(Yeah, I meant to update this earlier-as in Friday/Saturday, but that clearly didn't happen. Well, you guys should be used to reading long passages from me, right?)
OK, starting with Wednesday morning: We had Haute Couture sewing techniques. Our regular teacher (which will be Muriel) wasn't there (apparently she was doing something in Mexico), so Anne subbed in for us today. We four just worked on our jackets that we had started the week previously. I again had some trouble with the sewing machine but I got it fixed quicker than the last time (proof that I'm learning). Anne also showed us how to drape pleats on a mannequin, which I did not get to do since I was working on my jacket. (The thing that was taking up so much time was that I was matching up lines unevenly, so I had to keep ripping out my seams and redoing them, after I rematched up the lines. I hope I get better at this...) At the end of the class, Peter came in with another lady and asked us if we would be interested in going to Premiere Vision sometime Friday (since we didn't have hat-making in the afternoon, it starts February 29th). Premiere Vision is France's big textile convention and is supposed to be pretty exclusive, so naturally we were all interested and intrigued. Peter then asked the lady who accompanied him to explain to the camera (PAA was gathering student interviews, and we had all been interviewed about our work earlier in the morning), and she explained about the upcoming trends for Spring/Summer 2009, first in French (I understood most of what she said) and then in English. After she was done, Peter said that he would talk to Jen about taking us Friday.
When he was finished talking about Premiere Vision, he asked if anyone would be available to stay and work that afternoon. The afternoon was the French 1 class, and since I'm in Level 3, I volunteered. (I still felt bad that I hadn't gotten that jacket done.) It turned out that only Rikard, one of the other students, and I would be able to stay, so I came back at 1 pm. For awhile, it was just Anne and I (since Rikard was downstairs printing out stuff), and I practiced my French with her when I asked questions. (She had asked me before lunch why I was able to stay, and she was impressed when she heard that I was in French 3. Also, the lady who was with Peter overheard and asked me a little about how long I had studied it, etc. She then professed her English to be very bad, but I reassured her that it was good, and everyone understood her. I don't understand why, over here, the French people that I've spoken with so far claim that their English is bad, but it's really not. They're much better at English than I am at French, but I'm sure that's because they use it on a daily basis, unlike myself. Also, earlier after lunch, when I was waiting for Anne to arrive, I talked with another student Tu who was going up one level to the French 1 class. He was also quite impressed that I was in level 3.)
After Liz, Ashley and Andrea were done with class, we decided to go out and get some of our supplies. We had been told by Anne to go to one specific shop called Fil 2000 (pronounced fill-de-mille, like Cecil or Agnes DeMille). (Apparently, this had been a store for textile-industry-types back in the day.) We took the 38 bus and eventually found it. It's pretty tiny, and is bigger heighth-wise than width-wise. There were a lot of people in there, so I used the Ewald elbows to my advantage (but I didn't knock anything over). I finally got what I needed there, and promptly went next door to get more supplies of the traditional-school kind. Eventually, we all finished up and went back to our respective apartments.
Ashley and I decided to do our laundry that night, and met at the laundromat, which is next to my apartment. Some other people were there as well, and turned out to be American students living nearby who were studying at the Sorbonne. We chatted with them for awhile, talking about our respective programs, where we planned to travel, upcoming concert tours, etc. They each seemed agast that our workload thus far didn't allow any time for sightseeing. We assured them that we were just as shocked.
Something really creepy happened too. The guys had left, so it was just Ashley and I there. A homeless guy came in, and asked us for money for cigarettes. We said we didn't have any (I smoothly leaned down and grabbed my purse at this point), the guy mumbled something, and leaned over and spat on the floor. There were no atheists in the laundromat at that point, and there must have been something higher, because he left at that point. Beforehand, Ashley had told me that I could go since I was done with my laundry, and I had refused. So now, with that incident behind us, I was adamant about staying. (We've certainly been getting a lesson in recognizing/limiting interaction with the neighborhood homeless/crazies.)
Thursday morning, we had flat pattern and draping with Anne. We worked on a pattern for a corset! (Interestingly, the words for an 18th-century corset and a 19th-century one are different. I can't remember either of them, but I thought that that was a cool fact.) We made the prototype corset to fit ourselves, so we measured our chests, waists, and "little hips". (Incidentally, that's the last day we've seen Ana, the "5th" girl, who's from Mexico. She's only attended intermittently starting on the Monday of orientation week. Nobody has any idea why she hasn't been showing up. All we know is that she has an apartment near the Louvre-not by school-and lives alone. The first few days she didn't show up are accounted for since she had a plumbing problem, but one day, she was "too tired" to come, and nobody knows about the subsequent days. I'm suspecting that she's a superhero who's too busy out saving the world to attend class, although it'd be a lot more plausible if she had an alliterative alias, i.e. Peter Parker for Spiderman, Warren Worthington III for Angel of X-Men, etc. This is the kind of thing I think about. (Has anyone else noticed that alliterative names seem to be disproportionately prevalent amongst superheroes/graphic-novel characters and musical theatre characters? Look at the evidence: Betty Boop, Archie Andrews, Tracy Turnblad, Hope Harcourt, etc. Someone should look into this.)
