Maybe I’ll be the Lucky One that Doesn’t Get Burned

The Spread

For about a week now, I’ve let myself melt into my head, subsisting on orange slices and blackberry tea. Here, holidays have a tendency to slip into the back of my consciousness, particularly when there’s nobody else around who celebrates the same things I do. However, as people generally say when cold whether and gray skies settle in, “who’s needs and excuse to celebrate?”. Indeed.

With Thanksgiving being a perfect excuse to gather the ol’ crew together, I over enthusiastically informed Mirium and Rocio on Tuesday that Thursday I would be cooking dinner and that they had no choice but to come.

Nothing like shoving my culture in other people’s faces, but I ask, how bad can you feel if you’re offering to cook a meal? Not very. At any rate neither of them seemed to have a problem with joining in, and I made calls to the only other two assistants in Dieppe- Frazer the Scot from Glascow, and Estefania another Andalucian.

potatoes

Dealing with two hotplates and a microwave I bought two rotisserie chickens at the local charcuterie and enough bags of potatoes to feed 10 people. So. I boiled the potatoes.

…mashed them with a big plastic fork…

Estefania and Rocio

…made some greenbeans and Bruchetta (A VERY American sidedish, made with french baguette, french goat cheese, and french tomatoes)…

Frazer and Miriam

…bought some candles and, sat everybody down, and had a meal. Everyone looked at me like with not so hidden amused smiles that seemed to say, “oh look at out crazy little american hovering over the stove. Let’s indulge her alien holiday of eating birds and mashing potatoes.”

Nevertheless Miriam made nutella crepes for dessert, and seemed to have a good time.

After all, it’s nice to have an excuse to celebrate something once in awhile.

Another shot of the table for good measure.

Guys, I MADE this.

VINDICATION (world wide web or bust)

Yesterday, and a solid month after first going to Orange to get internet, two address changes later, and a great search to find keys to our postbox (which actually never ended up working. oops looks like we’ll have to keep harassing the high school secretary for our mail), And we have internet!

I have to say the connection is questionable, and I’m not even so much elated by the fact that I have internet (It’s been kind of nice in many ways to not have the www to rely on), as much as that in the past two weeks I have:

1) Successfully gotten my Carte de Sejour- making me a legal inhabitant of France FINALLY

and

2) Figured out the French system enough so that we DO have internet

It’s a nice feeling of accomplishment: SO

Lara: 1

France: 65

SO YEEEEAH! Chalk one up for the American, the German, and the Spaniard

Which way is up?

Lately the cold has settled in, with the first light dusting of snow greeting me Sunday morning, as I tramped back to Neruda from the Centre Ville, wrapped snuggly in mittens and hat.

It seems to be the season for making hot chocolate and soup on the stove, wearing long johns and cardigans and settling into sleepy days, watching Dexter, and taking long walks and runs and thinking about where the hours disappear to.

It also means that i’ve had a lot of time to myself, and I’ve found myself listening to a lot of stuff I haven’t touched in years like Counting Crows and Ben Folds- but I’ve found it makes me feel less moody and oddly less nostalgic, and in general less reflective; which, after being alone with my thoughts for weeks on end is a welcome change.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving, and since Alli is going back to the States for a couple weeks (she DID give me a Toblerone bar as compensation), I’ll be the only American in Dieppe. I’m thinking about making a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner for my two roomates on our two hotplates- maybe some Turkey breasts and homemade mashed potatoes? Or perhaps some Thanksgiving crepes would be more fitting.

Oddly enough, I feel fairly disconnected to the holdiay this year, and more and more in the absence of family and friends, I feel like my American heritage has become more of a caricature, or rather something I own, like a book I have to share for show and tell, as opposed to part of who I am. And I know this is false, or rather just misrepresented, becuase my “Americaness” marks me just as much as anybody else, and nobody can take away what the nuances of that culture have made me. But in the absence of the presence of other Americans, I often feel like a lot of the traditions I hold are just novelties- they lose their emotional importance without people you love, and become like those old tapes you have from middle school that you hold onto because you feel like they SHOULD be important.

