January 30th

Today was my big brother's 26th birthday!

Also I had class with Jessy, then Jessy and Kate, then Kate and Jaimie. That was fun, but it was class. The Kate and Jaimie course was my new Creative Writing session with my uncle Mama Duck Hauchecorne. Horray! He enjoys icebreakers. Not cool man! He also mentioned my personal “about me” letter in class as an example of writing in a foreign language. Again, not cool!!

The ice breakers happened and they were awkward as they always are. I see no point to them because regardless you still don't know your classmates. If teachers really wanted us to bond then they would force us to survive in the woods for a week as a clan. Then we'd really know each other.

This ice breaker was the infamous question chart. But this time audience it was in French! Always makes things more interesting. The French students also tried to ask me the questions in English. That was funny. One girl was so excited to practice her English. Fortunately she picked an easy question, "do you play videogames more than five hours a week?" I obviously answered yes. I easily play over five hours of video games it's in my nature. Rather than listen to the news or sleep I play Fable and Zelda. Don't give me that audience, we all have guilty pleasures.

The other kids that attempted English, well I used attempted for a reason. One girl tried to translate "Tu es regarde souvent ses anciens albums photos?" into English. Didn't work. I grabbed the paper (cause I had no idea what "you watch ancient photos" meant) and looked at the question. I then said, "do you often look at old photo albums?" Bamn, go MareBear. Obviously if you directly translate it the sentence doesn't work. Obviously English is my native language. Obviously I've been living in France for a few months. And obviously I can be a pretentious prick when I want to. Poor girl, she was usurped.

Mama Duck decided to join in the question asking activity, how noble. I referred to him in the "vous" form which is the correct "you" to use in French when addressing adults. He said to use "tu" which is reserved for people of equal level or lower (friends, students, and children). I responded, "but you're my professor." His reasoning, "just use 'tu' Miss Scale." Grrrrrr. Well the joke is on him, his nickname is Mama Duck.

So that was class, a bit chaotic in the school sense. Afterwards Kate and I went to Les Docks for some minor shopping and food. I needed (wanted) to buy a simply mic headset in order to better play portal co-op online with my friends. Logically I went to the electronics store for the headset. The security guard informed me that I would not be able to bring my backpack in with me and pointed to some lockers. Ok, whatever. But wait, I had to pay a euro fifty to use them. A euro fifty, about three bucks, to store my backpack for fifteen minutes. No way in hell. I asked Kate if she could just sit in one of the waiting areas outside the store with our stuff. She agreed and received a death stare from Mister Security Jackass. That's right, students think of the alternative.

I nabbed my headset and left in less than fifteen minutes. I'm so glad Kate was able to watch my backpack, locker fees are ridiculous in France. We then went to Subway for some sandwich goodness. Oh it was delicious except for an obnoxious brat who wouldn't stop squealing. The clerks joked about how it would be Kill Bill 3, child edition. I adore kids, the little kickable bastards. If only we really could play “kick the baby”.

Once I returned home it was time to use the headset. I logged onto Skype and chatted with both my father and brother. I love my family, we Scales are so silly. My mother isn't a part of the silliness; she's legally kept her maiden name Briggs for an unclear reason thus not a true Scale. The three Scales all wore a headset as well as a silly hat. I liked Peter's the best, his was a jester Santa hat. We all listened to Peter and sang him the happy birthday song. We also discussed online gaming and the upcoming Elder Scrolls MMO. My mother just rolled her eyes. Again I love my family.