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  1. Taking Chances

    April 11, 2012 by Audrey

    No, this post is not related to Celine Dion‘s eponymous album (how amazed are you that I actually know that there’s one). Forgive me, Celine, but I prefer getting started with quoting Henry Miller.

    All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

    In my thirty-something years of existence, I took a lot of professional chances: jobs abroad, creating a business, or simply choosing the path of marketing and communication when my parents wanted me to have a tourism degree (we lived on the French Riviera, if you want a job there, you need to work for the tourism industry).

    I leaped in the dark when took a job as a dance instructor for Club Med at 28, I leaped in the dark when I moved to Philadelphia at 30, I leaped in the dark when I created Raison d’Etre, my marketing consulting firm… and once again, I leaped in the dark, a couple of weeks ago, when I sat in this plane, coming back to France. Did all my leaps take me upward? The answer is YES. From each one of them I learned something, I developed a network of friends, new skills, new experiences. From each one of them I grew stronger, faster, wiser.

    So you would think I’m the kind of person who makes “taking chances” a motto in her life, wouldn’t you?

    In theory, yes.

    In practice, did I always take chances when the opportunity knocked? Not really. I’m good at taking chances in my professional life. I’m confident that in the eventuality of a fall, I will rebound higher. The chances I took in my personal life did not feel the same. I took some. I fell. I didn’t rebound very high at all. Chance after chance, I kept on going downward, more jaded, more bitter, building higher and stronger walls with each ending story.

    It makes me wonder: have chances a better chance when there is a layer of control? Or is it cheating when you know there is an exit sign somewhere? Do “taking chances” and “calculating risk” work together or cancel each other out?

    Today, I’m working on letting go of my fears, breaking those walls and welcoming new chances into my personal life. It’s a harder job than it sounds. So I turned the words of Confucius into a new mantra:

    Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

  2. The Bachelorette Project | Week 2

    April 9, 2012 by Audrey

    I will pass on the recap of previous episodes… You can catch them here:

     

    Week 2 started with still so many profiles to study, chat with, that I felt a little overwhelmed and decided to concentrate my attention on one of them only (not discounting the other ones but generally being slower in my responses). Gran turned out to be the one who caught my attention and we emailed back and forth all week long. He seems like a nice guy and made the cut to another week. But I still feel like I should open my horizons and communicate more with other “candidates”.

    I will mention that he’s jobless and, even if I’m trying to be open-minded, that does not give him points… I have had my share of supporting jobless boyfriends and I’m not sure I’m ready for one more round of that. Yes, gentlemen, despite what a girl will tell you, having a job matters.

    The cut of 2 guys was not terribly difficult, I picked from the ones that did not react to my first sign of attention: Romain, whom despite being extremely attractive had not been online for over 3 weeks and Fan, whom did not give me any sign of interest and was not among my favorites from the beginning.

    16 guys left and a lot more emails written to different people in the week to come.

    1. loic, 37 years old
    2. scuba, 33 years old
    3. art, 37 years old
    4. virgil, 37 years old
    5. phoenix, 42 years old
    6. aldo, 37 years old
    7. ted, 36 years old
    8. gran, 34 years old
    9. stef, 38 years old
    10. phil, 36 years old
    11. elf, 36 years old
    12. pierre, 37 years old
    13. james, 42 years old
    14. horus, 40 years old
    15. cal, 34 years old
    16. olivier, 39 years old

     

    Serious cut next week, I’m going down to 12…

    Category Romance | Tags: , , | No Comments

  3. The art of writing | Part 2

    April 7, 2012 by Audrey

    I made a vow, back in January, to write more cards… It was about time to comply.

    When I decided to move back to France, I was confident that thanks to today’s technology, I would keep in touch with my American friends pretty much the same way that I did while I was there. After all, we have Facebook to keep in touch with each others’ lives, we have emails to give news on a regular basis, we even have iMessages to chat about in the moment adventures (granted the time zones are in our favor).

