Finally...

Sorry for the long delay on my blog updates! ..but you knew that was gonna happen, come on... I actually have had stuff to do so don't get too angry! Oh, and there will probably be some grammatical errors or phrases that don't make sense, just to warn you...

ANYWAY... where oh where to begin...
Let's see, how about an update of my crippled knee. I went running yesterday for the first time in 189 days!! It was AWESOME. Well at least the first 5 minutes were awesome, I was just so happy and listening to Fergie's "London Bridge" on my iPod pumped me up even more... but then I got tired. But it was a "I haven't done this in a long time" tired, not like "my knee is hurting and I need to stop" tired. I have been doing physical therapy 3 times a week since I got here but next week I'm switching to only 2 times per week. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!! I can even do the stair master and one-legged jumps without too much of a problem now ;) And even though it was such a rough time being on crutches and just being crippled in general, it's starting to get hard to even remember what it was like to not be able to walk! Which is not necessarily a bad thing.. But whenever I see a person on crutches or someone who's just injured in general, I always get this huge feeling of sympathy and want to help them out in any way possible.

Ok, got that covered... how about classes next?
So I have actually had to study on study abroad, who would have thought??? I had an exam today in Anthropology of France and 2 exams last week (one in Expression Ecrite and one in Language, Culture, and Society). They were nothing compared to the exams I've taken at Michigan but they were in French so that did add a factor of difficulty... I think they went okay (they were all essay-type exams) but I don't think I will be getting my grades back anytime soon. I was talking to the French guy who generously sends me his notes in Anthropology of France and he says it usually takes around a month to get your grade back. Oh, France. And I actually spent some time in the library this week! I needed to study for my exams but I also needed to start reading a book for a 15-20 page "dossier" (a.k.a. research paper) for my Anthropology of games and sports class. Unfortunately the library closes at 5:30 pm (?!?!?) so I could only do so much. I don't understand when (or if) people study here. They have class in the morning, 2 hour lunches, classes in the afternoon, the libraries close, and then they eat dinner. What a life. So anyway, classes are going pretty well, I can pretty much understand most of what the professors are saying... it's extracting meaning from it that's the hard part. They just talk at you for 3 hours about really obscure, seemingly unrelated topics. Example, Anthropology of France topics: Folklore. Santa Clause. Running/Marathons. The European Identity. WHAT?! Oh, and I almost forgot, I've had multiple classes get canceled this semester for one reason or the other. My one class, language and the brain, has gotten canceled 4 times because our teacher likes to travel a lot...? Or, like last Tuesday, the teachers decide to strike for some unknown reason (even the libraries were closed!). And sometimes teachers just don't show up for class. C'est la vie.

I've been really trying to improve my French outside the classroom as well. I joined a group through the university called Mozaïk, which is basically a group for foreign and french students to meet and do random activities together (i.e. making/eating dinner together, excursions). We went in a group to a Marseille soccer game, which is one of the better teams in France, it was AMAZING... but it was still a bit chilly outside so it was hard to fully enjoy the game. But I got to meet a lot of cool people at least and speak a lot of french. The group also helped me find a language exchange partner. Her name is Anaïs, she's 25, recently graduated from some crazy intense financial program and is searching for a job right now. She wants to be fluent in english to help her get the best jobs so she went searching for a language partner. She already spent a year in Texas doing a study abroad exchange so she's basically fluent already. She's also close to fluency in spanish. I'm so jealous! But I'm getting better... I recently started volunteering at an after school program to help kids learn english too, but most aren't that good yet so I spend most of my time speaking french anyway. And things are going GREAT with my host family. Even though the son, who's 17, still doesn't really talk to me (I don't think it's personal, it's just that he's got his own thing going on so he's not really interested), I've been talking more and more with my host mom. As my french is getting better, I can understand her more and have discovered that she's HILARIOUS and has a lot of interesting opinions. And I got the chance to cook an American meal the other day. Given my resources and my limited cooking skills, I made some mac & cheese and they seemed to like it a lot. My host brother who doesn't like to talk also doesn't like to eat much other than chocolate and cookies so when he had 2 servings of my mac & cheese, I was pretty pleased with myself.

So my family came to visit me from March 11th to the 20th (another excuse why I didn't have a lot of time to write on my blog...)! I don't have classes Friday so we left that morning to go to Nice for the weekend. Even though it was a bit cold, we had a great time walking around and enjoying the city. We even had lunch right on the beach (I got a bunch of freckles that day). During the week, my family would take little day trips during the times I had class and then we'd meet for dinner. Everything was going swimmingly until we went to Cassis, a beautiful little town right off the Mediterranean, where mine and my mom's purses were STOLEN. We drove up the Calanques (=cliffs) to see the amazing views, parked our car at a viewing spot, and walked around a bit. It's still debated but we think my dad left the car unlocked while my mom and I left our bags in plain view at a tourist spot, so it was a recipe for disaster. I got off easy, only my iPhone, french phone, wallet (with credit cards & student IDs), camera, all my notes from classes got stolen but my mom had Mickey's, Jonathan's and her own passport in her purse. After we scrambled to cancel all our credit cards (for some reason they didn't take my dad's phone and Jonathan had his phone with him), we went to the police station to file a police report. The woman working there didn't speak any english so Mickey and I did our best (he did most of the talking actually). Once that was taken care of, my mom started to freak out that they wouldn't be able to return to the U.S. (since any and all pieces of identity were stolen). The next morning they went to the Embassy in Marseille and luckily were able to get temporary passports (phew!) and make it back home. It's taking a little while to get everything back to order but it's coming along. I'm still using a grocery bag as my purse cause I don't want to spend too much money but everything else is almost the same as before. Anyway, other than that, I had a great time with the family. My host family had them over for a feast on tuesday night. My host mom speaks a little english so she could talk to my family pretty well but my host brother didn't say a word all night.

well there's a lot more to tell you but it's getting a bit late so I'll have to continue tomorrow!