#iwtv#interview with the vampire#amc tvl#sam reid#jacob anderson
seen from France
seen from Malaysia
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seen from Switzerland
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#stopboxusa with the perfect #grabandgo solution!! Putting it on the timer next time at #therange . . . . #stopbox #timkennedy #spokane #madeinamerica #madintheusa #madeinamerica🇺🇸 #makeamericacarryagain #sigsauer #p365xl #libertycivildefense #libertyammo #freedomseeds #flatdarkearth #9mmpistol #shootmovecommunicate (at Wilmington, North Carolina) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFOBTSopDRC/?igshid=1c4q8izvyy419
Had the fortunate opportunity to catch the socially distanced streaming session last night for Kate Olson’s KO Electric, and it did not disappoint! So needed a dose of live music with friends - something I think we all are sorely missing. Huge thanks to Kate, Tim, Eric and Jason, the HPIC team for pulling this together. Once again, Highland Park delivers! Here are a few words about Kate’s band. Go check out the full show (and donate!) via the links below. KO Electric is the electrified version of the KO Ensemble, leaning more on grooves, open solos, and effects. This iteration features Eric Eagle on drums, Jason Gray on bass (and sound tech!), and Tim Kennedy on keys. All original, all for fun! https://www.facebook.com/kateplayssax https://twitter.com/kateplayssax https://www.instagram.com/kateplayssax/ https://soundcloud.com/kateplayssax http://www.kateplayssax.com/ ---------------------- Money directly to ARTISTS | Music directly to FANS LiveConcertsStream.com is a musician-made streaming platform built for artists and fans. Our goal is to make it easy for performers to stream and earn a living, and for fans to watch and support the artists they love. #wessidemusic #kateplayssax #timkennedy #jasongray #ericeagle #liveconcertsstream #HPIC (at HPIC (Highland Park Improvement Club)) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCO4Ng8p423/?igshid=1uyxd7ph9wl1
Le Dernier Jour en Paris
Le plus grand faible des hommes, c'est l'amour qu'ils ont de la vie. (Man's greatest weakness is his love for life.) ― Molière
I have just finished collecting, packing, and cleaning the room I have called my own for the past four months, but before that I did my last run in Cergy and my last visit to Paris. My errands were to buy the last of the souvenirs for friends and family (fun factoid, one gets a strange look when buying eight berets) and breathe deeply the city one final time. I decided to journal my last moments as I traveled, free-writing in three separate places. Below I present my last sharing as an IPE blogger. I could have transcribed it to the computer of course, but in a land of writers and thinkers there is always an irresistible magic to ink on paper.
La Dernière Vue
Last photo of me in Paris. Also one of the more European pictures of me
During my study abroad, I have had both good times and bad, boring slogs of class and thrilling wandering to parts unknown, desperate aches of homesickness and trepidation at leaving many new European ideas and systems behind. Despite the ups and downs, here is the essential. The most important conclusion is that I was able to learn my trade in a foreign land, adapt myself to it, grow as a person and a man, and leave with one of the most stalwart and amazing group of friends I could ever hope to have. I would never trade my experience for anything else, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Below is how I will always remember myself here. Joy, light, and cuffed jeans.
PC: Noah Lyden (click name for his Instagram, he’s fantastic)
To my family, friends both old and new, the IPE and ENSEA departments: thank you so much for your love, support, encouragement, bailouts (because who doesn’t make mistakes sometimes?) and again, love. Love is what could bring me here, love sustained me, and love will bring me back one day.
Au revoir,
Timothy Kennedy Electrical Engineering ENSEA FAME, Cergy-Pontoise, France
Approaching End Game
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”-Semisonic, ‘Closing Time’
Our time in France is nearing its end with great haste. Our exams are all finished, the last homeworks submitted, the packing begun. The last few weeks have been balanced between soaking in the last days in the country and making time for quiet studying. I feel that I performed very well, which is (to be honest) a different feeling than back home. At UM exam time is usually also a time of stress and anxiety, but here I had more preparation to go over my subjects. Like the other exams in France, the studying was based from textbook reading and practice rather than poring over old homeworks and going to extended office hours, and again I found it easier to evaluate and subsequently demonstrate what I had learned. There are definitely methods I prefer in the US, but I believe we could learn quite a bit from trying to emulate the model of the French education system in certain ways.
