singing and soccer

Nouvelle Star...Nouvelle Star was AWESOME! We waited hours upon hours to get into the studio, but when we finally did we were incredibly close to the stage and all crammed into this little room with all sorts of important people bustling around with lights flashing and cameras swinging over our heads. We waited in the studio for two hours before the show started (and me wearing high heels as if anybody would even see my feet should I be caught on camera) and bottles of water and posters with all the contestants names were passed around to keep the crowd busy.

Finally the lights dimmed, the man incharge of the crowd started running around like mad telling us all to smile and clap, "ne jamais BOO," and remember that we're going to be broadcast live to five million french televisions - so act accordingly - and the judges took their seats. Show time.

I have to say that I consider the talent on Nouvelle Star of a much higher standard than that of it's American counterpart - almost all of the singers could belt it out and play the guitar or piano or drums. Fan favorite Amandine covered The Beatles "Get by with a little help from my friends" and nearly made me cry. She really brought the house down and was singing with such a passion and intensity that all the veins were pop POPPING! from her neck.

Emission du 09/04/2008 : Benjamin et Sian chantent Purple Rain - Nouvelle Star 2008 - wideo
<p>Benjamin et Sian chantent Purple Rain



<span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial">Retrouvez tous les coulisses et interviews inédites de la Nouvelle Star sur le blog de Moïse : <a href="#" type="h-t-t-p-:-/-/-moisenouvellestar.m6blog.fr/" onclick="gotoURL(this.type); return false;">http://moisenouvellestar.m6blog.fr/</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial">Nouvelle Star ® 19 TV Ltd et FremantleMedia Ltd. Basé sur le programme de télévision produit par FremantleMedia France. Licence par FremantleMedia Enterprises. <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="#" type="h-t-t-p-:-/-/-www.fremantlemedia.com/" onclick="gotoURL(this.type); return false;">www.fremantlemedia.com</a> </span></p>

Mots-clés : tele m6 tv nouvelle star télévision émission musique chanson rain casting live best of jury benjamin direct purple manoukian lio manoeuvre baltard sinclair sian efira

Video de nouvellestar

My personal favorite was Benjamin Siksou. First he sang a duet of Prince's "Purple Rain" (above - don't mind the html, it's just french crap) and then he did his solo song to CCRs "Proud Mary." He's got a smokey, bluesy kind of voice that reminds me a little of John Mayer, only he's less annoying and it looks like he has better musical influences. Plus he's French, so of course I'm all about it.

By the way, date number two with Roman was not as successful as the first. All the elements for a perfect time were there - café next to Notre Dame, pouring rain, a tiny little book store - but there was that little something extra missing. He's been calling, but I'm leaving for spring break on Friday and am playing the "I'm too busy card."

Laurel was here over the weekend, and I had a wonderful time showing her around Paris and catching up on all things Taylorville. She says she's having a great time in Italy, but is starting to get the itch to go home. I think I'm having the exact opposite emotions - I don't want to leave! I still walk around this city with my mouth hanging open and marveling at the beauty of it all. I figure it'll be time to go home when those feelings start to diminish, but how could they ever?

On Sunday night, my group went to see our very first European soccer match - Paris Saint Germain vs. Nice. It was an incredible experience and a dangerous one. We were given specific instructions concerning behavior, clothing and drinking before the match and our organizer watched us like a hawk until she was sure that we weren't going to get drunk and do something stupid. Soccer fans have a reputation for brawling and cat calling, so if at any time we were to say the wrong thing or cheer when we should be silent, we risked getting a beating.

And of course, me being the incredibly intelligent person that I am, wore Nice's colors to the match. Paris is red/blue/white (obviously) and Nice is red/black/white. Nearly the same, but I guess each team has a signature color that they identify with - Nice is ROUGE ROUGE ROUGE! Right out of the métro I got called at by three men, "Mademoiselle, perdez le rouge. C'est pas la meilleure couleur ce soir." To save my hide, I bought a PSG scarf and kept my coat on for the rest of the match (hey Connor, look what I bought you in Paris!).

The match was pretty boring and a huge let down when PSG lost in the 85th minute after they had been up by two the entire game, but it was still incredible to see the fans. We were sitting right in the middle of the main cheering section, and men were chanting and screaming all around us, holding up their scarves, lighting flares, waving flags and throwing empty beer cups at the Nice section that was roped off from the rest of the statium. I wish games in the US were more of this taste, then maybe people would actually give a shit about soccer.

