Dorm Life

Yesterday I helped my friend Kilmer move in to her new apartment. It is in the same apartment complex as mine, so I'm happy to know someone I can borrow flour and eggs from now. It's just like living in the dorm except that she doesn't have a dry-erase board on her door and I'm living with Jube...

Things have been very busy for me lately--class, work, and homework, lather rinse repeat. I know that must sound like a pretty lame excuse for not updating in a week or so, but I also had to finish reading the books I'd checked out of the library, because they are due tomorrow! And really I should be catching up on housework right now instead of writing here, but I have an obligation to all of you out there who still come to my blog in the hopes of reading something new.

I guess I can talk about my impressions of the local news. It's really kind of funny how it still strikes me as really different from France, even after nearly a year back in the States. In France, the regional news was full of free advertising for "cultural events," like special markets or parades. Here I learn about the horrors of sending your kid to school on the bus or how illegal immigrants are killing sweet all-American teenagers. (Seriously, there was a week-long special edition of the news focused on a kid who was dropped off at the wrong bus stop and had to ask a stranger for help finding his way home.) The Mexican man was drunk and hit the teenagers' car, killing both girls. This one got a lot more attention than local news stories usually do, because Bill O'Reilly picked up on it.

Now there is a brouhaha about a football player named Vick who has a house in Virginia Beach. The police raided his home and discovered dogs who were being trained for dog fighting and dogs who were recovering from it. This story has gone national as well, so now the local news is covering the national coverage--"See how the Richmond courthouse has been turned into a circus by LOCAL dogfighting charges!"

Every day there is another fire reported. Jube jokes about how they are mentioned: "An evening fire today" or "An afternoon blaze" are how they are introduced. He says, "Soon there will be a teatime conflagration!" Unfortunately the same language is used about car crashes and violent crimes, leading viewers to believe that there are daily shootings and pileups (it's hard not to think so when you hear about the "early morning shooting in Downtown Norfolk").

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't really watch the regional news in France. It was really boring! I didn't watch the national news either... Well, that's not totally true. I usually caught the "Six' Minutes" on M6. It is really just a "headlines" kind of show, where the news is finished in (you guessed it!) six minutes. I wish that that kind of program existed over here. It made staying informed a lot more painless!