Bravo, Disney!

So a friend of mine told me she found a ton of the old Disney animated movies on YouTube yesterday through Tumblr, and since they’re unlisted, she shared all the links with me.  Totally not what I needed if I wanted to be even a little productive today.  She’s in the same boat though, she has a paper due tonight.  I just have to pack, hopefully when its necessary I can do them both at the same time!  Although, the sun is out today, unlike yesterday, so we’ll just have to see what we have planned.  It is Easter, so everything will be closed.  I do at least have to go to the beach to get two rocks for two of my “sisters”.  They had the most simple request for a souvenir.

All that being said, I haven’t watched most of these movies in over 10 years, so I don’t mind the fact that she shared all this beautiful information with me.  Especially since some of them have already been banned.  So if anyone wants me to share all the links with you, comment here with your email and I’ll send it to you!

Je déteste l’emballage: Part Deux

For those of you who have been reading since the start, you’ll notice that this looks strikingly similar to my first post.  Hence the “Part Deux” added to the title.

We have started packing.  Ugh.

This time, instead of the constant worry and frustration that I may have forgotten something (which becomes increasingly less possible when you only have a certain amount of items with you, and they’re all in one room), I’m just worried that everything isn’t going to fit in our now reduced luggage.  We have basically three carry-on size bags, and my purse.  One of the bags can only serve to hold all of Jon’s camera equipment, and my purse is just a relatively tiny cross-body bag, so storage is limited.  So in reality, we have two.  Thankfully one of them is being checked, simply because of those unreasonably annoying fluid rules when it comes to flying.  Even worse, yesterday when we took our suitcase to the post office to mail it, we had to take a few things out because the scale here at home was wrong.  So we either have to find room for these items in our luggage, or bid them adieu.  Lets just hope we don’t have to say goodbye to much.

I’ve also come to the realization that I royally fail at post cards.  With all the chaos of dealing with our suit case yesterday, I forgot that I wanted to go to a tobacco shop so I could possibly buy individual stamps instead of an entire book.  So those very few lucky people may be getting a post card from Nice that’s stamped from another country.  I wonder if the post office is open on Saturday here…

I guess we’ll just have to see!  Wish us luck :)

Nous avons finalement reçu une réponse de l’Irlande!

Just a short post to let all of you know that our summer has officially been planned.  We have confirmed dates to farm in the following countries: Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, and finally Ireland!

That also means we have finally purchased our plane ticket home, and I can quit fretting about not getting back to Florida.  Not that I’ll find the July heat incredibly welcoming, but I’m sooo close to graduating, I would really like to get home and finish up my bachelors!

Tomorrow is our final day of class, and I’m having mixed emotions.  I feel like I’ve absorbed all the French humanly possible in this relatively short period of time, but I’m a little concerned about how the credits will transfer when we get back to the states.  Hopefully the lady in charge of signing off on that believes us when we say that two levels of French at Alliance Francaise is considerably more thorough and advanced than French 1-4 in college.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Now if USF would just finalize all these silly tax paper things for my financial aid, and my new apartment would let me know then I’m done with the leasing process until I get home, I can rest peacefully…

… okay, maybe not peacefully.  But I’d like to not worry about school, money for school, or a place to live while at school.

Until next time, passez une bonne journée! 

J’ai déjà commencé ma valise

Its kind of sad when that I don’t leave for another 5 days, and I’ve already started packing my stuff up.  Okay, maybe not completely sad, but I think sometimes I try to be too organized.

Jon’s mom did a little bit of research after our UPS shipping price scare, and found that it shouldn’t be much more than $100-150 to ship our big suitcase back to the states so we don’t have to carry it and a whole bunch of stuff we don’t need with us.  I really hope it’s somewhere close to that price range, because though it’s a little expensive, its well worth the convenience of not having all that extra stuff with us.  We’re hoping to go to the post office sometime today, so lets hope what she found is true!

Other than that, it’s about time I write and send out my postcards too.  I bought a handful for a few people a couple of weeks ago, and kind of forgot about them.  I also should start thinking of little things I want to bring home to my family and a couple of friends, which brought me to the unsettling realization that there isn’t a very cool French Riviera souvenir.  So, to my few friends and family who get something from me and look at it and wonder “Well how is this French?”… it probably isn’t, I probably just saw it and thought of you.  The only real souvenir of this region of France is this silly little sachet things filled with dried flowers and such that smell pretty.  I think it’s a little lame.

