boh hoh hohn

resignation to failure

2006-10-27T03:33:00.000+02:00

I've resigned myself to failure on the topic of updating this phenomenon called blogging.

I change my mind quite frequently. Its a wonder Im not a Gemini.
So should a post pop up, post-post today, that'd be why.

Goodnight.

Renewed, Reused, and Refused....

2005-12-03T04:44:00.000+01:00

So today I decided to resucitate my journaling. Its better for me to keep writing and even though I usually do this on paper, its kinda nice, so I shall resume.

What brought this about you may ask? Well, today was somewhat enlightening for me, and just a good day overall, so it spurred my creative writing juices I supppose. I ran across a good friend of mine's livejournal today and even though we have been really close for some time, i had never seen their livejournal. Its things like this you dont really think about when you are constantly hanging out with a person. But it is these inner thoughts/thoughts written down while intoxicated/random tid-bits from people that can be so interesting and make you like or hate them even more. People can choose who they want to be when they are with you (which i suppose can go just as well for when they are writing) but I think there is less pressure to "be" whomever when you are sitting at home alone on a Friday night writing in your journal.

Anyways, mine are very train-of-thought, so if anyone is in fact reading this, please bear with me as my thoughts often seem to go and come out of nowhere and have no visible links to one another.

So I read this friend's journal today and although it was nothing spectacular, short little entries on a every-so-often basis, very matter of fact, and to the point, there was something there and it made me happy.

Besides this, my good friend Mikey Falletti, ancient cultures master and journal writing extraordinare, wrote a new entry today and always has me rolling on the floor with his ramblings about his harley-riding mother, Cheryl, and his daily fashion adventures. So that just got me more in the mood to write.

Things have been a whirlwind since France. Im finding more joy in my life which i find fabulous...despite the fact that my hometown is in complete ruin. It's certainly strange being home. It's the same city i grew up in--I guess for some reason I thought I may not recognize the place--but its people are mostly gone. At least the more interesting ones who really were the heart and soul of New Orleans. Maybe this is just perception, but it does feel like that sometimes. I drive past these homes I never really noticed before because they were just on my way to school or near the coffee shop, etc. that are now nothing but rubble or wet stuffed animals and rotting fridges and i cant help but think about the story of the people who lives there, where they are now and what i would do if i had come back to something like that for a home. I've posted some of the pictures Ive snapped while driving around town, trying not to pop a tire with all the crap on the streets, and not run any of the new stop signs lying on the ground to replace the traffic lights where there is STILL no electricity. So they are not the greatest quality as far as artful photography goes, but they are there.

Its strange though--it is very hard to help out in any way. If you are going to actually DO something, you need a big ass truck and some heavy duty gloves because the only thing I can see someone feasibly doing without going through an organization like the redcross or fema, is hauling all of the debris and ruined furniture, etc. that is lying all over the place away. To where? I dont know. That is their excuse for not having picked it up already, but in the meantime, we are still without water and electricity in a huge chunk of the city and we are investing in a city-wide wi-fi installation that should be up and running in the next few weeks. What the heck??? A government, dial-up speed wi-fi connection for all of New Orleans, but we still dont have street lights or even trailers for people to live in. Eeeek!

But I digress, I shall try not to get myself imprisoned by yelling at the government on my blog. Im a pacifist and dont want anyone knocking on my door.

On other fronts, but along the same note. Im trying to decide where to go with myself. Im really at quite a loss. I know I dont have to make any decisions now, and I know I just graduated a few days ago, but Im not sure where I want to be. If anyone has any suggestions or information for me, please, I am all ears. Im applying for an artist-in-residency program in Spartanburg, SC but that doesn't start for a while and I dont know the chances of me getting into that program. So Im back to square one.

Its getting late and I feel my eyelids nagging at me to stop typing, so I'll call it a night on this entry, but dont fear, I'll keep this up....and maybe next time a little more lighthearted. For now, Im just wandering.

Goodnight.

Its...its...its.......A NEW POST!

2005-07-30T02:06:00.000+02:00

Heaven's to Betsy. I am actually updating my blog.
I guess this comes as no surprise now that i've made it a pretty regular thing, but eh, i figured it was time.

