Update: Hiatus

Number of year's I've had this blog: 1
Number of times I've posted on this blog: Not nearly enough.
Number of posts on this blog that I posted because I wanted to and not because I felt obligated to: Also not nearly enough. I think I'm realizing that as much as I love to write, I don't really feel comfortable writing for a large audience.
Number of posts in my drafts that I don't have the courage to hit "publish" on: Too many. Some people are very comfortable with sharing the nitty gritty realness of their lives on the internet, and even though I can pour my heart out for pages on end in a private journal, I'm not comfortable pouring out my heart online.
Will I ever come back to this blog: Probably! But right now, it's not really what I want to be doing. Thanks for following me for the past year. Maybe we'll meet up again down the road.

Playlist: May

So there I was, bopping along and going through life without a care, when I realized that I had not posted the playlist from the month of May. Sorry about that.

Here it is. Have at it. Shuffle and enjoy.

Review: Best Coffee Places in Lille

(This is the street that most of the listed coffee shops are on.)

I've been back in the United States for about two weeks now, so it's time for--you guessed it--nostalgia posting. This was something that I was planning to post when I was still in Lille, but like many things I plan to do, I didn't do it. Well, better late than never. Also, it's a good excuse to relive the days when I used to go camp out in cute coffee shops because I didn't have working wifi at my residence hall.

Playlist: April

Sorry for the incredibly delayed posting of this monthly playlist, which I am sure you were all waiting for with bated breath. 

T.S. Eliot was right--April is the cruelest month. Well, this April was at least. It was one of my best months in France, but for every happy moment there was another cruel reminder that my time in France is almost over. In fact, this time next week I will be back in the United States. 

Wow.

So yeah. That's why this playlist goes from party songs to sappy songs to upbeat feelgood songs to songs one might play on a calm morning. Shuffle and enjoy!

April 1st at a Primary School

Honestly you don't even need to continue reading. This picture tells you all that you need to know.

8:00: I guess you could call any school day a battle. Sometimes the kids are challenging, sometimes they struggle with the material, sometimes they don't like your lesson plan and let you know it,sometimes you don't prepare enough material and have awkward extra time at the end of the class where you don't know what to do so you just play hangman. Fridays make things a little more difficult, because now suddenly you're the only thing standing between the students and two days of freedom. Fridays before breaks are worse, because now you're standing between them and two weeks of freedom. Today is one of those Fridays, a Friday before a break. It's also April 1st.

Today will not just be a battle. Today will be a war. 

If I should fall today, remember me. Know that I fought valiantly. Know that I defended myself and my honor until my final breath. 

But if I make it, I'm totally down to hang out tonight, just text me.

Playlist: March

OK I CAN EXPLAIN: My computer's been at the Apple Store for two weeks getting repaired. That's why I haven't been writing. I'll try to make up for it with an extra long playlist, which apparently consists of basically every song I heard in the month of March. Maybe I went overboard. I don't know. But, as usual, shuffle and enjoy!

Marché de Wazemmes

If you visit Lille, you will end up visiting some sort of open air market. It's Northern France and that's just what's going to happen.

The Braderie de Lille is the largest and most famous of these markets, and it happens once a year, in September. I, of course, arrived in Lille a week after the famous Braderie, so I did not get to experience wonders such as the mountain of mussels.

However, I've still been checking out other markets around the city, like this one. The Marché de Wazemmes is open three times a week, but it's at its biggest and best on Sundays. This place has everything. Seriously. It holds the honor of being the only place in Lille where I've seen a pumpkin.

Playlist: February

I promised to write more this month. That didn't necessarily happen. But then again, I've barely been in Lille this month. After one week of work I had a two-week break, which I kind of extended into a three-week break by taking a trip on my days off last week. And now here we are at Leap Day.

At least all that travel made for an interesting playlist. Here's a mix of songs I heard in Lille, Cassel, Bruges, Paris, Copenhagen, and Oxford. It starts and ends with Zayn, and the artists that appear most often are Simon and Garfunkel, Yann Tiersen, Hozier, and Justin Bieber. I can't think of a better way to sum up my February than that.

Shuffle and enjoy!

How To: Survive OFII

A long stay in France requires a trip to the Office Français de l'Immigration et de l'Intégration, or OFII. It's a process that we were warned about in our information packets, a process that we received a lecture on during orientation, a process that I believed I should be freaking out about. In reality, though, it's not too scary. It just involves a lot of waiting. Here's how to (barely) survive.

Playlist: January

Here it is: the first playlist of 2016. Inspirations include but are not limited to: open mics, David Bowie, cold weather, nights in with friends, and throwback dance parties. Shuffle and enjoy!

Update: I'm Still Here

Number of New Years Resolutions made: 7
Number of New Years Resolutions kept: I think we're down to like three now.
Was blogging more often one of these resolutions: No
Should it have been: Probably
Excuses for not writing: I'm busy. I have too much other stuff to do. The only warm place in Lille is my bed. This whole business of a website where I just talk about myself feels weird and I'm getting self-conscious. The novelty of France is wearing off and it's finally not feeling like I'm just visiting. It's finally feeling like I live here and I have a job and friends and a life here. It's feeling less like a foreign country and more like home.
But do I want to write: Yes
So am I going to stop making excuses and write: Yes

Expect more posts in February, everyone.