"Say something in French!"... "Quelque chose en français"

I have completed my first week here in Aix-en-Provence and I've got to say, it's much better than I anticipated.
The first day here was absolutely exhausting.  As soon as I got off the plane I was harassed by the girls who picked me up to speak french.  Then when I tried to, they criticized me, in french, right next to me! They didn't realize how long I'd been studying the language because I understood every word they said.  I heard them loud and clear; so I quit talking.  When I arrived at my dorm I had a small mental breakdown because my suitcases were so large and my room is so small and I was SO hot and sweaty that I couldn't think straight and so I just took a cold shower, stepped over my suitcases, dug through my luggage for clothes, and laid down and just cried.  Obviously I was only overwhelmed but I just kept thinking, "I hate this place, I hate this cramped, sweaty, dirty place.  (dirty referring to the dirt road that leads up to my dorm)  Eventually I calmed down and unpacked and felt 80% better, but then just lonely and sad so I took about an hour and a half nap when I had a knock on my door.  It was a friend of mine that I met at the Embassy, inviting me to go get a drink!  It was in that moment that I realized that nothing is ever as bad as it seems and you can't ever be as truly alone as you feel. (Side note: I ordered my very first legal alcoholic beverage that night- a mojito.  I felt très cool.)
 As the days went by this week, I got more and more used to the heat, used to walking up and down hills, and used to having absolutely no food in my dorm because the grocery store is a twenty minute walk away and everything costs un bras et une jambe.  I literally eat bread and cheese continuously throughout the day.
However, I will speak of the delicious foods that I have gotten to eat thus far. For starters, there's a cheap food stand down the road (sort of) from my dorm that I've bought excellent sandwiches from.  One being Mozzarella cheese with egg and tomato, and another being goat cheese with balsamic and tomato and spinach.  Both of these being on a whole baguette.  See what I mean about the bread and cheese thing?  But who can complain?  Another great thing I've eaten was a pork paté made in Corsica.  I swear to you it was like something I couldn't explain.  So amazing, now I'm craving...no rhyme intended.  Another thing- myself and two friends went to a nice restaurant Friday night and got croque-madames and croque-parisiens.  The croque-parisien had ham, tomato, mozzarella cheese, and pesto.  My mouth is watering thinking about it! Oh my goodness.  One thing I'm slightly disappointed in is the pizza here.  I haven't found a pizza that I liked much here yet.
Another question I will approach is, "Do you drink a lot of alcohol there?" The answer really depends on your view of "a lot."  Yes, I have a drink a day; whether it's a glass of wine or beer or a yummy mixed drink, hell yes I do.  There are a few very cheap bars around here that I take advantage of.  You can get a glass of rosé for a Euro and a bottle of 1664 for 2.  It's a great place, Aix-en-Provence.
As far as traveling, I have only left Aix once thus far.  I visited a small town named Ciotat and relaxed on the beach at the Mediterranean coast.  It's seriously SO beautiful.  I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such beauty.  Even the topless sun bathers are beautiful.  You know, you'd expect it to be kind of gross or distracting, but it's beautiful!
This country is rather...different, and there are a few things I don't like too well, but all in all I can't get over the beauty.

I'm just a Poe girl, from a Poe family

This morning while I drank my coffee I decided to stimulate my brain reading some of my favorite poetry.  Reading the works of great poets inspired me to write again (which I haven't done or at least made known since high school).... So here's a poem. I'm no Robert Frost but I like to have fun with words.

Untitled

Sometimes the world moves so fast
And the days we greatly long for pass
And within a blink of time we sit, we bore upon the hourglass

Each grain of sand becomes a dream
In which we no longer esteem
Dropping one by one, below the hourglass we so endlessly beam

These aspirations become wraiths
In a body of people losing faith
We lose our grip within our minds and with ourselves, cannot relate

Life takes a hold and sucks us in
Our passions lost in its whirlwind
We must step back and take a breath and let our dreams begin