It's finally hit me that I will be graduating in November and sigh...I think I am developing a sort of anxiety complex due to the uncertainty of what comes after SCAD...but at the same time, jumping in my boots (the vintage red cowboy ones) over all the options. Isn't it funny how there really are sooo many options, but then when we sit down and actually think about it, we get so bogged down that we say there aren't--then you're stuck in the 9 to 5 job you hate for the rest of your life and find yourself behind the camera on set for the filming of office space.

Anyway, I think my mommy is having a hard time understanding me and where i am going with this crazy art stuff. I mean, she went to nursing school, and then she became a nurse, so whats wrong with me?

Its difficult. All scad students know that.

The Shape of Things is awesome! I again, can't express how excited i am to get to work with Janson, Kerri, Chris, Justin and Cara. It's just a bucket of laughs everyday:)

On other fronts, Drayton Towers is secretly plotting to kick me out on the street. Actually, at the moment there is a small red sleeper couch right outside by the dumpster, so maybe i could sleep there....hmmm. ...
Anyways, some crazy lune has bought the D Tower and is renovating it (every morning with jack hammers above my bed) into a luxury, yes, I used the word luxury, condo space. You can buy WHOLE FLOORS! Now THAT is crazy. Especially considering the fact that there are probably 20 or more apartments per floor. And they keep showing my apartment to these hoity toity people who want to see THE VIEW from my side of the building. Granted, I do have a very nice view, but...
PLEASE DONT KICK ME OUT!! I WON'T HAVE ANYWHERE TO GO AND I'M ONLY HERE UNTIL NOVEMBER!

Sigh....So any finger crossing you'd like to do would be much appreciated:)

I think that's all for now. The library is probably the coldest building on campus and i'm still sweating so...i think its time to retreat to my car to get some groceries:)

TTForN

I got the part!!!!

2005-07-05T07:26:00.000+02:00

ok, so I guess my audition didn't piss anyone off too bad afterall. I am sooo glad.
I kinda pulled this thing where my monologue consisted of going in and saying, "wait, I was supposed to have a monologue???".....continuing from this was a range of emotions that sent my two friends manning the auditions into a wave of "i'm so sorry" and "it's ok, we'll do something else"...etc etc.
Oh god, I felt so bad. I wanted them to take me seriously or else it wouldnt have worked, but I had no idea they would believe me to that extent.
Anyway, I got the part and I am thrilled!! I cant tell you how excited I am to be doing a theatre production with these people--finally.

School's school. I find myself in a weird place at the moment...well, quite often. There are so many people in life who like to tell you what to do and who to be, all the meanwhile you're being bogged down by life itself, and all of this in the midst of you just trying to figure out who you are in the first place....it can get to be a bit much at times.

Watching my new art projects fly off my wall because it is sooo humid here that the tape won't stay stuck.
Eh, it is so easy to get paint everywhere.....I'm trying my best not to though.

And i think this is officially the most random post ever, so I shall go now before it gets worse.

Oh...and AMY, thanks for posting on my blog! I lurve you!

back to schoooool

2005-07-02T06:30:00.000+02:00

sigh. so here i am. back in Savannah.
thankfully not only do I have my little sister here in town to play with me, but EVERYONE is in Savannah for the summer! It's absolutely crazy.
I went out to eat the other day with KIM CRAIG and LIZ GARNER!! Crazy! We had some of "that new trendy fishy stuff that everyone's eating now....not tofu......um....oh, yeah, SUSHI".
Saw Batman tonight with the little sis. EH.
had a brilliant male freshmen commentary going on behind us the whole time...did i mention it was brilliant? brilliant.

also auditioned for Janson's summer directing project "the shape of things" -- a brutal play by Neil Labute.
i dont exactly know what to say about my audition. i am proud of myself for having the balls to go in and do something crazy and unexpected, instead of backing out at the last minute and not auditioning at all, but i think i may have gone a tad too far or been a smidge too unprofessional about it, because i felt a little bit bad afterwards for pulling something like that on two friends.
but then again, it was compleatly appropriote to the play, which i can't say for anything else i could find as far as good monologues go. plus, these are friends and fellow actors--they expect crazy stuff...maybe not from me, but they know how that goes. We live and thrive on drama--its what we do. So hopefully I didn't hurt anyone's feelings or piss anyone off too much. Or I may be being blacklisted at this very moment....
sigh.
anyways, its just one of those things. you question it for hours before, do it because you feel it is right and then question yourself for weeks afterwards. maybe me more than other people.