Other weekend highlights included getting "choclate africain" at Angelina's - a world famous tea room and treates house (and it was delicious...practically molten chocolate and bitter sweet, too) and then walking around a Marche aux Puces where I found a tiny little shop that only sold buttons. Just buttons.

Just a few more classes to get through this week, and then I'll be heading to the south for a little sunshine and relaxation. Cannot wait, and I realize that because I'm anticipating this vacation, the rest of the week and all of my classes are going to drag by. At least I have a contemporary ballet to look forward to on Thursday night and class with a cute Belgian man Frederic on Friday morning.

Yes, I actually study...

Now that the beautiful weekend has come and gone and the weather is back to its old ways, it seems only fitting that I should have a mountain of homework, exams and papers to tackle. For the most part, classes here are a little ridiculous in terms of what is actually required of me and thinking capacity. I really hope I get credit for most of them as they seem way, WAY too easy. However, the French do seem to have a fondness for midterms, and I suppose that's where I find myself.

Perfect.

Tomorrow I have an exam in my Medias in France class. I took this class thinking it would be an indepth look at modern media - touching on communications, new technology, ADVERTISING, but sadly this doesn't really seem to be the case. The first two weeks we studied nearly every daily newspaper in the country, and then after that we looked at the French political system and its relation to radio. Last week I learned about ten different kinds of television stations that all seem about the same. My test is going to be on dates and people and a boat-load of journalistic vocabulary that I could care less about. It will either be incredibly easy or there-is-no-way-on-earth-you're-going-to-pass hard. We'll see.

On Thursday I have my midterm in my art history class, which I haven't yet begun to study for because of medias, but am already starting to freak over. I love, love this professor, but she covers so much material in each class that I already have half a notebook full of dates, names, paintings, relationships, salons, etc. I'm drowning in a see of Fauvism and it's turning me green! (Ten points to anyone who gets that!) As a rough estimate, I think I have close to 150 paintings to study, materials, time frames, meanings, and the artists' influences. Basically, I'm screwed, but that's a tomorrow problem.

Of course no day that is already darkened by a demon of a test would be complete without a paper due as well. My Synthèses et Argumentation writing class is kind of a joke (last week we had to turn in a resumé of a text and a personal reflection on what we considered a savoir-faire), but it's still time consuming, and without round-the-clock computer access, I've had to ease up on my eleventh hour ways. Timing is crucial as they kick me out of the "computer lab" (a room with a slit of a window and two old desktops) at midnight. I've tried writing my papers by hand, but I'm too much of a digital girl and it frustrates the hell out of me.

My other classes, Phonetique and Parisian Places, thankfuly don't require much of me this week, but they're always bad to begin with, so this is considered a change of pace.

Phonetique is just difficult and made worse by a professor that has no tolerance for American accents or Americans in general. She lumps us together like we're all best friends and when one of us is missing she announces to the class that we're just perpetuating the lazy-American stereotype. She is undoubtedly very good at what she does, but she knows it and is therefore an uber bitch with a bad haircut. I fear asking questions because she always stops me mid-sentence to tell me my "e" is incorrect....yes, I want to speak better, but I honestly cannot hear the difference between an "e" mi-fermée and an "e" fermée. Can anybody?

Parisian Places is the course offered through my University and it's just turning into one big pain in my ass. Unlike my other classes, this one is taught by an American, so naturally he's a fan of busy work and extensive, useless reading. French universities, and I suppose the French educational system in general, aren't really fond of daily exercises as they feel that you only do it to get it done and retain none of the information. They stress class discussion with little emphasis on "homework" in the sense that we're familiar with it, and I feel that it allows me to study the material that we do cover much more in depth. It initially sounded like the subject matter would be interesting - who wouldn't want to learn more about Paris? - but really it's just boring and all we talk about is the art of walking and Haussmannisation. Yawn.

And while this week is horrible, it's made better by the fact that I have lucked out with free tickets to see NOUVELLE STAR!! This show is the french version of American Idol and the girls that I hang out with in my building are obsessed with it - cannot get enough of it. They know every contestant and all the judges, the theme music... watching them watch the show is part of the fun. They try to sing along with the contestants, but they mostly sing American tunes so the girls can only get through the chorus and then mumble through the verses because they don't know the words! How could I pass up this cultural experience? I think ten of us are going, and I'll be one of two American girls in the bunch. Vanessa and I are going to be sitting there with our mouths hanging open as French teenagers butcher Edith Piaf and try to cover Britney Spears songs - last week a boy on the show did a cover of Toxic. It was horrendous, but the judges loved it.