My mom often points out that after living for almost 30 years in the States, she doesn’t feel really either American or Colombian. I see what she means. I just passed the 2 month mark, and have identitiy crises on a weekly basis. Who am I? What does it mean that I feel like I can’t fully articulate myself in either French or English? Now that I’m forced to look at and present my culture from an outside perspective, I don’t really feel tied to either- I feel like a complete foreigner to the French, but on the other hand, I have to look at my own identity from a foreign or French perspective. It makes me a little dizzy to tell the truth.

Is this what people mean when they use the term “global citizen”? I highly doubt it, and I know i’m not the first person by any means to move to another country- to have a transplanted sense of self.

But a transplanted identity I have, with a side of French mashed potatoes, and imported gravy. It’s disconcerting, but in this day in age pretty normal I think. After all, identity isn’t concrete and certainly  doesn’t stop for moving- but it’s wierd to see mine thrown into a tornado with nothing to weigh it down.

Clearing out the Clouds

By Emily Hunt http://www.emilyrhunt.com/

Feels like my brain this week. TGIF, man. SERIOUSLY.

“Why Cynics Are Wrong”

“Why Cynics Are Wrong”

http://www.lacan.com/article/?page_id=3

Thanks Ben for posting this- it deals with many of the same dillemas I’ve been having prior to and since the election of Obama as president elect.

Here in France, I was met with the same repeated comment on November 6th, upon talking to other teachers at Delvincourt and Neruda regarding the election. Essentialy- ” yes you elected Obama, good. Hopefully he can live up to expectation.”

And I’m in agreement, that Obama is not the savior that many make him out to be- but in my opinion, his election does do something to at least change the paradigm and the lens with which we can look at our future.

Again, thanks for posting this Ben- good article

Untangle the Cobwebs!Cast off the Shackles! Up and AWAY!

if only things were this blatant

As Monkee so eloquently stated LAST November:

“November is cuddling time”

Since there has been a blatant lack of cuddling in the past couple months due to the fact that I live in a detention center in a town populated by the aged or infants, I’ve spent the past week in hibernation in my room, curled under 5 blankets, and watching hours upon hours of the same season and the same episodes of Arrested Development, while sipping hot mint tea and eating oranges that I buy fresh (not really) frol Auchaun.

This means two things: 1) I have been sleeping an appaling amount, and 2) I’m a phantom to my roomates.

Well.

Enough I say. This morning I woke up to gray skies and drizzles, and threw off the blankets, head foggy from 13 hours of sleep, and ran into the kitchen to make coffee. I mean. I work 12 hours a week. There is no excuse why I shouldn’t have time to take my medicine regularly, read some books, and write some stories for chissakes.

My newfound enthusiasm could not come at a better time. I often forget that striking is France’s second favorite pastime, behind taking their sweet time to do everything, which, come to think of it, is probably why they strike so often.

Anyways. There’s a teacher’s strike starting Nov. 20th, which I have no intention to partake in, even though I could protest my rough 12 hour week where I rarely have to plan or do anything except speak in my native language. This strike apparently comes on the heels of an unfavorable bill that Sarkozy (ever popular among the Fench), that would entitle teachers to fewer benifits. And while I like protesting and striking as much as the next person, and while I would love to show some solidarity with my co-workers, I choose not to because a)I’m poor and b) well im poor. Nevertheless Michèle sent me a message today informing me that Jean-Pierre would probably be on strike tommorrow, so I would be doing some alternative work.

Anyways I promised a recap on seeing Delay play on Saturday:

outside La Mirotail

Cassi's friend, Camille

One thing that still boggles my mind is that Delay got people to DANCE.

And really I could go on and on about how good it was to see these guys, except it wouldn’t be interesting to anybody but myself.

As usual, I lost track of time and didn’t even get a chance to take a picture of them, because I was too busy taking pictures of everything else. Needless to say, it made my week to see them- I had forgotten how nice it is to see Columbus faces.

Stinkhaus's twin

outside

The show was played at small residence near Pere LaChaisse, and had been squatted in for the past 9 years. And while France has quite an affinity for underground music, there’s been a lack house shows, so I was surprised to walk back to the kitchen with Jesse to see a table laid out with vegetarian stew and brownies- to the point where I though I was in Columbus for a second.

Jesse said the red carpet had been rolled out for them in Europe, and that they’d been wined and dined nightly as well as (gasp!) on the recieving end of real beds with (double gasp!) real mattresses. Apparently these places get American bands so rarely that when they do, they shower them with some real European hospitatly. Nevertheless it was good to se Ryan, Austin, and Jesse. They’ll be missed.

