and now for some deep thoughts!

So I was thinking about friendship today. These are not revolutionary thoughts, but I just wanted to reflect a bit. I was thinking about this topic because these past several months have been all about creating new friendships and holding onto old ones.

I'm realizing that a really good friendship exists when both people know fully well of the other's flaws. Then you're like cool, well this person is still worth it. I mean yeah he's kind of a dick sometimes and yeah she can sometimes be really selfish but yeah, they're solid friends so I'm going to accept them for who they are and they will do the same for me. When you're in this whole making new friends process, it can be really sucky to suddenly realize someone's weaknesses. Damn. This person isn't as cool as I thought she was. But really, she is. You are just becoming better friends.

Then there's the old friends from the homeland. Strangely, I've stayed in better touch with some of them while I've been here than when I'm at school in Missouri. Maybe it's because we are so worried about loosing our friendship. But weirdly, I feel closer to some of them than I did at home. I also know we could have picked up where we left off as soon as I hit US soil. We'd still be friends. But then we would loose months of knowing about each other's lives. So I'm glad this is how it is.

yah, I'm content.

yeah…

Today we were watching a chinese soap opera in culture et mondialisation which I intended to find hysterical, but the intro displayed scenes from new york. I saw the world trade center, and seeing that really hurt, for some reason a lot more than any other time. I never understood it and didn't really try to. And just now virginia tech happened and my first instinct was to not read anything about it, not ask any questions because I didn't want to know. I just blocked it out. The metro ride home I started thinking about it, how immature of me it was of me try to make sense of these things by not thinking about them. What is wrong with feeling? Why do I hide from it?

i hate titles. hate. hate. hate.

As I am loving France more and more and am so sad to be leaving a month from now, I am missing what I've got waiting for me back home. I wouldn't rather be one place or the other. I want to be in both places. I'm getting more and more excited for this summer while becoming less and less excited about leaving. huh. does that make sense? I'm missing hoochfest too. Tears.

Plus 81

I went to the coolest venue last night and saw the coolest band and am generally stoked about life. Now I have to buy a ticket home and that will probably make me cry.

the stuff that memories are made of

Last night was quite possibly my most superbly favorite of those out on the town. It was an Adam reunion of sorts, minus 25% (we were so sad).

I feel that recounting all the stories would be boring as you were not there, so I will just give you a little hint of the greatness that was last night.

- whoever can dance with the most skankalicious girl wins. her bisexual boyfriends were down
- breaking it down the the crappiest american music ever
- french guy who pretended to be australian to try to get in girls pants
- body shots
- man i never spoke to once who randomly gave me his credit card to buy myself a drink so I picked the most expensive thing on the menu and bought one for myself and four of my friends
- sniffing girls' hair
- girl with poop in her pants
- biting it when I tried to put Ben on my back
- and of course how could it a night with the Adam crew if we didn't continue the never ending discussion on butt sex

i love my friends

love em. I want you to know. If you are my friend I love you. I really expected a lot of my friendships to slip right through the cracks and that on return to the states I would try to salvage what was leftover. But that's not necessaire because my friends are sooooo coooool.

high come down

dear five people I know who read my blog and the 38 I do not know:

I have been worried sick about you for the past two weeks. I have been adventuring all over europe and you had no idea. You really must know about all the things I have done. But I am not a dedicated enough blogger to post in the midst of traveling, and so I thought I would just fill you in when I got back.

One of my last days in Barcelona, a huge wave of homesickness smashed me hard. I was frustrated with my horrible map skills and my limited "hola. gracias." vocabulary. The unfamiliarness of it all was wearing me down. All I could think about was every good memory I have of my friends from Chicago and Columbia, I am missing the dumbest stupidest shit like bickering with John why he doesn't give blockbuster money and fine I will pay $4.99 for this movie. I wanted to go home.

Then last night, I am exhaustedly riding the escalator in a Marseille metro station, I am sick of living out of my backpack and I am tired and over the past 14 days I have slept in more beds than I have taken showers. I look above me and glance at the french advertisement above me and a few seconds later it registers that I completely comprehend everything the ad said. And heya I realize that I feel like I am home.