anyway, we'll see what happens the next time i see janson. hopefully he doesnt ring my neck and call me a retard:)

Back in the USSA

2005-06-03T17:44:00.000+02:00

So somehow I made it home.
Im really not quite sure how it was made possible since I have been plagued by travel dreams gone terribly wrong since I returned.
But here I am...back in New Orleans, hot, humid, wonderful New Orleans. Its so nice to be home.
My Barcelona travel buddies are still amuck in Europe I believe...no, Kim is back in Minooka...the most wonderful name for a town if I do say so.
Jett...no clue. Probably doing coke out of a giant spoon in the UK.
For anyone traveling to Europe in the near future, beware, Haynes Riley, of the official facebook.com Haynes Riley fanclub, is running rampant on the Continent for another month or so with his TWIN bro. Beware. Beware:)
Other than that, getting ready to jump on JetBlue and fly out to my future residence, New York City, NY to look at grad schools and colleges for my little sis...SVA, NYU, Penn State, Boston University, Columbia...the list goes on. But that's the plan. I couldn't be more excited!
Thats all for now....
Have a super summer everyone.
I'll be doing the same as I always have....classes:) yay for transfer students!

au revior Maria

2005-05-22T08:57:00.000+02:00

au revior boulangerie
baguettes
obalisk
yan
nutella
friendly 'bonjour's' on the street
little town...
everyday like the one before...
little people waking up to say.....
BONJOUR!!
ok, ok, ok, I've stopped.
When you are alone in the computer lab at 9am France time and almost alone in the village itself because most of the students have left already...its hard not to sing:)

So I'm not quite sure what my plans are for today...I just know I am going somewhere that is not Lacoste. These past few hours have been really sad for everyone, but we'll get over it. Today is going to be really long for most of us...I am not looking forward to that incredibly long plane ride back home...
especially without my.....whimper, whimper.... I-Pod.
Yes, you all might as well know. My i-pod went missing this week whilst I was in Cannes. We had a freakishly fast emergency disembarkment from our bus when we arrived in Cannes and evidently I didn't get my i-pod into my backpack, but onto the seat or something...sigh. I of course frantically asked Reid, when I got off the bus and realized this, to call the bus driver. He said if he found anything, he would give it to Gwen, the head of SCAD Lacoste. Did he find anything??? No. The driver's answer to me when I got back on the bus on Saturday to come back to Lacoste was "I haven't seen it, but I carry a lot of kids around, so if it was in between the seats or something, they probably picked it up and took it".
Ahhhhhh.

So there is the first casualty of my trip. Hopefully there will be no more. But now I am of course without a meathod of telling time or waking myself up or calming myself by listening to Bob or Davey. Sigh.

Humans haven't always had i-pods, so I suppose survival is possible. I just feel really bad for loosing mom's present:( I'm sorry Mom. I told Reid to keep an ear/eye out for it in case some little kid brought it home and Mom finds it and sends it back here. So maybe it will turn up. We'll see.

As for now, I probably need to go get my laundry out of the wash and put it in the dryer (yes, I am using the dryer for the 1st time here...costs a whole $3.50 or so in US dollars, but due to time constraint, it is what I must do) as it is 9am and I leave Lacoste at 11am.

I can't wait to see everyone back home so soon!!
Bon voyage!

evidently....

2005-05-19T17:34:00.000+02:00

there has been some trouble with my blog and some strange ursuline girl taking it over....what the heck???
anyways...I just checked it and it looks like everything is fine. So mom, I hope you are reading this right now and that everything is a-o-k.

Im in Cannes right now, but there is WAY WAY WAY too much to say about being here, so I will write when I get back to Lacoste on Saturday.

Lots of love to everyone...oh, and by the way...
"Manderlay" and "Last Days" are amazing films.

slacker...slacker...slacker...