That is about it really.  I powered through the rest of my online courses for USF, so I’m done with all that (thank goodness!).  Just dinner plans tonight with Ilona, and trying to come up with something worth while for the weekend.  We shall see.

Until then, I’ve uploaded a new picture for the top of my blog, if you didn’t already notice.  Jon took a bunch of pictures from Breil-sur-Roya and put this panorama together from the top of the mountain we hiked.  If you look very closely, you can find me laying in the picture, enjoying the beautiful French sunshine. :)

Jon voulait voir des montagnes, donc j’ai trouvé des montagnes.

So, as we were approaching our second to last weekend in Nice, Jon’s mom (and most of our other friends) asked us “So what are you going to do this weekend?”  Likely question, but we didn’t have a definitive answer.  Jon just wanted to see some mountains.  After asking a friend if he would help us with a good place to go, and if he would like to join us, he was only able to provide some help with the former; apparently a thesis was calling him, poor guy.  He did however, suggest Mercantour National Park.  Well, Jon did some research and couldn’t find anything to get us into the park, despite its rather great size.  So he went to bed suuuuuper late after doing some night photography (while I slept, because I thought he was crazy), which allowed me some time alone to do some research in the morning when I woke up a few hours before he did.  Before Nicolas’ screams had a chance to wake him up, I found us train times and a village to see in one of the valleys that feeds into the national park.  Sure, we weren’t actually going to be in the park, but they were mountains, and we figured that was good enough for us.  Since Jon got so little sleep, I decided (after consulting the unpredictable weather forecast) against waking him up and saying “Come on, lets go!” and told him when he was awaken by the screams that I had plans for us the next day.  I figured that might make waking up to a screaming 3-year-old a little less annoying.

Saturday went by with not much to say about it; just some homework, some eating, some screaming, and some reading.  I finally finished Julia Child’s My Life in France and I loved it.  I’ve now moved on to my list of classics that I never read as a child, and the first on the list was Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland.  It’s definitely interesting!

Our plan Sunday morning was to get up early and take the 7:30ish train into Breil-sur-Roya.  Well, apparently it took Jon 20 minutes to even get me awake (I didn’t sleep well the night before, probably because I knew I needed proper rest), and after getting ready and double checking the train schedule, I realized that the times I had remembered we backwards; the train that left Nice left at 7:21, and the train that left Breil left at 7:38.  So on top of being late, we lost 17 minutes in my mistaken planning.  Thankfully though (and I already knew this), there was a train that left at 9:05 and we considered this not much time lost.  The train into the village was fairly smooth, mountainous views all about, and my ears popping like crazy the entire way.

Once we got to Breil-sur-Roya, we were met by a very tiny, adorable little village.  It being Sunday, and the fact that its touristy season doesn’t start until its warm enough to enjoy any water sports (since theres a wide river that runs right by it), not much was open to get something to eat.  We found one place were we had the most amazing fries, and Jon ordered something called the Americain and I ordered a kebab.  The Americain is basically France’s interpretation of American food smacked between halves of a baguette; one or two burgers split in half, lettuce, tomato, some sort of sauce to your preference, and fries.  Yes, fries in the sandwich.  It was delicious, but he couldn’t finish it.  After finishing our food, we told our server that we were looking to do some hiking and asked if he knew of a good place to start and how to get there.  He beckoned another girl, and she rambled off directions in the fastest French I’ve heard yet.  Thankfully though, we caught enough words, and I was able to follow most of what she was saying through her hands, and we found ourselves a path.  And boy was it a path.

The original path we found came to a fork, and we opted for the one that looked significantly steeper.  The name of the path was the Boucle de la Cruella which translates to the curls of Cruella (DeVille? Hehe).  Given the nature of Cruella, this path was nasty.  Really steep, really narrow, parts of it were extremely loose, and I was not doing well.  Part of the problem is our inability to plan proper amounts of water.  We ran out of water about halfway up the mountain, and had to take frequent breaks to combat the rest.  Its the sort of hike that gets your heart rate going pretty hard, but then every time my foot would slip on the loose rocks, my heart would skip a few beats out of fear, which would send it into an uncontrollable heart rate.  Not fun in the slightest.  But when we made it up to the top where the old château and its ruins were, it was well worth the hike.  The view was fantastic.

