Je suis en France!

Hello everyone!

I decided that since I am studying abroad for a month this summer, I should bring back the blog. Feel free to live vicariously through my adventures.

I left for France from the DFW airport at 1:00 on Thursday, May 31st. After a bit of a delay on the tarmac in Philadelphia (Ladies and Gentlemen, we are experiencing a rather odd problem. The Skyway is apparently stuck to the side of the plane. This is very unusual. Unfortunately, the Skyways are serviced by a third party company. We've alerted the company, and they will be on their way momentarily.) I was on the way to France. I arrived in Paris at around 8 in the morning on Friday, the 1st of June. After successfully negotiating the Metro with my luggage by myself, I had a few hours to wait at the train station until my train left for Vichy. Now I realized that I've never actually ridden a train besides the tourist train that runs between Durango and Silverton in Colorado. It was a slightly terrifying experience boarding the train and getting off at my stop, mostly because I was a bit unsure what the announcements were saying. Fortunately, I managed to get off at the correct stop.

The mother of my host family picked me up at the train station, and I was on my way home! My host family is very nice, and our house is absolutely amazing. It's rather terrifying because no one in the family really speaks English, and I haven't actually taken a French class since Junior year in High School. Thankfully, I'm remembering more French than I thought I would. I'm an awful lot better at understanding what they are saying than actually speaking it myself, which is to be expected. This has led to me mostly listening and only responding minimally. Hopefully once I actually start classes, I'll get back into the groove of speaking French, so I can be a bit more talkative with my hosts.

On Saturday, I spent some time walking around Vichy by myself. The city center is the area with the most stuff going on, and it's where both my house and the CAVILAM school is. It's nice that most places I would need to go are within a fifteen minute walk of where I'm staying. The city is absolutely beautiful. It's small, but it has so much history and so much personality. I plan on walking around with my camera within the next few days, so I'll post pictures soon.

I start classes at CAVILAM off tomorrow with a placement exam to determine the level of French I'll be taking. I'm super nervous, but I know that I'll feel better once classes have started. Once I get into the swing of things, I know that I'm going to really like it here.

Au revoir pour maintenant!

And so the race begins.

The semester has begun, and life seems to be settling into a routine again. My classes seem to mostly be interesting and my work at SoonerVision is going to be busy and exciting this year. For those interested, here's a little bit about the classes that I am taking.

Intro to Archaeology. I'm learning how to excavate broken pots and pieces of rock that were perhaps (hopefully) created by people thousands of years ago. Though I find major archaeological finds fascinating, I'm pretty sure I will never be an archaeologist. The idea of spending weeks excavating a site only to spend many more months writing about my findings is not immediately appealing to me. However, I'm sure I'll learn a lot in the class and will come out of it with a greater understanding and appreciation for the work that archaeologists do.

General Linguistics. The study of language and communication across cultures. Another required course for anthropology, this class should be vaguely interesting, but again, not in a way that I necessarily want to pursue after graduation.

Medical Anthropology. Now we're getting to the good stuff. Medical anthropology incorporates various parts of anthropology into the study of health and disease across cultures. I actually find this stuff fascinating and am extremely excited for this course. The myriad of ways that health is defined in different cultures is so vast that it would take a lifetime to be able to even list them all, let alone truly understand every one. Hopefully this may help me to determine whether I'd like to end up somewhere in this field after graduation.

Osteology. Woohoo! The class I am so excited to take: the study of bones. This will almost assuredly be my most challenging class, as every class period we have a quiz/test on the information learned in the last class. I've already started to get into the flow of the workload, so I will hopefully be able to keep up with everything and learn a bunch!

Beginning Swimming. Yes, I am actually taking a class (for credit) called Beginning Swimming. Judge me as you will, I will stay in shape and get back into the routine of swimming regularly after several years away from the water following my swim team days.

Thus concludes the more information about my schedule than you care to know section of my blog. Join me again next time and I will perhaps be able to figure out how to write a blog post that is not boring.

You're doing it wrong.

