April 2003 archive
(132 entries)
April 30, 2003
Please don't mug me
I went to the bank to close my account and they gave me all of my money in cash. I have never seen so much money in one place. The freakazoid teller compained that she hadn't known in advance, when I had made the appointment to fermer mon compte a week ago. Thus she was not prepared and only had one billet de cinq cent, so everything else was in 100s and 50s. I now have this enormous wad of cash and I don't know whether to carry it with me everywhere I go for safekeeping or hide it for safekeeping. I may just put it in my passport pouch, put the pouch around my neck, and hide myself in the wardrobe until the 5th.
srah | 3:51 AM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship |
April 29, 2003
Just another day at the cybercafé
Dennis/Christophe just gave me roses as a going-away gift and kissed me on the top of the head. This is a strange place.
srah | 12:15 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, cybercafe |
srah: star of stage and screen!
... well, except for the stage part... and the star part...
The point is, if you are watching Belgian or French movies or TV shows or news programs any time in the near future, keep an eye out for a stunning brunette walking by in the background. Because standing behind her is a wacky, goofy-looking girl in pigtails, trying not to stare directly into the camera as she walks back and forth, hoping to make it into the background of whatever they're filming without looking like she's trying to make it into the background.
I found myself in front of cameras twice today, in Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid and Paris Gare du Nord. The Paris one seemed to be a man-on-the-street interview for a news program, but the Brussels one looked more like a movie or TV series. I had nothing to do and was walking around in circles anyway, so I walked by twice for good measure.
Ignore the things that go on in my head
I am going to admit here that for years I used to confuse Saki with Steve Biko. I have no idea what made me connect them in my mind, but there you are. Hearing about the old salt mines under Detroit always makes me think of toothpaste, and I can't explain that one either.
What strange connections/confusions do you have?
srah | 4:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: |
I now pronounce you Belgium
Christianna packed me a little snack for the train, which included both a bar of chocolate and a chocolate-covered waffle. I am so going to marry this country.
If it pleases you
The French-speaking Belgians say s'il vous plaît for everything. I'm not sure if it means "please", "thank you", "you're welcome", "here you go", or all four. People keep saying it to me as they hand me my change.
srah | 4:06 AM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, french, travel |
April 28, 2003
"Death" in Dutch: dood
After our evening ride we returned to the apartment, looked at Fanny and Antoine's wedding photos, and watched an English-subtitled-in-Dutch National Geographic report on Mount Everest. Christianna and I have agreed that not only do we have absolutely no desire to climb Mount Everest, but we never want to leave our homes again.
Olé encore!
Belgian thee met melk report: level three.
The milk was forgotten by the server, and there were lemon slices on my saucer. This merits a ranking about equal to that of the United States. Of course I am basing it on one experience and I don't know if the results would be any different in Bruxelles or Wallonie.
Did you notice that "tea with milk" is one of the few Dutch words/phrases I've picked up? Dank u wel for noticing; yes, I am an addict.
srah | 7:09 PM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, language, tea, travel |
A bicyclette
Apparently the mode of transportation in Belgium is by bicycle. The streets are full of bicyclists and bicycles are chained up everywhere in Antwerp.
I passively participated in this preferred pastime this evening. Christianna and Robbie only have two bikes, but I got to ride on the back of Robbie's. It was much less harrowing for me than when Sophie and I rented a tandem on Mackinac Island, as Robbie's feet touched the ground when he stopped and he was strong enough to keep the bike upright even with me still on it.
srah | 7:03 PM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, bicycles, travel |
Citrus facts
As you may know, Citroën is a maker of French automobiles. What you may not know is that citroen is the Dutch word for lemon.
In other interesting related news, the Dutch word for orange apparently translates as "sinus apple". Yum.
Vincent had the wrong idea
You have to keep them on the head.
One year ago today, I was blogging about earwax. And now I am all alone in France with no ears but my own. Plenty of ears turn in my general direction during school hours, but they don't do a lot of listening. More importantly, I don't have any ears to fondle. But the day will come when I will have several pairs of ears at my caressing disposal and I can go back to being the weird ear-fetishist that everyone knows and loves.
srah | 4:01 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, ears |
Thoughts from the train
I bet a Dutch person who learned English in Scotland would hae a really interesting accent. If such an animal exists, make yourself known. I am going to marry you.
