Synchronicity

I am taking a French linguistics course this semester and I am learning all sort of phonological words and descriptions. It doesn't seem like this is very practical or even applicable to my daily routine, but as I was writing a work e-mail this morning, I made a typo and wrote, "convusing." The little red spell-check underline popped up, and I looked more closely at the word. But wait a minute, I thought, that's not a spelling error - that's a natural linguistic evolution: la sonorisation!

So I was right on one count: the class is NOT practical. But I was wrong on the other: apparently it is quite applicable to my daily routine.

It smells a bit strange...

This evening I had a cramp in my big toe.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" I cried. "I hate it when I have toe cramps!"

"Let me see," said Jube. He pulled off my sock and massaged my foot for a bit. "What's this?" he asked, smoothing his thumb over the bone nearest to my toe. The skin was dry. "Are you developing an onion?"

J'ai tout compris!

The other day Jube asked me if my blog was dead. "Of course not!" I said, but then I realized that I really haven't been doing a good job of updating. So here's a try to get back into the swing of things:

I graduated on May 10! Now I just have to find a job.

BB visited, and we had a great time. He now knows that Norfolk, Virginia is really awesome.

Since finishing classes, I've been reading lots of books and updating lots of resumes.

Now, for something completely different (and vastly more amusing):

The other day, Jube, Lorene and I went to the president's house for dinner. Yes, that's right, I'm in tight with President Runte of Old Dominion University! (Actually we went for a different reason, but it sounds good to say that I know her really well, right? Except that now she's going to be president of a Canadian university, so bye bye reference...) Jube's real last name is the same as a relatively famous French author. Let's say his name is Jube Rousseau (as the French say, why not?) President Runte has her PhD in French Literature, and as she gave us our nametags she said, "Did you know that Rousseau was a famous French author?"

"Oh yes," said Jube.

"Ah! Et vous parlez francais?" she asked.

"Oui, oui, bien sur," he answered.

She turned towards the nametags again, and mistakenly addressed me: "Et d'ou est-ce que vous venez, alors?"

I thought about answering, "De l'Ohio," but instead Jube told her he was from Montpellier.

"Wonderful, wonderful," she said, abstractedly. "Well, bon appetit!"

As we were leaving, she again spoke to Jube, asking about his future plans. I jumped in, to prove that I could speak French too, and we chatted a bit about where we would find jobs. She mentioned moving to Canada, as she was doing, and I made a stupid joke about writing down her phone number to call her later. (She didn't laugh very hard.) Poor Lorene, who speaks German very well but not much French, pretended like she was listening to the conversation.

"Bon, bien, au revoir!" she said.

"Au revoir!" Jube and I answered.

"Au revoir!" put in Lorene, as we were leaving. On our way back to the car, we all burst out laughing. "I had no idea what she said, but I think that it looked good to say that, right?"

First Lesson: Gender!

Jube recently volunteered to teach a community education course at a nearby school: Introduction to French Culture and Language. He was in for a bit of a shock when he read the course description...

"If you want to learn about France and its language, what better person to learn from than Jube? She is a native of France, educated at Universite Montpellier III in the south of France, and she has worked at several middle and high schools in France as an English teacher. Her informative course will cover beginning French for travelers/tourists, a discussion of contemporary French culture, and analysis of French stereotypes."

"One of my coworkers pointed it out to me," he said. "I guess the first thing I do will be to make sure they know I'm the teacher! Actually, maybe I could get you to teach the class... they'll never know the difference!"

Books!

Even though I've been pretty busy this summer, I have still been able to indulge in reading books for pleasure. As far back as I can remember, I have always loved reading. As a snobby high schooler I used to think that I could never fall in love with anyone who didn't like reading as much as I did. Then when I met Jube I had to revise my rules, because he really doesn't like reading that much. He does, however, have good taste in books (his favorite authors are Toni Morrison and Guy de Maupassant), so I guess that will have to suffice.