    I joked once to a friend: “We’re so lucky, what did we do before telephone & internet?” What we did: we wrote.

    When I celebrated my departure a couple of weeks ago, my (lovely) friends, came armed with gifts and cards… It was my duty to properly thank them, and the least I could do was to pen a few thank you cards. Because of how crazy things were before I left, those cards had to wait for me to settle-down here and find a little bit of time. But what I did not realize until I did that was:

    • I did not even have a physical address for most of my friends. Since we started hanging out on the “Inter Web”, did we forget that people live in actually houses, somewhere? Addresses can be so poetic… I always wanted to live in Loveland, CO, just to be able to get mail there.
    • I enjoyed the feeling of the ink on the paper. Granted it was a ball pen and a simple white card. But the silence of it was nicer than the clic-clic of my keyboard.
    • Writing those few cards gave me a stronger feeling of accomplishment (when I dropped them in the mailbox) than sending all the emails in the world.

     

    Exercise was conclusive. There will be more cards written in my future.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: , , | No Comments

  4. Color me Red… and every other color…

    April 4, 2012 by Audrey

    Yesterday I found myself in the Monoprix on Rue de la Republique, downtown Lyon: four stories of goodness. I have always been a fan of Monop’, it’s basically a small supermarket (combining food, health & beauty, fashion and home good) but always had a hyper-feminine edge to it. It’s the center-city girls go-to place for pretty much everything.

    So, as I was hanging out in Lyon’s Presqu’ile (center city), I walked in the Monoprix and made a B-line to the make-up department, or shall I say, the nail polish aisle. I think I’m developing a new obsession…

    I never was very creative with my nails. I think I must have owned a couple pinkish-nude colors and maybe a dark red. For years, my biggest finger nail experience might have been purple one fall… I don’t know what is possessing me lately. I’m not so much into nail art and all those crazy designs, but I have to say, it seems that my thirst for color is bottomless.

    In frosty January I bought “Cocktail Bling” (first from the left), that was the beginning of my Essie addiction and since that I didn’t stop. “Size Matters” (fourth from the left) joined my new nail polish shelf, quickly followed by “Funny Face” (third from the left) in March, when Spring started calling for bright colors, and that I can’t wear without thinking of my friend V.

    So yesterday, couldn’t leave Monop without an April shade… I went with “To buy or not to buy” (second one from the left) because it will look very classy with my new dark navy blue dress, and because nail polish will probably be the only thing I will give in to the spring pastel trend.

    What is your favorite nail polish color? Which is the craziest you tried?

    Category Looking pretty | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

  5. The Bachelorette Project | Week 1

    April 2, 2012 by Audrey

    I will pass on the recap of previous episodes… You can catch them here:

    It all begins…

    We now officially entered Week 1 and my goal was to make a first sort through my “candidates” and bring them from 25 to 18… At this point, I haven’t contacted anyone yet. The first week is dedicated to give a more in-depth read to the guys’ profiles and try to read through the lines; understand what they care for, what they’re there for, and… if I correspond to what they’re looking for.

    Because, let’s be honest here, I’m not perfect. And I set my age range pretty wide (I have a thing for “younger men”, can’t help it…) But if I know I don’t look my age, I also know, for some people, it’s a big deal… So, why go after someone who is looking for a girl between 25-30 years old?

    My selection ended-up following a couple of criteria:

    • Date of last login to the site (if they haven’t been there in 3-month, they’re probably no longer looking, right?): chris & znite are out.
    • Age range they’re looking for is under 35 years old: exit nico, casi, aah, lao & man.

