already november!

This week has been a whirlwind of things, all covered by the weather getting colder, leaves changing and other clichés about fall......
hmm. Last week, no school mon, tues, or wed. I got a coat, its black, long, and french. All coats are dark colors, and I didn't feel like braving getting a bright color. But it's proved very useful so far, warm, covering and whatnot. Ok, enough about my coat....
On tuesday we babysat my little "host" cousin Audrey, 6, for the afternoon. We made waffles for a snack, then went on a trek around the backyard and collected leaves and rocks and other earthly things. It's quite ironic, most things that you can eat in the US with your hands are eaten with a knife and fork here, except waffles. You eat them with your hands here, and in the US its so very wrong to, you must sit down. It might quite possibly have something to do with the maple syrup, but shhhhh. We drew pictures and Audrey told me I was pretty and that she wanted me to stay here in Toulouse for her whole life! How cute! Her older sister is the same
age as me but we have yet to meet.
The photo is of her in the backyard.
Then soccer was pretty usual. It's so interesting, some practices are brutal, but some are just repetitive. We only had 7 girls b/c of vacation, so we did the same shooting drill the whole time. After you do it a couple times you can just perfect your shot the rest of the time...and come home with bruises the size of Africa on your ankles.

Wednesday I worked on my presentation most of the day (.......) then met Liza and Sarah in the city. I didn't realize how much I missed them until we saw eachother. A week and half is a long time to not see ppl that you tell everything to. We just goofed around and found things, and more importantly, told eachother about our trips. Nice, Barcelona, and Paris, way to go girls! Then Liza and I were guests at a very entertaining Rotaract meeting. We sat and chatted and laughed and ate (and threw) some pizza while listening to the amazing president talk about the agenda. Some how he threw salt on me.....then Fabien took us back to my house, where Liza spent the night. One of the guys at the club invited us (Liza and I) to his rotaract meeting because we were "amusing". Ha! We got invited somewhere on our own! My room is perfect with 2 beds... so we had a little sleepover.
Thursday...school. The day went by reasonably fast b/c Liza and I spent most of the day laughing (we were rather sleepy...hence giggling a lot) and plotting things against the carpetman. But I did get 19,5/20 on the english test and was called a snob by the english teacher....yes, a snob. What is a bunch of flowers called in english? Bouquet? Yes, that's what I thought. Then I hurried home and worked on my presentation again (......) for the rotary meeting, till I went to the TFC vs Prague soccer game. We didn't have practice thanks to the game, and I went with Franziska, the german girl that's on my team. We had a good time together..speaking french the whole time... and also trying not get as pissed off as fabien, who was sitting next to us. TFC started off well.......yeah. Didn't really end well. Getting scored on with like 4 min left doesn't leave the fans happy.

But when I got home I got a very happy text message :) , so I slept well (if I slept at all), so that was good. I forgot about my english class, so I had to prepare that stuff.

Friday was hectic and not that fun as usual....but I made it. All the things I went to: sucessfully got my carte de séjour by creatively speaking my way out of bringing the wrong kind of bank statement (ha! Liz-1 Sarkozy-0), then I went to the rotary meeting....being horribly nervous for like an hour and half until they realized then didn't have the video projector and it wasn't worth to do my presentation with out since I had photos....so next week! Thanks guys..Liz being stressed out for nothing. Then I killed some time in the city, then went over to Balma to spend the oh-so-enjoyable time with my 2 favorite 12 year-olds. We played vegetable BINGO and then I just had them draw vegetables...I don't know if they enjoyed me making them draw eggplants and corn stalks, but I liked keeping them busy. Matthieu's mom dropped me at home, then Nadine took me back to Balma for my repas de classe, class dinner at a pizzeria with my class. It was fairly entertaining, people dancing and being silly. I left at 8:45 to go to band though. Good thing I went tho, because the chef was kind of pissed that I hadn't been there for the past 3 weeks, since the concert is soon. He loves his only french horn though. I think I'm gonna quit it after the concert since it's so impractible..friday night, I have soccer, and I can't drive myself there, especially when I switch families. But it makes me sick to my stomack to think about it because I hate quitting things, and it's so perfect and fun, so I'm dreading having that conversation. I don't think I've ever quit an acitivity before. But now I'm registered for the TFC so I can't just not come every friday if I ever want to play in a game. This is Marie from my class, she is really nice.
Crazy day... do not actually wish to do that many things again, although the class dinner gave me tons of energy. Before the rotary meeting was crazy...never felt that way before. Being nervous plus going to french bureaucracy alone and other reasons my brain and mouth were not on the same planet. Liza was laughing at me because I couldn't really speak or focus on anything.....different story :)
Saturday... slept in, went running, then met Liza in the city for the Festa Tolosa, the festival to promote Toulouse to be the capital of European culture by 2013. I don't know why it's all this crazy stuff now...who knows, maybe it's really 2012 right now? But there were parades everywhere and concerts, and we caught some people salsa dancing on a truck as well as techtonic (don't get me started on techtonic, crazy stuff). But we did snag some flourescent bracelets that say Toulouse 2013 for our blazers, as well as these super cute pics! All along the street there are these things with the photos of 7th graders (will be 18 in 2013), then there's one with a hole, so we decided to go into it. The other is a pic of the Latino parade.


Sunday... I went for a walk with my host parents and saw some little chateaux, complete with guard dogs! Then I went into Toulouse. end of story. I might have had an awesome walk around the city with a local, or I might have worked on a project with Liza...one will never know. But either ways I had a good time and want to do it again. Hmm...either ways I got a good message afterwards :) .
It felt like I hadn't been to school in ages today, but got back into the swing of things...
Only 1 comment on the last entry (thanks Hannah) ! That was the most time consuming entry ever...if no one comments or emails me how will I know that people read it, thus why will I continue to update it? I guess that's not the point of a blog, but I keep my own thorough journal so I do not really need this....but I will continue, I know I have some requests for updates out there :). Somehow I'm blonde in France, never happened before. Besides the like 5 full-out blondes at school, everyone has darkish brown hair, so I guess I do look more blondish. But all my friends in the US had my color hair, dirty blond/light brown....weird.
So I can't think of anything else to analyze right now....but I'm pretty happy with everything and everyone. My friends are awesome :)
Peace,
Liz