My job ADD continues!

You know how I'm always changing my mind about what I want to do in my future??

Well, I think I'm sort of figuring it out.

After my mini-lecture this morning, I'm getting super jazzed about the possibility of teaching/doing research at the university level. Teaching in elementary school was neat and all, especially in France, but I'm 100 percent sure it's nor for me.

And all day I've been researching post-doctoral programs online, and I'm pretty sure I've picked something that seems extremely interesting. (Warning, I may change my mind in three days on this). UC Irvine has a pretty quality-looking comparative literature program and it's kind of sweet because UCI was in my top three when I made my final decision to go to college based on my acceptance letters.

The program requires competency in two foreign languages -- hi excuse to study another language! -- and actually is more of an interdisciplinary study than anything else really. You can opt to do translation, comparing literature in different languages, MEDIA, etc. All subjects I've studied/tampered with at some point or another.

And the best part.... nearly all students can receive some sort of fellowship, tuition remission, or TAship. (Or simultaneously work in athletics???)

On verra!

P.S. I've been doing really well with the gym lately! I'm making myself get all my homework (essentially reading/research) assignments done a little early - unlike my undergraduate years! - so that I have nothing but free time when I finish work. Though that's getting later and later. Anyways, this leaves a good chunk of time for me to hit up the gym, and yesterday I forced 5 miles out of myself and ran 4 today.

It's looking good! I feel good too, so this shall continue for a while.

Where'd Monique go?

I know, I know.... sorry I haven't been posting much (Mom).

Life is getting pretty busy, what with grad school, fall and winter sports starting up and weekend tournaments/games! I've been working, going to class, eating and exercising. That's about it.

But I do get to do a mini lecture presentation to Prof. Schroeder's undergrad sports marketing class tomorrow, as one of my first big projects for his graduate-level sports marketing class. I'm kind of looking forward to it! But this is actually a neat indicator for me, because I'm still tossing around the idea of one day getting a Ph.D. and lecturing/researching at the university level. Who knows if it'd be in sport sciences, French or English lit. All sound equally exciting. Though, if I found a way to get my master's education completely funded, I'm not even thinking about post-doctoral unless I can pull off the same deal again.

Oh and, I get to travel on the team bus this weekend for my first away game road trip! The women's volleyball team is traveling to UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly. So I get to go back to my alma mater and do my first radio broadcast of the year! Can't wait, we leave on Thursday. So don't expect any updates on my end anytime this weekend, I'm warning you in advance.

(Click on the UCSB "listen live" link if you wanna hear me on Friday and Saturday!)

I'm getting the itch again!

Well, after the family wedding extravaganza weekend I can say that I'm back in French-speaking mode. For two straight days I found four different people who wanted to hear me speak French (because they all are native speakers).It was fun and is making me nostalgic again! But I think I keep realizing, I don't necessarily want to live in France all alone. I'd like to travel with people I know and enjoy all the world has to offer, while still coming back to California from time to time!

So this is where my revalation kicked in: My six trips to and from California/France over the past three years has racked up quite a few skymiles with Delta.

So I'm doing some research and trying to decide where I'd tentatively lik

e to go over Christmas break (maybe after Christmas until New Years-ish?).

Anyone wanna join me in .... ____________???

Haiti:

Martinique:

Costa Rica:

Brazil:

I would travel to any of these destinations in a heartbeat! So I think before I travel back to France again, I'm making it my goal to have already seen these four locations!

Hunt for the post-season

I find it very interesting that every geographical division in Major League Baseball is separated along the same lines.

For example, with only one month to go (though this could all change before then), the Chicago Cubs are sitting in first place in the National League Central Division. Their counterparts in the American League Central? How about the Chicago White Sox.

The Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim [f-ers, I still hate this classification]) have already secured a post-season berth in the AL West Division, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are not too far behind in the NL West.

But here's where things get a bit hairy. The New York Mets are in solid shape to take first place in the NL East, but the New York Yankees might actually miss out on their first post-season in as long as anyone can remember. Though, the Yanks are still in third and only a few games out of the Wild Card race.... so as much as I hate to say it, they could still make it.

But tied for first are the Boston Red Sox. Even though the Yankees-Red Sox rivarly is one of the biggest in sport, they're pretty much in a very similar geographical location.

...And I haven't watched a baseball game since before the Olympics. Maybe even the All-Star break. See how much I care?

It's about dang time!

After two years of inactivity, I'm now back in the softball world.

I joined a team with other members of our athletics staff (think, assistant coaches and alumni players) and our first game is on Tuesday.

I'm so excited and ready to get back into "semi-competitive" softball, and I've brought all my old gear (along with some new stuff) back to Stockton in preparation for what's to come.

...hopefully I'm not too rusty!

C'est le moment de vous prendre le mur

"Now's the time for you to face the wall."

Those were probably my eight favorite words when I was living in France. I'm talking about the bizarely amazing show, Le Mur Infernal. Almost as good as French Wheel of Fortune.

Anyways, a bunch of my coworkers were talking over this new Fox show earlier at work, and I thought their conversation sounded vaguely familiar. Then I realized, LE MUR INFERNAL has come to America! And my mom reminded me about it tonight. So I got to watch it for myself.

Except it's called Hole in the Wall here. And "It's time for you to face the hole," just sounds a bit more raunchy than the French version. Yikes.

Either way, they've kept most of the game intact, minus the hideously amazing French host. So watch the show for yourself. And for those of you who haven't yet been blessed by the French host, here's a little visual treat for you all. C'est parti:

Newest Design

It's still a work in progress, but here's my mental canvas (digitally realized).

Now I just need to figure out where it's going to go (and which font I like better)....

Well, this is a surprise

Ok, I'm guilty. I completely ripped this off of Kari's blog post today. Hey, imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

It's either that, or I must be desperate to avoid doing any of my grad research and homework right now!

So today's post pertains to the world profiler, depicting the largest areas of frequency in last names worldwide.

And what do you know, Moyal is a French name. I know my family is Francophone, but I wasn't aware that the largest population of people presumably related to me lives in France. Most of my dad's side has come from either France or Morocco, many of which have also immigrated to Canada.


Well, France won with a 5.97 frequency per million. Next was Canada with 5.5 FPM, followed by Switzerland's 3.83, India's 2.42 and the United States has 0.51 Moyals per million habitants.

Interesting.

Look a little farther down the site and you'll see the top regions and cities populated by Moyals.


As a region, Québec leads all areas with a 39.47 FPM. Next is Ile-de-France (the greater Paris metropolitan area) with 22.32, and many distant relatives. But this one is the most exciting, the PACA region of France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur) where I've studied abroad and taught is the No. 4 most populous region for the Moyal surname, at 10.36 per million. I know for a fact I've got family down there, as I've visited quite a few times. Though you could make the case that they all have different last names than I do, but I'm sure I'm related to more people in the French Riviera than I am aware of.

As far as cities are concerned, four of the top five cities with the heaviest Moyal population are in the United States.

And No. 5 is in the Bay Area.

Shocking.

Well, Google does pretty much runs my life

With the launch of Google's new Internet browser this afternoon, I remembered a video some friends and I watched back in 2005 predicting the next 10 years of Google and the Internet's future.

It was actually made in 2004, so keep that in mind when the video runs through the 2004-present "predictions." A lot of them are eerily similar to what technologies have actually emerged...