Creepin' on Up

A while ago, my friend -- who, for the purposes of this blog entry, I'll call Kbrian (it's a silent K) -- remarked that he knew that, at the young age of 27, he was getting old, because he was pulling his pants up to his waist -- and he liked it. "YIKES," I thought, "Poor guy. But that 'aint gonna be me. No sir. No way, no how. I'd throw out all my belts and buy pants with a waist size of 42 before I let that happen."

Now I'm not here to report that my pants have reached waist-level. In the work environment, they rest comfortably at hip-level, and in the home environment, they rest even more comfortably at the below-the-hip-level.

I am here, however, to admit that the height at which my socks reside is creeping up. And now I understand how Kbrian's pants got that high, and more importantly, now I understand how he began to like it. You see, work is a formal environment. And every now and then, when I'm sitting down, I like to cross my legs (yes, men, it's ok to do that -- just be careful of your "belongings") or put one foot on the opposite knee. The bend at the knee causes the bottom of the pants to lift, thus revealing the lower calf. And this lower calf should be covered by a generously-proportioned long dress sock. It's not really ok to show bare leg at work.

So every morning when I'm getting dressed for work, I have to remind myself to pull up those socks. It feels pretty weird, mostly because it's always been something I associate with adults: adults being those "older generations" who've lost touch with what's hip and cool and normal. But the thing is that I get dressed for work five days a week and the near-knee-high sock-level has become habitual, even for non-working environments, when I would like to indulge my youthful ankle-level ways. I regularly get confused when I get dressed nowadays. Sometimes I can't figure out how high my socks are supposed to go, almost as if I was in that state in between dreaming and waking up where you're not sure what's real and what's not. So some days, I show up to work with my socks down, and other days I go out to the movies with my socks up. And here's where I think Kbrian went wrong. In this fragile state of disoriented fashion, you're tempted to just pick one and end the insanity of it all. And of course, you have to pick work over your personal life. So you reconcile yourself to its necessity and eventually find that you even like it. (This is not unlike the Stockholm Syndrome.)

And thus is how I imagine Kbrian, unbeknownst to him, found his pants that many more inches closer to his nipples. But for my part, I have decided to stubbornly resist the temptation to choose one sock-level for the sake of simplicity (or even sanity). And if I show up to work with one sock up and one sock down, or my pants tucked into my socks, or (God forbid) wool socks and Berkinstocks, so be it. Because I'm a man who will resist the urge to conform to the crazy ways in which our world works. I will not get old the way others have gotten old before me. My friends, I will forge a new way into my mid-to-late 20s, like the true maverick that I am. Kbrian and the countless others like him may have been lost, but, I promise you, their loss will not be in vain.

Just Call Me Robocop

June 7, 2008

I’ve just finished this blog entry, and thought I would warn you. In good English-student fashion, I proof read it, and realized something. It’s not that this article is gruesome, or tearful, Pulitzer-prize winning, nor particularly literary. It’s just long. So for those of you who would rather read the short version, look for paragraphs that begin with an asterisk (*).

---

*Well my friends, I wish that my blog had not turned into an online catalogue of the injuries that I sustain in Europe, but so far, that’s what it’s come to be. Nevertheless, I write this to inform everyone of what has happened to me, and to hopefully keep people from worrying too much.

Today is the six-week anniversary of receiving my over-sized neck brace. Six weeks and two days ago, I was playing Capture the Flag at American Village with the campers. My team was doing poorly, and I was one of only a few of my teammates who remained free from the other team’s prison. In good Capture-the-Flag fashion, my imprisoned teammates had made one long line (the human-chain) reaching from the prison toward the border. I decided, after a lot of strategic contemplation, that the only way to free them was to coordinate an invasion with three to four other players. Each of us would cross the border at roughly the same point, but then scatter, running for different points along the human-chain. In this way, I hoped that the other team would run for the one spot where we crossed the border, leaving certain margins of their territory unoccupied. Then when we scattered, we wouldn’t be running toward them, but away from them, thus giving us relatively free passage to the human-chain. [Once someone reaches the human-chain, he or she has free passage back to his or her territory.]

