c'est à toi...

I named this blog entry "it's your turn," because this weekend I met some people who are just starting this crazy experience.

Friday: I stayed up until 3am finishing my school work. I went to my last day of Marketing class. Then I met up with Jose Luis (a Spanish exchange student) to work on our oral presentation. He said my French was really good, I was very flattered! Whenever we spoke Spanish he would start to laugh. I finally asked him what was so funny he said "it's your Mexican accent when you speak Spanish," I thought to myself "whatever buddy." He was a nice guy and the presentation went well. A group presented on the French government funding films and we presented on the troubles of the banlieues (suburbs). At the end of class we had our oral final. I did ok sauf (except) for the nasales words ending in: -an, -en, and -on. No worries. When we finished I told the professor how much I loved Phonetics. She asked me how long have I been studying French and I said since I was 14yrs old. She asked me how it was that I spoke Spanish. I told her I was Mexican and my parents raised us bilingual. She said that helps when you have two identities. I guess it facilitates your adaptation and makes it easier for you to leave one identity and go to another. She said there are two kinds of people that learn languages one because they want it on their resumé and the other because they really want to integrate into society. Those who want to integrate will be much more willing to adopt the accent. I don't know if I believe this theory but it's some food for thought.
Well she again was very encouraging. I told her about my experience at La Comédie Française, and she wasn't surprised she said that even for the French those plays are hard to follow. Great it seems everyone knew how awful it was except for us.

Immediately after, I rushed to EPITECH a technical school for computer nerds. Lily and I arrived just on time. We were greeted by Ana (an English Tutor), she told us the nitty gritty the horrors of the job and what to expect. Basically a few rules : never be late, never speak French, no giving out your number or email to students. Then Emery comes in and uses 5things to describe himself: manic depressive, bipolar, alcoholic, grumpy, and alcoholic. Hmmmm oh and he won't hire guys. Perfect! :/

We all walk out of the meeting wondering whether or not we really want to do this. There were lots of new bees at the meeting. They looked so happy to be in France, but we quickly shot down their dreams of a wonderland. Of course maybe for them it will be different no major holidays to spend alone and no 4 degree Celsius weather to bear weeks without end...

Lily and I bought some booze and wandered to streets for a while then we called it a night.

Saturday:
My landlady invited me to have lunch with her. I went up and entered a fabulous apartment. It occupied the entire floor and had head to toe windows overlooking the street and the garden. It wasn't an old school place. It had lots of clean lines and bright primary colors. She made a full 3 course meal. We had grapefruit full of shrimp oil and chunks of grapefruit, as an appetizer. Then veal with cloves and carrots. We finished with dessert which was an apricot tart. She is quite a talker. Her daughter is living in Switzerland and hardly ever visits. this makes her sad and she is a heavy smoker. She was born in 1926. Her husband goes hunting every weekend in their country home and so she spends weekends alone. She had an aupair from Mexico many years ago when her daughter was young (now her daughter is 36) and still writes to this lady from time to time. She was prying into my life as well. Questioning me about why my parents immigrated, how I learned Spanish and if my parents English is any good. That kind of ticked me off. I had to cut our lunch short because I had to go meet my soeur and Lily.

The girls and I went to Gare du Nord and we tried the Indo-Mexi resto, it had nothing to do with Mexican food. Lily had never had Indain food but she liked it. They had chicken curry with nann and I had veggie samosas (they weren't very good) I was expecting something a lil' more spicy. We walked down the street and I gawked at the DVDs and elaborate Sari displays in the windows. Lily and I both want to get henna done before we leave.

We went back to my quartier and explored Sephora. Then we found a cheapy (by Paris standards) hair cutting place. So Liz and I got our hair cut for 22euro. It was alright but I think she cut off too much hair!

It was a good night. :)
Happy belated birthday to Allan and Topher may all your wishes come true!