I prefer the Flemish Brugge to the French Bruges and Antwerpen to Anvers, but the French Ypres and Bruxelles to Ieper and Brussel.
I am constantly convinced that if I concentrate hard enough, I can understand spoken Flemish. I can't, but something about the tones of the language makes it feel like I should.
I do understand some written Flemish, but I invariably translate it into ridiculous pidgin English. Thus "We komen aan in Gent-Sint-Pieters" becomes "We coming on in Ghent-St-Peter's" and "De volgende halte is Gent-Dampoort" becomes "The forthcoming halt is Ghent-Dampoort".
srah | 11:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: language |
The mad American strikes again
I feel like I have to make my return to Vichy with some kind of flamboyant Belgiocity, in the way that people come back from Mexico with enormous sombreros, from Scotland with kilts, from Jamaica with dreadlock wigs, or from Easter Island with huge foam-rubber Moai heads. I don't know if the huge foam-rubber Moai heads exist, but if they don't they should, and maybe if I write "huge foam-rubber Moai heads" here often enough I can become the number-one search request for "huge foam-rubber Moai heads", which would really be quite an honor.
Back to the subject at hand. I can't think of a typical Belgian hat or costume, which kind of ruins my entire plan. So instead I will have to buy the largest praline the world has ever seen and strap it to my head. It will be sufficiently insane and touristy, might be strange even for Vichy, and when my hat melts, my head will be delicious.
Huge foam-rubber Moai head.
srah | 10:19 AM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, huge foam rubber moai head, my favorite posts, travel |
Jan van Eyck was not on Diagnosis: Murder
I hope the shopkeepers of Bruges won't be comparing notes on That Girl With the Pigtails because I claimed to be an anglophone or a francophone in alternating shops. I considered switching to Spanish, but then I realized I don't speak Spanish. Thankfully, Bruges is touristy enough to be able to handle me.
Brugge/Bruges (everything has a French and a Flemish name here) looks, to me, more like Oxford, England than Oxford does. That is to say it looks more like my mental image of Oxford than Oxford does and if I knew - even after having been to Oxford - what a dreaming spire looks like, I would bet that Brugge has got them. It's a quaint little canal town that sells lace and pralines to tourists. I had a Belgian specialty called carbonade for lunch: beef stewed in beer and served on a bed of frites. I bought souvenirs, took a boat ride on the canals, and now I'm returning to Antwerpen/Anvers to discover Christianna and Robbie's home town with them serving as guides and translators.
The guilt of the anglophone
I feel a bit confused and vulnerable and guilty speaking English to everyone here; I could pretend to be a francophone, but in most cases I assume English would be their second language and French only third. The most frustrating thing to me is that I don't know how to say "I'm sorry", something I want to say to everyone to apologize for my raging anglophony.
srah | 6:03 AM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, language, travel |
Four-twenties Walloons baked in a pie
Damn. According to the tourist guide Christianna lent me, Walloons have changed the numbers for 70 and 90, but not 80.
April 27, 2003
"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"
Belgium is a fascinating place. I may have a skewed impression, considering my hosts are Flemish, but it seems that the French-speaking minority forces the Flemish-speaking majority to submit to their language when the conflict comes up, and the multilingual flamands give in. Now I get to represent two overbearing, aggressive languages here in the the Flemish town of Antwerp, when I try to me débrouiller alone in town.
srah | 7:11 PM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, flemish, french, language |
I'm so Belgium
We went out for a beer tonight after I arrived. Thankfully Christianna knows what I like and ordered for me, because I am in The Land of Beer, and I am a stranger in the aforementioned land. The place we went had a selection of one hundred different beers. I will abstain, however, from commenting on their musical atmosphere, as the songs over the course of the evening included "Love Cats".
