About Me

photo by Neha Sharma

My name is Chelsea Fairless, and I'm from the wonderful city of Fort Worth, Texas. I graduated with a bachelors in English in 2012. It has always been my dream since I was a child to learn French and live in France, and I am now fulfilling that dream! I was an au pair (nanny) in France from August 2012 to July 2013, and I am now formally studying French in neighboring Switzerland at the University of Geneva.

Therefore, this blog is about my adventures in this region. I will post about how things are going as an au pair, how I'm coming along with my language skills, and how things are living and traveling in Europe!

About My Job/Studies:

I'm finally living on my own outside of a family, but still working as an au pair part time for a couple different families nearby.

I'm currently in a "diploma" program (similar to a technical school degree, as it's not a graduate program and it takes 1-2 years to complete) for French at the University of Geneva. I will complete it in a year and a half and it aims to get me to C1 level (working proficiency) by its end in December 2014. All of the classes are in French, and I learn about different aspects of French grammar, linguistics concepts, teaching theory, etc. I'm enjoying it a lot because it challenges me every day and is teaching me things I would never learn in ordinary French courses.

Contact Info

Contact me anytime at chelseafairless@gmail.com. On the top of the right-hand bar, you'll find button links to all my other social media sites; feel free to peruse those as well.

Thanks to...

Thank you to my wonderful friend, Neha Sharma, over at Neha Sharma Photography, for taking my profile pictures, for designing my header and social gadgets, and patiently helping me tweak the layout and template of my blog. And, of course, thank you to my family for being supportive and helping me through the process, and my mom for going to Houston with me for my initial French visa; I couldn't have done all this without my family! I love you all!!!

Parole Passport:

In French, "parole" simply means "word/speech"; but in linguistic terms, it means "the actual, concrete act of speaking on the part of a person - a dynamic, social activity in a particular time and place."*
Therefore, as I want to travel to gain further linguistic knowledge by way of foreign languages, I am traveling to increase my experience in foreign language parole.

*From The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, by David Crystal