my old friend the blues =(

Today is shit, excuse me, today is crap.
I am crying, Aurore is being grumpy and obnoxious to boot, I feel sick and cold and I need to do some Canadian homework but I can't seem to make myself do the work. I need to be on Monday. I need to be at school, working, speaking, interacting. I need to be at Thursday so I can say I am at the halfway point and it's all uphill from there. I can't breath, I can't eat, I can't work. I think it's just fatigue, but I am feeling the strain of Canadina homework, other peoples relationships and the extra kilos that come with France. I can't walk because I live beside a highway type road and just sitting still and listening to my iPod doesn't do it anymore. I cannot even see the silver lining today, it's April Fools Day, it's the last full month, it's almost halfway and it's only 20 school days more and all I see is me crying and being tired and sick and wanting to dissolve into a comfortable bed, with a comfortable pillow, with a loud, blowing fan and some new, comforting music. I will do this and I will make it through this and tomorrow will be good and I will be happy and I will feel better, but right now, just now, I am revisiting how I felt when I first arrived, a feeling I thought I wouldn't have to revisit until my next voyage away from home and I guess it just goes to show that no matter what, it can always come back and you shouldn't write it off. So, I shall blog and post pictures and be cheery and happy and not depressing tomorrow when I can muster the strength. Now I am going to go lie in my bed and think about cheerful things and Canada and what there is to look forward to.
My love and happy April Fool's Day,
Sick*Jane

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAYYYYYYYYY

That is precisely why it's a beautiful day!!!

Well, aside from making you jealous it is not the only reason why it's (or was I guess) a beautiful day!!!

This morning I only had one, two hour geo class which was not excruciatingly painful and relatively easy to take, although I did develop a severe headache and fall asleep (whoooops) in class. Then I went out for crèpes (hence the photo) à la nutell and chantilly with Kayla and Ceilidh and then we went shopping and I either found gifts or found gift IDEAS, very important. I bought a lunch bag (how old am I?) but you have to understand that it is really cool over the shoulder lunch bag and it is very very funny and cute!!! Then I bought a bday pressie for mi amiga katie wilkes and some stuff for me and etc. etc. After I went out for a scrumdidilyumptious Panini at a quaint little bistro place with Kayla (Ceilidh ditched) and then headed back for a one hour singing class which made me laugh because the rendition of "Summer Lovin'" had me rolling in the aisles. I am also cheery because I came home and Mumma's second gorgeous package was there and I got the house to myself for two hours and I was all cheery from school and my walk home in the sun AND I had soccer and it was awesome AND I ate tomates farcée and it was oh so good AND tomorrow the Canadians are coming over for a glorified playdate and then on Sunday I might be going to the market with Ceilidh and then Wednesday I am taking the train in with the Canadians to go shopping (for clothes, gifts, everything) in Avignon and I have come to the realization that however impossible it seems I only have 20 school days left in France!!! Before AND after the break!!!!

Good golly miss molly it is just a wonderful day!!!!!!!!!!!! And then next weekend of course is even better!!! I get to visit Gordes and another cute village, play my first soccer game and celebrate easter, meaning I get a three day (basically four) weekend!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!

Now I must go to sleep with a People magazine and let myself melt into trashy bliss and zone out before a good sleep, knock on wood. Then tomorrow....ah god, it is passing so quickly, and in two weeks exactly I shall be leaving for Morocco and then when I come home it is May, who would have thought it would be this way?

I have so much to tell you, so many realizations, so many hard truths and good truths that I have realized that I cannot possibly explain in writing and so I promise you that the minute I see you I will tell you every horrible, good, crazy, psycho, wonderful thoughts I have had and I will explain to you precisely why I hate this exchange and exactly why I absolutely adore it, for its freedoms, its constrictions, its limits that I loathe and yet love, etc. etc.

So much to say and not enough memory. I have plans and goals and dreams and life aspirations that have come from this trip and although it is only half over I must say that it is everything I hoped it would be, everything I hoped it wouldn't be and MORE!!!

Je t'aime et la prochaine!!!!!

JANE <333

I already forgot what I thought I would say but all I wanna do.....