    The 18 remaining guys will received a “flash” (the equivalent of a wink)…

    1. loic, 37 years old
    2. scuba, 33 years old
    3. art, 37 years old
    4. virgil, 37 years old
    5. phoenix, 42 years old
    6. aldo, 37 years old
    7. ted, 36 years old
    8. gran, 34 years old
    9. stef, 38 years old
    10. phil, 36 years old
    11. fan, 35 years old
    12. elf, 36 years old
    13. romain, 36 years old
    14. pierre, 37 years old
    15. james, 42 years old
    16. horus, 40 years old
    17. cal, 34 years old
    18. olivier, 39 years old

    This coming week will be about making contacts… and kicking 2 more out of the selection… Things are really starting now… Fun…

    Category Romance | Tags: , , , | No Comments

  6. First impressions

    April 1, 2012 by Audrey

    Sunday morning wandering at an Old Car show

    It’s Sunday afternoon, here in Lyon. The sun is shining. I’m comfortably set-up on my (king size) bed, on the second floor of my grandmother’s house… I’m officially moved back. I sometimes have to say it out loud because it still hasn’t completely sunk in…

    The flight to Lyon (via London) was a breeze. British Airways is a pretty good company to flight. When they don’t lose your luggage… Which this time, they didn’t. Couldn’t believe how easy it was to go through customs once in Lyon. The immigration agent barely looked at my passport and there was NO ONE inspecting luggage. It took me about 10 minutes from getting off the plane to meeting up with my uncle. What a change from PHL. France gets points.

    My first order of business was to get my cell-phone set-up and internet installed at my grandmother’s. There, I ended-up being able to exchange my iPhone 4S for a brand new iPhone 4S (the US one was locked), and get a bunch of goodies with it. New phone cost: $0. Total monthly bill for cable TV + landline (with pretty much all possible calls included) + Internet WiFi + cell phone (lots of call time, unlimited text, unlimited internet): $110 (half of what I paid if you add Comcast & AT&T). France gets points.

    Saturday night, I was invited for a dinner party at a friend’s house: home-made pizza, wine, and conversations on the value of symbolism. Total cost $17 for the bottle of St Joseph I brought. Excellent time catching up with friends, and brain stimulating conversations. France gets points.

    Now, I had to go to my grandmother’s car insurance to get registered on her car insurance (until I get my own)… We were missing a paper and I suggested that I could email it. The girl’s response left me speechless: “We don’t have email here.” U.S. gets points.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

  7. The Bachelorette Project | It all begins…

    March 27, 2012 by Audrey

    I have been single now for almost a year and, after the “grieving” period, I found out that I might be moving back to France: not the best to start a new relationship. So, I stayed out of the dating scene and concentrated on my business and myself. It was a very nice time-off.
    As I’m now going to be back in France for a while, I decided to take the plunge again, but this time, to conduct my own personal social experiment at the same time. I’m not a big fan of online dating, but I know my French entourage is mostly consisting of couples, so I convinced myself I had to go through it for a few month, at least to kick things off and start meeting new people. To take the boring (and the pressure) off of it, I decided to pilot my online dating adventure according to the rules of The Bachelorette. After all, if there’s something positive to take from that terrible TV show it’s the fact that, for once, the girl is in control of the situation.

    My rules: start with 25 (unknowing) candidates and eliminate them week after week, rose-ceremony style (without the rose and the ball gowns)! I have no expectation to finish the 12-week commitment with a guy on one knee but I’m sure I can have some fun with it… And… I promise a full report, on a weekly basis. Think about it as a front seat lesson on what women really look at, look for and look to when dating on & off line.

    My first duty was to sign-up for the local equivalent of Match.com: Meetic.fr and to select the 25 guys that I will be contacting along the way. Because I’m creating my own rules (best game ever), I decided to limit my criteria to first impression.

    First impression means: attractiveness of the main profile picture and catchiness of the first lines of the profile description. I’m not going to lie, as shallow as it might sound, if your profile picture is not catching my attention, you can be the most interesting, nicest guy in the world, I won’t even know it. As I’m writing that, I’m realizing how cruel and how sad it is; but let’s be real. Online dating starts with good marketing and there are plenty of tools out there to give your profile picture the little extra boost that will make a girl’s eyes stop.

