3 down - 19 to go!

wow.  march flew.
here's the ol' update on the 2010 goals.
goals with progress made:

learn french well enough to have an entire conversation with my grandma & apply for bilingual jobs
still working on this in france, of course.
this month in class i've been learning the imperatif and subjunctif verb tenses.  - how to give orders and how to speak in a tense that my french students say they never use - whoo hoo!  also learned some expressions like "it's raining like a pissing cow."  the equivalent of raining cats & dogs.

master the use of photographic flash/5 portfolio building preplanned photoshoots
though neither of these is near complete i did get to do a little beach shoot with some friends in march.
practice is what i need - i find i have difficulty telling 'models' what to do, how to pose, etc.
i used a little bit of flash to balance the sun in some shots - others are natural light or i used a reflector disc to bounce the light back. (view more here)

organize my harddrives
 this still needs another couple of hours - wow there are a lot of old files! ha ha.

 make a facebook fan page for my photography

another one that i can cross off!
and so ~ if you'd like to become a fan ~ i'd love it!

hopefully this will come in handy as i apply for jobs soon-ish :)

and a "hello!" to everyone now following.  i'm truly grateful.
looking forward to getting to know you.

do you have goals for 2010? how are they going?

the coolest school i've ever seen. i wanna go!

yesterday i was lucky enough to attend an open house at a school in cannes, which specializes in fashion and costume design.  (i met a few of the students at a party a couple months ago)

i was in awe, inspired and in love.  i want to go here!

it's a regular high school, but also has prep school level, for university level classes.

the displays of their work were impeccable.  each class project had a theme to inspire the work.

 romantic white

could you imagine if this was your classroom! <3

children's summer dresses

this was an interesting tradition i've never heard before.  in the fashion world, on nov 25, unmarried women over 25 make and wear a headpiece.  (sorry they told the story in french, i may have missed some more details.) if you know any more of the history, please let me know!

candy and baked goods inspire corsets

the cupcake corsets!

t-shirts inspired by human anatomy - hearts, skeletons, spines, pregnancy, muscle tissue.

i thought this muscle one was incredible! my fave.

marina demonstrates a tee, the heart has a pump attached so it inflates and deflates with beats!

love the back of the peach dress.

virginie has a fitting in her creation. they have made the dresses first with muslin, as replicates of dresses from famous paintings, complete with corsets, bloomers and the works.

cleo shows her work.

marina and her dress.  after the patterns are finalized, they will remake the dress again, using recycled materials!

 we're trying to organize a photoshoot for when the dresses are finished! i'm really hoping it works out, they are due only days before i have to leave france!

 they have a store!

i wish this was my closet.

lights in the halls are looong dresses.

some randomness above the main office.

such a magical place!

i have to share this.

mean girls - by the disney princesses.

i loved the movie mean girls.  i need to watch it again soon. 

but until then, this will do.

 

sometimes people mash-up brilliant things. 

oh the internetz...

i'm also going to join in the fill in the blank friday this week :)
(go here to join too)

 The best piece of advice I was ever given was:    a grudge is like swallowing poison and hoping it will kill the other person.  this wasn't given to me, i found it randomly in a book, but it is great advice.

If I had a million dollars to give to one charity I would give it to   Playpumps.  

clean water pumped by playground equipment.  brilliant.

 If I got to choose my "last meal" it would be   my grandma's homemade spagetti, then strawberry-banana-nutella crepes with fresh pineapple for dessert . oh yes the spagetti was an app, the crepes are the main!

 My hair is  in need of a cut.  wish i had a friend hairdresser ;)

 If at first you don't succeed   find someone who can help you .

 I have always been very   in love with photography .

 Oh....and by the way....    i am going to a birthday party tonight . hurray cake!

thrift shopping - things i did buy

slowly over the past 6 months I've been finding little treasures while thrift shopping. 

here's part 1 of things i did buy - buttons.  i usually find 3-4 per adventure.

it was fun to do a colourful little photoshoot with them on today's rainy day.

 

hope you like buttons as much as i do :)

love mel

my favourite lesson

as a language assistant my job is to basically get the students to speak english.  all of my activities for class should prompt discussion and so on...

this is my fave activity that i've done.  i chose 5-6 random pictures (of my friends, because it would be more fun for me - tee hee) and had them create a television series based on the photos.  

sometimes individually, sometimes in groups, it depended on the skill level of the students.  it was fun to see how creative (or not) the students would be.  after their presentations i would tell them the true stories of my friends, and they'd apologize for what they said about them.  ha ha!

~a documentary series about being sporty and staying fashionable - what to wear for each sport~

~"white agent secret" solves crimes using gadgets in her bike~

~a tattoo artist named Gabrielle opens a shop~

~a children's mystery series - nancy drew meets scooby doo~

~CSI Toronto~

~the man on the left kills the woman beside him. (me) 

he delivers pizzas and has a huge gambling debt~

~a series of guided nature tours or travel bits~

~a band tries to break into the big time~

~all of their parents have died, they are searching for jobs, trying to make it in the city~

~the 6 characters are 1/2 human 1/2 fish.  they decide to blow up the city of toronto so that they have more space to swim and no more lights & noise~

~"someday my prince will come" a single girl looks for love~

~girl infiltrates all boys school to find her brother's killer~

~"Fatima" a top model~

~musical comedy about Kelly the aspiring musician~

~she went bowling, was in a car crash and now has to live without legs.  she still believes in 'the beautiful life'~

*for the record, the high school boys thought cindy was very pretty and tried to steal this picture on more than one occasion - go cindy ;)

~series of 10 minute restaurant reviews~

~law students and their exploits~ (2 of them actually do study law)

~intervention show - the 5 are addcited to meth and the one in blue is dead~ (my boyfriend)

~"patrick the killer" -> 'he's just crazy'~ (also my boyfriend)

~'Friends'~

every single time.  

they even called shannon phoebe once.

~"passions" a woman discovers she married into the mob~

~wedding planning experts who help real couples to be perfect~

~spidergirl and spiderman are a couple, but neither knows the other's secret~

~romeo & juliet~

~the daughter of the president is married to an executive at NBC.  she goes out one night with friends only to find out that her husband has a secret life as a gay porn star. what to do?~

i hope you enjoyed reading my little game.  and my apologies to all of you who are in the pictures!

mini adventure - epic hike on st patty's day

wednesday brought another cote d'azur adventure with the same lovely ladies. 

hiking to the village of eze.

we got a late start, but took the train to the eze station, and decided to take our chances on the looming grey skies and do the hike to the village at the top of the mountain.  tour books say the hike takes 60-90 minutes.  we were trying to make the last bus, which would leave from the top in under an hour.

here's the view after 20 minutes:

yes we started at the train tracks along the sea.  most of the path looked like this:

mixed with many steep sets of stairs that could easily be hundreds of years old.  but! no time to stop and take pictures! ha ha  (i snuck some when we stopped for water, but i will return with a longer afternoon ahead of me the next time)

apparently if you go on a clear day, you can see as far as corsica. 

finally we reached the top.  and thankfully decided to wander for a bit instead of just racing for the bus.  we needed something to reward the effort!

we ended up having to take a bus in the opposite direction - to monaco - to catch the train back to nice where we had dinner.  monaco is gorgeous at night.

nice is pretty too!

more pics here.

sweaty me, at the top!

(i'm happy to report, that even though i imagined i wouldn't be able to walk the next day, my muscles weren't even sore - only the shoulder that carried the camera bag. whoo hoo)

mini adventure in cannes

first off, thank you so much to everyone who left me words of encouragement on the last post. 

not that anything has changed - 

we are still waiting to hear from the last 2 schools - but i am feeling better this week.  

hanging out with these lovely girls has a lot to do with it.  

on tuesday we took a walk in cannes up to the castle on the hill.  the castle itself is a museum now but the church and views from the hill make it a great place to spend a sunny afternoon.

i've got more in my album here.

(i'm trying to post more of the 1000's of pics i've taken)

you can see my apartment building!

 we also stumbled upon a little thrift shop - loads of goodies.