My friend Brooke loves reading even more than I do, I think! When reading her blog the other day, she had posted an interesting meme: turn to page 23 of the closest book and write down the 5th sentence--and of course, you are not allowed to get up to search for the most intellectual book at hand! I thought my results were pretty funny, so I figured I'd post them here. (Two of the books were on Jube's side of the bed, and two were on my side of the bed.)

Le guide conduit son cheval par la guide. --French Grammar, a Complete Review: Pronunciation, Grammar, Verbs, Idioms, Exercises, Francis M. Du Mont

Cela peut etre toutes sortes de choses. --Evidences invisibles: Americains et francais au quotidien, Raymonde Carroll

I pulled a few euros out of my purse and went out, finding a bench at the end of Aunt Mina's street. --Salaam, Paris, Kavita Daswani

On the last night the balconies were full of people, and the heyiya-if filled the whole dancing place, and in the sky the heat lightning danced in the southeast and the northwest, and you could not tell the drums from the thunder, and we danced the Rain down to the sea and up to the clouds again. --Always Coming Home, Ursula K. Le Guin

I know, I know, there are four books here, but I thought it was kind of a funny contrast. Maybe it is just self-infatuated. I do think that it is interesting to see what other people are reading, though! It seems, from the selection I have here, that my reading interests are France and anthropology, which helps to make me sound intellectual. I'm just glad that I went to the library yesterday and returned my guilty pleasure books (and no, I won't admit to what they are!).

On another note, I have always enjoyed the French for "guilty pleasure": peche mignon, literally "cute sin." It sounds much more affectionate than "guilty pleasure"...

Beurk!

When I first learned French, I cracked everyone up with my Spanish-influenced gaffes. For example, instead of ca me fait peur*, I said ca me donne peur*. Another "hilarious" (to them, not to me) mistake was Tu me fais vomiter** instead of vomir**. I soon learned the right thing to say and instead started making people laugh at how shocking my language was.

For some reason, Jube and I were talking about all the different ways to say "vomit" in English. We have so many wonderful words, like throw up, puke, up-chuck, hurl, retch, heave... and each one is beautifully descriptive of a specific way we regurgitate our food. Jube then taught me gerber, which is a particularly nasty way of saying vomir (or vomit). Since French is not my native language, I had no qualms about using it in front of others, until one day I expressed myself in front of the wrong problem. Poor Belle-maman! She has to put up with three sons who are generally less than delicate at the dinner table and a daughter-in-law who didn't hesitate to say that she dislikes some foods because ca fait gerber. It didn't take me long to stop bandying the word around for the laughter it produced...

Back in the US, I was walking down the baby aisle in the local grocery store and was surprised to rediscover the best-selling baby food brand:

The baby does kind of look like it has a little gift for you, doesn't he? And of course it looks very similar to the French meaning when you open it up and look inside...

*That gives me scared instead of that makes me scared (loosely translated, of course)
*You make me vomitit instead of you make me vomit (yeah, that's a really loose translation)

Round Up!

I've been a bad blogger this week. First I had to write my papers, then I had to start 30 hours a week at my internship, and finally, instead of sleeping in on the 4th of July, I got up early to volunteer at a school event. I've had a couple of thoughts rolling around in my head to post, so here they come:

One
Jube picked me up at work the other day, surprising me outside of the building. He pulled the car up and said, "Bonjour, Mademoiselle, do you need a ride?"

I laughed and got in. "I have the nicest boyfriend in the world!" I said, catching myself too late. "I mean, I have a great husband!"

Two
I think that I was lucky that I didn't speak any French before I moved to France. I just caught a short video of myself explaining something in French from February of 2005. Wow, I was bad! Thinking back on it I don't remember speaking that poorly. I think that learning in France helped me avoid the embarrassment of the Language Learner that comes from thinking you should be able to speak a language. I felt that way in Spain sometimes, thinking, Come on, you know this! Why is it so hard for you to understand?