Quick Aside To My Father: Guess The Song?

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So the Aurore situation is in a state of permanant nothingness, it's not great but we are happy when we do have good times and we hang out and have fun together. I am like a permanent moodswing because last time I blogged I was so extremely fachée and now I am all happy and cheery. Perhaps that is because I listened to my iPod while lying down at an upward slant in the empty pool counting all the planes that did not go in the direction of Canada? Or because I have 6 guests coming over to have fun and be fun with me on Saturday? Or because I'm going shopping in my three hour lunch tomorrow with Ceilidh and Kayla? Or because my teachers love me and time is flying and I only have 21 days left of school before I go home to Canada? Or because I'm going to Morocco? Or because I got the highest mark in the class on a French presentation (17/20) ? Anyhow, you get the picture, I am cheery and I have stuff to look forward too!!!!

Hoooboy.......

I have started my "diet" the seefood diet which really is making me quite rotund (joking mumma of course, well a little!!). But that's not really what I want to talk about. I am cheery because of a number of strange things and since I really want to tell someone and everyone thinks I'm strange if I do, I shall say them in this blog because then if you think I'm strange and you say that........nothing much that can be done for another two months!!!! Aaaaah, half done next Thursday!!!

Well, the first cheery Jane moment was last night at soccer when I got my license to play in the game next Saturday (OMG sooooooooooooo excited!!!) and we played in the rain and I played excellente and felt oh so high and mighty, not even coming home to cranky Aurore dampened my spirits. Secondly, I finally orgnaized my bedroom in France and looked through my steadily growing collection of souvenirs. In it, I realized that I have a lot of stuff to decorate (or rather add to the decoration on) my walls and that I keep collecting stuff, like this relatively cheap old posters and movie signs from the 20s and beyond which is going to make my room in canada so impossibly me and the anticipation is making me happy. Thirdly, I am just happy, I have settled into a good night time routine again, I am working on exercising, I am working on being friendly, eating well and doing all my Canadian homework and I am working on all the things I told my good friend in Canada Kay Dyson Tam I would. For instance, I saw and see France as a chance to transform myself into what I truly want to be and I am slowly but surely doing that (away from prying eyes was the goal) and that makes me immensely proud. Fourthly, I just reread my plane letters and my eyes swelled up a little but then I was happy and cheery and laughing again. Fifthly, I have found my groove.........sleeping, soccer, friends, school, Canadian homework, food, exercise. It is falling into place and I cannot even imagine a better moment of realisation. I am happy, the Canadian return things set into place, the anticipation, the Morocco in two weeks, holy moley, and the crazy things that are my everyday life!!! I am wonderful and can honestly say that for the first time, I mean I've been having fun and all but today was an honest to goodness break through and I have faith that I can make the rest just as good and when I fail, which I am bound to, I shall listen to my favourite songs and lean back in my chair and say screw it, I have le soleil and I have music and I have chickens and good food and nobody can take that away from me, atleast not for another six weeks and six days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you all so very much!!!!!

Jane

ps thinking about youuuuuuuuuuuuuu

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DAD: I didn't really give you much,

it's Get Off by the Dandy Warhols,

listen to it, I do believe that it'll turn

your crank.......cannot believe I just said that!!!