2005-05-11T11:54:00.000+02:00

Ok, so I'm a humongous slacker and haven't updated this in what seems like a million years and two seconds at the same time. I've been filming, drawing, painting, redrawing, repainting, studying, researching, making amazing power point presentations, and not sleeping at all. How does this always happen??? The last minute crunch before Cannes....all I know is, we are all going to be so excited to be done and to be there that there is no way it won't be fun.
For now, I am starving and it is lunch time: which translated into English means baguettes and cheese time...again.
Write you lata.
Au revior.

May

2005-05-01T12:25:00.000+02:00

It's May. This quarter has gone by amazingly fast.
I guess when you are seeing amazing things day after day after day, things tend to fly by...
Since it is May first, I was given more space for photos on Flicker, so go check them out.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bellalacoste/

Mohamed took us to Marseilles yesterday...and we all got quite a tan...or you could call it a burn. Whichever.
It was so beautiful. Maybe it was just that we haven't seen a body of water in a while, or maybe it was that we were getting to stick our feet in the Mediterranean, but whatever it was, it was amazing. The city was so beautiful...in a working, living kind of way. It wasn't pristine, but it wasn't sketchy or dingy. Quite possibly my favorite of our adventures so far. And i just love the feel of a day in the sun, and the salt in your hair.

Vendredi Avril 29

2005-04-29T13:13:00.000+02:00

Il fait tres chaud...oh la la. It is just getting hotter and hotter here. Not that I'm complaining--getting to see Finn in shorts is quite exciting (he's the old Irish man who is in charge of the landscaping here and says that he has embarrassing spindly legs). It's just been quite cool here for a long time and this weather is so unexpected. Alas, it shall be perfect for tomorrow: Mohammed is taking a small group of us to Marseilles for the day so that we can soak in the Mediteranean and get lavender ice cream. Yes, I said lavender ice cream. I guess they have so much of it here that they have to do anything to get rid of it:)
Cheney screened an amzingly beautiful film the night before last. It is called "Nostalgia" and is by Andrei Tarkovsky. Maybe I was just in the mood for it, or maybe I was just expecting something different, but I left not believing how beautiful this film was. It really touched me in a way that I haven't really been moved by a film before...a good handful of people hated it, some were indifferent and fell asleep, but a few of us stayed around afterwards just to talk about it and not have to leave the room where this amazing thing had just happened. Its like when you see something amazing and then have to be shoved back out into the real world and eventually forget about it...I hate that. So I stayed around absorbing everything I had seen for as long as possible. Its a movie to watch when you aren't tired, when you aren't with people who only like big hollywod movies with a stupified version of a plot line and lots of pretty girls and happy endings, and I would say definately at night. haha. I'm starting to sound like some kind of food connoisseur or something..."yes, yes, this wine would be lovely chilled at 37 degrees over crushed ice with a light salmon filet and asparagus."
Speaking of wine, we had our white wine tasting class last night. It was lots of fun, but I definately know that I am a red wine drinker. The last one we had was a dessert white wine, and supposedly one of the best, was way way way too much for me...plus, by that time, you've tried 6 other wines and sometimes you can't taste that much. But this was soooo sweet. I have all the information on these wines along with notes, etc from class, but I can't for the life of me try to remember them all off the top of my head. I believe our next class is champagne and I am very excited!
Today is a work day...children's book illustrations and getting ready for this big show in a week. Will try to upload more pictures tomorrow.
Off to illustrate!
Our illustration motto here in Lacoste: so, you illustrate???? what exactly do you illustrate???? WE DRAW FOR MONEY.

We have INTERNET!!

