Today I started an application for the Peace Corps. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been entertaining the idea of taking a year off recently. I’m not sure what I want to do immediately after school – I feel as though there are a million paths I could take, most of which I would be happy with, or at least interested in. It’s proven to be a lot to think about – grad schools, jobs, other programs – on top of school work and extracurriculars. Taking a year off might give me a chance to do something truly good – or truly crazy. I feel as though I need some kind of stepping stone before I leap into the next phase of my life. Maybe this comes from some want to be part of something larger than myself. This could be Teach for America, the Peace Corps, or maybe finding a cause I’m very passionate about and working really hard as a volunteer.

Then there’s the idea of doing something crazy. What if I did try to start something of my own?

Who knows. There’s always the issue of money. But I feel like I kind of want that stepping stone at this point…

Swimming has its ups and downs. Sometimes I’m tired and have a lot on my plate, and practice doesn’t really relax me any. Other times, I’ll sleep 4 hours and have a great lactate set.

I’ve only picked up my guitar a handful of times since coming to Boston. My nails on my right hand aren’t even the right length or texture to play right now if I wanted to, and that does bother me some. I went from practicing Scarlatti for hours in Ashland to nothing here.

The hall is different. Chris is at Phi Delts, and Sam’s at Ashdown. I miss having both of them around. That being said, I’m right next to Ryan and Stacedog. The freshmen on the hall are AMAZING (I love them so much), and I’ve also gotten a lot closer to Chris C., which has been really cool.

Plans for next year are up in the air. I’m being as open as possible, because I think that making a rigid plan blocks out incredible things one could be doing. I never thought I’d end up at MIT, certainly never “planned” to come here. I think doing the same for post-college could be interesting and rewarding. I’ve interviewed a few places, applied to TFA, will apply to TPP, and possibly some master’s programs.

Signing out for the night,
A

Market in the morning. So mcuh cheap, fresh produce! Nectarines, plums – huge bowl for 1.5€, tables of olives. Bought fruit/bread for lunch, Reblochon, vegetables, sausage, pork for skewers, and smore material: Only train to the mountain that we wanted to hike at was at 17h, so decided to hike around the Bastille instead. Took the boules up (kind of expensive, 3.45€ one way) and hiked to the top of the mountain to the other fortress. Hike was only about 30 minutes but we were dripping due to the 35+°C heat. Picnicked at the top of the mountain with amazing views of the city, then walked down on country roads. Took a while, but slalomed through the foothills with sheep and donkeys in the open fields. Wedding was taking place at the top of the mountain and passed about 20 cars on their way up. If we waved, they waved and honked too! Found an antenna with a balloon and white ribbon lost from the procession and paraded it around for a while. Stopped at an Intermarché to replenish water supplies. 2L is only .17€. So much cheaper than Paris. Stuck our heads in the ice cream section for a bit to cool off. Walked through town to get cheap gelato, then chilled at the apartment reading Ian’s “Outside” magazines until he got back from his 90-mile Alpe de Huez climb. Made Skewers and took the boules back up to the bastille. Had a difficult time starting the fire due to very strong winds but succeeded thanks to some cardboard and body sheltering. Fire was big and we were a little scared that flying embers would ignite the nearby dry grass. “Dear Erin, we would like to apologize sincerely for lighting all of Grenoble on fire”. Started with smores because we needed embers for skewers. Special recipe of speculus+darkchocolate+rasberry/regular marshmallows. So delicious. Strategically placed skewers were equally excellent. Spicy sausage was the best I’ve tasted. Good red wine/cheese too. Sat out and looked at what stars were visible in the slightly overcast sky, looked at huge mountains surrounding us that were only illuminated with tiny strips of lights at the peaks where ski resorts are. There were even a couple fireworks from the town below. Wind continued to bring in clouds, so decided to head back down. Hike in dark was aided by Ian’s headlamp and Emily’s cellphone. Walked through some spooky stairways in the old bastille. Took turns taking showers, then went to bed.

Sunday – woke up, had breakfast of Muesli, Oatmeal, and tea (with the cereal). Went to market again, and caught a train to Annecy. The ride was scenic, filled with with surging mountains and deep ravines. Annecy also incredibly beautiful. Multi colored turquoise, deep blue, and dark green (where the grass was). Got to swim around for a bit, but was called back early, as we wanted to catch teh 4PM train home. I am a fish at heart, and swimming around in the lake made me so happy! I’ll have to go to Walden Pond often before it gets too cold to do so when I’m back in Boston. It started pouring when I got out, and we had to sprint through all the gorgeous parts of Annecy to make it to the train. Seriously thought we were going to miss it and have to wait another 1.5hrs. Our train was the one at Quai A, accessible from the street, and we jumped on right as the whistle was being blown. Returned to the apartment to the smell of great cooking! Had fresh pesto (basil, walnuts (Grenoble specialty), parmesan, olive oil, salt, bolognaise, fresh cut tomatoes with mozarella, olive oil, salt. Drank wine out of old Bonne Maman jam jars. Not sure if that’s better or worse than a solo cup, but it was fun and went well with our little carpet picnick. Caught the train back to Paris and continued with work, etc.

