...is apparently a new standard that it's suddenly ok for Christians to live by.

Spring break has hit for most of America, and of course, that means pictures are being posted on Facebook. A few tagged albums have showed up in my newsfeed, and I'm a total creeper on Facebook, so when one gallery popped up of a few people on a cruise, I scanned through. I was absolutely appalled. Every single one of them claims to be a Christian. I've even had one of them make comments to me about being a better Christian... the whole "waving the self righteous flag" bit. And somehow, even though each girl claims to have dedicated their lives to Christ and His service, there are multiple pictures of each girl in bikinis. On the cruise ship, on the beach. I'm sure they would justify it by the fact that they technically aren't wearing bikini bottoms, since they have microscopic shorts covering them up. There is one picture where one of the girls is having a sarong tied by a man (presumably the sarong vendor), and his hands are pretty much all over her breasts, since that's where he's tying it. Since WHEN has this been ok?!?

I know it's technically nothing new. Christians have been trying to get away with the most immodesty as possible for who knows how long. I know one person who was completely ok with laying out at a public pool in a bikini, but had straps added to her wedding dress so she'd be more modest. Double standard much? Don't get me wrong. I understand that when you're surrounded by other people in similarly scantly clothing, you're not going to attract much attention. Everyone else is dressed the same way, so it's not like you're necessarily pulling someone's eye. But where in the Bible does it say that you're modest, as long as you're not attracting too much attention? By that standard, it'd be completely acceptable for a Christian to go to a nude beach. After all, if everyone else is naked, your nudity won't pull that much attention, right? Being a Christian isn't about blending in with the world. It's about standing out. And if that means wearing a tank top and shorts over your bathing suit, then just do it. I hate to break it to people, but being sexy or visually appealing just isn't part of what life's all about. I have absolutely no problem with dressing attractively and putting your best foot forward. I try to do that myself. But you can do it in a modest way! I didn't have to be indecent to attract my husband. In fact, I probably could've made a lot more effort to look good than I did. He fell in love with me when I just wore jeans and a teeshirt all the time. Any attention that you get when you're almost naked on a cruise, is not going to be attention worth having.

It's just discouraging to see the decline in spirituality in my generation. I feel like everywhere I look, people are lowering their standards so that they can fit in with the world a little easier. I just wonder if these people have even READ the Bible. Being a Christian isn't about making worship more fun, or being able to go to dances, or wearing tops that expose every possible inch of flesh that you can legally show. It's about putting aside what YOU want in order to serve God more fully. It's about standing out, because you refuse to drop yourself to the world's standards, and live by God's rules instead. It's about being DIFFERENT, holy, set apart... even if that gets you ignored or mocked, or makes you less popular, or even gets you killed. I am not claiming to have perfected this at all, of course. I am a broken, flawed person who is desperately in need of God's grace and salvation. I would be nothing without Him. But I know that because I wear Christ's name, my actions reflect on Him. I feel like these girls who are running around in skimpy bathing suits and clothing are just ignoring the fact that they are the world's Bible. They might be the only Christian that some people ever encounter, and honestly, that thought makes me cringe. If you aren't going to even try to live by the standards that God sets in the Bible, just drop the term "Christian" from your title completely. Don't disgrace His name when the rest of us are trying so hard to even be worthy to wear it.


Home in three months. Can't wait!
Love from France.

It's raining here in St. E. Not that I don't like rain, but I wish that for once, they'd just have an incredible thunderstorm. Is that not possible here or something? I dunno. Jesse's off doing the school thing for now, which means I'm home. Alone. Bored. He gets home in about three hours so I don't have to wait too terribly long. His new class schedule is total stink, though. On Tuesdays, he's gone from around 8 in the morning until around 5 at night. I definitely am not a fan of that at all. He's not too in love with it either. But we shall persevere...only four more months and then we're OUT OF HERE. And in the words of Bilbo Baggins, "I don't expect I shall return. In fact, I mean not to."

Daily life is dragging by here. Our landlord's realtor came by and showed the apartment to some guy yesterday. It always annoys me when they do that, but oh well. The only reason we knew to expect it this time wasn't because our landlord emailed us (because he didn't). It was because the receptionist who works in the office downstairs came running out one day when we were leaving to tell us that it would happen Tuesday at six, and that she wouldn't be here... and then some more things in French which I was actually able to translate properly but don't feel like writing down. Basically, our landlord is not the smartest guy. It was funny when the realtor was showing the guy our closet. She opened one door first, which happened to be the only one that opens properly, now that the water heater is too big. I was thinking, "man, it's lucky she didn't open the other one..." when she reached over and started to open the other one. It slid with a clang into the water heater, and she just played it off like, "Yeah, so, there's the closet!" I was mildly amused, and at the same time wanted her to just get out of our apartment. I'd had a terrible time trying to clean up earlier in the day, preparing for her arrival. I must be getting sick or something, because I was SO tired. I had gone to bed Monday night at about 8:45, woke up at 11:30 on Tuesday, and had to take a nap around 3. I was doing dishes at one point and had to stop and sit down. Other than the tiredness and weird nausea that hits at extremely random times, I don't feel sick. And of course, when I mentioned my symptoms on Facebook, I get a few comments about pregnancy. Lemme just tell you now... if I'm pregnant, it's going to be almost a miracle, and I'm going to be more shocked than anyone else. I don't know, I just think I would KNOW if I was pregnant. And I'm pretty positive I'm not. We're not planning on having kids (intentionally, at least) for at least a couple years while we get our student loans paid off. Babies cost a lot, so we might as well go into the process with as little debt as possible.

