Family Fun

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Cooking Tip: 001

Why use only one cup of wine when you can use two?

Sometimes it really is about quantity. I'm eating my fabulous spaghetti sauce right now, and in a few more bites I'll be drunk. Yay!

New Year's Revelations

I think resolutions are lame. Either that, or my resolution to keep my resolutions is seriously lacking resolve.

This year I am going to make a resolution to abolish the resolution and start a new tradition - that of the revelation. I'm going to write my revelation now (as I am going to Italy and probably will forget about the internet for a while). This year's revelation is as follows:

Fate can only take you so far.

Happy New Year!

Apple Pie

Has anyone ever ridden on the night train? Tomorrow I am taking the night train to Italy (plus a couple connections to follow). It should be different, though I have never heard anything good about the night train. This fact I admit is a bit unsettling (brings me to wonder why we did not fly). Plus I don't like small spaces.

What does this have to do with apple pie? Nothing, except I am making some right now. In the microwave.

Leather Hair

I've been sleeping on the couch for the past few days and as a result have come to realize that there is no better morning hair than that styled by a leather sofa arm. The volume, the tangles, the amazing crazy fly-away pieces... it's fantastic.

If you're going for the Cruella Deville look or the Aslan post-hair-cut look, I highly recommend the leather couch technique for starters.

I get annoyed. It's true.

One of the things I find more annoying that anything else is when my entire family watches stupid stuff on TV that I have no interest in. I mean, can't we choose something we all enjoy?

Here in France I thought this would be a non-issue since my parents don't speak French and I don't get cable. But no! They still manage to find the one thing on TV that is boring and somehow become totally immersed in it.

Well, I guess that means I'll be doing the dishes, then.

A Lametard Christmas

My sister lied to me!!! She said she bought me a lametard (another Sarah original word) Christmas gift, and she did not.

She got me a Tamagotchi pet which I have named BOB. He came from the market in Montpellier and he cost 3 euros. He can scan barcodes, communicate with infrared lasers, fight and blow up balloons. I spend hours honing his fighting skills and reading to him (I don't want him to grow up strong and stupid like ahem-Arnold-ahem).

He never sleeps. He's a fighting MACHINE!!! And he never poops either. Therefore he is WAY better than my sister's pet, who does both frequently. GO BOB!

In other news, I found a song called "Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb". I don't know if it is funny or not as I have yet to listen to it... if it turns out to be funny, some of you will soon find it in your inbox, no doubt.

Merry Christmas!

Junk Drive

It's the new Jump Drive.

Thanks to Sarah for pegging the term.

Remember, you heard it here first. (Or, 17th. Whatever.)

The Fire Drill: A Recreational Activity

Today I was teaching a class and the fire drill started going off. I, of course, had no idea what was going on, nor what to do. Luckily, their normal teacher was also in the room, so I just turned it over to her.

First she just sat there and waited for the alarm to go off. Then, when she had determined that it definitely was going to continue, she told her students to go down Staircase C. I was ready to run out the door when I saw that students were (ever so slowly) packing up their things, organizing their notebooks, putting on their coats, and milling around in general with no momentum towards the exit. The teacher was (to my shock) handing out papers and discussing the homework with the students. After a good three or four minutes, finally people start to mosey out the door, down the hallway, down the stairs (of Staircase B, no less). While I wandered with the general crowd, I noticed students going to the bathroom, calling their friends on their cellphones and exchanging bisoux with the people they run into.

There are supposedly 2,000 students in this school. When I got outside (finally) it looked as though there were MAYBE 300 that had made it out, about half of which were standing up against the building which was supposed to be burning down.

This is why I must say that I sincerely hope there is never a real fire at this school. Ever. A+

Axel... it's not just a car part anymore!

My roommate, Amanda, has given her classes some quizzes to test their progress. Hannah and I like to help her correct them because the responses are very cute, creative, and entertaining.

In doing the averages and recording the grades on the class lists, I've noticed some really cool names. What is one of the most popular names I see?

Axel.

Oh, yes, it's true.

Another fun fact: the Axels are (generally) a little slackerish in the studying department.

Family

My family has arrived. Yay!

My dad seemed quite disappointed today when we did not do any typical French activities. But I had say, "Au contraire, mon ami!" We so lived the life of an every day French person.

♥ We wandered aimlessly (flâner).
♥ We went to the grocery store.
♥ We went out to dinner.
♥ ...

Well, I suppose that's it. But since we are in France, isn't everything we do in France by definition... French? When we did the above activities, we saw French people, so if the French people are doing the same things as us but aren't doing French activities, I don't know what to say.

Livejournal T-Shirt

Whaa...

It's beyond me as to why anyone would want to wear a Livejournal shirt. They are a pretty nice design, but still.

