On Saturday I went to see Be Kind, Rewind with Jessica and Collin, and afterwards we met up with Mark and went to a restaurant for pizza and cidre. We finished dinner late and hung out at Place Hoche for a while (I was sad cause a lot of times it's full of middle school kids doing techtonique and I really want to record that but alack, alas, la place was empty). A little bit before 12H25 we headed down to the bus stop, so we could catch the last bus home.
Collin went home on the metro, and Mark's bus came a few minutes later, so it was just me and Jess for the few minutes before 12h37. At 12h39 I looked at my phone. We're used to the bus being late, so we just shrugged and waited some more. At 12h43 we looked at one another and walked over to the sign post, to see if somehow we had mistaken a time or day.
"THE LINE 18 WILL NOT SERVE THIS STOP ON FRIDAY THE 2 MAY AND SATURDAY THE 3 MAY (ps mwa hahahahahahaha)"
I started laughing. Jessica read the sign and started laughing too.
So this is how I know that it takes an hour on foot to get from centre ville to my apparte.
The fun part was picking flowers of the side of the road. They are now in my bathroom, in my water glass which I never use. Very pretty.
The hilarious part happened when I could literally almost see my building hiding in the near-darkness (the streets are really well lit, don't worry, and it was fun even, though exhausting). We walked across the parking lot of the mini commercial center La Forge, and were heading down an incline to the sidewalk when someone started calling to us. 'Oh great,' I thought.
We had seen two French dudes, probably *slightly* tipsy, pretending to beat one another up in front of the café. They hadn't noticed us walk silently by, and we had ignored them. But now one of them was jogging after us, asking why we hadn't greeted them.
"It's only polite, come on, really, what, are you mean or rude or something? It's easy enough to say, just say bonsoir, that's it, it's easy..."
I was an idiot and said bonsoir. Then we kept walking.
"Oh, you're not French?" Oh no.... "You're not French? What are you? English?"
'No...american. What do you want?'
"Ooh, touchy americans. Just let me talk to you..." and then he yelled his friend over: "Hey! Pierre! Americans! They say they live here!" His friend started coming over.
'We're going home, go away,' Jess said
"Home? You're not at home! You're not French!" I let out a short laugh, and he grinned "See? I'm funny! You laughed!"
'Oh I laughed,' I said, 'But only to be nice. Leave us alone.' We walked away, and he stayed where he was. And then he started yelling at us again. (all caps means it was in english)
"Yeah?!? Well, F"&ç YOU!! You're a pair of dirty whores! Whores! Whores and sluts! F@(è whores! And also BE-OTCHES!! YOU ARE BE-OTCHES!!!"
Jessica and I tried not to laugh too hard as we escaped around the corner and made sure that he wasn't following us any further. There's just something that a French accent does to cursing...haha oh man.
Ok. Enough of the blagueing...I mean joking. I realise that the situation could have potentially been very dangereux, and I also realise that maybe next time I'll just let Jessica tell people to go away and I'll stay silent so I don't provoke anything. I still felt perfectly safe the entire time. But now it's a story to tell.
Which reminds me... I think the next time I'm gonna see if I can record some of my vacances stories with my webcam, put them on my jump drive, and upload them to the internet as video blogs. Of course this will take time and effort and a quiet house...hmmm...so we'll see what happens.
je vous aime
05 May 2008
A worm died in that apple
I'm not going to spend very long on this because I told myself that I'm not going to spend a long time in front of the computer tonight. The past couple of days I've stayed up at least until one talking to people. Talking is great, but now I'm tired! Plus, tomorrow there is a Fest Noz on campus, and I kinda need to be awake for it.
"Fest noz" in Breton means "night party". It's super traditional for the Bretons. What you do is get everyone in the entire village together under one roof (or just in any area, I guess). A lot of times the best opportunity for this was during a house raising. The reason that was the best opportunity was because the goal of the party was to get everyone to dance the ground flat. They didn't have any bulldozers or fancy stuff to pack the earth down, so the villagers would pull on their huge wooden shoes, designate the band members, and dance the night away.
