I've been thinking and debating about when I should finagle my escape from the land of brie and Bordeaux to schedule some QT with all my amazing confreres and countrymen back in TO.
I have my return plane ticket which must be used before 12 September. The problem being that if I visit late summer-ish, I'm away when I should be making money. This is a big problem, because I have no money :-( On the converse side, the weather is hot and sunny, frisboi beckons, everyone is happy, pitchers of sangria abound.
Were I to visit at Christmas, I forfeit the return part of the ticket have and buy a new Paris-Toronto-Paris ticket. Not as much fun weather-wise, but more of course more family, turkey, stuffing, presents and tourtière. Speaking from past experience, holiday visits skew towards the hectic as there is always much scuttling across the frozen landscape to be done; Toronto, Belleville, Toronto, relatives, friends, New Years. It all gets to be a bit much.
Then of course there's always the problem of not knowing exactly when the semester starts or finishes... Decisions, decisions.... Unfortunately I don't think I can afford to do both.
As with everything in France, my exam schedule is illogical and unclear. I have school, then two weeks of Easter holiday at the end of april, then come back for the first week of may, then am done the semester.
As if it wasn't already strange enough having a two week break, then coming back for one week of school (of which a day is already a national holiday), then finishing; no one seems to know when the exams are! Some professors have said exams are in the last week of class, others have said in the week after classes end, and yet others in the week before easter vacation! – Officially, according to the registrar's office, the exam period "hasn't been decided yet." – What! How can they not know? They've had the whole bloody year to figure it out!
I would say the whole thing was completely ridiculous, if I wasn't already so used to such nonsensical French shenanigans.
It's too close to call between this homage to all my favourite James Bond title sequences and the techo-Bollywood, many arms of Vishnu 80s Pac-Man extravaganza that is M.I.A.'s "Jimmy"
Scissor Sisters — "The Land of a Thousand Words"
And the winner of the WTTMB prize for best video of 2007 goes to...
The other day there was a meeting for the first year students at my school. Among other things, they talked about the exchange programme which the school offers. This programme was definitely one of the features that drew me to ESIT in the first place. I was muy excited by the opportunity to live in Madrid for a semester, see a different part of Europe and improve my Spanish all at the same time. —Did you notice the use of the past tense? I was excited by this exchange programme. It turns out that you can't get any credit for the courses you do while you're away! Um, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of an exchange programme? And what's more is that you can't come back and finish the rest of the year here; you're just out a whole year with nothing to show for it! Mais c'est completement insensé! Completely ridiculous! What is the point of even having this programme then if you can't get credit and have to miss a year?
Students from other schools, however, who come here on the exchange programme do get credit for their classes. –Why? The read between the line answer is that my school is so full of itself that they think classes we were to do elsewhere couldn't possibly match the outstanding calibre and level of instruction we have here.
Honestly, how pretentious can you actually be? Although, this is France, so I guess the answer is very.
I need two taglines, and I'm having trouble coming up with something snappy. Now who better to help me than you? Yes, you!
I need a tagline for all of the amazing 80s videos I'm discovering. It was a crazy, interesting time for music videos back then, experimenting and throwing it all together with a shoestring and a dream. Everything was exciting and everything was possible. —Sure, videos nowadays may have syncronised laser pyrotechnics and choreographed booty poppin', but where is the randomness? The fun?
In the interim, I've labeled these posts I Want My MTV, which was their original slogan when it first went to air in 1981. We didn't, however, have MTV in Canada until a few years ago, so I think there must be a better choice.
I've also decided to collect all of my stories about ÉSIT – the bumbling excuse for scholasticism that is my "university." I know there's tonnes of lyrics, movies, Simpsons quotes and Chinese fortune cookie sayings about schools and/or languages, but absolutely nothing is coming to mind right now.
All thoughts, feelings, emotions are warmly welcome!
In my exams last semester I got an 18/20 on my exam for Perfecting your Written and Oral French. I'm pretty proud of it because 1) in the derisory French school system, a 15 is considered the best score you can realistically hope for, and 2) the prof is this effusive, extravagant writer and I really value her opinion.
For the benefit of all you French readers, I've reposted part of that exam here. The prof gave us a list of ten words, then we had to incorporate the words into a 10-line story. See if you can pick out what the words were.
Sa fuite n’est pas sans danger
Vietnam, Indochine de mystère. Dans les paddys du Mékong ; étouffant, un été éternel. Une jeune veuve, Minh, s’enferme dans sa maison. Le monde qui l’entoure l’ennuie depuis la mort de son gentil mari, un marchant de cacahuètes. La saleté de la campagne, la pudeur du naturel. Elle veut, elle doit, retourner à Saïgon, le glamour, l’excitation. Mais ses beaux-parents l’enchainent, ils sont zidanes.
