Having Insight

From the very beginning I knew that I would save this blog prompt for last. Now that the semester is over I can truly look back and see if I experience any insight. Obviously my insight was not to the same extent that Greg Mortensen's insight in Three Cups of Tea. Though less significant to the greater population, to me it has had a vast impact on my life.
I think that Greg Mortensen's greatest moment of insight is when he wanders into that little village and sees the school children. It was that moment when he realized what he life was in the part of the world where he went for recreation only. That moment he discovered what he was meant to do and what he was going to spend his life doing. At a moment of personal disappointment and assumed failure he saw his calling. By gaining this perception of how the village people live Greg Mortensen's life is completely changed.
The moment that Greg saw the little group of schoolchildren he knew what he was meant to do, he gained insight into his life's meaning. The insight that I gain was not as remarkable as Mortensen's. Obviously it was of much less importance, but I am talking about how it was even unapparent to me. I did not realize that I even had insight into my life until I looked back over this semester.
I now know that I am completely capable to survive on my own. I know that this is insignificant but I feel that is an important aspect of my life. Before leaving for France I knew that I was going to have a hard time living so far away from home. The first days on campus were extremely tough and I almost regretted decided to come on this trip. Now I realized that I have been living on my own for almost four months. Time has gone by so fast that I didn't even realize how long I have been away from everyone thatt I love. Now I am leaving France in two days. I now know that I am completely capable of anything that I choose to do. This trip has helped me realize that.

Our Final Week of Classes and the Stress that it Brings

Our final week of classes has now come to a close and we are finally on the last stretch of this semester. While looking back some parts seem to have passed by very quickly. I feel like I have not had enough time to spend in France with my friends, but on the other hand the classes seemed like they were never going to end.
To be completely honest I enjoyed very few of the classes that I took part in this semester. I really love European Union, I like philosophy,and I enjoy my writing class. Other than that my other courses were quite unbearable. Now that it is December and I am leaving in less than a week it seems like a miracle that I made it this long. It was a real challenge at the end. Not the work load, I have grown accustomed to the massive amounts of homework, it was the extent to which it killed my soul to sit three hours at a time in these classes. Two of my classes absolutely nothing ever got accomplished. The teachers stood in the front of the room and talked randomly about a mess of things. Eventually they would announce a test and say all of the things that they supposedly taught during their classes. Mentioning a name once does not mean you taught the class about that person!
I just get frustrated when I think people are not doing there jobs. I am just glad that these classes are almost over. Finals are next week and I plan on spending the entire weekend studying. Come what may but I want to try to ace all four of them. As hard as that sounds I have set a personal goal that I will work to reach. At this point I am just ready to go home and after finals that is exactly what I am going to do.

The French Take Christmas Very Seriously

The French are a very tradition based cultural.France being a much older country than the United States these traditions are older and more widely spread. One of the most time honored traditions, at least for this region, is the Christmas markets. From mid-November through the end of December the Alsace region along with Germany is a complete Christmas wonderland.
Our little village of Robertsau is completely covered with lights. They are dangling from the trees, from the buildings, and even draped over bushes. The roads are arched with giant banners forming glowing stars and Christmas tress. In the center of the city by the church the Christmas spirit is truly at its highest. Every single business is not only displaying the Christmas decoration they are completely covered. One building can hold three dozen Santa hats and several giant teddy bears. It is crazy how into Christmas everyone is.
It is not only the decoration that makes the Holiday season special here in Alsace it is the markets. The entire town has gotten taken over by the festivities. Strasbourg is known as the "Capital of Christmas" and I can see that it truly deserves this title. There are maps displayed throughout town that show the entire layout of the market. Strasbourg is home to the first and largest Christmas market in France. Because of the market's size it is divided and is spread into different areas of the city. I have walked around the market here in Strasbourg and one in Freiburg, Germany both are wonderful, but I have to say Strasbourg is the best.
The Christmas Market is a wonderful place to buy presents, eat food, drink hot wine, and admire all of the beautiful lights and decorations. But First and foremost the Christmas Market gets you into the Christmas spirit. That makes me miss home. I cannot wait for a great, big New Hampshire Christmas with all of me friends and family.

London! (and our challenges getting there)

I have not faced many challenges since being in France. Aside from the usual adjusting to college life and missing home living abroad this semester has been quite easy. The most eventful part of this experience has been this past week.It is Thanksgiving break and we all had a week to go off and do whatever we chose to do. Gregory, Dave and I decided to go to London. Not one of us had ever been before. It started off horrible and turned into one of the biggest adventures of my life. We arrived in London without a knowing where where we were going to stay. We knew about a few hostels but foolishly never got around to actually booking one. That was the big mistake of the trip. Our flight got in at around eight and then we had to take an hour and a half long bus ride into London proper. We were having a great time just knowing that we were in London. When we arrived at the train station we had dinner and relaxed after our travels. London looked absolutely gorgeous all lit up and sparkly. After about an hour or so of admiration we decided it was time to look for a place to stay. Not only did we find a hotel or hostel,found street after street completely lined with just hotels. We thought it was are lucky night. Oh, on the contrary. For ever single hotel, inn,or bed and breakfast had signs stating 'no vacancy'. After three or four hours wandering around with all of our bags I began thinking that this trip was a bad idea. We had been in London for 6 hours and still had no place to stay. Finally at about six in the morning we found a nasty over priced flea bag hotel to spend the night. It was horrible but I suppose much better than outside in the freezing rain.
The next morning, semi-rested we found a Internet cafe and spent a few hours searching the Internet. We finally found a place that could actually accommodate us. It then took us three hours of walking around to find the actual address. It is above a bar and it is the coolest hostel any of us had every stayed in (well it is the only hostel any of us had ever stayed in). It was a huge relief having a place to stay, we could finally relax and enjoy London.

