Citizen of Everywhere

Ch-Ch Changes

2009-12-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

Since we have last spoken, there have been many many changes.

1. Much to the anger of my mother, my father will be in Armenia until mid-June. He received a really interesting opportunity to study/observe the endangered Armenian birch mouse when one of his old zoologist friends from the states invited him. Yes, my father is a zoologist, specifically under the category of mammalogy. It was always fun during career day in prim. school. He has been gone for a few weeks now and my mother is miserable and angry, pretty much at all hours of the day. I feel for her students, there is nothing like an angry French teacher to ruin your day.

2. My grand-mère moved in with us last weekend. Only temporarily fortunately. The reason is that next week my mother is going to France for about a month. Why? To visit some friends and tie up all the loose ends for the adoption of my NEW BROTHER! I guess I'm pretty excited now, but why couldn't they have found a girl somewhere? We already have two boys.

Now normally I would be allowed to be by myself for this month. However I can't...

3. One day, when my parents were supposedly out of town I, like any normal person my age, threw a party. There were some questionable people and questionable substances. It got even better when my parents arrived. I never wanted more to crawl into a hole.

4. Every since me and "that guy" ended whatever was going on there. I have had zero, dates, zero guys in general, not even meaningless party kisses. But I'm okay because my grades have skyrocketed! I mean honestly, I'm doing great in school now that I have no stupid distractions. Also, I'm not allowed to go to any partys...

I'm starting to feel nerdy, and it's great!

more soon!

You think you know someone....

2009-11-13T00:17:00.000-08:00

until you find out they have a secret girlfriend

since tuesday night hockey boy was acting kinda strange

today when i asked him what our plans for the weekend were he told me

there was a girl he was dating, before he met me.. she goes to another school

and they were still together all along AND he said that he LOVES her

but... its all good because we can still hook up

what!? i don't think so!

its been several months now and i was really starting to like this guy, like a lot

i've never felt more stupid and

naturally i was fucking pissed

did his mother know this whole time??

so i find out that she is from mexico

oh great! she's probably really exotic and pretty, was i not exotic enough for him??

like any teenage girl in this day and age i do some snooping on facebook and find her to be not cute at all

she is ridiculously short (disclaimer: i have nothing against short people, i'm just reasonably tall) and has braces, is overweight, and she's a junior

yes, i am being extremely superficial but guys like him don't go for girls like her

i've never been in a situation like this before, what will i do when i see him tomorrow in french class??

hmmm

obviously i'm in a SUPER mood

i'm not bitter though

so here's a big FUCK YOU for STEPHEN SALLE!

Since When..

2009-11-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

i am a little mad

and so are my parents understandably

we are mad for different reasons however

THEIR REASON

even though i am making A's in all of my advanced classes and mostly A's and B's overall, i have a 68 in math... which is bad yes

MY REASON

i have never been good at math, i have failed before and they didn't care then! they were just so proud that i was good at physics.

now they won't let me go anywhere or do anything. they won't let me go hang with the boyfriend for a couple of hours. they won't let me walk the FUCKING dog...

my parents have never ever been this strict before

and so tomorrow i am getting a tutor for THREE HOURS

i don't have three hours of math that i need help with, do they want me to fall over and die of boredom !?!?!?!??!!!!!

so i fume here and take advantage of my laptop use, before they take that away from me

can't wait for college ,cause i am legally an adult, and waaaay to old for this

Belgian Fetish

2009-11-03T21:55:00.000-08:00

so, i went to a party this weekend

i knew a total of three people

all i can say is belgian fetish

i'll expand on that later...

Distance, Fondness and All That...

