Mes résolutions pour la nouvelle année

   My first day back to school after Christmas break began with me waiting with my class in the cold and dark morning, for my Spanish teacher to show up. The rule is that kids can casse (break) and leave after waiting for a minimum of 10 minutes. This has happened on multiple occasions, leaving me dumbfounded as to why teachers can’t seem to predict their absences and let the school know. Well I’m not getting any closer to the answer and casse is exactly what ended up happening on my first morning back to school, I’m not complaining. And neither is the café in town that happily received and fed, what was basically my whole class.   While I sat there and talked with my friends and drank a hot chocolate, something caught my attention outside the window. 
We had been listening to a big truck going in reverse and as we looked outside, we learned what was in the truck: cows. 
   Okay, well maybe not exactly, but we did watch the truck driver haul a baby cow over his shoulder and into the butcher across the street, and that just leaves me wondering as to just how many other animals were in there!
   Although you all are lucky to have my extremely good imagery to recount this story, I don’t think I will forgive myself for not having had my camera to take a picture of that sight. Which brings me to the point of this post, my New Year’s resolutions! The first being to have my camera with me and ready to capture the moment at all times. The rest are as follows:

• Enjoy every day that I have this year in France
• Keep my blog up to date
• Take pictures of everything!
• Give everything a try, don’t miss out on any opportunity
• Do something outside of my comfort zone everyday
• Start participating in class (other than English class!
• Look into hosting someone upon my return home
• Loose the weight I gained in France upon my return home
•  Get my drivers license
• Study and raise SAT score
•  choose and apply to a college    

   I admit this just looks like a long-term to do list, but they are things that I strive to do, that counts as resolutions…right?

   By beginning with my first day back at school, I’m going a little out of order here, as a blog about New Year’s resolutions should probably include what I did for New Year’s itself! 
   Since my host parents and one host sister had a party to go to and with my other host sister at her grand-ma’s, it’s a good thing I had been invited to a party myself! My host mom explained to me that in France it is typical to spend NYE with friends and the First of the year with family. Although, my friends seemed to believe in another tradition where the first is instead spent in bed sleeping...
   I spent the last day of 2011 making cookies to bring for my friends and then started getting ready an hour before my friend said she would pick me up. I wasn’t sure about how dressy of a New Years party this would be but after checking with two of my friends that I wouldn’t be over doing it, I decided on black heels, black pants, and a fancy shirt. Well, silly me, confused “et quart for et demis, so I was getting ready for her to come at 7:30 when the door bell rang at 7:15! 
   Luckily I was put together enough and managed to quickly slide on my heels and grab my bag, stumbling down the stairs without making her wait for too long…two minutes into the car ride I realized I had forgotten the cookies. Although it is considered rude to show up empty handed to someone’s house, there really wouldn’t have even had room on the table for another plate! My friend had made two versions of pigs in a blanket, pieces of toast with cheese, duck and ham, and a cake! We snacked while talking, singing, dancing and playing spin the bottle (Apparently that’s international!) There was also lots of talk about a game of strip poker, but that never happened. I kept glancing at the TV, expecting to see a packed Times Square, concerts and that old newscaster whose name I’ve never known, but the TV wasn’t even turned on! The excitement about counting down was a little disappointing but all I could do was laugh as the clock hit 12 and everyone was searching for the remote. Although our countdown wasn’t the most accurate, we did all go around doing la bise to each other, which took up about the first half hour of the New Year.
   We kept dancing and singing, anything from the Macarena to “Logobitombo” (see the dance below!), until four in the morning, and didn’t actually sleep until the sun started coming up. My host dad came and picked me up in the morning and I spent the day with my host grandparents and my host mom’s sister’s family who drove down from Versailles following in the tradition to have the First be a family day.

Happy New Year!