day 6 - say SOMETHING! ANYTHING!

30 september 2007

today was a fun day... I thought since i was in by 22h last night that id wake up early today... i didnt wake up until 14h!! so i awoke, had a slice of bread, and oj for breakfast. id bought some cheese at the grocery last night and it totally made me want to barf, it was so disgusting. then i set out looking for an internet cafe, but EVERYTHING is closed on sundays. i walked about 20 minutes to the nearest university building cause theyre all spread out across the city (same school though), and even it was closed. Didnt even have wifi. OH! before i left, i successfully blew out my hairdryer as well as a fuse... oops! That makes 2 appliances now that ive busted. at least i didnt start a fire though. when i got back from my long, unnecessary walk (well, at least i got exercise and out of my room), i caught a wireless signal from the cell phone store Orange, i paid 11 euro for 4 hours of wifi, only for my computer to freeze up right after it was validated. So i couldnt even go to my email to get my password. So then i played diner dash for maybe 45 minutes and stole my neighbors pot to make Ramen. Damn straight i brought 4 packs of chicken ramen wif me!! And a chocolate chip peanut butter cliff bar ^_^.

Its 20h now. and ive been couped up in my room for nearly all day sauf like 1hr of walking around, and shower time... im running out of music to listen to (if thats possible. Ive got almost 3000 songs on this baby). Time to switch to my foreign selection. I just hope i can wake up tomorrow morning for my appt at the bank... Then i have to get a phone, then go to ballan mire to visit my other school, then visit brittany at joue, then go to the cafe des langues to make friends =). But at least i can use my bus pass starting tomorrow. I want to meet my other neighbor francisco to talk to him in espanol.

i had some hard dreams last night that woke me up with tears in my eyes and a feeling in my chest like my heart had been ripped out... i dont want to talk about...

Ive been through some shit in my days. I can handle a lot more...

On another note... I have tears in my eyes cause i cant get high. Seirously... ... Im so fucking over these cigarettes. I just need some weeeeed damnit! Booze sucks. Hash sucks too. Theres no such thing as withdrawl from marijuana. But its like, when youre in a 4 year long relationship with someone and all of a sudden they become completely unreachable... and even, every wonderful sensation that you knew while you were with them has been erased from your memory... yea, kinda like that. Like your hearts being ripped out of your chest... mary jaaaaaane!!!

I was chillin in my room and all of a sudden my doorbell rang!! what!!, i have guests??? it was Brittany and Teddy stopping by!! well, theyd stopped by earlier, before i went to the mcdonalds (which is the only place ive found with free wireless!!), and it caught me off gaurd cause i really didnt think id have visitors for months. luckily they caught me when i came back from mc D's. and they brought me pizza too! teddy says the bank HSBC is for rich people, and im not rich. but he works for the bank Caisse d'Epargne. thats where brittany opened up her account. she said she went in the morning, got an appt for that afternoon. they told her she could go ahead and use up to 100euro now, even though she hasnt put any money into her account, and then shes allowed to overdraw up to 300euro within the year, sos long as her account is back to a positive amount before we leave... so im going to go there. im probably not going to get a cell phone plan cause i dont want to be bound. and its not like ive a shit load of people to call...

sigh, okee. im retiring for the night. im going to start a flickr account tomorrow. cause not everyone has facebook, which is where ive been posting everything.

heres to a good week world!!

day 5 - i love too much. is that so wrong?

cause i moved into my appartment yesterdayyyy and just now found the correct angle to point my laptop sos i can steal internet... ^-^ YESSSSS!
back to blogging...
bear


"Vexation of spririt is a waste of time;
Negative thinking, don't you waste your thoughts;
Verbal conflict is a waste of words;
Physical conflict is a waste of flesh;
People will always be who they want
and thats what really makes the world go round.
Unconditional love is scarce...
youve always been there for me
so ill be there for you..."
~d. marley

I give my love freely to those with a heart big enough to receive it. You see, mine tends to overflow on the regular, and if ive nowhere to pour it out to, it becomes hard for me to grow. and if your heart is full already, youll see no need for making room for what i have to offer...
I give my love freely with no expectations, no ties, no binds, no promises... only the guarantee that should you ever need something, anything, you have me. Not everyone will be open to receive it. and ive no way of knowing if anyone will be open to accept it at all. but i surely wont hold back.
I give my love freely not knowing who will accept it or who will reject it, or who will turn their nose up at it without speaking two words to me. But ill love no two people differently, because everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, and no one deserves anything less.
and quite frankly, its the only way i know...




