Hunt for a one room

Alright everyone! So here's my story on how I found my oneroom.

There are multiple reasons I want to leave the dorm. The main reason is that it's a 7-10 minute walk from campus. I know that doesn't sound bad. But KU is on a friggin' mountain and I'm ready to pass out by the time I get to class. Plus, the walk back to the dorm is worse. It feels a million miles away PLUS there's a big hill AND 111 stairs to hike up. EXERCISE! YAY!

Also, the dorms are really strict about visitors these days. And even coming and leaving the dorm. I'm not even talking segregation. Because Korea is very segregated. Our "uni-sex" dorm is one building with two different entrances for each sex and two different study rooms/laundry rooms. Everything. That isn't really a problem though. I don't mind that too much. 

Also, I have been spending so much money on food. And there isn't a fridge or a microwave in the dorm so I could never cook food. I also REALLY miss vegetables. So I mostly wanted a oneroom so I could get some broccoli and start eating salads again. (I don't want to be part of the freshman 15 ><)

Don't get me wrong, the dorms are VERY nice. I'm in Frontier Building. I have a bathroom that I share with one roommate. The bathroom gets cleaned once a week and I don't have a curfew (since I'm international) the Korean students have to be back by 12:30 for some reason.

My parents didn't really want me leaving the dorms because they said I won't meet anyone once I leave the dorm. 

The thing is, I only have 2 friends that I actually MET in the dorm. Emily and Estelle,who, if you remember, were kidnapped by Keith's mom. Other then them, all of my other friends I met in class, on facebook or on the street. 80% of the international students I know live off campus anyway.

SO! I pretty much started off by talking to all of my Korean friends about how they found their oneroom... but they all told me that they dropped a good 2,000-5,000$ deposit >__< 
That wasn't happening. I found cheaper onerooms that were a few subway stops from campus, but my parents said they wouldn't pay for the apt if it was expensive or not near campus. 

I found one place that had the perfect pricing. $500 deposit and 480$ a month. But the only problem was it was kind of like a dorm. The landlord kept calling it a "public place." I didn't want to leave the dorms for another dorm-like atmosphere. Plus this place didn't allow visitors. There's 2 problems with that: 


1) all of my exchange student friends are leaving right after I move in and I promised them that we would have a sleep over. Yumi (my roommate) especially because I'm going to be in pieces when she's gone. So she's going to come and we're going to party hard in my apt. 

2) I have a boyfriend. 'Nough said.
Anyway, Chad and I dedicated one day to finding a oneroom for me. What we thought would take a whole day literally took like an hour. I wanted to be near the school just in case I ended up having to pay a 2,000$ deposit and I could sell my parents with how close it is to the school. So we called the first number we saw. It was full. But there were a million other "For Rent" signs. We basically stood in one spot and spun in a circle going from number to number. 

Most of them were full. The rest wanted a $5,000 deposit. I was about to loose hope when we called the last number on the street.

There was space at the end of the semester. We could come look at the room now. The deposit is $500 and the monthly bill if $400. 

PERFECT! We walked up the hill. I looked at the room. Talked the to current (foreign) tenants and gave half the deposit and signed the contract.  I HAVE A ONE ROOM!!!

I move in June 22. (18 more days!) I'm so excited. Yumi is going to come over and cook and we're going to have a blast. 

I cannot waiiiittt!!!!!!!!! I get to buy carrots and I Can stay in my room and eat and not have to leave if I don't wnat to.

and the best part is no more stairs because it is literally RIGHT ACROSS the street from the main gates of the campus. A 2 minute walk to my classes compared to 10. I'm so happy.

That's a long post. Hope you guys are actually reading this  O.o

If you have any questions feel free to ask~~~

xx

The Moment

Whenever you hear or read something that talks about learning a different language, it always says something about how one day they woke up and just realised they understood. I've always said that I can understand, but not without concentration. Well, I've had the moment.

My friend Akhir and I were at this amazing restaurant called Vino et Gusto. When we sat at the table the waitress came and heard us speaking English, she asked in French where we come from. We answered America, and she asked the simple question that always gets me excited "Vous comprenez le français?" Yes, yes I do. After we said yes, she jumped into a story about how her and her daughter created this restaurant and everything is homemade, we can have one plate from the buffet and one desert for just 9,90E. She said it all in French. And it didn't even sound strange or foreign to me. It was just natural.