We don’t leave the house alone anymore

This weekend was good. I went to Paris and saw Delay. But I’ll write about that later because upon returning home last night something happened that’s been on my mind all day.

Upon arriving here, most people told me that Dieppe is a safe town to walk around at night- which at first was shocking, but recently it’s been liberating to realize that I live somewhere where I can essentially leave to go somewhere at 9pm and not think too much of it, and not have to carry around mace- because this is just something I would NEVER consider doing in Columbus, at least not without thinking twice.

This past July after I had surgery, I couldn’t ride my bike for a couple of weeks, and was thus forced to drive. One day, I had to drop off a bag of peaches off at Lauren’s house, which was two blocks away, and I remember SPECIFICALLY thinking “it’s two blocks away- stop being paranoid, and just walk”.

Indeed.

Last year I got into the habit of walking down the middle of the street after dark so that I could see around me and so that somebody couldn’t just jump out at me (probably stupidity in retrospect, but in these cases I feel like there’s so little difference in what will save you that half the battle is making yourself feel safer). Walking down Hunter past 5th, a car drove up behind me, and after moving over, I realized that the car wasn’t driving forward. The man rolled down his window, and told me to get in his car, and the frightening part was, Hunter was absolutely deserted. He rolled slowly forward, and I crossed the street away from his car, and started walking faster as he drove forward a ways. Suddenly stopping, he reversed quickly, as I sprinted the remaining half block to Laurens, and a group of people suddenly appeared at the corner, and the car drove off quickly.

Last night as I was walking along the deserted country road we have to take from the bus stop to the internat, we saw a lone car parked with its lights on in the parking lot next to Neruda. As we approached, the car backed up, and waited as we walked closer. We got close enough, and I pulled out my phone and the car containing a single middle aged man drove off down the road.

As we approached the front of our unit, the same car pulled into another parking lot that sits in front of our building, driving slowly in a circle, and stopping in front of our gate only to continue circling slowly around the parking lot.

Upon reflection, part of me feels bad for feeling paranoid, and part of me feels pissed off that I feel bad for questioning instincts that I’ve learned to listen to.

Upon approaching somebody at the school about it today, I was told that while it’s good to be alert, it’s bad to be too paranoid. I agree. But. Huh?

People often cite incidents like this of women being paranoid. A few years ago, some guy actually told me to stop being a paranoid woman because I came home and my door was unlocked- but the truth is it’s not an issue of being female or not just of being human and not wanting to die- and yes I feel bad that I have to question every jack and stranger that walks the street at night, but what really gets me sometimes is when people attatch gender stereotypes to something that goes down to the basic human reaction towards feeling alone and helpless and scared.

I’ve never lived somewhere where there isn’t a neighborhood around. And I realized I dont even know how to call the police here.

Tommorrow I buy mace.

So Fuck you, shady man in his car who circles my parking lot at night. I’m now afraid to leave my house after 6pm.

Bimbo

Bread of Champions…

Life as a Lie

Until I was about 15, I was the most focused, studious person you ever met. And not just because I wanted to get A’s. Because I loved learning. I loved it. And I still do. I remember leaving cross country practice in 7th grade to go to Kottman Hall at OSU, and laboring over the samples of wetland sludge that I had extracted from the bottom of the Olentangy Wetlands to measure the amount of nitrogen that these man-made structures were removing from potential farm runoff. I would run my analysis, have the janitor ask if I was a wiz kid, and run to my Mom’s car in darkness in time to go home and eat dinner by 9.

I don’t know why exactly I ever diverged from that path. Somewhere while waiting half an our in the darkness every week for my mom to pick me up at the empty laboratories at OSU, my addled 14 year old brain asked itself why I wasn’t at home, talking on the phone, or reading Seventeen magazine.

I started reading things like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence, and learned how to use a darkroom, and suddenly things like crouching over soil samples and running phosphorus analysis seemed to lose their relevency to my life over time.

Today I went to a class at Neruda that wasn’t an English class, but rather an engineering class that Jean-Pierre asked me to comen to. And as I started listening to all these 15 year olds talk about making 3_dimentional models of systems, and environmental engineering, I could hear myself start to talk about my long forgotten wetlands, and how they could be used to alleviate problems like agricultural runoff. I could hear myself asking them how you could use engineering to solve problems like global warming, and why this is important, and my science fair self came surging back full force, and I had to tell myself to slow down, becuase no 15 year old French student would understand me talking a mile a minute in English about engineering and runoff and Carbon emmissions.

