Halloween, Finally (Part 2)

Hello, friends and family. 

     This is going to be another one of those posts where I depend heavily on what I’ve already written in my nightly journal and hopefully let the photos speak for themselves. I’ve got to start spending a little more time on grad school apps on the weekends instead of blogging since I’ve got some deadlines on the horizon right after the Christmas holiday. I kind of don’t think you’ll mind the fact that there’ll be less detail in this entry as compared to yesterday’s, for example. Unless you just love reading about every minor detail in my life. If that’s the case, then I offer my sincerest apologies for what you’re about to read. But it’s still got enough of a storyline to give you the gist of these two days, I hope.

     Hope all is well in your lives. Feel free to hit me up by email (morglyles@gmail.com) anytime if you have any stories/photos that you’d like to share with me, especially if you’re not on Facebook. Because if you are, I’m probably already creepily checking in on you from time to time. Just a little ;)

Peace and love, Morgann

  

Tuesday, October 30 – Ventre + « Brushing » > « Plaques » + No Glow-in-the-dark Hair for Pumpkin

• Laundry day. Woke up early to organize. Had a nice devo (devotional) too.
• Drafted apology to (a) Monsieur Bontemps for sending post-election breakfast RSVP to him (because I just hit reply) instead of correct address as indicated on invite (that’s what I get for being in a hurry) but Internet wouldn’t let me send (until later from the common room).
• Read Ventre (…de Paris by Emile Zola, a gift from a former French teacher!) while clothes dried (at laundromat). Back cover clued me in to relationship (of tension/disagreement related to life choices) between Florent & his sister-in-law, but there’s much more going on that I don’t understand. (Planning to read through it once on my own without assistance before going back through with a study guide or something.)
• Carry-out lunch cuz place looked full although I saw table-sharing after (as I was heading out). In the 50’s (great weather!) so park lunch ok (many others enjoying neighborhood park as well).
• Made hair apt. very quickly w/ Rita who says « brushing » > « plaques » (straightening my hair by blow drying would be better than using a flat iron) for €29? We’ll see about that…
• Got umbrella (I had broken one of the metal components in mine a little while ago and been meaning to stop in one of the corner « bazars » to replace it just for the sake of appearances), cash, groceries + pens (tired of having to search for one of the few I’d brought from home for journaling or school stuff…I mean work, as in my job, because I’m an employee, not a student. Yeah, that’s right!).
• Afternoon devotion then admin (=administrative duties) in common room: writeup on EAAEE (« Equipe d’Accueil et d’Amitié pour les Etudiants Etrangers » = club for foreign students/teaching assistants that I’m a member of) visit to « passages couverts » (literally, “covered passages” – see blog entry from Saturday, October 20 within post titled “So Much for Shorter Entries…” for brief recap of visit with lots of photos).
• Some blogging pre-dinner.
• Pumpkin carving @ ACP w/ Frenchies :)



Front view of our marvelous creation ;)



Aerial perspective - the other girls did the hair attachment job



Back view - we were at church, after all :)

• So I have to elaborate on this a bit. The Young Adults group (18-30) at the American Church in Paris sponsored a pumpkin carving contest instead of the regularly scheduled Bible Studies or Pizza Nights that are held on alternating Tuesdays since this month had 5 Tuesdays anyway. The Youth/Young Adult Pastor talked a little bit about the origins of Halloween and pumpkin carving, and then we were off to the races in small groups, with the Charlie Brown Halloween movie in the background. It was quite the cultural experience for many of the members of the group, because probably 60-70% of them are not Americans and therefore not very familiar with this very American-centered holiday. After all, even though it’s called The American Church in Paris, a lot of French people and folks of other nationalities just enjoy the environment that it provides. And I’ll agree that we had a good time, me and the 2 young French women who worked on our jack-o’-lantern, even though we didn’t win the contest. I think we might have had a shot if we had had glow-in-the-dark candy to use for the hair since the judges made their decisions based on how the pumpkins looked in the dark. Admittedly, though, our competition was very stiff, and my group members were a little reluctant to think outside of the box since it was their first pumpkin carving experience. So we were just in it for the experience, not to win it. (Corbin Bleu, anyone?)

Our competition, incl. "Life without Jesus" (the winner) on the right

Our jack-o'-lantern sitting amongst its competitors

One of the pumpkins that placed, with music notes and the words "Rock and Roll"

Here's "Life without Jesus" (right) and others in the dark

Wednesday, October 31 – “Becoming an Adult” + Holiday movies + Check, please!

I actually wrote this journal entry mostly in paragraph form rather than a bulleted list, so I’ll do the same here. Also, note that I was on vacation from school work this week in recognition of All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1), which is why you won’t see any mention of my classes.

     Today is significant to me not because I want to dress up in a costume & go from door-to-door asking for candy, but because it marks the end of the first full calendar month I’ve spent in France. (Incidentally…shout-out to my friend Rohan from the Foundation Fellowship at UGA who often used this word…it’s also the 6-week mark since my arrival.) While it’s true that I haven’t always been the best about gallivanting around the city, I feel that I’m in the process of becoming an adult for real for the first time because I’ve left home in a very tangible way. So I guess I could be in Boston or St. Louis or L.A. rather than Paris (no idea why I chose those cities, by the way); it’s truly the distance that counts.

Fresh from the hair salon; Tea from Starbucks b/c/o the cold

     Still, being in Paris has certainly been a blessing, as when I sat with a group of young adults from around the world (on this evening) watching 2 documentaries then The Nightmare Before Christmas as we reflected on the celebration of this holiday (Halloween) & All Saints’ + All Souls’ Days in our countries of origin. Speaking of origins, the hairdresser asked about mine as she used a blow dryer & brush to do a better job than some do with a flat iron for only €32! (For comparison, I paid €45 to get my hair flat ironed at the first place I tried during this stay in Paris.)

School district headquarters

• Also got school district € (This involved taking the metro 25 stops – one-way! – to the southeastern suburb of Créteil, where the school district of the same name is headquartered, in order to pick up my physical check for the month of October. To be clear, the school where I teach is located to the northeast of Paris, but the district wraps around the eastern half of the city, from north to south. And we won’t have to pick up a check in person in the future; we’ll be added to the direct deposit system hereafter. Even though I don’t get paid very much as a teaching assistant, it’s nice that they continue to pay you the same salary no matter how many vacation days there are in the month! And it’s also a blessing to be a Fulbright scholar, because the Franco-American Commission basically doubles my monthly salary and they had my back up to this point seeing as this is the first check I’ve received after being here for 6 weeks.)
• Flowers! (As in, the flowers that I decided to order for my sister Mallory’s birthday as a backup plan in case my card/gift from France didn’t make it there in time, which ended up being a great idea, as I told you before. Sometimes I just add these one-word exclamations at the end of my journal entries to remind myself of stuff that I think I’ll forget otherwise. And because I’ve run out of space to express a complete thought. That won’t be the case with my blog since I’ve got an unlimited amount of cyberspace, but my time has actually drawn to a close, so I guess that’s the limiting factor here.)

 Until next time! [Lord willing – James 4:15 :) ]

Office park where school district office was located...

...complete with a playground. Maybe to keep them focused on the kids? Nice touch ;)