My brain is hanging upside down

So I wrote the other post in the library while I waited a sad and long two hours for the train to come. I waited for one hour in the library and then another at the train station, sitting on the ground in between the passing trains and drawing faces with my sharpie (all of them half sad and half happy if you're interested) and making my face impassive and uninterested as a creepy old men winked and laughed and smoked and shouted unintelligable things at me, god, remind me to never sit for an hour outside of the train station!!!!
I am feeling better, although with A, not so much. She is being a pain, a lound shreaky computer hogging pain and we are rarely speaking. We acknowledge but it is a painful, you're a chore that I must continually do kind of acknowladgement, where does the good go? I am okay with that though, suprisingly, I have made plans with my amigas canadian and have plans almost for every single weekend until I leave and I have lots of energy to throw into homework, email, nice people at school, blogs and keeping myself in a polite, not distant, happy, cheery, thankful mood (when there are people around, on my own......).
Today I watched S21 a documentary about the Red Khmer, which I had never heard of but was interesting and brutal -quite like the holocaust. I didn't understand most of it but the Geo teacher was only too happy to help, she loves me, in the most annoying of ways. I came home today and dug up a story about a Lesbian who is rethinking her Lesbianninity (??) and is setting gay rights back in Georgia by a lot, for my news presentation in English class -in French- demain. Fun fun fun.....Afterwards I was about to go outside when Alix pulled me back in and said you have to stay inside and I said why and she said because I told Inès you couldn't play because you had a lot of work. The story behind that is once Inès (the six year old neighbour) came over to meet me and wound up being taught how to play rummy and now she annoyingly comes over every day and stays for hours requiring constant chatter and hanging off my shoulder until I want to hang....not in a good way. And so instead of playing with Inès all evening I got to be quiet and think about life and France and everything and the diet that I must start (not a rreall diet though) and also to reflect on how I left Canada five weeks ago and the inevitable thought that came to me being a previous two month exchanger (if I had only done the two month it would be half over now!!!!) God, I hate my brain.
I shall leave you now and go read my uber good book that my mommy sent me - thank god its long or it would already be over - and reflect about how much Canadian math I shall do tomorrow!!! God aint life a pain sometimes!!!
I love you all very much, I swear I don't just say it out of habit, three months in France and all I can think of is the people I love who are all snuggly and comfortable back in their native land(s).
<333 JANE

ps those are sideways hearts msn style (or facebook style) if you dont get it - havent been getting it aka mumma when i first did them!!!

A Strong Desire To Commit A Crime Worthy Of Death in The United States of America

So the last time I was in France on exchange I gorged myself on food in happy, oblivious bliss. This time I am less oblivious and lately I have been left (after chocolate, ice cream or a big meal) feeling bloated, gross and with a strong desire to feel healthy again (damn timing, I had just fallen into such a good routine before I left!!). So, I swear - by all of you reading this pathetic excuse for a blog paragraph - that I will be healthy by the time I come home!!!!
Now, onto more non-food oriented things. I am currently feeling a little low. I am writing this at school and I am feeling a strong desire to do something other than boring French classes. I want to move and shop (lame I know) and explore and take pictures and play hackey sack and catch with friends like I did at lunch today. I want to not look forward to solitude, endless hours of music and moments alone with my math textbook (again laaaame). It is starting to go a little bit south and although I am doing just fine (as our my relationships although Aurore and I have settled into hellos and goodbyes and mutual disdain) I am feeling the strain and hating some moments. I am, however, excited for Friday and the weekend and here are my reasons why:

1. The second package will be coming soon.
2. The weekend - duh.
3. I am going shopping around Isle Sur La Sorgue with Ceilidh.
4. Alex, Leo, Alex and Jenny are coming over to eat lunch and hang out.
5. It's April on Sunday. Which is such a morale booster, you wouldn't believe.

So, there is good. I also have started chugging away on my Canadian homework and as slow, monontonous and boring as it is I am having a decent time throwing myself into some work that makes me think without wanting to throw up - for example, in English class repeating the phrase 'I wish the government would help the tramsp' or 'It is a shame the government does not help the tramps' is driving me bananas, that and listening to the song 'In Paradise' by Phil Collins - Last night, was a catastrophy sleeping wise. My uncomfortable but doable sleeping arrangement was disrupted when I couldn't fall asleep until eleven and woke up every fifteen minutes between two am and six thirty am. Sleeping.......not my strong suit.

I now have a desire to go run with my iPod which I shall, at some point, do because a break from endless demands and corrections (this house is never quiet) would be nice for me and it would be a chance to clear my near-explosion head and give me a no language break. A blessing as I can't appear to speak either French nor English at just this moment. Writing.....whole different ball game.

So, mucho love to you all! See you in two months!!

Jane

ps - Marnie and Paul.......congrats on the new house!!!