Hold up! The long sleeve shirt is only $14?

Oh, wait, no. Still don't want one.

The Country Christmas Mood

This weekend there were two parties which my roommates and I opted out of. On one night it was just me, Hannah, pizza, and lots of good old MJ (see prior post). On Saturday, we stayed at home, too, in order to listen to streaming radio and wrap gifts/make cards.

You are probably aware that there are tons of streaming radio stations that play non-stop Christmas music. But did you know that there are tons of streaming radio stations that play non-stop Country Christmas music? Oh, yes.

If you're wondering if we like the Country Christmas, well... I'm not going to offer up any commentary on this one. I will say, however, that we did try out a few stations. A+

12 Hypotheticals

People seem to be re-doing the 12 Days of Christmas to reflect their personal wishlists. I thought hey, I'm bored, I don't feel like doing the rest of my Christmas Shopping, I will do this, too! So here are my 12 hypothetical and highly practical choices:

12 Lightbulbs (for our bathroom... they burn out super quickly and they are 10 euros a pop... boo.)
11 Bags of Vichy Mints
10 Voyage Bus Pass
9 Bottles of Balsamic Vinegar
8 High Tech Trash Bins with Tracking Devices
7 Prepaid Taxi Rides (for the late night parties)
6 New Movies to add into the rotation
5 French Friends (I've got to start practicing my French more)
4 International Phone Cards (That's 24 hours of talk time!)
3 Sweaters (It's getting a bit chilly here these days.)
2 Books in English (I've got to find that used English bookstore...)
1 One-way Plane Ticket back to the States (I'm loving France, but let's face it... I've got to get home sometime.)

FYI: Michael Jackson

Just so you know... Amanda left us tonight! Hannah and I were left to our own devices so we microwaved our pizza, ate cookies and watched a movie. When Amanda still had not returned, we commenced operation "watch Michael Jackson videos on YouTube." This project lasted about 2 hours (with little digression). Here is a list of the music videos we found:

Bad
Scream
Billie Jean
Smooth Criminal
The Way You Make Me Feel
Beat It
Thriller
Black or White
Will You Be There

We also watched Center Stage clips and Weird Al Yankovic spoofs. We highly recommend White and Nerdy.

Just thought you'd want to know. A+

Rain

Today it was raining, and when it rains we LITERALLY don't leave the house unless work or school makes us. Or unless we need to get pre-made pizza. So it's work, school, or pizza that will lure us out and that's it!

I went to get pizza today and am looking forward to making it.

When I was not out buying pizza, I was at home listening to music. We also kept the TV on for most of the day, and I saw so many French commercials! They are fun. I also saw the Cosby show dubbed, which was also pretty entertaining.

The hard thing about watching TV in France is that you have the attention span of a 5 year old. I can't watch more than 2-5 minutes at a time! That's why, for example, when we were watching this science show about vaccinations and cells, we really missed the whole show and started talking about our high school science courses. Does anyone remember the difference between diffusion and osmosis, by the way? (We figured it out in the end.)

Right now there is a game show on the TV that reminds me very much of text-twist, the online game. I admit, I can't really be sure because I am not listening to a word they are saying.

Busted!

My roommate informed me last night that a song I was listening to (by the Jonas Brothers) was in fact a cover of a British band's (Busted) song. That would explain why I thought I'd heard that song before... because I had.

I've made a lot of posts lately! I've only had three hours of work this week so that explains that. A+

Double Dutch

These people are way beyond any of my jungle gym antics in grade school.

"Kill-Dash-Nine"

Wow. I found this video, and then I found this video of a song called "Kill-Dash-Nine."

So it's not the most brilliant attempt at rapping, but some of the lyrics really cracked me up: "You're the tertiary storage, I'm the L1 Cache... It's like I'm running Thunderbird and you're still stuck with Pine, which is why I think it's time for me to kill dash nine."

I think I've reached the pinnacle of dorkdom, but who cares? (I think that's sort of the point.) A+

Semi-Sweet

If you ever have to improvise with Nestle's famous Tollhouse cookie recipe, don't worry! They come out perfectly, even when you don't have chocolate chips, a measuring cup or a proper oven.

Now that I think of it, I suppose it's a miracle that these cookies I made were edible.

The most difficult part was determining what kind of chocolate bar to chop up in place of chocolate chips. In the end we found that a bar of dark chocolate with 50% cocoa content worked quite well as a sub for the traditional semi-sweet morsels.

Long and Starchy

I suppose that would be the opposite of "short but sweet".

I was going back and forth between "bitter" and "starchy", but in the end "starchy" won as it sounds like "funky." Plus the phrase "long and bitter" sounds like a bad marriage.

