (and then had to work all day after he brought me home!!!) so I didn't complain. Paul arrived safely and I brought him back to my house so we could get his housing straightened out. Apparently we thought he had made reservations at a hostel but it didn't end up working out, so he got to spend the week camping at the Parc Tremblay that's right near my house. We went together and the woman at the desk was so incredibly nice. It was only 16 euros a night and they had bathrooms and showers and free internet and everything! We spent the rest of the day just walking around Tremblay and exploring and such but it was quite nice. As far as tourism is concerned, we got to see Notre Dame, the Catacombs, La Conciergerie (my favorite site in Paris!), Gilles's restaurant (where we had beef tartare... raw beef! Yes I am that hardcore =P) and then headed over the Centre Pompidou and saw some really cool street performers. We also went to see Inception with Yadira, Fanny, and our other friend Samuel. Inception was..... whoa. I mean, not like the best movie ever and it blew me away, but whoa in the sense that when we left the movie theater, I kept touching the wall, the door, Yadira, etc... to make sure it was all real. Actually my head kinda hurt when i left but the whole concept is cool. Then headed over to the Bois de Vincennes (which I actually found this time!) until it was 8pm and then we met Gilles, Fanny, and another girl named Gabby and went to a bar for some wine. Gabby is super super nice. She met my friend Duane when he came to Paris in April, and since I knew he was in Paris I put he and Gilles in contact, and then Gilles met Gabby through Duane and voila. Now we're all friends haha. Anyway, she's super super nice and energetic and spunky and the night was really great. Then Friday we met up with Samuel and his two friend Salvatore (who is Italian) and Lucie (who is Chinese) and we visited le Louvre (which we barely got to scratch the surface of since it's so huge! but I did get to see some parts that I've never seen before), le Jardin des Tuileries, Sacre Coeur and a bit of Montmartre. Pas mal, pas mal.

Originally, the plan was that Paul and I were going to go to CreationFest UK together too. For those of you who don't know, CreationFest is a weeklong concert with awesome bands and speakers all day, all week long. They have one in Pennsylvania every year and there's a UK version in Cornwall England too. Some of our friends from Calvary Chapel Quakertown are in a band called Universal Royalty and were going to be playing there all week (if you've never heard of them, you should check them out! http://www.universal-royalty.com ) and I was super super excited about getting to travel to England and to see my friends again. But, after another réunion familial (and a night of crying harder than I've cried in a long time and embarrassing myself in front of Gilles) I decided I really need to stay here in Paris. You see, this job thing isn't working out like I hoped it would. And seeing how I only have about a month left, I either need to get serious and work harder than I have been or give up now and buy a ticket back to the States. It was also a hard decision for me to make because after talking with Gilles, I realized that in reality, I cared more and put more importance on going to England than I did about making a living here work out. I didn't want to admit it to myself but that was it. Going to England was more important to me than finding a job in Paris. But.... I still chose to sacrifice that anyway because I really do want to make this Paris thing work. I really really really hope I didn't sacrifice that for nothing. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

ANNNNNND we're back!

Has it really been over two weeks since I've updated this??? Sheesh! J'ai la honte et je suis tellement désolée mes amis.... I actually did start this entry on the 27th of july and never got around to posting it. I'll finish what I was going to say and then post the other one. GO!

Ok... my goal for last week was to not speak a word of english. Ready.... Go!

Sunday was an all church day. Last week everyone at church wanted to know why I didn't show up for the French service, so to avoid such bombarding interrogation, I just went to both services. The problem in, the French service is at 10:30, the english service isn't until 3 (and it usually starts late) and then by the time it's usually around 6:30 or 7, so that's like 9 hours of church. Which isn't a bad thing, it's just a lot. Usually they have lunch in between which is nice and I enjoy talking to everyone. Although for the month of August they are combining the two services at 10:30, so that will make life a little easier.