La mélancolie est oppressive pour Minh, elle meurt ici. C’est en fumant l’opium qu’elle vit vraiment. Elle rêve de Saïgon ; les bruits de voitures, le clac des tuiles quand elle jouait au mah-jongg avec ses amies. Sa fuite n’est pas sans danger. Les beaux-parents pourraient la découvrir, la dénoncer, la jeter dans la rue. Mais elle n’y pense pas. Toute ce qu’elle veut c’est retourner au Saïgon qu’elle a connue.
When the Christmas vacations finished, I was feeling all sorry for myself. The holidays were finished, Paul was back in Canada, no more Morocco to look forward to, a whole semester of ridiculousness stretched out ahead of me. No money. French bureaucracy. Winter. Boo-hoo-hoo. Woe is me.
How boring to sit around moping all the time. I decided the pity party was over! As soon as I decided that, things started looking much better. — I may still be trapped in some 1984-Kafka hybrid of insane bureaucracy, but at least I can laugh about it, walk along the Seine and eat fancy pastries.
At the same time, after months of sending out résumés and getting no response whatsoever, people started falling over themselves to offer me jobs. Crazy. So I took a job that starts in a few weeks teaching English to people in the financial sector (Welcome to Dullsville, population: me. It pays pretty well however). I also took another sideline job on a casual basis as an airport transferist (a person who collects rich American tourists from Charles-de-Gaulle airport and puts them on shuttles to their hotels). Looks like I wont need to be working the corner of Rivoli and St-Paul after all...
Sure, videos today might have solid gold jets filled with rappers' girlfriends dressed in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, but do they have giant monopod turtle-humans who know sign language?
Also, it is the first week of February and there are already flowers in the park!! I'm so glad winter is basically over here. Winter is certainly one thing about Canada I will never miss!
In keeping with my second New Year's resolution, which was to steal good ideas from other blogs and pretend they're mine own, I hope to make CI a regular feature (though perhaps not weekly as it's done here).
The premise is quite simple really. I ask five questions. All y'all write five answers. You can either answer in the comment section provided, or if you are blogerationnally-inclined, you could answer in your blog and just post your link in the comment section. Today's theme is travel.
Habeas deliciæ! (Have fun, in Latin)
1. Someone is going to drop you off at your local airport early tomorrow morning. You can take any flight leaving the airport for a free holiday. Where will you go? (Please consider: flights actually leaving your local airport tomorrow)
2. You have a holiday coming up and can visit one city on each continent. Which ones will you visit, and for how long?
3. If you had to live in a country (other than the one you think of as 'home') and had to stay in that country for the rest of your life, where would you choose?
4. Part 1: You have $100 and must travel somewhere for a month. Where will you go? (Please consider: cost of living, opportunities to work, people you could mooch off of, etc. –Ah ah ah! No borrowing money! The $100 doesn't have to pay for your travel to the place you want to go). Part 2: You have 100,000$, but only 24 hours. Where will you go to spend it? (No buying real estate, gold bricks, etc.)
5. What is a vacation; relaxation or adventure?
Bonus question: what's your favourite vacation memory from when you were a kid?
It's Fashion Week again in Paris. "Week" is a bit of a misnomer because it actually spreads out over several weeks for men's collections, prêt-à-porter, haute-couture, etc. I've been keeping an eye out for my old friend Linda, but she's been pretty busy lately. We'll do lunch at Alain Ducasse next time she pops over.
Women's collections were all about vooooluuume. More pleats and flaps and bubbles than you could have ever imagined. A dress so big that you can only fit in the elevator by yourself – Yeah, that's what I'm talkin 'bout.
Men's collections were pretty conservative. –Maybe playing it safe in this uncertain economic climate? Let's see... We still can't live without hats. Dark grey is the new black. Ties remain skinny, jeans less so. Tendency towards flat-fronted trousers in general. Long hair is officially over. Shoes still pointy, but a softer, happier pointy. Prada collection absolutely unwearable!
Another year under my belt. A little older, yes; but a little wiser?
My birthday being so close to New Year's, it's always been a good time to stop and look at the bigger picture. While I'm stopping and looking I figured it'd also be a good time to ask for some help in becoming a better person.
And what better path to personal growth than stealing ideas from other blogs? If you could take five minutes to leave an anonymous comment for me, I would be ever so terribly grateful.
