Short

Like always, no news, good news. I was supposed to write there at least every week, but I failed. The time is passing so fast. So, everything's going well. I'm quite on routine days, doing my homework for the day after, complaining about alcohol policy, teaching french sometimes, playing soccer and even golf! I didn't go to see any soccer match since the last time, maybe because I was busy or something like that. Last week, I played golf we Christopher, a tuesday afternoon when we don't have class. It was a nice day, very sunny, and I didn't pay too much, only 21$ for the game and the set of club. We played soccer too, with Gabrielle a new friend of me. She plays very well, it is amazing. She speaks a little french. I've met so many people, I can't remember a lot of them. Those two last weekends, we went to different house parties, drinking all the time and doing stupid things. We have been documented at 1:30am a Friday, and for that we have been writen down on newspaper. I have a hearing this friday, a kind meeting where I will be told every rules I broke. I am a tutor now, I teach french to two students for 8.75$/hour. Its not bad.

American Life

My first class started this wednesday. It was an english class for non native speaker. We are approximatly 15 people, the most part are from asia. For this first day, we had to do (again) some ice breaker games to meet people in the room. 50 minutes of class, it is very short compare to the 2 hours classes at ESIEE. At 10:00 am, we were done. With Nacer and Chris, we met the European people at Cherry Street, the cafeteria of the campus, to eat together. Then Camilla had the good idea to propose a boat trip out of the city, to Bainridge. So we took the ferry boat downtown at 3:30pm, for 6.75$. It was again a real nice sunny day. Once arrived, we just walked around to explore this small island 30min away from home. We sat down to a coffee, and talked for 2 hours of different subjects. We were also secretly planning Camilla birthday for the 30st of September. We came back in the city, then walked through to get back to the dorm. We went once again to Teriyaki, a japanese fast foot like, where you can eat good food for cheap. Thursday and Friday we had our first classes of Engineering. The first one is all about Matlab and Digital Image Processing, and the second consist of a year-project to do in team. Those two classes are more scaring, because of the skills required and the excepations of us. Friday afternoon, we played soccer on a free-field at the cross of Pine Street and Broadway. We were initially 6, but we succeed in playing a good match 8vs8, meeting new people here to play a good football. It was a nice afternoon again. Then Friday night, we were supposed to do a party, but we finally stayed at the dorm in our rooms, having discussions with beers until 1:00 am. On saturday, it was Serve Seattle day. We left campus at 9:30 to join a forest where we had to do a voluntary work: destroy blackberries. We were around 280 students, split in 6 yellow school buses, motivated by doing something good. Like always, I met new people from Xavier, living on the 2nd floor. It was great to help people to maintain Seattle parks in a good state. In the night, we went to a house party at the 18th Avenue, we were a group of 12 people from Xavier, with new friends of my floor like Sarah and Angela. It was my first american house party, and it wasn't as big as I thought it would, but I liked it. Yuyeun and Sarah were drunk, as Chris and Erin were a bit later in the night. We came back at 1:30 am, eating in Ihop. Then today we went to another soccer match, Seattle University vs University of San Francisco. And we lost...

9 hours before my first class!

I don't have enough words in english to explain how good it is to be there in Seattle. So what happened those last few days: Saturday was the move-in day for new transfert and freshman students. The Xavier House was in a busy during all day, with new people discovering their room, their new roomate and the place they'll have to live. We had a floor meeting this day to present ourself to others, and once again I met a lot of people. That's easy for me because they are for the most part in this House for the french students like me. This last weekend we went to see soccer match, first the men, SeattleU vs OregonState, then the girls, SeattleU vs Utah. The audience was crazy, and the games too! There were also cheerleaders, thing that we can't except at soccer match in ESIEE. On monday, we went to the Space Needle, the most famous building of the city. We went to the top for 16$ which is quite cheap for view we had over Seattle. During those last days, I had learnt more about my neighbors and people living on my floor. It's crazy how the american girls love the french accent. Our Student House is not that big, so we look like a small community where we all know each other, which is pretty cool. We have a great atmosphere there and this is definetly the place to be when you are an international student. We had a lot of dinners with our group of friend from Europe. This is really exciting seriously to live on campus. Yesterday night, we had a freaky night at FredMeyer, which is a huge shop like Metro in France where you can buy anything you need! There were 450 people waiting for the school buses. The queue was incredible, as the atmosphere. We needed 12 buses to bring people there and to come back. I got a soccer ball, a sport more and more popular here in Seattle since the university got a team. Everybody wants to play it and we meet people easely thanks to it. Today again we met 2 americain coming from LosAngeles, who wanted us to join them in a chicha bar. It was so good. Tomorrow is my first class, an English one at 9:00am. It lasts 50minutes, then my day is finished!