For the most part, this strategy has little to do with my accident, but I thought it was quite smart, so I wanted to tell you about what prowess might have taken form. Any way, I crossed the border at the top of a hill, which I descended toward the human-chain. The hill was not that steep, but my 8-year-old opponents were strong-willed and determined. Thus, I ran quite quickly. At the bottom of the hill was a series bushes: just a few hurdles to mount. But alas, the other team didn’t swarm toward us as I had predicted. One of the campers just stood among the bushes, waiting for me to run into her. And run into her I did. I would have liked to just change my trajectory by a few degrees and avoid her altogether. After all, her strategy, waiting for your opponent to just run into you so that you can tag him or her, wasn’t the most stupendous. But I was running far too fast to alter my course without falling. Moreover, the bushes posed a serious obstacle to any course alteration. So, I was forced to give up a heroic rescue and just halt so that I didn’t (quite literally) kill this child. Although I stopped as hard and fast as I could, I still knocked her flat on her back. But thankfully, she was all right. I felt fine as well. And because I ran into her, I had been tagged, and therefore, I went to prison.

It wasn’t until about an hour later that my neck started to hurt. The muscles began to contract, forcing my neck into a sort-of-S shape. By that evening, it was quite painful and uncomfortable, and I figured that my sudden halt-by-collision had given me whiplash. I put some cream on it, friends massaged it, and I figured I would just tough it out. But by the end of the day, I couldn’t move my neck at all. After talking with some of the other counselors, I decided that I should go to the hospital to be checked out, even if it was just whiplash. Better safe than sorry.

So Magma drove me to the hospital. Nemo came along as well for support. The doctors ordered x-rays, which were inconclusive. Nevertheless, I had all my sensations, so the spinal cord itself couldn’t have been damaged.

*After consultation with another two doctors, they asked me to stay overnight so that they could do more detailed tests in the morning; an x-ray couldn’t rule out all possible injuries. So I had a CAT scan the next day, which revealed that I had suffered a fracture of the C4 vertebra. Moreover, I would need to wear a neck brace that would support my head and prevent my neck from moving for at least six weeks. This was terrible news, because, up until that moment, I still thought that I wasn’t seriously injured. And more than that, it meant that all my plans for work and travel in the next three months might not be possible.

*When the technician arrived in my room the next morning with my “neck brace,” I literally gasped. I had never seen anything like it! “Oh man, it looks like Robocop’s cyborg implants,” I thought. It’s been a struggle to wear it everyday (and night). Not just because it’s uncomfortable and so restrictive, but also because it’s just so weird looking.

*Since having received it, it’s been decorated many times, with graffiti and friends’ signatures, and it’s even been completely coated in spray paint twice. Why not go the extra mile and have some fun with this embarrassing contraption if I have to wear it for almost seven weeks? It makes an amazing skit costume, even if it isn’t technically a “costume” yet (since I can’t take it off). And I can imagine that one day it may make quite an amazing Silver Tornado costume.

On June 10 I will have another check-up with the doctors in Mâcon. If everything goes well, I will receive a new, smaller neck brace, which I will have to wear for one to two weeks. After that, I will be neck brace free! And soon after that, I will be back in Canada, where I will start my physiotherapy. I won’t be doing yoga for a while. Or going water-skiing with my cousins in Sweden this Midsummer. But I can sincerely say that I was very lucky and I am so thankful for my health, even if it will be a long recovery.

All Good Things

Written March 3, 2008

Whenever a camp session ends and I return to Paris, I go through a sort of shock and withdrawal. Especially if I’m not staying with friends in Paris, the shock can be quite hard. At camp, we I live in very close quarters, both with the campers and the counselors. I usually share a room with one or more counselors, and spend my entire day in collaboration with the rest of the counselors and the campers. All of that is intensely extroverted work; there just simply isn’t the time or the space to be by oneself. And that’s fine. In fact, this intensity is a huge part of what makes camp life so fantastic. It’s like a super-concentrated version of community and friendship with all its ups and downs.