This week there ended up being a whopping 11 people at each service. But it was okay... there's something nice about the small community. The other thing with Calvary Chapel Paris is that each week there's a new group of tourists each week; people (mostly from other Calvary Chapels worldwide) vacationing in Paris who decide to check it out. This week I met a cool guy who goes to UCLA named Steven and is taking summer classes in Paris. I also met a woman named Jackie who's a flight attendant and was in between flights. She's one of the sweetest people I've ever met. Turns out she grew up in New Jersey too, and has lived somewhat near LA but she basically knows right where both Steven and I lived, even though they're on complete opposite coasts of the US (which I'm now realizing is a VERY BIG country compared to the one I'm living in now. France is about 4/5 the size of Texas. Imagine going coast to coast of the US. Our country seems HUGE to me now). Before the service I got to speak for a bit with the pastor's wife, Becky. She's very very sweet and has a very gentle manner of talking, but I noticed while talking to her that it's not just her blond oldest daughter who experimented with putting purple streaks in her hair... yup, even though Becky's hair is a very dark brown, in the light you can see the purple streaks. And actually I think it's really cool that I can say my pastor's wife has purple streaks in her hair to match her oldest daughter.

I also got to speak with Patricia again after the french service, and she spoke to me about her week and her neighbors and introduced me to this one african lady who has the MOST ADORABLE little five month old son I've ever seen in my entire life. The both of them complimented me on my French and asked me how I came to be able to speak and understand French so well. I think they were being too polite but it is nice to hear compliments like that (especially when sometimes at home I still feel like I'm at a loss for words and that there's just lots of babble going on all around me). I also got to talk with my friend Angelica, who is the Argentinian-Mexican girl from California who sent me the website for the temp agency. We talked to each other about what it's like being an American here and she was soooooo sweet and helpful in talking to me, and then when we were done talking she prayed with me too for my future here in this country. I'm so grateful and feel so so so so blessed beyond measure to be surrounded with people like that here! And when I wasn't talking to those people, I was becoming very good friends with the pastor's youngest daughter, 3 year old Sophie, and their son, 2 year old David... my two new best friends here haha.

I got home from church and JC was trying his hand at making potato waffles. The man has never had one in his life but came up with the idea on his own and tried it on a whim. Although the consistency was kinda mushy, I have to admit those were the best waffles I've ever tasted in my entire life. Yadira also made me pancakes for dinner too. They're becoming so American I'm so proud haha. At night Gilles brought his friend Fanny over and everyone started talking... I ended up going upstairs to talk to my friend Sonya online and when I came back downstairs, JC, Gilles, and Yadira were talking about the pranks and practical jokes the students used to play in their school back in Venezuela. Yadira had to leave the room because she was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe and JC had tears streaming down his face for the better portion of the time I was there. Fanny and I just sat in disbelief over the things we were hearing about fights between students, property that was destroyed, and even an incident involving dynamite. Trust me you don't want to know.

This reminded me of the tricks my History I class sophomore year of high school used to play on our teacher, Mr. Romano (affectionately named Jo-Ro because his first name was Joe). There were 9 of us in the class, I think, and we had the class right after lunch, so we'd get there a little early to devise a prank to play on him. Plus, he used to come to class late too, which gave us extra time. It all started with a harmless trick... we got to class 5 minutes early and all hid in the closet so when he came in the classroom was empty and he had to look for us. We continued with more harmless tricks, like disconnecting his keyboard and mouse from the computer so that he thought his computer had a virus/crashed because he kept turning it on and off and nothing was happening. Then we stole/hid all the markers so he couldn't write on the whiteboard (because none of the classrooms in our high school had blackboards). Jo-Ro also had a stuffed camel that he kept in the class and we stole it and hid it and changed the time on the clock. Another time we got there early and turned all the desks around so that they faced the back of the classroom and when he came in we all were sitting with his backs to him. As I said, we had his class right after lunch and sometimes if we didn't finish lunch we'd try to bring it in his class and he'd always make us throw it out, so one day we hid the garbage can and all brought a whole meal to eat in front of him. Another time Sal Graci (one of our classmates) stole Jo-Ro's soda and drank it in front of him since he normally didn't let us drink in his class either, but Sal had shaken the soda first and it bubbled up and he choked on it and spit it all all over the room. One of the funniest ones was Quiet Treatment day. We all resolved to not speak a word for the entire class (hahaha yeah right, like 9 15 year olds could keep quiet for a whole 50 minutes!). Jo-Ro walked in the room and stared at us because we were so quiet. He quietly took out one of the markers (after we had replaced them obviously) and wrote "Take out a piece of paper" on the board. So we all silently took out a piece of paper.
Then he wrote "Pop Quiz. Counts for 10% of your grade" and we all looked at each other and tore our pieces of paper up and put our pens/pencils down, and folded our arms, without saying a word. Except for Sal, who started to write something inappropriate on his paper, so Jo-Ro went over to go and take the note from Sal to read it, and Sal, in a moment of panic, stuffed the whole paper in his mouth and started to chew it. Jill burst out laughing and it was done..... we all let it out. I think we only lasted between 10-15 minutes but it was hilarious because we spent the next 15 minutes laughing about it and then more than half the class was over already. Another day we had "Jeopardy Day" where everything we said had to be in the form of a question, even if it didn't make sense to put "what is" (ie "what is I didn't do the homework last night because my little brother decided to use it to see what happens when you add mentos to diet soda?" (just in case you're wondering, it makes the bottle of soda explode)), just for fun. But the BEST one was when we promised not to hide in his closet anymore, so we went upstairs to the third floor and hid in Mr. Constantino's (one of Jo-Ro's closest teacher friends) closet instead. It's okay... we left clues for him on each floor of the school and had him going all around the school looking for us. It was HILARIOUS and a great way to get out of class. I mean, I guess we were just lucky Jo-Ro had a great sense of humor.

