Merry Christmas!

I know it's not quite yet Christmas, but I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to post again. Tomorrow (or Sunday - it depends on whether we can get everything done in time or not), the family and I are leaving for Strasbourg to spend a week with the grandparents. Strasbourg is in the extreme east of France (next to Germany), whereas Nantes is near the Atlantic coast. I have heard that it is a beautiful area and very cold, with lots of snow, so I think I'll feel right at home for Christmas. Here in Nantes, it's starting to cool down a lot, but it's still nothing compared to Minnesota in the winter. It's more like early November in Minnesota.

Thanks to all of you for your congratulatory words! I appreciate your rejoicing and giving thanks to God with me! Please keep me in prayer, as over the next few months, I'm going to have to make the decision as to where I'm going to go. Obviously, I want to go the U of M. And I want to stay in Minnesota. But there are financial factors playing into this as well, and I'm going to have to consider the opportunity costs of one school vis à vis another.

All right, it's time for me to hit the road. I have to stop by the Mayor's office today - I still haven't gotten my residency permit - and then I have to do some Christmas shopping.

Merry Christmas to all of you, and may God bless your time with your families as you celebrate the birth of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ!

I feel like crying

...tears of JOY! I just got an email from my Mom. Yesterday, when she got home from work, there was a message for me on the answering machine from the University of Minnesota Law School's Office of Admissions. They are sending me my letter of acceptance this week! All right, I am crying now. I've been dreaming of going to law school for over four years - ever since my first year at the U. Coming out of high school, I had some bad grades on my transcript from my postsecondary enrollment option program (I took college courses during high school). I know that I could have done better in those courses, but I lacked motivation for life in general, and, by extension, school. Back then, I had no reason to live, no reason to keep going. I was living for myself but didn't like myself very much, so I sought acceptance in other people and tried to fill the aching void in my soul. When I started my studies at the U of M, I was motivated to do well in school again - but I was still doing it for myself. That first semester, I had a meeting with my counselor. I told her that I was starting to consider law school. With a shake of her head, she informed me that law schools are looking for high GPAs. As I said, my grades from my PSEO courses left something to be desired. My counselor told me that I should probably start considering other options. That conversation branded itself on my impressionable mind, and I began to think of law school as a pipe dream. But I never let go of the idea. My second semester at the U, God revealed Himself to me, and I couldn't look back. Over the rest of my time at the U, I was born again, baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit, and I started to have a real relationship with the Lord. He became my reason for living, even if I forgot it and tried to go it alone at times (and still do - I die daily). After graduating with honors and an excellent GPA from the U, I started to realize that getting into law school, even the highly ranked U of M, may not be entirely out of my reach. So I put myself to work at studying for the LSAT. My logic was that if I could get an extremely high score on that test, I would be assured admission anywhere. I was obsessed with that test. When I got my score back, although I did well, I was admittedly disappointed that I had not hit a 170. But that test is water under the bridge now, because I GOT INTO MY FIRST CHOICE SCHOOL!

What a great feeling this is. Now that the initial euphoria has settled down a little, I'm able to look at this objectively and remark that I know that law school is going to be difficult. If I've learned anything so far in my time here in France, it's that experiences like this that are worth having are also HARD. I never dreamed that being an au pair could be this draining - and I know that I really don't have it so tough. But the thing that I need to remember - right now, when things are a little bit rocky here, AND in the future, when law school gets rough - is that I am doing my work for the Lord, not unto men. That includes myself. If I'm working really hard for myself, I will eventually run out of steam. But if I am living wholeheartedly unto the Lord, He will give me the grace to keep going. Likewise, I am not working for other people here - I am working for the Lord.

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men...(Colossians 3:23)

I guess I spoke too soon...

Yeah, so much for driving the kids around on Wednesday. No, no, I didn't crash the car or anything. But Caroline is nervous about my driving because it's not automatic enough yet - meaning that I have to concentrate too much while I'm driving, and having the kids in the car will make it difficult to do that. So now I feel like I'm back to square one. Discouraging.

Communication is obviously a challenge when you are doing it in another language. When it's really important that I effectively explain what I'm trying to get across, I find myself unable to do it with exactness, because I lack the words in French. That's a problem for me. I do not like to be misunderstood, because miscommunications cause tensions and other problems. Around here lately, there seems to have been an unreasonable number of miscommunications about important things. Frustrating.