I drew out my pattern pieces and sewed them up, calculating the measurements by hand, which basically ensures that I'll screw at least one of them up. Sure enough, my side panel wasn't big enough, which we discovered when I tried it on (Anne had to get Liz to help hold it together). It was pretty skintight: I had to try it on over only my bra, and really suck it in to get an accurate idea. I kept having images of me exhaling, all the stitches bursting Violet-Beauregard-blueberry-style and taking out people with their force. What a way to go that would be. (I decided not to ask any of the other girls if they had been thinking similarly of themselves when they were being fitted.) As it turns out, I subtracted the amount where I should have added it (those signs look way too similar). I drafted the correct piece, ripped out the existing pieces and sewed in the revised ones, and waited for Anne to fit me again.
That morning, I was sitting next to one girl named Sharon, who had sat next to me in French two days before. She and I started talking and talked through pretty much the class about our lives. She's from Zimbabwe, and had gone to an all-girls Anglican boarding school for high school, so we compared notes on our respective schooling/educational experiences. (I'm not sure how many people I've discussed this with, but I refer to schooling and education as 2 different things. I see schooling as learning something that is probably not necessary to an individual person's future/career/future career, i.e. for me, learning Calculuses (calculii?) 1 and 2; and education as things we learn that we will actually use in the future, i.e. the principle of outsourcing, which guarantees that if by some future cosmic joke, I need calculus, I'm paying someone else to do it for me.) She's really cool and funny, and I think it'll be fun to have class and hang out with her. (I also felt quite funny, since she was laughing at what I was saying.)
After lunch, we reconvened for Costume Research. Of the 3 hour class, I spent about 2 hours sitting doing nothing (well, not nothing, since I was having a great time talking with Sharon and another girl Nisa, from Malaysia, the whole time) since I was waiting for Anne to fit my redone corset. At the break, Anne told me that she didn't have time to fit my 2nd corset, so I asked her what I should be doing (since I hate just sitting and doing nothing, wasting time, while waiting for a teacher's help) and she said I could start copying a pattern for the next next project. (The other students had chosen their patterns before their semester break, and Anne had chosen ours for us.) She had picked out a visite (not quite sure what that translates to in English), which is a kind of coat from the 1870s, which is loose-fitting and has large sleeves. The pattern I had chosen had pleats on the sleeve. So I took it to my table and began tracing. However, I encountered a problem (the same one) with each of the 2 pattern pieces. Neither of the pieces had been closed. As in, the each had one line that went off the paper some indeterminate amount, and I had no idea what kind of angle was created. So I drew what I could, and then flagged down Anne to ask her about them. She looked at them, concluded she had made a mistake somehow, and told me that she'd help me Monday.
We four still needed to get supplies for Susan's class (none of us wanted to get called tourists again, especially in that accent) and Nisa had volunteered to show us the best place to go, so after class, we took the bus to Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville (BHV). It's this upscale megastore where you can find anything. We went to find embroidery thread and needles (they had a great selection), and later paid for our purchases. Something I've noticed is that receipts give you your total in both Euros and francs. The thing is that there are a lot more francs to an American dollar than to a Euro. For example, I spent 7.95 in Euros at BHV. That works out to 52.15 in French francs. The thing is that both of these numbers appear on the display at the cash register, and it never fails to give me a mini-heart attack (it only takes minutes off my life, but those add up) when I think I've spent a whole lot more than I have. Now Wikipedia tells me that France adopted the Euro in 1999 ("de-facto in 2002"). So that's around 6-9 years. Who is using francs these days that we need to know how many francs we've spent? Why weren't the cash registers just converted to solely Euros? I'd like to know.
(Oh, right in front of the Hotel de Ville, there's a skating rink set up with igloos, and a lot of families go out there, and it's fun to see. One of these days when I have (gasp) spare time, I want to take my camera and take pictures up there.)
After BHV, we walked to the nearest Monoprix, since I was a little lacking in the food department. We all got food and then took the bus back. I dropped off my stuff in the apartment, and then went to Ashley and Liz's apartment to hang out and watch some Arrested Development episodes before heading back to do some of my 30 sketches.