Any way, I loved being at SEJ, and I miss the kids and my new friends who were also counselors. But tonight I’m sitting in a Laundromat, finally able to do my laundry, and getting ready to head off to Germany tomorrow to see some friends. So I think I will make a concerted effort to enjoy this time to myself.

There were so many highlights of this past week. Being at a ski resort in the middle of the Alps makes the number one spot. I haven’t skied in maybe 7 years, though that’s not really because I didn’t want to ski. It had more to do with lack of money and time than anything else. And I LOVE skiing. So it was so fantastic to be able to get back on skis again, let alone get back on skis in the Alps (with a perfect view of Mont Blanc, Switzerland, and Italy, nonetheless). The slopes take you everywhere. You find yourself on other mountains with completely different views than you originally saw. And you’re so high. You don’t see other mountains so much as other summits.

That being said, I actually had to spend 2.5 out of the 6 ski days on the sidelines. On the second day on the slopes, I was accidentally hit by another skier. He had to swerve out of the way of a little girl, and unfortunately ran into me instead. It was a total shock; I don’t really remember being hit. I had actually just been getting up from my own fall. What I do remember, however, is knowing that I was back on the ground and that someone had run into me hard. I had a small cut on my face, which everyone who had come to help thought might be quite serious. It was really only a small scratch. But I saw a lot of blood building up in the snow around me. I knew it couldn’t have come from my face, and I realized at the same time that my arm was hurting a bit. I took a look at it, and my sleeve was all torn-up. It was then that I saw the blood more-or-less pouring out of that sleeve. Luckily, a first aid attendant was there right away. Because of concern for blood loss, I had to be helicoptered into town, where they stopped the bleeding. The doctors concluded that no bones were broken, though the wound went right through to the bone on one side of the arm, and it’s the bone that has since created the most pain (which is not all that much). And thankfully, no ligaments were torn. But many of the veins in my arm had been severed, hence all the blood. Eleven stitches later, the wound was closed-up, and I went back to the chalet.

Although this was a serious accident, I want everyone to know that I’m OK! For the first day after the accident, I couldn’t really use my arm or hand, but I regained more and more strength each day. The wound is healing, and I even went skiing again 2.5 days later. I didn’t use the ski pole all that much, but I was fine. I even did moguls that day. And then the next day I conquered the ski slope that three days earlier I had flown away from in a helicopter.

Those Little Monsters

Last time I worked at American Village in France, I sustained several painful injuries. I would like to tell you about them.

The first injury occurred during the first summer session at the camp. You see, another counselor and I were at the tepee and campfire field, leading activities for about twenty campers who would enjoy a night of roasting marshmallows, listening to scary stories [in a foreign language that they can’t quite grasp – so not as scary as you might hope or imagine], and camping in the tepees. But this was a particularly rambunctious group; several of the boys attacked Poppins (my friend, colleague, and co-counselor). They were just having fun, and so was Poppins. But she was clearly losing the fight. So she called me in for backup. “Squash! Squammmkach,” she screamed, then mumbled, as her face hit the dirt and more and more campers joined the teenage war cry. As the dashing, chivalrous, warrior-like gay man that I am, I came running to her rescue. I pulled those monstrous (and ever-fun loving) teenagers off her one at a time, while fighting off their reinforcements with any other ligament or flailing limb I had free.

