Saw the Musèe des Beaux-Arts today. It was pretty cool. There was this really creepy 10-foot-tall painting of a baby being circumcised though... eww. We did a tour of the architecture of Dijon... soooooo boooooring!!!!!!! I love art and architecture was pretty cool, but... ugh. It was terribly hot and humid outside, and my feet were killing me. They're all blistered and nasty because the shoes I wore the first day chafed like hell. I wore fishnets and six-inch heels today.... good stuff, lol. I love my new fishnets. I drank half a glass of European beer today. I forgot what it was... but it was really good. Speaking of beer... omg... Ashley was soooo hung over! LoL. She had drunk like five glasses of champagne last night at dinner. Poor dear... twas funny though, if only because she seems so innocent. Except for Chirs and I, all the students on this trip don't drink and have no tolerance for alchohol. Oh, the hilarity that shall ensue! *devious laugh*

Anyhow, today was good. Tomorrow I'm going to try to do some shopping. I need some shirts; I didn't bring nearly enough. I'm probablmy going to hit up H&M and Jennyfer. I'm going to the supermarket too, to get French drugstore candy for my brothers. Ah, delicious Carambars....

mood: hot

Today was Mother's Day in France. I woke up at 11 AM because I'm still fucked up from the jetlag. It was a beautiful spring day (it's spring here, not summer), and I took a bunch of pictures of their super-adorable cat, Orion, in the garden. Then, we ate dinner (or lunch... whatev). Apparently, in additon to being fluffy and adorable, bunny rabbits are tasty little fuckers. Then, another family came ver for coffee. Said family is housing another one of the studnets. His name is Chris and he lives in Lafeyette, Louisiana. After coffee, we went out to walk around Dijon and check out a local art festival. The art was cool... lots of pantings and sculptures of feet, for some reason... 0.o .

Now for ye Anecdote of Interest. C'est drole; ça. So, we were in the area of the cathedral, and Chris was like "Do you smoke? I was wondering... I saw you drawing a mushroom in class yesterday." I laughed and was like "Nah. I will in college. I have friends that smoke and I'm around it sometimes, but I dont't. Do you?" And he was like "Yeah." And I was like cool, cool, at least someone else here isnt so innocent they freaking glow in the dark. Then he asked me if any of the other kids on the trip do... and I lmao'd. I was like "You're kidding, right? Lemme tell you something: I'm fairly open and a little crazy sometimes, but everyone else here are churchgoing innocent virgin types." And he was like "Oh. I found some, and I wanted to make a little money." Apparently he got some pot the other day from some French stoner kids. Lmao!!! He needs to be careful with that though; I'm pretrty sure you can get kicked out for that. Still, it's cool to know that at least one other person here isn't so innocent that I feel like I'd burst into flames if I touched them.

Anyways, we had tea at their place and then returned chez nous. We accidentaly left a candle burning so when we got back the place was filled with smoke. It was okay, though. Burned a hole in the table cloth; but that was pretty much it. For dinner we had this kind of pot-pie-ish thing. Twas good. My French family asked me if it's true that people in America eat squirrel. LoL!

Aaaaand that's pretty much it. Tomorrow I have school again (yes, my parents paid $4000 so I could go to school in the summmer).We visit the Musée des Beaux-Arts, which should be interesting. Hopefully I'll actually wake up on time tomorrow. Friday I woke up late. Stupid jetlag.

xoxo
Emfwa

mood: content

Today was the first day. We walked around the centre-ville a bit and visited two cathedrals and a 15th-century castle. At one of the cathedrals, Notre Dame de Dijon, I sensed some sort  of presence or energy (it's a hard sensation to explain). It was interesting; I felt it suddenly very strongly after writing a prayer for the statue of the Virgin Mary (there was a notebook there for that purpose). I'm not Christian, but when it comes down to it, the Virgin Mary is, from an anthropological standpoint, the same thing as any other religion's conception of a mother goddess (in practice more so than in theory; Christianity was majorly influenced by paganism in the early days). 
We also saw the marché, which is like a combination of an outdoor mall and supermarket. It's very European. I bought a few postcards, and over the weekend I'm going to buy some local foodstuffs to send to my family. I saw a Dolce and Gabbana purse that I'm probably going to go back and buy. Also, in Dijon there are reproduction medieval tapestries which are made locally on machines. I WANT ONE!!!

mood: content

Oh, the hypocrisy!