I thought i loved to draw, but all i could think to draw were words. and then i began to write...

29 september 2007
I moved into my spot. its cute. enough space for one person. i think im going to grow to love it. not TOO much hopefully... i plugged up my DOPE alarm clock that had nature sounds to wake me up (roosters, ocean, seagulls, crickets, birds, rainforest, shit like that...) and i guess it needed a surge protector, but it busted not even 5 minutes later, and ill never get to use it... Grace a dieu!! i didnt use the same plug for my laptop or god forbid the battery charger for my camera. Damn... but even worse, now ive no way to wake myself up in the morning. Ill have to figure that out by monday cause theres work to begin. I didnt get settled until after 19h, which didnt give me much time to grocery shop. Im on a TIGHT budget. i mean. i could live comfortably if there werent so many places i wanted to travel to.

So i finally sat down after walking about 20 minutes to the nearest supermarket open this late, which happend to be in vielle Tours (a bit over priced if you ask me). But i spent the last of my loot on food that hopefully will last me a few days. Im going to try and take full advantage of school meals, and check out the university next week too. I cant afford to take classes right now. Not unless i can use hope, but i think its too late for this semester for that nonsense. Ill figure school out later. maybe MUCH later...

Meanwhile, i want to travel!!!!! im thinkin amsterdam around mid november to meet up with corey, jorge, and coke for the cannibus cup, berlin maybe, london, paris, geneva, and hopefully i can get back to spain... if not granada, maybe lugo at least so i can visit Petra. Maybe shayne would be down to go to Rambutan with me in the spring when he gets here in april from korea. also, i was checking ryanair and i found some cheap flights to Oslo, Norway... HELL YEA!! thatd be tiiiiiiight ^-^ . Ill have about 300euro extra at the end of each month to spend. If i could score a eurail pass, thatd be ideal too. But my parents would have to buy that in USA and mail it to me. then i could travel wherever for pretty cheap. Ill do the research and the math. Im the master at plannin trips. just ask my dad ^_^. Amsterdam is very feasable. and thats numero uno on my list.

My french felt a bit more confident today. Now that im officially moved in, i think this french life ive chosen will become second nature to me. theres just something unsettling about living out of suitcases... and even, now that im out of the principals house, i wouldnt mind going out dancing with him... maybe?

my neighbors to my immediate right are morrocan. a mother and 2 daughters who moved here to france because the education is better here for women than there. i had to borrow their internet to get my password for the internet i paid for (GUH!). one of the daughters is in high school, and the other is in college. and to my left at the end of the hall is a tall, thin columbian named francisco whos studying commerce/trade at the university. i havent met him just yet, i just saw him go to the bathroom... hah. i wonder if bryan found a spot yet.

i want to go dancing!! i hope i find friends soon...

day 4

today wasnt very eventful, at all. pretty much, i woke up, not until like 13h, i think cause i took some "herbal" sleeping pill last night that a friend had given me before i left. after a small breakfast of fruit and tea, i went by the school to fill out the rest of my paperwork, then went into town and walked around all...day...long. i couldnt get an appt at the bank until monday morning (which is weird because everyone ive talked to since has been like, the bank is closed monday... i hope i didnt misunderstand... lost in translation. i surely cant go tuesday cause ive to be in Orléans by 930am. ill figure it all out next week. but then that also meant i couldnt get a cell today. and i was thinking that maybe id stay 11 months instead of 9, sos to be able to get a phone plan (for that reason alone...) and then just pay the difference before i leave for the last month, but then it struck me that ill no longer be getting paid after april. which would mean that thered be 4 months that id have to support myself sans salerie (im forgetting how to write in english. i keep wanting to spell everything the french way). im all about getting another job somewhere, but i dunno where. or maybe ill become a frreal nomad and hook up with some gypsies to travel around with. beg for a while... you know, be free like a bird in the wind. but i have all my life that i brought over with me from amérika, so that might not work afterall.