Jesse's brothers are supposed to arrive in Paris on March 6th, which is rapidly arriving. Their plane gets in at 8:30 in the morning, which is terrible for us because we're going to have to literally take the first train out of St. Etienne, then to Lyon, and then another three hours to Paris. Jesse and I are supposed to arrive in Paris around 9, after about four hours of travelling...we're going to be incredibly tired. Not as tired as his brothers, though, who will have just gotten off an international, overnight flight. From experience, I can tell you that it doesn't matter if you slept on the plane or not. You are going to be stupidly tired. And while we're all stupidly tired, we get to go tour Paris! With our luggage. Because the hotel check-in time isn't until 2 in the afternoon. Yay. The boys are also flying back to America out of Paris, instead of Lyon, so they get to take the train by themselves out of St. Etienne, to Lyon, and then to Paris. They're big boys, I'm sure they'll figure it out, but we don't have the cash to just run around with them whenever they want to go somewhere. I really wish they were flying into Lyon or something...it would've made things SO much easier on us. The plan so far is that we're arriving in Paris on Saturday, and leaving back for St. E. on Tuesday around noon. (I think.) Jesse has classes that he'll be missing, unfortunately, on Monday and Tuesday. Not sure how that'll work out, but his teachers love him so they'll probably be pretty chill about it. (And I mean seriously...who doesn't love Jesse?) I'm not really that excited about going to Paris, to be honest. I don't like big crowds, and I don't like being in a place where we HAVE to speak French. And I absolutely despise staying in hotels, which is where we'll be for four days. I don't know if Jesse's brothers snore or not, but we're all going to be in the same room so I'm bringing earplugs.

Oh well. I'll probably update when something moderately interesting happens. (Which isn't often, but that's ok, because no one checks Pleonast anyhow.)
Love from France.

Ok. Here's a status that I posted on Facebook yesterday. The point of the status was to explain to the non-Christians here why I don't spend a lot of time with them...not because I don't want to, but because I'm uncomfortable with some of the things that go on.

"Nikki Kirby would like to clarify something. I am not an anti-social person. I love being around people. But, I am first & foremost a Christian. I don't drink, curse, or participate in sexual innuendo, & I don't care to be around when those things are going on. I will never, never deny my God for the sake of having a better time in France. If that seems stupid or unreasonable to some people, then they can ask me about it."

Most of my responses were positive... people telling me to keep standing up for my faith, etc. But then I got some oh-so-lovely ones. This next one is from a supposed Christian... mind you, this Christian goes to bars and wears immodest clothing and then posts pictures all over Facebook.

"be careful not to wave the self righteous Christian flag too hard, but always stand on the rock of your beliefs."

I'm sorry, but I don't think I was "waving the self righteous Christian flag" by posting that status. I think I was simply explaining things more clearly. So that was pretty hard to read that status. But then I kept reading.

"nikki u've upset me cus i think that u r being quite rude to us because we r ur friends. U r acting as if we r all sluts and alcoholics wen we r not. From the start i hav always tried to help u integrate by inviting u to non-alcoholic events because i feel bad that u r not enjoying ur stay here in France :(
Please nikki we wanted u to b part of our Erasmus family :D xxx"

I know that one might be hard to read, but that's one of the girls here. I have NEVER been invited to any non-alcoholic events that were appropriate. I've been invited to watch movies, yes, but they were all movies like "What Happens in Vegas", etc. Hence the "sexual innuendo" part of my status.

And then the very best comment, from another one of the lovely ladies here in France.

"big word wanted!! we have non alcohol cook offs every week and we invited every one in le littre by posting it on our status's we've asked you to watch movies etc and your just plain rude.... if thats what christianity does to someone im glad im well and truly out of it.... if you're not enjoying your time here it's because you refuse to ... See moreintergrate and your judgemental with everyone even at our alcohol parties some of the marocans who dont drink because of their religion still come and have a great time.... if you wanna go back so badly then goo... you won't be missed here!!"


I'm pretty much reeling. And never in my life have I wanted to go home so badly. If the opportunity arises, I'm taking it, no doubt. I don't care if I don't get to see Paris or Italy or any of that junk. I want to go HOME and get away from this horrendous place. Coming here was a giant FAIL. We are dirt poor, completely alone, and I'm miserable. And we don't even speak French yet, after being here since September.
I pretty much hate this place and I want out.

