Update

Mes amis!
So sorry it has taken this long to get a post out but internet was sketchy for the first few weeks.

Updates:
• I am settled in a tiny flat in a village about 10 walking minutes from my city and about 30 minutes by bus from my school.
• My new address is 119 Rue Jean Jaures Apt. 24 60160 Montataire France. My phone number is 33 6 37 05 38 06 calling from the US. If not its 06 french style. For all you skypers out there.
• I am enjoying my school so much, I have 10 classes a week and two I am working with the teachers and doing lessons on Halloween, elections, english history (which is overwhelming enough for me), my French is starting to come back and the students can't seem to comprehend that I am here until April. The classes can get a bit unruly from time to time, but its typical junior high. The students are great kids (mostly) and the professors as well are wonderful. I feel truly blessed that I have found such a great place.
• I met another assistant from the US her name is Simni she's in some picture's with me and her friend Rachel lives in Paris so we have been to the ballet and some interesting areas of Paris already and I'm sure more to come.
• So far I haven't done too much traveling but I am going to the Ukraine for a week to visit a Mr. Mike Seufert so that will be a grand adventure. I am leaving tomorrow and spending the night in Paris with the girls. Semi third world country here I come!
• I took my first motorcycle ride here and I am planning on going again with my host family before it gets too cold and also to Champagne in the next few months. My professors almost talked me into going to Disneyworld Paris a few weeks back but I haven't quite yet accepted the whole Euro Disney thing yet, but it's so close I think it might just happen.
So there you are a brief update on my life here. Let's talk election. Probably sick of talking about it by now I know, even in France it is a very big deal and I am assuming other countries around the globe as well. All my students ask me if I like Barack if I will vote for Barack etc. Even strangers strike up conversations about it when they here my jilted american french. France is pro-Barack obviously, a socialist country would side with Democrats and I am scared to even mention McCain, which by the way is a huge joke here. McCain is a frozen food company, they have commercials on the tele and also are widely known. Frozen= McCain to the French.
I did receive my absentee ballot and I mailed it just yesterday so I hope all of you who are reading this make it to the polls. Especially learn who you are electing for House Representation as well as Senator. These votes are even MORE important than the presidency. These are the people who make and propose legislation, to get us out of this crisis. The global economic woes that are on the front page of every newspaper and website haven't been dramatically shown in France just yet but people are worried. Sarkozy (the french prez) is the current President of the EU (the EU presidency rotates every 6 or 4 months) so he is always front line news whenever a new proposal is being made to shore up the larger banks and find a way to unravel this mess. Poor Iceland. I hope Bjork has made enough money to loan the banks a few krones.
Otherwise life is pretty peaceful here. I spend a lot of time reading. I haven't started the backpacking book yet but I will soon when I have money to start planning adventures. I finished My Life Among The Saints, by a Jesuit priest recently. A personal story of saints from the last few centuries and present time that have made an impact on his life in the priesthood. It was really interesting and I think my next book is either going to be an auto-biography by Dorothy Day, entitled The Long Loneliness or I need to finish the Long Journey Into The Night by Celine. I have a lot of time to read here. I love it. I started The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe in French and let me tell you, some things just do not translate. But I hope to get my class reading some Shakespeare sonnatas or in the very least a few poems by Emily Dickenson or Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein. Never thought I would put those authors in the same sentence in my life.

Paris, by the way, still stands.
I always feel at home when I am there. Usually I am running errands or just walking very quickly by my favorite museums. Its strange to think that after I have lived here for awhile that I might become aclimated to these sights just like a native. I hope that never happens and I still stand in aghast of the Eiffel Tour and get weepy when I see the Louvre or break into smiles whenever a foot is placed into the Jardin du Luxembourg. This is my favorite place in Paris. This park is very big and it reminds me of a mini central park. I think one of the reasons I love Washington DC and Chicago so much is because it incorporates this bit of nature into a civilized world of pavement and constant churning of people. I don't know how I would survive in a city without parks. I went into Gallerie Lafayette the other day which is near the Opera (I FORGOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE OPERA! soon..) and this is the LARGEST mall-esque store in the city of Paris. It's beautiful but HUGE and packed. There has to be something to learn about living somewhere where personal space is non existant. Non Existent. I think it's great sometimes, but then there is that whole, holy crap I can't take this anymore capitalism is not all that its cracked up to be, part of me. I escape to the Jardins and I stay there with my Falafel or Grec Baguette (basically a gyro) until I have to be somewhere.

