Fete au Fromage!

So had my last French class for a while yesterday.  I was really happy because I really don't like the material in the class I am taking right now.  I am currently very sad that I will be missing out on speaking the second language which I love so much next year.  From here on out, my schedule just doesn't allow for me to take any extra classes besides the ones I need for my major.  I am so scared that I will lose everything which I have worked so hard to learn and perfect.  Fall 2010 will be the first semester since Fall 2004 where I will not be taking a French class...SCARY!!!

Anyway our last class was actually quite enjoyable.  We had a min party with fromage, pain, and chocolat (cheese, bread, and chocolate).  We also spoke ENGLISH...I know, blew my mind too.  We had a very nice selection of traditional and non-traditional French versions of these foods.  I was feeling very adventurous and therefore had to try everything (this may be due to the fact that I skipped lunch again yesterday...oops!)

1. Cheese-
We had lots of brie cheese which is probably the most stereotypical French cheese there is.  Whenever you think of fancy French cheese I think this is the type that comes to mind.  We also had chevre cheese.  This is a type of goat cheese.  This is my new favorite type of cheese.  I never thought I would like goat cheese since I am a true Wisconsin girl and I love my cheese that comes from cows.  This cheese however tasted very much like cream cheese and tasted soooo good on the bread we had.  If you ever get the chance I would highly recommend buy some of this delicious cheese!  We also had swiss cheese which I tried but am not very partial to.

2. Bread-
Of course we had traditional baguettes.  It would not be a French meal without the long pieces of French bread that you see in the movies when trying to make something or someone look French.  In traditional French manner we also ripped our own pieces off instead of cutting them (again this may be due to the fact that it probably wouldn't be good to bring a large sharp knife into a classroom but we will just disregard that :) ).  We also had some other bread and pretzel bread, neither of which is particularly all that French.  The peta bread was ok, we had some spread to go with it.  My new favorite however is the pretzel bread.  It was like a pretzel on steroids broken up into little, almost bit-sized pieces.  It was sooo delicious especially with the chevre I was describing earlier, YUM!

3. Chocolate-
Ok so I was exaggerating earlier when I said we had chocolate.  All we had were those cream filled Pirouette cookies.

All in all it was a very good last French class.

Well that was a good break from writing my last French paper.  Drawing parallels between John Martin's Lost Paradise and Anne Hebert's character Eric in Le Premier Jardin is definitely not my first choice for a raging Friday night, but what can you do?  It is finals week after all.

A tout a l'heure!
Rachel

Blast from the Past...

On Thursday I happened to be lunching at the Terrace when I ran into my high school French teachers.  It was so great to see them and we got to catch up on stories from high school.  They were there with their seniors on the annual trip to Madison.  The trip includes a visit to Van Hise to see where language classes are held at the UW, a tour of the Chazen museum to look at French art, and lunch at the French House on campus.  The "Maison Francaise" is a house like a sorority or fraternity house.  People can live there and speak French with each other and have a good time!

We got talking about our trip to France and reminiscing about all the fun stories we had.  They still don't believe Tassia and I that we had a male visitor in our room.  To this day, Tassia and I stick by our story though.  We knew there had to be someone there when we found shaving cream in the sink, our bathroom supplies were used, and a man's shirt was hanging on the door.  Also we like to remember Danny's face when he got stuck on the metro.  We thought he was long gone until we found out Tassia and Bridget was with him.  Oh yeah Brad got stuck there too but Tassia and Bridget were the ones who would be able to get the boys back :) (sorry Brad!).  Bill took us on so many strolls.  Mme and Mme talked about how they were going to take the same trip that we did; Paris to Biarritz to Provence to Nice.  They talked about how they were requesting a lot of the same hotels we stayed in.

Talking with them was so much fun.  I am super jealous of all the people going on the trip this year.  I want to go really bad and know that some day in the future I will get my chance to go back.  After all I am a French Badger ;)

A tout a l'heure!
Rachel

Plastic Surgery

So I know two of my last three posts have been about The Hills (including this one) but my roommates and I have gathered for the season premier and it features Heidi Montag's reveal of her 10 plastic surgeries.

This episode has prompted me to ask the question "Why in the world would someone risk their life to have surgeries just to make themselves 'look better'?".  The ten most buzzed about surgeries were brow lift, botox, nose job, fat injections in cheeks and lips, chin reduction, neck lypo, ears pinned, boob job, lypo, and butt augmentation.

1. I think anyone who has enough money to afford all those EXPENSIVE surgeries, especially if she got them done by the best surgeons in LA, has too much money for doing practically nothing with their life. 

2. Honestly I'm going to say it, "HEIDI YOU LOOKED SOOOO MUCH BETTER BEFORE YOUR SURGERIES!!!"  Heidi looks like plastic.  She said she wanted to look like Barbie, well she got it.  Even in the season premier her own mother couldn't tell her she looked good after the surgeries.

