Email to my mom...

There are so many people here at USC that I'm going to miss next year... a lot of people that I'm just becoming really good friends with recently. I know though that I'm going to make a lot of lifetime friends next year... but in the long run it seems that everywhere I go I'll be missing someone somewhere.

I was planning on a longer, more inspiring blog post.... but I guess this is all I really want to say:



i don't understand what numbers have to do with success
or what sales have to do with happiness
unless they're the type of sails that will carry me to sea


It was a really nice Spring Break. Only a few more weeks of school. I'm actually really looking forward to Summer, but also coming to the realization that I only have these next to months of normalcy. And then.... everything starts looking a lot more undefined.

I bought this book a couple days ago (with some prodding from Jordan) called D!rty French (yes the "i" is an exclamation point... i donno). It's not all that dirty... well there are some rather un-clean things, but mostly it's just a bunch of slang-ish ways to say hi, complain about things and compliment les filles.

But some useful phrases I now know how to say:

C'est pas moi - It wasn't me.
Ta mère elle a accouché dans une poubelle - Your mother gave birth in a trash can. (the book claims this to be a "classic middle school insult")
On ferait vraiment de très beaux bébés - Our babies would be gorgeous
Je fais partie du groupe - I'm with the band.

Yeah, I'm gonna be using that one a lot,

Clara

Typical.

Shipra: Hey Clara, wanna watch a French movie???
Me: Sure
Maggie: Let's just relate everything French to Clara from now on.

Woooooooooo..... and thus begins a rather delirious, mid-midterm studying blog post.... I'm gonna just start liveblogging this roommate conversation [bibliography Kelsey]:

"Stop harping me"
"Harp needs a preposition!"
"I love harps!"
"Harp is a homophone"

*moments later*

"I think in real life the ninja turtles would win....... she ain't gonna tie me down..... that's about sexual selection" - Maggie Carroll

"Wake up in the morning..." - Brenda Yang

"I'm trying to decide if bringing Andy to Tiger Heat is a good idea" - Maggie
"He can take Clark... will that help?" - Brenda

*Cue actual point of this blog post*
France-preparation things I did today:
Drank French Roast Coffee
Wrote my french paper on hate in the slums of paris. OUUUIIII!!! (similar to saying YEAAAAHHHHHHHHH!)
Listened to MC Solaar


"Wake up in the morning....First of all he's Diddy.... he dropped the P...and Mick Jagger now? or Mick Jagger 40 years ago??""- Maggie Carroll

Obviously, there is a lot of Ke$ha conversation round these parts

"When the Beatles started stealing music from the black people" - Maggie's impression of Shipra's British film professor, with accent.


"WHAT! It's 1:34??!?!? WHY AM I AWAKE! I haven't been doing anything for an hour and a half." - Maggie, moments ago.

Meehhhhhhhh Midterms.

Bye,

Clara

Je vais etudier en Paris l'anée prochaine!

2:11 pm and I just woke up. Had a crazy night and met a lot of new people from all over the world.... and hardly even left my apartment.

Last night Kruti and Jordan and I played Chat Roulette for 2+ hours straight. Though we had to sort through a plethora of creepers and got nexted by a lot hot girls and fourteen year old babies who didn't find us up to standard - we managed to find three different groups of people all living in Paris and quite happy to converse in their native tongue. You have no idea the rush of seeing "salut!" pop up on the screen and knowing that you are about to step into a delightful conversation en Français.

First we talked to Peter and Simon - two 17-year olds living in the 16th arrondissement (which after just looking on my map I have realized is considered one of the plus chere!). They were listening to some really catchy French rap - which they told me was La Fouine. But then when they found out where we were they put on some American songs and songs about LA. So sweet. We all agreed that if the 17-year olds are so très mignonˆ - finding a good looking homme shouldn't be an issue.

Then we talked to a man that appeared to be in a rug shop (but I couldn't ask because I don't know how to say rug shop) and was trying to talk about gypsies and caravans with us. He seemed nice, but had some creeper potential. It should be noted - creepers come in all shapes, sizes, nationalities, and occupations. So we nexted him.

