samedi 14 novembre 2009
mercredi 11 novembre 2009
Just dance
About 4 weekends ago, I went to a kind of formal for an engineering school called Polytechnique. We were with some of the graduates were celebrating their diploma( they are just now getting them even though they finished last spring). I actually teach one class there but thankfully didn’t notice any of my students. They transformed an engineering school into a nightclub. Hundreds of people showed up, there were makeshift bars with people dressed as astronauts serving cocktails, several DJs with a wide selection of pop, rock, French 80s, a karaoke room, one of those light up dance floors, etc. Basically it was right up my alley.
As a result of all my enthousiastic dancing with one smitten character, this excerpt of a message was sent to me a few days later and seems to sum up a lot of things: “Dancing with you, it’s magic. I don’t speak very good english…” As I have said before, dancing in France is never just a dance. The French truly wear their hearts on their sleeves and they fall in love at first sight, or at least they seem to want to, and often believe they do. I had to write a message today, several days late, saying that I want to be friends, but nothing more. I can just imagine him reading and weeping. I feel bad about it but after this past weekend I really had to do it.
With the same theme in mind, another Saturday night took an unexpected turn to the dance floor after a somewhat horrible period of time. It had a been really fun evening drinking with a hefty group of fun-loving Brits, but there was one newly introduced girl who was already showing her true colors to us, though we hadn’t picked up on it yet. She really loves her horse. She spent a long time talking about it to me, and all I could offer as a response was that horses really scare me. That’s when she admitted to being hospitalized several times by her horse, and that she loves it so much she just can’t ever stop riding. This is when I should have realized she might be slightly brain damaged or at least that she’s prone to self-inflicted, destructive behavior. I wondered how many horse calenders she’d gotten over the years.
Right before we left for the bar, she encouraged a round of tequila shots, which were mostly drunk by the girl, 5 if I remember correctly. On the way to the bar I ran into Elisa and her group and introduced her to the brits, but they were off to somewhere else and we had to catch up to drunk girl who impatiently left before all of us. Naturally, when we arrived at the bar, this girl was completely wasted, unable to walk, being sick everywhere, asking for certain boys, and screaming in a really annoying accent that was almost Irish. I think the worst part was that none of us really knew her, so we didn’t know what to do with her. We were very close to where I and another girl live, though she would only go home with one of our guy friends (wonder why?). So, fed up,me and the girl who lives one second away from me headed home, pissed off at this idiot who ruined everyone’s night. After a few steps she suggested going dancing, she said she knew a kind of “dodgy” place on the way back to where we live. So I said, why not, it could only make things better.
After a jack and coke I saw a looming figure out of the corner of my eye, standing basically beside me, but not making a move. I made it for him. My friend eventually said she was tired gonnna go but “Well done Katie! He’s hot, you have to stay here.” So, I followed her advice. This dance then lead me to his best friends’ apartment, where I hung out with a bunch of really cool French guys. They were all welcoming, laid back, and I felt at home instantly. It was weird. And my dance partner has been playing the acoustic guitar since age seven, which made for good background noises during good conversation.
After a night of snuggling, and a day of hangover recovery, I met him on a Monday afternoon till midnight. We wandered around the city for a period of seven hours, stopping at random places, talking about all kinds of weird things and kissing intermittantly. So, I think I’m his girlfriend suddenly. But, there’s a catch, as always. He works on the coast as a kayak instructor and I will probably only see him on the weekends when he has more free time to be my personal tour guide and french slang dictionary. We’ll see.
About 4 weekends ago, I went to a kind of formal for an engineering school called Polytechnique. We were with some of the graduates were celebrating their diploma( they are just now getting them even though they finished last spring). I actually teach one class there but thankfully didn’t notice any of my students. They transformed an engineering school into a nightclub. Hundreds of people showed up, there were makeshift bars with people dressed as astronauts serving cocktails, several DJs with a wide selection of pop, rock, French 80s, a karaoke room, one of those light up dance floors, etc. Basically it was right up my alley.
