Cross your fingers for me please :)

So let the job hunt begin. I know I said that this was my last year in France and I wanted to teach in the States next year, but having a French boyfriend seems to have changed my previous short-term goals. I SWEAR this time, only one more year. I promise, Mom.

After looking through some options, I decided that next year the job that is the best for me is to be a TA in a French university. The pay is much better than my job now, it's a year contract, and I think it is a perfect continuation of the job I have now. I would be working in the English section of the Language department in a university. My job would be basically what I am doing now, except its for French students who are in college and need practice speaking ze English. The problem is that I can't just apply through the French government and wait for them to place me like I have done for the past two years. I'm on my own now, like a big girl! The other problem is that most colleges here find their TA's through exchange programs already set up with colleges in England and the States. I read lots of forums online and found out that the only way to find a job is to just send my resumé to all the university language departments I can find. After a lot of hard work on my French resumé (complete with a required senior-pic style photo, barf), writing letters (in french! ugh), and getting letters of recommendation, this week I finally got it together and sent them all out to 10 (yes, TEN) different regions in France. My current total is 28, and still more to come. Phew. I applied to almost every big city in France, including 8 schools in Paris. My top pick for a place to live now would probably be Grenoble or Bordeaux. Grenoble would be nice for skiing, and Bordeaux is on the ocean. Hmm.

Unfortunately I've already had responses from the only two school in Alsace, and they were both negative. So, so sad. I love Alsace so much but it looks like it might be time to discover another region. It seems that the most opportunity is in Paris. Most people would think that it'd be great to live in Paris, but if you look past the Eiffel tower and tourist attractions, you're left with a dirty, expensive city full of crazy people. Believe me, I've seen some weird stuff there. I shouldn't be talking trash about somewhere that could be my future home though, should I?

To conclude, it looks like pretty much wherever I get a job, I will be moving. Hopefully Thibaut will be able to find a job wherever I am too. Of course there always is a plan B, which is doing a Master's in Strasbourg where I am now. Plan B will only be necessary if I do indeed get rejected by ALL 28 universities. I think I need to go breathe into a paper bag now.

Please cross your fingers for me! At least ONE school out of 28 has to need me, right? Lets hope..

Nancy, Paris, Nantes, Dijon, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Toulouse or Montpellier. What's it going to be?

London Town

Last weekend I took a few days off work and went to London. Thibaut wanted to go there because he used to live there, and I'm pretty sure he's getting sick of hearing my American accent everyday and needed some British english in his life. We took the chunnel over on Friday to hang out with some Brits for the weekend. It was so nice to be able to speak ENGLISH everywhere! People actually understood my language (kinda)! I had to be careful though, since I have picked up the bad habit of talking about people when they're right in front of me, always assuming that they don't understand English. For example, I started talking about a weird smelly guy in the subway, and soon after was reminded that he COULD understand every word I was saying. Oops. I need to learn to shut my mouth. Also it was amazing that Thibaut could understand British people better than me.. I am a native English speaker and can't even understand my own language. Sometimes I swear they are just making weird sounds to mess with me. It's actually hard not to laugh sometimes.

We spent three nights there, we had a nice hotel in the city center with a buffet breakfast everyday! Sausage, bacon and eggs. Yes please! This doesn't happen in Franceland.. and when it does it's just not the same. We lucked out with the weather too, since usually it is raining all the time in London. It only rained one day that we were there. Friday night when we arrived we went out to a club, that had different indie rock bands playing. It was a huge concert hall in an old theater that they took the seats out of. It's so funny because everyone there looks so stereotypically british! It's such a change from France. All the girls in France always look perfectly dressed and put together, and in London they wear almost no clothes, and get so sloppily drunk. Being out in London was worse than being in Athens, Ohio on a Saturday night. These girls are serious lushes! It was amazing people watching anyway. Watching drunk people go from fighting to crying to hugging is always good entertainment. Oh and a twelve year old asked me to open his beer for him in the street. I of course asked him to hold my beer, and opened his with my lighter while lecturing him that he should not be drinking and smoking at such a young age. As I left he said "thanks a lot MOM (or as the brits say 'mum')." I think I'm getting old.

As for the touristy stuff, we did a lot, but kind of took our time. We went to the Natural History Museum, which was my favorite. They had a really cool dinosaur exhibit and lots of naturey stuff, like rooms about trees, the human body, and other random things. My favorite thing was a real moving T-Rex that was made to look like the real thing. I know I'm like a 10 year old boy, but it was really cool! It was like I was in Jurassic Park. T-Rex's little arms kinda creeped me out though. We also went to the British Museum, which has artifacts from every continent and every era. It is so huge I could never have seen it all! My favorite was the Egyptian rooms, which had all the embalmed mummies and stuff that they took out of the pyramids. We also saw the necessary London sights, like Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, the Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, the parks, and the London Eye (the biggest ferris wheel in the world).

After visiting London three times, I still don't feel like I've made a dent in that city. There's so much to see! Another plus about England is that they have a lot of different brands than they don't sell in France. For example they have Vitamin Water, my favorite, which is not available in France! They also sell US weekly in stores.. I almost cried I was so happy! I miss the clean streets of London and the friendly English speakers already, I think I need to go back sometime soon :)

T-Rex! look at his teeny weeny arms..

Thumbs up for natural history!

Westminster Abbey

T-bone needs to work on perfecting his "american smile"

Big Ben and the London Eye

Hanging with the mums in the British museum

Outside the British Museum

Biggest Department store ever.. thankfully for my bank acct it was closed when we went!

Window displays at Harrod's

Piccadilly Circus- the Times Square of London

The Tower Bridge and the Thames river

guards at Buckingham.. might be the most boring job of all time