If I were trying to follow the rules of blogging, I would be failing miserably right now. Okay, I know that there are no rules to blogging, but there are plenty of tips and tricks out there to get your blog more attention. First of all, I should not have posted my previous post so early in my blog's career. It's a major no-no to post very personal and hard-hitting stuff before you have a steady readership. I've probably scared away any potential readers already. I should be writing something insightful or comedic to draw you in. Also, I've been horrible at updating, so I'm certainly not doing myself any favors there. And now, I'm going to do a cheesy New Year's Resolutions post that almost no one will care about, and certainly won't set me apart from the rest of the Internet at all, in order to drive off the remaining few readers I may have managed to keep.

Without further ado, here they are:

1. Tell my friends and family how much they mean to me more often.

2. Start up a journal again.

Write 3 things I’m thankful for every day.

Keep up with my blog again.

3. Exercise at least twice or three times a week (in addition to the two days I have swimming class).

4. Do not skip class.

5. Start homework before the night before it’s due.

            Start assignments at least as many days before their due date as the percentage of my grade that they are worth (35% of the grade = starting at least 35 days before it’s due).

6. Go to bed at a decent time and wake up at a decent time.

            Minimize naps.

7. Eat healthier.

            Keep track of what I eat.

            At least one fruit or vegetable a day.

            Drink less Mountain Dew (this is a super problem for me) and more water.

8. Work on at least one art piece or craft project every few weeks.

9. Go into work more often.

            Become a Senior Production Assistant by the end of the semester.

10. Go to confession at least once every couple weeks (hopefully every week).

11. Go to the adoration chapel more often.

12. Start and end every day with a prayer.

So, there's my twelve Resolutions for the first 12 years of the millenium. You'll notice that I've cheated, by adding addendums that could technically be considered resolutions by themselves. I do not care. It may seem pretty ambitious to work on so many resolutions at once. However, all of these are things that I've been trying to do recently, so writing them down as New Year's Resolutions just serves to further my goals. Hopefully recording them here will keep me more accountable than I might otherwise be. I'll try and record my progress and report any tips I discover along the way. Because you care about these things. You're welcome.

Fighting.

It's been forever since I've blogged. I'm going to make my New Year's Resolution to get back into the habit again. That's not why I'm here, though. I'm here because I found a blog post that's worth sharing, and I want to share it through every outlet available.
The Fight Goes On
Go read it and then come back. I'll be here.
Depression is an ugly disease. It kills people without a trace. And it's incredibly scary, because no one wants to admit that they're facing it. We've gotten better as a society about recognizing depression as the disease that it is, but it's still hard to admit. We don't see it like we see cancer or heart disease, so those that struggle with it don't always (usually) get the help that they need. This needs to stop.
If you are alive today, you know someone struggling with depression. Maybe you're struggling with it yourself. It's terrifying to be faced with the hopelessness that is depression without anyone to share your fear. Depression makes it impossible to believe that things can ever be okay. It makes doing anything that you once enjoyed a daunting task. It can be extremely hard to recognize depression in others, because those who suffer are fighting every day to act normal, even when they feel like nothing matters anymore. So, do me a favor. Tell everyone you meet that life is worth living. Talk to the people you love and tell them how much they mean to you.
And if you're struggling with depression right now, or maybe you're worried that it will come back soon, know that YOU ARE NEVER ALONE. There will be days, weeks, months on end when even the idea of getting out of bed seems like an insurmountable task. But never forget: depression is a lying son of a bitch. There is hope. This will end. And the people around you will fight with you to get this lying bastard away from you. Find treatment. Ask for help. Keep fighting.
Do not ever lose hope.

I am a Responsible Human Being

No, really, I am. Sometimes. Except when I'm not.

