Bon Voyage À Paris!

St. Pancras International, the Eurostar station in London

As soon as my classes ended on Wednesday, I rushed back to the dorm to pack my things to go to France! After studying French for four years, I was eager to practice ma Francais with the locals and maybe order myself a baguette or two. During the whole train ride I was trying to refresh my memory of all the French I had learned and muttered the ones I knew for sure under my breath.

Je voudrais un croissant. Je voudrais un croissant. Je voudrais un croissant.
Je vais aller à Paris.
La crêpe. La crêpe. La crêpe.
Bonjour! Merci! Pardon!

The old lady next to me must have thought I was crazy. I have never seen anyone more engrossed in her newspaper than she was.


La Gare du Nord, the French Eurostar station


La Gare du Nord

From here, I ventured to walk from the train station to the apartment my parents had rented for this trip by myself. I did my research; I printed off directions from GoogleMaps. With only ten Euros to my name and my ATM card stolen by my parents in London (I cannot believe they didn't make sure their ATM cards worked internationally), this was the only option I had. And so I walked, 40 minutes in a foreign city that I had never been before. I didn't get lost, thank goodness, although I ran into a little trouble when I got to the apartment. I was stuck right outside the door, because in my excitement to get to Paris, I completely forgot to check the apartment number! I was supposed to buzz in so that they could let me up, but instead I was faced with eight buttons to choose from. Fortunately, my dad for some reason decided to poke his head out the window at that exact moment and let me in.


The apartment we stayed in

After dinner, we took a cab to go to the Eiffel Tower. Once I got to Paris, my dad forced me to do all the talking because I was the native English speaker, and I "knew" French. First of all, English is only useful about half the time, and second it had been two years since I used any French at all.

But at least I was better than my dad. Already, he distrusted the French taxicab drivers because earlier that day he had asked a taxicab driver to take him to La Musée d'Orsay. Since he didn't know French, it came out as some weird Korean French English babble. At this point, I'd like to take a step back and let you know about the difficulties Koreans have in pronouncing English (or French) words. Korean people cannot pronounce their "l's" and their "r's" to save their lives. My dad struggles with pronunciation problems even in English, so add this problem to a language he doesn't even know that also puts heavy emphasis on their "r's" and you've got a situation. Korean people's tongues just cannot curl; so when my dad told him to go to La Musée d'Orsay, it probably came out sounding something like "Le Mewzae d'Olrsay". He supplemented his deficiency by pointing and grunting at his tourist map so things should have been fine, but for some reason the taxi driver took them to L'Arc de Triomphe instead! My dad could sense the driver was trying to rip him off. In the end my dad got him to go to the museum and got the cab driver to cut the fare in half. Even still, the damage was done; for the rest of the trip, whenever we took a cab he was always suspicious of the driver and constantly muttered under his breath, "I think he is taking advantage of us."

This time the driver was honest, and we were able to get to the Eiffel Tower with no problems. Unfortunately, it was a little foggy that day, but once we got to the top we could hardly notice it.


La Tour Eiffel, from under


L'Arc du Triomphe, view from La Tour Eiffel


La Seine, ferry ride


Paris, city streets


La Seine, view from La Tour Eiffel


Shout-out to New York!


La Tour Eiffel light show


La Tour Eiffel from afar

End of day one.

Additional Pictures, the entire trip

-Emoinacloset

Paris, Je T'aime

My family came to London this week to do a little sightseeing here as well as in Paris. None of them have ever been to Europe, so naturally they were super excited ever since they started planning the trip back in December. Visiting me was an additional plus. I supposed they remembered me after all, because we went to Paris together after they took the first half of the week to tour London.

Paris was amazing.