I will fill you in on my travels later because I am going to go bask in the glory that is france and maybe while I am reading "Qui Suive Peut" in the Parc, I will eavesdrop on the conversation next to me and bask in feeling like I belong.

oy

check out the grammatical errors in the post below Cha-CHinG!

guess what blog readers, im FREAKING OUT

so I was just sitting here at my computer spazing out about life in general, is spazing even a word? I thought I would take a moment to type up about it. here is why things are eeeeeeeeeek: I haven't eaten in a really long time, I think the last time I ate something semi-substantial was eight hours ago and that was some handfuls of popcorn. I don't have time to eat anything though because I haven't yet figured out how to get to florence next week and I need to do that before I leave for amsterdam in five hours. surprisingly, I really want to take a shower which I know you find hard to believe and so do I, but what is even more painful than the idea of me actually wanting to shower is the idea that I might not have time to. Also I need to pack for amsterdam, and stealthily take my clothes off the drying rack on the balcony without waking madame up and I need to make a frickin sandwich for the 82302804 hour train ride tomorrow, will I have time to do those things in the a.m.? Can I take a shower in the a.m.? How early do I have to wake up to do all of this? Am I even going to wake up? Am I going to forget my train tickets? is the beatrix potter team going to leave without me? Is my sister mad at me, because we only spoke for a few minutes today? I miss her so much my tummy hurts. Or does my tummy hurt because I am so hungry. She told me Gabbie is dying, she is the oldest dog. I think that is going to mess things up back home a lot. I am starting to cry now because I don't like to think about death, and I never got to say goodbye to Gabbie and when I was staying at home she wouldn't go upstairs and sleep with the rents she would sleep by my door to protect me. Why didn't I get to say goodbye to anyone? And all the while I am worrying if something dramatic has happened to me and I have become a different Betsy than I used to be or if I am the same Betsy I always was, but the Betsy I used to be was not the real Betsy? It's very complicated, you see, perhaps I am having identity issues? That is almost comical. I only have €1.24 credit left on my cell phone. These are the things I am worrying about right now. But don't worry friends. I'll be in Amsterdam in less than 24 hours. I will feel better!

sweet

So I was a tad bit gumpy pants today because I want my earings back. Actually that is not why i was grumpy. I wasn't really grumpy at all. But that's not the point. That's not the point at all. The point is, Charlie, that

when I got home I found I had received a card from Scott and the Catalyst Crew. How thoughtful. People back home actually remember me? I have this strange feeling that Scott bought the card and forced everyone to sign it, whether they wanted to or not, then took charge in the mailing of the card. So first and foremost I am going to thank him. Then, thank you to everyone who signed it. That is all.

just add this to the post below

So tonight I walked up to the sixth floor of my apartment building before I realized something was off. I live on the fourth.

One more check for my intelligence

As I was walking home tonight, I trying to brainstorm innovative ways to challenge my wittle brain. Then I stopped to look at some watches in a magasin window. These watches were appealing to me, so I leaned in to get a closer look. Then I banged my head really hard against the obviously there window. I need to find ways to boost my common sense.

when I worked at The Maneater, I hated writing headlines, and writing this reminds me of that

I was planning on getting a ton of work done today to justify… well I don't know what to justify, but yesterday it seemed like a good idea to get a lot of work done today. This is what I have done so far

1. drink 2 cups of tea
2. watch Les Amours, a french dating game show
3. listen to the Tegan and Sara album I got from the biblio
4. attempt to clean out the crud jammed in my nails from all the hardcore rock climbing I've been doing
5. write my aunt an email
6. update my myspace profile

maybe now I will take a nap

centième post about La Poste

Waiting in line at the post office isn't so bad if you have an ipod, a book or a whole pizza to eat. Otherwise, you must patiently wait for a very very very plusieurs minutes. Today I was waiting and dreading that I would very stuck with the mean lady. I remember her from last week because she thought I said €5 when I said I needed credit for my phone for €25.

I know I said the 20 because for some reason I get really nerveuse with my numbers and forget them on the spot. So I always practice in my head, especially if I am anticipating using them soon. It doesn't make any sense because I learned to count in French… um… 7 years ago? Anyways, she printed out the wrong thing and then got all in a huff. Since I had an accent I bet everyone assumed it was my fault, but it WASN'T. But it was fine, eventually I got my €25, really €30 because orange adds 5.

Like I already said, I didn't want this lady. I really didn't care if she remembered me or not, but didn't want to deal with her pissiness again. But of course she was the open agent when it was my turn. She was actually really pleasant. She must have been having a bad day last time. I'm glad we got to share a second moment together.

Now that I reflect on it, I would be pissy if I worked at a french post office too, because it is always really busy and they probably never get to go to the bathroom. Actually, that is not true because the Poste is closed more often than it is open, so they can go pee during those times.

the following would have been better if I believed in love

Totally I spent a considerable amount of time at Parc de Tête d'Or parce que the bibliothèque was closed. I thought it was only closed on sunday, but apparently lundi is a good day for the library workers to take off too. Anyway, at the park I walked, read and slept. I was feeling indecisive about music selection, so settled for the old "mix de morceaux" rag.

