ihaveapurplepolo's Xanga

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:46:18 GMT

i am certainly an inhabitual user of xanga. occasionally i get the notion that i ought to jot a little note or two out here in cyberspace. it usually remains merely a notion. i suppose i could do a brief update of sorts. here goes.

i am entering my 4th month as a business analyst for Deloitte Consulting. so far it has had thrills and non-thrills. i'll admit that my projects haven't been the most exciting, although being in nashville for the first was certainly a plus. my current project allows me to work from atlanta with an occasional trip to Fredericksburg VA. this is mostly good, as being home means i can carry out life in atlanta more than 3 days a week. i get to cook often, i go to a community group at church mid-week, i occasionally practice the mandolin. and this week, after 3 weeks of working in the office, i geniusly decided to work from home/coffee shop. hoorah. i am supposed to "roll off" (consultants have their own language which i find detestable--not difficult to understand for the "layman" but pretty silly. examples would be "hit it out of the park", "to have bandwidth", "to reach out to someone"...) after this coming week and so i've got my fingers crossed that i can get on a new project soon. complicating that is the fact that i'm leaving for Romania in 3 weeks(!!) for a week's stay, and then it's holiday season which means very few projects looking for analysts...it'll work out somehow.

last night i went to see Robinella and the CC String Band in concert at Eddie's Attic. i think a former Decatur resident and fellow xangaer had mixed reviews, but i really enjoyed the venue. and the opening act was phenomenally interesting and very talented--guitar/violin duo, sort of jazzgrass, if i can use that term.

honestly that's it. my life is boring. Romania should add some spice to my life. i've also been thinking lately about moving back to Paris. i have to explore the idea further to see if i could transfer offices to the Paris office of Deloitte, but i'd do it in a heartbeat if i could.

lastly, if anyone's in town next friday you should come to our place for the 1st annual Novemberfest party.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:18:34 GMT

underpantsnfrance.blogspot.com

Friday, August 03, 2007

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:29:18 GMT

i now officially live in atlanta. decatur, to be precise. in other official news, i had my first mandolin lesson on my teacher's front porch on college ave in decatur this past sunday. additionally officially, i am now a hired man. my tenure as a consultant has begun, and all i can say thus far is that it is potentially exciting, and certainly exhausting. speaking of which, i should be in bed if i'm to make it to work at 8 tomorrow.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Sat, 26 May 2007 06:48:39 GMT

last night i attended Hillsong Paris for the first time--a couple of friends invited me to go. they've been in existence for a year or so now and are going pretty strong. they have two services, and the first had 100-150 people. entering the theatre where they meet, i was very much reminded of going to Rolling Hills, as the space was clearly adapted this one night per week for the church. not to mention there were 9 billion people greeting and handing out water and pointing the way.

now i have no experience whatsoever with Hillsong. i suppose i've sung a few of their songs at some point, but i don't own any cds and haven't seen any videos or anything. i did, however, know a bit of what to expect. and i wasn't disappointed, so to speak. the room was rather energized, though clearly the more intense people sat near the front of the room. the sermon i felt was kind of hard to follow, which may have resulted from the fact that the pastor could not sit still. and anywhere he moved, his translator moved too. so therein was actually a great element of the church/service---the french aspect. i heard a lot of french in the lobby, and it wasn't just one international person to another. some of the musicians were french, as well as a lot of the staff. it seems that Hillsong Paris is doing a good job of assimilating, as well as not merely appealing to the anglophone population. musically, they were very thorough. two acoustic guitars, two electrics, two keyboards, one bass, drums, 4 singers. the words were also translated, though we only sang in English.

i suppose i was glad i went, as i had thought about going all year just to check it out. i'm not upset i didn't go earlier in the year, as i'm not sure i would have felt compelled to go back or get involved. at the very least i can now say i've been to Hillsong, whenever that might come up like in a "take a step forward if you've..." or "never have i ever..." game.