when i took the bus into town this afternoon, a group of about 20 or so elementary kids got on and they were so friggin cute!! i even snuck a short video clip of them (coming to youtube soon!) i wanted to adopt one so theyd hold my hand and then walk around town with me speaking in french and asking me every which sort of question. kids speaking in other languages is the most precious thing ever. and then, all of a sudden, i started feeling ill... i froze. it was the beginning signs of baby fever!! FUCK THAT!! id seen it happen to my friend erin before i left atlanta. but it was different for her. shes about to get married in less than a month, she just bought a house not even two months ago, a good job that pays well, not to mention shes 23... sooooo far from 22 dude!... man, fuck that idea for like another 3 years at least! nomads dont have kids!.. and then... the kids got off at the next stop, and i could breathe again.

i walked around town snapping some shots of the city, but i hate looking like a tourist, so i was timid and tried to take them sneakily. and let me just say, i realize that all my pictures are self-taken, and meant to seem like a 3rd party took them, but cut me some slack brah!! at least until i make some friends to take the pictures with! i feel like ive been extremely shy and much too soft spoken and way too hesitant though to make any friends... im not scared of being in a foreign land, nor am i usually this shy, its just exhausting seeking out new friends. and the ones i had in atlanta were tha BOMB (you know you guys are!!). i want new friends to come to meeee!! =( or someone to visit me once a month... well, i guess either i find friends fast or these blogs are going to become deeeepressing.

i used to be introverted once upon a time, believe it or not... i was keen on small dark corners, closets, hiding beneath the bed and then passing out there... my mom said i used to crawl up into the round turny clothes racks at the mall while she was shopping and hide beneath it, and sometimes id even fall asleep there^-^... fuck swedish mattresses, massage chairs, or jaccuzis... know that when youre looking for comfort, dark spaces while in the fetal position is where its at my friends!! nothing like closing your eyes and visioning yourself back inside the womb... ... (i swear im sober as a jew right now!)... but even my new landlord was saying that the people in this town are a bit snobby cause its Toraine. and they speak the purest french in all of frenchtopia! kinda like people in the north north east of usa in boston. i mean, the people who are actually born and raised in ivy town, not those who migrate there.

i scoped out downtown since ill be living there starting tomorrow night and i had to find all my specialty stores like the boulingerie (bread), patisserie (pastries), charcuterie/boucherie (meats), and the marché for all my other grocery needs. i cant eat out. it too expensive. maybe like once a month or somethin. i went by a travel agency today too... gotta scope out travel prices so i can plan trips during my vacation time. forgot when that is. ill ask next week at orientation. but im pretty sure i might end up going to amsterdam(nov) and germany(dec) this fall, oslo(mar) & spain in the sping(may). and paris, when i feel like it. thats only 37euro round trip. and i have a classmate teaching there to stay with. spain is going to be the most expensive cause im going to granada to visit maktub & rambutan, the chillest hostels in europe, & lugo to visit a friend from high school whos playing pro ball there now. maybe ill get a job at one of the hostels in granada and stay for a few weeks at the end of my teaching to brush up on my español. we'll see...

one last note, i got home early tonight so i wouldnt get stuck without a bus ride home, and i got back around maybe 20hish or so? the principal came back around 2130, drunk, talkin 'bout, "i havent gone out dancing yet, that doesnt start for another 45 minute, then he totally dipped back out, and just got back now at 2am. and he couldnt keep his eyes open ^_^ hells yea! he was like, "dont tell your parents your that you principal stays out all hours of the night!" dude... hes the one im going to if im hung-over and late for work in the morning! newho, its late and i have to pack my stuff up again and move tomorrow. hope you guys have a wild friday night!!
amour amour

keep your religion off my body

i actually wrote this earlier this summer, but i love it. and i want to protect it, and this site publishes my shit...