Our fest noz is tomorrow night from 20h00 to 12h00, which means that when it's over we're going to have to take the 2 line home, and then walk the last twenty minutes home. Well, for me it's 20 minutes. For Jessica and Sophia it'll be at least 35, if not a couple more. But there are a ton of people going, and Jess and Johanna and I are all dressing up (just watch for once the French won't dress up and they'll all be in jeans, haha). So yeah. Cultural experience #452!
Today Johanna found the remnants of a worm hole in her apple. I had just thrown mine out (cause I was done) and as I looked at her apple I felt this inexplicable joy overflow my stomach. My apple did not have wormy residue. It was just a normal, boring reddish thingie. No surprises except for the bruise on the side that felt like a sponge.
I used the apple occurence at dinner tonight to open a conversation about buying naturel foods in their seasons and how finding tiny beasts in fruit proves that it was good for you. Haha...apparently I was shocked by it, and only because I'm American and expect my fruit to be perfect. I tried to explain that I like perfect fruit as in, without bruises. French people don't get that. They were positive that I was still talking about finding the traces of living things in my fruits and veggies. What's funny is that a few seconds afterwards I put a forkfull of salad in my mouth and I could have sworn that I ate dirt along with it.
The rest of the dinner went wonderfully. There was none of the tension that I half expected to experience since everything that happened yesterday. The conversation didn't feel forced at all. Of course, that could be because I spent the better portion of today telling myself that I was going to talk a lot at dinner and tell stories. It felt like I was syking myself up to run 5 miles before breakfast. But no matter. I'm going to turn things around and not care even more.
I wonder how many times I'm going to have to do this? Haha...
"Fest noz" in Breton means "night party". It's super traditional for the Bretons. What you do is get everyone in the entire village together under one roof (or just in any area, I guess). A lot of times the best opportunity for this was during a house raising. The reason that was the best opportunity was because the goal of the party was to get everyone to dance the ground flat. They didn't have any bulldozers or fancy stuff to pack the earth down, so the villagers would pull on their huge wooden shoes, designate the band members, and dance the night away.
Our fest noz is tomorrow night from 20h00 to 12h00, which means that when it's over we're going to have to take the 2 line home, and then walk the last twenty minutes home. Well, for me it's 20 minutes. For Jessica and Sophia it'll be at least 35, if not a couple more. But there are a ton of people going, and Jess and Johanna and I are all dressing up (just watch for once the French won't dress up and they'll all be in jeans, haha). So yeah. Cultural experience #452!
Today Johanna found the remnants of a worm hole in her apple. I had just thrown mine out (cause I was done) and as I looked at her apple I felt this inexplicable joy overflow my stomach. My apple did not have wormy residue. It was just a normal, boring reddish thingie. No surprises except for the bruise on the side that felt like a sponge.
I used the apple occurence at dinner tonight to open a conversation about buying naturel foods in their seasons and how finding tiny beasts in fruit proves that it was good for you. Haha...apparently I was shocked by it, and only because I'm American and expect my fruit to be perfect. I tried to explain that I like perfect fruit as in, without bruises. French people don't get that. They were positive that I was still talking about finding the traces of living things in my fruits and veggies. What's funny is that a few seconds afterwards I put a forkfull of salad in my mouth and I could have sworn that I ate dirt along with it.
The rest of the dinner went wonderfully. There was none of the tension that I half expected to experience since everything that happened yesterday. The conversation didn't feel forced at all. Of course, that could be because I spent the better portion of today telling myself that I was going to talk a lot at dinner and tell stories. It felt like I was syking myself up to run 5 miles before breakfast. But no matter. I'm going to turn things around and not care even more.
I wonder how many times I'm going to have to do this? Haha...
04 May 2008
Onomatopeia
I am angry with myself.
That's the new thing that I learned today.