The Opera building in Paris is ASTOUNDING. I think I am going to be using a lot of theasarus words to explain places I visit here but so be it. My vocabulary is limited.
The outside of the Paris Opera faces a large square/traffic circle. It is close to the main shopping areas in Paris (Gallerie Lafayette on Blvd. Haussman) and is just this looming presence wherever you walk nearby. On Saturday night I attended a ballet there. Because the original Opera house is no longer catering to actual Operas, just dance as well as symphonies. This is the Opera house where the Phantom of The Opera actually happened. Cheezy I know but it's a true story and there is a massive chandelier in the middle of the theatre that reminds you of it. As you walk into the building you are greeted by the preformers in costume and character as the audience ascends 2 massive entry marble staircases, this was built to let people be scene and the place to watch who's who in Paris. Still is, but more so when Louis and the Kings of France were here. We sat in the highest box you could possibly, well almost highest, buy. HOWEVER it did mean that I was mere feet from the Marc Chagall painting on the ceiling of the theatre. He is a favorite painter of mine and I did get a little overwhelmed, looking at the colors and the scenes and then glancing down at this beautiful old theatre. The ballet I saw was titled Les Enfants de Paradis. A basic Carmen-esque story, the dancing was great and I think I now have a new passion. No more movies for this girl, I'm saving up for the Tristan and Isolde ballet in a month. I plan to have great seats.
So I feel like I am rattling on about this and I'm sure you know that I miss you all, but I must say, I wish you were here. Some things can only be explained through your eyes and your soul, and this is one of them.
I hope you are all well, I think of Chicago and Monmouth often enough, and it's a big part of the reason I am here. I hope to make all of you very proud.
I will be back in a week, on the 6th so expect more then. Until then enjoy the pictures.

XOXO,
Stephanie

ps I am going to start using french in my blogs so you folks can learn some lingo!
bisous!

But I am le tired

So i arrived a little over a week ago and there is so much to write i cannot even begin to know where to start
first of all a warning please excuse the poor spelling and punctuation on this post because of lovely french keyboards that reduce me to a hunt and peck typer. not very quick so this will be short.
currently i am living with my headmaster of my school who has so kindly taken me in and fed me this last week she lives in the gated community that my collége is in which is making life easy for me and she is very nice and we get along in franglish quite well.
The first weekend I was here I went to the beach and it was freezing but i plucked up the courage to show my english teachers i was with that chicagoans go swimming as long as there is sun. the ocean wasnt much colder than lake michigan and i swam with a seal! it was pretty hans christenson anderson for me, the word for seal here is phoque or fok, i thought the teachers were swearing when they qsked if i had fun swimming with foks.
ANYWAYS in the beach town i also went horseback riding into the forest preserve which there are so many of in france, which i really like, and also along the beach. That is bliss. So i was very happy my first weekend here and kept really busy:

now comes the hard part, missing home a lot more than i thought i would and the french beaurcracy:
the home thing i will spare you but the french craziness i will explain:

so far i have a cellphone but not yet a bank account, my green card (carte de sejour) or anything else i neeed to basically get an apartment on my own, establish a social security number, or prove that I work at the College. Which is slightly interesting to me being that i am a government employee. I would not impose any longer on my principal. but as they say c"est la vie.

things will work out, they always do. I just go to Paris by train when i get lonely and think about silly things and write in my jounal when things get sad AND there are my students whom i love so much already even if they are just beginning to speak english wathcing thier eyes light up when you tell them you have 2 dogs or having them surrond you everywhere you go with questions about the WWF, apparantly wrestling is our biggest cultural export, or even if im married its so great. I am very happt i am here.

I will write more soon when i can.

Go Cubs!