Makes this week totally worth it.

...

In other news, my date with Roman went really well (not Romain like the lettuce. I know that's what I said, but I swear he wrote his name like that when he gave me his number. I even showed it to the french girls and they couldn't figure it out, but I saw his ID and it's certainly Roman. Yes, I know I have a horrible reputation concerning my inability to spell, but proper nouns do not count and this time it wasn't my fault!).

He took me to a concert and we talked about politics, art, religion, movies, music...we pretty much covered all the ground that is necessary on a first date. He's a psychology student, working towards some advanced degree, he baby sits on the weekends and he sports a cowboy moustache. He's 30...but he looks 25 tops. When you do the subtraction, it's only about an eight year age difference, which doesn't really freak me out as it's only A DATE, but it has sent some of my friends here into a tail spin. "HE'S WHAT? THIRTY? MON DIEU!" hahaha...come on, it's just a bit of fun. I think we're getting coffee tomorrow and I find myself surprisingly excited. He's intelligent and interesting, funny (yes, a french man with a sense of humor!), and we can actually keep a conversation going. Olivier and I (last french manboy) would find ourselves at so many lulls in the conversation that I nearly died from boredom.

Alors, as said, I've got a big week ahead of me, so I'm off to bed. Don't expect to find too much here for the next couple of days, but I'll have to update everybody about Nouvelle Star - I plan on watching the whole event with an anthropologists eye and maybe I'll even take notes. I'm entering the strange and confusing world of the french teenager... will I survive?

Parc Floral and Farmers' Market

It is finally spring in Paris! I've been in a MAJOR funk lately, feeling very homesick, but now that the clouds have cleared and the sun is shining and all the frenchies are out smoking their cigarettes and drinking their expresso, the city is breathtaking. I couldn't stop exclaiming, "quel beau jour!"

After class, my friend Vanessa and I walked along the boulevards and soaked up the beautiful sunshine. We ducked inside Shakespeare and Co., a great book store just across from Notre Dame. It's all current books on the first floor, and the second floor is only for reading and reference where you can sit for hours on the many beds or sofas just wasting away the hours thumbing through oringinal prints of Austen or Stienbeck. When you're not reading you can pour yourself a cup of coffee or play the piano that's tucked in between all the forgotten livres. It's really a great little place to visit if you're a bookworm.

After that, we continued our journey along the river and made it out to the point on the Ile de la Cité. It's directly in the middle of the Seine and with the water rushing past you on both sides, it's a great view. Mostly students congregate here to smoke and shoot the breeze, but we didn't linger for long as a group of dreadlocked teenagers were having their bags and coats searched by the police.

Then we took the métro out to Château de Vincennes (an area I MUST return to - this castle looked amazing, but I know nothing about it or what it's currently used for, so I'll have to make a field trip on my next free weekend) to visit the Parc Floral de Paris and an independent farmers' market that we had heard word of.



Since it was such a beautiful day, the park was just gorgeous and it really lifted my spirits to see more than a little patch of green in Paris. There is a beautiful lake, great big trees, whole fields of flowers and tuplips, daffodils....just incredible. We've decided that if tomorrow's weather is as wonderful as it was today, we're going to pack a very french picnic lunch of baguette, strawberries, cheese, wine and sausage and go back to the park to do our homework and relax in the sun for the afternoon.

The farmer's market was equally amazing, both visually and gastronomically speaking. There were close to thirty or forty independent farmers selling all sorts of products including cheese, jams, wine, olive oils, breads, foi gras, honey, salt, meats, candies....oh my goodness we were in heaven. We tried a little bit of everything including the duck pâtées (the french love a good pâté)and just about every cheese that they were dishing out to us. We bought a strong goat cheese that we're going to picnic with tomorrow, and I bought a jar of violet milk jam - it's difficult to explain, but it's jam that's made with sheep's milk and tastes like violets...it's delicious. There were also oysters and escargot, ciders and fresh olives, and probably a ton of things that I didn't get to taste or see. The best part was that all of products were 100 percent natural without any preservatives and of course made by hand. We weren't ready to leave, but we had made our free-sample tour a few times and the sellers were begining to recognize us.

Such a beautiful day, I wish I could fully express what a wonderful mood I'm in right now! Spring time in Paris - who would actually believe that it would hold up to its reputation?

Alright, enough of this over-the-moon crap, tonight I have a date with Romain, a new french manboy, so I need to go primp and brush my teeth. I know the french are all about their cheese, but I'm not so sure that smelling like a rotten goat sock is the image I want to present.