One thousand points to anyone who can tell me what song my title is from without having to look it up.

So anywho, life goes on in France. Time is ticking by incredibly slowly, although lately there's been enough activity that it's not crawling quite as much as it used to. My friend Sabina and her friend Erica dropped by for a couple days. They got here on Saturday the 16th, and it was really great having them here. Sabina is such an awesome person. I'd never met Erica before... she's cool, but a little overwhelming at times, lol. Their visit went by pretty quickly, and about two days after that, our hot water heater broke. The circuit breaker kept flipping, and the hot water switch just wouldn't stay on. We tried to email our landlord about it, but he conveniently forgot to tell us that his email address had changed. Our friend Charlotte got ahold of him and he came to check it out on Friday. It turns out that the heater is broken, and he told us that he'd bring a new one on Monday. (We'd already been two days without hot water by this point.) The next day, the hot water heater actually started leaking huge amounts of water. We put our biggest cooking pot under the leak to catch drips. Then on Monday, we woke up to the landlord IN THE APARTMENT, with another man, installing the new h.w.h. Talk about a creepy way to wake up. But now we have hot water, and hopefully that part of our adventures in France is over.

Jesse and I have been spending a lot of time with Charlotte lately. I have to say, I completely adore her. We go over and play Scrabble with her, and she completely owns us. I did win once, but that was sheer luck. (And yes, we're playing in French.) She had to go to Paris on Tuesday, and today gave us a little gift she'd picked up for us while she was there. It was a little box of macaroons from one of the oldest bakeries in Paris. They came in a beautiful box, and they were absolutely delicious. One of them was coffee flavored... I'm pretty sure I'll be stopping by there when I'm in Paris. Charlotte said the bakery is right on the Champs Elysee so it shouldn't be hard to find. We've been really blessed with her friendship. She's the only person we've met here who doesn't drink. She's not a Christian, but she's still amazing to be around. I haven't quite figured out the best way to talk to her about God, but I'll get there. :)

Five months until we come home. We are definitely looking forward to it, too. We've had a few people tell us "We were afraid you'd want to stay in France!" and I have a hard time not laughing in their faces. I don't think we've EVER given the impression that we'd want to live anywhere other than America. (Preferably Bowling Green.) We'll miss a few small things about France I'm sure, but all in all, we want to come home.

Miss everyone back home! Leave some comments, it's nice knowing people actually read what I take the time to write. (You too, lurkers!)
Love, Nikki

...is not as awesome as you'd think.

That's right folks, it's snowing here in St. Etienne. And has been, almost non-stop, since we got back into the town on Monday.

The flight wasn't too bad, other than the length. We did, however, have some truly terrifying turbulence. (Say that three times fast.) A couple scary moments, but we made it into Paris alright. The plane was a little bit late, so we really had to book it to make it onto our flight to Lyon. I'm amazed that we made it. Unfortunately, the guys hauling baggage from one plane to another did NOT book it. So, at the baggage claim in Lyon, we waited and waited, with no sign of our bags. When the carousel stopped turning, and we realized that the bags just weren't there, we went to the little office and reported them. They told us they'd deliver them on Tuesday morning. They did not deliver them Tuesday morning. The bags got here on Wednesday, thankfully. I've heard a few horror stories about people's bags being missing for 15 days or so. Literally all of my winter clothing and shoes were in my suitcase, so I couldn't really leave the apartment. (All my makeup was in there too. Which I wasn't happy about.) But it's all good now!

Anyhow, back to the snow. I saw on Facebook that stores were selling out of bread and milk and the like in Bowling Green...because it snowed half an inch. Seriously? Stores here are selling out on those things because there's over a foot of snow on the ground. And it's still snowing. I have no clue when it's supposed to stop, but I hope they cancel Jesse's classes on Monday so we can go get him some weather-appropriate footwear. We had to go get a few groceries today, and there was no milk, no bread, no eggs...looks like we'll be eating pasta for a few days. For some reason, they don't feel the need to salt or plow the roads here. Seriously, I'm thinking about taking pictures. I'm amazed that the city hasn't entirely shut down since no one can get out and about. I almost wanted some snow shoes when we ran to get food today. Or a snowboard. So until it stops snowing and/or everything melts, I'll more than likely be spending the majority of my time in our apartment. Not that I don't do that anyways!

Coming up on 7 months of wedded bliss for Jesse and I. Still feels like so much more than that. (In a good way.) I love him more every day :)
If you want to see pictures of my chopped off hair, just go on Facebook. It's far too much effort to post them on here.
I know Pleonast is pretty much dead, but if you read this, say hi. Even if you don't know me!

And also...if you want to come visit me in France, feel free! I'll house you and feed you, you just pay your ticket over and maybe help with groceries. ;)
Love,
Mrs. Kirby