THE PARIS LETTER: A sort of long letter about the job hunt, plus some phonetics

Hello everyone -

Matt's parents were in town this week, so I didn't have time to write the post last Sunday, but I'm BACK today with a few more Parisian updates.

After several months of rev-ving the job search engine like an old car on a winter morning, it seems like it's coughed to life a little bit and I'm starting to take more meetings and even work a little bit - At the same time, I feel like I'm trying to start about 6 different businesses at once. My general look-for-work philosophy has been to knock on every door and try every angle, and then see what ultimately works out, but that often results in a middle period -like right now- where you are kind of going down several different paths and not sure what will ultimately happen.

For my own sanity, I will try to outline for all of you all the different things that are happening - this might help me keep them straight, actually. Then we can do an AMERICAN IDOL type voting and you can tell me which things you think sound the best:

THE PARIS LETTER: Fancy Parties and Rude Parisians

Hello All:

It is a gorgeous day in Paris today - Sunny, with bright blue clear skies, reminding us all that spring may actually be on it's way - and that Matt and I have been here for almost 6 months now -

UNESCO Globe and Eiffel Tower

This week was particularly event filled because a friend of Matt's parents, Jill Banfield, was North American winner of thethe L'Oreal Women in Science Award, and was in Paris all week to receive it. The Award is presented jointly by L'Oreal and UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which is based in Paris. This meant we went to not just one but TWO fancy events this week - a cocktail party at the US Ambassador's residence, and the Awards Ceremony at the UNESCO Headquarters. We met a bunch of young State Department employees at these events, which was pretty cool - a whole new contingent of Americans in Paris. In addition, for this week's funny story, I will tell you about my continuing attempts to defend myself in the big city using my limited French - with decidedly mixed results.