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................