While we were sitting at lunch Elisabeth suddenly couldn't take it any more: she took a breath and asked me for the second time this semester why I don't talk very much. I looked at her carefully. She was smiling, and had real concern behind her eyes. I took a deep breath.
"Do you feel like your French is getting any better?" was the first question. Uh...no, actually, I don't. I feel like a got a little bit better when I first got here, but then things just kinda went stagnant. Classes were/are dull, and I didn't feel any challenge to improve. So I sat where I was.
"It seems that you speak in onomatopeias. It's almost like you refuse to speak."
The moment she said this my brain went kaput just a little. I thought about it for the half a moment she gave me to think about it. It's true. I start a sentence and finish it with a sound. The sound means something, of course, but I should be using words instead.
"It's too bad because you're here to improve your French. We're here for you to talk to, for you to practice with. I understand if it's just you and you don't like talking, maybe you talk to your friends, i don't know. But as for me, I like having someone to talk to. It's important to get things out there. All the other girls used to just talk and talk...but you, you're silent."
I am silent. I set the bar at perfection, miss the bar, and then wallow in it. I feel so incredibly annoyed and angry with myself for doing that time and time again. I only have another month here, of course I've only in a very recent amount of time gotten myself completely at ease in what I do here. I gave up trying to understand why some profs were amazing and other profs suck. I stopped wishing that I actually had classes with friends (although technically that's not true--really I just stopped trying to figure out ways to change it. Most of the ways included subterfuge and yellow water balloons...useless in the face of the Tsking Demon Lady ).
During the course of the conversation today I was presented with an outside view of what I do to myself. Internalisation!! Woot! Who needs to tell other people about things if I can just write them in a hidden journal and pretend to stop thinking about them? The reason I didn't really try to fix the problem is that I thought everyone was used to being one way, and I hate to mess them up. Dumb, I know. Isn't the entire idea to change and grow and all? Yes. Yes it is.
Even talking with them, and trying to explain why I feel like I'm trapped in a miniature box of French vocabulary and hate making mistakes even though I know that you have to be mistaken in something before being able to fix it and move on to the next mistake, was incredibly difficult. I'm not used to adults I kinda-almost-generally know calling me out on things like this. No, I take that back. I'm not accustomed to (really) anybody doing this. I'm perfect, remember?
I don't understand why I act against things that I know. I know that it's stupid to be afraid of my mistakes. I know that it's idiotic to not speak a language I'm trying to learn. I know it's moronic to keep something I'm thinking about inside just because I don't think the sentence I want to use to express the feeling is grammatically correct.
Then why in the world do I just sit here in France fighting with myself?
It's a war with my own intellect!
I speak well. I speak just as well as everybody else, I'm not dumb, I understand everything that goes on around me (although one could argue that that's because Pierre and Lola haven't been around doing their speed talking for a while). So this is stupid. Why, when I want to ask if they think it's a good idea to rent a car and drive to the coast, I stop myself before anything gets out, and then get butterflies in my stomach while I stand there and fight with myself? I seriously have stalled for time and waited ten minutes for the perfect moment to pose the question "Can I use the printer?"
You think I'm exagerating? I am so not. Ugh. So dumb. Fear is so dumb.
It should have no hold over me, but it does. It really does. This is even after I told myself, so many times, that I didn't care. I was going to go for it and not care...I think I must have forgotten.
Also, I'm tired of only having a "virtual connection" to my friends and family at home. Seriously people, this is annoying. I finally did a conversation of half voice and half typing with Mackenzie the other day (she talked into her mic and I typed my answers as fast as I could into the little Skype box) and nearly started crying when I first heard her say "Hi!". I miss people's voices. I guess it's time to find a phone card. I was trying to save money, but I don't know if I can do this much longer...what, do I feel like I have to punish myself or something? haha
So yeah...I think we're going to rent a car for the next long weekend. I have five days off, and Collin did a little bit of research and says that it's cheap enough and that we should just do it. We'll be able to just drive to the coast and it'll be super easy. Coolness.
That's the new thing that I learned today.