Thankfully, I know that I can and must rejoice in my trials, because God promised that the testing of my faith will develop perseverance. Now just to remember that and not give in to the discouragement!

On a more encouraging note, I had a great time last night with Louise (11 years old). Initially, I felt like we had a pretty good connection. But it seems to me that the relationship hasn't grown very much over the past month, and sometimes I worry that things will turn out like they have with other au pairs that they've had (that is, the au pair would spend a lot of time on the boys, since they are younger and need more attention, and the relationship between Louise and the au pair would go sour). I've looked for ways to connect with her and have had limited success. Last night, she needed help with her homework. She was frustrated because of all the homework she had to do and didn't think that she would be able to figure it out. She is very intelligent, but, as I've said, is somewhat of a perfectionist. So, like me, she sometimes doesn't even want to start something because of the fear of potentially not being able to understand it. Last night, that's what she was doing. I was nervous about trying to help her, because it can be hard for me to understand the instructions for the homework. The work is relatively simple (sixth grade level - I should hope I would be able to figure it out!), but as the instructions are in French, I have trouble understanding exactly what needs to be done. Last night, I plunged in anyway and was able to figure out what needed to be done and then help her with the questions she didn't understand. I got to explain to her the meanings of some words, the dictionary definitions of which she didn't understand. I let her explain the math to me (which she didn't think she knew how to do). She was surprised to find out that she really understood it. I told her that I think teaching someone else is a great way to learn something. She agreed. It was so much fun! I love teaching people. I don't think I would want to be a teacher in a classroom, because I really like to work one on one with people. Someday, when I have kids of my own, I want to homeschool them. People have so much learning potential, and I think that being able to work at their own pace and also having someone there to guide them and answer their questions allows them to reach their full potential. I can't wait!

I'll keep you all up to date on the driving situation. Hopefully there will be a change soon. As I said, it's causing a lot of problems. If any manual transmission driving expert wants to volunteer to fly over to France to give me personalized lessons in English, we could probably arrange that! Let me know...;)

My First Letter of Acceptance Has Arrived!

Law school, here I come! I received in the mail on Monday my first letter of acceptance for law school. The letter was from William and Mary, which is in Virginia. My first choice is Minnesota, but I applied to about ten schools, a combination of very highly ranked first tier schools, which are more of a long shot (University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Virginia), first tier schools that are about at my level, if not a little above (William and Mary, Minnesota, Wisconsin, George Washington), and some schools in Minnesota that are ranked lower and are more of a sure thing (William Mitchell, Hamline, and St. Thomas). I will also be putting in my application at the University of Michigan (a top school). I applied to William and Mary and George Washington (both located in Virginia) because they waived my application fee. I received many fee wavers from lower ranked schools, but I didn't bother applying to the ones that were out of state - why would I want to leave Minnesota to go to a lower ranked school in another state? So I thought I would apply to the first tier schools that offered me fee waivers, just to see whether I would get in and what type of scholarships, if any, they would offer me. Well, William and Mary is offering me over $14,000 per year as a graduate fellowship (would require me to work on research projects 8 hours per week). Sweet, huh? As I said, I really would rather stay in Minnesota, and if I get into the U, I'm almost positive that I'll go there...it all depends on which schools admit me and how much money they're willing to give me to attend their school. So once the acceptance/rejection letters start pouring in, I'm going to have to really be weighing my options. And I'll have to be careful not to agonize, which is a tendency of mine; rather, I will stay in prayer and let God lead me.

Getting that first acceptance letter is so exciting for me. It's hard to describe the feeling, but I put SO much work into the law school application process (mainly the LSAT; also the personal statement and letters of recommendation), and now I'm finally seeing the fruits of my labor. Until I got word that the letter had arrived for me, law school had taken a back burner in my mind - one can only concentrate on so many things at one time, and I have my hands full here. The work is not over yet; I still have one or more applications to complete, financial aid paperwork, scholarship applications, thank you letters to deans of admission, etc. But now there are tangible results to keep me going.