And were quite pleased to eventually discover this lovely man:
Yes he is indeed blowing me some bisous. And he wished me a good trip and said my French was very good. Merci beaucoup grand-père!

Overall, Chat Roulette has become my new favorite way to study International Relations.

In other related news, I ate some brie cheese and talked to my dear friend Casey about studying abroad. Those have been the highlights of the morning (and by morning i mean afternoon of course).

- Clara

P.S. I changed the name of the blog. Just trying it out for a bit.

Hoping to get my Chat Roulette on later tonight....

Okay hi again.

So I finished my homework (now I'm a super expert on the conflict in Fiji - did you even know there was conflict in Fiji? There is.) and now I'm kind of contemplating getting ready to go to a party with Shipra for her fraternity but I wanted to blog again.

I haven't gotten around to writing a really serious blog post about why I'm actually writing this blog in the first place.... but instead I'd just like to talk about something that really bothers me:

Recently I was talking with a friend of mine about Chat Roulette. (Now if you haven't played you should probably just google it because- however glorious and heavily endorsed- explaining Chat Roulette is not the point of this blog post.) So my friend - I don't even know who it was, I think an acquaintance...- kept going off about Chat Roulette - except she pronounced it Chat Roul-ay! UHHHHHH HELLOOOOOOO??? Obviously that is NOT how you pronounce it [via Wiki Answers]. Friends, please don't go trying to French-ify things if you don't know what you're doing. See the "e" at the end of the word???? Well that means you pronounce the entire word. I guess this is coming off a little pretentious, but really its something that's just been floating around my head and I have been wanting to write down.

In other news... Things I have done to prepare for a 9 month stay in Paris so far:

1. Listened to my Yelle Pandora radio station
2. Eaten a lot of pastries and brie. Separate occasions.
3. Worn black.
4. Changed my Facebook language to French... now I can "j'aime" things to my heart's content. It makes me a little j'aime-happy.

Au Revoir-

Clara

La premiere poste!

Hey you -

Okay well I'm just going to begin this blog by saying - I'm studying abroad in Paris next year for 9 months and I'm going to start blogging about it now because "BLOGGING IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE" [via Stephen C. Steen]. But I'd like to talk more about that later and get some administrative things out of the way first.

Okay to begin with the blog is currently titled "An American in Paris" which I haven't decided how comfortable I feel about - super cliché right? The thing is I'm still trying to discover a more appropriate title - seeing as 1. I'm not in Paris yet and 2. I haven't even seen the movie and 3. There has got to be a really good punny title out there.

But for now I think that title is gonna stick, until I come up with something better. I had actually wanted to start this blog as soon as I found out for sure I was studying abroad - but I've been stressing out over the title all week and then today when I went to set up the blog I just kind of went for it because blogspot was putting me under a lot of pressure to decide.... like hold your horses blogspot! Can't I just start blogging and pick a title lattterrr???!?!?!?!

But on the plus side [cue google image search results for "An American in Paris"]Dance Sequences + My Main Man Shia.... so maybe this title is a lot more fitting than I initially thought.

I had hoped to come across a more witty blog title [suggestions gladly accepted] so I turned to my trusty bff wikipedia and happened upon this gem.

My nerdier readers should inquire further [especially since I figured out how to make words into hyperlinks on my first blog post everrrr!]... but for the one or two cooler/lazier readers I'll just leave you with:

Q - Why do French people only have one egg for breakfast?

A - Because one egg's 'un oeuf'. (one egg's enough)

Now if only I could fashion that masterpiece into a blog title!

Now also, about this particular entry's title - I wasn't entirely certain about how to say "post" as in "blog post" [expect further posts concerning my language insecurities] so I casually fashioned together a little Franglish.... but then I put it into my dashboard translator [not always a reputable source] which insists that "la premiere poste" means "the first post office"... which I just found kind of funny.

Sorry this blog is turning into a lot of inside jokes with myself. I promise to become a more accessible blogger at some point, but it might take some practice. I was going to talk more about my actual trip... but I think I'll save that for a future post because I need to do some homework now.

Bientôt!

Clara