Monday morning I went out with Gilles to the post office to see about sending a few things to people in the US. To send a few slips of paper which weigh a couple of ounces, it's going to cost me around 56 euros. Well, that's the "recommended" way of doing it. I looked up fed-ex and UPS and it's wayyyyyy more expensive (160 euros! can you believe it?!?!) so it looks like I'm going with the post office. I can either use their packaging which is 56 euros and it's "guaranteed" to get to the states within 2 days and if it gets lost, they'll reimburse me 250 euros. Or, I can buy my own packaging and then it's 7 euros to send, and then if it gets lost they'll reimburse 150 euros. And I can only put papers/documents in the package, so I can't send fun treats in the same bag/packaging with the papers I was going to send =(. Can't anything in this country be easy or inexpensive???

Monday night we had our bible study again. This week we had more people come too, like Nelly, a girl from Chile who I had met last year when I visited, and Fanny came too. When Marie walked in, she asked me what I had done during the day and I replied that I was updating my blog. She told me she has a blog too and we both sat down and looked at each others blogs together, even though she doesn't speak english and her blog is in chinese, which I obviously don't speak. It was actually really really nice to get to talk to her though, because we're both immigrants and we can feel comfortable struggling with vocabulary and stumbling over grammar in French with each other, knowing that neither one of us will judge the other, since it's our only common language but also both of our second languages.

As crazy as it sounds, I found that I can really identify with her two year old son, Leo. Leo always sits at the table with us as we eat, looks around at everything, and doesn't say much, but laughs when everyone else laughs and tries to imitate noises that we make to (like sighing or aggravated grunts and such) to react to whatever is being talked about the same way we are all reacting to it. I think kids at that age are a lot smarter than we give them credit for being. I'm pretty sure they can understand most of what we talk about, it's just that somewhere on the path between the response you formulate in your brain and the muscles in your mouth there's some kind of miscommunication. I understand 99% of what is said to me, and lots of times I have something to say in response to it, and between the brain and mouth it get distracted and then doesn't get to my mouth until way after the topic has changed. Sigh. I think it's the same with Leo. He understands what's going on and can follow along, but once it comes to talking back, his talking skills just haven't quite developed yet. Although, I must say I do have ever so slighty (and I mean EVER SO SLIGHTLY) longer of an attention span than Leo does....