My most recently completed activity off the list is riding a motorcycle. The streets of Paris are swarming with vespas and bikes. They’re ridden by stylish guys and conveniently weave in and out of traffic and never have to worry about parking. I had this image that some stranger would galliantly give me a ride home on one of these zippy things, but no such luck.

I’ve recently started hanging out with the younger full-time employees (préstataires, programming consultants). One of them, Charles, has a baby Harley. It took me about a week to work up the confidence to ask him for the kind of random favor of taking me home one day on his cycle. On Friday he brought an extra helmet, I brought jeans, and off we went. It was SO FUN!!! At first, he said he was being careful and going slower than normal because I was on the back. I gripped on tight and told him to go faster. I couldn’t stop smiling. It goes against my Dad’s lifelong crusade against motorcycles, but I want one now It’s like the rush of going 40mph downhill on your bike, except faster. Didn’t hurt that I felt awesomely stylish clutching onto the cute driver.

Making a list is fun because you create opportunities to do things that you normally wouldn’t.

Caen: sleepy town, but cheap hostel (12€/night). Spent Saturday visiting the American Cimetière and walking along the D-day beaches, which were a lot more tropical looking than I had anticipated. Sunday was Lisieux, Bayeux, and Deauville.

Sète: vibrant city. Full of colorful buildings and canals, turquoise beaches, and beautiful coastline. Spent the entire weekend horizontal on the sand.

Afterworks: continued the trend of going out on Thursdays with the other interns (Adrien, Cyril, Tahiry, Lois, Julien). Last week was a 10€ cruise around the Seine on a “party boat”. Had the priviledge of seeing some authentic French dancing, courtesy of Cyril and Lois.

4th of July: BBQ at école polytechnique with other ‘Mericans from MIT, Caltech, Michigan, Maine. It was great fun to grill, sit on the dock of the lake with our legs in the water, and watch shirtless boys play drunken frisbee. (I played, but did not participate in the imbibing). Proceeded to Champ de Mars, where every inch of grass is covered by young Parisiens, and clumps of Americans, who linger there picnicing, drinking wine, playing music. Sunday was free museum day again, and we spent it at Musée d’Orsay. The rooms of Monet and Van Gogh were packed with tourists who spend more time taking poor quality pictures of the art work than they do actually looking at it. One of my favorite things about the museum was the interior architecture. The building was an old Gare, converted to museum, so when you walk in, you’re greeted with a long, open space with a vaulted ceiling. The art is tucked neatly into little galleries that branch off of the main corridor, and aren’t really visible from the open space, so the whole museum has a deceivingly large capacity. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, stopping to play guitar on various quais and parks. It’s been so nice to hang out with Ryan and listen to someone play music, and also indulge my fingers in a little guitarring myself. I really miss my guitar, even though I think it would’ve been impractical to take it here.

This weekend should be really fun. We’re hiking in Fontainebleu on Saturday, and Sam’s coming on Sat night and staying for 14 Juillet till Wednesday morning.

The weather was finally nice on Saturday, so we bought picnic goods (rotisserie chicken, bread, fruit) and spent a couple hours at the Luxembourg Gardens. This was the type of lazy Paris summer I had envisioned – people spread all over the grass, either in little bubbly groups, or alone, sleeping or people watching. The sky was a perfect blue with a generous dose of cumulus clouds, and the trees and grass were vividly green, thanks to the rain. This is my first summer that I haven’t spent in California, and thus, out of the sun. At this point last year, I was spending every weekend at Santa Monica beach, and was bronzed and happy as a clam. I love the sun, and it was good to prend un petit bain de soleil this weekend.

After more ambling, we decided to see watch dusk over the eiffel tower and see it light up. Same scene at the Champs de Mars above the tower – kids and families, teenage girls who had a bit too much wine and were a little too eager to share their vocal talents with the world, and young men offering roses to Jana (“romance is not dead!”). At 10PM, the tower scintillates – lights go off at random and make the structure sparkle for about ten minutes. As the sun sets, the golden glow of the back lights on the tower become brighter and brighter, until you’re struck with this awe-some pillar of light.

The majority of Sunday was taken up by a walk/hike in the bois de boulogne. The park is huge, and I’ve been wanting to see the lakes they have for a while. It was equally as gorgeous as the day before – densely wooded grounds with auto-free roads and paths to walk on. The banks of the lake had lots of sunbathers, picnickers, and women wearing silly shoes. One thing I’ve noticed about Parisians in “nature” is their ridiculous outfits – who seriously goes out for a stroll in their stilettos and silk mini dress?

We stopped in the Pre-Catelan gardens on the way home (also houses the Shakespeare gardens). Emily said it reminded her of a fairytale. There were perfectly colorful and manicured grounds with children and families all over the place.

The rain came back today, but I got in a run in the morning before it started pouring. At work, I started playing around with Aptana to start the design of my “demand response” web app interface. I’m learning more CSS, but need to get the Air plug in, and Flash, so I can start working on those aspects of the application.