As a result of all my enthousiastic dancing with one smitten character, this excerpt of a message was sent to me a few days later and seems to sum up a lot of things: “Dancing with you, it’s magic. I don’t speak very good english…” As I have said before, dancing in France is never just a dance. The French truly wear their hearts on their sleeves and they fall in love at first sight, or at least they seem to want to, and often believe they do. I had to write a message today, several days late, saying that I want to be friends, but nothing more. I can just imagine him reading and weeping. I feel bad about it but after this past weekend I really had to do it.
With the same theme in mind, another Saturday night took an unexpected turn to the dance floor after a somewhat horrible period of time. It had a been really fun evening drinking with a hefty group of fun-loving Brits, but there was one newly introduced girl who was already showing her true colors to us, though we hadn’t picked up on it yet. She really loves her horse. She spent a long time talking about it to me, and all I could offer as a response was that horses really scare me. That’s when she admitted to being hospitalized several times by her horse, and that she loves it so much she just can’t ever stop riding. This is when I should have realized she might be slightly brain damaged or at least that she’s prone to self-inflicted, destructive behavior. I wondered how many horse calenders she’d gotten over the years.
Right before we left for the bar, she encouraged a round of tequila shots, which were mostly drunk by the girl, 5 if I remember correctly. On the way to the bar I ran into Elisa and her group and introduced her to the brits, but they were off to somewhere else and we had to catch up to drunk girl who impatiently left before all of us. Naturally, when we arrived at the bar, this girl was completely wasted, unable to walk, being sick everywhere, asking for certain boys, and screaming in a really annoying accent that was almost Irish. I think the worst part was that none of us really knew her, so we didn’t know what to do with her. We were very close to where I and another girl live, though she would only go home with one of our guy friends (wonder why?). So, fed up,me and the girl who lives one second away from me headed home, pissed off at this idiot who ruined everyone’s night. After a few steps she suggested going dancing, she said she knew a kind of “dodgy” place on the way back to where we live. So I said, why not, it could only make things better.
After a jack and coke I saw a looming figure out of the corner of my eye, standing basically beside me, but not making a move. I made it for him. My friend eventually said she was tired gonnna go but “Well done Katie! He’s hot, you have to stay here.” So, I followed her advice. This dance then lead me to his best friends’ apartment, where I hung out with a bunch of really cool French guys. They were all welcoming, laid back, and I felt at home instantly. It was weird. And my dance partner has been playing the acoustic guitar since age seven, which made for good background noises during good conversation.
After a night of snuggling, and a day of hangover recovery, I met him on a Monday afternoon till midnight. We wandered around the city for a period of seven hours, stopping at random places, talking about all kinds of weird things and kissing intermittantly. So, I think I’m his girlfriend suddenly. But, there’s a catch, as always. He works on the coast as a kayak instructor and I will probably only see him on the weekends when he has more free time to be my personal tour guide and french slang dictionary. We’ll see.
mardi 10 novembre 2009
SORRY
i have so much to say, it's impossible to say everything! my internet service provider is a piece of shit. i will go yell at them today and hopefully resolve something and be up and running again. and i need your adresses to write you!
jeudi 8 octobre 2009
Classes
Today is a Thursday, which means I have my favorite students. Inspired by an article about Japanese rent-a-friend agencies, I asked an intermediate class what they would rent if they could rent anything in the world for any amount of time. Here's some of their answers:
a midgit, to be launched into the air as a human missile;
a midgit, to finally feel taller than someone else;
BB King, to lend some guitar skills;
Obama, to remove him from his presidency, take over the U.S., and thus the world, as a totalitarian dictator;
a body, to step out of one's natural sex or appearance altogether and into someone else's.
I liked these, because none of them were things that came into my own head. Also I realized that being funny really is an essential stage in the process of becoming fluent.