2009-10-18T21:46:00.001-07:00

so i'm not home, as i mentioned in an earlier post

right now im in montreal

but i got a phone call from hockey boy, he was wondering if I could help him with his french homework... true, his french is not so great. but his mom is a native french (canadian) speaker, her french is great (i know! we've spoken lol)

i thought it was cute and of course he had already finished his french homework with her help

i guess i still haven't talked about how that date went

the dinner and restaurant were great just like my friend said it would be, but i didn't get the feeling of "omg i really like this guy!!!"

you know, that really girly feeling. we didn't kiss either

i guess i didn't really care which direction our relationship went

we went out to lunch since then and hang out a lot chez lui. i think everyday i keep liking him more and more

he is a really quiet guy and i guess at first that bothered me because i thought he was boring or shy (and i really like to talk..too much honestly). but really its just that he doesn't feel the need to speak all the time. the silence isn't awkward anymore, it's just kind of a moment that we can enjoy together, enjoy each others presence i guess you could say

the only time i see him yell, or talk a lot is when he's playing hockey. completely different person out there. his mom told me she forced him to play when he was little so he would come out of his shell a little since he was so quiet

first kiss

so our first kiss

*raises eyebrows in scandalous manner*

it was the day we went out to our lunch date (oh gosh, i'm soo soo tired right now. i better hurry up and type this)

we'll we've had lunch together a lot since then but, that was an actual date, i guess

he was saying something but i couldn't hear (since he's so damn quiet!) so i leaned in really close to him and he stopped talking, took my chin with two of his fingers and tiled my face up towards him and gave me a five second peck

it was the best five second peck ever! that time i actually did get that really girly/giddy feeling

i couldn't help it and grinned really widely. kind of embarrassing, i thought

today on the phone he told me he was glad i smiled because he was sure i didn't like him. i guess i was sure i didn't like him either, what a difference a little peck can make

Quick Montreal Trip

2009-10-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

we are taking a quick trip to montreal à cause de my mothers uncle recently passing away, i never met him sadly.

it's unfortunate circumstances but i welcome any opportunity to go to montreal. so after school tomorrow the three of us are catching a longggg flight to Montreal. we are staying until next Friday which leaves me enough time to catch up with some of my montreal friends atleast

Being Biracial Part. 1

2009-10-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

i guess i have contemplated making this post for a while, it's always been a hard subject for me to talk about.

when i was little i had no idea there was anything different about me, i mean i knew my parents looked different from each other. but everyone else's did too, right?
i guess my situation was different from a lot of others. i was completely clueless. my parents never mentioned it, or talked about it, or anything. as far as i can remember people never asked me about it until i was much older either. i can definitely remember the moment when it sort of dawned on me and i realized, your different..your 'biracial'.
i said it in my mind over and over again for a long time.

i was maybe seven or eight years old and i was in class at school (in anchorage). a tiny blond woman, with a very pointy nose and wide blue eyes, knocked on the door, she looked no older than thirty. "hi, we've just transfered, you should've gotten an email about my son Cody." She looked really nervous. Behind her, holding her hand in comes a tiny boy. Darker than me with black (what i like to call) "greek curls".
i will never forget it, my teacher glanced at them and said "your son..." eyes wide.
how could she miss the resemblance, aside from the obvious color differentiation, he was the spitting image of his mother. he had the same very pointy nose, the same cheeks, the same wide eyes just in a dark brown color, and he had the same mouth, thin and pursed.
i looked at him and his mother and thought of my family, my family was like that except my father was the white one. my family wasn't normal
that little boy and i would become really close friends, the only person other than my brothers who i could really relate to for a long time
that was the day it dawned on me that i was different

it was the first time i cried over being biracial
i went home to my shocked father and sobbed into his shoulder, until my mother came home from work. i kept repeating "how come no one told me!?" and "why am i different, why me!?"
my mothers only reply was angrily "what? you are upset because your father and i love each other!? it is not a big deal!?"
as much as that didn't help me then, i realize now its completely true.
it's not a big deal.. it shouldn't be a big deal. but it is a big deal

Feeling Life's a Failure

2009-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been feeling like a failure.
My date with hockey boy kind of failed. (key word kind of) Needless to say, french class has gotten prettyyyyy awkward.
I'm failing math, which is bad because otherwise I am not allowed to play lacrosse.
(I am doing really well in my history, french, german and english classes)
My parents are pretty pissed at me and i'll no longer be their perfect youngest child since we are officially adopting chandler... (more on that later)
I don't really seem to relate to most of my friends anymore as their life's now consist of idle things
Life just kinda seems pointless
My brothers are gone too :( i miss todd, he was my real best friend

fortunately Linden was here to remind me of some positive things in my life

1. I'm alive and so is everyone in my family
2. I'm finished with all of my science credits. this is due to the fact that I am strangely skilled at physics and before I went to france i took tons of extra physics classes and went to summer camps and the like (yes! i first took physics my freshman year, and i am not ashamed!)
3. ....still working on this one

life temporarily sucks :(

Why Luke, Why?

