Hey you people !

How are you doing?
Here, in France, things are not at their best at the moment as it's dealing with a huge drop of the euro, a national dept that went over the top of what would normally be seen as normal and, to add on bad news, we got 3millions of unsatisfied, because unemployed , french people at least. With that I think we can be called "grounch" for the next following years even though we're already known for grumbling louder than any other europeen countries...Anyway, not a good time to be in France.
But, myselft, I'm really good right now. Being busy suits me. Being exhausted doesn't but a bit of organisation should solve that problem. Between homework and the job I got outside of school, I haven't really got time to do anything else but I'm still finding some breaches in my schedule to READ !

The last book I read was a play of Sartre called Huis Clos. Do you know Sartre? He's a french philosopher, novelist, and play writer of the XXth century, that also took a lead into the resistance and fought through his writings during and after the WWII. About that play...it's the story of three people, two women and a man, that found themselves lock into the same room after being dead but without knowing why. THey're in hell... Why would this room, in which there is a light, that can't be turned off, three coaches, one for each of them, and a statue in bronze, be hell after all? Because "hell is other people" is what will say Garcin, the man character. Everyone already got that feeling once when you stayed with someone for too long and then need to recharge your batteries before seing that person again. Being trapped with the same people for eternity must be pretty tough to survive to, except when you're already dead !  All in all, it's a pretty ironical play on how is it possible to live with each other whithout wanting to kill them.

B.U.S.Y !

Boring Use of Stuggling Youth ! Why does school day in France last for so long? Do they want us, studients, to die trapped into these walls ?! That's too much!! How are we suppose to survive to 8 straight hours being at school every single day ? How could we even get involve into something else than school ?! In France, I'm sure there's no shame in asking "are you sure there's something after?". People don't like school but stick to it, that's funny. Or not. There isn't that many knowing what they would like to do beside studing. Studing...to do what?? "Euhhh (that's very french) I don't know yet). We wonder why french student don't get involve in helping others or don't that sense of purpose that american would have for example, but HOW could they? We're born at school and definitely bored of life by the time we get out. We also like to complain about it and how unfair it is that other countries have earlier ending than us...Sometimes I feel like asking people are you here or not, if you're here that's for a reason, so go on and don't give up !! Because so many studients are here in appearence but their mind is absent. They could have missed without having being noticed! Social skill?? Enthousiasm for novelty ?? Debate?? None of this but fashion.
France love fashion. I don't think that's cliché when you walk through my high school : we're all dressed up as fashion victims to the point it became absurd. Let's make a game out of it, the first one that spots a foreign looking studient wins !! we're so identically dressed that it's not difficult to see who's from where... "Hide and Seek" could perfectly be the new motto of this school. Hide under your appearence an seek who people truly are afterwards! No problem with that of course except when you feel that this whole thing doesn't suit you well. And when it doesn't suit you, well, that's pity first, but then either you change or can wait a long time to find people who're like you. How could it be better to be fake than to simply make the step to others I don't understand. That's what's so hard for people : make a step. "Just do it" that's the shirt we miss in France and people don't know what to believe and what their convictions are or what to do to make what they wish come true. Move it and struggle for what you believe is right not what everybody else's saying !
My point is, communication is a big thing in the world-we're surrunded by informations,image, screens,papers, but still we kind of forget that we can talk to each other.
I leave you on this! oh mon amour :)

Le chainon manquant !

Hello!

That's in two weeks. Only two weeks and I'll get to be at the "chainon manquant" and watch all kind of new talents going from singing to awesome circus, to danse, puppet shows and humorist to fill in! The"chainon manquant" is actually a music festival that's trying to promote new artists coming up on stage and taking their chance with a brand new public (us!). It's a francophone festival that's hosted by Laval for the first time this year. They've selected people coming from lots of different places such as France, but also Belgium and we'll even see some quebecquois here! (doing pupets if I remember right). I can't really tell how much people are looking forward to it but I wish many are going to come and make it more fun for the performers! Anyway, I'll make you listen to a few of them right now so you'll get an idea :

        
                                  

This is "kiss&drive" eh... and there's also Liz cherhal !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbfbTLkiMqE&feature=relmfu
 That's the quebecquois couple, inspired by the thumbs as it seems:

And these are"The skeleton Band", let's introduce them by this video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beJTSdGafQ4&feature=related 

And many others that are not even on youtube but that I may see !

