PLEASE READ

Well, I was lucky enough to have my Facebook AND my e-mail accounts both hacked, so my new Facebook has the word "new" after my last name, and if it doesn't show that, look at the profile and you will know by the posts. Second, my new e-mail address is tanner.kok@gmail.com. Please contact me ONLY with these, and not the old ones, because I can NOT access them at all. Hope to hear from you all soon!

For the Future

This post is being created to remind myself, someday in the far off future when I look back at this, of the little things I experience here in Paris on a daily basis.

To get a grasp on the current tone and setting, I’m in Mimi’s office working on my laptop, because the Community Theater group is practicing in the living room. The windows might be closed, but I could swear the piano is in the same room, but lucky for me, they aren’t half bad actually. The quirky daily comings and goings of people in “Maison de Mimi” keeps me entertained, and constantly reminds me that there are always going to be people who start talking to me a million miles an hour, and ten minutes later, realize me saying “oui” was me actually trying to comprehend and materialize answers without creating the image that I was as truly dumbfounded as I really was. Regardless, the French is truly becoming much easier to speak, thanks to Chloe and Mimi. It’s interesting how 3 months here, with French classes and slight public interaction with the language taught me how to barely get by, usually, but living in a house with Parisians for 3 weeks boosted my knowledge and understanding to a much more conversational level. Who knows what level I’ll be at by the time I leave. For a firmer grasp on the weather, it’s been somewhat like Tulsa, ironically. I thought I was moving away from unpredictable weather and heat, but in the past 4 weeks, it has been up to 90 degrees and sunny, and gone down to 45 degrees, and raining. Today it is a perfect happy medium at 72 degrees and cloudy, and thank goodness, because it’s nice to be able to go into my bedroom from 9am to 9pm without breaking a sweat. It’s quite amazing how cool the house stays, even when it’s 90 degrees. The windows all being open and the breeze blowing through, with much less humidity by the way, apparently cools it down considerably. Now if only I could somehow coax that air up into my 3^rd level chamber room. With 3 weeks left of school, and the anticipation of Christine coming just days after graduation, I’ve got a lot to look forward to. Not only does the school term end with a nice trip to Pay Basque, but upon coming home I’ll have a best friend soon coming to spend 3 weeks here, and hopefully in other parts of Europe. To make it all even better, the internship at Le Meurice begins the 19^th of July, right after Christine leaves, so fortunately my schedule is finally starting to look a little more filled up. Just to humor myself, I want to have something to look back at and see what my hopes and aspirations were and how they have or have not changed. Currently, I would like to move back to Tulsa around November or December, and I would like to work full time in a bakery or restaurant, and preferably live in an apartment with a friend. For a few years I would like to build up some contacts, funds, and plans. I imagine in that time I would like to take a few courses in small business ownership, café practices, becoming a Barista master, and of course looking into a few categories of the baking and sweets realm that I haven’t covered yet. Following, I would like to either look into opening a café and bake shop, or something similar. The location, of course, is completely unknown and undecided. Of course this vision will change, just like it has changed over the years. Yes, granted I have always loved baking, and going to a Business college for one semester merely clarified my jumbled aspirations for the future, having decided after only one month that I wanted to do something I really loved, baking. What is to come is entirely out of my mental capacity currently, but things will work out the way they are meant to, even if it means doing something as drastic as moving across the ocean or taking the biggest risks of my financial life.