Everywhere I go, I hear conversations and words and just understand them as if I've never had any difficulties. I can go up to someone with ease and ask them something without being scared of not understanding the response. I'll be honest, I've still got a loooooonnnggg way to go to fluency, but I'm making progress. The only thing holding me back now is English.

I need to stop speaking English.

It needs to leave my brain.

I'm trying very hard to speak just French, but it's so hard when everyone at my school is speaking English all the time. Some of the people are sadly not as dedicated to learning French as the others. I just need to refuse speaking English for the rest of the year. I can understand everything with ease, it's just the speaking that's killing me now. I can get my ideas across and make sense, it's just not perfect.

I went to the Air France travel agency today to talk about cheap tickets to Italy for April break. I spoke in French, the agent didn't even try to speak English, I guess he just knew that although my French isn't amazing, it's still understandable.

Galettes. Bigger than crepes, not as sweet an made with different flour. The first time I had a galette, I was at a small restaurant. I didn't really like it too much because it was too buttery and fatting for me. However! My host family made galettes last night.... they used the original recipe that the people of Bretagne used in the 17th century. An it doesn't have any butter and it's made with water instead of milk and (if the family was rich) one egg. Because way back when Bretagne was the poorest department in France, however these days it's one of the richest because of agriculture.

I have a lot of homework that needs to be done, I'll post again ASAP.

xx

L'école

I guess I never really explained my classes and how school works.

Basically there are like 60+ students in the entire program, and we all took placement tests to determine our level in French and math. They are 2 levels of French I and II. Level I is for the meilleur éleves and they study a lot more Literature and work less on learning grammar. Level II, were I am, is dedicated to expanding our vocabulary and speaking skills. Level II still takes Litt. but not as often as level I.

So, the school day is created for each individual student and group. Each level is divided evenly into groups--IA, IB and IIA, IIB--for scheduling purposes. I'm IIA, so all of my classes are with the rest of the people in IIA. Except for math, math gets mixed up according to math skill. I'm in pre-calcI and there is a pre-calcII and a pre-calchonours as well as ABCalc and BCCalc.

Classes are:
CESF(culture et société Françaises-Taught in French)- which is us just learning everything we need to know about France and it's culture..... the prof is hilarious.

Histoire(Taught in FRench- French history... I'm really surprised by how much I love this class, our prof is crazy.

Histoire de l'art(French)- Art and architecture... I love this class the prof is so funny!!

Litterature(French)- French literature

English(English)- Is just a basic English class.... the prof is so smart and crazy, I really enjoy this class

Langue(French)- grammar class..... I love speaking French

TPL(French)- it's a pronunciation class, each group has it once a week

Math(English)- I love our teacher, she is so young and smart and she's super fun

C'est tout! Je vais faire mes devoirs!

PS below is me reciting my first essay in French. We were supposed to do it in class, but they prof only chose certain people to recite. I worked really hard on it, so I wanted to share it with you! Excuse my pronunciation... I was reading too fast.

xx

I Miss Hugs.

These should be the last of my attempt to show Taylor my outfit for the first month.

Since it's been awhile since I posted (sorry!), this is going to be a fairly long and choppy post. I'm just going to write all the experiences in short paragraphs.

I swear, these people here think we have amazing stories to write about. For English we have to write an anecdote that we think helped shape us into the person we are today. And if writing that in English isn't hard enough, French Litt. wants us to write a extremely funny or extremely dramatic story (en français) that has happened to us while we've been in France... I have plenty of stories to write about for Litt, but the prof has extraordinarily high expectations AND she wants us to present it in class.
Her requirements:

-5 minute long presentation.
I don't think any of my stories are long enough!

-Must speak flawless French, the grammar and the accent.
....

-We cannot use "Il y a (there), faire (to do), ça (that) or chose (things)"
That's been easy so far.

I'm just going to ask my host family to just sit with me and help me write this, because writing and speaking is going to extremely difficult. As for English, I thought it was going to be easy because it only has to be 500 words, but my story is finished with only 286 words. I have nothing else to say, so I'm just going to create another draft and see how that goes. Anyways, for English, I'm writing about my near-death experience in Germany and for Litt. I'm going to write about the strange day I had shopping with Eilidh (one of my SYA friends) and some old man.

I'll post both stories when they are completed.

I just wanted to show off my amazing note taking skills IN FRENCH. I was never a big fan of history, but I love history this year, my prof is so funny. I love him.