But wouldn’t ya know it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Freddie Mercury running straight for me. Now Freddie Mercury is one thirteen-year-old that you don’t want running after you with a crazed look in his eyes. Besides being annoyingly strong for his age, he has the energy of a hyena and the reasonless determination of a dog trying to catch its own tail [Hmmm… is that rude? Well he is atrociously hyperactive!]. When he jumped on me, I handled the jolt well enough, though I had to abandon any hope of freeing Poppins from her remaining interlocutors. I could handle him: but just barely. So it was bad news when I saw even more of the boys running for me. What fun for them! As soon as the next boy jumped on me, I fell like a ton of bricks. Now Freddie had been clinging onto me with his legs wrapped around my waist (he was also trying to knock me over), so his head was at the same level as my head. And thus, Freddie’s head hit my head (quite hard), and my head hit Freddie’s head (quite hard) -- as we both tumbled to the ground. But all that wouldn’t have been quite so bad, if Freddie’s head had not collided with my head at my eyebrow ring.

And so I bled, and lost some eyebrow tissue. And eventually, as my eyebrow stubbornly refused to fully heal, I lost the ring as well: injury number one.

OK, wait a minute. Hmmm, I can’t actually remember most of the other injuries that I sustained throughout the middle of the summer. Maybe that’s a good thing. I made a list of all my injuries at the end of camp season last year (just for posterity’s sake), but I can’t find it now. So I’ll just skip onto the last and worst injury of AmVil ’07.

Coincidentally or not, this injury occurred at the campfire and tepees as well. Actually I think a campfire gets the ‘lil ones a little excited. So not so much of a coincidence after all. This injury involves no physical contact whatsoever with any of the campers. Rather, it involves one of the camper’s smoldering projectile marshmallows. I’m not quite sure why Jack had to flail his stick with a still-flaming marshmallow in the air (and with such vigour, nonetheless); before we started the campfire, us counselors had acted out an amusing, yet informative skit that demonstrated the dangers of such actions. We even offered alternative methods for cooling a marshmallow, like blowing on it. And in fact, we even intervened the first time we caught Jack waving his burning stick in the air. Nevertheless, he persisted, and this time the burning outer skin of his marshmallow shot right off his stick and right onto my unsuspecting leg. I believe I actually screamed at the moment of contact. What a hot, gooey, searing mess. Unlike other burning projectiles, a melting marshmallow can’t be easily removed from its landing site. A burning cigarette, on the other hand, could be flung off my leg with relative ease and swiftness. At any rate, I actually had to wait until the marshmallow cooled before I could remove all of it. And I have a bright purple scar that will remind me of those flaming moments for years to come.

So I finally reach the point of this blog entry. Given these injury-making precedents, and the sure knowledge of like-injuries at future AmVil experiences, why do I return to American Village again this year with such excitement? Well there are several reasons. First, and perhaps most obviously, it’s in France. Hallelujah! La belle France. It’s also simply an amazing opportunity to meet new and amazing friends who come from all over the world; last year I worked with counselors from Canada, the US, France, England, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobego, and the Czech Republic; and I met other AmVil counselors from Russia and beyond. And we all come to AmVil for similar reasons, which for the most part means that we all come to AmVil with similar personalities and interests. When I was at BAFA training last year in Mimizan, we all became instant friends (and then there were dog fights and various dramatic situations of course… but overall it was terrific).

But above and beyond (though in conjunction with) all these reasons, are the kids, who for the most part are fun, interesting, and often simply hilarious. We struggle to get to know each other, slowly learning more as they develop their English speaking skills and find ways of expressing what they might not have been able to say a day earlier. And all of this happens in class and during the usually fun, though extraordinarily exhausting activities we have for the rest of the day. “Going away to teach English” can be such a cliché nowadays, that it might not seem all that special or rewarding. But all the teaching, program coordination, and so on that constitutes my job description at AmVil is really all about the creativity in which I can meet and interact with these kids, and it’s the kids that ultimately make this job unbelievable.

So, in fact, the kids aren’t really all that maniacal after all. (Well, OK, they are. But they make up for it in other ways.) Though they won’t go to bed, can’t pronounce “snack” (it’s NOT pronounced “snake,” darn it), and launch flaming marshmallows at my leg, these trials and tribulations hardly monopolize the magnanimous spirit of AmVil.

