Buon Natale, Joyeux Noël, and Merry Christmas!

David and I have been very much enjoying our Christmas vacation in Italy, and we were up at 9:00 this morning to start our celebration. Though this is not as early as usual, here in Italy there is a midnight mass that continues even until 1 or 2 in the morning so several members of the family would have been too exhausted to wake up really early. David and I certainly didn't mind getting a little bit of extra sleep. (=

After everyone was up, there was a little present opening ceremony and then breakfast was served. Everyone ate together and it was quite a happy and crowded morning as all 8 of us gathered around the table for a traditional European breakfast. David and I would like to say a special thanks to everyone who sent us gifts or letters while we were away because it helped us to still feel partially at home during this holiday time. It was great fun this morning, and felt very Christmas-y though I will mention that Torino has had no snow yet this year, so we are not exactly in a Winter Wonderland.

After breakfast we went out for a walk in one of the gardens close to the Fabbro home, which was very lovely. They also took us up to a hill where you could see all of Torino, and where we took the picture that I have chosen to include for today. Oh, and David and I took a picture of ourselves with all of our little presents arranged on the floor, so I put that in too. I hope that all of you guys had (or will have depending on the time zone) a wonderful Christmas day!!!

Love from David and Ellen!

Thanks family!

David and I in front of the Torino backdrop. Thanks to Mom and Dad Spence for my scarf, and that to Mom and Dad for David's scarf... they made for a great picture!

Merry Christmas Family!!!

Actually it is midnight Christmas Eve, but David and I have just got back from an internetless trip to Ivrea with friends of the family, Michele and Jacqueline. I am quite tired and David and I are heading off to bed, but I will surely write more either tomorrow or the day after to tell you about my travels. For now it is enough to say, Joyeux Noël, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

David and I are looking forward to opening our presents tomorrow, and thanks to our family all thinking of us even while we were in France, we greatly appreciate it!

David Safely Arrived in Le Havre!

David's train arrived perfectly on time and in his own words "but hey, I'm here". It seems like everything went pretty well concerning his travels, and he got off to a great start because  his plane arrived half an hour early into Charles de Gaulle, giving him the extra time he needed to navigate the French train system on his own for the very first time. Kudos to David. After successfully arriving "home" into my container, David settled in a bit, took a shower, and has decided to take a little nap to recuperate. When he wakes up we'll eat a bit and prepare for my little party tonight during which my friends are coming to meet my husband and say good-bye to me.

Also, to keep you up to date with current events. There is a possible complication with the trip to Cologne, so there is a chance that David and I (along with the other students from Le Havre) will end up not going there at this time.Although David and I were looking forward to our visit to Opa's town, if we are not able to go now, then we will certainly go there at a later date. And the positive side would be that David gets a little bit more relaxation as his welcome to France. But nothing is sure at this moment, I just thought I would let you know.

As far as I am concerned, I took my last exam at Le Havre yesterday, and I couldn't even believe it because it actually took all three hours that we were given. It was huge!! We had to write a detailed plan about the coastline of France (all three) and how it functions as an element of economic localisation. If that even makes sense. We were provided with about 10 maps of various things such as tourism, fishing presence, population density, and charts of importation and exportation, that we were to use for our analysis. After the plan, we had to create our very own croquis synthèse which worked out ok for me... I can officially say that I took my first college exam where colored pencils were required. haha. And then, after all that, we had to write a resumé summarizing both out plan and our croquis together. Needless to day, because in addition to map analysis and the formulation of my ideas, I had to complete all three of the tasks (oh and PS in a foreign language) I used right up until 10 minutes before the 3 hours expired. And basically that was the case for the entire class. The first person to finish used 2 and a half hours. It was a monstrous exam. However, I was just so so so so happy and relieved when it was done because I was officially finished with all my classes in Le Havre. Wow, Christmas Break has begun and I am reunited with my husband!

Thanks for all who prayed for David during his travel as everything went as smoothly as possible and he is off to a good start here in France.

WHAT A WEEK and it's not even over

I really haven't had any time to let you guys know what's been going on, and today is really no different as I prepare to take my last exam. But I figure I will try to give you a quick summary in the 10 minutes before I have to go:

Monday there was no exam, and it was my day of panic as I prepared for my three exams on Tuesday. Actually, the reason I was panicking was not because I had three exams, but because I had Chinese. I literally had been working on Chinese for like 7 hours a day for about 5 days at that point, and I still just could never possibly know everything that was required. Also, in class on Monday, my teacher turned to me (as she was talking about the schedule for the rest of the class) and said that I wouldn't be responsible for the information we didn't cover after today. WOW, THANKS! I am only responsible for everything you say today for my cumulative exam tomorrow. What a gift. And what is kind of sad, kind of funny, is that she said it like she really was doing me a favor. Haha.