"I dont know how else to say it but the hate which you bear is not of me, but of yourself. and i know only love and will not be brought to the point of hatred by anyone. know that the more hate you bear for me, the more love boils over in my heart for you. so much that i will be brought to the brink of tears and sadness for the peace which was lost between us. ill say a prayer. i will say prayers everyday for you. for your life, for your health, for your happiness. and i will forever keep you on my heart. but hatred, it causes sickness. it causes death. hunger. sadness. confusion. emptiness. seclusion. it creates an element which hovers around you and leaks from your pores. you cant think. you cant reason. and the anger which takes over you is enough to kill a man. on the contrary, when the heart is absent of hatred, there is comfort. peace. happiness. bliss. joy. freedom. light. and life. and here we are yet again, facing light and dark. life and death. love and hate. you may not believe in heaven and hell, but having lived do we not already know that we'll soon die? have you ever seen a body void of life? their soul & spirit completely absent?... now can you feel that? can you feel a persons happiness, their sadness? their anger? their love? their state of mind? its powerful. all i ask is that you feel my heart. and ill commit myself to comforting yours."

day 3

27 sept 2007

i finished that bottle of bordeaux last night before the principal ever made it home, and then stumbled myself to bed sos not to incriminate myself. hes a party animal himself though, m. baumelle! hes planning on going out dancing tomorrow night too. some rock/swing club he said. he invited me, but im hoping i can find something else to do instead... im almost out of hash already. i got a bit carried away yesterday, but still. hash is not herb, nor does it do half of what weed does for me. so it was like nursing a bottle of formula instead of the real stuff. didnt even give me the munchies. i think its pretty pure hash though. the stuff that has opium in it is what gets me good. that shit has me sleepin for days!

its thursday. today was a long day. i mean, i keep saying that about everyday, but today it felt like i ran around even more! when i woke up, i could hear the kids at recess outside my window. a little close for me, so i was on a mission today to find another place to stay. i woke up around 10am and after a light breakfast of leftover potroast, oj, and baguette, i went downstairs to the school to fill out some paperwork. but really alls i could fill out was my name.

i left there and started to ride m. baumelle's bike into town but i didnt want to risk getting stuck in town with it pouring rain like it has been, so i opted to take the bus instead. when i got into town ( a short 15 min ride) i went straight to buy a monthly bus pass (27,30euro), then to the cell phone store called Orange to get a phone; but you need a bank account to get a phone plan. so then i went to the HSBC bank around 16h for my appt and i needed proof of residence to get that! so THEN i went to some housing agencies and FINALLY, around 18h scored a sweet studio right in the middle of downtown Tours! (but i had to pay the agency fricken 140euro to help me!) but my location is PRIME! im talking, the main plaza, Jean Jaurés, is right outside my door, as well as the bus stops for every line, and the hôtel de ville and musée des beaux arts are both about 100ft away. the train station is about 150ft if even, as well as the only mc donalds ive seen in town (mmm comfort food!), a couple pizzerias, about a dozen bars... im payin 320euro for it, all utilities included. 4th floor - rooftop level. its got a shared shower and toilet though, but only with 2 others, so that shouldnt be too bad. fridge, microwave, solo electric stove thingy, & a comfy bed. so write me!! i move in saturday evening. YAY!!