Hope you're good and busy !

When school begins...

Hello to my favorites Canadian and French people !
(those that are not reading are not my favorites anymore, just kidding)
           So yeah school started the 4th so now, the 5th, I can talk to you a little more about it. Actually I'm pretty excited about everything because it all seems great for now (wait, that it really begins and I won't say the same thing) with awesome classes like philosophy (tons of philo), english, a little bit of italian and a little bit of chinese, plus, maybe, a tiny bit of spanish. I'm taking as many languages as I possibly can and I'm trying to get involved as much as I can in every other subjects. We'll see how well I'm doing after couple of months but at this point of the year I think I'm successful :) (yes I have grapes, stop asking me all the time). After a while I'll get use to start at 8 am and end my school day at 5 pm even if I'll certainly miss these two free hours that I had in my Canadians schedule, which you should be proud of because not everybody gets that chance... So this is it about class, schedules and boring stuff, nothing really new.
              What's new this year for me is I didn't know anybody except one person, I don't think she choosed, from my past school years. Maybe I knew some faces, if you back up a very long time ago (2 years). Well not much anyway. But I met someone as lost as me in this lot of students! American bingo! I'm saving him from getting lost again as he's saving me from loneliness so we made a deal to be friend :) There are others exchange studient too that I haven't met yet. A girl from danemark apparently and some other guys coming from somwhere else. Fun, fun and fun again ! I didn't know, but now I noticed, the programs at school have changed a lot with the new reform that came in 2009 so now I have a class that's about foreign litterature in english ! Meaning?  I'm absolutely not throwing out my english litterature paper from last year.
In the "what's happening at Laval" kind of speech there is also a new music festival called 'le chainon manquant' coming up in september. More news next time...already got homework and that's awesome. Don't believe a word I just say.
If you come across my blog, I say HI to everybody !!!

 

Le Mont Saint Michel !

Le Mont Saint Michel

Hi there!
 Still on vacations but not for long since I'll have to get back to school on the 4th. Until then I'm free to have as much leisure time as I can fit in a day...Honestly, I feel like this year is going to be chalenging, my schedule seems pretty full from now on and I don't know yet how well it's going to work out between my classes that are going from 8 am until 5pm, my hobies outside of school, and my job (if I manage to find one before school starts). That's pretty much what is going on for me right now when one week one back in time I was visiting the Mont Saint Michel in Normandy with my family and our american friend, Matthew, coming from North Carolina ! The Mont Saint Michel is one the most visited site after the Effel Tower wich is the first one, so we couldn't just skip it especially since we had a guest with us we needed to go there. That's why, I suppose, we did it twice in a row and thrice for my dad who seemed to enjoy it so much...yeah it's huge.  If you want to get a good picture of if you need to approach it under different set of view (usually you have enough of it after one time).
        So the first time we did it we were with a guide that took us across the Bay of The Mont Saint Michel to the monument itself. He explained all about this rock on wich an abbaye was seatted for many centuries. That used to be, we're back in the 10th century (when people  thought that walking for miles and miles would erase their sins), the most prised pelgrinage site that you could find at this time. If you got there alive, from the shifting sands to the moving tides it was a difficult task,  you were blessed. Of course only those that had the purest soul could get there out of troubles. I got there fine. The guide must have been some kind of god to be achieving this crossing everyday ! Incredibly, about 20 000 pelgrins were doing the crossing everyday back then (less than half were ever going back though)!

What happened when your soul wasn't pure...(loads of people get stuck)

 What happened to it next I paid less attention : it got through the 100 years war intact, resisted all of the english assault and got forgotten afterwards until it sucited a new interest among the french writers of the 19th, like Flaubert, Maupassant and Hugo, among many others, pulling it back to life again. And nowadys it's a big touristic attraction that you'll do if ever you come visit me:)
Which, after you read this, will want to do for sure!
See you soon on skype!

oh, my brother!