Lovely Children

Today in my class I introduced vernacular phrases for saying, "Hi," "How are you," "How's it going," "What's new," etc. I told the students to make a mini-dialogue and say why they were having a good or bad day.

One of the students said they were having a great day because they saw Mme X (name witheld to protect to innocent), which was good until they added that she gave good head. I told the student that while they had used the vocabulary perfectly and had completed the assignment properly, their example was completely unacceptable for in class activities.

I had trouble not smiling, though. Where do they get this stuff? Honestly.

Hooray for Vimeo!

They've made it easier than ever to embed your videos into your blog or website or whatever. I thought I'd give it a try.



Thumb Dance on Vimeo

Pictures

First things first: I like to take pictures of the mountains from our driveway, in particular the Canigou. Here are the most recent pictures from the driveway:







Second, I went to Montpellier to visit my sister and we saw this building... it's pretty cool! They painted it to make it look that way. You might want to enlarge the picture and tilt your head to get a better look.



While I was there Montpellier was having a wine festival. Here is my sister after her 17th cup:



Here is Sarah's newest friend she made after tasting much wine and experiencing much merriment:



Here is Sarah replacing the lost head of the statue:



These are pictures of the park behind my sister's apartment:





Here's a picture a took of a sign on the way home from a party one night:



This is a picture of my Aunt Margie's pie that my roommates and I made to bring to our second Thanksgiving. Here Catherine is cutting the first piece:



Here is a picture of my plate at the Thanksgiving we had in our apartment... yummy!



Last of all, I went to see Lord of the Dance, live in Perpignan! I went with my roommate, who shares my lack in shame. It was awesome. Here is the poster they used to advertise all over town:



And here is a picture from the official website. I think this is pretty cool because those people in the picture are the same people we saw perform!



And now, for those brave souls who've made it this far, I shall reward you with a bonus video! My sister, doing her amazing thumb dance! That's right, folks, this has never before been televised. And for that matter, it still has not been televised.

The Grammys... Let's just skip them this year, please.

The nominees for "Song of the Year" make me seriously worried about the future of music. I'm banking on Corinne Bailey Rae, for without her the category would be a complete and utter dud. Take Carrie Underwood... sure she can sing, but I don't think her song, "Jesus, Take the Wheel" is worthy of a Grammy nomination. The Dixie Chicks' music is yesterday's news, I've never even heard the Mary J Blige song (so either a) I'm just out of the loop and don't know what I'm missing (yay France), or b) it's a total snooze), and "You're Beautiful" is by far the worst song James Blunt has come out with (I would know, I own the rest of his kicking record). Is that really the best list they could muster up? Are these really the "crème de la crème," the best the music industry has to offer?

I sifted through the list of nominees, and the only one I truly agree with would be the Best Short Form Music Video nomination for Ok Go (let's face it, who doesn't love the treadmill routine?).

All these bleak nominations made me realize that I should have recorded my "Meghan's Bubble Rhymes" cd or my "Meghan's Kazoo Kronicles" cd this year. I might have just been able to nab my 15 minutes of fame with the best of them at the Grammy's.

Now you might just be wondering to yourself, "What could this girl, who listens to the JONAS BROTHERS of all people, possibly know about good and bad music?" To that I must reply by saying, "I thought I told you never to publicly mention the fact that I listen to the Jonas Brothers!"

Besides, I only like one song, really. And by that I mean 4. Ok, let's just say the whole album is sort of growing on me.

The Jonas Brothers

If these guys had been around in high school, I probably would have been totally into their stuff. They are like the Hanson of 2006, shiny, winy, and a little more punk (if one can even describe a teeny-bopper band as semi-punkish). In fact, the only noticable difference between Hanson and the Jonas Brothers is that, "This Time Around", they nixed the whole "let's look like girls" thing... clearly they've learned something from their predecessors about what does and does not work.

I'd like to say that now that I am out of high school I am so totally, like, NOT into their music, but who would I be kidding? These guys are fun... in the "oh my gosh I'm losing brain cells but I can't be bothered to care" sort of way. It seems sort of wrong to listen to music made by kids who are literally only half my age, but somehow I think I'll get over it.

Listen to their music here.

French Kissing

I walk into students all the time at school. I run right into them on a regular basis. At first I thought I just was inept when it came to walking amongst obstacles/students, however recently I have realized that the problem does not lie with my inability to avoid moving targets.

I think the kissing as a greeting phenomenon in France is nice, charming, etc. However, students stop everywhere to kiss each other: in the hallways, on the streets, in doorways... and they don't gradually slow down to do it, either. One moment you are speeding along the Arago Highway, and the next moment two students are giving "bisoux" and I have plunged straight into their backpacks.

So, kids, my lesson for today is that kissing is great. However, please move into the breakdown lane if you are going to cease to move along.