The Key to the Beard

Here's Episode 1 of the Saga of the Beard, "The Key to the Beard." This is a comic chronicling the amazingness of Noah and my beards, consider this a series of blogs about Noah =)

Click to see full-sized!

FAQ

I figured that since I'm asked the following questions all the time I should answer them in one fell swoop. Consider yourselves FAQed!

You're in France?!?! (I get this about once a week)
Yes

Where are you and when did you get there?
I'm in Nice, France which is in the south near the Italian border, and I got here on September 21st.

Why are you there?
I'm teaching English to High School students who, as their teachers put it, are very nice.

When do you come back?
Mid-May, perhaps May 8th perhaps May 15th. I haven't figured it all out yet.

Why are you in France?
*sigh*

Do women over there shave?
I've only seen two hairy women and one (I'm pretty sure) was a German hippie.

Do they use deodorant?
I've actually figured this one out. I'm pretty sure most French folks use deodorant. However I've discovered that it does little-to-nothing to hinder BO. Thus the answer is yes, but unless they're wearing obscene amounts of cologne you won't be able to tell.

Do the French hate Americans?
No, but they do hate you.

What's your favorite thing about France?
Pain au chocolat, it's a pastry with chocolate in it. Delicious.

Are you fluent in French?
Depends on what you call fluent; I can have good long conversations but I won't be trading stocks any time soon.

Are you having fun?
Most of the time, yes I am. How could I not? But sometimes people get a bit too drunk and drunk company is usually poor company. Especially when you're always sober.

Do you miss home?
Is the Pope Catholic?

What do you miss about home?
Pizza Pipeline, hands down. But in close second would be family and friends. I miss New Community and my cronies at EWU a ton. I had no idea how much I loved them until I couldn't be with them.

What time is it there?
Now? 12:15am, but to figure it out just add 9 hours to your time (if you're on Pacific time). If not... well, I guess you can do the math.

Why France?
I don't know.

No seriously.
Really! I don't know. I've always wanted to come here for some reason; it's just best described as a tugging on my heart. Thus, I started learning the language in high school and never really stopped.

I'll try to update this occasionally, it seems like those questions get asked a lot. There are others, but I'll just leave it like that for now. Feel free to ask more =)

Alternate Profile

Jaymus Bartholomus Swansonimonimus was born in the year of our Lord 1985 in Pullman, Washington under the sign "Caution, Volatile Chemicals." He later shortened his name in 1992 to Jay Swanson, so as to avoid capture by the Nazi party based out of Northern Idaho. Many dispute the validity of this story, mainly because they’re Nazis.

Jay Swanson has been reported to have moved recently to Nice, France causing the value of the dollar to plummet. He is recorded in the Encyclopedia Britannica as being the most handsome and eligible bachelor in the World as of 1998. But don’t bother trying to verify that in the Encyclopedia, the Nazi’s paid a good amount of money to slander Jay’s name and have it removed from all Encyclopedias.
Damn Nazis.

Next time

OK, so I know I promised a blog about Noah but that will have to wait. My neighbor Solweig was particularly offended that I hadn’t written a blog about her, so here goes. Oh, and remember if you want more pictures to check out the links to "Photo Albums" on the right.

Solweig (pronounced sol – vegg) is my little blonde French neighbor who is majoring in tourism at the university here in Nice. She’s 23, from a small town near Avignon, and claims I’m the first Christian she’s ever known. That said, she’s the first French girl with a non-French name I’ve known. So I guess that makes us even.

Aside from hanging out and watching movies, Solweig and I are masters of brochures. She had a project for one of her classes wherein she had to make a “prospectus” (a.k.a. brochure) for a local hotel with pictures and everything. Being the nice guy that I am, I ended up doing all of the work.

We went to a cool little place called Hôtel Windsor, and though it sounds British I assure you, it’s quite French. The rooms are cool because each has been painted uniquely by a different artist at one point or another in the past. So we got a nice tour of the place, checked out a bunch of rooms, and then made the prospectus.

This room was radtacular

It turned out. I guess she got an A+ on it (I’m that good in French too I suppose) but I’m still waiting for the thank you dinner to happen. It got cancelled due to her friend’s illness… or something like that. I suppose I’ll survive; I’ll just keep eating pasta.

And that’s about it on Solweig. And gents, she’s quite single as well =)

I'll get photos up as soon as the internet stops hating me.

Slacker

I realized that each month I've been here the number of posts on my blog has dropped progressively by one, and I was going to try to rectify that this month. Looks like I'm on the route to failure on that.

I also realized I've posted fewer pictures, so I was hoping to change that too (as people prefer pretty pictures to rambling rants). But instead of posting tons of pictures I posted links to my albums on facebook on the right side of my blog. You can click on them and check out my photos even if you don't have a facebook account. I was going to at least post a few, but I'm having serious internet problems so if there aren't any pictures in this when you read it just click on the albums on Facebook for now.

I've had a number of trips and met some cool people, and I'm not sure really what to write about. But I did visit John Mark in Antibes, along with his loverly room mates...