We went out with Christianna's friends, all of whom speak impeccable English. Damned polyglot Belgians. When they weren't speaking English, they would throw in phrases of Flemish, the Belgian dialect of Dutch. Dutch and German are cousins, but clearly Dutch got all the good genes because it is infinitely more attractive than its relative.
srah | 6:53 PM | TrackBack | Tags: alcohol, language, travel |
Mad American
I made an ass of myself by asking the Information Man at the train station a completely ridiculous and random question that turned out to have a completely obvious and stupid answer.
I was waiting for Christianna and Robbie, who were running late. I had already bothered the Information Man once to page them, then he saw that I was still there but I explained that I'd had her on the phone and that she was just running late.
I had been trying to figure out the Belgian name for the number 80. Whereas the French call 70 soixante-dix, 80 quatre-vingts and 90 quatre-vingts-dix, the Swiss and Belgians have invented actual names for these numbers. I just don't remember what they are. So as Information Man and I were tight like that and both standing around with nothing to do and he was, after all, an Information Man, I decided to ask him.
Me: Excusez-moi, monsieur. "Quatre-vingts" en Belgique, ça s'appelle comment?
IM: Quatre-vingts?
Me: Oui, le nom belge pour le chiffre quatre-vingts.
IM: Soixante-dix-neuf?
Me: Quatre-vingts. Ottante, ou quelque chose comme ça?
IM: Quatre-vingts.
Me: Ah, je croyais qu'il y avait un nom différent en Belgique-- hi, Christianna!
And upon the arrival of Christianna and Robbie, our thrilling conversation ended. I still think he's wrong, though. Maybe Bruxelles is different from the rest of the country, maybe he's French, or maybe he's Flemish and learned French in France. I'm sure there's something like ottante or octante that is used in Belgium. Perhaps I will have to buy something that costs 70 to 99 cents.
srah | 6:38 PM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, french, travel |
"I can't believe I ate the whole gopher"
In Belgium, you can buy waffles from a vending machine. Is this a great country or what?
I am also quite content to be in a country where I can say nonante for 90 instead of quatre-vingts-dix. I don't know where this desire to say nonante comes from, as I've never spent any significant time in Belgium or Switzerland, but it makes so much more sense than the ridiculous compound "four twenties and ten" numbers the French use.
Linguist lost
As you may know, I have yet to travel to a country where I don't speak the language. Hearing train announcements in Dutch panics me a bit because I don't understand anything. Not the same I don't understand anything I felt in Chile, where I could at least pick out words and general meanings of sentences, but a complete lack of comprehension. And here I am, going to visit the Flemish Christianna and her nederlandophone friends. What am I getting myself into?
Subtitles ahoy!
Sophie and I are hoping that the Nice People will get frustrated with their shortcomings in French (the presenters are already making fun of them for misgendering things and saying someone has nice horses instead of hair) and revert to English, a language they have probably all been studying for longer and know better. Not because we are great fans of English or Watching Subtitled TV or anything, but just because all that extra subtitling work would somehow teach TF1 a lesson. Live broadcasts will be interesting, if they find several languages to communicate in. Translators, start your typing!
I wonder if TF1 gave any thought to this in advance. The Belgian speaks five languages, the English girl is half Portuguese, and Swedes can always speak a million languages. Are we sure that French will always come out on top?
srah | 12:57 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, france, language, nice people, tv |
I hate Paris in the springtime
"Don't worry," said the conductor. "Forty minutes is plenty of time to cross Paris and exchange your ticket. Take the RER line D and you'll be there in 15 minutes."
Very true, except when it takes 15 minutes to get from your train to the RER and you have to wait 10 minutes for the next RER train. Then it takes more like... 40 minutes to cross Paris.
Luckily I had been forced to pay an arm and a leg for a Full Tarif ticket which ended up being exchangeable for a ticket 5€ cheaper for a train an hour later. All is well in srah-land and as of five minutes before departure, there are no tuna-reeking gosses near me.
Haiku Fever epidemic
Am bored out of my
mind in the train; will torture
myself with haiku.
I am afflicted,
when I visit assistants,
with Haiku Fever.
I don't know what langue
to speak with Christianna.
English? French? Flemish?