    So, here are my candidates and why I picked each one of them

    1. chris, 36 years old – dark hair, cute lips
    2. loic, 37 years old – funny face, looks like he could fun to hang out with
    3. znite, 30 years old – great smile
    4. nico, 35 years old – looks a little dorky but in a good way and has really great hair (my friend A. would approve)
    5. scuba, 33 years old – boy next door look, cute overall
    6. lao, 34 years old – I guess he reminds me of a friend of mine on whom I had a crush many moons ago…
    7. art, 37 years old – great eyes, total dork
    8. virgil, 37 years old – quoting my favorite Rudyard Kipling poem is definitely a plus…
    9. casi, 33 years old – fun profile picture with design background; we could get along
    10. aah, 36 years old – picture expresses some attitude and already makes me smile
    11. phoenix, 42 years old – overall good looks, age appropriate
    12. aldo, 37 years old – sexy picture without being too much “in your face”
    13. man, 38 years old – black & white makes him look sensitive, but I might be surprised
    14. ted, 36 years old – another boy next door with good hair
    15. gran, 34 years old – seems simple and direct. I like that.
    16. stef, 38 years old – looks mean but really smart (extended vocabulary compared to your average profile)
    17. phil, 36 years old – I want to say he’s a romantic, again, I might be surprised.
    18. fan, 35 years old – interesting enough tagline made me disregard the not-so-good pictures
    19. elf, 36 years old – very interesting facial features. I have a feeling he’s an artist.
    20. romain, 36 years old – definitely my type, no hesitation, this one could be trouble
    21. pierre, 37 years old – pretty blue eyes which is not generally something I look for
    22. james, 42 years old – inspires stability
    23. horus, 40 years old – combines good picture and good words. Safe but interesting.
    24. cal, 34 years old – cute enough and looks like a good time
    25. olivier, 39 years old – another boy next door

     

    Again, I have only judge them on first impressions, not read their profile, and they are unknowing participants in that game, so chance are I’m not their style at all… The goal of this week is to study them in more depth and select 18 that I will send a “flash” to, as a way to show my interest… To be continued…

    Category Romance | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

  8. Ready, set, travel!

    March 23, 2012 by Audrey

    Earlier this week I was telling you all about my 10 dream (next?) destinations… I’m dead serious about it. And to prove how serious I am, what better than start planning for each one of them.

    So, alright, I don’t have my travel companions yet, or even the money to buy any ticket, or the slightest idea of when I will feel comfortable to stop my new beginnings in Lyon and head out to the world (that would be sooner rather than later though…)

    But what I know is that the best way to see something happening is to make it happen. And the best way to make it happen is to make… A LIST! Looking at trip planning, researching prices, establishing budgets, working on itineraries… all of that, to me, is part of the thrill of traveling and allows a little mental vacay while still being stuck behind the laptop.

    The first thing to do is to pick your travel theme. What type of trip are you envisioning? Romantic escapade? Girls shopping spree? Solitary retreat? You want to make sure that everyone is on board with the theme and that there will be no unsatisfied expectations. Then get your group together and pick your time-frame and your destination.

    Enters the funnest part: online research (oh I’m such a geek, I know…) google away your destination, browse travel photos, journals and videos posted by real people sharing their experiences (hello Pinterest boards!);  and make lists: places to visit, restaurants or hotels that have been recommended… Crowd-source your connections: is there anyone in your friends and/or professional entourage who knows someone who knows someone in this country/city? Chances are the locals will be happy to, at least, make recommendations, at best give you a tour, introduce you to other people and give you an experience that you would never have with a travel agency or a pre-packaged trip.

    We live in the world of web 2.0 – what a wonderful thing.

    Now for the details (you want to be somewhat prepared – don’t overdo it, leave some room for spontaneity and what life might throw at you), here’s a sample of what’s on my travel-preparation list:

    • Activities list: the DO NOT MISS while you’re there.
    • Reservations: transportation, lodging, emergency contacts, local contacts, travel party.
    • Packing list: clothes, toiletries, gadgets.

     

    How do you get ready for your trips? Do you have any go-to websites to help you organizing? What do you like most about the pre-travel phase? 

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: , , , | No Comments

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