My Attempt at Thanksgiving Dinner

I was unable to do a blow-out Thanksgiving dinner for Christophe and I because I was at a "stage" (assistantship workshop) all day long. I started the dinner at about 5pm which everyone knows is too late to even think about cooking a turkey, so chicken it was. I bought a whole one, ready to cook thankfully because I had no desire to pull out the giblets. The chicken took about 2 hours to cook so at the same time I prepared a walnut pie, which was supposed to be a pecan pie taken from Milk Jam's recipe. However, I could not find pecans at the french supermarket so I replaced them with walnuts.It came out yummy despit the change in recipe. And to top this dinner off, I opened up the can of cranberry sauce that mom sent from the US! Though it wasn't the same as Thanksgiving back home, it was still fun nonetheless. Christophe was able to experience his first Thanksgiving and I cooked my first Thanksgiving meal.

My apartment

Now that I finally have interet access à la maison, I can upload pictures of my new apartment! Yay! I want to do a before and after effect, before when the apartment was empty and after, after we moved in our furniture. C'est parti!

The Entrance/ Hallway

The Living Room

Before...

After!



Living Room/ Kitchen
Before...



After!


The Kitchen
Before..



After!


The Bedroom
Before...


After!

The Bathroom
(it hasn't changed)

Well I hope you enjoyed the tour of my new apartment. It's a little small but thats just a synonym for cozy!

I'm back!!

Ok I just got home from my horrible CE2 and CM2 classes and just wanted to look at the livebox for a nice laugh (That blinking light is like a smack in the face) and i see that it stopped blinking! OMG i have internet again!! Yes almost after one month of calling countless orange representatives who apparently had no idea what was going on and using up all our phone credit, magically we have internet again. UGGG!! Well I can't say that I'm not happy. Now I can replace my hours in front of the TV with hours in front of my computer screen once more..lol.

No internet

Thanks to Orange we have not had internet in our new aparment for about 3 weeks now. Can someone please explain to me why it is so hard to move a few wires to make internet work in a new apartment? They are telling us that at the end of the week we should have it back. HA! Mon oeil! Until then... byebye

I am in awe

I barely slept this past night because I was so nervous about the election results for the next morning. Even though Obama has been ahead in the polls for quite some time, I feared that the race factor would still determine the election. Thankfully it did not. Everyone got out there to vote this year for a just cause. We need change in their country and Americans have proved that we are ready.
This is honestly one of the few times in my life that I can actually say that I'm proud to be an American. Not only is this man going to change America for the better but he will change our poor reputation around the world. I am so happy that we have crossed this racial barrier and have elected someone that reflects the diversity of America.
I am overjoyed!

Funny Story

During my activity today in my CE2 class (3rd grade), I was trying to explain the words girl and boy to them because we were doing English names. In order to demonstrate who is a girl and who is a boy I pointed to each student and said boy, boy, girl, boy, girl, etc. Then I passed out the English names based on their gender when out of the corner of my eye I see a hand raised. Yes? I asked.
The student replies..."But I'm not a girl, I'm a boy."
I had accidentally counted him as a girl because of his long curly hair and slightly feminine face.
"Uhhhh, ok." I quickly rushed and gave him a boy's name and changed the subject immediately.

I can't believe I did that...I feel terrible and I bet this kid will be scared for life!

La honte totale!

A Trip to the Happiest Place on Earth: The Prefecture

The title of this entry is course very sarcastic. After my incident last month with them refusing to renew my carte de sejour when they had been promising me for a month, I was hoping for a more optimistic outcome today. The woman who turned me away the last time had told me to come back on a Monday because that's when she would be working.
So Monday it is...
I wake up bright and early this morning (ok not that early, 8am) and I arrive there at about 9:30am to see staring back at me a tiny peice of paper covering the étrangers sans R.D.V. button, annoucing that its closed Monday mornings! Ok..fine, I'll come back this afternoon after I teach. After class I arrive at 3:23, it closes at 4pm. Now since there is always ONE person working at each station to help an endless amount of people, I was expecting to be turned away at 4. Thankfully it was my turn 20 minutes later. I stood up expecting to see the lady that knows my situation and who is going to help me get my new carte de sejour....and its not her.
It's her replacement, a very pleasant lady who barked at me to get out of the office to let a previous person in ahead of me. When it was my turn (it already was) I quickly explained to her my situation and starting handing her my official papers. Then she barks again: PHOTOCOPIES! I NEED PHOTOCOPIES. Of course with my luck I had all of them except a photocopy of the apartment contract. I was sent out and told to go make a photocopy.
I come back with the photocopy and then she asks for a photo. I don't have a photo because the prefecture took them in July, telling me that those with be for my new carte de sejour! I tell her, they are in my file, that's why I didn't bring one.
Of course its too difficult to get my file or to get it tomorrow just to stick a photo on the recipssee. No, not possible. I need to bring in another one! ARRGG!

I hate that place.