It was everything I had hoped for and more. After studying French for four years in high school and learning about French culture -- from baguettes to Julia Child, from paintings to Monet, and from La Tour Eiffel to Les Champs-Elysees -- I would finally be able to see these great French artifacts with my own eyes. I will tell you now, my favorite part of the trip was going to Le Musée d'Orsay and admiring the paintings of Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh among others, which I had before then only seen on the Internet or in prints. I wanted to see everything, yet at the same time be able to truly appreciate each painting. Unfortunately, at the most inopportune time my camera ran out of batteries -- was it too much to ask to want to bring my memories back with me? As I left France, all I could think of was how studying abroad in France would have been so much more fun than being in London and eating shitty food.

After writing my last sightseeing post of Stonehenge and Bath, I realized what I had written was too long. I wanted to fit in too many things, and in the end it became too incomprehensible; even I didn't want to bother to make sense of it. Instead, I will post my trip in multiple installments. Hopefully, this will make my trip more digestible as well as allow me to create suspense for the next post! I can also be more detailed on my experiences since I do not have to pack my trip into one post that goes everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. So stay tuned -- I will probably starting posting picutres of Paris soon.

Here's a preview: My parents forced me to do all the talking with the locals because I still "remembered" French from two years ago. Franglais, anyone?

-Emoinacloset

Scandal At UCSD

For all of my non-UCSD friends out there, this should be news to you, though I am not sure how fast the news has spread.

Basically what happened was somebody organized a "Compton Cookout" party where participants were encouraged to portray the gangsta stereotype. As expected people got offended, especially the black students, and they began to organize which generated media attention. Information started leaking out about the creator of the facebook event, who I know, and who is a Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) member. Soon the frat started getting connected to the party which is hilarious because there were multiple fraternities in attendance but only Pike was labeled in the media. Rest assured, I am giving Milan a lot of shit about it because he is rushing Pike right now.

The situation only deteriorated further when the school got involved and began issuing daily emails condemning the party and stating that it was out of their jurisdiction. Media outlets are having a field day over this. Yesterday, I saw a huge crowd of black students near yogurtland talking to reporters. Today, I saw an even bigger crowd of black and other students on library walk talking to more reporters.

Even the state legislature has gotten involved, with some assembly members holding press conferences to condemn the party. SRTV, the student run television station even got shut down today because Koala TV used the n-word on air.

At this point in time, the only quick solution to this whole situation would be a scapegoat. Pike should immediately out the organizer of the party so that we have someone to blame. This would save UCSD's reputation which is getting worse by the minute and of course it would save the frat's too which has really taken a beating. Now is not the time for brotherhood and unity or whatever nonsense that fraternities spew. The public is out for blood and it is time to do the utilitarian thing and sacrifice the one to save the all. Besides it is not like he does not deserve it.

You can read the original contents of the facebook events page in the link
http://www.10news.com/news/22588063/detail.html

Private Post Republished!

I wrote this into the private blog (yes we have one, and no you cannot read it) on 2/12 so it is pretty old. Since then, I have become pretty apathetic about the whole situation. Just waiting to go to China :]!

Why I am treating Ashley so badly

Before I explain everything, I would just like to point out that Shari is a great listener and really helped me articulate my feelings on this issue. Thank you Shari!

After the whole crying on the phone and coldness on AIM, my treatment of Ashley has really not improved. I have been ignoring all her calls, texts and ims, basically trying to push her out of my life. There is a sense of schadenfreude in knowing that she feels guilty and is hurting from all of this, because she ignored me when I was lonely.

Whenever I told Ashley that I felt alone in San Diego and distant from everyone, she would just laugh at me and tell me that I was being a girl. She never took me seriously and attributed my loneliness to not having enough things to do. When you tell a close friend or a friend you thought was close that you feel alone and basically unloved and she thinks its a joke, it hurts. I felt betrayed, when Ashley told me that what I was telling her was just to get attention and sympathy.

This is why I have been trying to push her away and replace her. I can find other "distractions" as she puts it to keep my loneliness at bay. And if it hurts her, all the better, maybe this way she can catch a glimpse of how I felt.

Forget being a good person.

- muffinman