A Tale of Terror in Tours

For maximum effect, this tale of terror will be told as a stream of consciousness.

[certain vulgarities have been modified]


Aaah! Thunder! What? We're having a storm? This isn't fair! I just went to bed, like... what time is it? Like, three hours ago! Ughhhhh! I'm going to roll over and try to ignore it.

Okay, all this thunder and lightning is really hard to ignore. Jeez. This is soooooo not fair. I have to get up for school in the morning! In, like... two hours! I need those two hours of sleep! Okay, okay, quit freaking out and try to go back to sleep. It's just a little noise. And some light. You're not five years old anymore. You can handle a storm.

AAAAAAAH! Okay, that was really loud. I'm allowed to freak out over that one.

Is that... hail?

Yeah, that's hail, all right. Wow. Been a while since I've been in a hail storm. I guess that's kind of cool. I mean, if we have to have a storm, might as well have an interesting one, right?

WHAT WAS THAT?

Oh, okay. Okay. It's okay. I guess some hail just fell down the chimney. The fireplace is blocked off-- it can't get in. I'm okay.

I think the hail's getting--

The hail is definitely getting worse. Holy cow. Oh my goodness. It sounds huge. And-- whoa. Whoa, it's really coming down! Oh, dang. Oh, this isn't good. It's all over the roof now! What is it, three inches thick? And it keeps coming down the chimney. And jeez, listen to it crash into the window! What if the window breaks? Okay, that's probably not likely. I don't think a hail storm would normally break your average window... But... But just listen to it! It's gonna break! I think it's actually gonna break! It's gonna shatter and send thick shards of glass shooting all over the room! It's gonna kill me! I gotta do something!

I gotta do something! But-- what?!

Okay. Tornado mode. Just pretend like it's a tornado. Better safe than sorry, right? What do we do? Get out of bed. Get away from the windows-- into the hallway. Go! Go now! Gogogo! Wait, take these blankets with you! They might come in handy to... I don't know, protect you from something! Ack, can't see, don't have my contacts-- It's okay, it's okay, just go. Going now... Don't break, don't break, don't break... Okay. Get the door open. I have to go to the bathroom. But that's not important right now, just open the door! Okay. Door's open--

AGH. I forgot there's a skylight out here! That's sure to break! I have nowhere to go! I'm screwed! I'm gonna die! Back in the room, back in the room! Shut the door! What do I do now? Nowhere's safe! I'll just... I'll stand here in the corner by the door. It's pretty far from the window, and I've got some protection behind the wardrobe. Aaaaahhhh it's still coming down! It's everywhere! It's like there's an army out there firing on the house and any second now they're gonna break through! And there's nothing I can do except huddle here in the dark with these blankets clutched against my chest and-

Wait. Turn on the light, you dummy.

Wow. That's better. Much better. Still loud, but not nearly as frightening. Actually, I think it's letting up.

Yeah. The hail's stopped. Okay, I'm getting back in bed. This has been a rather unfriendly turn of events, but the window didn't break and maybe I can even get those two hours of sleep. Oh, speaking of the window, I wonder if it's cracked or anything. I'll just pull back the curtain and have a look. Nope, no cracks. But what's that weird orangey light down in the street...?

SOMETHING'S ON FIRE IT'S FIRE OH MY GOSH SOMEONE'S HOUSE IS BURNING DOWN! I can't see it, but I can see the light and it smells funny and what do I do?! I have to wake up everyone else! I have to call the fire department-- How do I report a fire in French?! I have to go make sure the family in the burning house makes it out! Oh! Jeez! I gotta go! Our own house could catch fire at any second! We gotta get out! We gotta--


You know...

Actually...

I think that's the streetlight.




Yeah, that's not a fire. It's a streetlight.






I'm going to bed.

Happy Father's Day!

Since I'm on a different continent and I can't wish my dad a Happy Father's Day! in person, I'll have to make do with a blog post card and (hopefully?) a Skype call sometime today.

There are a ton of people on Facebook right now claiming that their dad is better than mine. They are all LIARS. My dad is awesome!

He worries about me when I'm too dumb to realize I should be worried about myself.

He always livens up a boring day.

He made Captain America a household name without ever showing us a comic or cartoon.

He knows how to harness his crazy power for good.

He's artistic and has super cool projects.

And now that I'm older, when I hear "I'm just a poor boy! Nobody loves me!" coming from some distant corner of the house, I can't help but join in with "He's just a poor boy from a poor family!"

Yeah, my dad is awesome. Pretty much the best dad ever. I love you, Dad! Don't worry- when I get back from Europe, you're getting all kinds of souvenirs!

Random Fact #15

Random Fact #15: I'm really bad at remembering to update my blog sometimes.

Source: Personal Experience, commentary from readers

Note: Sorry, everybody! I'll try to get back to posting more regularly! I've just been busy lately. And a little bit sick. It's all good, though.

Thank you for continuing to check this site even though I'm a bum and I never post anything!

Le Frisbee! Le Frisbee!

The title is, of course, a reference to this blog post and cartoon. Hmmm... Traditional ink and colored pencils versus drawing tablet software. What do you think? Improvement... or not?

At any rate- LOOK! ART WITH EFFORT PUT INTO IT!!!