bon voyage

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 10:09:59 GMT

i'm off to china. more to come, from neal or matt or me. pictures galore, funny anecdotes. you know you'll be back.

assistant no more

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:26:21 GMT

well hello there. i confess that each time i remark to myself that i should probably write something on my blog, i feel rather lackadaisical. and of course the purpose of a blog, or at least so far as i see my blog for the year in France, is to chronicle my life over here. regularly. informatively. right.

so in unusually timely fashion, here is a little post that relates to the very event of the day: my last day as a teaching assistant in Paris. that's right, my 7 month contract has run its course, and my surcharged schedule of lengthy teaching commitments and extensive planning required for said teaching has thus been greatly reduced. believe that if you want.

it has been a bit of an odd week---i returned from Athens last friday night, knowing full well that i had a mere 10 days before i'd take off again for China. last saturday morning as i performed my weekly market routine, i felt much less a resident of my neighborhood, already or once again a stranger. and while that feeling has subsided in part this week, i know full well that that sensation will become more and more of a reality as i approach my return to les States. subsequently, this week has not been very strenuous at school--a few classes had farewell parties for me, while others ended on an anticlimactic goodbye. one class even failed to show up, so no goodbye was even issued. leaving the school today(and snapping a few pictures while i still had the chance), i felt a conflicted sense of sadness in realizing that 7 months of my life and the very reason for my being in Paris had now terminated. it wasn't quite like leaving high school or college; i guess it was just hard to believe.

so there you have it. i am no longer an english teaching assistant. i do, however, continue to reside in France, for the time being. and living in France without any obligation is AWESOME, if you didn't already know it. i hope that gives me sufficient time to enjoy the little-seen parts of the city, to spend more quality time with the people i'll be leaving behind, and to prepare myself for the path ahead.

**i'm amending this post to inform you that someone outside my window is singing Amazing Grace, in english, and gospel style!!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:02:11 GMT

i realize this may be taboo and/or a sensitive subject, not to mention a week late, but last week watching CNN World's coverage of Va Tech, i struggled to understand why in the world they insisted on "hokie" cheers as if they were at a sporting event. and the phrase, "today we are all hokies"?? it just seemed a bit irreverent, or at the very least, irrelevant, to join in such a collective chant. certainly, i understand the idea of banding together in the face of a tragedy. but who cares if the victims were hokies or pokies? can anyone explain??

secondly, i have a problem with the all-too-quick designation of the shooter as "a South Korean national", as if that brought anything to bear on the situation. the guy lived in the states for 60 percent of his life. the lone result was fear and alarm among South Koreans as they worried about a backlash as in L.A. in the early 90s.

and finally, why has Vanderbilt decided to toll Kirkland's bells only 32 times in their memorial service?? certainly 33 bodies were carried out of those buildings, and certainly the tragedy of the shooter's life should be lamented. that just comes off as a poor decision to me.

on another note, i'm not actually reading the "currently reading" book---i read it on vacation last week. and it was excellent. you should all check it out. from your library.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 19:25:09 GMT

for some real journalısm, check out my blog

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:08:03 GMT

check out the recent police raid in my brother's neighborhood

we always wondered why there were so many cars at this house on monday nights...

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:30:28 GMT

today, my suspicions were confirmed, when preparing to shower for the day, i noticed my towel was wet. this wouldn't be the first time, and i had been pretty sure it was my roommate alex who was using my towel for his own. but finally all the pieces came together, as last night alex told me he had to get up at 6 am for a test, and hoped he wouldn't wake me up with the noise. i took my own shower at 745, without a soul entering the bathroom in the meantime. all signs point to him.
what i want to know is, who thinks they should just use someone else's towel? isn't that fairly private? or is it just me? i really don't warm to the idea of someone else covering every inch of their body with a piece of material that i use to do the same. FORTUNATELY, said roommate doesn't shower every day. reminds me of a roommate i once had, not naming names...