See, the problem is that I go in cycles. I start getting stuff done when I need to, and even planning ahead of time (great in theory...difficult in practice). I start doing awesome adult things.
Like exercising.
And keeping stuff organized.
And going to the bank (and talking to bank people about important grown-up things...like savings accounts and Debit cards)
And paying bills on time.
Maybe even doing homework before the day it's due.
I pride myself on the fact that I've used an afternoon exactly like I should. I'm going to be a real person. And I'm going to get stuff done like a champion. Then I hit the realization that I'm going to have to keep doing stuff like this all the time. For the rest of my life. Until I die. I'm going to have to keep being responsible and not slacking off and...that's all. Forever. And eventually I slip. It's at this point that I usually end up watching several hours of TV show episodes back to back. Things kind of go downhill from there.
I start checking Pinterest more frequently, because it makes me feel like I'm being creative without expending the effort.
I might accomplish the less-important things that are lower on my to-do list, because at least I'm getting something done.
This is a vicious cycle. Eventually, I hope to get off the roller coaster, and stay on the responsibility train forever. And try and stay sane. Because that's what grown-up people do.

P.S. This post follows the same basic storyline as this Hyperbole and a Half. Allie's life apparently parallels my own too well. Except she makes money from her blog. And for me, writing blog posts falls into the part of the responsible category that barely happens.

Week one on the Outer Banks

So, it's been one full week since we made that horrendous drive out to the ocean from Oklahoma. Things have already started to fall into a routine. Susan, her brother, and I made it to Manteo, North Carolina (where our house is) Sunday evening, and Susan and I started work on Monday. Nothing better than getting right into it and making money, right? The job is pretty fun; we're selling retail in a store called Kitty Hawk Surf Co. The store sells and rents kayaks and skim boards and all that fun stuff, but we mainly work in the clothing/shoes part of the store. The hours are kind of interesting to get used to, as the shifts for us are either 9-5 or 2-9:30. Each shift has advantages and disadvantages. With the morning shift, there is no time to go to the beach, and the afternoon shift is generally busier, so you're more exhausted at the end, with no time to do anything but sleep after you're done. Susan and I don't have any of the same shifts, and our days off don't correspond, either. So, our time to get out and do stuff is rather limited right now. We each get two days off a week, though, so we're trying to arrange all of our activities around those days that one of us has off and the other one works the late shift.
With that setup, we managed to get time to take a hang gliding lesson last Thursday, one of my days off. The lessons are held at a place called Jockey's Ridge, a state park right across from where we work that has sand dunes which are perfect for lessons. We were with a larger group, and each person got to take 5 flights. It was super fun, and both of us had it figured out by the end. My instructor even said that I was "a natural," because I apparently knew intuitively what I was supposed to do. I wasn't so sure about that, but I'll take it. And it certainly didn't hurt the whole experience that the instructors were all very attractive boys around our age. So, of course, I think we'll have to take a few more hang gliding lessons to really get the "hang" of it (ha. ha. sorry).
We're signed up for kite-boarding lessons on Friday, which should be another great opportunity. All of these lessons and rentals are free for employees working for the company, so we want to take advantage of everything that we can. Also, if we take these lessons and then take a written quiz, we'll be up for a pay raise, so we're trying to get that done as quickly as possible. More fun and more money? Excellent choice.

Summer 2011, Baby.

School's out for summer! (No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks). Oh, what a year it is has been. This semester has brought all sorts of changes to my life (some good ones, and some not so good ones), and I am certainly looking forward to taking a nice break from the usual and stepping out of my comfort zone. For those of you who don't know, I'm going to be spending the majority of my summer with the lovely Susan Stancampiano and her family on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Considering that I'm used to spending my time either in Norman or in Guymon (Oklahoma is sadly quite landlocked), this is going to be quite the new experience. To say I'm really looking forward to it would be an understatement.
Susan's mother works as the head of the HR department for Kitty Hawk Kites, a company that offers everything from hang gliding lessons to kayak tours to some amazingly cool retail, so I'm going to be working at the shop there. I'm hoping to use this opportunity to work on my self-discovery (cliche, I know) and try some new things. It's going to be a blast, and I am not going to take this once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity for granted.
I'm hoping to use the blog more this summer to keep everyone updated on our adventures. Hopefully, I'll post some awesome stories and some great pictures to ensure that if you're not with us, you'll be jealous. On the other hand, I'm going to be living on the beach, so if I don't post as often as I hope, that will be okay, too.
5 days and counting until we leave for our long drive to North Carolina. Adventure is out there!