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."