Excuse me, what'd you say?

I'm by no means an insecure person. I know I don't look like a supermodel, and I've accepted it. I've accepted the fact that I'm a short person and will probably never be tall. I'm a walking train wreck before noon. I'm mean anytime after noon. I'm one of the most confusing people you could ever meet. I'm an obnoxious girl, with an even more obnoxious laugh. I'm probably too honest and I'm way too loud. But I've learned to accept all of this. One thing I haven't accepted yet is my incredibly strong southern accent.
I've been constantly teased about this accent for as long as I can remember. Throughout the years, I've accepted the "if you can't beat them, join them" idea. I make fun of my own accent sometimes, but for the most part I can't even tell that I have an accent. I'm not really sure where I picked up this accent. None of my family members have accents, and only friends I've recently met have them. People never believe that I'm from West Virginia when they hear me talk. I always get asked if I'm from Tennessee, South Carolina, or Alabama.
I guess I haven't really had trouble speaking English until I came to a foreign country, in which they don't even speak English. I speak no French, but I've attempted to learn the basics, like asking do they speak English. However, when I ask, no one understands a thing I say. After minutes of confusion between myself and whomever I'm talking they finally will realize what I said. But, then they can't understand my English! What's a girl to do? I've tried to tone down my accent, but it's impossible. Maybe I should carry around pen and paper with me or just learn how to get around without having to ask for help. Nonetheless, I have a month to figure this out!
- Erryonna

Surreptitious Misanthropy Voraciously Consuming Rationality Thus Invoking Dormant Sociopathic Desires

This morning I awoke in a daze. It was almost as if I was lucid dreaming. I was not sure where I was, and became confronted with numerous confounding questions. I turned on some music to make sure that I was still in possession of a fraction of my sanity or mental capacity. This is when things got strange. I played "The Message" by Nas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws3Ks0FGxYM) in order to get my neurons firing, but something was fundamentally different to me about the music. His voice was more matter-of-fact than normal and the beat didn't quite seem to syncopate, as was typical. I was profoundly confused, so I cross referenced this version with another only to find that both sounded the same. It was me that was off, not the music. At this point, I began to ponder what had caused this substantial change in my perception of the music. Is it the infected cut on the top of my head that refuses to heal, or has my paranoia increased exponentially, voraciously consuming my rationality? Did I wake up mid sleep cycle? I am deeply confused, and even now, I feel different.

This week was all anticipation. Apprehension about my exams, presentations and my trip to Amsterdam, eating at my conscience, culminating into a violent torrent of confusion and scattered thoughts, like children separated from their parents during a particularly brutal natural disaster . I had more difficulty sleeping than normal, and my head would not stop itching. God I am a narcissistic bastard! Such first-world problems! Did you know that Congress declared pizza a vegetable this week? Good stuff. I don't want to go home.

I'm going to miss Strasbourg, however. I love city center, the Cathedral, Le Petite France. It was all so new to me upon my arrival, and still is. I feel that there is still so much to discover, so many new friends to make, so many failed embarrassing french conversations to cry myself to sleep contemplating. I even have a to do list that I need to finish. I still want to climb the spire of the Notre Dame , and eat at a fancy Alsatian restaurant. I have one month left.

In several hours, I'll be on a train to the Dam. My next school-related excursion is Heidelberg. I am pretty pumped. David informed me of an ancient book store at which I can purchase leather bound books. I would like to at least pick up a few new books to read, as I have been slacking with my literature of late.

I will start on Gregory's paper next week. Is it wrong that I preferred "The Art of Travel" over "Voss", a book renowned for its abstruse concepts and eloquent discourse? I am ashamed of my archaic perspicacious capacities. Well, not really. My favorite book is still "The Outsiders", and I have finished hundreds of books since I read that in the third grade. My god! I appreciate literature on a third grade level!

-Tyler Collins

In My Defense...

I cannot help but be defensive when Ruskin aggressively (at least, this is how I read it) states that people move to quickly, they don't appreciate the tree right in front of them. Ruskin is an artist, as my mom explained, we need people like Ruskin to be artists, to sit and draw the details of a tree. I am not an artist. Not an artist, in the typical sense, I like to write, I like to create, but I create in the manner of who I am, someone moved by reason and logic. I do not find reason to sit and stare at a tree for hours on end, it doesn't seem like time well spent (And I am always feeling pressed for time.)