Why I like Belgium:
Multilingualism and
pommes frites and waffles.
I am sad to leave
Grenoble but it's Sophie's
turn to visit now.
Sometimes I wish that
I lived in an area
more geared t'words tourists.
Then people would be
sure to stop and visit when
they came to the States.
Other passengers
wonder why I keep counting
up to seventeen.
Haiku is too hard.
Not in the least relaxing.
I should learn to knit.
Will you be upset
if I don't bring you a gift?
I don't like to shop.
In elementary
school I hated haiku. Same
now; the "why" changed.
Then: because it was
too difficult. Now: because
it's an addiction.
En fait, a haiku
is supposed to be about
nature. Nature sucks!
srah | 10:55 AM | TrackBack | Tags: belgium, haiku, poetry, travel |
More complaints about transportation
It amuses me, in a frustratedly amusèd way, that I can make the trip from Grenoble to Brussels in about the same amount of time it takes to get from Grenoble to Vichy. It all has something to do with the relief of the Massif Central, says the SNCF. Excuses, excuses... all I know is I'm lucky to be in Vichy rather than Aurillac, which is six hours from Paris...
A consommer avec moderation
Children are fine in moderation. But a multitude of children, running all over, chattering, (accidentally?) kicking me, using talkie-walkies in a no-cell-phone area, watching my favorite movie and blocking my view of the screen, and stinking up my train compartment with tuna fish sandwiches when I am stressed about the continuation of my voyage simply will not do. I am going to eat them, I've decided.
The children, that is. Not the stinky sandwiches.
Obrigado
We really don't have enough contact with the Portuguese in the US. I don't think I had given Portugal another thought since we learned about their XVIth century conquests and the Line of Demarcation. They seemed to disappear from history and geography after that.
I desperately need to find an attractive Portuguese man. I am in danger of creating my entire image of XXIst century Portugal based on the two Portuguese men I've seen on TV, in C'est mon choix and Nice People. There must be interesting and attractive men in the country, but apparently they don't export well.
srah | 9:04 AM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, nice people, portugal, tv |
Travel panic
Ces connards at the Grenoble train station sold me a ticket for the 25th when I asked for the 27th. For the TGV, it doesn't create any graves problèmes, but for the Thalys to Bruxelles, my billet n'est plus valable. What unbelievable assholerie. I am an idiot myself for not checking the date on the ticket, but I've never had this happen to me before and it never even occurred to me. If they make me pay for a new ticket, I will bite someone.
srah | 8:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, travel |
April 26, 2003
I am the Weakest Link. Goodbye.
Just in case you, like me, have a mental block for a good half hour because you can only remember eight of the nine planets in our solar system, I present them to you (in Order As I Remember It):
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune (the elusive ninth one), Uranus, Pluto.
Or, if you prefer:
Mercure, Vénus, Terre, Mars, Jupiter, Saturne, Neptune, Uranus, Pluton.
Because here at srah blah blah, we are multi-lingual like that, even if we aren't terribly branch�e on the scientific. Boo-yeah.
La question que tout le monde se pose
The damned Belgian on Nice People speaks five languages. The damned Belgian I'm visiting tomorrow speaks at least six. Why was I not born in Belgium?
Sophie and I are both disappointed that our parents aren't foreign, as this would have given us a fine linguistic head-start. Being Belgian or Luxembourgeois wouldn't have hurt, either.
srah | 6:09 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, belgium, language, nice people, tv |
Shameless watcher of bad TV tells all
I watched the first episode of Nice People tonight. It's a reality show where they're locking young people of various European countries up in a villa, then voting them off one by one. A sort of cross between The Real World, Survivor, and an auberge espagnole.