This is typically a really crappy decision because I will always get either songs I am embarassed to own, or iTrip stations, which are just loud obnoxious beeps. But today was more or less a good day, I skipped through a bunch but came out in the end with a pretty good playlist:

Today - Smashing Pumpkins
Come in Alone - My Bloody Valentine
Dinu Lipatti's Bones - The Mountain Goats
FM - Junior Boys
I Don't Love Anyone - Belle & Sebastian
Ann Don't Cry - Pavement
All of My Love - Led Zeppelin
Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed - Silver Jews
There There (The Boney King Of Nowhere) - Radiohead
Handshake Drugs - Wilco
Say It Ain't So - Weezer
Brand New Colony - Postal Service
Now That I Miss Her - Elefant

It was a good day and I so decided that maybe I would like to be proposed to in this park. However this is a problem because I don't like boys or dating them, so I may never be proposed to.

this is how i FEEL

Two simulatenous things happened that completely threw off whatever sense of normalcy I had left here.

One, my grandpa died. It was horrible. I cried a lot and felt hopeless. I still feel like I haven't been able to mourn properly and really understand how it is affecting my family because I wasn't there. And it was Grandpa that got me into French. When I was little, he gave me kid's books in France. He took me to France a couple of years ago. He was really proud of me that I was coming here and offered to pay for my rent so I could afford it. It hurts thinking about this. My brain can't comprehend that he's dead because I had no closure to it.

And then, at the same time I came across the realization that I have fallen in love with France. I don't know where it came from, but I just began realizing that I am really happy here. I wish I could stay longer. And this feels so strangely, because everyone back home is caught up in family things, and I am caught up in it too, to a certain extent. But the reality of it is that I am far away and don't explicitly have to deal with it.

That gives me time to live my study abroad life as nothing happened, and allows me to have a solid weekend that includes but is not limited to sick bouldering gym, getting wasted face and happily embarrassing myself, italian/spanish/english/german/french dinner night. Also funky french poetry/improv slam and buying tix to A'dam. Also really off-color chocolate chip cookies because I just threw in amounts of ingredients as I saw fit and it was possibly one of the worst batches of cookies I have ever made, but everyone raved about their deliciousness. Also my library card scheme. Also ditiching class to shop with a good friend. Also the mildly obnoxious petits-enfants in for the weekend, yet their little french voices are still adorable. All these things, they make me happy, they are why I love it here. But is it wrong to feel like so?

and I am joining all my thoughts to you…

After I hopped off the metro around 12ish tonight, I sauntered on over to the Rhône instead of heading straight home. I was listening to "Seven Swans," and it just seemed like the right thing to do. The view isn't even that great, there are much better places to catch the lights of the city at night. But I was working with what I had.

I was thinking about how today was a really good day. I was going through a string of having way more bad days than good ones. Especially last week, which totally sucked because of a bunch of shit that happened on the homefront. But Chamonix weekend was great, anticipating A-dam with quality people is great, my friends here are great, climbing tonight was great too. How long did it take me to thing all these things were great? Well I don't know.

But the idea of having to eventually go home hurts my little heart. Also, I miss my sister.

right now I am polishing off a jar of peanut butter

tonight i was all like IN YOUR FACE FRANCE because I went to see this dumb movie in french and understood every single word. Aside from the fact that the film was completely predictable and it was so obvious that noami watts was going to get preggers with the other dude's baby and one of the deux was going to die of cholera in the end, also that it was an american movie dubbed in french, what?, I was happy because the french stuck. But on a different note, I am so over people (such as guy ripping my ticket) speaking to me in English. It's insulting and I want them to slip on dog crap and die.

On not maquillage, etc.

today I got an email from my sister, and in it was a list of things that made her happy. One was that she made an effort to look nice for work 2 days in a row. It was very ironic, you see, because tonight I went to watch a football match and it was the first time I tried to look nice in… maybe weeks. I even put some bobby pins in my hair and stuff and used my eyelash curler. It was pretty riveting. I don't know why France has pushed me into looking like such an F'ing skeez all the time, but it has. I only wear polka dotted ribbons if I remember to — you know it's gotten bad.

la fam

I haven't really felt homesick since I've been here. If you have spent more than five minutes around my dad, you might understand why. And I still don't feel homesick, in that sense of the word, but it's funny to communicate with them and think "that is so _______." I didn't really expect them to change or anything, but you know. For example, the christmas tree isn't down yet. My mom has spent the last two months looking for the wand that goes with our really crappy angel, and cut off every branch invidually in the search. My sister is feeling restless and jokes about quitting her job to become a pastry chef. My dad has littered the dining room table with bee keeping supplies. I can picture exactly how my family is living back there, exactly how they have not changed one bit. I wonder if I will fit back into the routine when I get back?