Outside the conclusion of schoolwork, I have been doing my best to reach the places I wanted to see before returning. In Paris, I finally made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which was fantastic; you not only have a fantastic view of Paris, but can marvel at the architecture of the tower itself. Many people don't realize that it was meant to be a temporary structure for the World's Fair at the beginning of the 20th century, but remained standing and has stood the test of time and two world wars. Brad and I climbed the 600+ stairs from the ground to the second floor before taking an elevator to the top, which was a great opportunity to take a slower and closer look at the structural engineering of Gustave Eiffel's masterpiece (besides the Statue of Liberty, of course).
The Champ des Mars from above
One of the only selfies I took abroad. Well worth it.
A closer look at one of the main support girders. The most amazing part for me was the brilliance of the curvature of the steel, the entirety truly is art meeting engineering.
In Cergy I walked my normal routes while exploring more of the ponds, trying out all of the different running routes available in the fields. I also plotted and ran a 10 mile loop, which was one of my goals during my time abroad as I have been getting back into good running form. It took me through the northern parts of Cergy, then south until Neuville (the first stop on the train when departing Cergy) before returning to the ponds and back home. It was a satisfyingly varied route, passing town centers, fields, and forests alike, and was the perfect way to break in the great weather (we have been enjoying high 70s, low 80s). One thing I will miss, in addition to the wide, varied green spaces and great number of sidewalks, is the lack of dramatic altitude change. Ann Arbor is part of what I have heard described as a 'glacial landscape', which in laymans terms is 'stupidly hilly', and I have loved the relatively flat topography of France for my running. I present below a series of forward-and-back photos of Axe Majeur, an public art work that also functions as a public space for the citizens of Cergy.
Looking back to the start of the monument. At night the tower emits a green laser that can be seen over a mile away.
Turning around and looking forward towards the ponds. The main towers can be seen. (If you squint a bit, just to the left you can see the skyscrapers near Paris and the Eiffel Tower)
Forward again, now in between the main tower, with the bridge to the ponds below.
Looking back to the top of the hill, where you can see the walkway and stairs continuing the symmetrical line to the ponds.
Turning around to look forward across the bridge
Looking back to the starting point
And finally turning around to see the ponds, with the pyramid in the water marking the end of the piece. One of the best walks to take in France.
I passed over this during my last post, but a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to celebrate my birthday in Paris! I started the day with my run in Cergy, traveled to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, followed the Champs Elysee to the Tuileries where I read Les Mis for a few hours, moved to Luxembourg Gardens when it started to rain, listened to a crowd of passerbys sing traditional French songs during a thunderstorm, ate just off the Boulevard St. Michel, went to evening Mass at Notre Dame, and finally had wine on the Champ des Mars with a couple friends, counting down the time until the moment of my birth and officially turning 23 (naturally counting by Eastern Standard Time). I couldn't think of a better way to spend a birthday, especially since I could label my route as a tour of my favorite places in Paris, which isn't something that I thought I could ever say.
I really cannot believe my luck some days
Tonight I am doing my packing and cleaning of my apartment, in order to spend one last full responsibility-free day in Paris. I'll be writing my last post there, reflecting on my time here in Europe, and making my last post in the evening before my flight home on the first. To those who have been following my posts, as well as the other IPE bloggers, thank you so much. It has been a privilege for us to receive a scholarship to share our experiences abroad, but the true joy is having readers supporting us and vicariously living our strange lives with us.
A bientot,
Timothy Kennedy Electrical Engineering ENSEA FAME, Cergy-Pontoise, France
Beaucoup de Visiteurs
“Always remember there is nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name” -Scott Avett, “Murder in the City”
Depuis tous les deux dernière semaines, j'ai accueilli plusieurs de visiteurs en France: premierement, ma famille qui a visite Paris pour une semaine, et mon amie Eileen qui m'a rendu pour une semaine.