Personally, I think it's a shame that anyone has to be voted off, because the pleasure could just be from watching people from different nationalities interact, like the assistants do. Voting people off means we won't see them anymore and that someone will have to win. Yechhhh.
srah | 5:49 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, nice people, tv |
Parfois, je suis heureuse
I am forcefully introducing Sophie to Cabas by making her download all of his songs. One of these is "A veces soy feliz". But if it's a veces, shouldn't it be estoy rather than soy? Temporary condition and all that? Remind me to stop thinking, especially in Spanish. I have no idea what langue I'm parling anymore.
srah | 1:20 PM | TrackBack | Tags: cabas, in spanish, lyrics, music, sofie |
Quiero té
It throws me off that in Spanish, the verb querer can mean either want (as in Yo quiero Taco Bell... sorry I couldn't come up with a better example) or love (as in Te quiero), two ideas that are very different to me in English. I can see how in cases of romantic love the two could overlap, but it shocks me sometimes when I translate into English in my head and find someone saying that he wants his mother a lot.
Goes to show you you shouldn't translate things into English in your head, I guess.
srah | 1:12 PM | TrackBack | Tags: in spanish, language, spanish |
April 25, 2003
De retour à Grenoble
I am spending the weekend in Grenoble with my host family. Sophie slept in, so I snuck out to run errands and take advantage of the Big City. Everything is pretty much as it was, the mountains are still lovely, I got to do a bit of shopping, and I even had 54 minutes left on my cybercafé account. I find that my disdain for Americans In France extends to my fellow CUEF students now and that even when one of them was talking about Michigan, I couldn't bring myself to associate with them.
srah | 7:30 AM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, grenoble, host family, travel |
April 24, 2003
My Cherie Amour...
Sometimes I think that headphones should be forced to carry a tag that says, "WARNING: Use of headphones may lead to over-emphatic lip-synching or singing out loud in TGVs. Use with caution." I think that would be much safer for all involved.
Hey you! On the bicycle!
Spotted today in the Capital of All Things Weird: a car inching (or should I say centimetring?) down the road, a speaker strapped to the top. Unfortunately, they were not advertising a Rhythm and Blues Show, but some kind of reptile extravaganza in Cusset with Real Live Crocodiles From America!
srah | 12:32 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, vichy |
April 23, 2003
Poor neglected JH(.net)
I haven't been able to do much with JohnHannah.net since I've been here, so it's sort of just sat there and waited patiently for me. It still loves me, in its fashion, even though I forgot its birthday a month ago. So I would like to take this day to thank JohnHannah.net for its patience and to tell it that I will be home soon to make everything all better and give it new pages and make it pretty.
And while I'm at it, thanks and happy birthday to John Hannah, without whom there would be no JohnHannah.net. Or maybe there would, because I'm insane like that. Anyway, thank you and joyeux anniversaire, John, and I hope you're having fun in Moose Jaw.
srah | 5:02 PM | TrackBack | Tags: john hannah, john hannah dot net |
Life is a bowl of vichyssoise
I haven't decided yet why, but it is. It would have made a good tagline, if I'd come up with it more than 12 days before my departure...
srah | 4:48 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship |
Going to the movies alone
Saw Laisse tes mains sur mes hanches tonight, which wasn't particularly spectacular and just made me feel lonely.
My observations on the film and its previews: Jean-Hugues Anglade looks like a French Kevin Spacey. Mmmm, French. Mmmm, Kevin Spacey. If I see another preview for The Recruit, I am going to bite someone. The Hulk looks disturbingly similar to Shrek. And the saddest thing about my departure from France is that I will miss the June 11 release of Mais, qui a tué Pamela Rose?, the greatest French cinematic classic since La Tour Montparnasse infernale.
srah | 4:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, movies |
Dream
Inspired by my post about the similarity between Vichy Sundays and Art Fair, my subconscious decided to supply me with an even better comparison: Football Saturdays.
I was driving my car in Ann Arbor, but I was having trouble getting anywhere because pedestrians were taking over the whole street.
"I've lived here... twenty-three years!" I exaggerated, as if that would impress them. It didn't.
"Maybe you should get out more!" someone yelled back. I got free of the pedestrian hordes and continued along my way, but ended up at Michigan Stadium.