2009-09-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

why are you dating kelly osbourne and not me!?!?

i'm happy that she's found that someone special

but

....

i love the tall skinny chizzled types

especially when they come with a nice accent

oh well

i search on

oh, well kinda. i'll explain about my date with hockey boy soon

James Dean

2009-09-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

i still can't put my finger on what makes him so sexy
but he is
i guess he's my celebrity crush of the 50's era
and i am not ashamed
i love the black and white pictures of him
sexily slouching while he puffs away on his cigarette
his jawline looks carved by the greeks
and he has a confidence that is not too loud or cocky

Beignet for Breakfast

2009-09-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

je les adore!
but i will surely get fat
i had at least four for breakfast
they're just so yummalicious
i'll never tire of them

Multiple Citizenship

2009-09-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

the multiple citizenships of my family has been a problem that calls us back to embassies time and time again

lets start simple then go on

dad: born in virginia and only has american citizenship
his family moved to the united states ages ago and he has no contact or awareness of relatives overseas.. very simple, no?

gabriel: born in montreal (this was the year my dad took off from work) . he has canadian citizenship by birth (also the fact that my mother is canadian). when he was born my mother was married to my american dad and so they immediately went to the american embassy there and filed a report of a "birth abroad." they basically had no trouble and was sent an american passport for baby gabe, it also helped that they moved to anchorage the next year

jean-todd (todd): born in anchorage, alaska. 1. the canadian embassy of anchorage doesn't do shit 2. it wasn't even opened until 2004. my parents had to go to the consulate of seattle. i guess things went relatively smooth there, until we received a letter from the state department asking why "this person" (aka baby todd) would want to acquire a canadian citizenship and asked if he knew that he would have to renounce his american citizenship in order to become a citizen of another country. my parents were so confused and went all the way from anchorage back to seattle again. apparently there was a mixup or something, the u.s. people in charge of that didn't know he was an infant with a canadian mother

me: same as todd, born in anchorage and had to get canadian citizenship from seattle consulate except i didn't have any problems

here's where things get slightly confusing

mama: born in montreal to a french canadian (technically just canadian) dad and an actually french mother. so she is considered french and canadian and has citizenship of both countries. and she lived in france from age 17 to 23 (atleast five years etc.) but since she went to a french university that was reduced by two years

since gabriel was born in canada and its very common to have french citizenship, he easily became a french citizen at five. todd & i are much much older than age five
and because we were born in america, we are having alot of trouble getting a french citizenship as well. and i think we might have had to live there (france) during some period..

long story short we're having some trouble

Date Night

2009-09-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

its date night with hockey boy
wish me luck

Not Z, Zed..

2009-09-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

his name is joe
and we are canadian

damn, i never get tired of this commercial

And the love boat sets sails again...

2009-09-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

the first week of school, i never noticed a guy in my french class that i'd never seen before. and then i was sick forever so if i had noticed him, i would have forgotten maybe
well apparently he noticed me
and how could i not have noticed him, he's 1m90 (that's around 6'2 - 6'3 for you amis) and actually pretty cute
we started talking in class and the reason we don't know each other is because he transferred in the year i was in france
apparently he's really good at ice hockey & is one of the two ice hockey captains this year.. also he knows my brother Todd who graduated last year, he even said he knew i was Todd's sister right away because we look alike. and people never tell us we look alike
i'll take that as a compliment as todd gets with tons of chicks(i dont support it though!)
ok so to get to the point we've been talking a lot lately and he asked me on a date this friday. i haven't "dated" in forver but i said ok
hes taking me to a restaurant called maenam and i've never been before, or heard of it, but my friend leia freaked out about that (you know, girl freak out) so i'm guessing it's pretty nice
i'm kinda nervous,i still don't know him very well

new topic
later this fall instead of flying into england with my mom, i'm just gonna fly in and gabe is gonna meet me there and go with me on my college visits in france and england. nadja will come too of course
i'm really looking forward to that and just college in general really

ok i'll end with my favorite ice hockey player Jason Spezza

True and Pathetic Racism...