One our way back down the path, we ran into a mysterious dog that scared the living daylights out of us, but ended up being totally adorable and unbelievably happy.  We also found his owners a few meters a way further back on the path.  Nothing like some doggy lovins to make you feel great!  As we continued to climb down, Jon insisted that instead of going back to the village (where there was nothing to do for a few hours before our train home, but there was water) we should take the other part of the path that forked off at the beginning and see where it takes us.  He always wins.

After some convincing, we headed that direction, and noticed that the river that the mountains surround was getting closer and closer to us.  Given our thirst, and how crystal clear the water looked, we decided to keep going until we could find a way to get down to the water.  We eventually did, and found the most peaceful place to spend about an hour and a half of our afternoon.  We filled up our water bottle, examined it thoroughly, smelt it, and then eventually took a sip.  It tasted wonderful; just like the water that originally filled the bottle.  Sure, in a survival situation I wouldn’t have done that without testing the water first, but we were thirsty, not lost, and not far from help.  So far, its proven to not be a bad choice, as neither of us have come down with mysterious symptoms out of no where.  Jon was wearing his FiveFinger shoes again, which are much better suited for water than my Nike tennis shoes, so he took of his shorts (don’t worry folks, he was wearing under armor underneath!) and got in the water to take some pictures of the little bitty water falls around us.  It was too cold for me, so I stuck my toes in ever few minutes too cool off.

Even more interesting though, was there were quite a few of these little purpley-blue butterflies everywhere that insisted on landing on us.  I don’t really know much about butterflies, but they were not shy like they usually are.  They landed on our feet, shoes, Jon’s socks, our hands, watches, hair, everything.  They were adorable and entertaining.  So while Jon was off mid-thigh high in ice cold water, I was being entertained by a bunch of adorable butterflies.  I thought that sort of thing only happened in Disney movies!

Once we started to feel a little too relaxed, we decided it was time to head back into town.  We figured we had just about enough time to stop at the first place we saw that had ice cream, have a little treat, and head to the train station to take the first train back.  Sure, it left Breil-sur-Roya about an hour earlier than we had intended on leaving, but we did a lot more in our 7 hours than we thought we would have, and did not regret our decision.  We were exhausted, and didn’t want to push ourselves so far that the last couple hours just wouldn’t be enjoyable.  Ice cream proved to be a wonderful idea, as I ordered possibly the best vanilla ice cream I have ever had in my entire life, with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top!  It actually tasted like vanilla, something most vanillas lack.  With a Coke to wash it all down, which proved to be a good thing to order since it helped make Jon’s lemon sorbet and vodka a little easier to stomach when he mixed some in.  Definitely a good idea.

Our walk back to the train station seemed longer than we thought, since we’d had time to relax while we ate our ice cream, and were growing more tired by the minute.  The train ride home was the same as the one there, but with a lot more napping.  We got home and basically went into zombie mode; we didn’t even have dinner.  This was all made better by the absence of a screaming 3-year-old, since our host family is out of town until Friday or Saturday.  Yay for silence!

I’d say, good day accomplished.

Oh of course, les photos.

Breil-sur-Roya

Water and mountains? Yes please!

This is how the river is able to widen so much. Cheaters :P

Just an adorable alley.

My lunch.

Jon’s monster.

Before we started our hike.

The arch that marked the beginning of our trail.

Earth is so cool

Pretty stream

The view from the top!

See the little building pretty much centered in the picture? Thats where we started.

The castely thing.

The mystery puppy!

Jon can’t resist a puppy.

Did I mention how cool Earth is?

Trying to find our way down to the water.

I sat on the little bridge while Jon investigated.

Butterfly!

Butterfly on Jon’s shoe!

Butterfly tickling my toes!

Butterflies on my watch!

Butterflies on Jon’s icky sock!

Jon pouring really cold water on his head.

Butterfly on Jon’s camera!

The view from where we sat.

Our “new” bottle of Evian!

The best vanilla ice cream on the world.

Quelle est la différence entre une navette spatiale et une fusée?

Outside of class, not a whole lot has been going on.  Nice is still the same, with its brilliant blue skies, over priced skinny-girl shopping, delicious bakery items and poo filled side walks.  However in class, I’ve realized some things that I find to be very exciting.

The classes are set up so that the people taking the extensive course (5 days a week for 2.5 hours a day) and the people taking the intensive course (5 days/4 hours per day) start at the same time each morning, learn the task at hand, and at 11:30 the extensive course takers leave for the day and the ones remaining just further practice the skills all of us just learned.  I find it to be quite efficient.  Given the nature of the second half of the class, it leaves our time open for discussion on a variety of topics, be it related to what we’re working on or not.