Last Wednesday some friends and I played a bit of Frisbee in the courtyard at school and then at the park I discovered and wrote about in this blog post. It was lovely. We weren't technically supposed to be on the patch of grass on which we were playing, but it was okay. The gardener just asked politely for us to move.

I really, really love playing Frisbee. In case you couldn't tell from the many other times I've mentioned it on my blog.

Just a few other notes on the blog: I think I may have finally found a coloring tool that I like- watercolor! It works a lot better than the pencil tool for the kind of things I try to draw. I used the roller paint brush for the background (which was going to be more detailed, but I've already spent at least six hours on this one cartoon and enough is enough). I'm also getting closer and closer to getting skin tones right. Yay! Despite my improvement, if I ever go to work for a comic book, it'll be for the writing and not for the drawing, but drawing is still fun!

An Afternoon In Tours

I had a lovely afternoon in Tours yesterday! (And I would have blogged about it yesterday, too, if it weren't for that meddling Wi-Fi and its spotty connection...) After school let out, a few friends and I wandered off in a direction we hadn't taken before and we found a park.

Beautiful, isn't it? I always think of the Madeline books when I see French parks like this.

After the park, we stopped at a grocery store, where I looked for a lint remover and did not find one. However, I did stock up on more Kinder chocolate. Man, I love that stuff. I think it's technically German, but I'm going to continue to eat it here in France and probably in Ireland, too, because it's amazing. Usually I buy the bars (more chocolate for your money) but yesterday I saw some packages of Kinder Surprise. When my family lived in Germany back in the day, these used to be a special treat. They're chocolate eggs with little toys inside and they're outlawed in the U.S. Why? I don't know... I guess we Americans can't handle food with toys inside? (But I saw on the Internet that you can buy knock-off brands in the U.S. now, so maybe we're making progress)

Anyway... Like I said, I usually buy the regular chocolate bars because they're a better deal if you just want to eat delicious chocolate, but these particular boxes of Kinder Surprise offered me Asterix and Obelix toys. How could I refuse? I studied Asterix and Obelix a bit in my various French classes, and while my experience with the comics and films is limited, I am quite fond of them. I caved in and bought the chocolate eggs.

At home, I unwrapped an egg and devoured the chocolate, then eagerly cracked open the yellow plastic container inside. Which toy would I get? Asterix? Obelix? But no- I had picked the egg with the surprise random toy in it. It was a weirdo blue alien with three prongs on its head. I was thoroughly disappointed until I realized that the prongs were little crayons.

But still... I would have to wait another day to open up an Asterix and Obelix toy... or would I? I was in France, after all, and more or less a grownup, so my parents couldn't scold me for my eating habits... And the eggs were hollow and not that big to begin with... Why couldn't I eat two chocolate eggs in one night?

So I did.

And it was Obelix! I greatly approved of the toy, since I find Obelix to be a cool and amusing character. It looks like he's carrying a football (American) or rugby ball, which I don't understand because I haven't seen the film that these toys are promoting.

But then there was just one little egg left in the box all by its lonesome, with perhaps the most marvelous toy of all hidden beneath foil and chocolate...

Yes, okay, I ate that one, too. The toy was very unsatisfying, though. I had to do some serious research to figure out who the character was. As far as I can tell, her name is Ophelia and she's only in the newest film. Okay.

So I have some cool little doodads now! But I think I might have a problem with self-control.

Weekend Excursion (For Real This Time)

Last Saturday I went on an all-day excursion to Mont Saint-Michel and Saint-Malo.

Here's a map of my travels so far in France:

As you can see, I started out in Paris and then took a bus to Tours, where I'll be living for a while. This weekend I went to the locations marked in green and blue (markings are approximate, not exact).

Mont Saint-Michel is a huge bump out in the middle of nowhere.

The main feature is a monastery, but there are other people who work and live there, too. There's one road and only one road, and there are no cars. 

The monastery is really pretty.

You can see pretty far from up on the top of the mountain. Watch out for the quicksand. No, really. There's quicksand. 

Of course the inside is pretty as well.

We saw a man propose to his fiancee in here:

And there were plenty of opportunities for artistic photos.

I look adventurous in this photo.

Sometimes the French are not creative...

...but if the boot fits...

Don't look down!

This angel is kicking butt.

It was extremely windy and I couldn't keep my hair out of my face. I got creative with my scarf.

And now off to Saint-Malo, which is a walled city on the coast. You know that saying-- some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue?

A view of the city's walls and ramparts:

The beach! It was nowhere near warm enough to swim, but we could walk barefoot on the beach without freezing to death.

The fort.

There's me without my shoes.

And there's me being adventurous again.

Gotta represent.

A view from up on the walls.

Some people going out to the island. I hope they got back before the tide came in...

This statue was kinda cool.

And there's my weekend excursion in a nutshell! 

I Went On An Excursion!

I drew that on a moving charter bus. And while falling asleep.

I went on an all-day excursion to Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo today.




...why are you still here? What, you think I'm actually going to blog about something I did in France? Ha! That's a good one.


Okay, okay. I took a ton of pictures and I've put them on my computer, but it's late, so this is all I'm doing tonight. Probably tomorrow I'll post some pictures here for you to see. And I'll probably write some words, too. I like writing words.