Tuesday was quite an exciting day. Fanny spent the night after our bible study and ended up staying all day Tuesday too. Yadira's friend Ana came over for lunch too. Then I invited Steven, whom I met at Calvary Chapel Paris to dinner too. I was going to make chicken fajita melts but then we ended up having more people over than we expected, so there wasn't enough chicken and what we had didn't defrost quite as quickly as I wanted to, so JC suggested I make meatballs instead. This was actually my original plan but I changed it to chicken fajita melts when I found out more people were coming over. JC watched me (for once) and was surprised that I used actual pieces of bread instead of breadcrumbs, but that's how grandma used to make them! JC helped me make a sauce and then we made spaghetti and toasted some garlic bread too for a quaint italian dinner in France. We were all surprised when Silvia showed up too, because we all thought she'd be gone for another day but it was nice to have her back. I missed her. I also made Betty Crocker's Fudge Lover's Strawberry Truffle cake for dessert. SUCCESS. We had such a wonderful time at dinner and Steven was really génial. We ended up going to see Toy Story 3 with him on Thursday. But I'll get to that in a second...

Wednesday JC finally got his stitches out. But he still wasn't allowed to wear real shoes (besides sandels) until the following Monday. At least he doesn't have to hobble around on crutches anymore, and he's quite happy about that. And I'm pretty sure that only took you a second to read, so yes, now onto Toy Story 3. Yadira and I met Steven at the UGC cinéma at the Les-Halles Forum in Châtelet-Les-Halles. Basically, it's like a giant mall with a movie theater inside it. This mall, however, also has a gym and a pool in it, and the theater is 3 stories high. Whoa France, you almost topped the United States on this one. And if you go before noon, tickets are only 6,50 euros instead of 10,50. But you could totally tell it wasn't an American movie theater. They have all sorts of films, mostly American because of Hollywood I suppose, but lots of Italian, French, and Spanish films as well. Each film is shown in its native language (Version Originale) with French subtitles, but sometimes they have a second version of the same film dubbed in French. And they have a bunch of movies in 3D too, but if you want to see them you have to pay 1 euro to get the 3D glasses, and you don't get to keep them at the end of the film.

Anyway, we saw Toy Story in English with French Subtitles (there was a version dubbed in French, but Steven doesn't speak french so english it was!) It was on the second floor so we took the stairs and got to the theater. Again, you can definitely tell it's no AMC. The theater is about a third of the size of a typical AMC theater. There are no advertisements or commercials playing before the film. Not even music playing, just silence and a blank screen with the lights on. The French, for the most part, sit there in silence until the previews start. Yadira said she's even got shushed before when she tried to talk to friends before the movie started. They did have a cute little cartoon before the previews started and a reminder to silence anything that makes noise, and then it was the previews and then the movie. I actually think this might be my favorite Toy Story of them all. It was really cute and when Buzz started speaking spanish Yadira was practically dying of laughter, like seriously clutching her stomach. She says that in case you're all wondering, spanish people really do say exactly those things to women to try and swoon them over. And when it was time to leave, there were these security looking men standing and directing people to the right stairway to get out. Except that the stairway we went down looked like a really sketchy back hallway. It was really cold and dimly lit and not decorated like the rest of the movie theater. Then when we got to the bottom- there was no handle or anything on the door. You couldn't push it; it had to be pulled open so there was nothing to pull it open with. Yeah, definitely sketchy and I don't think we were supposed to be there, but oh well. We ended up having to pry it open and then when we got out there was another security guy who gave us a really weird look. Other than that interesting experience, it was a wonderful wonderful time.

After Toy Story, we headed on over to the world's most beautiful Starbucks. Seriously. Now, from the outside, any normal unassuming passerby would think that this was just another Starbucks like the hundred million other Starbucks in the world. But once you enter.... whoa. Golden Starbucks. Seriously.... there's gold and marble and ornate-ness everywhere. It looks like you're walking into a Starbucks owned by Louis XIV. There were even golden chandeliers hanging down! You have to see it to believe it, but it's seriously the most beautiful Starbucks in the world. We didn't buy anything... we just wanted to see it and take pictures haha. I wonder how many people do that each day! Keep a lookout- pictures coming soon! And we finished the day by going to Amarino's.... the best italian ice cream in the world lol. You need to come here and try some! ;-)

Friday...... here's some news I know you've all been waiting for..... I had another job interview! This time it was for a company called "Baby Speaking" which is teaching/tutoring/ and babysitting kids and teaching them english the same way they learned their first language. Gilles stayed up until 2am helping me translate my CV into french (what a good friend he is!) and Yadira lent me a pair of shoes since I only have a pair of sneakers and a pair of flip flops here with me (it felt so GOOD to be wearing heels again! Man I felt like a woman haha). Also, the day before the interview, the lady sends me an email saying I need to have at least 2 letters of recommendation with me. Now ok, I know this is a reasonable request, but seriously, less than 24 hours before the interview? When I can't call anyone or anything? I quick sent out facebook messages to two of my friends (both named Jen) and asked if they could quick write something and email it to me.... I felt so bad about the short notice! So there was quite a bit of stress and lots of nervousness before I left (JC gave me 3 glasses of wine to help calm me down) but when I left, I felt fully prepared.