In other news, I ventured into downtown Nantes yesterday with my little black Punto. Can you guess what transpired? It's a word with which I'm becoming quite familiar: disaster! Initially, I had complained about how difficult the roundabouts made learning to drive a stick shift. Now, roundabouts are my friend, because I am not required to stop (at least not in tiny Vertou, where traffic is relatively light). All of the stoplights in downtown Nantes make driving there horrible! There are also many roundabouts situated on hills. The traffic is thick at all times of the day. Ugh. Not good. When I stop at a red light, I have to put the car back into first gear. I can do it, but I'm still a little bit slow at it. Well, when there is no one behind you, it's not really an issue, but when there are 30 cars stacked up and you are being slow, it's a nightmare. I can't even count how many times I've stalled because I was in a hurry, worried about the people in the cars behind me getting mad. As you can imagine, having me STALL in the road makes them a lot madder than just having me take a little longer to put it into gear. So I actually figured that out yesterday and the stalling incidents decreased immensely. But the roundabouts on the hills were horrible. It was true stop and go traffic. I was crawling along at a snail pace, and then I would have to stop. On a hill. So I would have to put her back into first gear and then go for another two feet, only to stop and repeat the whole thing. And when people stop behind you, they stop RIGHT behind you, even on hills. I'm thinking, Do you want me to roll back into you or what? Ugh. Then I got extremely lost. I knew there was a map in the glove compartment, but there is no place to stop. Nowhere at all. So I was forced to keep driving. All the signs said Paris/Angers - definitely not the way home. Then I drove the wrong way down a one-way street. I got some interesting looks from people. Of course, I prayed that God would get me home, and I then immediately figured out where I was. But by the time I got home (I had been on my way to class but completely missed it because of the disaster), I was truly surprised that I and the car were unscathed and that I hadn't been apprehended by the police or that no one had attempted to make a citizen's arrest! So that probably wasn't the brightest idea in the world, although it now makes driving in Vertou look like child's play. And in a way, I feel proud of myself for attempting to stretch my Concrete-Sequentialness. But I think I'll be staying away from downtown Nantes for a while - at least when I'm in the car. Today is my first day to be driving the kids - pray for me if you think of it! There is no school on Wednesdays here (although they do have school for half a day on Saturdays), so I'll be carting them to and from their various activities. Finally, I can actually start doing my job. Hooray! And thanks to all of you who have sent me recipes. I will keep you posted as to how they turn out. I'm going to take a leisurely walk now, and then it's back to the grind.

A très bientôt!

La Cuisine Française

So, cooking...not quite as dangerous and exciting as the driving adventures, but a close second. I mentioned before that I was intimidated at the prospect of cooking the evening meals, given that, well, I'm in France, and the people here are French and eat French meals. Imagine that.

A typical French meal consists of the following: first, an entrée, which can be either hot or cold. I've never understood why the menus in American restaurants list main courses as "entrées." Anyway, a typical entrée for a weeknight meal would be either a soup (cream-based, of course) or a cold vegetable dish - for example, tomatoes with a sauce vinaigrette (olive oil and vinegar - I still haven't really figured out how much to use), beats with walnuts, shredded carrots with vinaigrette, cold canned corn...They eat the entrée on a small plate first, and then they have the main course with a side dish (potatoes, rice, pasta, etc.) on the regular plate. For the main course, it could be anything, but they typically use a lot of heavy cream. I've eaten things in the past three and a half weeks that I never thought I would (I'm not too big on creamy things): a very creamy zucchini casserole, a creamy cauliflower casserole au gratin (yikes), raw oysters...and even - gasp - orange cheese! Can you believe it? But notice that I didn't say "yellow cheese;" I said "orange cheese." They actually don't have yellow cheese here (yellow cheese is a term that I coined to refer to cheddar, including white cheddar, American, and marbled cheeses, all of which I detest and refuse to eat). The orange cheese that I ate is actually Mimolette, and it tastes very much like Parmesan. After the main course, the French have a green salad with cheese and baguette. During the week, we don't normally bother with that, but for fancier meals, that's the way it's done. Apparently they eat the salad (with vinaigrette - surprisingly, no creamy bottled salad dressings) and cheese at the same time to aid the digestion (makes sense, I guess). My first night here, Caroline had set up the dinner in the dining room and made it a bit fancier than a normal weeknight meal. The entrée was on the table, as was the salad. I couldn't figure out why no one was taking any salad. She asked me if I wanted anything else, so I took some salad. I thought that was the whole meal, and then she brought out the main course! So French people eat big meals. After dinner, they take a "dessert" - and by "dessert," they mean yogurt or a piece of fruit. When Americans say they're going to have dessert, they mean ice cream or cake or bars - the French eat a little container of yogurt for their Calcium and then maybe a Clementine. I think it's actually a nice balance. I've noticed the past few weeks that I've started to become more "French" in that aspect. Yesterday for lunch (I was eating by myself), I took my little plate and had my tomato entrée, then ate my main course (and I've noticed that I've begun to acclimate to the cream), then tore off a piece of baguette and spread some stinky French cheese on it. French cheese, by the way, does smell horrible, but it's SO good. It does not taste like it smells.