2005-04-28T17:51:00.000+02:00

Ah, the internet. It is currently back on...for the time being. There was some sort of outage in Lyon, and the entire south of France has been without internet for about 4 days now. I am thinking that at any moment I could loose this message and everything else I have been trying to ferociously get done before it goes out again. It was up for about 2 hours earlier today before it went out, so hopefully I can finish this post.
Well, here goes nothing...
Today was beautiful...the first truely warm day since we have been here. Our Art History class, Treasures of Provence, just got back from our Thursday field trip: this weeks trip was to Le Fountain de Vacluse. Very very cool. It took us about 35 minutes to drive there, with lots of budding grape vines and cherry trees along the way. The town was small compared to the huge river running through it. Lots of little shops with oddities like porcelin locusts and random provence naked lady postcards...so odd. But anyway, we walked up through the town along the river (which is really more like a long pool with rocks, etc. fed by the spring) to the main attraction: a sacred spring, basically a beautiful crystal clear blue pool, that rests at the top of this "river" in the middle of a cavernous space of humongously tall rocks and cliffs. The pool goes under these huge rocks and then dives down more than 1000 feet. It wasn't until jsut recently that we were actually able to get to what we think is finally the bottom. Jaques Cousteau only got about 100 feet when we explored it long ago. But here is the really cool part....inside this cavernous pool there is a "swirling vortex" (as we like to call it when we are telling other people who didn't get to go about it) of ancient coins. They found this out because the pool sometimes turns into a literal "fountain" and shoots the coins out, embedding them in the walls of the pool, or sometimes even shooting them out onto the shore. I mean...WOW! I just don't know what to say, that is so amazing.
Tonight we have our 3rd wine class: tonight's tasting consists of white and rose wines from the area. So exciting! The wine here is amazing. Interesting factoid though: you know how people talk about vintage wines? you know the wines that are soooo old and shouldn't be opened for years, and the ones that are really French, etc? yeah, those wines dont really exist anymore. the really old native french grapevines were destroyed a few years back, and they had to import american vines to start over. It really is kind of sad that they will never really exist again, but the way they grow here, and the environments they mature in are far different from anything you could find in the US, so I suppose thats where they get their love.
Anyway, enough babbling for today. I'm going to post this before the internet dies on me.
Bonne apres midi!
Au revoir.

No Title Today

2005-04-23T20:55:00.000+02:00

no film shoot. due to second rain in Lacoste since October.
doing another shoot with Stephen, the married 28 year old, tomorrow...he's playing my hubby.
ah, film.
pain au chocolat. best french cuisine ever...after french wine.
Mohammed is doing his faculty lecture on cheese.
Attended a bookmaking workshop today with Catherine Lang, an alumn of SCAD and a resident of Provence....so much fun...and I made sooo many books! If you get a book for christmas, now you'll know why.
I think the sickness is leaving. although now the people that werent sick are getting sick and will probably infect those of us who are finally getting over it. sheesh. Levar, our all-natural guru in lacoste, spent his day feeling like crap and looking for native plants and herbs to make a tea to cure his ailments...so zen.
I made a quote book in my spare time this evening of Mohammed quotes. They are just so good, I couldn't help myself. I think maybe I will give it to him at the end of the quarter (that is if he doesn't do another google search for his own name and read this on my blog and ruin the surprise).
Talked to mom for about 5 minutes today and Alli for about 2. So sad...they had to go and my phone card was running out and some crazy tall blonde headed kid named David was waiting on a call from his girlfriend. Will call them again tomorrow. I miss Romeo. Saw a fluffy grey kitty today, tried to pet him, but he didn't exactly like me doing that...sigh.
Lazy weekend...so nice. Looking forward to tomorrow. Took lots o pictures today. Too bad I can't upload them to flicker...I'm over my limit...I'll find a loophole sooner or later, im sure.
Think i may go take a shower and show some begging friends Easter Sunday aka "my super cool samurai movie".
Nighty night from France.

la dee dah

2005-04-22T21:57:00.000+02:00

So today was incredible. It was beautiful and lazy and wonderfully peaceful.

"Football" with the local kids.

Naps.

Unlimited sunshine.

Baguettes and cheese.

Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

A film shoot at 5:30am tomorrow....heh. film students.

Dublin oh Dublin

2005-04-18T13:47:00.001+02:00

ok, I can't figure this out....there are pictures of Dublin, etc. here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bellalacoste/

Lots o love.
Erin

I love Paris, why oh why do I love Paris??

2005-04-07T07:02:00.000+02:00

So here I am in the computer lab, doing some last minute hotel bookings, departing emails, etc...AND trying to post on my blog and what has happened? I have run out of time....
just wrote to my aunt telling her where I would be in Paris so maybe I can see them......booked our hotel in Paris before we head out for Dublin....uploaded all of my pictures to the computer so that I can take more in Paris....and now its time to go.

Hopefully I will be able to write from these places, but if not, I will tell you all when I get back! Plus, I have mastered the art of uploading pictures, so you shall SEE it as well:)

LOTS OF LOVE to all......