2009-09-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

recently a blogger, zek, was being called racist..meanwhile i stumble upon a truly racist and kind of disturbing website
everyone knows that i'm kind of a sensitive person
and its really upsetting for me to see such obvious displays of hatred and intolerance and ignorance that you often see on the internet, as i am from canada where we don't have so many race problems here
and i have never experienced racism (knowingly) first hand

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2009/08/racist_she_pref.php

they even congratulate austria on their 'progress' and everyone with a brain knows that austria (nadja describes as "un pays très raciste") is the country with the second highest number of neo nazis in the world
after america
and actually nadja and gabriel just explained to me why this is (about austria) and why germany has a considerably low number of neo nazis interestingly..but i'll post that later

in the words of Harlem Désir

Pierre Casiraghi

2009-09-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

the incredibly cute Pierre is the grandson of Grace Kelly
he's just the cutest thing
and also 3rd inline for the throne of Monaco
i think i love him :S
he used to be really nerdy when he was younger too
sighs
plus his sister is the incredibly gorgeous Charlotte
i love them both actually

i've been to monaco a few times and the natives are pretty cool, some of my most embarrassingly drunk moments where there too

Extremely Exhausted plus Globally Underground...

2009-09-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

frown, i cant embed this. this song is a little old but makes me want to run around in my kitchen and cook at the time of morning when the light's really good

camille ~ au port
i forgot all about it when i came back to canada but terribly sorry here reminded me and now i can't get it out of my head
shes got a great young, very french voice and you can listen here

oh shit im falling asleep while typing this, truly i am exhausted. went to bed a 3:30 last night, and not because i was at a wild party for once

ok so recently i have rediscovered transglobal underground who i love love love em and am working on acquiring all their cds since 1994 right now.
some of my favorite songs by them
army of forgotten souls
la voix du sang
i, voyager

also they often collaborate with the fabulous natacha atlas
her voice is ... wow
shes got the whole sultry parfois raspy middle eastern thing going on
she sings in arabic plus other languages (but it still sounds like arabic when she does)

ok so i definitely just fell asleep for like 3 hours with the lap top on my chest

i'll finish this later, blah
plus in like an hour i'm supposed to sneak out or something (?)
apparently the soccer team won and you know how it goes...

eh... this is the worst post ever

Adoption

2009-09-09T00:17:00.000-07:00

after i was born my parents desperately tried to conceive one last child
and failed of course

but recently they have been talking about adoption especially now that Gabriel is here we as a whole family have been seriously discussing it and apparently my parents already found a child they've looked into for months
a 6 year old boy from france named chandler
chandler amsel ..my new baby brother?
he is biracial like my other sibling and i, and my parents think it would be good to be adopted into a family with a similar background with hopes it would be easier for him to fit in with the rest of us for being so similar in that aspect
the only problem is that he doesn't speak english, which really isn't a problem for the rest of us. only for my dad
more on that plus tard

on another note nadja tells me my last name amsel means merle in french, or blackbird in our lovely english
am i distantly german??

peut être thinks nadja

German Forecast? plus Up Early Today

2009-09-06T13:15:00.001-07:00

up early today finishing my loads ap french homework that i missed. as of two days ago i am now taking german. nope, i haven't been back to school yet, i've had a whoping total of three days of school... luckily
so i still haven't been to school recently yes, but this year i decided to take a second foreign language. it was originally supposed to be spanish but after meeting nadja (j pronounced like y & more about her further below) i've decided to give german culture a chance. my brother (gabe's here now) is so excited, he really does love the place. he went up to school and even talked to my college counselor and had it changed for me. so now, as a senior i am in a freshman class pre-ib german 1. it's really embarrasing actually because i was atleast in spanish 2 when i was taking spanish. gabe also went upstairs and talked to the german 1 teacher mr.weiss, a kind of elderly man (apparently) who he is just best friends with now and got all of the work i missed for me. i'm not going to school again until Wednesday so I have plenty of time to catch up and nadja and gabe are going to help me get acquainted with the language, now i'm actually getting kind of excited.