    Okay, time for MySpace Stuff that Annoys Emilie! Because my opinion counts, darn it! (not really, but still).

Point of Contention #1
Internet disease pictures. What is "internet disease", you ask? I stole the term from Encyclopedia Dramatica. Internet disease is when people make themselves suitable for exhibition on the Internets by way of severely doctored, angled, and ill-lit photos.
    Anyone at all can look good with the right lighting, the right makeup, the right angle, and a little of the old Photoshop (or GIMP for those of us who are cheap and use freeware). Believe me. That's why so many supermodels are ugly as sin. Seriously, they are. They have good bodies and all, but their faces are ugh. A perusal of www.supermodels.nl confirms this (although some are gorgeous). Anyways, the point is that it doesn't take much nowadays to make an ugly person look damned good.

Emfwa's Guide to MySpace Photography
    MySpace photos should be "artsy", "trendy", and flattering.

 Step 1: Take a picture of yourself at an extreme downward angle. This will accentuate your eyes and face, make your face look more narrow and slender, and even if you're a little on the chunky side (like yours truly), it will take about 50 pounds off of you (if you're already skinny, beware of dissappearing). If you are anorexic, have any other eating disorder, or simply like the bony look, it's good to take body pics from angles that accentuate your hipbones. Make sure you suck it in, and stretch out with your arms up to make your ribs show up better.

2.) Greyscale and weird colors are your friends. So is the good ol' gaussian blur and other filters. Low quality and fuzziness smooths out imperfections, erasing acne and cellulite. Black and white is trendy and artsy.

3.) No picture should show all of your face or all of your body. Popular and on-the-trend are greyscale pics that show half your face and involve a motion blur (easily applied using Photoshop), but still showcase your super-trendy giant brown sunglasses and Louis Vuitton/Coach/Gucci/Prada/whatever purse.

4.) Not a preppy? No problem! Emo kids can be MySpace-tastic too! Wear lots of eyeliner. Greyscale is super-depressing! Be sure to add depressing, poetic captions too. You know, like, "Lost Soul", or like, "Desperation is the core of this withdrawal" (MY LINE! MY POEM! USE AND DIE! MEEEERGH!), or good old "Darkness consumes my soul".


Point of Contention #2
    Overly crowded, illegible, tiny-texted, and overly transluscent profiles. I mean, stylistically, maybe to some people teeny tiny 8-point text looks good. But I can't read it. And a little transluscence can be okay I guess, but people like jack up the transparency to where one cannot read anything or see anything. I guess legibility is passe or something.

Emfwa's Guide to a Super Scene Myspace Profile
1.) Don't do it yourself on a MySpace editor. Be sure to get a prefab one that takes forever to load.

2.) Make sure the listings on your custom contact table for "message", "friend", etc. have nothing to do with what they correspond with. For example:
Send a Message = "darkness lives inside my soul"
Add as Friend = "suicide is our only hope"
Block This Person = "i <3 fallout boy"

3.) Invisible things are fun! Be sure to make everything completely transparent.

4.) Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny text.

5.) Be sure to use a really weird layout that scrambles things around. The harder it is to find your pictures, info, and contact table, the better.


Point of Contention #3
    Those bulletins people post when their Myspaces get a virus or whatever. You know, the stuff that's like "FREE WEBCAM GIRLS! BOOBS! ASS!" or like, "MYSPACE PROFILE TRACKER! IT REALLY WORKS!"! Or that perennial favorite, "FREE iPODS! FREE PS3s! FREE Wii!"
    There is no such thing as a fucking profile tracker. And furthermore, if you feel the need to know who's looking at your profile, you're either conceited or paranoid. If you're afraid of who's seeing your profile, set it to private. It's that simple.
    Also, to whoever makes these myspace viruses or whatever, go die in a ditch somewhere, because if that's how you spend your time you are a serious waste of oxygen. I mean, geez, if you want to h4x0r5, do it right! Hack into a government database or something.
    Another annoying bulletin type is the "Repost this or die" kind. Are people really that superstitious? Don't get me wrong, I'm as guilty of reposting those as anyone, but still.


    That's enough for one day.

~Emfwa~