Three
Tennis. I'll bet you're bored of me talking about it, aren't you? Well, I'm never bored with watching tennis! I am, however, bored with American announcers. In France, the announcers are certainly biased toward the French players, but they don't try to hide it. They urge them on like real fans--"Allez Grosjean! Allez la France!" In the US it is equally more subtle and more annoying. Instead of enjoying a well-played match, they pepper the commentary with suggestions like this: "She's lucky Venus mishit that return." Or, "Poor little Gasquet! That was a good serve for him! That's Roddick's average!" They say it with straight faces (I'm assuming), without any irony at all, giving the impression that they can't help it if the American players are just better than everyone else. If only there was one announcer who seemed like he enjoyed watching tennis, I would like it more.

Four
Tonight Jube, Lorene, Willy, and I are going to the Bier Garten. I'll tell you how it goes. There are only a few words or phrases I know in German, and das Bier is one of them. I also know Ich kann kein Deutsch, which came in handy in Austria, and "Twenty Minutes!" thanks to Run, Lola, Run. Funnily enough, that also came in handy in Austria. As we were checking into our hotel, Jube tried to communicate in his Bac-level German with the workers. Getting frustrated with us, the woman finally told us, "mumbleblehbleh zwanzig Minuten!"

"Jube, Jube!" I clamored, "I know what that means! She said 'twenty minutes!'"

"I guess we'll come back in twenty minutes, then," he said to me.

If Only I Knew...

Why is it that on vacation, when I have plenty of free time, I don't get anything done? And when I have a deadline or a paper due, I will do anything to get out of it? That's why I'm blogging tonight: I have a couple of papers I need to finish by Wednesday (yeah, thanks, I love having things due on the 4th of July!), but I need a break.

I don't really have anything to write, so here's a little Jube mixup from last night:

We were checking out the top 100 movies on Rotten Tomatoes. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was rated around 50.

Gem: Oh, Dr. Strangelove! I love that movie! It's sooo funny!

Jube: Dr. Strangelove, huh... Is that with Eddie Murphy?

Gem [howling with laughter]: No. You're thinking of Dr. Dolittle.

Jube: Oh yeah. Hey, don't put that on your blog, okay?

Sleep In.

This morning Jube and I had a breakfast of supermarket croissants. Around one o’clock, he started thinking about making lunch and went to the kitchen to consider our options. He called out to me, “What should we eat for lunch?”

“Dunno,” I called back.

“Dunno!” he said. “You like those two syllables, don’t you? You should write a thank-you letter to whoever invented those two syllables. ‘Dun-no.’ And those two syllables mean so much more than just ‘I don’t know!’ They mean ‘I don’t want to cook.’ They mean ‘I know we have to go shopping, but I don’t want to think about it.’ And they also mean ‘I wash my hands of the subject and you have to do everything.’”

I smiled at him from my place at the computer.

He rolled his eyes and said, “You’re a pest!”

“Fine,” I said, “What do you want to eat?”

“Dunno,” he said.

Except it was in French, and went more like this:

Jube calls out to me from the kitchen, « Qu’est-ce qu’on va manger à midi? »

« Chais pas. »

« Eh ben ! Tu aimes ces deux mots ! Tu devrais écrire une lettre de remerciement à celui qui a inventé ces deux mots. « Chais pas. » Et en plus tu peux dire plein de choses avec ces deux mots. Ça veut dire « je ne sais pas. » Ça veut dire aussi « j’ai pas envie de faire de la cuisine. » Et aussi « je sais qu’il faut faire les courses, mais je ne veux pas y penser. » Et finalement ça veut dire « je m'en lave les mains et c’est toi qui vas tout faire. »

I smile.

He shakes his head, looking at me at the computer. « Tu es une peste. »

I ask, « Alors qu’est-ce que tu veux manger ? »

He looks at me and clearly enunciates, « Chais pas. »

Personne...

What is most difficult about learning another language? My answer would be: the hardest part is figuring out the differences from your first language. That sounds stupid, I'm sure because--hey! It's another language. That means everything is different. Before I learned Spanish or French, I think I just assumed that other languages worked just the same as English, but with different words--like Pig Latin, if you know the key, you can speak and understand everything. But I was wrong.