I saw two of my students, Rémy and Eric, going towards the stadium and it occurred to me that I had a ticket to the game at home and that if this was an important game, I might be able to get some money for it. I went through a door and ended up in the teachers' lounge at Valéry Larbaud. Another student, Dorothée, was there, so I asked her if she liked football. She seemed to have only a vague idea of what the game consisted of, but she was able to tell me that U-M was playing Waterloo, so I realized my ticket wouldn't be in high demand. I went to clean out my locker and found a book about a talk show. Flipping through it, I came across a color photo section entitled "Why we're glad Alec Guinness is dead" and a chapter devoted to the strengths and weaknesses of what they called the "Terrieses" from Monty Python.
I feel like I dream about Monty Python a lot. Odd. Could it mean something?
Whirlwind ending
I'm off to Grenoble tomorrow, then to Belgium from there, then I'll return around the 29th to close my bank account, and I may be off again on the 30th or 1st to Aurillac, if I'm all packed and ready to go. Don't worry if I'm not posting - I'm sure I'll be writing anyway and you'll get a big glut of posts whenever I get a chance to type!
srah | 4:06 AM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, travel |
April 22, 2003
More ennuis
Another thing that will be difficult to handle is the inevitable question: How was France?
"Good," I will reply. My interlocutor will look at me expectantly.
"Really good," I will add.
On the other hand, I may end up with someone who will press me for more information, and who will unwittingly open up the floodgates of monologue, so that I will talk for hours on end about everything that's happened to me over the past seven months.
I can already envision the difficulty I will have getting people to understand the sheer Stefanocity of Stefan. I don't know if it's possible. You will just have to stand on the Franco-German border and wait for an orange bagnole to pass by in one direction or the other, so that you can experience it for yourself.
srah | 4:01 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship |
Another fun day at the cybercafé
LOVE CATS! LOVE! CATS!
Make it stop...
srah | 9:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, music |
Shortbread depresses me
When I lived in Grenoble, I never stopped being amused by France and the French and Europe in general. I think the difference is that I have accepted and adapted to a lot more this time, rather than being amused and staying on the surface.
I lived with things and was amused by them in Grenoble, but went back to my "normal" life in the USA afterwards. Now it feels like this is the normal life and I will actually have to readjust to my own country. My concern is that I will find it boring and bland and will reject it. I have in front of me a box labelled:
sables ronds pur beurre specialité ecossaise/ zandkoekjes met boter schotse specialiteit/ original schottisches buttergebäck/ biscotti rotondi scozzesi di pasta frollo al burro/ rodajas de torta seca de mantequilla original de Escocia.
I know it sounds stupid, but I could probably have a nervous breakdown based on the fact that these cookies would only be labelled as "pure butter shortbread rounds" in the US. I am mentally delicate at the moment. Be kind.
srah | 4:23 AM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, france, language |
April 21, 2003
Bon cinéma!
For weeks now, I've been looking forward to seeing Bon Voyage. The previews looked incredibly stupid, but the leading man looked really hot. No, not Gérard Depardieu. The other leading man. Anyway, WWII-era costumes and Grégori Derangère were all this movie had going for it in my opinion, but I am shallow, so I considered it well worth paying 6€ to see a Hot Guy In Costume. I am glad I did, because it turned out to be a funny, dramatic, good movie with, as an added bonus, scenes filmed at the Aletti Palace Hotel in Vichy. Rather ironic that a Vichy hotel was the stand-in for a pre-capitulation hotel in Bordeaux, actually.
I am quite impressed with our cinematic excursions this week and will be awaiting the North American DVD releases with bated breath.
srah | 5:17 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, movies, vichy |
Ah, ces Américaines!
Vichy, as we know, is insane. While everything was unexpectedly open on Easter Sunday, everything was unexpectedly closed on the fake fake holiday of Easter Monday.
We managed, however, to have a visit to our favorite salon de thé (yes, THOTs, we are old ladies), where I nibbled on a Paris-Brest and drank a thé au lait (rather than protein-rich beet juice). There's a joke in there somewhere, but I don't expect you to get it and I'm certainly not going to explain it.
srah | 12:59 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, holidays, vichy |
Dreams
I dreamt night-before-last that I was walking down the street and this guy en rollers with ski poles started harassing me and skating very tight circles around me. I got mad, tore the ski poles out of his hands, and pushed him off balance, so that he fell on the ground. He just smiled in a particularly evil way, then people started yelling at me. Why had I attacked this fine young man for no reason? His dad was upset because he would never play hockey again - but he hadn't even broken anything! They started demanding recompensation for his imaginary injuries and I was screaming at them at the top of my lungs in the dream when I woke up and yet, according to Renata and Jennifer, I had not made any noise at all in real life.