To continue, realize that this rant is coming from a defensive nature. As i've said, I want to see the world, the whole world and to do that, you don't sit and study one thing at a time. You see as much as possible, see everything that you can and take it all in as a whole. This is the way I like it, I like to see everything, my focuses are wide not deep. For me, if you take too long in one place, you'll never see the next. While I am seeing more curiosities in the world, Ruskin is focusing on what details I am not seeing. So, maybe I'll always be this modern traveler, an non-appreciator for detail. He criticizes the different personalities, can he not accept that people are different. I can appreciate small picture people, but the world also needs big picture people, like me.

I want to yell and scream and say what's the point? All in reaction to Ruskin's close mindedness of differences and say while i'm seeing the whole world he hasn't left the lawn of which his drawings come from. But I don't yell, I don't scream, I don't throw a fit. I accept that Ruskin will never understand me, and I will never understand him.

-Jessica Fitzgerald

A Fall Break out of France

Within the span of 8 days I traveled to four different countries over Fall break.

That's just the kind of life that we are able to have living in Europe. When you have a fall break, rather than going to the lake or to Florida or the mountains we are able to hop from country to country. From the multiple cities that I was able to visit, I realized that the small things are the ones that make life the best.

You know, like the constant cobblestone alleys, and the sounds of church bells ringing, and the outdoor markets and bustling streets.These things just make me fall in love. These things are what I see as sublime.

I cannot agree with de Botton or Wordsworth: that cities cloud your mind, that to see beauty you have to get out. I can sit on a bench in a city and think of thousands of different things from what I would think on a boat in the middle of the caspian sea. I love the city, and I love nature. But I feel connected with a moving city, with people who have inhabited it and I see the sublime.

In the grand spectrum, I am seeing it all. I am seeing large cities and landscapes that stretch across for hundreds of kilometers. I ride a train through a city and pass through a mountain and arrive in a new setting. It's a marvelous thing.

-Jessica Fitzgerald

Lethargy

"A danger of travel is that we may see things at the wrong time, before we had an opportunity to build up the necessary receptivity so that new information is as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain."

- Alain de Botton

This past weekend, I realized my lethargy in Frankfurt. I could not seize the opportunity for receptivity, though I tried ever so hard. I originally thought it could be that I'm exhausted (perhaps mentally and physically) from so much traveling already that the anticlimax of a day in Frankfurt really threw me on brakes, but really I guess I'm getting to tired to prepare myself for a day of travel. Or maybe that I had no clue what to do or see in Frankfurt. A German told me to shop, but I really just wanted to eat sausage and I'd already done that.

So, I guess I'll never come back to Frankfurt unless it's for the airport, but I'm trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. I really did find the central bank and money museum to be interesting. Also, we were lucky enough to be there when there was a festival going on (Japanese) so there were stands everywhere for good food. Because it's Germany, one stand had sausages. And that's all I needed. I'm done with those H&M's everywhere. I can't wait to go back to the sticks where they don't have them.

...I hope we had the time of our life.

      For as long as I can remember, I was always encouraged to study abroad. To spend time in another place where I could learn to adapt to a new culture, a new language, and new traditions. Now that I am here taking advantage of this opportunity and everything is coming to an end, I’m not sure if it is quite time to say goodbye just yet. Of course, I think, rather we admit it or not, we are experiencing a severe or mild case of the h-word (homesickness). We are all thinking about next week‘s holiday, one of the most important days in American culture. So we all would like to go home for that day to be with the ones we love.

      Obviously, the honeymoon, happy go lucky season is over. But, we’re still spending more time traveling than we do in a classroom and sadly still only bonding with each other. I’m guilty of this too but we are still looking for that one thing that will make the feeling of homesickness go away. We only want to hang out with ourselves or rather our clicks. We want to eat the same food, pasta. We want to travel everywhere, together. We still act the same wanting only to hang out with the same people. These things all remind us of our home and it was good at the beginning but it is time we try something different. It is like we are married to our American lifestyle and threw away the key. It is natural but in everyone’s reason to study abroad no one mentioned to me to do the same thing we did in America over here in France. Now, I’m not a psychologist just yet but studying these actions and mine too, makes me realize that I’m not sure if we “had the time of our life” or rather “saw what our minds hoped to experience”, which means that this all could be a waste if we don’t expand.

       During one of my earlier blogs, I hoped to break out of my shell, talk to new people, eat new foods, and simply try new things. I think I am still in the process of reaching some of my goals but I can honestly say I have run into some road blocks along the way. It is getting tough. I am realizing that not everyone wanted to break away from home and everything that I didn’t want is happening. Everyone isn’t willing to give this new life a chance so instead we are moving farther and farther apart. I guess it should have been expected, since everyone was so happy at the beginning and it had to come to an end eventually but I didn’t think it would end like this. We have 32 days left. 32 days, a little over a month to fix this issue. I want to leave here feeling accomplished, that I survived. I survived studying abroad in France, where the mindset, goals, and values are almost polar opposites of us Americans. After all when we return to our daily lives back in the states and we look back, I’m sure none of us want to think, I coulda, woulda, shoulda, had the time of my life.