NOTE: change

2005-04-05T18:37:00.000+02:00

Ok, so I need to make a correction. The entry I titled "Happy April Fools" should have been titled "Happy Engagement!!!!"

My bestest of best friends, Amy Elizabeth Diecidue, whom I have known since she was a little blonde bundle of ballet shoes, is getting MARRIED!
As you can see, I am still very much in shock over this and don't exactly know what to do with myself. Her and Brent are tying the knot next summer, after she is out of school, etc. Ahhh...my best friend is getting married!!
I really have tried to prolong this happening for quite some time now, and it appears that my powers have finally failed. I never really thought that this day would come....I never thought it would happen for real. In all honesty, I dont think Amy thinks its real yet either...its a bit much to sink in.

Well, besides that, I leave for Paris on Thursday....which is always wonderful. Yes, Paris is always wonderful. After Paris, we are going to Dublin for a week...me, betsy, dave, chris, and india. It should be quite the Guinness drinking time:)

Professor Chaney is giving a lecture tonight on "transcendentalism and the pervasiveness of spirituality in film"....should be interesting. He said they asked him for a topic for his lecture and that is what came out. Interesting:)

Last night we watched a Dogma film called "Lovers". Thouroughly enjoyable and much different from anything else we have watched thus far. By the way, the films we have watched so far are as follows:

1. Amelie
2. Touch of Evil
3. Contempt
4. Grand Illusion
5. The Pillow Book
6. Lovers

everyone liked Amelie...everyone thought Touch of Evil was funny and that Orsen Wells was a fat slob, most everyone hated Contempt and thought it a waste of their life, we all laughed at the Grand Illusion....The Pillow Book was also hated except for the fact that you see a lot of naked Ewan McGregor, and lovers was generally accepted, disregarding the fact that everyone thought the Dogma rules were a load of crap.

*note when I say "everyone" I mean the people who did most of the talking after the movie was over....those of us who actually enjoyed all of these films for one reason or another, try putting out 2 cents in, but usually are out-vocallized by those who "absolutely f*ing hated it". Interesting things to hear coming from film majors...to whom I would think any film would be helpful or enlightening in some way.

Anywho...they are still all awesome people, and we really do have a great group of people up here. I've made so many great friends and gotten even closer to the ones I already had.

Happy April Fools

2005-04-01T22:57:00.000+02:00

It is said that the French like to paste paper fish to unsuspecting victim's backs on this joyous of holidays....but we did not see any fish-people today:-(
We took a "field trip" to Nimes today...and although the guide book said it was a tad "sketchier" than the other cities we had recently visited (such as Arles and Apt), I think I speak for everyone when I say this was our favorite city. Figures that a bunch of art students would like the "sketchy" town:)

Anyway, we also saw the famous pont-du-gard today. It was tremendous, and although we were all a tad dissapointed to see that you can no longer walk along the narrow top ledge of the aqueduct, we had fun sitting on the banks of the river looking up at the mammoth construction.
I'm trying to figure out how to put photos on here without having to cut off my left arm first, so as soon as I do, I'll put some pictures on here for you guys to see what I am talking about.

Yesterday we had our first wine tasting class. It was a lot of fun..we tried 2 whites, 2 roses, and 2 reds last night, all from the wineries in and around Lacoste. I discovered that I really enjoy reds much better than whites and that I have an odd sense of smell when it comes to wine. We tried this one that we (of course) smelled before we tried it...the smoked cheese smell was so overwhelming that that was all I could think about when I was trying to drink the wine...blegh.

Tomorrow we are taking a small group to a comic book convention in Aix-en-Provence. Fun Fun!!

Will write more lata.

Joyeuses Pâques!!

2005-03-27T16:24:00.000+02:00

Happy Easter!
Today we had an Easter Egg hunt with the local children...it was so fun. We hid chocolate eggs and the little kids came from all over the area with their parents to decorate bags and hunt for egss. Sooooo cute!!! Alli and I took lots of pictures so we have a good record of it. I've got a ton of hw to do today but I think we are all going to go out to dinner after the cafeteria dinner at the new cafe that just opened up. Oh, and Alli and I had a giant leak in our 14th century hotel room roof last night...which was a blast.
Anyway....so much work to do. Having a blast, of course....I'll write more later.
Lots of love to all.