For we may not ever know the bliss of letting our hearts win

Reasons why I'm not a gym rat

My whole life up until I graduated high school, I was relatively active. Actually I'd say I was very active...with dance lessons and tumbling classes up to 4 or 5 days a week.  Therefore I never had a problem with "being in shape" but when I went to college I had to quit dance and gymnastics and instead go to school full time.  I haven't had much exercise since high school and it's been killing me. So today I decided to go to the gym and do some sort of cardio. I thought it would be smart to try and not die at age 25 of heart disease. However I had the absolute worst experience of my life. So, I've decided that there are many factors behind why I'm not into the whole physical fitness trend that everyone else is into and here they are:
1. Motivation: I feel like I'm highly motivated to do a lot of things but not when it comes to working out. If I can actually talk myself into going to the gym it will probably take about 3 days of nagging myself.
2. Once I've finally decided to go to the gym, I have this small freak out in my mind that I have absolutely nothing to wear.  Don't even say it- I know that's an idiotic thing to worry about. No one cares what you're wearing.  However I picture myself walking into the gym and it's full of all these fit girls in spandex and buff dudes in cut offs and I'm over here wearing soffee shorts and a sorority tank top.  I look like a joke- actually I am a joke because I have no idea what I'm doing so I feel like if I can dress the part, I can look the part.
3. Sort of along the same lines as #2 but the gym sort of requires gym shoes and I don't own a single pair...so whattup converse.
4. When I actually get to the gym I have no clue where to go so I'm like "I know how to work a treadmill" and then I fast-walk with the ramp on the highest it will go in order to burn more calories so that I feel accomplished but ultimately I leave the gym feeling dizzy, nauseated, and with the worst head ache of my entire life.  My hypochondria is yelling at me the whole way home, "YOURE HAVING A STROKE ZOË CALL 911"

So in conclusion, I have literally no idea why people get joy out of doing cardio.

If you must know...

So I've decided to approach a personal situation, publicly, so that I don't have to answer this awkward question anymore. Yes, I'm going to France. What day am I leaving? September 7th. What day am I coming back? June 20th. Am I going to be continuing with my current relationship while I'm overseas for a year? The answer is an obvious "yes."
Honestly, every repetitive question is irritating but the last one is the most aggravating of all. First of all- that's kind of personal, so if you're not a close family member or friend, it's really none of your business. Secondly- now that I've made it clear to you that no, my boyfriend and I are not breaking up just because I'll be gone ten months, let me explain to you how stupid of a question that is.
Ask yourself this- if you devoted your time, attention, and emotions to a person for half a year, would you want to just end that because you'll be farther away from said person? No, probably not.  That would mean that I wasted all my time and his becoming closer and more attached to each other just to leave it all behind. No one would choose to do that.
And another thing- I'm not stupid enough to get into a relationship that I don't see continuing into the future. I wouldn't have dated anyone before I left if I didn't think it was worth it.
"But Zoë, how can you trust someone that's across the ocean from you?"  Well, I just do. I know that from past blog entries it's apparent to the public that I was inadvertently raised to believe that love never lasts and that people are selfish but this time around I'm believing differently...and instead of everyone doubting that I'm serious, they should be glad I've found someone who can change my pessimistic outlook on relationships.
So there you have it internet: I'm an open book for you to read. Now, stop asking me idiotic questions.

My reoccurring bad dreams

So lately I've been having these bad dreams that lead to me waking up feeling like absolute shit.  These are worse than the usual "nightmares" because they're much more realistic.  They always end up being one of the two scenarios:
1. It's the beginning of the school year.  It's not specified whether I'm in high school or college because the school halls switch back and forth between resembling the halls of Lincoln High School and the hallways of various buildings at USI.  However, the same thing happens in every dream.  I'm always unaware that I'm signed up for a certain class (it's usually English class for some reason) so I miss the first day.  When I find out that I'm enrolled to take it, I try to go the next day but I cannot find the classroom for the life of me. I circle these strange hallways passing classroom after classroom but never recognizing my teacher inside so I just keep looking.  In result of my endless search, I miss all my other classes for the day. I wake up with the worst feeling of stress and confusion and disappointment in myself.
2. The second scenario has a little more room for creativity.  It always has the same outcome but is caused by different stupid things.  What happens is, usually someone that's close to me (a friend, my mom, my sister, ect) is an absolute bitch to me for no reason. Pardon my French.  And it angers me so I stand up for myself and I'm sort of bitchy back. Then literally everyone I'm close to- all my friends from Vincennes and Evansville, my parents, my siblings, my boyfriend, my cat, my grandparents- treat me as if they've never met anyone as mean as me before.  Everyone seriously just hates me and no one will let me explain why I was initially mad.  They all leave me somewhere alone (last night I was left alone in a parking lot at night).  I wake up feeling helpless and depressed and alone and I can't explain that my mood the next day was all caused by a dream.
Essentially my terrible feelings the next day are caused by me, considering I'm the one who creatively thought up these scenarios to take place in my head while I sleep.  I just wish I knew what caused me to dream this way. I used to have interesting dreams that didn't change my mood at all whatsoever when I woke up and now it's like my dreams are controlling how I feel in real life.  If anyone reading this is a master dream interpreter or even dabbles in psychology, I'd really appreciate an answer.