Don't Push Cause I'm Close to the Edge...

It's amazing how music can immediately express how one is feeling. What's so funny is I don't particularly enjoy this selection, but it describes the day oh so well. I just have to reference the chrous. In the words of the Grandmaster Flash:

"Don't push me 'cuz I'm close to the edge I'm trying not to lose my head
Uh huh ha ha ha It's like a jungle sometimes It makes me wonder how
I keep from goin' under "

What a day, it's crazy how things get real, real fast. It's certainly a combination of things, but wow I can say I'm baffled. I can't say I'm speechless, but it's like an alternate reality. I feel like today I strolling around in a dream world.

I believe Maria described it best, "The Wall Effect."

We were in love, on a honeymoon,mesmerized by everything.

We did a dance, and slowly drifted away from that shore.

Home seems sweet,andat the moment we're not trying explore.

All of a sudden crash, there it is. A huge wall, and things begin to fall.

This has been a strange version of a blog, but it's real.

More lyrics from one of my favorite artists, Ms. Badu:

"The world is turnin'Oh what a dayWhat a day what a day..

Peace and blessings manifest with every lesson learn

,If your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned."

What was the purpose?

Demographics has us as students!  18, 19, 20, or even 50 years old.  What then is the result of being in college without wishing to learn outside the box.  It just simply beats me to see students, did I just say students, or maybe travelers, maybe I am wrong, not travelers, clicks, is it groups of clicks, maybe not, maybe favorites, maybe not, what is the experience we are learning from this program, talking only to those you know, maybe not, hunging out with those you belong to, maybe not, talking behind each others backs, perhaps! learning something from our experiences here, maybe not, so what was the purpose?

It beats me to think that we could spend so much money to come out here and leave with no experience, if any.  What a shame this brings to my whole being, that we all embarked on a journey to make a little difference in our lives, if any, so close to leaving France and what can each one of us say we have borrowed from each other?  Nothing, maybe, Gossip, probably, disrespect, most likely, negative attitudes, maybe, profanity, perhaps, but remember, college will soon come and go, then what?  Everybody was once 18, so what?  The world is round, believe it or not, it is.  The ol' wise saying "a habit is a disease", have we picked any?

Christmas in the Outback

At the beginning of Voss’s journey into the wilderness, he and his team enter the Christmas season. Most of his companions on this journey were intent on taking the day off and celebrating in what small ways that they could. So they took the time off, ate one of their sheep and read the Christmas service.

I really liked this part of the novel and felt that this scene reflected what many of us here at the Chateau are feeling. We are also a mixed, displaced group of people wanting to keep some familiarity. Just last week we held a mid-November Halloween party. Pumpkins were found and carved, we were very kindly brought some Halloween candy, and we celebrated. Next week we will be having a Thanksgiving dinner together, probably still unconventional, yet comforting.

This is a very amusing concept to me. Being a group such as ourselves in a place like France has shown so many cultural contrasts. I love our loyalty to home at times like these ones.

-Maria

My Final Grade is WHAT!??!

This coming week has been one I have been dreading. After weeks of relaxing and taking a "laisse faire" approach to school, it has finally caught up with me. Most of my classes have decided to bombard the next two weeks with assignments, projects, and tests that cease to exist during the first part of the semester. As the assignments begin to pile, I begin to realize that this one assignment, project or test will practically determine my grade in the class. I have never had a class before where a single task counts as much as ninety percent of the grade in the course. Naturally, I'm terrified. This system is very different from the American grading system I am used to. I'm used to having attendance not only count as part of my grade but also as extra credit in some classes. Daily assignments and quizzes cushion the majority of the test grades and tests are given every eight weeks or six weeks or so. Ecole de management only has one task that determines your FINAL grade. Different and difficult needless to say.

Florence

The past weekend (about 8-9 days ago) several other students and I travelled to Florence for a couple nights. This was my first time going to Italy. This was one country that never really sparked my interest like other European countries. I’m not really sure what the reason for this lack of interest is. I have Italian heritage and I certainly love the food. Anyways, it just ended up being one of those “why not go?” situations like St. Malo earlier in the semester, and like I was with that trip, I was equally pleased with this one.