A Slice of Sept. - Dec.

**I just finished writing the following as an email, but because I don't have all the email addresses of everyone I would have liked to send it to, I've posted it here as well. Happy holidays!**

Dear friends,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope that these holidays have brought you peace and joy and that the coming new year will be filled with good health and lots of laughter. I usually send cards by the post to my friends every Christmas, but this year I wasn't able to do so; but with this email I can at least update you on my life recently.

As most of you know, I spent an incredible five months in France after graduating from UVic in April. I could tell you so much about my adventures in that fine country, but I'm afraid that this email would run a bit long; I've written about my trip on my (somewhat-infrequently-updated, but nevertheless très-cool) blog: the gulf between the arms. I returned back to Canada at the end of September just in time for my friends April and Jamie's wedding. I had the great privilege of helping plan and then hosting their wedding reception, which went very well! At that point, I wasn't sure if I was going to be staying in Canada or returning to France (in a hurry), because I was waiting for confirmation on a job-offer as an English teacher's assistant in France. In the end, I didn't get that job, so I had to decide what I was going to do with myself!

I applied to several career-related job possibilities in Victoria, but eventually decided that because I wanted to return to France sooner rather than later, I couldn't commit to long-term work. So I quickly put together a new application for work with my former employer in France, American Village. American Villages, English-immersion camps for kids aged 8-17, operate from March to August every year. I asked that I could begin work at AmVil at the beginning of their program in March so that I could work at their winter ski camps in the Alps! And I'm very happy to say that they gladly accepted my application!

So I will be returning to France at the end of February, following a brief visit with a friend or two in London. I'll also be visiting friends in Germany during a break between camp sessions, and I am beginning to make contact with family in Sweden, whom I hope to visit during another break between camp sessions in March! My contract with American Village will take me until the beginning of June, after which I'll do some more traveling, possibly work for a month or two with another organization in France, and then return to Victoria.

I'm also applying again for a position as a Teacher's Assistant in French high schools. If I'm hired and I accept the offer, I'll be working in France from October 2008 - April 2009. I was just thinking as I wrote that that those dates seem so far away. But I guess if 2008 began today, they're not so far away after all!

But France is not my entire life! I've loved being back in Victoria for the last few months. Being here has given me the opportunity to see the many people here that I love and missed while I was in France. I was very graciously rehired by the Resource Centre for Students with a Disability at UVic for the exam period in December. I worked there for several years while I was doing my undergrad degree, and I was so happy to reconnect with that ridiculously amazing group of people. Since then, I've begun working at Pure Vanilla Coffee Shop and Bakery. I'll be working there mostly full time until I leave for France in February.

And I've also continued to work on a research paper that I originally wrote for a seminar course last year, but which I have really wanted to continue work on in order to publish it. The topic is a bit of a mouthful; it examines the discourse of Canadian contributions to the debate over the right to self-determination for indigenous peoples in international law, and I look specifically at the now-abandoned UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And I've also begun work on a paper on the relevance of natural law in modern moral theology. I don't know if I'll have the paper on indigenous rights done by the time that I leave for France again, but I plan on having the paper on natural law finished by the end of this month.

I've also decided that for now, I'm not going to pursue an Master of Divinity degree. I was really, really hoping to enroll in the fantastic M. Div. program at Notre Dame University in the US, but I've decided that, at least at the present, I'm not called to ministry in that sense. Instead, I'm beginning to put together an application for the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought grad program at UVic. It's a very unique program in Canada that allows students to earn an MA in one of four disciplines (I would probably pursue English) while concentrating on studies in Critical Theory. I plan on going on to grad school, whatever the program may be, in Sept. 2009.

And what would life be without yoga? Yes, I'm happily taking classes again. And I've decided to start doing capoeira this week! Capoeira is a form of Brazilian martial arts based on dance movements. I've wanted to take capoeira for years, but it's not been until now that I've had the time and money. And I'm still trying to pursue some acting in my spare time. And reading. Lots of reading!