Anyway Tuesday came around and my Chinese exam went ok. Normally I do awesomely on language tests (my Chinese tests back in Miami were usually scored at about 98-99% correct. And here I am feeling more of a 85 maybe. I don't know how she grades. What really aggravated me, however, was the oral because she tried to hold it like a conversation in real life. I am sorry, but we simply do not know enough vocabulary to do that. For example, we learn hobbies. She asks what do I like doing in my free time, and I say... being on the computer (we only know like 6 hobbies so that is the best) and then she says, "Oh, what do you do on the computer?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I am just proud of saying the hobby! We haven't learned a single morsel of vocabulary to describe what I could possibly be doing on the computer. And it just went on and on. She asks me if I was talking with someone and I responded yes because that kind of worked, and then she said were you talking with **** (I had no idea what she said, and in Chinese there is definitely no such thing as guessing) so I just repeated that yes I was talking, and then she was like Nooooooonnn, were you talking with ****. Finally I was just sitting there so hard trying to think of what that could be and she said in French , "your husband?" And I was just so mad because I DO NOT KNOW THAT WORD IN CHINESE and she said it like it was sooo obvious in the context. Why don't you try guessing words during a Chinese oral, it is not easy. Oh well, she likes me as a student and I did really well on the class work and the participation so I am sure I passed.

After that it was Recherche Marketing and I did brilliantly. He ended my oral with an interview about my expectations and my experiences in France because he was curious about my American perspective. So that was fun. He also said that I did really really well on the exam and he was going to give me a 16 or 17 out of 20 which is just enormous in France. I am very happy. Then there was my FLE (French) exam which of course I didn't study for and which was quite easy. So at least that is done.

Wednesday was Macro-Econ, and Tam and I took the exam together (teacher's idea) and that made it really easy because he basically just wanted us to have a conversation about current events concerning the Euro-zone and a little bit about our respective countries. It was a rather fun economic conversation, and in the end he also said we did really well and not to worry about our grades, so I guess that means we passed. Sweet.

Today is the kicker, it is Geo de la France and it is going to be painful. It is a 3 hours exam to do something, but no one is really sure what, so I guess we will see. And Tam and I are getting together to study for that right now in fact, right up until we take the sucker. lol. We will see how that goes. Unfortunately it is a huge class and it is going to provide me with important transfer credit I hope, so let's pray it goes well.

Ok I'm off!

Cooking Class Success

A picture of fellow American Nicole Sheldon and I. Actually, this is another student from Miami University back home, I just never knew her until we met up in France. Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that it was a fun fun fun cooking class, and I learned some pretty high-class cooking techniques which I am going to take back with me to the US. Also, I am officially on the hunt for "pommeau" a special Normandy apple-flavored cooking wine (though it can be drunk as a table wine too) which helped in making a killer fish sauce for our Turbot. If you are not familiar with this delicacy of a fish, It is an enormously fat flat-fish, renowned for its tender white flesh. Overall we had a great time, and I just thought I would share this photo with you.

Even though I have a very very very busy week ahead full of exams, I can't help but be in a great mood because David is coming out to France!!!!! Also, I did get to sleep in this morning which felt really good. 

Phew!! I feel great!!

First of all, I didn't have my exam that I was supposed to have yesterday. Literally at midnight the night before I got an e-mail from the professor saying that he had a conflict and would have to move the exam date. I like the professor well enough, though I was a bit frustrated since he had set the date, and we had decided on it nearly three weeks ago. Also, since I don;t start studying at midnight the night before an exam, usually, I had already put a lot of effort into memorizing details and stuff for his exam over the course of the last two days. Therefore all that effort is basically pointless. Not entirely, but really close because I will have to go through all my studying again, and I definitely felt that I was ready to take that exam. Oh well, what can I do. Now I take it literally right after I get done getting spanked by my 3 hour Chinese exam next week. Woot!