The gender of nouns was particularly hard for me. I doubt that I am unique, because I think it must be pretty difficult for all anglophones. This gender-specific labeling struck me as sexist at first. Why is a tomato a girl in French but a boy in Spanish? Why are ears female while toes are male? Of course, there are some sexist constructions. For example, in Spanish from Spain, there is an informal second person plural pronoun: vosotros/as. The existence of this pronoun is not sexist, but the fact that you use the masculine version if there is even one man in a room of 500 women is. One of my professors in Spain had a difficult time remembering this--he was teaching a small class of 10 women and was always informal with us...

While in Spain, I even heard some half-baked theories about how language helped our society (American society, claro) become a democracy before others. Because there was no difference between formal and informal pronouns, we were enlightened and decided to treat everyone as equals. Language also helps explain the Queens of England, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Margaret Thatcher.

I sort of believed all this until I realized that the generic word for "person"--persona in Spanish and personne in French--was feminine. It struck me one day when a politician described another man: Il est une personne humaine, intelligente, et forte. ("He is a humane, intelligent , strong person"--but all the words are feminine.) So basically, although there are some sexist parts of Romance languages, I don't think that the very act of speaking that language can shape a sexist society (although I am suddenly reminded of some Orwellian themes--Newspeak, anyone?).

Wow, what a deep post! I am quite the thinker.

What a Beach.

Today we went to the beach, which was a nice way to spend the hot afternoon. Afterwards we went to Kilmer's house for burgers, and then we went out for ice cream. While we were waiting in line, Kilmer told us a story about seeing a stop sign that had been vandalized to say "Stop Gay Marriage."

"I mean, I think that gay marriage should be legal, and I think that it's really stupid to have vandalized a sign like that, but it was kind of funny," she said.

Behind us, a woman put her hands over her son's ears.

"Just go ahead and advertise how bigoted you are!" Kilmer continued, when the woman behind us interrupted.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, but could you not say things like that? I mean, my son will just start asking questions about what he hears." The woman's face was red.

"Oh, uhh, sure," said Kilmer. At that moment, our ice cream arrived. As we walked away, she turned to us and whispered, "what did I say? I didn't think I used any cuss words!"

We rolled our eyes. "It must have been the words 'gay marriage,'" Jube said.

"Oh man!" said Kilmer, "I thought it must have been the word 'bigot,' because then she'd have to explain to her kid exactly what his mommy is!"

Pronunciation Fun!

Jube and I watched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind today. It is anime and we watched it in the original Japanese with subtitles. It is a pretty interesting story that includes giant insects called "ohmu" that destroy human towns when they get angry. At the end of the movie, there is a huge wave of ohmu that get pissed. When I saw the masses, I turned to Jube and said, "Wow, there sure are a lot of ohmu!" But I pronounced "ohmu" "ohmo." And I was saying it in French, so really it looked like I was saying, "Waoh, il y a beaucoup d'homos!"--or, "Wow, there sure are a lot of homos!"

We laughed for awhile about that.

It reminds me of watching Sabrina with Jube in France. As you may remember, the older brother's name is Linus. In French, it sounds similar to l'anus (anus). We made lots of jokes about being in love with l'anus, spending quality time with l'anus... It made for an enjoyable evening.

Which finally reminds me of the first time Jube described his favorite drink--the regional drink of the south, Pastis--in English. I would say that it tastes something like licorice, but Jube decided to say it tastes like "anis." Which he pronounced "anus":

"Yeah, it's great! It tastes just like anus!"

Allocentric

"Allocentric" is a word I met the other day while reading a textbook meaning "other-centered." Apparently human development (from immature to mature) leads us from egocentric to allocentric.

One of my earliest memories of realizing that there are other people out there comes from middle school. I was in the library, choosing a new book to read (I was a real bookworm!), and the librarian recommended a nonfiction book--I don't remember what, a biography or something. I rejected it, thinking, "who would want to read nonfiction for fun??"

The librarian told me that some students preferred nonfiction to read.

I was absolutely shocked! I have always preferred novels to nonfiction--I even preferred Sweet Valley High to "Seventeen"--and it had honestly never occured to me that people would purposely choose nonfiction for leisure reading. I thought adults forced themselves to read the newspaper because it was some kind of obligation and that biographies were for Social Studies book reports.