I made a few French friends! Finally!! SYA had signups for this meet-and-greet at a French school. So, I signed up for it, and while I was there I talked to this one guy and we exchanged numbers and we've been texting ever since!!!!!! We haven't been able to meet up because he is always extraordinarily busy with basket ball (yes, he's athletic). But what I love the most is that he speaks French!! And all 125 messages that we've exchanged are in French!!!

So, I went out yesterday with my friend Crispin and I only had 10E on me, so I decided to go to an ATM and get some cash. So, I found a BNP, which is the sister bank of BOA, and went to the ATM and put my card in, typed in my pin and chose the amount of money I wanted to withdraw. Well, instead of giving my money, the ATM decides to "withhold my card at the request of the bank". Like, what?! J'étais tellement en colère. I called my dad and he called the bank a million times and worked it out, so I'm getting an emergency replacement card ASAP. THANKS DADDY, LOVE YOU!!!!! But, the not-so-funny-but-ironic thing is that was the exact same ATM that my friend used last Saturday to withdraw money and guess what? It took his card too. Oh la vache... I thought it was safe to use because he walked away from the ATM for a while, so I just assumed it took his card because he left it unattended. Stupid machine.

I bought new shoes, a new shirt and two new pants for under 50E! All of it is so cute!

<--These are maxi pain au chocolats... so.good. Eilidh and i both had one they are literally bigger than my face.


Oh, I realised that I don't really miss the US all that much. But the thing I do miss are hugs. I was never a touchy-feely person so, I didn't give very many hugs... but now that I'm in a country that never hugs, all I want to do is hug people. I just want to walk down the streets of Rennes with a sign that says "Free Hugs" just so that people will hug me. Maybe, I can make France realise that hugs are awesome!

On Friday my adviser had a little advisory party at her apartment. It was ridiculously fun. She's only like 28, so she's really easy to talk to and she's so funny. The entire school is trying to find someone to hook her up with because she doesn't have friends yet because she doesn't speak French. She was with SYA: Vietnam last year, so this is her first time in Rennes. She's just as new to the city as we are. But, at her apartment, we all basically ate junk food for about 3 straight hours, then we had epic heart to hearts. She's the math teacher and I swear, she's like the smartest person ever. I never would have imagined that she was that amazing at math. She's a great teacher!

Also, as of Wednesday, I have been here for a month. 8 more months to go. I don't like that. I want to stay here forever. I love everything about Rennes. I have yet to be homesick or sad in anyway.


This post is awful, I'm sorry! I need to start posting regularly so this doesn't happen again.

xx

Je n'ai plus faim.

Best.Cereal.Ever. I am so addicted, it's not even funny.

Sorry Taylor, my outfits the past couple of days were lazy because I was all sick. No worries though, it's just sinuses.

Alright, so, I have small annoying story to tell. I was walking around en ville hier and I passed a smoothie place, me being the smoothie addict that I am, I naturally and eagerly went in to get one. I ordered a 'Eden' which is strawberries, bananas and coconut in orange juice. I got the maxi (6E). After the girl mixed it she threw 3 pieces of ice in a large cup and poured this liquid grossness into the cup with it. I tried it... it was not a smoothie. It was not the consistency of a smoothie. It didn't taste like a smoothie. It was gross. I spent 6E on that nasty thing! I WANT A SMOOTHIE!

-oh, wait, I'm not done.-

My iPod is dying and it has been my alarm clock for the past 2 weeks. So, I went into this really cool kitchen store thingy and found a whole bunch of alarm clocks on sale. I grabbed the cheapest one (7,30E)I found and paid for it. It wasn't until later that night that I realised that it was just.a.clock. 7,30E for nothing. I guess it's still cute and I can put it in my bathroom or something... but still. Too much money wasted in one day.

I have come to realise the French love fresh food. My host father buys our dinner every night, he'll go and get fresh veggies from my host mom's parents garden. It's so delicious, but the main thing that he makes is la compote or apple sauce. We have un pommier, apple tree, in our garden and some nights my host dad will grab a whole bunch and make homemade applesauce. It's so amazing. I add honey that my host grandfather made to the apple sauce and it creates heaven in my mouth. It's so yummylicious.

Classes are going great and my French has improved a great deal. Tomorrow we are going to go on our first school field trip to Morbihan, I'll post pics and info when we get back on Sunday!

xx