For instance, today while trying to work through a worksheet, we got on a 25 minute tangent about parenting, and whats considered appropriate in our respective countries.  Given our experiences with our host family, we had a lot to say about how it differs from the way Jon and I were raised.  We had to explain that our definition of “discipline” isn’t just the act of spanking or beating your kids, but just making sure there are limits and rules to be followed.  The man from Canada asked me what my parents usually did in the unlikely situation that I got into any trouble, and I explained that usually it was a matter of time out, or being grounded for something serious, but with the addition of explanation as to why what I did was wrong, and what would have been a better thing to do in that situation.  Doesn’t hurt that having a dad in the military evoked a little bit of fear in six-year-old Caroline, but I definitely knew what was right, and what was wrong; something that seems completely absent in our host family.  We also learned that its illegal to even tap a kid on his hands as a way of getting his/her attention, and that kids can call some sort of hotline (111 is the number) to report if their parents do so.  My goodness!

Yesterday we learned the subjunctive tense, something that doesn’t exist in English but basically equates to “It is necessary that I do this.”  We happened to have a worksheet that had 6 pictures on it, the first being of a man clearly obese, trying to get up the stairs.  Our objective was to come up with phrases of what this man has to do in order to be healthier; this led to a discussion about the different definitions of obese, and how in the US its determined primarily by your BMI.  This led into a debate about whether its accurate, which spilled into a debate about health care systems in various countries, particularly the difficulty and expense of getting health insurance in the States.  This eventually led to a debate about medicine and antibiotics, and we concluded that the French are hypochondriacs, take medicine for the tiniest little things, and have a huge cabinet in every house fully stocked with all sorts of medicament.  30 minutes later, we moved on to picture number two.

Another day, after one of the extensive course members left saying she was going to be walking her dogs that afternoon, she brought the little pups in for us to see; this led to a 20 minute discussion about the sort of animals we like, whether we pick up after our dogs in our respective countries (this included a mini explanation about how it’s totally acceptable to scream at some who leaves their dog’s poo in the streets in the US, which is apparently try in England too), and if we consider dogs to be “friends.”

Another one of our tangents today has to be by far my favorite debate to date.  Our professor said something about transport in a particular region, which merely means the bus, train, tram or metro system.  I, jokingly since I knew its definition in French, asked about the transportation in said region.  Well, transportation in French isn’t just a longer way of saying the former, but refers to means of traveling into space.  This turned into Jon and I trying to explain the difference between a rocket (une fusée)  and a space shuttle (une navette spatiale).  Being from the Countdown County, home of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the both of us frequently said “Quand on habite en Floride, on connaît la différence entre une navette spatiale et une fusée très bien,” but it took a while for us to get our point across.  After a few trips to the board, some rather comical illustrations, and a confession from our professor that she’s the literary type, not the scientific type, she eventually understood that a space shuttle and a rocket aren’t the same, but for what reasons, I’m not sure she finally understood.  Almost 40 minutes later, there was only 10 minutes left in class, and we laughed about our inability to stay on topic, but applauded our attempts at real conversation.  It felt really natural, and I was excited by this.

So I guess while we’re not really seeing anything new at the moment, and are very much looking forward to our host family going on vacation for the next six days (hello silence!), I can’t say the past couple days hasn’t gone by without excitement.

Maman à la rescousse!

Crisis averted.  I will still get to see the rest of Europe.  Yay for Mommy to the rescue! :)

Sorry for the tiny post, but given the mood of my previous I felt it couldn’t wait until I had more to report on!

Ce voyage n’est pas censé être stressant

So the past couple days have been a roller coaster.

The first major loop was learning that our information on the Schengen Zone and its rules were out of date.  We were under the impression that you could only stay in each country of the zone for a total of 90 days, but now you can only stay in the entire zone for 90 days.  When we leave France, it will be day 84, and all but our last farm is within the Schengen Zone.  So after going to see the United States Consulate here in Nice, and consulting with some people back home, we found out that we’ll actually more than likely be just fine; just travel quietly, be really nice, and worse comes to worse, play dumb.  Which means I’m going to be a rubber band ball of stress everytime we’re traveling.

That is, if I get to travel.