I'll tell you a little about two guys who are progressively enriching my life, how about that? I met John Mark, a tall baseball player from Tennessee, when I was getting my medical exam with the other assistants in Nice. Turned out he was a Christian and was looking for a church, and thusthat relationship was started .

The other is Justus (of whom I have yet to get a photo, he's illusive), a church planter with CA here near Nice in a town called Sophia-Antipolis. He's a great guy as well who I got hooked up with through Rob and his connections with CA.

We've been doing a little weekly Bible study that's turned more and more into a discussion hour, and it's been really good. Reading large chunks of scripture together every week and then talking about it, praying together... it's been great.

Jon Mark is the current champion of the group, however, as he had a recent hunting experience quite unlike any he'd ever had in America. And he's an accomplished hunter.


After boar hunting (yes, boar hunting), the French family that took him out went after birds and ended up shooting a bunch of small, sparrow-like creatures. They brought them home, plucked the feathers off, and threw them in the oven.

They then proceeded to sit down and eat the entire bird. They weren't like pheasants, or ducks, they were seriously little bitty birds and there were three to a plate. And when I say entire bird, I mean entire bird. JM said he was a bit shocked because they didn't just pull off the meat (the breast of the bird being about the size of his thumbnail), they bit straight in. He knew he was in for it when the dad just took a bird and bit its head off, chewed the skull up nicely, and swallowed.

What he'd gotten himself into he wasn't sure, but the manly man that he is he proceeded to eat the birds set before him. He wondered why no one was eating the toast on the table when suddenly the guy next to him cracked a bird's rib cage open, scooped out the entrails, and spread them on the toast like jam.

And so JM did the same and choked all it down. John Mark Walls is a true southern hero. And he's quite single ladies ;)

And that'll do for today. I'll try to get more on the internets here as soon as I can. And don't forget to click on the links to photo albums on facebook if you're in the mood for some French photos.

Training = death on a stick

So it’s been a while since I’ve written, largely due to the business of life. My school is great so far. The kids think I’m some sort of rock star, they crowd around me in the halls and stare at me like I’m Brad Pitt. I think someone told them I have chocolate in my pockets or something because it’s a bit crazy. I had a block class where I talked for the first hour, then the teacher took over for the second. When I came back to give her back her keys she said she spent the second hour explaining over and over why they couldn’t have me every day. They’re upset that I’m only there every other week, and apparently “it’s just not fair!” Gotta love being fought over.

I just got done with two days of the longest, most mind bogglingly redundant and arduous training sessions of all time. Two solid days of blah blah blah (but with French ‘blah’s) and little respite. This, combined with two nights consisting of no more than 5 hours of sleep each, left me nearly brain dead and ready for a break. It was fun though too, since I got to hang out with a bunch of the other assistants. My friend Jon and I joked around the whole time, entertaining ourselves and sometimes saying things loudly enough to entertain the rest.

I think we could be considered class clowns, although the teacher picked him out as the class drunk when she came over and told him to be responsible. She said “you just have that face.” It was funny. As for the rest of it, we were bored out of our minds. I began doodling, one of which I was particularly proud of. Click on the picture to see it full sized.

This one is a re-make of one I made earlier with Russ Davis. It’s not as good, but it works.

On the second day those of us who were in technical high schools were taken by the inspector of English teachers for the region up to a different room. It turned out to be 2 hours of more blah blah blah, but worse because there was no interaction. He just talked, kept talking, and talked some more. What’s worse is that he spoke no English, despite being the English inspector, and couldn’t understand us when we spoke to save his life. It was frustrating; I drew long comics of us falling asleep, shooting ourselves, and throwing ourselves out the window.

We all felt the same about this, despite the humorous ironies, it was terrible. The only nice thing was the breeze coming through the window once I opened it, the view was cool too.

I had three people stay at my place, they’re assistants from another town and they needed a spot to crash. It was fun hanging out with Chris the Canadian, Maria the Scott, and JonMark from Tennessee (who was actually involved with Young Life for the last four years).

We had fun, and almost skipped the second day of training after a long night at Jon’s apartment (not JonMark, Jon T) where we hung out with the Kiwis and one of the British assistants Adam. It was fun, but we stayed up too late and I was subjected to a second night of only 5 hours of sleep. Poor Maria suffered from the affects of her wine a bit more though, so it was extra miserable for her. When walking into the training, late, she said to us “there had better be at least one other person here who’s hung over. If not, I’m gonna be the biggest walking stereotype ever!”

Life here’s good though, it’s been fun and there’s another Rugby World Cup game on tonight. France vs. England: the first night in France it will be safer to be an American than a Brit. It should be a blast, rugby is a crazy sport. I do miss home though, all of my friends and family (both biological and church). I’ve been spoiled rotten by you guys, dang it. Now I want you back. I need to focus on being here now though, and figure out what it is God has for me in this place.

I hope it’s for good things and that I’m effective while I’m here, that I will stand for the Truth though it is by far an unpopular stance to take. Thankfully God’s got me, even if I don’t have myself at times.