I still prefer fiction, and I'll never voluntarily read nonfiction when I could be reading something else. But I get it--other people might like nonfiction. It still makes me think of how little I understand my human peers...

Literary Morning

I hate waking up when it is still dark outside. Although it's been getting lighter and lighter every day, the sky was overcast this morning and threatening rain. I sighed and fixed myself breakfast, amusing myself by thinking of all the ways I could talk about this kind of weather in French.

Il fait noir... Il fait pas beau!... Il menace...

It made me think about something I said in Spain that made my Spanish friends snort with laughter. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have a theory. On a day with weather like today, we all left a cafe to go back to class. We were all complaining about the weather, and I contributed "Que dia mas feo!" I copied the sytax straight from my host mother, so I knew the construction was correct. Still, my friends laughed and laughed. I figure now that it was because it sounded like something a 70-year-old woman (like my host mother) would say, but I can't be certain.

On my walk to work, I thought about how the weather made the day feel like an autumn evening. The only people outside with me were fellow unfortunates who had to go to early class or work. We nodded to each other in quiet, melancholy complicity.

The weather made me think about the first poem I memorized, "Song" by Christina Rossetti. I felt like I was walking "through that misty twilight/ that doth not rise nor set."

It has been a long long time since I thought about poetry! "Song" made me think about that other Rossetti poem, the one with the line "there is no friend like a sister," and I couldn't think of the title. At the crosswalk I found myself opposite the ODU student theater, and the "Coming Attractions" on the electronic display rolled by:

Musical Theater Presents:

The Apple
(Act I)
and
Goblin Market

How bizarre! I suddenly realized that "Goblin Market" was the title of the Rossetti poem I was thinking about. It was indeed a surreal morning walk to work.

Wondering...?

While watching CSI today, one detective identified footprints--"seems to be stiletto heels belonging to a female."

Does it bother anyone else that they were belonging to a "female?" Maybe it's just that I lived in France for too long, where femelle refers only to animals. Maybe it's the feminist in me. But it bothered me for a second.

And then I watched the rest of the show.

Finally.... Over....

Last night I went out with some friends to celebrate the end of classes. Unfortunately I couldn't really "celebrate" a whole lot because I had to work today at 8:00am! This semester I didn't work on Fridays, so it was a terribly harsh sound this morning when my alarm clock went off. But I soldiered on by wearing my cutest Kookai skirt that made everyone talk about how fashionable I was. (No, I didn't exactly hear them saying that, but I'm sure that's what they were whispering about.)

And I worked haaaaaaard! Since I'd missed some days this week because of exams, I had a lot to catch up on, and then we had a little event that I helped set up. Luckily Jube came to "volunteer" (is it still volunteering when your significant other forces you to help?) and we snagged enough leftover food to eat for a long time. Then he went off to Willy's house to jam and I relaxed.

When I say he went to a friend's to "jam," you all know that I meant he went to play the guitar, right? Well, in French, you just say jouer, or to "play." When I first talked about him getting together to make some music with friends back in the US, I kept saying, "Oh, they're playing together." I didn't realize for awhile how silly it sounded. So yeah, Jube is over at Willy's house playing. I hope he has a great time, 'cause I'm having some wonderful relaxing moments here by myself. Yes, WONDERFUL!

P.S. I'm sure you all thought I forgot to blog today, but I didn't! See? Now I've met my FINAL final deadline.

2007: le Débat

So anyway, since I somehow started the month with posts for each day, I'm going to set myself a challenge: write one post for every day in the month of May! I have a tendency to lose track of blogging time (as in, I thought I wrote one yesterday but really that was 2 weeks ago), especially when I have lots of schoolwork. But in May I won't have any classes, just work. I figure it's as good a time as any to try this out.

First subject: the debate between Sarkozy and Royal that took place yesterday. I had it on in the background while I was writing my paper yesterday and I only really paid attention to the beginning, the parts about immigration, and the parts about education. One specifically stood out to me because I thought it was a bit sexist. (For those of you who aren't aware of it, Sarkozy is a man and Royal is a woman; Sarkozy is more conservative, with the UMP party, and Royal is a socialist.) I've thought about it some more, and now I don't think it was intended to be sexist, but it upset me at the time.