ok so about nadja
she is unfairly and painfully beautiful, my brother should never break up with her.
with curly light brown hair and german blue eyes she in thin but not skinny. with an incredibly womanly hourglass figure...like scarlett johansson

her english is absolutely shit-tastic, i think she secretly hates the language, but her french is really impressive, she's a french major apparently. giving her a million plus points on my mothers "amie du fils" scale
so this is rather unfortunate and akward for my father as he has no knowledge of any foreign language except he can say bon jour in a truly awful american accent and on a good day je m'appelle paul. lately he stands around awkwardly while the rest of us make jokes in french and laugh histerically
the house (or condo, as we recently moved) was a bustle with french. nadja mostly hung out in the kitchen helping my mom or animatedly chatting up gabe in german. they seem to have a good laugh together and i sadly realized i hardly know my brother
what is he like? what does he do for fun? his favorite color? i have no idea

she made a traditional southern german food which was actually a pretty good noodle dish called spaetzle, i was actually kind of unwilling to try at first as germany is not known for their delicious cuisine but was pleasantly surprised
the only thing about nadja is that, even though i imagine she does very well in her university studying french, she is not especially bright
she is definitely not stupid but.. i don't know, i don't mind and it's not important really but
maybe it's just that she is simple, but not in the country girl way as i get the feeling she is a big bar hopper (presents consisted solely of tons of german beer and some wines they bought in montreal). maybe it's just that she is unconcerned with the problems of life
maybe i worry too much for my age?
oh well, i suspect she will make an excellent teacher as i can already say
guten tag ich heisse samantha und ich bin seibzehn jahre alt. ich wohne in vancouver
in german w's are pronounced like v, and j's like y. it's been one day and im already learning so much! haha
in a short while she will help me progress even further into this new world of discovery, and to think last week i could have cared less about german. i wonder what future chain of events this could have set off?

sick

2009-08-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

sick sick sick

so sick

bleh

can't eat

moms pissed

missed a whole week of school +

brother and german girlfriend come in a couple of days

i have so much school work to make up

help!

Seattle Part Three

2009-08-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

ok.. so i swear this is the last post about seattle

really

i woke up around 2 pm, kevin was still asleep. i was still wearing my dress and ripped it off. stared at the ceiling for a while. stole a pair of his boxers out the drawer and a wife beater off a pile of clothes on his floor.

veronica was the only other awake person in the kitchen. there was nothing to eat. she woke up cam, i woke up kev and the other roommate callum. veronica made coffee and we turned on tv. in like flint was on. sequel to our man flint, i love that movie

zoe and ray wake up. we all pile in the cars and drive to ihop, this was around 4:30

we came back at 5:30 to get changed to go see the band i was promised

it was at this tiny bar that was totally packed and sweaty but the band was pretty good and i bought one of their CDs

next stop: beach house again

belgium boy, ok so his name is actually Jean-Bruce, but everyone calls him JB

he was ichatting his sister Laure and smoking a gitane. wtf, i didn't know you could get gitanes in america.. can you? after he was done i asked to borrow his laptop which is when i wrote my last post

smoking kills? im shocked

anyway, very popular in la france

went swimming a little bit, smoked a little bit, talked a lot

im pretty excited i made a bunch of new friends and jb.. more excuses to come back to america :)

callum was kind of amazing, he spoke russian (and spanish but not as good) and was telling me all about his gap year in yekaterinburg,russia. i could tell it was a really life changing thing for him. he was talking about interning with the foreign service, thats really funny cause i have friend who works at an embassy. i think he should go for it, hes got full support from me

around three we all came down from that party high and went home.

me, veronica & cam got up at twelve and drove back to the motherland

well half mother land for me..consult here

that was yesterday

today was my first day of school

uneventful..it sucked

though my world history class was ok

Seattle Continued

2009-08-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

continued (obviously) from last post

i was so lucky to be able to go, this whole trip could be considered very questionable/sketchy considering those are the kinds of people zoe hangs out with

fortunately for me my mom thinks she is the sweetest thing and loves her

so anyways we arrived at the apartment around 2:30 and just hung out.. the 4 guys who could most accurately be described as hipster

and me & veronica

the pabst blue ribbons were passed around and the gents engaged in some sort of conversation about hot chicks like charlotte casiraghi and politically abstract ideas like marxism . veronica dragged me off to the kitchen where she raided the pantry and we made pasta for everyone. around six zoe shows up with about three more guys and another girl i met a few times named sandy and by 7 all eleven of us piled into two old jeeps and a nissan xterra.