While we were sitting at lunch Elisabeth suddenly couldn't take it any more: she took a breath and asked me for the second time this semester why I don't talk very much. I looked at her carefully. She was smiling, and had real concern behind her eyes. I took a deep breath.
"Do you feel like your French is getting any better?" was the first question. Uh...no, actually, I don't. I feel like a got a little bit better when I first got here, but then things just kinda went stagnant. Classes were/are dull, and I didn't feel any challenge to improve. So I sat where I was.
"It seems that you speak in onomatopeias. It's almost like you refuse to speak."
The moment she said this my brain went kaput just a little. I thought about it for the half a moment she gave me to think about it. It's true. I start a sentence and finish it with a sound. The sound means something, of course, but I should be using words instead.
"It's too bad because you're here to improve your French. We're here for you to talk to, for you to practice with. I understand if it's just you and you don't like talking, maybe you talk to your friends, i don't know. But as for me, I like having someone to talk to. It's important to get things out there. All the other girls used to just talk and talk...but you, you're silent."
I am silent. I set the bar at perfection, miss the bar, and then wallow in it. I feel so incredibly annoyed and angry with myself for doing that time and time again. I only have another month here, of course I've only in a very recent amount of time gotten myself completely at ease in what I do here. I gave up trying to understand why some profs were amazing and other profs suck. I stopped wishing that I actually had classes with friends (although technically that's not true--really I just stopped trying to figure out ways to change it. Most of the ways included subterfuge and yellow water balloons...useless in the face of the Tsking Demon Lady ).
During the course of the conversation today I was presented with an outside view of what I do to myself. Internalisation!! Woot! Who needs to tell other people about things if I can just write them in a hidden journal and pretend to stop thinking about them? The reason I didn't really try to fix the problem is that I thought everyone was used to being one way, and I hate to mess them up. Dumb, I know. Isn't the entire idea to change and grow and all? Yes. Yes it is.
Even talking with them, and trying to explain why I feel like I'm trapped in a miniature box of French vocabulary and hate making mistakes even though I know that you have to be mistaken in something before being able to fix it and move on to the next mistake, was incredibly difficult. I'm not used to adults I kinda-almost-generally know calling me out on things like this. No, I take that back. I'm not accustomed to (really) anybody doing this. I'm perfect, remember?
I don't understand why I act against things that I know. I know that it's stupid to be afraid of my mistakes. I know that it's idiotic to not speak a language I'm trying to learn. I know it's moronic to keep something I'm thinking about inside just because I don't think the sentence I want to use to express the feeling is grammatically correct.
Then why in the world do I just sit here in France fighting with myself?
It's a war with my own intellect!
I speak well. I speak just as well as everybody else, I'm not dumb, I understand everything that goes on around me (although one could argue that that's because Pierre and Lola haven't been around doing their speed talking for a while). So this is stupid. Why, when I want to ask if they think it's a good idea to rent a car and drive to the coast, I stop myself before anything gets out, and then get butterflies in my stomach while I stand there and fight with myself? I seriously have stalled for time and waited ten minutes for the perfect moment to pose the question "Can I use the printer?"
You think I'm exagerating? I am so not. Ugh. So dumb. Fear is so dumb.
It should have no hold over me, but it does. It really does. This is even after I told myself, so many times, that I didn't care. I was going to go for it and not care...I think I must have forgotten.
Also, I'm tired of only having a "virtual connection" to my friends and family at home. Seriously people, this is annoying. I finally did a conversation of half voice and half typing with Mackenzie the other day (she talked into her mic and I typed my answers as fast as I could into the little Skype box) and nearly started crying when I first heard her say "Hi!". I miss people's voices. I guess it's time to find a phone card. I was trying to save money, but I don't know if I can do this much longer...what, do I feel like I have to punish myself or something? haha
So yeah...I think we're going to rent a car for the next long weekend. I have five days off, and Collin did a little bit of research and says that it's cheap enough and that we should just do it. We'll be able to just drive to the coast and it'll be super easy. Coolness.
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