Have to get to bed, as I’m getting up early to swim with Rasto again. As always, check out pics on “travels”. Bonne nuit!

Jana and I stuck around the city this past weekend and had a busy couple of days with museums, etc. The Pompidou is almost as cool on the outside as it is on the inside – with every pipe, escalator, and elevator on the exterior, resembling a building turned “inside out”. Inside, we saw the Kandinsky and Calder exhibit (I had no idea Kandinsky was such a versatile artist!), saw some feminist galleries (I really dislike the fact that in art, feminism usually translates to vulgarity), and more famous works (Braque, Picasso, Pollock). Sunday, we took advantage of free admission to museums the first Sunday of each month and visited about an eighth of one of the wings of the Louvre. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as we thought it would be – Jana and I are going to try to spend evenings there, as it’s open late on a few nights a week, and we get in free with her Total badge. After, we went to the catacombs and saw lots of piles of bones, basically. The really interesting thing was reading about the history behind relocating thousands of corpses through 19th century Paris, and reading the inscriptions on the wall, giving advice such as “live each morning as if you won’t see the evening, and live each evening as if you won’t see the morning”. We finished off the afternoon by watching the finals of Roland Garros at Hotel de Ville on a huge screen with hundreds of fans sitting on the “clay” carpet they had rolled out. Yay Federer!!

Work has picked up a bit. I now am learning actionscript so I can demonstrate my scenario in flash. Gillian’s also coming to visit tomorrow and we’re planning on going to the VIP Room Theater in the 1er arrondissement with another intern from work. Should be fun!

Also booked tix for early July to see Patrick in Irelan’. Very excited!

I don’t have much work yet, which is a little frustrating. I wouldn’t mind as long as I could receive confirmation that I’m doing a good job. When I finish a task early I always wonder if I should’ve worked on it longer or if I should take initiative with another project.

However, I absolutely LOVE speaking french all day! I’ve been hanging out with the other interns, which means I have good conversations with them during lunch at the cantine (large cafeteria) and during les poses (breaks). I know that I make a plethora of mistakes with vocabulary and verb tenses, subject agreement, etc, but I am understood, and I can (usually) get my point across. Though today I had a difficult time discussing the qualities of us tv shows and films (irony, sketches in snl, tina fey). Lol. They’re all tons of fun – very nice, like to joke around, etc. I’m looking forward to hanging out with them sometime soon, perhaps next week on Friday after work, when they say that the weekend actually starts. Yahoo!

Outside of work, I had a lovely dinner with Katie Szeto and her parents – a quintessentially long and delicious meal of salade frisees avec du lardons, veau, et des profiteroles, all with good vin blanc, of course.

This evening Jana and I met up at the Saint Michel stop in St. Germain and wandered the streets. We bought cheap crepes and watched people picnic on the bridges while some kind of music video was being filmed! I definitely want to do this more – pick up a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese, and just picnic somewhere in the center of Paris. Perhaps we shall do this tomorrow.

A demain!

We walked around the gardens and around the Invalides for a while longer. Napoleon’s tomb in inside, and I definitely want to go back and see that in the future. Since grocery stores close at 8, we decided to get provisions and cook dinner. We ended up with a selection of cheeses (brie de meaux, goat cheeses covered in raisins, chives, and apricot), bread, and wine, intended to be appetizers for the chicken and vegetables we planned on cooking. We didn’t get very far after the bread and cheese, though.

We looked up a few bars/clubs with the intention of going out, but decided we were too tired. I have a feeling that it’s usually going to end up this way unless there are people we are planning to meet somewhere. I’m not big on running around in the city in the dark. BUT the plethora of streetlights make it very safe to walk around.

After lounging a bit, we decided to venture to Montmarte and Sacre Coeur, since it was a clear day and the sights of the city would inevitably be great. We wandered around the Cimetiere de Montmarte, stumbling upon the graves of great artists – Berlioz, Degas, and Dumas to name a few. The cemetery is unlike anything I’ve seen. It looks like it’s filled with tiny stone houses and mini replicas of churches.

We meandered up the streets to Sacre Coeur, and stopped and ate sandwiches at a park on the way. The streets got more and more crowded, until it was just a sea of tourists at the top. No matter how lovely teh scene is, I really dislike being in overly crowded places, so even though the view was nice (Paris looks huge!), I wanted to get away from the area. Montmarte is also pretty sketchy, especially walking through the park on the way down.

Jana and I explored the area of Boulogne-Billancourt. It’s very cute! The Bois de Boulogne are only 2 km from our place, and are the remnants of an ancient oak forest of Rouvray. The park covers over 2,000 acres and is has beautiful meandering paths with lots of greenery, picnickers, and tons of cyclists! We walked alongside the longchamps raceway, which I definitely want to come back to when there’s a race.

We bought a warm baguette on the way home, cooked dinner, and became glued to our computers. Tomorrow is our last day before work starts, so I want to do some more practical things, like finding how to get to work, and looking for pools in the area.

A demain!