1 rue charles gille
37 000 tours

while i was talking with the landlord he got a phone call (french people dont care to be rude and answer a phone in the middle of business. i swear he took about 5 calls in the hour that i was there and he kept putting me on hold.) but it was another english TA on the line looking for a studio to rent. he showed up right as i was leaving. his name is Bryan, an amerian from Tampa fl who speaks french, italian, and spanish, and is teaching at two high schools. (he paid jack shit to find the spot! he went by the university and in the foreign studies department he met a girl who told him about the appt). i think hes older. id say about 25, 26. he had a lot of information about work in the linguistic field. mostly all government jobs. but SWEET setups where they pay for me to travel wherever, every 6 months. but its government and maybe if i didnt have a substance abuse problem, thatd be different... i thought wed be neighbors for a second but the room he looked at was at 420euro a month, and we only get 750euro. so i gave him my list of other appts to look at.

THEN he told me about this language café!!! aw snap! my toes started twinklin when he said that. people come speaking any and every language just to converse. ive found my new hang out. whatevs, call me a nerd... ive already embraced it. at least i have a passion in my life. suckas! people meet every monday night at 2030. so imma go practice some portuguese and maybe japanese (surprisingly, theres a small japanese population here... and about the same amount of japanese as there are black people... =D). maybe ill try and pick up a 6th to start learning... im so fuckin enthusiastic about everything now though. just watch, in like a week im gonna be over all this shit ^-^ this blog may even be difficult to maintain, but im trying to write throughout the day in my journal and then just type it up at the end of the day. my brain is getting exhausted from having to think in french all the time. my french gets worse in the evenings and i mumble a lot more. im waiting for the moment when it become effortless for me to converse in french. im almost there. i started dreaming in french last night and i wasnt expecting that to happen for another 5-6 days.

i was going to go visit brittany today at joué centre, but the bus had stopped running... didnt think that MOST of the buses had stopped running. it was only 2030!!! shed returned to Gien with her bf teddy anywho(not a very french name) so my casual ass then went and grabbed me some gyro with bryan and returned to the bus stop around 2130h only to find out that NONE of the buses were going to saint cyr... my first beef with this city. thats fucked up man! is there a friggin curfew of 21h or something? so i had to take a bus as far north and in my direction as possible, only to have to navigate myself through the bus stops and find my way back to saint cyr on foot. an hour later, around 23h i made it back. the streets were really dark, but so so peaceful. im sure the crime rate is super low here.

a note on the french fashion: havent seen a single pair of nikes since ive been here. all ive seen are converses, pumas, and no name brands. and REALLY bad clothes. but helas, theres Zara, havent found H&M yet, maybe tomorrow, mango, D&G, Prada, and a ton of cute boutiques. cant wait till i get my first pay check!! hmmm, i suppose thats all i have to say for now. i came so close to getting a lot done today, but tomorrow ill get a lot more accomplished. bank account & phone to begin with. and by next week ill be settled in! i have orientation on tuesday in Orléans , about 30 min from here on train. until tomorrow...
keep it fresh & above all
keep it positive

day 2

well, yesterday was a long day, so i slept till about 330pm, and when i woke up the principal had returned and said he could drop me off in the city on his way into town. once there i went to la prefecture, where i had to renew my visa (cause the one i have is only for 3 months), but had to make an appt... so i cant do that till the 10 oct. then i went to the bank (HSBC) to get a bank account, cause that shit is everywhere around europe. but i had to make an appt to go there too. so then i was left to wander the city. thats when i met plume. the gypsy originally from tours, who made a living off pan-handling. faire la marche, is what you call it. i walked up to her asking for hash, and then we ended up kicking it for almot 2 hours. yes, i pan-handled myself. she walked off for like 5 minutes and left her loot, and since i was chillin, i said, "what the hell!" all ihad was dollar dollar bills and i was hungry. the correct way to ask for money is to say, "pardon monsieur(madame, messieurs dames) , avez-vous des petites bras de monaies, des petites pièces peut-être?..." right across the alley were two other gypsies. neither plume or i knew their names, but they were a young couple with a dog. they were posted up right between an atm machine and a market, so people could only be full of shit if they went to either and said they had nothing. they got some change from people leaving the market for that reason. the guy kept repeating the same request over and over, i guess to show the redundancies of what he was doing... plume & i had scored the hash already so it was a bit hard for me to speak clearly... she laughed at me cause i sounded so timid & shy in my requests. eventually the cops showed up and told us we couldnt pan-handle until after the 10 october... couldnt comprehend what was going on or why. but we left and said our adieus and i went to the atm, got some cash, and went straight to the mcdonalds for some comfort food. it was raining fairly hard by this point. i forgot you could get beer at mcdonalds in europe. i just got sprite & a cheeseburger happy meal... and i got a dog. a german shepard even!!! as a toy =(... but shes cute. then i went to the store to buy a bottle of wine, then caught the # 5 bus back to saint cyr.

