Francophile in the West

I have problems keeping up with this blog this year. Here's the latest haps: In exactly 18 days, I will be completely finished with my undergraduate career!! Yikes/Wahoo!! It's coming up so fast and there's so much to do! But it's great, I'm in the midst of lots of awesomeness right now. The girls and I went to Vancouver, B.C. a couple of weekends ago. Holy crap, we painted the town red! Or, The Cambie Hostel Bar, rather. We had a great time being off of our leashes and "escaping", as Jess told the border guard, haha. I took myself to see the opera "La Traviata"; oh, it was wonderful! I definitely teared up at the end when she died of consumption. It was fantastically done, I'm really glad I saw it! This past weekend, I went whale watching on Puget Sound with my French friend! We saw about two dozen sea lions and we tracked a group of three grey whales for about an hour. I took lots of photos, despite massive amounts of rain, and it was an aw...

Wow, what a week... I am happy to announce that starting June 20th, I will officially be an Admissions Counselor for the University of Washington in Seattle!! It was a stressful process (three interviews!), but I am so excited, it's going to be a great year. And with this plan solidified, returning to France in 2012 is well within my grasp!! In other news, I am now single... It's the best thing and all will turn out well. I have a lot of good things going on in my life and so much to look forward to. The whole thing added lots of stress to my week, but I am happy and healthy and appreciative of my friends' support. Luckily, the weather has been improving a bit over the past couple of weeks (Spring, finally!), and I was able to take pictures of the cherry trees in full bloom in the Quad a week or so ago. My sister came up to visit me last weekend and we drove up to La Conner to check out the tulip festival. It was beautiful! She and I had a great time posing and being silly ...

I recently finished reading an AMAZING book called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It changed my perspective on running, end of story. If you don't really care for running but try to do it anyway because 'it's good for you', read this book ASAP . It's about the history of running; why we do it, how we have evolved to do it, and why it should be a lot more fun and injury-free than most people think. Running has been a struggle for me and I always have to talk myself begrudgingly into being excited about. Today, I ran 5 miles in 52 minutes, and I had a smile on my face the whole time and was super energized afterwards. HELL YES. I can't wait to go again! Another adventure for today: cooking up some Arepas! My Columbian friend brought them into work the other day and I fell in love. Corn meal, Queso Cotija, a little butter, a little salt, and milk. They're a bit like France's potato galettes, but with corn. Delicious! Less than two weeks until Alaska...

Here are a few pictures that I took during Kris and my last photo adventure before he headed back to Alaska:

Well, Kris is driving back to Alaska as I write, so needless to say, I'm not up to much exciting this week. Haha. I'm back to my usual home-body self, reading and cooking a lot and sleeping as much as I can manage. :) Things are going well; mid-terms are over (for now), so I have a week where there's not much to do. I finished a great book called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Whoa. It's the first book of a trilogy, but the friend who recommended the book to me said the other two books aren't as thrilling. I'll probably read them anyway... I need photo adventures! The bad part of that is, with Kris went my only real access to a personal computer (since mine was stolen), so I don't have any way of sharing them with the world! The UW lets students rent laptops for free though, so I'm sure I'll figure out a system that works. My sister and I are still attempting to plan a graduation trip... I have a spot in mind, but I'm waiting to see if a ...

From the "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot- We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

Seattle Sunset from Alki Beach Us at Alki Hummingbird in the back yard!