In a very advanced class, I had them explicate some poems in pairs, looking for diction, rhyme schemes, repetition, symbols, and meaning. I used a section of Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill," Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," part of Robert Lowell's "Skunk Hour," and T.S. Eliot's "La Figlia Che Pianga." Obviously, Contemporary American Poetry with Wyatt Prunty left a mark of nostalgia in my heart. Somehow, even though I thought I picked these poems at random, all of them seemed to be linked together by that very theme. In one of these classes I had the treat of two Italian Erasmus students, who could actually say the title of Eliot's poem. And, even better, they interpreted the title as being both the "Girl who weeps" and the "Daughter who weeps," which made for different versions of what was actually happening in the poem. Lizzy, what is your interpretation??
The other level of students I had today were first years, so I chose to talk about something I thought they would understand, Facebook. But, as I was informed after class, I spoke too soon, and too fast. After reading an article aloud that no one understood, I made them create a Facebook profile in English on any well-known character they could think of. Spongebob and Superman were picked alongside George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Cartoon characters and Hollywood hunks, now linked by Buddhist beliefs and an interest in happy endings. Superman is an anarchist. This is what happens when French people are asked to used their imagination.
Looking back, it was a pretty good day considering I showed up to work without any lesson plans in a department with a broken printer and photocopier, with just a few scribbled notes and four poems. Improvisation- that's life.
a midgit, to be launched into the air as a human missile;
a midgit, to finally feel taller than someone else;
BB King, to lend some guitar skills;
Obama, to remove him from his presidency, take over the U.S., and thus the world, as a totalitarian dictator;
a body, to step out of one's natural sex or appearance altogether and into someone else's.
I liked these, because none of them were things that came into my own head. Also I realized that being funny really is an essential stage in the process of becoming fluent.
In a very advanced class, I had them explicate some poems in pairs, looking for diction, rhyme schemes, repetition, symbols, and meaning. I used a section of Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill," Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," part of Robert Lowell's "Skunk Hour," and T.S. Eliot's "La Figlia Che Pianga." Obviously, Contemporary American Poetry with Wyatt Prunty left a mark of nostalgia in my heart. Somehow, even though I thought I picked these poems at random, all of them seemed to be linked together by that very theme. In one of these classes I had the treat of two Italian Erasmus students, who could actually say the title of Eliot's poem. And, even better, they interpreted the title as being both the "Girl who weeps" and the "Daughter who weeps," which made for different versions of what was actually happening in the poem. Lizzy, what is your interpretation??
The other level of students I had today were first years, so I chose to talk about something I thought they would understand, Facebook. But, as I was informed after class, I spoke too soon, and too fast. After reading an article aloud that no one understood, I made them create a Facebook profile in English on any well-known character they could think of. Spongebob and Superman were picked alongside George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Cartoon characters and Hollywood hunks, now linked by Buddhist beliefs and an interest in happy endings. Superman is an anarchist. This is what happens when French people are asked to used their imagination.
Looking back, it was a pretty good day considering I showed up to work without any lesson plans in a department with a broken printer and photocopier, with just a few scribbled notes and four poems. Improvisation- that's life.
lundi 5 octobre 2009
dimanche 4 octobre 2009
samedi 3 octobre 2009
First of all, sorry, internet hasn't been working!
A few days ago...
It was one of those days when you wake up knowing you won't go back to sleep before the pigeon coos, you've already forgotten your dream, and you realize you bought coffee beans instead of grounds.
I go out to do some errands before my afternoon classes. Off to the Tour de Bretagne, the only excuse for a skyscraper Nantes has to offer, and the likely place to do some business. Not unlike the Tour de Montparnasse of Paris, this building is a late seventies icon of modernity. In other words, it's an eyesore. The stark rectangle of metal and glass seems to be a proclamation, saying "Look at me, stand in my shadows, this is an urban center!" But, compared to the comfortable skyline of roughly six floors of creamy, Haussemann style buildings with little cherub faces under swirly iron balconies, this building just doesn't fit in, it's not French enough. In fact,the closer I get to it, the more I feel like this building could be anywhere in the world, and nowhere in particular.