The second loop is that our continued research in finding train and plane tickets to all these places has proven to cost us more than we had originally budgeted for.  Which means with the amount of money I currently have left, I can’t afford to get from one country to the next and get home.  Getting home is pretty important… but so is this trip.  Considering all the time I spent emailing all these farms and organizing them, all the saving I did before the trip, and all the work I did throughout my college years so I can earn the scholarships I have to make this possible, it’s extremely important to me that I actually get to go through with our plan.  I don’t like the idea of Jon even considering forfeiting anything because I can’t, but I also don’t like that people seem to think that I’m merely a tag-a-long in this trip and that I didn’t have an active part in its planning from the very beginning.

Combine all this with a six hour time difference (which means my mom is working when I’m in need of someone to talk to), the fact that I emailed my dad two weeks ago just to say hi and I still haven’t heard from him (he’s been busy getting ready for a new job, which involves a lot of travel, but still), and the fact that my new Bank of America card is stuck somewhere in Nice’s postal service (that is a story unto itself, and I will be giving Bank of America an earful when I get back to the states) and you can imagine my state is probably pretty fragile.  Very fragile, really.

Okay, sorry for the sap story, but my absence had to be accounted for some how.  There you have it.

Parfois, tu dois faire ce que tu dois faire

There are a few advantages and disadvantages to packing your favorite clothes on a 6 month trip.  Advantage: obvious, you have all your favorite clothes with you.  Disadvantage: the realization that they may need to cut them up.

When I was packing for this trip in January, I wasn’t able to pack many shorts with me.  I hate shopping for shorts and haven’t done so in years, and given that they’re necessary 10 out of 12 months of the year in Florida, they were quite worn out.  So worn out that most of them were ripped and better suited for rags than clothing.  So I didn’t pack them, and only came armed with two pairs of Nike running shorts, thinking  “I’ll just buy some shorts as the weather warms up.”  Well, unfortunately I’m about 6 inches taller than the average French woman, which makes finding shorts, or pants of any sort, incredibly difficult.  After a few terrible moments in the dressing rooms of H&M, I realized I may have to do something a little different.

Right before we left, my favorite pair of jeans ripped, so I had to rush out to a mall and search for a new pair.  I ended up buying a pair that I wasn’t crazy about just because they kind of fit, since all the jeans else where either looked ridiculous (why do clothing companies have to rip up your jeans and stain them before you even get to?) or they were too short.  So my first thought was, “Okay, I’ll make those awful jeans I hardly wear into shorts,” and so Jon helped me with that, since I suck at cutting a straight line.

The next day, I decided it was time to turn my beloved grey Fossil corduroys into shorts too.  I love them, and they fit great, but somebody at home accidentally dried them a few months ago and I’ve been in denial about the fact they they’re just a tad too short.  Although, when considering this disadvantage of having to cut up my favorite pair of pants, Jon brought to my attention that I wasn’t “ruining” them like I felt I was, I was re-purposing them, and therefore could continue to wear them for probably at least another year.  That didn’t stop me from insisting he cut them right at that moment, before I talked myself out of it though.

So that being said, here’s my lesson: Keep an open mind when you run into clothing issues like these.  Especially you tall girls.  There will, after all, still be pants long enough for you when you get back to the states.

Je mange beaucoup de fruits en France

Seeing as we haven’t been doing anything terribly special during the past couple days, I’ve had some time to do some real thinking.  I’ve noticed a few changes in my daily habits and routine here, mostly in regards to food, and wanted to share my thoughts.

I eat a lot of fruit here.

I know that probably seems like a silly thing to comment on, but let me also say that my pants were falling off my butt while walking up our daily two flights of stairs.  I haven’t eaten this much fruit on a regular basis since I lived in (you guessed it) Europe.  Spain to be specific.  So as I was sitting there eating a banana during our coffee break in class, I said to Jon “I really hope I continue to eat this much fruit when we get back to the States.”  This turned into a debate about why we eat more fruit here than we do in the US.

First of all, fresh food markets are very prevalent here, and the fact that there’s one on the same block as our school probably helps with our daily fruit habit.  But every single day, at the start of our coffee break, we walk to the little market, pick out an orange, maybe a banana, sometimes an apple or a pear, pay less than 50 cents for it sometimes, and go back to class.  In the US, if I wanted to have just an apple, I’d have to get in my car, drive to Publix, and then just buy an apple.  But with all that effort, shouldn’t I do more shopping while I’m there?  That brought us to problem number two.