It’s been a joyful experience for me, and shed incredible light upon my integration and knowledge of all things French through a reversal of roles between tourist and tour guide. Instead of being a puppy led by his owner, not questioning any decisions about directions or destinations but simply wagging his tail excited to see and touch and smell absolutely everything, I was the one doing the preparation, navigation, and explanation for my visitors. In addition it was liberating to not have a camera, map, or heavy bag weighing my body and mind; my eyes could wander freely and take in the view in a fresher way than before.
Because I was the guide I did not take many photos of locations, having seen most of the sights before. However I did want to include some of my family, as it offers their own perspective on a visitation to a new foreign country. It was a terrific joy to have them here, because I had been feeling a little homesick and I appreciated a familiar breath of America sweeping in my heart.
I am very grateful to my family. We don’t come from wealth, and despite how I dress, where my career leads or how cultured I may feel with new experiences, I am firmly and resolutely from a working class family. It has given me humility and honor to be born from parents who sacrificed so much for all the opportunities I have been able to grasp, up to and including this one. The fact that I could take my father, who through my childhood was a master electrician, on a boat ride in the Grand Canal of Versailles is not a typical vacation agenda but rather nothing short of a miracle. Living in poverty himself formed a man who gives everything to his family, and I love him and my mother so much for devoting their lives to my sister and I.
One could not find better role models anywhere
Both my family and my friend were able to visit Cergy, which I was apprehensive about. While I’ve grown accustomed to my surroundings after the last several months, I feared that compared to striking, opulent Paris my little town would appear to be inferior or lacking. I was happy to be wrong, however, as they all enjoyed the unique case of visiting a suburban French city. I will say however, after having a guest spend a week on an air mattress in an already very cramped space has left me desiring my apartment back home in AA. The French certainly are efficient, but I do occasionally miss the ‘big for the sake of being big’ attitude of the US.
The newest visit for me was to Monet’s house and garden in Giverny, only a half hour outside Paris. While the lillies were not in bloom (that won’t happen until July), spring had clearly brought itself to the vast arrays of plants, flowers and other flora that he held so dear in his life. I love Impressionism, and Monet is most certainly my favorite, so it was surreal to be walking on the paths he trod when searching for inspiriation for the masterpieces I have seen in museums both here and back home.
I have never been one to take pictures of flowers, but this was the place to try it out
Classes are beginning their final stages, with my three exams for my three engineering classes arriving in the next few weeks. I still have a few french classes left, but the graded portion concluded with an exam at the end of April before the vacation, and to my surprise I found out I had not only passed but earned the US-equivalent of an A-! Given that all my grades on the program transfer back to UM as credit without grade and I’ve long finished my humanities courses, it would seem to be an empty case of accomplishment since it won’t factor into my school GPA/class requirements. However I don’t consider it empty at all; I am very proud of myself for my accomplishment considering that I arrived to the country with a less than stellar grip of the language (read: could barely say a goldang thing), and was taking the class with other international students who had already been in France for a full semester. In Europe they tend to not place a large amount of stress on grades, but here I’m happy to be an American and take pride in a number indicating my progress and achievement. Even after being gone for so long, some cultural norms and behaviors just can’t change.
Only a few more posts left; I feel the end of the trip arriving with great haste, and am sure I will be processing all sorts of emotions so stay tuned for all of those.
A bientot,
Timothy Kennedy Electrical Engineering ENSEA FAME, Cergy-Pontoise, France
Life will get you down, but like the burpee, it’s not over until you get up. Always finish the burpee! Get up and do it again! #timkennedy #ufc #motivation #inspiration #purpose #happiness #livethelifeyoulove #burpees #life #characteristicsofgrit (at San Antonio, Texas)
#Repost @neilmelansonmma ・・・ Damn straight! I support @timkennedymma ! #letthecowardscome #timkennedy #GroundMarshal #patriot #GodblessAmerica #forGODandCountry (at Kalaeloa Airport)
#kelvingastelum #timkennedy #ufc206 #weightcut #weightcutting #lightweight #middleweight