Inside, it's actually even less welcoming than its reality-obscuring glass exterior. An unfriendly person at the welcome desk ignores you until he looks at you like you're an idiot. After you tell him why you're there, he kindly presses something which lets you pass through the barriers, which are like entrances to subways that block you if you're ticketless, in this case blocking you for coming in the door.
After all that, and five more steps forward, I wait for another door, the elevator. There's other people gathered there, also nervous, confused, and no doubt likewise irritated at having to wait for the one elevator that works at such a "modern" building.
When I show up where I'm supposed to be, I'm in an office. But, it's no ordinary place. Even before I enter, I notice unusually loud elevator music coming from the speakers of a desktop computer, classical instruments playing unrecognizable, light melodies. Behind the L-shaped desk, and it's ill-fitting desk worker, plants are bursting out from different sized pots on assorted platforms. You can tell he really cares about them because they've all got little self-printed name tags, which somehow classify one thin-leaved green plant from the next. I wonder if he's into Zen or New Age. Maybe he's following a holistic prescription to cope with anxiety or anger management. His figure doesn't match his office. He's the kind of person who rests his arm on his belly when he talks on the phone.
Anyway, I find out my visa has, in his words, "conneries" written on it. Okay, great, just my most important official document. After an interlude of phone calls, he tells me I have to go back to the very same Prefecture that sent me to this ugly building in the first place, now with some freshly stamped documents in hand. Then I should be fine, legally. After a long sigh, not quite one of relief, I decide to temporarily put that out my head and head to work.
Promise I'll write about that subject next.
A few days ago...
It was one of those days when you wake up knowing you won't go back to sleep before the pigeon coos, you've already forgotten your dream, and you realize you bought coffee beans instead of grounds.
I go out to do some errands before my afternoon classes. Off to the Tour de Bretagne, the only excuse for a skyscraper Nantes has to offer, and the likely place to do some business. Not unlike the Tour de Montparnasse of Paris, this building is a late seventies icon of modernity. In other words, it's an eyesore. The stark rectangle of metal and glass seems to be a proclamation, saying "Look at me, stand in my shadows, this is an urban center!" But, compared to the comfortable skyline of roughly six floors of creamy, Haussemann style buildings with little cherub faces under swirly iron balconies, this building just doesn't fit in, it's not French enough. In fact,the closer I get to it, the more I feel like this building could be anywhere in the world, and nowhere in particular.
Inside, it's actually even less welcoming than its reality-obscuring glass exterior. An unfriendly person at the welcome desk ignores you until he looks at you like you're an idiot. After you tell him why you're there, he kindly presses something which lets you pass through the barriers, which are like entrances to subways that block you if you're ticketless, in this case blocking you for coming in the door.
After all that, and five more steps forward, I wait for another door, the elevator. There's other people gathered there, also nervous, confused, and no doubt likewise irritated at having to wait for the one elevator that works at such a "modern" building.
When I show up where I'm supposed to be, I'm in an office. But, it's no ordinary place. Even before I enter, I notice unusually loud elevator music coming from the speakers of a desktop computer, classical instruments playing unrecognizable, light melodies. Behind the L-shaped desk, and it's ill-fitting desk worker, plants are bursting out from different sized pots on assorted platforms. You can tell he really cares about them because they've all got little self-printed name tags, which somehow classify one thin-leaved green plant from the next. I wonder if he's into Zen or New Age. Maybe he's following a holistic prescription to cope with anxiety or anger management. His figure doesn't match his office. He's the kind of person who rests his arm on his belly when he talks on the phone.
Anyway, I find out my visa has, in his words, "conneries" written on it. Okay, great, just my most important official document. After an interlude of phone calls, he tells me I have to go back to the very same Prefecture that sent me to this ugly building in the first place, now with some freshly stamped documents in hand. Then I should be fine, legally. After a long sigh, not quite one of relief, I decide to temporarily put that out my head and head to work.
Promise I'll write about that subject next.
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