In Dieppe I’ve often wondered when everybody is going to figure out that I am grossly unqualified to teach their students.  I speak English. I volunteered at the literacy council for a few months. But every once in awhile I’ll roll out of bed, and only when I get to class will I realize that I’m dressed in a flannel shirt and bright purple cardigan, and that really they probably have more of their lives figured out than I do.

In college I often got by writing papers that I knew sounded academic. Writing a paper for a film anaIysis class I would think “what is the most convoluted thing I could write right now?” and the funny thing is I would often get back good marks with comments like “good read!” or “outstanding insight”, and would start thinking when is everybody going to realize that I’m just faking it?

These kids can make three dimentional models on the computer, and have dreams of becoming computer engineers, whereas my only job at this point is to speak my native language.

So when are people going to realize that I’m a fake and don’t really know what I’m doing? I dunno. I’m still waiting.

So guess what Mom and Dad. Environmental Engineer it is. Check.

Sticky Beats Shits the Hits (aka: I’ve seen our future and it’s Hungry)

Andrea and Dom

With the impending arrival of seeing Delay play in Paris (I still can’t quite wrap my head around this one), I realized the other day that it’s been ages since I’ve seen a band of any kind play at any venue, unless you count fiddlers strumming away on the metro a show.

This happened to change last Friday when I decided, after spending 5 of 7 days on either a train or a bus, to impulsively hop on another train (Europe will turn me into a train hopping vagabond yet) and head to Rouen with Dom and Andrea for the night to see a band called the D0 play at club 160 in a circus tent near a carnival on the Seine (at some point in this scenario I remember thinking, I am exactly where?!)

The show, consisted of a woman from Helsinki and a man from Paris. Being accustoled at this point to small town life, the first 5 minutes of said show were spent as I looked around not sure what to make of myself as the words SENSORY OVERLOAD flashed about a million times through my head. Doesn’t matter. The show was sweet. I imagine that if somebody with giant hands scooped up Muse, Clap your Hands Say Yeah! and Camera Obscura, and popped them in a cocktail shaker, the Do is what you would get.

In Spain and South America I often feel like a disjointed robot when I try to dance. I remember two years ago, my cousin Susana tried to teach me Vallenato, telling me to move my lower body and upper body separately, to which I wanted to yell back- they are attatched for a REASON! I’m used to sweaty punk shows where all I have to do is show up and jump up and down. In France I don’t have any problem with dancing, mainly because people do not dance. They do not bob. They do not tap their foot. They stand in rapt silence, paying whatever musician is onstage their upmost attention. At first, standing in that crowded but very still tent, I expected raucous boos to emmanate from the stoic and quiet crowd crowd, but as it turns out being stoic at a French concert is just being attentive, not disrespectful. The tent indeed errupted in cheers and hoots after they had finished their set.

Lately I’ve been feeling quite wrapped in my head, and not because there’s necessarily anything interesting going on in there. Dieppe has settled into quietness, and Mirium and Rothio have their own routines, so I generally find myself taking long walks, and eating dinner alone, stuffing leftovers unceremoniously into the refrigerator to be picked at later on.

It’s odd to have friends in different cities when things from day to day are generally so placid, and sometimes I find it funny to hear myself saying things like- I’m going to hopa train to Rouen this weekend to visit Dom, or I’m going to hop a train to Paris for the weekend to visit Amanda!

Monday I found myself in Rouen again for orientation and got to hang out with Andrew, ALice, Dom and Sam again. The night ended with us at Alice’s concluding that Andrew would move to Budapest and become DJ Mandrew, publish a biography called “Our Hungary Future” and have a weekly radio show called Sticky Beats Shits the Hits (with DJ Mandrew), which would segway Hungary into a new era. Of course this would create a movement across the entire Eastern Bloc, and t-shirts with exed out ice cream cones would litter the continent.

These are conversations that will change the future indeed.

And I know I’m rambling, and I feel like today in particular my thoughts are just so disjointed but qs I said I’ve been in my head lately, but nothing interesting has happened.

This weekend I go to Paris to see Delay, and it makes my heart skip about two beats to realize I’ll get to see some C-bus faces.