So my problem with the cooking is trying to come up with ideas for what to make. It's not as if I can just look up American recipes - I suppose I could, but I don't think they'd like it. The challenge is trying to find recipes that are simple and fit with the French way of eating. Since I'm new at this, the housekeeper or Caroline either make the dinner ahead of time or tell me what to do. Last night, however, that didn't happen. Yikes! What a disaster! We were running low on groceries, so I had no idea what to make for the main course. I can usually bluff my way through the entrée ("Uh...here you go, kids - tomatoes again!"), but the main course is a different story. Because I'm trying to watch 4 kids at the same time, the meal can't be complicated. The housekeeper had mentioned before she left that there were some sausages in the fridge. So I threw those in a pot. I had found a good entrée recipe for carrots online, so I was trying to make that, but it was taking a long time (peeling and shredding carrots is hard when they're super tiny). At the same time, I was trying to feed Léopold. Sometimes if I'm working in the kitchen, I'll let him eat on his own and help him just a little. He's actually getting pretty good at it. Last night, though, he was not in good form. He ended up covered in food - like his whole face, part of his sweater, and his pants. And he would only sit in his chair for so long before he started screaming, wanting to get out. It was getting later and later, and Louise had to leave for her orchestra practice. And Edouard was supposed to have taken his bath an hour before. Oh, là. I finally got the meal on the table, and then Louise had to leave and didn't get to eat before she went. So I was going to feed just the boys, but then I remembered that Edouard is allergic to gluten, and I wasn't sure if he could eat the sausages. So I had to make pasta for him. Meanwhile, Léopold is running around covered in food. At that moment, I was thinking what a HORRIBLE au pair I am. But the reality is that stuff like that happens even to the parents - it's just HARD to do everything at once. I did manage to get it under control in pretty short order. But I hope that doesn't happen again. Afterwards, I was looking at my carrot entrée that I had worked so hard on - the kids hadn't eaten very much of it. So I was kind of bummed about that. What a waste of time and energy! If I hadn't been doing that, things probably wouldn't have gotten so out of control. But later, the carrot salad was redeemed, because Caroline came home and was extremely impressed by it. She didn't even think that I had made it. Score! I had hoped to show her that I am taking the initiative to learn how to do some things, and I think I did. It made the craziness of the night all worth it.

So now I need YOUR help: I need your best French-like recipe ideas! Anything simple that you can think of - even ideas for entrées. I really don't want to have to ask Caroline every day, "What should I make tonight?" and I think she would prefer that I just kind of come up with things. If I was more creative, I think I could come up with things on my own. But I'm not, so I need everyone to pool their creative geniuses!

D'acc!