Your extra-terrestre.

Back from the north (not exactly pole)

Bonjour !!

That was in a town council in le touquet

How is everyone doing in his own life?
Barely got back in town that I'm busy on the computer again, chatting with people, and basically streching out my limits until my brain says stop. I can't disconnect that easily to the world I've been living in for about a year. I don't want to anyway :)
People say that I'm actually an alien because we don't really speak the same language and that I always seem to be miles away from the reality, what's happening right here, right now. I must possess some kind of power to be in two different places at a time, that's cool with me.
 Anyway, what I wanted to share with you wasn't about any secret identity but about the trips I've been up to these last couples of weeks : "che le Nord". I've met lots of nice people there and they were all asking why we, young people, would wanna go over here on vacations. Well, to tell the truth I was seing a friend but I really thought that it would be a great place to live when I'll be old enough. My reasons for that are that, first, it's really easy to get to travel there.Since you're very close to the english channel you can take the tunnel and in 30 minutes you're in England ! What else you can do very easily is get to Belgium  and meet with François l'embrouille for a five minutes speed dating!
Then, I love the fact that there are much more strangers in Boulogne than there are in Laval, where I live. It's way easier to meet english people over there (it's well know that english gets drunk in France...) and even spanish coming from either south america or spain. You don't meet lots of asian though, they must prefer Paris (or maybe we prefer them to prefer Paris). So I went to a polyglot bar one evening and sat at one table and spoke spanish, although I never took spanish in school, with french and mexican. I had fun trying to speak and I think people had fun teaching me haha There were also two other tables upstairs that spoke german and english, no one at the german table and everybody at the english one wich was rather pity I thought. That way I became friend with some mexicans and we spent some time together afterwards.

View on the beach with a balcony to dispose if we wish, great flat!

The other great thing at Boulogne is the beach and we really made the most of it while we were there. Midnight bath is always something that I plan on doing but that I still haven't tried yet under pretex that it was too cold outside...which is only part of the reason. Lying on our wet towels to dry our wet bodies, playing at beach volley, and going for a run one time, was some of the things we did instead. oh yeah and taking pictures was another one of our hobbie. We travelled around a bit to a few neighbouring city that were nice étape, le touquet, Rouen...

Tadaaa, the entrance of the town council (mairie in french)

This was a great ride! It reminded me of playland in Vancouver.

Ambroise Paré, my high school.

Hello la fripouille!
Hope everybody is doing good in Canada ! Here, in Laval, I'm enjoying myself as a real tourist! I never leave without my camera and it turns out to be pretty funny wandering downtown with everbody staring at me in a suspicious way. They're not really use to be famous in Laval that's why...but I'll take care of that in this blog. It might be the only town in france that you'll know but at least you will remember this one :) That's a start!
Being a tourist is a difficult job (not kidding) especially with french people. I got in some trouble with one woman that was walking towards me as I was taking a picture of the castle with some back ground houses of Laval, I thought it was nice picture as she walked faster and stopped in front of me to ask me, with a very bad look in her face, if I'd dared putting her in that picture or if she'd dreamt...I almost said to her that I took that photo because of her to put it in facebook but instead I just replied that if she wanted me to erase it I will and then she kept on walking looking slightly upset. I should have told her that I came back from Canada, maybe she would have understand better :)
People watching is alsways something that I get into without even noticing and people don't like it when somebody is just staring at them (hum a stranger...) it makes you look very impolite.

This is a street heading to a market place and the houses are dated from the 13th centuries.

La perrine

Don't cross the way of the dogs' owner either because they're extremely sensitive about their animal! Take this warning seriously if you don't wanna get kick by the leash of a furious woman (women often more than men I noticed) because you said something wrong about her lovely pet! Apart from these little things happening here an there, Laval is rather quiet and small but there is still room to fit you all! Of course when you see pictures taken from a city in books or magazines they're rarely showing the ugly sides of it, only showing the prettiest of it...what's interesting can be also beautiful but then it varies on the public's interest. Thats a way to say that downtown is very small and going out from downtown may seem to you as if it could be anywhere.



I love going through there but it's also very narrow, better go in daylight