Mercredi Mars 23

2005-03-23T21:25:00.000+01:00

Ok, Ok, I know... je sais....
I havent kept up with my blog the past few days...and I have already gotten grief about it.

But now I can say why.
My dad "surprised" Alli with a ticket to come visit me in France. And she leaves tomorrow! Ahhh!!! Talk about a last minute rush to bound overseas for the week. So I have been trying to arrange her arrival, hotels, trains, etc. Ontop of this, I have had to get in touch with the bank because I have a hold on my account from making overseas purchases....this should not be! So they told me nothing was wrong and that I was crazy. I shall see how that goes tomorrow when we take our field trip to Apt, a nearby city that is a bit larger than Lacoste--it actually has more than one restaurant and store. We are going there to see their archeology museum which is not supposed to be anything spectacular, but at least its something. They have an ATM in Apt, so whenever we go there, we all make ATM runs. It is a really cute little town and every Saturday they have a huge open air market that takes over the village for the day. We went last Saturday and it was a site to behold....
fresh meats, dead chickens for sale with eyes and feathers and curled up claws still on them, pate, wine, pottery, breads, olives (lots of olives...you'd be in heaven, mom), uncooked sausages, homemade jams (some of which Betsy and I bought and have been thouroughly enjoying at breakfast). But back to the jams...we got a small set of 4 different kinds: orange lavender, cinnamon prune, blackberry something and rasberry. Ohhh soo good. They are so fresh and so different from anything you have tasted before. Amazing!

On Friday we are all taking a trip to Arles which is about an hour or two away as opposed to Apt which is about 20 minutes. We are going to Arles not only to see the city but for a very famous bull fight that is taking place there this weekend. A good handful of us, including myself, opted not to see the bullfight as they said it was very gorey and bloody and would showcase the killing of at least 7 bulls. Me? Watch that? No way hosea. I know it is part of the culture and I should go because it is a cultural experience, but I really dont think I could watch one, let alone 6 more. So the rest of us are going to explore the city, which will be fun since it has a ton of history and there will be lots of people and things to do because of this bull festival.

But Alli gets in this day as well.....and I will be waiting all day for when I can come back to Lacoste and give her a huge hug and show her around.

I think that is it for tonight. I am coming down with something, so I am going to go drink a gallon of water, take more DayQuil, eat an orange, and take my vitamins.

Bonne Nuit.
goodnight.

Dimanche Mars 20 2005

2005-03-21T08:14:00.000+01:00

Il fait tres beau. Un garcon just peered at me through le petite fenetre above the computer I am working on. I thought his face was the clouds for a little bit and then he came into focus. He was outside smoking a cigarette.

Maintenant, Il fait tres froid. Professor Cheney just had a screening of Amelie dans studio duex. We had a table with chairs, but I preferred to sit on the floor. A few other people eventually joined me. It was cold stone. I felt like a scoop of ice cream at marble slab. I eventually warmed up my area of stone and was very comfortable for the entirety of the film.

There is a warmth here that is indescribeable. Maybe its just being somewhere new. Somewhere quiet, somewhere hidden away in the hills of France. Just walking around telling random people "bonjour" or "bonsoir" just because it is the polite thing to do here...it makes you feel good. Having a new place to explore...like a little kid, having a huge backyard all to yourself...free from curfews and bedtimes.

I sat on a rooftop today for a few hours talking with some friends I have made here. It was so nice. The town is like a natural amphitheatre so our voices carried all the way through the town, to the soccer field in the valley below where we could also hear the little boys yelling as they played. From our perch, we watched some students wandering around the valley through the vinyards, etc. You can see everything from almost any spot in LaCoste. The view is an enormous expanse of land, divided into little geometric shapes, each with its own little french country house. If you look through the fog, you can see the mountains that surround the valley we are nestled in. It is quite the beautiful site.

We took a hike today to a home and vinyard called the Maison-Basse that SCAD recently purchased. They are in the process of getting the permits to renovate it for our use, but that is a long hard process. We walked the 45 minute walk to get there, through the wooded areas of the valley, past Roman roads that are still in use, and Roman bridges that still function. We stopped half way at an old laundry fountain where we drank from the spout and ...viola! It was wonderful.

Words dont seem to describe as well as I'd like them to...i hope this gives you some idea.