someone forgot to tell me to pack a swimsuit...

we drove to a beach around northern seattle where there were at least 10 other people five of whom where au natural splashing around in the water that was freezing

guess i didn't need a swimsuit after all

there was a bonfire and my favorite part, a guy from belgium! he was spending his junior year of undergrad at seattle university and was friends with one of rays (zoes bf) roommates kevin. i was so excited haha we kind of isolated ourselves by hanging out in the kitchen of the beach house & only speaking rapid french. he was so pleased to speak with someone who could actually speak french and i was pretty glad to talk to someone in french other than my mother. by around three a.m. i was totally fatiguée so belgium boy and i grabbed two huge blankets and three little pillows from one of the two bedrooms, threw them on the beach and slept for two hours. it was like we were still part of the party while we slept though because everyone was out there around the fire. four hours later zoe woke me and against my better judgement got in a car with 4 other half drunk/stoned people.

thankfully we made it home safetly. veronica & cam crashed on the living room floor together, the 3 guys and sandy stayed back at the beach house and slept there, ray & zoe peeled of to rays room and i informed kevin (belgium boys friend) that i was sleeping with him that night, or should i say morning. all was well and kev didn't try to pull any moves but instead conked out as soon as his head hit the pillow

dear me, i fear i will surely be sent to hell

Lets go to Seattle

2009-08-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

im so fucked when school starts thursday

let me explain

monday morning around 3am (i was still awake) i get a phone call from a good friend of mine in seattle she says 'hey you need to come down, catch a ride with my friend cam it'll be fun.. a lot of really sick local bands are playing' also she mentioned that it was the last chance for us to party it up because she was moving to the east coast to go to middlebury college which is like a pretty small liberal arts school in vermont (shes a year older than me)

im kinda bummed now *frowny face* she was one of my best & craziest friends i thought she was going to washington state but thats ok this other school is probly better

so anyways i shoved some jeans, a t-shirt, a dress & some underwear in my messenger bag, called her friend cam (who lives near me), dug up my american passport and went straight to sleep

later that same monday morning..

i thought that it would probably be really awkward catching a 2 and a half hour car ride with this guy cam. he pretty good looking but nothing spectacular. tall with light brown hair, green eyes. i was surprised when he came to pick me up that in his car sitting shotgun was an absolutely gorgeous asian girl, 'thats my girlfriend veronica'

she was really petite with an eyebrow ring baggy guys jeans and a black tank top revealing her huge bosom. she smiled at me and i immediately felt relieved. they were both chill and pretty funny. cam even introduced himself to my mom, major points there. after the first 45 minutes i got over being slightly intimidated by them, as they were both 23 and i am merely 17. they mostly cracked jokes over how awful high school was. how does zoe know such cool people of all ages?

we had no problems getting across the american border and arrived at our final destination, zoe's boyfriends (soon to be ex i assume) apartment that he shared with 2 other guys

Baguette Weapon?

2009-08-16T00:54:00.000-07:00

once I was in Paris walking the street alone and I swear, a woman whipped out her baguette and beat her small child with it. and then i thought if someone tried to attack me or something and i had a baguette, i would most certainly hit them with it

several times too

big bad baguette

thanks for calling..?

2009-08-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

today gabe called the house for the first time in a while

he's in montreal with grandmère and grandpa

and his german girlfriend

who none of us knew about

her names nadja and he's bringing her to visit us

i suppose he cares a lot about this girl because he NEVER brings girls home ever, let alone brings himself home. so the happy couple's coming in 2 weeks

our mother's overly excited

this better be good

i'm expecting heidi

and not the super model

i will not let him become attached to some bitch

even my brother the black sheep, who secretly hates the rest of us

ok so i'm assuming she's a bitch

but gabes always liked the bitches!