Last night I dreamt that math was a requirement at Albion and I didn't understand anything that was going on in the class. I had left my worksheet blank, but I had another copy that my mom had started, just for fun. The professor claimed I'd been trying to cheat by having my mother do my homework. I replied that I hadn't planned on handing in my mom's copy and that if I'd been trying to cheat, I wouldn't have handed in a paper with my mom's name written all across the top. To punish me for whatever I'd done, the prof called a pop quiz, but I couldn't even see the questions through my tears, much less understand them. I tried and tried and sobbed and sobbed and finally got up and went to the bathroom, where a group of girls were talking about their answers to the quiz. I didn't understand anything they were saying and I was crying too hard to pay attention, but then the prof came in and the girls said they were trying to help me, so I got in trouble again. When I woke up, my face was perfectly dry, even though I'd been sobbing all through the dream.
April 20, 2003
Thirsty?
Renaud was so adorable in Wanted that we squealed whenever he came onscreen. I was in a Renaud mood when I got home, so I put on the Best of '75-'85 CD I burned from Renata. In Dès que le vent soufflera, Renaud sings "La mer, c'est dégueulasse/ Les poissons baisent dedans."
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, after Indy bluffs to the Germans that Marcus Brody will blend in and disappear in Egypt, it flashes to Marcus in Cairo, looking for someone who speaks English or ancient Greek. When someone offers him some water, if you listen carefully, he responds, "Water? No thank you; fish make love in it."
What is the connection here? Are they both making reference to another earlier quote about the watery behavior of fish, or is Brody (1989) quoting Renaud (1983)? I find it hard to believe that they would both independently come up with the idea. Is there some kind of vast fish-love conspiracy? Can this quote be found elsewhere? What's going on here?
srah | 5:46 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, french, indiana jones, movies, music, renaud, wanted |
'If you say baseball one more time, Zéro is going to shoot you.'
A cinematic masterpiece has been born! Renata, Jennifer and I finished off our Traditional Easter Sunday with a kebab and a movie. We went to see Wanted, wherein a band of French braqueurs including Gérard Depardieu, Johnny Hallyday, and an adorable gun-toting Renaud, set off for Chicago for a heist. They wind up with the FBI, the Chicago Mafia, and a Latino gang all after them, and hijinks and gunfights ensue. It is wonderful and perfect, and yet not really a good movie. Nonetheless, I suggest it highly.
The weird thing about the movie is that it seems to have been made especially for us. I don't know who had the idea to make a movie with Johnny and Renaud speaking English, but we giggled and sighed and laughed at both the French in-jokes (Renaud and Johnny fighting over the radio, for example) and the purely American things like the take-off on Judge Judy. De toutes les façons, we really appreciate that someone made this movie just for us and I hope that others will enjoy it too.
srah | 5:23 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship, movies, wanted |
Sunday, damn bloody Sunday
One thing I will not miss about Vichy is Sunday afternoons. It reminds me of Art Fair in Ann Arbor. Suddenly the town is invaded by hordes of shoppers who descend upon it, much to the chagrin of the natives who can't get anywhere because of the crowds. Strangely enough, both cases involve Andean pipe bands playing on street corners and selling their discs.
Vichy, as a heavily touristic town, is one of the few places in France where shops open on Sundays. Thus people come from all over the region to shop, to see, to be seen, and to walk slowly down the sidewalk, seeing and being seen, while Sarah just wants to get past them, go the ATM and get home.
srah | 1:07 PM | TrackBack | Tags: ann arbor, assistantship, vichy |
Frightening prospect
People threatened me with nervous breakdowns the last time I came home from France, and nothing happened.
I'm afraid it will this time.
srah | 12:40 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship |