Happy Boithday to Moi (Complete with a DJ and Cartoon Party Cookies)!

Well, this is it. At the tender age of 25, I am officially in my mid-twenties and celebrating another joyeux anniversaire. 

And what do I have to show for it?

Blog-wise, things are going swimmingly. I love having an outlet in which I can unleash my imaginative craziness unto the internet with Hanny, who is not only my blogging partner-in-crime but also a very dear friend to me. And I always get a thrill, dear readers, at reading every one of your comments! They fill me with immense joy and help restore my faith in humanity again. I have also taken great pleasure in discovering various, hilarious blogs that bring a large smile to my face and make me laugh when I most need one.

Real-life-wise...I have a mind full of European memories, a college degree that is collecting dust in my room and a bank account is bankrupt.

(Did you know that the term "bankrupt" originated from merchants and vendors who were unable to pay their loans? The practice moneylenders had featured coming around on market day and breaking their poor clients' benches, tables and stalls, hence, bancus ruptus, "broken bench." You're welcome.)

This certainly wasn't how I envisioned my life would turn out when I was a studious, wide-eyed, straight-A, 4.0 GPA student in high school.

Well, I still am wide-eyed, thanks to the big eyes I inherited from my father (see picture below).

But back then, my relatively-naïve self thought that by the time I reached 25, I would have a proper, stable career and a European fiancé to marry at a lavish ceremony. As it is, I have seen neither hide nor hair of said hypothetical Euro-husband nor am I any closer to being classified financially as middle class. It seems that my life (for the time being) has come to a grinding standstill. Hell, I haven't even finished uploading the photos I took during my trip to Spain last May, neither to the blog nor to Facebook.

Mais c'est la vie. Ya win some, ya lose some.

Rather than moping (hey, it IS my birthday), whining and being rather forgetful about all of the overall wonderful aspects of my life, I thought that I'd be a little more constructive with my time and write down some short-term goals that I'd like to achieve by the end of this year.

1) Get healthy.

This isn't even about weight loss anymore. It is my overall health, both physical and mental. I need to frequent the outside world a bit more and feel better about myself. Clothes-shopping may factor into this as well.

2) Finish writing the rough draft of my first novel. 

I already have 20 chapters down, tinkered with another 9 and have 96,473 words typed out. I am also glad to report that said novel is in no way, shape or form under the category of "Paranormal teen romance." Sorry if you were expecting vampires and werewolves fighting over an adolescent girl. :P

3) Save enough money to go to France by summer 2013.

If I'm fortunate enough, maybe (just maybe) my novel can help me out with this goal, but the reality may include me breaking a year-long unemployment lacuna for a part-time, minimum wage position. After 3 years working at a law firm, 6 months at a cargo insurance company and 2 years as an English teaching assistant in Dijon, flipping burgers at McDonald's is clearly the next career step for me.

The reason why I want to go to France? My good friend and fellow blogger Emily in the Glass is getting married to her beau next summer in France and I would very, very much like to be present for their wedding day!

Plus, I need to visit my adopted Motherland once more. Eating some decent baguettes and croissants and hanging out with my French BFF Mimi will do me some good and will help ease the dreadful bouts of France-nostalgia that hit me a little more than I'd like to admit.

4) Work to getting my Master's degree so I can finally be French get a job.

Simply put, my B.A. in Literature with a minor in French Culture and Language is quite the laughingstock amid all the job candidates who trot out their fancy Business Management degrees. That's what I get for studying what I loved instead of what was practical.

A Master's degree would provide my B.A. the perfect company to share its lonely, dust-collecting misery. I can almost picture them now, two framed buddies hanging side-by-side on a blank wall as they trade stories of how I spent all-nighters embracing my Italian espresso maker and screaming at my internet connection to work faster.

If possible, I will enroll at a French university to study either French Literature or English Education. I do consider myself a writer. I practically always have been, but just in case I need a plan B, the latter degree choice is riskier because if I am to teach successfully at French schools under Éducation Nationale as a professeur titulaire, I must have French citizenship. No questions asked.

And these are my short-term goals. How strange it is to have aged a quarter of a century; it has only made me more pensive with time and feel like writing more serious (boring) posts. I can only imagine how I'll feel once I've aged half a century in another twenty-five years from now.

As a way to lighten up the gloomy, reflective mood, I thought I'd properly introduce you all to my D.J. alter-ego: DeeJay B-zazz!

(Make no mistake. DeeJay B-zazz is dead-serious about her golden boots, sparkly green dress and that type of one-shouldered scoliosis that only seems to afflict those who grasp their cumbersome headphones with one hand and fist pump with the other as they demand everyone to be ready to jam on the dance floor.)

DeeJay B-zazz recommends a sweet tune to jam to on the dance floor!

Are you ready?

GO!!!



If I could invite you all to share a slice of marble birthday cake, I would. To help me in my celebration, I want you all to go out and eat a scoop of your favorite ice cream flavor today! If you think that I am kidding about this, please know that I never joke about ice cream; it is serious business.

Why eat ice cream? Because ice cream is awesome, and the euphoria you get from being in ice cream nirvana is doubly-awesome.

(Are you on a diet? Get some frozen yogurt. Are you lactose-intolerant? Get some soy ice cream or maybe sorbet. No excuses!)

If you do that, then it'll make me feel like spreading warm, freshly-baked cartoon party cookies across the world.

Mmm, cookies...

Do it for the Cartoon Party Cookies. They want you to.  Please don't let the Cartoon Party Cookies (and by extension, their baker) down.

Oh, and if you feel like wishing me a Happy Birthday, just know that I'm cool with that, too. ^.^

Barb the French Bean

The Hunger Games: A Cinematic Literary Nerdgasm? (A.K.A. How I Never Saw the Last Harry Potter Film)

Don't worry. There are no spoilers here so feel free to browse this post at ease.

Chances are that if you are reading this post in the first place, then you are probably familiar with the novel's plot, but I'm not cruel enough to ruin a great reading experience for someone else.

If you haven't read Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, well, then, what are you waiting for???

After having consumed every word of this novel, I kid you not, my literature-major self wanted to sit down and write a 12-page historical-perspective essay on why this book rocks (that's a sure-fire indication that what I read had a positive effect on me). I'm very stoked about its movie premiere this week and plan to see it with some friends of mine.

I don't like going to the movies alone. Going to the movies with other people is the way nature intended things to be. How else will you relish discussing with others whether or not the film you saw was a cinematic masterpiece or a total way for conning you out of your cash unless they, too, were also a witness to the event?

(If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?)

I also like attending with others to movies that have been specifically based on books. You may not think it but such a determining event can be a fragile experience for a bibliophile. In the hours we spend reading about the wonderful descriptions, adventures and daring feats of our favorite characters, we develop an attachment to what they look like and, ultimately, who we believe they are. What if in the movie, the persona who we conjured as being strong, intelligent and independent is reduced to a silly, walking stereotype that is the complete opposite of who they are supposed to be? This is no longer about watching a movie. This is about having an image shatter and leave us with crushed spirits. It becomes personal.

In case I end up being devastated that yet another movie adaptation didn't do justice to a great book and its characters, I want to have someone be there to hold my hand, stroke my hair and assure me that everything is gonna be all right.

The fear of an awful letdown is probably why I haven't even considered seeing the latest movie version of Jane Eyre. It's my favorite novel of all time, and based on various movie reviews from friends, it is an instance in which ignorance is bliss.

In all reality, I shouldn't be too worried because The Hunger Games trailer looks promisingly spectacular in the sense of staying true to the book.



March 23rd, come faster!

That being said, not every movie outing has resulted in me watching a film. I never saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

Not because I couldn't find a friend to go with. I went to the movies with a French friend, a guy who came to visit me from Lyon and who towers a foot above me (that's 30 cm for you metric-system users). We had a good three hours to kill in Dijon before his evening train departed and since neither of us had seen the last installment of the series, we decided to watch it at one of the cinemas.

The showing that we could feasibly make it to had already commenced by ten minutes, but we figured that the trailers would allow us to catch the beginning and therefore not let us miss any vital scenes . We paid our tickets and were let into the theater.

At this point, you may be wondering how, then, was I unable to see Harry Potter if my friend and I paid for tickets?

To our surprise, we were the only ones who had the intention of wanting to see the movie at that hour. Not that we were complaining. In that desolate sea of plush, burgundy armchairs, we had the finest pickings for optimal movie enjoyment.

What was curious to us was that nothing had been turned on, not even the trailers for upcoming movies.

A few minutes passed and the French-dubbed Harry Potter never flickered on the blank screen.

We inquired at the ticket booth what was going on.

Ticket Booth Lady: "Oh, since no one was in the theater when it began, we decided not to run the reel."

Me: "Huh? But...we paid to see Harry Potter..." *waves torn stub*

Ticket Booth Lady: "Here's a refund." *hands cash*

My Friend: "Wait, so, you can't find someone to turn on the reel for us to watch it?"

Ticket Booth Lady: "No."

Me: "Um...thanks."

And that's how I never saw the last Harry Potter film. My friend and I instead went to a café and chatted about life and I accompanied him to the train station when he needed to head back to Lyon to bid him good-bye.

I'm hoping that the local movie theaters will be a little more generous when I go see The Hunger Games.

Also:



Katniss makes archery look so cool.

Barb the French Bean

The Living Dead Unicorn

I have come to the conclusion that I should never EVER write a book. As I mentioned to Barb earlier today, my book would be a horror story with commercials.

Yes, commercials....

in writing and drawing. If you still do not follow as to what I mean by commercials, allow me to demonstrate the following book idea.

My epic book of awesomeness: The living dead unicorn.

Need anymore proof as to why I should not write a book?

(English majors/Professional writers/Grammar critics...save the red ink I know half this whole post would be oozing in red).

(This "book" is mine and the idea is mine. Don't copy!)

-Hanny the coffee bean