A New Moon Has Risen

I know that I did the ‘What is the most amazing thing you have seen this week?’ prompt last week but, I just have to do it again this week. I have been awaiting this occurrence since the beginning of last year and it went completely above and beyond my expectations. Have you read the Twilight Saga? Well at the risk of sounding like a pre-teen girl I will happily say that I am a huge fan. I started reading Twilight when it came out in 2004 and eagerly awaited the three following books. Now that the series is complete and all four books have been read and re-read multiple times it is time to focus on the films.
I am not usually a person who likes movie adaptations of books. Reading is a passion of mine and I find most book-to-film projects to be a disgrace to the original piece of art. The Twilight films seem to be an exception for me. The books are so full of detail and description that you cannot help but be completely sucked into their world while reading it. As my mind processed each word on the page a movie played in my head. It is wonderful having a true visual representation of the material.
I truly enjoyed the first movie; of course things could have been done better. There were important parts left out and unnecessary parts added. New Moon, the second film, is a completely different story.
Yesterday a group of friends and I went into the city to go to the cinema. It was my first time every entering a movie theater in France. For the most part they are very similar to the US; long lines, candy, and ticket rippers. As the room darkened and the screen flickered to life we knew we were in for an amazing experience. The theater was packed and from the second Edward appeared on screen the crowd was in frenzy. It was so much fun seeing all of the mania that accompanies these movies. It is blatantly obviously in the US with the t-shirts and the ‘Team Edward’ or ‘Team Jacob’ memorabilia. Here the fandom is just a crazy, maybe just slightly less material based.
We attended the VOST showing of the film so we could hear it in English. It did not surprise me at all that the original English version sold out way before the French dubbed version. Everyone there, French or English, wanted the true experience of the film with the characters sounding like they were meant to. My roommate and I were almost hyperventilating the entire film. If you are not a fan this will sound mad but if you are you will know exactly what I am talking about. The film was beyond amazing. It followed the book as closely as possible and found creative ways to incorporate the little things that make the book special. Being able to see it two days before all of my friends back in America adds to the fun! This week made many people very jealous.

Light in Art

All throughout the museum today, I noticed light plays a part of the sculptures. Art is the my favorite thing in the entire world. I have always appreciated the beauty, creativity, and talent that goes into making art. Being an art history major I spend a lot of time looking at and analyzing art and its meanings I have never taken the time to see the science within it. The most amazing thing that I have seen this week was this exhibition that explored science and art together through the ways that they are interconnected and used to improve eachother.Light has been haunting me everywhere since starting this pathway, DBT will be proud of my new observations.
Though it was a museum of science, art was a big part of its collection. The most amazing thing, that I saw, at the museum were the pictures that changed from a distance. Standing close the photographs they were all the same shot of Albert Einstein, but by backing away from the wall in which they were hanging each of the pictures transformed into a different person.
After taking five or six steps backwards, the face of Einstein started to change. He transformed into Marilyn Monroe, Harry Potter, Salvador Dali, and a few other famous faces. At first I was completely astounded, how could this work? Hanging beside the pictures there was a sign explaining the science between the changing faces. In the end it had everything to do with light.
Light travels at different frequencies, by making the pictures be on two different way lengths the pictures so up at different times. I think it has something to do with the eye not being able to interpret the two wavelengths at the same time. The eye processes one picture and then the other, creating the transition between the two different people. To be honest I was not very enthusiastic about the museum at first, science is my least favorite subject, but the museum was amazing. I had a really great time today.

The Moon and the Stars

This week has been a very crazy and hectic week. All of our classes have been moved or extended to accommodate an excessive amount of pre-scheduled school activities. Early mornings and late nights had drained me into an uninterested blob of tiredness. I had no real desire to listen to people talk about the French government. One of the speakers that we went to see actually avoided a question by saying that he did want to risk losing his job. It was the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. It reminded me of why I hate the political game so much. People are not real. As much as they try to become real they are just puppets for the most part.
To relax on night a friend and I went outside at 1:30 in the morning. Lying down on a bench looking up at the sky I saw the most amazing thing this week. The moon was full. The bright glowing sphere was surrounded by clouds that it illuminated into a circular rainbow. This is real; the moon, the stars, the clouds. It is so easy to forget all of your troubles when you are looking up at the beautiful dark sky. Compared to New England the stars are barely visible. Looking up you can probably see one hundred stars twinkling in the blackness. Staring up at the clouds that made it seem like the moon was moving at tremendous speeds I just felt this overwhelming sense of calm. Seeing such a beautiful moon it becomes obvious what a small role humans have in the universe. Taking time to observe and appreciate helps bring a person into a correct perspective.