New...

• pics on the family page (including pics from my real brother's visit, because it had no where else to go)
• ski vacation page with pics
• Christmas vacation page with pics
• a few new pics on the friends page

le 24 mars, 1999

Hi everybody! Sorry it's been a while since my last update. I know I've been slacking. :) Well, I'm in my new family, the Bougeards. Read more about that in the family section. Basically, I'm still having a great time! I spent a week in the Pyrénées back in February skiing with my first host family. We had a blast!!! Weather was fabulous the first day and the last day, but the rest of the week wasn't too great weather-wise. I'l be getting the pics from that week up asap. And pics of the new family, too. What else has been going on...my brother came to visit a few weeks ago! We had a great time hanging out and catching up. Even though we talk lots online, it's obviously not the same. So we had a good time, spent a day and a half here in St-Brieuc, then went to Rennes to his girlfriend's house (she's there studying for the semester) for 2 1/2 days. It was a fun weekend, and included my first carton of Ben & Jerry's since August, so I was obviously quite happy. :) New York Super Fudge Chunk has nothing on Phish Food or Dilbert's World, let alone Cherry Garcia, but oh well. Selection is mighty limited here. :) BTW, when did they change the name of their vanilla from "The World's Best Vanilla" to "Vanilla Like It Oughtta Be"? I missed that... What else what else...Thanks to me, my class will be spending April 30th in PARIS! YAY! There is a spring break trip coming from my school in NH, and since we'e been corresponding with some of the participants, my class is taking the day and going to Paris to see them! One of my best friends is going to be there, so I'm obviously quite excited! I have just 2 weeks left of school before a 2 week vacation (going to the Apls with my first family), then 4 days of school, the day in Paris, then a week of school, SATs, a day of school, 3 days in Rennes for 2 AP tests (French and AB Calc, if you're really curious), then my parents get here (YEA!!!), 3 days in Brittany, 3 days in Paris, and a week in London, then back to school after having almost 3 full weeks without class. WHEW! Busy few months, but FUN! And then I've got just a few weeks left of classes, then a week or 2 after school, then I'm already home!! July 9!! It's gone/going fast, but it's been an amazing year and one I'll never ever EVER forget. But it's not over yet! There'll still be updates and pictures to come!!! But right now, I have to get to bed. :) À la prochaine..... Grosses Bises,
Beth

• le 1 janvier, 1999

  How weird does that look? 1999!!! Wow! Christmas *and* New Year's have come and gone. Too weird. Christmas in St-Phi was interesting. The cousins were cool and we had fun, but it just wasn't like Christmas. In general, I got some theater books, a rock climbing magazine subscription, 3 cds (2 of this awesome local IU band and then the cd of the new "it" Paris musical, Notre Dame de Paris!), my first French comic book (from Delphine...hehe), 2 awesome sheet music books (Ragtime and Side Show), a book on Chinese painting, an Yves Rocher blackberry scent set, and a bunch of candles. I think that's about it... It was an ok day, but just so odd not being with my family doing my own traditions. Oh well! :) On a different note, Delphine and I wrote a song the other night. Cool, eh? Sorry, that was random. So, last night was New Year's... I was at a friend of a friend's house a half hour away in the country. It was actually in his farm's storage house. So 90% of the heat was body heat. Phew! To put the night into a nutshell (cty people-- "help! i'm trapped in a nutshell!"), we all danced and sang and I avoided the extremely drunk ones. :) It wasn't that bad, but there were a few...

  So basically, I've had a nice relaxing vacation. I slept a lot and actually did some work! I read some Maupassant in French and did some work on my math. I hope you all had a great holiday season and spent it with the people you love! :) À la prochaine...

• le 21 decembre, 1998

  Hello, all! Well, Christmas is coming and my sanity is going. No, just kidding. I'm still doing ok. Friday was my last day of school before Christmas break, so the whole week was filled with end-of-trimester celebration stuff. My school has a small population of boarders (about 50), and every year they plan a dance for the last week before Christmas. So Tuesday night--YES, a school night!--there was this dress- up dance at school. Dress-up as in Halloween, not prom. So we all just danced and had fun for a few hours and it was pretty cool! Delphine and I were gonna do the Women in Black deal because I wanted to wear this black dress that no one had seen yet, but we ended up doing the husband and wife thing instead. It was so funny. I had on my little black dress and 3 inch heels, and she had on black pants, black shirt, tan linen vest, tie, hat, sunglasses, the whole thing. It was really cute. Everyone really got into the dressing up and it was a great night. Then Thursday night was the choir and orchestra concert. I skipped choir for all of December, so I didn't sing for the whole thing, but I did the encore for them and sang "Oh Happy Day" with the choir backing me up. Everyone here loves that song, so it was cool. THEN Friday night was the Christmas Concert of the student bands, which was basically just another dance, but with live mediocre music. :) No, the music was good, just not all great to dance to, so the "ambiance" wasn't all that great. Then afterward, since it was Friday night, we all went out. We got to this one bar and there were a ton of people and it was great, but then at 1 am, 15 minutes after we got there (we'd stayed to help clean up), they closed. So we all walked down the street to another one for a while. Usually I enjoy sitting and talking with everyone, even though 99% of the time I'm the only one not drinking, but I was really tired and wanted to get home, so it wasn't the best night of bar-hopping. :) This weekend Delphine and I took it easy, doing practically nothing but sleeping. Ahhhh...it was great! :) But Wednesday morning we leave for St-Philibert, in the South of Brittany, to spend Christmas with my host dad's parents and all the cousins and everyone. It should be interesting. It still doesn't feel at ALL like Christmas, but oh well. I think maybe it's almost better to just kind of skip a year, you know? It's so crazy to think that this time last year, I was waiting ever-so- impatiently for my acceptance/rejection from the exchange organiztion. The rest, as they say, is history...

• le 25 novembre, 1998

  With Thanksgiving tomorrow, I'm a bit sad, but overall I'm still in very good spirits. My group of friends grows every day. What has changed about me? Well, I still don't smoke or drink. I'm still completely obsessed with music, especially Broadway, Indidgo Girls, and Barenaked Ladies (their old stuff, not just the new "One Week" stuff, you trendoids! :) ). I still love to sing. I'd say I have a lot more friends, I've become a lot more independant, and I have a new hobby/passion: photography. As in, black and white and developing them myself! Cool, eh? My host sister, Delphine, did it a few years ago, but stopped, so I "forced" her to get back into it in order to teach me! :) I was never any good at drawing, so getting good at photography is great! I'm working mostly on portraiture, and will be taking a photo workshop on it in January. Some of my photos will be up on the Café within the next month or so (I have to develop some more of them and mail them back to the States to be scanned...no scanner here), so keep an eye out for them!

  I hope everyone's having a great school/freshman/sophomore/junior/senior/working year. :) I'd love to hear from everyone!