Kyle’s May Challenge

As many of you know, the Pink of Perfection May Challenge sounds a lot like my France Telecom March Challenge . . . except the latter was involuntary and resulted in a 6 week media and telecommunication blackout. While it did give me a chance to catch up on my reading, the France Telecom challenge is not something I’m eager to repeat.  A little too isolating for me.

So I’ve crafted a new challenge a little more suited to my time wasting habits. I’m calling it:

One Window, One Visit, One Week.

The Internet. En francais. (Anne’s May Challenge)

Aujourd’hui begins my version of the Pink of Perfection media detox. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to give up–blogs, facebook, the little tv I actually watch–before coming to my conclusion. I just bought my return ticket to the United States (I’ll be in Seattle July 10th in case anyone wants to welcome me back with a much missed chai latte), and my remaining time in France is starting to tick away. There’s still so much I want to see here, and still plenty of room for my French to improve. Instead of wasting time mindlessly clicking through blogs, I’ve decided to make the most of my stay and use only French media for the week.

POP May Challenge

I spend too much time online. Between job searching, travel planning, blog reading, and speculating about the weather (please weather.com, get someone to check up on your toulon forecasts–they are always, always wrong), I find myself wasting whatever extra time I have. Time that could be spent on reading, exercise, drawing, or actually hanging out with friends instead of just scanning them through Facebook. I’m finally prepared to do something about it.

Ironically, my decision to take a web break was inspired by a bit of blog reading. Sarah from the Pink of Perfection has challenged her readers to take a 7 day media fast. The fast can be defined in whatever way works for the participant–one reader will be going without internet, phone, movies, books or music while another will forgo her beloved magazines.

Kyle and I are both going to do our own media fasts. Because we’ll be traveling at the end of this week and including those days in the challenge would be cheating, we’re going to start a week from Tuesday. Stay tuned for details. And visit Sarah’s site to consider jumping on board.

A World Without Music

Adjusting to life without my own computer has required some changes in my music listening habits. Living on someone else’s computer means I can’t fill the hard drive with pirated music. Without my own library of mp3s, finding tunes requires a little more work.  I now have to find a place for jams that is a) streaming and b) (preferably) legal.

This task is complicated by living in France. While there’s been an explosion of legal and free ways to listen to music in the US (like Pandora) and even to watch tv for free, most of these options do not yet have licensing agreements for users in France.

NPR’s site rocks, especially with the new media player, but they usually only put up one track from each artist. Myspace works if you already know the names of the bands you want to listen to and you don’t mind having to open a new page after every 4 songs, but you still have to deal with the obnoxiousness which is the Myspace universe.  

So this morning, I’m rocking out to Daytrotter.

Spoiler Alert: Where I’m Buying You’re Next Christmas Gift

Delight.com is a site I stumbled across while shopping for Anne last Christmas. This store/blog quickly became my favorite site for unique, boutiquey, eco-friendly and design conscious stuff. The first person reviews from their staff add a much needed curatorial voice to the flood of products available on sites like Etsy. I’ve now seen several of the items they sell in real life and I am consistently impressed with their quality. And their prices are surprisingly reasonable for the kind of products they sell. It’s Design Within Reach except it’s actually within reach.

The list of people receiving gifts from me this year might be rather low (you know, like the balance in my checking account) .  However, it’s safe to say, if you are getting a gift from me this year, it’s probably going to come from Delight.com.

Backup Your Computer . . . Right Now!

As some of you may know, here at Forever 22 we are in mourning for the recent death of my laptop. For a while, it was tough to find the strength to go on. Now, I have to waste hours each day wandering around the Internet on somebody else’s computer (thank you, Anne).  Worse yet, that computer is a Mac!

But I refuse to be a mope. I have vowed that every time I find myself brooding about some file from my laptop that is now lost, I will pick myself up and take action.

Envirosax-cess?

I’m sure I’ll experience some culture shock when I return to the United States, but in at least one way, my home country is becoming a little more French. No, the ban on unpasteurized cheese has not been lifted, but, like France, more and more US cities are going the plastic bag-less route. Everyone in Toulon walks around the city with colorful bags of a different sort. Big wicker baskets overflowing with produce from our outdoor market, reusable bags from Carrefour (think France’s answer to K-Mart, but complete with canned duck and 30 kinds of bread), and the utilitarian canvas tote. Customers here do all their own bagging and have for years.

For those of you living in San Francisco, Seattle, or other cities where plastic bags are taxed or unavailable, let me recommend Envirosax . If you live elsewhere, these might just inspire you to go plastic free on your own.

Quinoa- Not Just for Space Travel Anymore

Anne and I have been keeping Passover while living in the land of bread, so we’ve had to get a little creative in our kitchen. We tend to eat a lot of pasta which is definitely not kosher for Passover.  Yes, we have been eating rice (already a controversial Passover food), but a little variety is nice. Our search for a pinch hitting starch led us to try quinoa.

I have no idea whether it’s really Kosher for passover.  Wikipedia says it’s the seed from a leafy green. That sounds pretty unleven to me.  But botany and religion aside, quinoa was a big hit around here.

. . . And We’re Back

After a little sabbatical, Anne and I are returning to our blogging ways.

I’ve joined Anne in France. Despite the death of my laptop and the back breaking schedule of Anne’s French work week (nearly 30 hours!), our irrepressible desire to blog has reemerged. We’ve got a few more months here before we move back to the US (post-college life 2.0) and it’s time to do some typing. 

Or maybe we’ll just post links to websites we like.  But at any rate, more posts coming soon.

Selling Yourself

Perhaps it’s time to admit it–neither of the Forever22-er’s are writing from our beloved Brooklyn any longer. We’ve both taken advantage of the post-college, pre-everything else’s sense of freedom and set off on our own adventures. I’ve been wanting to write here for a while now, but moving to a different country, finding an apartment, and starting a new job, all in the French I haven’t used since graduation, has been stressful and hectic to say the least.

But now that I’m feeling more settled and in the midst of one of my seven weeks of paid vacation (yay France), I thought I would finally get out an entry. Even though I’m so far away from where I wrote before, I think some of the challenges I’m facing here (tiny apartment, tiny salary) are still applicable to the blog. I may be working with Euros, but we’ve still got a lot in common.