the bottle of wine is almost gone now. still have a bit of hash. i only bought un petit 10. but i came home, made a snack out of the pot roast mr doumelle had made that afternoon, and looked through the local paper for a studio to rent out. i'll handle that tomorrow. i have some paperwork to fill out in the AM at the school sos i can get PAID!! then, since brittany got into town this evening (when she left the airport in paris, she went straight to gien where her bf lives), ill probably meet up with her. maybe go check out my 2nd middle school in SW tours? nothing serious to do until next week. we have to go to TA orientation in Orleans on tuesday of next week. i have an apt at the bank on friday. im thinkin, small trip to the pays-bas this weekend for some herb??? we'll see how much that costs. the studio apts ive been looking at are a lot cheeper than what i thought theyd be. so it might just be feasable. tomorrows another day!
deuce

so, until tomorrow my peeps.
à demain!!

day 1

actually this makes day 2 in france, but ive had my head in one hand, and my bags in the other up until now and havent had the time to sit down and write... just as a disclaimer, i know for a fact that not everyone who will read this knows the extent of my "party" behavior. so if you dont want to knaw ALL of what ive been up too, be forewarned...

having said that
i arrived in paris yesterday morning around 630am and bougt my ticket on the sncf to go to tours right away. well, i was exhausted for a couple reasons: one being i hadnt slept in over 48 hours... so i fell asleep on the train only to wake up in poitiers, france- an hour SOUTH of tours. they didnt make me buy a new ticket though, so i was stoked on that, but a little upset id missed my stop. and i was in the boondocks with nothing to entertain myself with. there were a couple gypsies with 3 uber malnourished dogs on my train ride back, as well as a dude from.. i dont remember where. but his parents were moroccan and algerian and he was born on some island but was now traveling around europe... whatevs, he talked my ear off, but was good company. i finally made it to tours and headed straight to saint cyr sur loire where my primary middle school is located. henri bergson: to get there from the train station, i took the number 5 bus from rue national (their peachtree st) to cousseau and just walked not even a block down rue victor hugo to 201. the kids were just getting out of class and there were two college looking kids checking the kids ids at the gate. one of them helped me with my bags and he took me to the principals office (ooOOOooo!!) where i met two of the english teachers that id be helping out, the secratary, some other teachers... none of whos names i remember. since i didnt have a place to stay, the principal, mr. doumelle said i could take his sons room for a few nights until i could find my own apt. conveniently, he lives on the middle school campus, inconveniently 3 floors up, sans elevator, so my bags were a slight pain. that night he dropped me off downtown to explore a bit, as hes a dance teacher: salsa, merengue, waltz... you name it, he teaches it- sauf maybe freak dancin ^-^ and he had a dance performance to go watch. but heres the kicker: he dropped me off and was like, "if you go that way, thats the old city, but be carefull because youll come across gypsies smoking weed and such... ... ..." word?? i thanked him and we planned to meet up an hour later at the car. but it started raining not even 10 minutes later and it was cold and i had a whole hour before i could leave. but the only bar i saw that had kids my age was packed. so i chilled in the entrance to this childrens clothing store next to the car for about an hour. meanwhile and ambulance showed up and some woman was taken away in a wheel chair. right as they were leaving, mr doumelle returned and i saw him talking to this guy in a work truck... he totally thought it was me in there, hah. we returned back up the hill to his house, drank some local wine, ate some french food, chatted about stuff, and then i jammed out and passed out in my rooom...