Good thing, Bad thing
Knowing that you, my friends and family, all love and accept me 100% the way I am now, I'm asking you to leave a brief little comment with one good thing you really like about me and one bad thing you don't like. –"Don't like" is of course much too harsh, but "Good thing, Constructive criticism thing" isn't a very snappy name. No need to beat around the bush; my feelings won't be hurt.
I feel it's important see the difference in perception between how you see yourself and how others see you. The things I don't like about myself might be completely irrelevant to others. Other things I do like about myself might not even be on the radar. People may see merits where I saw faults. The point is I'll never know until I ask.
So fire away. Shoot from the hip. No holds barred. Etcetera and so forth.
(Some musical accompaniment for your reading enjoyment; both in traditional and classic formats. Fesbulous photo album here.)
Morocco was so much like a trip to another planet, I'm not even sure where to start. (But I'm told the beginning is a very good place).
Flying on the morning of New Year's Day is never going to be fun, thus no one wants to do it and you can get fly to exotic Morocco on the cheap, which is what Polish and I did. When flying out of Paris you have two choices for airports: the shambolic slag-heap of Charles de Gaulle (watch for falling roof pieces!) or charming and efficient Orly. The only not-so charming thing about Orly is the special €7 monorail train you have to take to get there from the nearby train station. Why so expensive Orly? What gives? The monorail turned out to be one of the most expensive things of what turned out to be an otherwise fesbulous intercontinental holiday. Who knew I'd be back in Darkest Africa so soon?
Landing at Fes' cute-as-a-button little airport was sheer golden-afternoon gorgeousness, all breezy olive groves and mountains in the distance. And after struggling with some immigration-disorganisation, I was quickly struck by just how different everything really was. First thing I saw outside the airport doors: an old Berber lady with face tattoos walking between the orange trees. "This places is gonna be something else" I thought. As our dilapidated taxi lurched along to the hotel, I thought about how airport taxi rides in Asia often leave you with the feeling "this place is the same, only different." Fes, on the other hand, was different, period. Straight away there were minarets and goats in trees, djebellas and shepherds with sheep. Gliding past the Art Deco villas of the French-built 'Ville Nouvelle' towards the medieval Bab Boujeloud gate to the Old City, I couldn't help but feeling I was travelling through time rather than space. Our hotel, former British consulate and one-time host to young Winston Churchill, further added to my temporal confusion.
What a city! We walk down the Petit Talâa and the Grand Talâa –the old city's main streets, barely two meters wide. There are no cars in the Medina. Instead there are donkeys. Delivery donkeys, garbage donkeys, donkeys to pick up your Coke bottles and donkeys to carry camel hides to the smelly tanneries on the other side of the city. Some of you might have even gotten a postcard that was carried out of the Medina on a donkey (and not many people can say that!). We see veiled women at fountains, pigeons waiting to eaten, animal carcasses on hooks, a store full of pickles; the air smells of spices and smoke and the sound of Moroccan horns and drums tumbles out a dark archway. People offer us rugs, tangerines, tajines, pots, pot, Arabic clocks that sound the call to prayer, pewter teapots, Berber jewellery, slippers in ever colour, and at least two donkeys push us out of the way. –We've been there twenty minutes.
Fes is the most complete medieval city in the Arab world and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. The old city is built in a basin, with a spider's web of lanes all sloping down to the Kairaouine Mosque at centre. It's one of the largest mosques in North Africa and, arguably, the most important university in the Islamic world. The city, its people and its 364 other mosques all spiral out from here. Yet strangely, this heart of Fes is almost completely hidden behind the urban fabric of buildings, houses and shops. The best non-Muslims can hope for is a glimpse through an open doorway between prayers. (Lots of stuff in Morocco is off-limits to us infidels). Despite the overt religiosity of the Fes, it didn't feel particularly conservative. There were lots of women out and about, as many without a headscarf as with. Full on veils were pretty rare - I only saw a few.
Something we did see a lot of, however, was buckets and buckets of icy rain our second, third and forth days there. We got wet looking for the best fes-hat shops. We got wet searching the souks for socks. We got wet getting lost. "Will it rain tomorrow?" I ask. –"Only Allah can say" the fes-hat man answers. Barring a direct line to the Big Guy, I remember a valuable travel lesson: it always pays to carry an umbrella (meaning, of course, that you can't leave it in your suitcase at the hotel). "Inshallah it will stop raining soon," but it never really did. We were often wet and cold, but it didn't stop us from rockin' the casbah (though the shareef don't like it).
Overall, I give Fes five muezzins out of five for its dirt-cheap plates and rugs, delicious couscous and pastilla, and general medieval Arab fezmazingness. If I had to do it again, I'd go outside of diluvian flood season, I'd go up to the Merenid tombs where you can get a panorama of the entire old city, and I'd spend more time just wandering the tangled maze of alleys getting lost (which is something that we definitely did not do at all; no taking a wrong turn and walking into the teen hustler section of Fes, no sirree, that did not happen at all). If you decide to go; read The Spider's House by Paul Bowles and watch the Morocco Ab Fab episode.