In the US, when I do my shopping, I usually do so once a week, maybe once every other week if pennies or tight or I’m going home soon.  So I buy some snacks that aren’t so good for me, and some fruit, and various other food items to use throughout the week.  But the snacks that aren’t as good for me are supposed to be a treat, that I split up throughout the week and enjoy in small quantities.  The problem arises when that never actually happens.  I usually end up eating the snacky foods first, and then by the time I remember that I bought fruit, they’ve gone bad.  Not good for my health, and definitely not good for my wallet.  So when I get home, I plan on changing my shopping habits so that this doesn’t happen.

It’s impossible to go on a low-carb diet in France.

Home of the baguette, the French usually cringe at the prospects of a meal sans pain.  Bread is as much a part of French culture as pasta is to Italian, or potatoes are to Irish.  Nevermind the fact that it’s incredibly inexpensive; 40 cents for half a baguette from the little bakery on our corner.  I was genuinely worried about this, given the minor success I had eliminating carbs from my diet state-side before we left, and thought that the moment I get to France, I would swell up like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (minus the blue face, of course).  But as mentioned before, my pants are falling off me.  I think the amount of bread I eat is outweighed by the amount of walking we do.  Obviously we don’t have a car, but even if we did, it would be completely impractical, and mad sometimes, to use it.  With a public transportation system like they have here, even if you do take  a bus some place, you still have plenty of time to walk off all those carb calories.  But I don’t think all the walking explains the general “thinness” of the French.

People seem a lot less stressed here than in the United States.

Any of my readers who know me quite well know that I am a bundle of stress almost every day, regardless of whether there is an important deadline approaching or not.  But after watching the French, and listening to our professor speak about the general way of life here, I think the French just don’t bother stressing about much, unless its something seriously worth losing sleep over.  Anyone who knows a few things about weight loss would also know that being stressed is one of the best ways to keep weight on.  Obviously not for everyone; some  people can hardly thing about food while the GRE is near, while others find themselves at the bottom of their second box of cookies.  Aside from different eating habits while stressed, the presence of stress puts your body into “fight or flight” mode, resulting in the excess energy, shifts in metabolism, blood flow, and the production of excess hormones.  One of these hormone in particular is the culprit for many cases of stress-related weight gain: cortisol.

Basically, when you’re stressed, your body feels as if it’s about to be harmed; hence “fight or flight” mode.  With this comes the overproduction of cortisol, a hormone that slows down your metabolism and triggers fat storage in the tummy region.  So even if you’re one of the lucky few that don’t eat or starve your emotions, you can still find yourself susceptible to weight gain.

Translated into the French lifestyle, the absence of stress leads to not only the absence of emotional eating, but also wards off the unwanted boost in cortisol levels.  The way of life here is incredibly laid back, with plenty of time to relax, and a meager 35 hour work week.  I know that doesn’t sound like that much of a difference, but consider this: you get up and get to work at 9 AM, you usually get a very short lunch break, and come home from work around 5 PM.  The French, on the other hand, get to work at 9 AM, leave work at 11 AM for their two-hour lunch break, return to work at 1 PM, then work until 6 PM.  Sure, they technically leave work later in the day, but they got a nice two-hour break at lunch time to eat a proper meal, relax, even take a nap.  The schedule in the US does not allow enough time to eat lunch, resulting in both poor eating habits and fatigue.  Fatigue affects the quality of work, and a lack of quality in work results in stress.  Voila!

So what am I going to change when I get home?

Well, that’s kind of a silly question, but obviously all of this.  When I go shopping, I’m going to buy fewer “bad” snacks, and more fruits and vegetables to snack on, keeping in mind the amount of time I have to eat them before they go bad.  I’m going to find new outlets to release stress other than my terrible mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups habit and my Oreo habit (these were standard around exam time).  Obviously, I can’t control my work day (well usually, unless I reach a point in my life where I can work for myself), but I can control what I eat during my lunch break.  And I won’t let myself get stressed over enjoying a little bit a bread every once in a while.

Add that to the fact that I’m starting a new running program in an effort to prepare for the Sister Run, an Ovarian Cancer Awareness 5K (the significance of this race is that my mother is a very lucky ovarian cancer survivor), and I foresee a much healthier Caroline within the next several months.  I think it’s a little weird that after 2 months and a few days in France, these are the things I’ve pulled away and plan to bring home with me.  Obviously among some other things, but these are the things I’m most excited about, and most relieved to have learned at my young age, before the stress and poor eating habits get the best of me.

Until next time: Mange une pomme!