vendredi 25 janvier 2008

J'ai Mal!

So, today is the day! Here in less than nine hours I will be on a plane making my way to France! Exciting? Yes! Scary? Yes!

People keep asking me over and over if I am excited about leaving. Of course I say yes, but that is only one side of a double edged sword. The other side is the side that reminds me of what and who I will be leaving behind. First of all, I will really miss my family! Over these past five weeks that I have spent in Amarillo, I have truly become used to having them around! I know that the second I say goodbye at the airport my mom will start to cry. I know she’s used to not having me home, but me being on another continent has got to be one of the scariest things ever for her! I’ve already said goodbye to all of my friends in Amarillo and at Baylor. They too will be truly missed as I try to make new friends who don’t even speak the same native language as I. I will also miss Baylor itself as our Men and Women’s Basketball teams have been doing so well this season and I am not home to be a part of the excitement.

This has been a crazy experience so far and it hasn’t even started! As I have already mentioned the things that I will miss in this post and my previous post, I have to admit that I am very happy to be getting to go! What an opportunity! I have made many people jealous as I talk about the exciting things that will be coming my way! Even though I will be missing so much, I will also be gaining so much! I will have new experiences that will forever change me as a person! This is the edge of the sword that assures me that I am doing the right thing!

As both of these feelings (excited and scared) mix inside of me, I must say that I’m feeling a bit nauseous! I couldn’t eat any hot sauce tonight at dinner with my family at On the Boarder because it made me feel like my throat was on fire! I have also been subject to something that happens every time my stomach gets upset: gas. This unpleasant occurrence makes me want to warn all of the poor chumps that must sit near me on the eight hour flight from Chicago to Paris!

jeudi 24 janvier 2008

Thangs ain't gonna be tha same!

My computer says that I have one day until departure. I don't know if I believe it or not! I guess I'll find out in one day! My things are just about ready to be consolidated and packed into some NASA™ Space Bags®. I’ll be ready, but I don’t know if France will be ready for me. Before I leave I have to say goodbye to a few friends that I have become so close to over the past few years. The first one is my good friend sweet tea. She was introduced to me in mass quantities when I moved to Central Texas to attend Baylor. When I get to France I will have to make friends with something they call tea. Actually they call it thé, but I call it hot brown water. I will also have to say goodbye to my friend Ruby. Ruby is the name of my Xterra. She will be all alone when I leave for France, and won’t have me to sit in her and listed to really good music while singing really well! I will also be bidding adieu to English. This one I’m not too sad to see go, but I will probably miss her when I’m at a loss for words and have no way of expressing myself!

Ready or not, here I come! Lord willing and the creak don’t rise!

mercredi 23 janvier 2008

La Puissance de la Prière!

We're a go! So far that is! If you've read my last post, you know that I was freaking out about a zit that I have named Odysseus.

Monday morning when I tried to call my dermatologist and make an appointment, I discovered that I wouldn’t be able to see her until February 13th! Obviously this would not be ok, so I called my family physician only to receive a busy signal. I called back numerous times only to receive the same response. As I was sitting in my computer room at home freaking out that I would never make it to France because an infection would take over my face, I just prayed. As soon as I did, I called back my family physician and the call actually went through. When the lady answered the phone I asked if there were any appointments open for that day. She told me that they were full because they are only open for half of the day on Mondays. I recognized the voice as the wife of my physician (friends of our family) and said, “Donna? This is Cole Casper.” She said, “Oh hi Cole! What’s the problem?” I told her my situation and then asked if she had any appointments open for Tuesday. She then asked me how quick I could make it to the office and scheduled me in as the last patient of the day. I couldn’t get to the office quick enough! When I got there, my doctor diagnosed Odysseus (not actually a zit) with some form of staph or strep infection that required death by antibiotic. He prescribed me with the medication and things have finally cleared up!

That same day I was also concerned that I would never get a new laptop to replace my old laptop that had become antiquated. I found the laptop that I needed, but Best Buy wasn’t guaranteed to get it in until next week and nobody else in town had it in stock. However, that evening my dad decided to stop by Best Buy one more time to check and they told us to come in later on that evening. Sure enough, the truck that brought in the next shipment had the laptop I needed! Praise the Lord!

So, I am now sitting at my new laptop typing this message to you with a nose that no longer resembles Bozo! And people think that praying is stupid!

lundi 21 janvier 2008

À Cause du Bouton

If you have spoken very much with me about this séjour to France, you might have heard me say, “I won’t believe it until I’m on the plane and over the ocean!”; however, as the fly-out date became closer and closer, I found myself believing even though I have yet to see the plane that will take me to glory. BUT WAIT!, this may sound stupid, so be prepared to laugh so hard you might cry, I have recently developed un bouton. If you’re reading this and you speak French you might already be laughing. If not, please allow me to explain to all of the Anglophones that un bouton is a zit. That’s right; Cole is scared of a zit! But not just any zit! This zit, not unlike me, enjoys traveling. Because zit is such an awkward word let’s call him Odysseus (which comes from the Greek word οδυσσομαι (odyssomai) "to hate", in this case, “to hate me”). Odysseus started out one day on the outer wall of the left nostril in the head of yours truly. Just when I decided that he had had enough fun and had moved on to bigger and better things, he had. Bigger indeed, but not better for me! Odysseus decided that the outer wall was a bit to risqué, so he decided to move his family of haters to the inner wall of the left nostril. There he established residence, created a nice large red bump on the outside of the nostril to show the Jones that he knew how to live it up, and became infecté. I am now the proud sponsor of an un bouton infecté that might take over my brain and keep me from ever seeing la belle France! I can just see the headlines now, “BAYLOR STUDENT NEVER MAKES IT TO FRANCE! ZIT TO BLAME!”

If any of you are still reading this and aren’t too grossed out to sympathize, please pray that God will kill Odysseus and allow me to see the ocean before I end up on an operating table in good ole’ Amarillo, listening to doctors giving orders to one another IN ENGLISH!