I'm calling it now: Fes is my new favourite place on the Dark Continent. And though I wasn't able to sell Polish in the market for 2000 dirhams, I have to thank him nonetheless. Shukran for laughing in the rain and for rockin' Moroccan!
Another year draws to its conclusion – and that can only mean one thing: Top 10 Lists!
What makes the cut and what didn't pass the mustard in the Double-Oh-Seven edition of everyone's favourite intercontinentalist? Let's have a looksee...
Out With The Old 2007 Lowlights, Fiascos, Disasters and Other Miscellaneous Imbroglios
§...Writing the second part of my grad school entrance exam on Good Friday! What kind of God-fearing Catholics are they in France to schedule an exam on the day our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did whatever he did on Good Friday? (Bad Catholics, that's what. The going-to-hell-straight-away kind of Catholics). And it certainly didn't help that the exam started at 10am and lasted until 5:30! Yikes! (What's the French translation for 'permanent nerve damage due to hand cramps'?)
§...The Coalmine, a.k.a my previous job. Oh so much to dislike. Was it the cubicles, or endless paper chase, solving problems that should have never existed in the first place? Maybe it was the hour-long commute to horrid North York? Or maybe the fact that I always felt stupid because my training was inadequate? And four people doing the job of eleven was no fun either. I could go on and on, but I'll just thank god that it's all over now instead!
§...Rdriv.sys virus – how you ruined my life! At a time when I felt "Gee, things can't get any worse," you came along and did just that. I loved paying 200€ trying to get you the hell out of my computer, and in the end you won anyway. You suck and I hate you!
§...The weather in Toronto this summer. As if it wasn't bad enough that it barely broke 25° all summer long, then I had to listen to idiots go on and on about "how nice it was that it was too hot." Uh, when you spend the other nice months of the year worrying how long it will take exposed flesh to freeze, there is no such thing as a summer that's too hot! Why can't you just enjoy it, bitches?
§...My digital camera breaking - the day after my computer died. Again, just when I though things couldn't get any worse, they did. I think I even went through the five stages of grieving when I realised what had happened. Really, the nadir of my time here in Paris (but who knows how many other unforeseen things have yet to go wrong for me in the City of Light, ha ha).
§...Le Consulat Général de France à Toronto; in particular -but not limited to- the Visa Section, the Education Section, their automated telephone system, their online appointment booking system, and all people who have ever worked there or will ever work there in the future – I hate you. Already blogged about here. I am especially upset, however, at the woman in the Education section who said I couldn't apply for French government bursaries as a foreign student if I was outside of France. In fact, I could have done exactly that. All I needed to do was to apply at the Education Section of my nearest French diplomatic mission... i.e. - it was her bloody job to tell me about the French government bursaries! She just couldn't be bothered.
§...Anything leading up to, including, and following my Toronto departure was of course a big emotional mess. Taxi to the airport: messy. Aimless what-am-I-doing-with-my-life wandering around Paris: messy. MMC's Singapore departure: very messy. Too many bloody mary's on AC880 to Paris: messy.
§...ESIT (my school), blogged about in profusion: 1, 2, 3, 4 . Okay, I know now that French universities are a disorganised nightmare. It still doesn't really make me feel any better. Further example of ridiculousness: I wondered how we were going to get the results of the exams we just finished writing. Perhaps a monk was going to transcribe them onto parchment and they would be delivered to us by carrier pigeon in six to eight months? Or maybe they would tell us to go line up in some random university administration building -open 2 to 3:30 Tuesdays and alternate Thursdays, way out in the middle of nowhere — only to get there and have them tell us that we actually needed to go to a different building on the opposite side of Paris? — I decided to ask a professor how we were going to receive our marks. She said she didn't know. So then I went to the equivalent of the registrar's office to ask them. They didn't know either! How can they not know – they're the bloody registrar!! Honestly, a level of disorganisation that would make Nicaragua shake its head.
§...Stepping in candle-wax the second time I wore my brand new shoes, thereby ruining them. –I guess it was meant to teach me a lesson about buying too-expensive, fancy shoes. What it really did, however, was make me want to go out and buy even fancier shoes.
§...The far too frequent "have-I-made-a-horrible-life-decision?" moments. While I do think translation is the answer -my school-induced traumas, the apprehension, anxiety, my crash landing, the extra year- are all making me wonder if Paris was really the question.