Scouts de FRANCE ( in Fontvieille, Provence)

From Left: Super Suitcase, Super Toilet,

Super Love & Super Super

So, yesterday we went to Fontvieille to spent 24hours at Scouts of France, with atleast fifteen people having a crazy, stay up late, eat candy, party hard weekend. It started with lots of introductions, "bonjour je m'appelle Stanislaus, me (points to himself) Stan!!" and so on and so forth. "I speak badly English!" Then we went right away into our teams:

LES SUPER NULLE - Jeremie, Benoit, Alice & Marie

LE SUPER EQUIPE - Jane, Sylvia, Quentin, Stan & Genevieve

LE SUPER MOCHE (sorry can't spell) - Aurore, Simon, Morgane & Thomas

We rotated around the stations:

1. THE WORLD (all the continents are on different boards in a circle and they give you water balloons and a towel and between two people you put the water balloon on the towel and try and get the continents wet and you get points for getting it but if you're like my team you lose points because you continually get SUPER SUITCASE wet with your badly aimed waterballoons)
2. THE BLIND FOLD STATION (You and your group have to bind your ankles together and then go around trees and soccer balls and cars and then crawl and then do it all again blindfolded as well without touching the trees, cars, etc. and if your like my group and continually 'accidentally' untie your ankle binding things you get points off, oh yes, and you get points off if you continually touch trees and cars for guidance, which we also did!!)
3. THE GET ON THE MAT STATION (you have two mats placed together and SUPER LOVE tells you all the body parts that need to fit on the mat, ie one leg, one bad, two buts, one hand, three feet and between the five of you you need to accomplish this without any more or less and everyone needs to be on, this is the one station that my team was good at, unfortunately, so was every other team!!)

That evening we played a board game after our messy, campstyle dinner and it was pretty much come up with songs, make up dances and/or mime things for your team and the words were random things that had to do with the SUPERS, like 'constipated' for SUPER TOILET and 'love' for SUPER LOVE. We finally went to sleep after partying and singing and crap (videos will follow) at around 2 am and we woke up and had a nutella/baguette filled breakfast around ten before going to Mass because, unfortunately, SCOUTS is Catholic. Anyway, living through that we went and played out in the woods, all sorts of crazy games and then we played this weird stick game where everyone holds hands in a circle and there is a couple balanced sticks in the middle and if you seperate your hands you are disqualified and if you knock over the pile you are disqualified, I tied for first with Jeremie the first game and was knocked out first with Quentin in the second, but it was lots of fun.

I had a bit of trouble with a certain exchange partner who was a bit rude, distant and unwilling to help, 'you don't understand, you don't participate' kind of deal, which was annoying, but Stan was always willing to try his English and be very helpful while being very preppy yet goodlooking!!! :)

D'accord, I am now very tired from my long long long long long 24 hours and I'm going to go clean my room, do some homework and get ready for school tomorrow. It's a brand new week!!! Pictures will be up at somepoint and so will many more videos!!! Love you,

Jane

ps I have no religion, none whatsoever I have decided because I do not believe in a single thing that was said in that ceremony, although being together and singing and being part of something even if you don't necessarily believe in it is quite fun!!!

Le Mistral is going, going, going, going....never gone!!

Le Mistral, the name of the big wind here in Provence, is supposedly leaving us after giving us one week of hellish, Canada like coldness even though it is atleast 10° Celcius!!!!!

I am feeling better today you should all be glad to know, I have my package, I am content,I am about to take a shower and get clean and I feel positive, which is a lovely outlook on life. It's funny how one minute something feels overwhelming and the next it feels entirely do-able. Well, right now it all feels do-able and this afternoon I'm going camping with Scouts of France which should be...........interesting!!! We'll see.

Anyhow, pictures of school, Isle Sur La Sorgue, and all that jazz that have been accumulating for the past two weeks should be up tomorrow (I hope) and shortly following that the pictures (if theyre good) of Scouts should follow. Missing you all but of course throwing myself into endless homework demands from Canada, stupid projects from French teachers and my newest favourite song 'Get Off' by the Dandy Warhols, so I'm not doing too too badly!!! Je t'aime!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Jane

ps I'm sorry I took the Aurore vid off but she's not really a video fan and also, a video of the chickens and a video from the music concert my music class held should be up soon!!!! A bientot!!