I think this email is getting quite long, so I think I will end it here. I'm thinking of making updating my blog more regularly a new year's resolution. We'll see. I change my mind about anything and everything like clockwork (like any good philosopher does), so that may not pan out!

I wish you all the very best and am thinking of you all.
With love,
Stefan

La Belle France, La Belle Vie

One of the things that I've realized about keeping a blog is that sometimes a slideshow formate is much easier to keep up to date. And it might be more interesting. And then I realized that I have been doing that on my Facebook profile. I take a ridiculous amount of time to compose captions on the photos that I upload. And I just thought of a new possibility: video-blogging. This website is going multimedia. Oh and one other thing: I've added another video of a performance I did for an acting class to the sidebar. I play Benjamin Bradly in arguably the most famous scene from The Graduate. My brilliant costar is Wendy, the sumptuous Mrs. Robinson.

Here are pictures from my first trip to Paris with Majka and Aude:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049953&l=46e12&id=122505819

And then from Mimizan:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050683&l=70193&id=122505819

After Mimizan, I headed to Normandy, where I was stationed for the summer. This is our site, called "La Mazure:"
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051712&l=91a52&id=122505819

And then the monsters arrived. Session 1:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051713&l=9918f&id=122505819

Intersession in Paris (Bastille-Day Weekend!):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051718&l=1b193&id=122505819

Session 2:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051720&l=4b5cc&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054019&l=48faf&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054027&l=0afd8&id=122505819

Intersession in Paris:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054032&l=39e0a&id=122505819

My all-time favourite session -- session 3:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054040&l=af349&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054295&l=ad569&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054766&l=92051&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054767&l=2bb2c&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062176&l=30e91&id=122505819

And Session 4 was pretty-darn amazing as well:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057829&l=2a7f7&id=122505819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058606&l=e9af4&id=122505819

After packing up the site, some of us head back to Paris to meet up with our friends from other sites and to PARTY!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059828&l=c80f3&id=122505819

After a week in Paris, I head out to Geneva to visit the most-fantastic Kowaleski family. They are from Victoria, but spending a year on sabbatical in France / Switzerland. Their house is actually in Cessy, France, which is about ten minutes from the Switzerland border.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059856&l=3228d&id=122505819

And then to Lyon, and Macon, and back to Lyon:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059939&l=e65eb&id=122505819

And thus ends my travels in France for the summer. I'm back in Victoria right now. I will post on my life in Victoria tout de suite.

What Seemed Like Only Another Holiday...

Written on July 16, 2007

So by the time I arrived at Mimizan, I had met nearly all of my fellow American Village counselors. We were in Mimizan for BAFA training. BAFA stands for Brevet d'Aptitude au Formation d'Animateur (or something like that). The French Ministry of Games and Youth requires all French citizens to have completed BAFA to work in any sort of camp for children. But American Village also selects twenty of its North American counselors to take as much of the BAFA training as possible. There are three stages to BAFA training. The first consists of sixty-four hours of general training camp counselling: children and their needs, discipline and authority, parents' needs, games, crafts, songs, etc. That was what we were in Mimizan for. The second stage is like a practicum: two weeks working in a camp. Then the third stage is for specialization in a certain types and areas of counselors' jobs: skiing, lifeguarding, camping, etc..

When we arrived at Mimizan, we realized that American Village had only intended us to be there for seven of the nine days of training. In other words, we wouldn't even be able to complete the first stage of BAFA training. Instead, they wanted us to have a few days off before going to our AmVil sites and beginning work. But most of us wanted to complete the training, so we asked if it was possible to extend our stay at the retreat centre that we were doing BAFA at. AmVil was happy to let us do that, which was so great, because if we were doing BAFA on our own, the first stage alone would cost us 1000 € each! And AmVil also said that they would pay for our second stage, which we could complete simply by working at AmVil, and if we came back to work for AmVil next year, they would also pay for our third stage! So most of us are going to finish BAFA next year. It will be an asset for finding jobs in France, and is a well-recognized (though not mandatory) program in many other countries as well! So as I write this, I have now completed stage two, and will return to complete stage three next year: a total cost of around 3000 €!