Hmmn, certainly a grouping of calamity skewed towards the France side of the year... On vera ce que ça donne, as my grandmother used to say (we'll see what happens). I declare 2007 to have been the year of the wait-and-see. Plenty of good stuff happened as well:
Best In Show 2007 Hit Parade, Highlights, Accomplishments and diverse Happinesses
‡...Tiki Hula Luau, version XXVIII. Blogged about here. Simply amazing! When Jenni said it was like Holly Golightly's party in Breakfast at Tiffany's I swooned and nearly fainted (or, I nearly Liza'ed, if you speak gay).
‡...Summer beachy fun with the boys, nearly every weekend this summer at Hanlan's. What better way than a photo montage to relive the melanoma-induced amazingness? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
‡...Waking up on Sunday morning with MMC, baking quiche and watching Project Runway on DVD. So fun and so gay! (Just like me!)
‡...This photo. Kawaiiiii!
‡...Finally! –A movie about what it's like to be me! The Curiosity of Chance hits all the right notes and deserves best picture of the year for its genuine and captivating recreation of my formative years (though the small matter of royalties has yet to be settled). Even better was that director Russell Marleau commented on my post!
‡...CentreIsland Maze one Sunday at the end of April, the first day of real spring. The first day of spring is always fabulous, and the maze -which I had never been to before- was oozing with spookiness in the slanty afternoon light. Wandering around the creepy overgrown hedges, I thought 'either I'm going to end up in Narnia, or, none of use will ever leave here alive because of some insane axe murderer.' Good times!
‡...Although I have been Complainy Complainerson vis-à-vis Paris, it is still a very beautiful city. Aimless flâneuring always comes up with some charming lane or forgotten courtyard. One particularly Parisian moment involved standing at the very tip of Île de la Cité, at night, in the pouring rain, watching the bateaux-mouches gliding along the murky Seine like a real-life film noir.
‡...Finding out I got accepted to the school back in May. The memory has been somewhat tarnished now by the many and myriad problems since, but it was certainly great at the time.
‡...Buuuuufalo with MMC. Who doesn't love a good road trip – especially one that involves art, shopping, Buffalo wings, gay bars, and winning money at Casino Niagara? Special props to the Twlight Zone Buffalo downtown core, devoid of all signs of human habitation and the Twilight Zone Canadian border crossing at 4AM.
‡...The race for who gets to fill the last 'Highlight' slot is too close to call. I'll leave it as a photo finish and let the judges decide. Pride or Fake Prom?
Photo of the Year 2007 This section is interactive for all ya’ll! Time to vote on the year's best photos! Votes, praise, donations, and solid gold gifts can be left in the 'Comments' section.
Photo of the Year 2007 Montmartre - April Fake Prom - August Sacré-Cœur - September
Photo of the Year 2007, Portrait Category Pride - June
Beach - August
Photo of the Year 2007, Tokyo Tintin Category Winner due to personal bias - It's my favourite.
What was I thinking?!? 2007 Hair explosions in the Musée d'Orsay are so 2003! Caution, this combination of eyeglasses and watch may induce seizures.
Best dressed 2007 Fake Prom (August), winner by acclamation
New Years Resolutions As always, my New Year's resolution is to be more fabulous. Last year I said I was aiming for a "glitter" rating of fabulousness in 2007, which I feel was achieved by summertime. I'd like to thank the Academy, the producers, all the people who worked on the project, and of course my many amazing friends — I owe it all to you.
Unfortunately, intercontinental migration has since caused a steep hit in the standings, and, despite picking up glamour points from Paris and Linda Evangelista, things are currently hovering around "glint" levels. Lots of hard work ahead to get things back on track in 2008, but definitely achievable.
Happy New Year! Bonne Année! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! 明けましておめでとうございます! 恭賀新禧!
A funny story from the beginning of the semester that I forgot to relate because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself (and a further example of the farcical school system here):
I have a class called Entreprise et son environnement about commerce and the business world, so you can understand and then translate economicky texts. While quite often French university classes don't use a textbook, this one does. Fine, no problemo.
I didn't have a chance to go to the bookstore, but the next week of class, another student puts up her hand and says "I went to the bookstore, but they told me the textbook is out of print." To which the professor responds "Oh yes, I know. Very unfortunate. But you can't very well expect me to re-write my whole course just because the textbook is out of print. You'll just have to make do somehow."
...Isn't France ridiculous? C'est n'importe quoi ici !
"Whereas the tourist generally hurries back at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no
more to one place than the next, moves slowly, over a
period of years, from one part of the earth to another.
Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among
the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he felt the most at home."
Paul Bowles — The Sheltering Sky