3. I really don't agree with plastic surgery in the first place.  I believe that God made us all beautiful and we shouldn't go around trying to fix ourselves for the heck of it.  Their are much better things that you could be spending your "hard-earned" money on.  Did she ever think about donating even a fraction of the probably millions she spent on unnecessary elective surgery so that underprivileged people could receive the life changing surgery they need.

I hope all the surgery was worth it and you honestly feel better about yourself Heidi because you went through a lot for it. 

A tout a l'heure!
Rachel

Weird Reference in Marketing today...

So there I was sitting in Marketing lecture listening intently as always when the words Eiffel Tower caught my ears.  Now normally when discussing items of the French nature I pay full attention so it took me by surprise that I didn't know what was going on.

My professor was discussing how a promotions need to constantly be looked at and reviewed in order to make sure it still works year after year.  She somehow decided that this was like the Eiffel Tower.  Trust me the metaphor (or meteor as Anna Faris in "The House Bunny" says) was about as clear as my writing has made it to be.  If anyone can please explain it to me I would be extremely grateful!

A tout a l'heure!
Rachel

"Paris was about to change everything..."

I sit here writing this post on a lazy Saturday afternoon.  I am currently being a bum and watching a marathon of The Hills on MTV.  The episode on right now is the season 3 trip to Paris for Lauren and Whitney.

Every time I see a TV show or a movie where the characters go to Paris it makes me nostalgic for my trip four years ago to France and anxious for the next time I will get to go.  In this episode, Lauren and Whitney are in Paris for a business trip.  The are covering the Crillion Ball for Teen Vogue.  Lauren is excited to go but sad that she is leaving behind a boy.  She is quoted saying, "But I had a feeling Paris was about to change everything".

One thing I hate about media portrayals of Paris is the cliches of love, adventure, and "finding yourself" in Paris. 

I am extremely jealous of Lauren and Whitney, watching them travel around the city I love, shopping, eating, meeting boys, and having fun, I know that soon I will make my way back to Paris!  Next time I go, I am totally going to buy a bottle of champagne and pop it under the Eiffel Tower, hopefully with some cute guy or my best friends!

A tout a l'heure!
Rachel

Fashion by Lady Gaga

My newest musical obsession (along with many others) is Lady Gaga.  My current favorite song of hers is called fashion, partly because she names a lot of well know designers, many of them French.  I can just picture her walking down the Champs Elysees as if it were her own personal runway singing this song.  So I thought I would share the lyrics with you!

A tout a l'heure!
Rachel

PS This song is also featured in Confessions of a Shopaholic with Isla Fischer.

Fashion by Lady Gaga:

Ohhh Ohhh

La La La

I am, I'm too fabu-lous
I'm so fierce that it's so nuts
I live, to be model thin
Dress me, I'm your manne-quin

J'adore Vivienne La Vie et Moi.
Gucci, Fendi, and Prada.
Valentino, Armani too.
Merde I love them Jimmy Choo!

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Ohhhh Ohhhhh
La La La
We love designer

I need, some new stile-ttos
Can't walk, down the street in those
You are, who you wear it's true
A girl's just as hot as the shoes she choose.

J'adore Weitzman La Vie et Moi.
Louis, Dolce Gabbana,
Alexander McQueen, eh ou.
Merde I love those Manolo!

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Ohhhh Ohhhhh
La La La
We Love Designer

Ohhhh Ohhhhh
La La La
We Love Designer

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Fashion put it all on me
Don't you want to see these clothes on me
Fashion put it all on me
I am anyone you want me to be

Le Premier Post

For my very first blog post I though I would just describe a little bit about my self and how I came to be a self describe "French Badger".

Like it says at the top I was born and raised in Wisconsin, I was born in Madison but spent the large majority of my childhood growing up in a suburb just outside the state capitol.  Being a Wisconsin girl, I was brought up to bleed green and gold for my Packers, blue for my Brewers, and red for my Badgers.  I believe I epitomize the stereotypical Wisconsinite with my love for cheese, milk, brats, and anything fried :).  I am currently a student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and while where I had planned on ending up, I couldn't imagine spending my college years anywhere else!  That's where the "Badger" part comes from.

I grew up in a very privileged suburb and attended a school system where I received a very good public education.  We were first exposed to foreign languages in sixth grade.  We had to take Spanish for half the semester and French for the other half.  Unfortunately I would not get the chance to study a language again until high school.  In high school, to a teenage girl, the most important people are you friends.  My two best friends where taking French and of course I wanted to be just like them.  I also wanted to be different because EVERYONE at my high school took Spanish.  From the firs minute I stepped into that class, I knew that French would be a much bigger part of my life than just a language I was forcing myself to learn.  Ever since France, the French language, and culture have stolen my heart.  That's where the "French" comes from.

While the refined world of cafes and haute couture couldn't be more different from America's Dairyland, the two worlds are both very much a part of who I am.  I am proud of my Midwestern upbringing and couldn't imagine growing up anywhere else.  I also look forward to a future filled with travel and the study of other cultures, particularly French.

I hope everyone enjoys reading my blog and get a taste for what it's truly like to live the life of a French Badger.