Friday was Stylism with Jen. We were supposed to bring in inspiration photos of Yohji Yamamoto's work (since that's what our project is based around), so I went to the computer lab before class to print out some photos (I met Ashley doing the same thing). At the beginning of class, Jen told us that we would be sketching ideas for a future Yohji-inspired line until 11 am, and then leaving to go to Premiere Vision. She then took us 4 and Nisa down to register. It turned out that we should have been registered for it about a week beforehand, but we could still go to Mod Amont, a similar convention specializing in trims. The rest of the class-time, I sketched, liking 2 ideas and disliking 2. She had also asked to see our pants/skirt idea sketches, since she and Susan work together. She suggested that I try to find riding-gloves at the flea market.
At 11 am, we got something to eat at the nearest boulangerie (bread shop), since Jen had told us that the food at the convention is expensive. I got a croque monsieur (ham and cheese sandwich) and talked with Ashley, Nisa and Tu. (It turns out Tu's parents live in Washington, D.C., and he has a lot of friends who go to UNC. I had to tell him that my school is not a huge fan of UNC, and was glad that Wake Forest recently beat them.) After eating, we all walked down to the RER station for the 45-minute train ride (it's on the outskirts of Paris, almost as far as Charles de Gaulle). I sat with Sharon and Ashley and had some good conversations.
At Mod Amont, we split up and decided to meet back in half an hour. Sharon and I walked around, talking and looking for interesting things (we had an assignment to write about the 3 most interesting/inspiring things we saw). After meeting back up with everyone, we took the train back and went back to relax.
That night, the 4 of us, along with Nisa and her boyfriend, went out to a Mexican restaurant on St. Severin. It was a street where cars weren't allowed, and I had the feeling that I had been there before. (I'm pretty sure that it was the same place where the theatre that shows Ionesco's Bald Soprano is. I plan to go back and find it eventually.) It was fun, I had chicken tacos and some tapioca for dessert. After dinner, Andrea and Liz got crepes (Liz breaking her no-Nutella stance, after 4 days). Then I went back to Liz and Ashley's apartment, and hung out there for awhile.
Saturday, the 4 of us went fabric shopping, since we all needed samples for the evening dress and the pants or skirt. After getting a little lost, we took the bus to the 18th arrondissement where all the fabric places are. (The first one we went to was one that my mom and I had been to about a year and a half earlier.) We just got samples, so we had to grab an employee and walk them over to what we needed (instead of bringing it to the counter). I got my 2 wool samples and bra sample at Dreyfus, and my 2 evening wear samples at Reine. After getting back, I drew the majority of my evening wear flats, leaving only 2 to do the next day.
(Oh yeah, when I went to Ed that evening, the one employee who had talked to me earlier recognized me and talked to me again...for awhile. He did ask me what I was doing later, and if I had a cell, but I said I had to do some work. I'm just not interested in him, and now I'm afraid it's going to be awkward whenever I go, since that's the nearest grocery store.
Another thing is that an older French lady spoke to me as well. She asked me if I could write down stuff accurately when hearing it, and I told her that I was better at seeing it. No idea what that was about...)
Today (Sunday), I wanted to go to the flea market to get a pair of gloves, as Jen had suggested I do. I planned my route, got to the correct metro station...and promptly realized that I had left my trusty map in my room. Fortunately, I wasn't that far away, and so went back and got it (feeling like an idiot the whole way). I took the metro to the last stop on the line, and followed the crowd to the multiple marches aux puces (flea markets). I decided to walk up and down the street where most of them were. It felt great to be conversing in French and be understood, and to understand what was being said. I kept finding the same gloves: black or white, of a thin material, not riding gloves at all. I kept looking and went into one place where we had gone with Nolwenn a couple of weeks ago. There I found these black elbow-length (opera-length?) gloves with eyelet-cutout detailing waving up the length of it. They were the most original things I had seen all day, but I looked around a little more just to be sure. I eventually went back to get them (they were 30 Euro, since one glove had a rip along the palm), and went back to the metro station.
On my way back walking along Boulevard Montparnasse, I was stopped by an elderly lady and asked for directions to the Val de Grace hospital. I told her that I only knew the church and not the hospital. (I knew it would happen sometime. For anyone who doesn't know, everyone in our family gets asked for directions, especially if we're in a place we've never been before. My dad got asked for directions around Italy after he had been there a mere 2 hours. My theory on this is that our family line has survived for so long because we look like we know what we're doing/what's going on to the point where others believe it and follow our lead.)
I thought that was cool.
I got an eclair when I got back (we have the rare boulangerie that's open on Sundays), and have since written this blog entry.
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