I was pleasantly surprised by how charming the city and the people were. Our group had arrived around 10:30 pm in the train station and had to find the hostel quickly because we were expected at a certain time. We had walked in circles for a bit because we were sent in the wrong direction when we asked a shop owner for help. It wasn’t long before someone who looked like they were waiting for a bus offered help and we were soon in the right direction. It was at that time that we decided to call the hostel to say that we were going to be late. During the call, the hostel owner asked where we were and she came out to find us on the street! She was a hysterical little Italian woman who was happy to find us. She was very welcoming and friendly. Before even checking us in, she gave us maps and briefed us on where to go and where not to go for food and for sightseeing, and was just overall overly genial. In just those first hours of being in Florence, I felt like the city, if not the country, was always smiling and content.

Otherwise, it ended up being a typical “travelling outside of Strasbourg” type of weekend, and that’s certainly something that I appreciate. The only other quirk of the trip would have been buying mandatory reservations for seats on Italian trains and then having to sit on the floor because those seats did not exist. However, at any point, I think all of us on the trip were just happy to be going from point A to point B.

-Maria

And We Thought the South Was Slow . . .

Last weekend, as well as this one, I had the privilege of staying at the Chateau for a whole weekend.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to travel all the time, but I certainly needed a break.  It was a good chance to rest, and absorb a sacred part of the French culture- the weekend.

Of course we have been in France for a while now, so I have seen French folks doing their weekend thing, but I hadn’t really had the chance to participate much.  I love it!  None of them have anywhere to be or anything to do, its great!  They just enjoy themselves all weekend long! 

At first I though perhaps it would be boring, but really it isn’t!  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not what I want to do every weekend, but periodically it is really good to de-stress for a few days.  We live life at such a fast pace that we miss things, which is really a shame! Even when we are relaxing, we tend to still be busy.  Here, we have no choice, especially on Sunday since everything is closed!

So after two weekends of relaxing, I feel reenergized and ready for more traveling!  However, I may have to bring a little bit of this pace of life back home with me in December.

Double Double Toil and Trouble...

This past week was alright. We had the mid-November Halloween party and made a few excursions of which we all know. I enjoyed the Karlsruhe trip because it was interesting to hear how different and yet similar Germany's court system was. Especially because our system has been basically the same but Germany's has changed several times.

On another note I am very impressed with Europe and the EU. Just to think that 60 years ago it was mass chaos and now they have many countries working together and making progress. It is just interesting to think about if you can get people to work together and forgive the past so quickly what else could be done?

 Very short thoughts this week.
-tyler underwood

Which Seat Should I Take?

I have had this blog ready but I have kept forgetting to submit it. So here it goes!

So, my journey to Florence, Italy was fun. We met a lively/cute Italian woman who gave us our hostel, perhaps with bedbugs, and explored the Renaissance city. It was of course beautiful and obviously had wonderful food where if you stayed for more than several days you would gain 40 pounds. Train rides were rough and I could talk for another several paragraphs about how cool looking the city is however, I want to talk about a comparison I found out.

Italians are like Americans in the aspect that they are very friendly imminently. The French seem very cold but they just take longer to break and become friends with. Our Cross-Cultural Management teacher informed us that it is hard to become good friends with a french person because it takes years. She said that they cherish their friendships and will stay friends forever unlike in the U.S. where we switch friends and forget about others as we grow. I thought this was interesting since we usually think of french people as sometimes cold.  

Very Superstitious

I've recently been struck with a spell of bad luck and can't seem to get away from it. I caught a terrible cold which took about two weeks to get over and drained my energy for the following weeks. I then purchased a 99 euro train ticket to visit a family friend, only to find out the last minute that he would be busy and I had to cancel my trip. To add to the misery, the ticket was non-refundable. The trouble didn't stop there... I helped plan a group trip to Florence that I was ecstatic for! I packed all of my things, but forgot my RailPass. I tried to hurry back to the Chateau to grab the pass, but it was too late and I missed the trip. It's not over though. Tension within the Chateau has made for an awkward time, and I found myself in the middle of most of it. When it rains it pours, right?
So I instantly thought I must've broke some sort of French superstition. But, after looking up some of them I realized I haven't done anything to bring me bad luck. I hadn't put a loaf of bread on the table upside down; had a black cat cross my path; hadn't lit three cigarettes with the same match; or invited 13 people around the same table. By the way, I googled all of these weird superstitions.
So maybe I need to pray to the karma gods to send me some good karma this way. Or do some French superstitions for good luck? What the hell? Maybe I'll even go to church! Who knows?! But, this bad luck needs to go away now!