But Mimizan was amazing for so many more reasons than this. First of all, all of us AmVil counselors got along so well. We became really good friends right away. There were also about twelve or thirteen French people taking BAFA with us. Some of us were bilingual, or partly bilingual, while others in our group couldn't speak a word of the other language. So at first, translating everything was very tough. Two out of the three instructors couldn't speak any English. So the pace of instruction and learning was slowed down, complicated, and sometimes confused, because everything had to be translated. But everyone did their best to show the others that they were trying to learn the other language, and it worked out really well in the end. Having to go through such a frustrating experience together made us so much closer by the end of the training.

But by far the most incredible part of Mimizan was the beach! Mimizan is located south of Bordeaux on the Atlantic Ocean, in the area of France known as the Pays de Surf (Surfing Country). From the beach, you can see the northern coast of Spain. For the most part, the days were sunny and hot, and the nights were warm and stormy. The first thing that we did when we got to Mimizan was jump in the ocean! I've never been to a beach with waves so huge and powerful. It was incredible to fight the waves that crashed on the shore.

One of the first few nights that we were in Mimizan, we went to the beach after we were finished for the day. Across the ocean was a huge lightening storm, while above us was a few clouds and mostly a clear sky in which we could see so many stars. The clouds that made up the storm, however, darkened everywhere around us. In fact, we could see around four or five different storms out over the ocean as we looked south to north. These storms weren't far away from us at all, but there was no rain where we were – only wind. The sheet lightening from these storms flashed four or five times per second. Each time the entire sky would light up, and we could see the terrifying clouds, the tumultuous ocean beneath, and everything around where we were standing for only an instant. I felt like we were standing right on the edge of the sun, watching the solar explosions occur in slow motion. A few of us jumped in the ocean and stood there as the heavy waves left the eye of one of the storms and pounded us, looking at the stars in one direction, and watching the storms develop and the rain fall flash by flash in the other direction. Eventually, one of the storms started moving toward Mimizan, so we got out of the water and went to a bar. When we got to the bar, it was pouring rain, and that night, we slept as the same storm that we had been watching passed over us.

PS: Photos will be up soon.

A Last Few Days in Paris

Written on July 15, 2007

I'm sorry that I haven't written in a while. Internet access and time to write is sparse. But I hope to have my blog updated by the end of this week.

My last few days in Paris were relaxing. I was pretty familiar with the city at that point, so I could make my way around quite easily. With Majka gone, Aude also became quite busy, so I was spending more time by myself. That was actually quite nice – to have some time to myself.

I saw the Cluny – the Middle Ages Museum, Ste. Chapelle, the Conciergerie, le Marais, St. Eustache Church, and Le Musé Rodin. Ste. Chapelle was an incredible experience. I had been wanting to see it since I arrived in France. It is a chapel built within the walls of the Palais de Justice by St. King Louis IX in the 12th century to house some relics of the passion. There are two chapels in the building. The first floor chapel blew me away. My mouth dropped when I first came in. There are almost no windows, and it is quite plain compared to the diversity of architectural and artistic styles. But its uniformity and simplicity make the walls which are painted royal red and blue with gold fleurs de lise stunning. The second floor, where the relics were kept, is very different. The walls are nothing but curtains of stained glass. It's absolutely remarkable.

Another highlight of these last few days was the hotel I got to move into! It was so nice to have some privacy after sharing a hostel room with strangers for a week. American Village paid for two nights in this hotel before I left to go to BAFA training.

I packed up again on Sunday morning and headed to the train station. It was a rush. The morning didn't go according to plan. (Of course, I never “plan” to sleep in. For some reason, that just happens to me often). Any way, I made it to the train station and on board the train with just a few minutes to spare.