Lets start it

It has been exactly 7 days and 3 hours since I arrived at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. And all I have to say now is that this year-long exchange definetly worth it. Those last 2 days was the NBP weekend, New Beginners Program, for internationnal Student. We went to Pack Forest, near Eaton Village. It was like a Forest Camp in the middle of nowhere, when nowhere is trees and nature. The purpose of this weekend is to be immersed with other international students, and to meet the staff, leaders and workers who belong to the ISSC, Internationnal Student Center. We left Seattle Wednesday morning, at 9:00 am with around 60 internationnal students. As I was already knowing YuYeun, one of the leaders, and Chris plus Nacer, it wasn't difficult for us to speak around with anyone else. We arrived at the Camp at 11:00, and we have been packed randomly into differents house-rooms. I was with Marvin, from Rwanda and Jose, from spain, plus other people like Osama from Saouda arabie. It was nice to have my first internationnal contacts, practising my french english with them. I was like suddenly realizing that we all have our own way of speaking english which was rassuring me.

They were approximatly 15% European and 85% Asian people. We have been split in different groups with one leader in each, mine was Thao. She has been in Seattle University for 3 years, majoring Math and Electrical Engineering, which means that she will study with us this year. She was really nice with us, when we had to do our first Ice Breaker Activities. I was in a group of
7 people, with Hannah who is from Ukraine and Tsehay who is from Ethopia and Van, who is from Viet-Nam. All day long, we have done some integration games like the mini olympic games or some plays. At night, we've done a camp fire, where we had the opportunity to teach some french and to sing songs from all over the world. At the end of the night, we already hadgood friends, mostly from Europe like in Sweden, Spain or Austria. We already had shared thousand stories, and the atmosphere was really good. On thursday, we had a culture-shock session explaining that sometimes it was hard for foreign people to get well integrated. We went back on campus in a School bus, like in American TV Shows. Things were crazy, we were all together, kinda happy to live what we were living. At Xavier house, we have met our new European friends in the basement, drinking a homemade raspberries vodka to have a little more conversation. As its illegal to drink when you are under 21, it was funny to be like kids drinking for the first time, screamming at each door movement. The day after, we were continuing the weekend in the campus, eating together, planning a night party with more illegal alcohol.
I feel like the year is launched. Our plane has landed. Welcome!

Three Days After

I left Paris the 11th September 2009, for a new and great adventure. This is my first time in USA and I'm waiting for a lot of things there. I arrived in Seattle Airport at 12.15 am local time, after a 11h30 flight trip long. It was a sunny day, a thing that I wasn't excepting with my coat and sweater: it was actually very hot! After a 45min long research for a Shuttle Express bus, I arrived at Seattle University at 03:00 PM, at Xavier Hall, the international student house. The first americans that I met were very welcoming. One girl showed me how to get my SU card and where was my room. A pretty but sweety room, with 2 beds, my roomate arriving the 20th. Afterwards, I met Yuyuen, who will become my first real friend on campus. She presented herself as the girlfriend of one of the french from the previous year, so she could understand my french accent. She was really nice with me, and on Saturday morning we went to visit Seattle downtown, with its big buildings and moving center. This day, I met others people such as Brenna and Junqi. We went to a Korean restaurant, with Christopher, a french from ESIEE who just arrived. It was delicious, in a really good atmosphere. Despite of the change hours, I was able to stay awake until 10:00 pm!! Today (Sunday), we went to downtown again to get a phone, and I had some rest until 6:00 pm, when we all went out to eat a subway sandwich. I have really good feelings with the other americans. We spoke for 2 hours about the alcohol policy which is really strict, with the R.A of our floor, Jack, a pretty cool guy.
Those first three days where really fun, and I'm already well settled. The integration week starts this wednesday, which means that we'll meet a lot of other students. This year starts well, really well.