lately a little busy

2009-08-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

me and todd are surprisingly close for brother and sister, we are a lot closer with each other than gabe. so with my bubbling excitement for him leaving for higher education, todd has allowed me to help him out with little things before he moves into UCLA on sept. 20

which is 'faaar away in the future' as he keeps telling me, but i just want everything to be perfect for him

he's my big brother and i really love him

my mom gave up the whole "i will speak only french to the children" act with me because as we were still living in alaska i declared myself "american not french!" at the age of four, although i don't recall, anyway he never gave up on me and refused to speak english with me until i was maybe 11

now i proudly declare myself french canadian

i digress

we bought him a new macbook for school this weekend and after thinking long and hard decided he's going to go the engineering path, which i know nothing about frankly

and honestly i feel that it's something he is certainly interested in but isn't his true burning interest which i figure i'll never really know for whatever reason

but he did say that for his masters he hopes to go to a grande école d'ingénieurs in france. my mother almost died of happiness at the prospect of her youngest son studying in france, even if it is slightly far in the future

on a more sporty topic

on sunday afternoon i had the second half of my lacrosse tryouts (i play club). and admittedly i was a little rusty after not playing for a year in france where the sport is basically non-existent but i found out monday afternoon i made it and i can't wait for the practices to begin. im naturally more on the thin side but you tend to notice a little unwanted weight after a years worth of baguette and rich cheese. plus the naturally good feeling you get after a nice workout has been severely missed recently. couch chair lounging is becoming less fun by the day

lastly sunday night my friend threw a very average house party for no apparent reason, a celebration of life i suppose, the french seem to do this often..

it was fine i guess if it weren't for the annoying amount of random alaskan party goers and the fact that i just really wasn't up to it

ever since i've gotten back i feel like things are really different, people have changed, why aren't we seeing eye to eye, etc. when really it's been me thats changed, i see the world so differently now.

mostly its that i care more about what's going on outside vancouver and around the world and a lot my home friends seem to think something along the lines of well why should we care if it doesn't apply to us

but i think im just frustrated now because i finally discovered myself a little bit and realize that my old friends and i no longer have much in common. my love of international travel and world language and culture now outweigh my desire to remain friends with the same people as before. i guess i just find them immature now

am i wrong for feeling this way? i feel bad

when we leave for college i doubt i will stay in close contact with more than a handful

i get the feeling im going to spending a lot of time with the foreign exchange students this fall

Uni List Revised

2009-08-08T19:44:00.000-07:00

after much stress with todd, i have significantly narrowed down my application list

my mother has decided i can apply to ten max.

Canadian universities

McGill

université de Montréal

leaving canada wouldn't be so bad

UK universities

oxford

university college london

warwick

kings college london

u of bristol

england would be too perfect *crosses fingers*

possible french & swiss universities

american university of paris

Lumière University Lyon II

université de Genève

and so ten it is

i can't wait to leave

leave home that is

and it looks like im england bound too

My Canadian Half

2009-08-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

my mother is not from vancouver

in fact

she doesn't like it very much here, i can tell that the only reason she is here is because she loves my strange father more than she understands. she is from montreal and all of you who know montreal know that the people speak french and are damn proud of it too

i think if we were living there right now she would refuse to speak english to us, ever, my poor father who is the only non bilingual of the family would suffer shamefully from the wrath of my mothers french temper

she is the epitome of a proud french canadian

her last name is Gauthier which i believe every 5th person in Montreal shares (ok so maybe every 20th) and her fathers names is Jean-Baptiste (très français)

she is the only child to her two black parents and i know that her family has been here for several hundred years & they have been catholic for nearly equally as long. they are fortunate to have lived up north where there is much less racism rather than virginia (my fathers grandfather told him 'don't you marry that negro or your grandmother'll curse you from her grave')my grandpa worked very hard his whole life enabling them to buy a very nice home in senneville and allowing my grandmother stay home all day & chain smoke

unfortunately they are also rather snooty

My American Half

2009-08-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

as previously mentioned, i was born in anchorage, alaska

a random yet very beautiful location on the map

we can blame my father for that

but truly, its not his fault

he was just an unsuspecting boy from virginia who fell in love with her mountainous glory

paul, my dad, is pretty typical american. born to charlotte & joe in virginia. his younger sister, my aunt lana is married to some guy from Louisiana whos last name is 'MacNair'. im not really sure what they do there, but i am sure that its not really interesting. also they have 14 year old twins phillip & cambria

those 2 aren't so bad and i like to send them 'typical canadian' things for their birthday which probably seems pretty cool to them as they live at the most southern part of the US and canada is "soo far" as i was once told

i love my american grandparents, they're so much nicer than my canadian ones (no offence mom) they're very southern like and live in one of those small towns where everyone gossips and goes to the same church. also whenever we come for american thanksgiving they bake me things i don't normally get to eat in vancouver like sweet potato pie and cobblers

though i must say, alaska & virginia are like 2 different planets

well except for all the rednecks they have in common but even the rednecks here up north are kind of different