Oh captain, my captain

So today the news of Robin Williams' death was released, as you know. His cause of death was "suicide by asfixiation" which I'd assume means hanging but that doesn't really matter. What we should focus on is the tragedy that is suicide and morn for the loss of a creative, uplifting man.
Obviously after everyone heard about his death, they posted done sort of memorial status or RIP post for him because yes, the majority of movie-watchers are upset about it.
I was talking to an acquaintance of mine from high school tonight and he said, "why is everyone so sad about Robin Williams dying? He committed suicide. He wanted to die." And then he laughed.
This disgusted me. Honestly, who jokes about death?  I don't care if you didn't care for his acting and stand-up comedy, you should have a little respect for the dead.
My response was, "it's truly sad that someone that seemed happy and cheerful to actually be SO unhappy that he'd choose to end his life. No one should ever get to that bad of a place."  That shut up his stupid chuckle.
And that's what I think makes it as sad as it is, to me anyway. It makes you wonder how many people are struggling with depression. How many people slap a goofy smile on their face and throw out witty jokes to cover up how sad they really are?  Depression is a serious illness and I wish it could be cured more easily....because a person should never feel unhappy in their own skin.  We only get one life (so to speak- unless you consider reincarnation) and by golly that life should be spent happy.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

This blog, not to be confused with the movie starring Isla Fisher, is titled confessions of a shopaholic solely because I am admitting that I have had a problem with shopping for several years.  My obsession with clothing has always existed (need I remind you that I spent 70% of my waking time as a child drawing outfits into specific detail and dressing and re-dressing my Bratz dolls).  However, I did not get to express myself through clothing until I reached high school (another reminder: I went to a private middle school that required a uniform and specific dress code).  When I transferred into the public high school, I had no idea what to wear everyday. I went through awkward phases of outfits for the first month or so trying to combine what little options I had at the time.  This is when my shopping became a issue. I would go to say, Plato's closet, and buy about 150 dollars worth of clothes at a time...this would occur every few months. Eventually I started buying things straight from the stores in the mall and once I got a debit card I started with the ever loving online shopping phase. I began to collect enough clothes to be able to wear a different outfit everyday. I know what you're thinking; I'm just like Kate from Lizzie McGuire. I mean who gives a shit if you're an "outfit repeater?"  I did.
I even had my own tradition of wearing a dress or a skirt every Friday. I couldn't wear jeans on Fridays because it's like If I did I would betray some sort of covenant with myself.
I'm not lying to you- I literally wore a different outfit everyday (except for one occasion I rewore an outfit I really liked and then my friend pointed out that I had worn it before and I was mortified and never did it again).  I even remember one WEEKEND I wore an outfit that I had once worn to school earlier in the semester and one of my guy friends pointed it out. It was like I had a standard in my head to live up to and I couldn't back out.  Therefore I kept shopping.  And once my collection had overflowed my closets(yes, plural) I'd sort through them, give them away to friends, and then almost immediately replace what is gotten rid of.
This is the real issue of my shopping addiction.  I can't get rid of the evidence.  Even when I sort through and throw out several trash bags full, there's not a single dent made.  I am always and forever overwhemimgly surrounded by clothes.
I never realized how bad it was until this week.  I had sorted out a lot of clothes for a garage sale (again it didn't look like it) and I also started packing for France.  Obviously I couldn't take my entire wardrobe to France because that would take about 20 large suitcases....or more...so I had to choose wisely.   I ended up deciding to pack 5 fun dresses and then all basic tops and bottoms. I figure I could add scarves and hats and jewelry to make my outfits look different everyday.
Now that I have all of that packed up I look in my bedroom to see 4 overflowed closets - plus a rack in the basement- of clothes I will not be wearing for a year.
What will I do when I get home?  Will I like this stuff anymore? And if I don't, what do I do with it?  And that's just clothing items; don't get me started I shoes and hair accessories.  I'm a mess.  I'm a metaphorical Titanic sinking in a sea of fashion.  I never thought it would ever feel like a bad thing to have "too many" clothes.  Well here I am, crashing into the iceberg called REALITY and I'm sending out an SOS.