However, I am in an extremely chipper mood because I totally totally rocked rocked rocked my oral exam for Management International. I was given ten minutes to prepare for a ten minute "exposé" which is the French term for I guess "informative presentation of viewpoint" basically, you could have presentation on how a certain printer works (shouts to Dad!!!) but you couldn't have an exposé on how a printer works. Therefore basically all scholastic presentations are called in French, exposés. Anyway, I thought that seemed like it was going to be difficult because I knew that ten minutes to prepare would be so short, but ten minutes of talking would be so long. (I had my oral commentary from high school as a reference - and we were given twenty minute of prep for a 10-15 minute commentary, and that was in our first language!!) Also I brought up my concern at the lunch table yesterday and Margot said that usually students have 30 minutes of prep for a 10 minute exposé, so I am just not sure why he only gave me, a foreign student, 10. So knowing that this would likely prove to be difficult, especially since I wouldn't know the subject until right before, I opted for the Ellen Full-Blown-Memorization Technique, in which I literally could recite to you about 10-15 minutes of the skeleton of the material that the teacher had presented in class. In other words I put a logical order to the information, and then just memorized and made it coherent. I figured that at least that way if I had no clue how to directly respond to his question I could indirectly cover all the highlight of his course in an attempt to impress him. haha. I can list the 5 determining factors in the attractiveness of a foreign country, including the 4 types of distance, The 6 reasons why more and more companies are going international, the 3 personalized choices that enterprises make when they have decided to go abroad which includes the 4 different strategies for attacking an international market and the Ricardo and Heckscher-Ohlin Theories, the 7 stages involved in going international, the internal (3) and external (4) factors that affect the speed of those stages, the 3 types of decentralization as related to going international, the 7 dynamics that are found more frequently in the world thanks to globalization, and the 3 types of disinvestment in a foreign country, AND, I am quite capable of providing examples, implications, and further knowledge for each of the above ideas.But yeah, I am pretty sure that sums it up (I have only practiced reciting them like a hundred times in the last 24 hours).

Either way my technique served me well because I had a general sort of question that I could respond to in using my abundant lists. I used all of my ten minutes and would have liked more (I literally just got through writing as many of the list factors as possible) because I knew I would speak more coherently if I didn't have to try to think of the list items. I didn't finish but he said to begin so I did. And I really did well. I spoke quite coherently, made a point, responded to his question with an opinion (instead of a weaker mix of both yes and no) and even made him laugh by making up a vocabulary word - don't worry, it was the kind of word that you understand easily, like what a kid would say because they haven't learned all the words yet so they use the rules to invent. This word just didn't follow the rules. Overall, I would define that as about as successful an exposé as possible and I am very satisfied. He did also ask me some questions at the end and I was able to respond quite well. Also, I didn't have a time piece on me (and no clock in the room) but I would say that I did speak for about 10 minutes, and with questions we probably spoke for around 15-20? I don't know... but I'll say it again, either way I'm happy.

In one hour I'll be heading out to do a cooking thing with Nicole, which should be a lot of fun, I am quite looking forward to it!

Also, in case you have lost your calendar, it is officially one week until David joins me in France! Woohoo! We are both terribly busy with school and whatnot, but in one week he arrives and we celebrate his arrival and my going away party in my shipping container. Well have a great day I am off to get some other work done!

I've got good news and bad news

Bad news first so that everyone is up to date: my group (and all the other groups in my class) didn't apparently understand what our teacher wanted for our presentation in Analyse de Données and so she didn't like our presentation. I just hope I pass the class because otherwise I don't care. And luckily the presentation is offset with a dossier that we turned in and that I feel we did very well on. Ok, well I am still really mad about it because this never would have happened if we had been given a syllabus and/or if this teacher had better explained her expectations, so I am refusing to talk about it any more that that.

The good news, which is extremely exciting, is that David and I will get to take a 2-day excursion to Cologne (yes in Germany) right before we leave France for the holidays. We are both really excited. And I am double excited because David will get to really meet two of my friends during the trip, and I will get some quality time with my friends before saying good-bye AND we get to spend some time in Cologne. All in all, it will be quite a fun little adventure. It does make our departure a little chaotic so we will have to do some mad cleaning, organizing, and packing beforehand so that we are all ready to go, but it is definitely worth it.

Tomorrow I have my oral exam for Recherche Marketing.... wish me luck!! I have been studying basically all day and I don't think that my head can take any more of it. However it is teaching me a new skill - to review in French. I automatically was reviewing in my head while I was in the shower and then I realized it was in English and that just wasn't going to cut it because of course I knew it in English!! I need to make sure that I actually registered everything by its french term. Either way I am not too worried about it because the professor is awesome so I am sure that he will help to make the test as informative but non-intimidating as possible. It should be kind of fun, if I actually remember all this information.

Friday I have my oral for Management International, but I am little worried for that one because the class material is a little specific and not very broad, if that makes any sense. Plus it is currently set up to be a ten-minute prep for a ten minute exposé which I am taking to mean just me talking for 10 minutes.... no guarantee there my friends, especially with only ten minutes of prep. That isn't even easy in English! But I figure this my be my first exposure to BS in a foreign language for an extended period of time while I fill my remaining ten minutes with every possible link to every part of material throughout the class. lol. I will find the connections!

So this is a busy week for me, and I have three exams next week as well, but it is also important to think of David who is still in the US but is preparing to take all of his exams, pack for France, and move out of his housing. Did I mention he is working part time too? So I am sure that he will have an even more hectic time than me. Ok well I have taken my break and now I must return to my studying.