When I got to the place, there was a sign on the door. As I've mentioned before, for most buildings in Paris, you have to ring the bell to get it. The sign said, "If bell isn't working, please call..." and then they put their phone number. I tried the bell three times and it didn't work.... but the bigger problem was that I don't have a cell phone so I couldn't call anyone to let me in. So I had to just wait there until someone left the building (which was about a good 10 minutes or so) and let me in. When I entered, there was just a dimly lit hallway (as in there was one light at the opposite end of the hallway and the rest was just dark....). I walked down the hallway and saw a few conference rooms, and then a larger common area. Again, there was a sign printed out on a piece of computer paper and taped to a column which said, "If you are here for a Baby-Speaking interview, please have a seat and fill out a form found on the table. Someone will arrive shortly to get you." What? No receptionist or secretary? Literally it seemed like there was NO ONE else in the entire building except me, because I couldn't hear anything or anyone. It was kind of creepy.

Anyway, so I sat down and filled out one of the forms which asked me basically the exact same questions they had asked me on the original application and for the same information I had put on my CV. After about 15 minutes a lady named Paula came and got me and brought me into one of the conference rooms. The interview went well overall although Paula had to cut the interview short because she had other people waiting to be interviewed. Really? You show up late to interview me and then you cut my interview short? But actually, this is very common in France. De toute façon, she said she really liked me. The only concern she had was that I didn't already have papers. She said that normally they only hire people who already have their papers, but she knows that it's not impossible, just complicated, and they've never done it before so she didn't really know what was involved. Praise the Lord I had thought to print out the webpage on the US Embassy site saying everything that needed to be done, so I was able to just hand it to her and show her what the steps were. She said that she would ask her boss about it because she liked me and would like to give me a job. OOOO I kept my fingers crossed and hoped that it would work out! An hour after my interview, she sent me an e-mail asking if I would be willing to work full time (since the interview was only for part time positions). I quickly emailed her back and said that yes, I would be more than happy to work full time and hoped that was a good sign!

I had to wait until Tuesday to get a response, but ultimately, Paula said that they couldn't give me papers. She did say that if I got papers, there would be a position waiting for me. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. This is all so frustrating, and I feel like I'm running out of options very quickly. But I still have a month left.... let's not give up just yet.

Oh, and then the following Tuesday, I made chicken parm for dinner. I almost ran out of breadcrumbs and panicked, but in the end I made it work. I also tried a new recipe for marinara sauce and idk what happened but in my opinion, the consistency was really weird. JC said it was okay though so at least I got the approval of Monsieur le chef extraordinare. My family really liked it and they said they especially like how I prepare the chicken. I don't think it's anything special but if it makes them happy, that makes me really happy!

Ok...... so remember my quest to not speak english all week? FAIL. BUT Steven and Jackie who I met at church don't speak french, and Angelica and I were have a really deep (necessary) conversation so it needed to be in english, and then I just HAD to sing along with the songs in Enchanted and my interview was in English too. English is so necessary dans ma vie! So, I declare myself justified. As far as communication with french-speaking people, it's been french, aside from singing in english. Except for that one time Wednesday when I was defending my love for Disney movies to JC who is blatantly against them , and come on, when we are debating something THAT SERIOUS I needed to speak in english in order to be able to clearly express my thoughts and points of view. AND to my defense I've looked up the lyrics to "That's How You Know" in French AND in spanish so I can annoy my family while singing that song in 3 languages. Bwahahahaha. I'm evil sometimes.

OOOOOO and I just got such a bad craving to go to a Cracker Barrel. Ooooooooo France................