I had a premonition

I miss Russia and I miss this little girl - Mihalya is a daughter of my mom's friend who's also a piano teacher. She's got some 'tude and is the cutest child ever. She will not do anything to please anyone and is very strongwilled. In other words, she's awesome. In other news, I still have not heard anything from Fulbright, although it is too early, I've begun thinking about the possibility of not getting the grant and how disappointed I would be. Hm. Today was incredibly unproductive. I went to bed full of ideas and woke up without any energy to acomplish anything. Classes went well, my premier european class got to write their own blues songs and they did really well. At the end of each class I treated them to a rendition of my own blues song entitled "I'm stuck in Kansas City," you had to be there to appreciate it. The regular terminal class was in intellectual hibernation as usual, and only a few brave souls dared to open their mouths, even though we played a game similar to TABOO during class. Fashion TV, the channel, has been ever since after dinner and it lulled B. to sleep with its techno beats and gaggles of attractive Slavic-looking women parading around and getting made up. It's such a strange channel idea - just various fashon shows, line launches, and photo shoots, filmed along with make-up and hair sessions. And at midnight, there are lingerie shoots, where you get to see boobies. Hoor - a - fucking - ah. At least now I know how Fashion Week in Milan differs from Fashion Week in Madrid. Oh wait, IT DOESNT. It's silly and it's like PBS for the mentally drained fashionistas, one of which I'm not. The mystery of why I watch it remains. Perhaps I do so because it is not a French talk show, of which there are thousands on our 18 free channels courtesy of Orange, three being in Arabic, one in Portuguese, one in Spanish, and two in English (one of those is a China channel though). I'm slowly getting used to the French' penchant for boring, roundtable discussion shows that come on from morning till night, but that does not make me want to follow that debate or the other. The majority are either focused on the candidates for the presidential election, or on what is wrong with France today. I'll let you guess.

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Deux mois

It's been two months (and eight days) that we've been here and I thought I'd summarize some things I've learned about France.

1. French people do not move out of your way as you walk toward them - in fact, most stop in the middle of the narrowest passageway in order to talk about urgent world crises just as you're in a hurry to get to class. If they also happen to be students, they will ignore you so well that you won't be able to get their attention and to get by them until you're hoarse from screaming 'Pardon' and 'excusez-moi.'

2. French kids are adorable and most are very well dressed.

3. French dogs are adorable and most are little and very obedient. Yesterday in the park we saw one in a bike basket riding with its owner, and another in a little wagon attached to the back of the bike, being the cutest little passenger. Très cute, as the Quebecois say.

4. The baking of baguettes is best left to the boulangeries, those from grocery stores like Monoprix or Carrefour suck ass.

5. Diet drinks get really exotic here - my favorites are apple litchi and lime melon, they're fizzy, tasty, and sugar-free. Three cheers for aspartame!

6. 14-15 year olds are retarded and are a complete waste of time no matter what country you're in.

7. Failing to say bonjour / bonsoir as you walk into a store is a criminal offense and you might as well be ready for the firing squad if you do not do so.

8. You cannot pay attention to people's intonation as they talk to you, especially if they're French speaking English. The intonation has thrown me off dozens of times and I've assumed so many nice people were just being assholes because they sounded weird or sarcastic as they spoke. Being direct with someone is absolutely impossible if they're French, so you might as well just give up and get tangled up in a confusing web of implications and pragmatics involved in a conversation.

9. Free softcore porn on at 11 pm every night does get boring after a while, even if it's surrealist French porn.

10. Although being the smallest cog in the machine of a giant high school sucks - you get villanized by the computer lab people for printing pages out and then get hateful looks from the copy room people for copying them - having a position where you are free to teach whatever, without the possibility of being fired, is kinda nice. The majority of your students are just relieved you're not walking into the class with the intention to cane or humiliate them. The rest are a pain in the ass (see pt. 6).

Too Many Friends

My great and wonderful friend Ninette sent us a package full of movies burned on DVD, as well as three full seasons of Friends - which were very wonderful at first - but are now taking over my life. I've seen all of them before, the last time I was in France actually, and yet I cannot stop myself from watching. The cold temperatures and the short days are even more of an encouragement, since I don't want to go out and it's so freaking cold. The show is funny, of course, but all this watching has got to stop. Seriously. The best part is that I get to hear Bill crack up at every joke - even the ones that aren't funny.