Five Months and Counting

It's been a few weeks since I've posted. I kept meaning to write reviews of concerts that I've been to, beers that I've tasted, etc, but so much has happened in so little time that I kept putting it off, so if you wanted my opinions on Wavves, Black Lips, Jeff Mangum (or my fictional mashup project Jefferson Mangum Aeroplane), or any one of the beers that I've had lately (but I don't see why you'd want it, really) ask.

So what brought me back to blogging? Well, aside from procrastination and extreme senioritis (NINE MORE WEEKS LEFT OF COLLEGE FOREVER), I got some news today about my plans to go back to Paris as an au pair this fall.

Before I get further, I should say that I plan on dedicating a large portion of this blog to my steps to hopefully becoming an au pair. My friend Laura kept/maintains a really helpful study abroad blog from when she was in Paris last year- De San Diego a Paris- that I really wish I had found before I left for Paris last summer, not after. When I started looking into au pair programs and how to do it, I couldn't find that many current blogs about it (but I'm sure there are hundreds of blogs out there by people just like me who think they're going to move back to Paris and spend all their spare time writing novels along the banks of the Seine and becoming the next Hemingway or whatever, I just get lazy with Google).

To give a little background on the process so far, last fall in the midst of my running around to every bakery in San Diego in the hopes of finding a passable baguette (I finally found one at The French Gourmet) and buying every Eiffel Tower emblazoned trinket I laid eyes on, I remembered that an acquaintance of mine from a French class a few years ago was now living in Paris so I asked her how she did it, and she told me about her time as an au pair and gave me some information about the agency that she went through.

I contacted the agency and being October, it was way too early at the time to do much, but I filled out the initial application and in January (still way too early to get anything much done, but I really really want to go back so I wanted to get the plans going as soon as possible) I started to fill out the full application after a phone interview.

Life got in the way for a while, and it took me until March to get the application sent in, but I did, and a few days later, I had a Skype interview with the director of the American side of things. The next step is now an interview (in French) with the French director, and from then on, it will just be a matter of time before I'm (hopefully) matched with a family. I knew that it would be a couple weeks before I talked to the director of the French side of things, but today I just got an email saying that in the next week or two I should be expecting to hear from her to schedule a time (which will be kind of annoying because I'll have to either get up super early or stay up super late due to the time difference, but I totally don't mind making that sacrifice).

It's also crazy to think that it's been almost eight and a half months since I've been back and now only four and a half months until I'll be going back! And, on a side note, I'm seeing of Montreal a month from today, which as anyone knows me in real life  knows is pretty much the only other thing that can get me to Paris levels of pure bliss.