(well maybe i'll put up another post later about their differences)

my proud alaskan/virginian american half

The Drama of Uni Apps

2009-08-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

so im at the year when im making decisions about university

my dad: wants me to apply to a lot of american universities, anyways he was mr.super nerd & wants me to apply to UPenn (where he went)

my mom: went to Jean Moulin University Lyon 3... in Lyon (bien sûr)

also i think she would kick my ass if i went to america

so how do i feel?

well...there is no way in hell that i want to go to university in america (no offence) but the universities there are waaay too expensive

i refuse to pay off college debts until im 60

though i will probably apply to nyu or something

list of possible Canadian universities

McGill

u of BC

université de Montréal

university of Toronto

possible UK universities

oxford (i have the notes)

university college london

st.andrews

warwick

kings college london

u of bristol

possible french & swiss universities

american university of paris

Lumière University Lyon II

université de Franche-Comté

université de Genève

université de Lausanne

soooo

as you can see my list is very long, later today todd is going to help me narrow it down a bit

anyone have any input about any of these places??

i think im leaning towards england, maybe because it will be really easy for me to understand but still close to france and all

Marmande

2009-08-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

Marmande,France

an extremely small town, of many tomatoes

my home for a year

population: maybe 20,000

i went to a small private catholic lycée called lycée Notre-Dame de la compassion

my host family consisted of a couple in their mid 60's who had no children

Charlot & Ernestine Bachelier

they might have been in their 60's but they had the energy of a pair in their twenties and i loved them dearly for that

their home was on probably around 3 acres and they lived in what i think used to be a huge barn/thing that they renovated and made into an actually pretty modern home

according to Charlot, the year before i moved there Ernestine went crazy with an ikea catalogue and had their kitchen remodeled to look exactly like the one in the display

so basically their kitchen looks like this, straight out the catalogue

the only other foreigner in my school was an exchange student from Sweden, we became pretty close

her name was Kia

she looks very swedish, doesn't she?

she was my best friend (plus one other french gal) while i was there, we both had a lot in common being expats and there were literally no foreigners in the whole town! wtf, we were trapped in the middle of nowhere!

other best friend juliette (with her boyfriend Gabriel)

she looks very french, non?

well now i made it seem as if this little town was no fun

but we managed to entertain ourselves somehow...

Just A Little About Me

2009-08-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

i've thought about getting a blog for a while, an outlet that other people can read. i guess i could call myself an obsessive blog reader. i literally have at least 50 blogs in my bookmark folder.

haha

so umm, a little about myself. i was born in Anchorage, Alaska and moved to Vancouver 6 years ago when i was eleven. my dads American, my moms Canadian from Montreal. my two brothers and i all have dual citizenships, which is pretty cool. we're also biracial.. this gives me a really interesting perspective of the world. dads white, mom is black.

i spent my 11th grade year (08-09) on a year long exchange in Marmande,France which is a really small town kinda near Bordeaux.

i'll probly write about that a lot. the french are slightly crazy but i love 'em.

my two older brothers are Todd & Gabe. Todd is 18 and starting at UCLA this fall, knowing my brother he'll have a little too much fun. i've heard some pretty crazy stories about that place, but it doesn't really interest me. Gabe is 20, and somewhere in Germany, but I literally have no idea where. he's been there since he was 18. well, actually 17 because he (like me) also went on an exchange except to Leipzig, Germany and it was his last year of high school. He loved it so much he applied for college there too, we don't really talk that much.

so thats me, & this is my blog..im not sure how to end this

im kind of shy at first but once you get to know me, you'll know that i love to party and have a good time

i think its really important to enjoy our short lives