Ah, driving in France. What a great time I've been having. I really don't know what I was so worried about...it hasn't been difficult at all...NOT! Learning to drive a stick shift has been way harder than I ever dreamed it could be. I had this notion that I was going to somehow take a one hour driving course and then be an expert - or at least be able to venture out on my own and practice. Well, it wasn't until after SIX hours of driving courses that I was finally able to go out on my own with confidence (and by confidence, I don't mean that I didn't feel like I was going to crash the whole time; I simply mean that I was able to get the car out of the driveway and out on to the street without it dying). How could it be that hard, you ask? I'm not really sure either, but I think it has something to do with the roads here being insanely tiny, all of the signs being different, the ubiquity of the roundabout (pictured above), and the fact that my driving instructor was speaking French. The instructor was so funny. From the first day, he would randomly insert the phrase, "Up!" or "D'acc!" the whole time we were in the car. I really had no idea what he meant by that at first, and it sounded so hilarious, because of the tone of his voice and the way he talks (he's very upbeat). As it turns out, "D'acc," is short for "d'accord," which means "okay." I'm still not sure why he says, "Up!" all the time, but whatever. I did learn a lot of new vocabulary through this experience. Oh, and after a bit of reflection, I came to the conclusion that point mort (neutral) would actually be translated as dead point, not death point. Ha ha. What a difference a couple of letters can make.

So I wish you all could have seen me in my training - I looked like SUCH an idiot! I seriously thought I was a good driver before, but my opinion of myself has changed. This has been humbling, to say the least. The instructor was always saying, "Allez! Allez!" (Come on! Go!)...and he had to say it all the time and over and over again, because I was never accelerating fast enough. I was nearly always driving too slow, because, I'm sorry, but I don't feel safe rolling along at 70 kph on a tiny street where people are making turns with no stoplights. As I've said, the streets in France (and elsewhere in Europe, I'm told) are SMALL. In general, I feel like I'm going to get hit every time there is another car coming from the other direction. My brother Dave once told me that women's perception makes them think that things are closer than they actually are, so maybe it's that, but I think it's also that I'm not used to the small streets, whereas these speedy Europeans are. Oh, and in reference to the comment I made before about not knowing why it is necessary to signal on the way out of the roundabout: I understand now. In fact, I've been having so much trouble with the driving precisely because other drivers often fail to signal on their way out. When you are at a roundabout, the priority is to the left, so if a car is coming around it, you're never really sure what they are going to do unless they signal. If they don't signal, they may be going straight, in which case you can safely move forward, OR they may be turning in front of you but have forgotten to put their signal on. The goal at a roundabout is to NOT stop, but I haven't felt comfortable just barging through the intersection, because I've been feeling like I'm going to get t-boned. Thus, every time I would get to a roundabout (about every minute), I had no idea what I was doing - slowing down, stopping, going - so I would push the wrong pedals and the car would jerk or die and the instructor would say, "Why are you breaking?" or "Why did you do that?" and then tell me what I should have done, but I was so confused and unsure about what my goal was in the first place (i.e. stop, go, slow down), that his advice didn't really resonate. And it took me awhile to figure out that that was my problem. On Sunday, Christian (the dad) wanted to see my progress, so we went out driving. Oy. I let the car die right before a tunnel with a line of cars behind me, I ran a yellow light (red by the time I got through it), and the car generally jerked as I shifted gears. Needless to say, he was not impressed. When he came back, he made the pronouncement that I was not ready to drive their kids around. My not being able to drive has put a significant strain on the family, as bringing the kids to and from school and their various activities is a big part of my job. Earlier this week, I think everyone was despairing a little bit, thinking I was never going to arrive. Ah, but we were all wrong, because now, after a total of 11 (!) hours of training, I can safely call myself a successful stick-shift driver. I am going to take the car out this weekend to get in some more practice, and then I should be ready to start driving the kids on Monday. And everyone breathes a big sigh of relief.

Because of all of this driving practice, I've been busier than I should be and haven't had much time to myself (which is why I haven't blogged in awhile). I went through a bit of a rough patch over the past week and a half. I had been feeling like I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing, how I was supposed to be doing it, and like I was doing everything wrong. Add to all that the fact that I couldn't drive, and you have a recipe for discouragement. And, obviously, communication isn't always great when you're trying to do it in a new language. But as I said before, being "alone" and in the storm makes you realize that you're not actually alone. I've come to know the Lord in a deeper way as my Refuge, my Strength, my Strong Tower, my Shelter, my Hope, my Source...I've begun to pour my heart out before Him, and the fellowship has been so sweet. He hears my cries, and He has been my help with all of these things that have been going wrong. I know that I can do this - through Him!

I have a lot more to say, but not much time. This weekend I should have some more time, and next week, I hope my schedule will start to stabilize, and I will have a clear picture of when I have time off and when I can get my own things done. Until then, ciao!