Another day in the Le Havre

Well it rained all day today. Absolutely all stinking day. Also I didn't get as much homework done as I wanted mostly because Tam has my notebook and I was too lazy to go over an get it. So I only did Chinese even though my Chinese exam isn't until next week. Oh well, I guess that is what tomorrow is for.

Tday was a bit of a bummer because there was a soiree that I really wanted to go to with my friends but it was far away and I could find no one to be my walk back and forth. It is definitely a bummer having a housing placement so so so far away from the center of the action. David and I's placement next semester is also a twenty minute walk from campus, but I don't mind as long as though twenty minutes are in the direction of the centre ville. Because here I am 25 minutes from campus and then another 20 from the closest parts of the down town area. So basically around 45 minutes to an hour one way for me to meet up with my friends. And it is only a 5 minute drive.And the buses in Le Havre don't run past 8 usually, which is before soirees even begin. The "night lines" run until 10... still not that great. Oh well, just saying that it would have been fun, especially because I have nothing else to do.

By the way, David arrives in France in 13 days!!! That is exciting for the both of us I should think. (=

Getting Closer to the End...

First thing before I get started on this post: I was writing the title and I started laughing to myself because it includes an element very Anglosaxon, or, at least, not French. And rather than tell you right now and ruin the surprise (because I know how quickly we read in our native languages and by now you would know what it was without any time to actually think about it) I am going to wait until the end of this post so that you can really think about it and put for a guess as to what in the post title is not Frenchish.

Now I continue. Today Tam and I had our enormous presentation in Geographie de la France, and we did really really well. I am really proud of us. It was a solid presentation and the only critique that the teacher had was concerning the color of our pie-chart segments. I just used the default excel ones, next time I'll try to coordinate better. haha.

I am excited to take advantage of this weekend to catch up on some well-needed sleep and hopefully talk to David who has had a very hectic week going through the student visa process in Chicago. It is even more difficult when you leave for a second semester placement because everything has to happen much quicker. But on the the bright side we are officially two weeks away from being reunited again!!

I made carbonara yesterday for dinner and it was extremely good. I would make it for dinner again today but I over-garliced myself yesterday so I am not sure if I can convince myself to eat it again. Of course I could just make it without garlic. ... hmm the night is still young, I'll consider it a possibility. For the most part I would say that I am quite well adapted to cooking out here and eating, though I might say that having my grocery store, a real kitchen, and all my cooking utensils is one of the things I am most looking forward to about returning to the US. As of 2 days ago I still have 7 months left though, so that American food is still a ways in the future.

Linguistically speaking I would say that my life is very well adjusted to speaking French. I no longer think at all about it, it is extremely natural, and I would say that it is much improved. The biggest improvement is still going to be my vocabulary, in terms of both words and phrases, but I figure I still have a while to ameliorate my pronunciation. Actually, other than having a slight accent, most people would say that I speak almost perfectly. It is fairly rare that I have to come to a stop to conjugate a particularly difficult piece of grammar, but at least I can do it with a pause, I suppose.

Also, I am having a bit of difficulty typing on the American keyboard because I am getting quite used to the French one. Plus I have quite a few French friends and I instant message them - as a side note I recommend instant messaging when abroad in a foreign country because you can see how they type/abbreviate/say things quickly. It is quite interesting with French - and that has increased my French typing even more, so I am totally stinking with the American keyboard, lol, am I even sure I'm American anymore? YES - I can't stand bureaucracy, I work very very hard, and I like toilet seats on my toilets. Yup, I'm American all right.

Emotionally I am quite happy because I just finished giving a huge presentation which has been looming over my days, but there is always the knowledge that I will be losing the friendships that I have made here in just a few weeks, and that is a little hard for me to deal with. But hopefully all will go smoothly and we'll be able to maintain a connection through all the forms of communication that are available today.

General scholastic update: I start taking my final exams next week, and will be finished with my courses of Analyse de Données, Recherche Marketing, and Management International. That leaves three finals for my last week of school at Le Havre: Geo, Chinese, and Macro-Econ. We'll see how all of this goes, but I should be able to pass my courses. The only one that is iffy... hmm... make that two, are Geo France (even though the presentation today was great, we have a massively weignted final which just seems really difficult) and Management International because the course was just so.... easy and yet specific (not a lot of info learned, but a lot of specificity for that info) and plus the teacher is not very accepting of foreign students so my grammatical mistakes won't make me a 'mignonne étudiante étrangère"...

Ok, I think I have said enough for today, but always feel free to send along any questions or comments as you have them. PS I just gave up and I typed the last half of this message on the French keyboard. lol

ans PPS (thanks to an email from Ohio Mom, the thing that is not French about my title is.... it has capital letters. The French; at least for their powerpoint presentations, do not use capital letters for their titles. It weirded Tam and I out but we removed all of the capital letters from our page titles for our presentation. The French...