What happened was that Sarkozy mentioned a reform he wanted to create that would allow handicapped students to attend "normal" schools. Royal became upset at this point because she, as Minister of Education (awhile ago), had actually passed measures that let teacher's aides help handicapped children in the regular classroom, thus allowing them to attend regular classes--and the UMP had removed funding from this project, thus putting the issue on the table again. She interrupted Sarkozy and "raised the tone" (as the French say) of the conversation, even calling his proposal "immoral" because his party had already struck hers down.

(Here's where it gets questionable.) Sarkozy told her to "calm down" (Calmez-vous, Madame!), and I knew it was going to get worse. I absolutely hate it when people tell me to calm down when I'm making an argument, and I could kind of tell it was the same with her. She did not calm down and told him that one shouldn't calm down if one thinks that something is immoral. Then he went for the throat: "Madame, il faut etre calme pour etre president" (Madame, to be president, one must be calm).

Wooooooo! Now that bugged me a little bit! Let's imply that she's hysterical and incapable of managing her emotions! (Yeah, that's what I thought was sexist.)

She really got into it, defending herself, saying that she wasn't upset but rather angry, and we have the right to get angry. I personally thought she did a pretty good job of keeping her cool, although other commentaries I've seen have not agreed.

Why did I change my mind and think it wasn't meant as sexist? Well, people have been saying that Sarkozy would lose his cool, so I think he was just trying to be ironic--"one must be calm to be president" might have been a charge leveled at him, and so he was trying to turn it around. Unfortunately it came off as sexist to me. As I've said though, no one else I've read has seen it that way (voir: this blogger I like).

Now, before you go thinking that I looove Royal because she is a woman and, well, women with feminist leanings just love all women no matter what they do... Let me tell you. I have no preference for either candidate. In fact, up until a few weeks ago, I was favoring Sarkozy. But he really rubbed me the wrong way during this debate. And of course, I don't live in France anymore, so more taxes or less immigrant rights doesn't mean the same thing it would have last year.

Yeah, that's a pretty crummy thing to say, but it's true, sadly. But I'll still watch arret sur images today to see what I missed.

Fin Avril

Last year at this time Jube and I were nervously waiting to receive word about his fiance visa. We were unaware of how long it would take to get everything set. His parents called every day for a week asking for the date of the wedding because they were sure that plane ticket prices would soar for every delayed minute... My mother kept cool (at least on the phone with me!) and drove to Norfolk to find us an apartment... We were not yet worried about his immigration, but focused more on our jobs. I remember quite clearly my mixed feelings on the bank holidays on May 1st and May 8th: I was happy I didn't have to work, but Mondays were my "big days" and I would be losing a lot of revenue.

This year I am not worried about money or immigration. I have a concrete plan for my summer and Jube just received his "green" card (it's actually white...). Instead, I am temporarily stressed out about my finals. I'm sure that after next Friday I will be relaxed, ready for my part-time job. [I recently realized how wonderful working 20 hours a week is. I think it's the perfect amount. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get as much money as I might working full-time, but it's always nice to dream!]

We also attended a French speaking get-together yesterday. There were three French citizens, one Franco-American, one Englishman, and some 'mericans. I was happy that I hadn't lost much French, and it was great for my ego that two people asked if my parents were French. (100% American, if you're wondering.) As always, I don't know how amazing my grammar is, but my southern French accent manages to fool them. In fact, when I was first learning French, I couldn't exactly have a conversation. Jube's friends found phrases like tant pis hilarious when I said them, because I had such a heavy Meridional accent. This used to bother me--I mean, I was trying really hard to speak French, and all that happened was that people laughed at me! But then I realized that it would be pretty freakin' hilarious if a Frenchie would say things like "Hi y'all! Ah'm Pierre!"

It was interesting to meet French expats in the US. Some of them were going through the same culture shock I experienced and that I still read about on other blogs. I'm really glad that Jube isn't having trouble acclimating to the US. I can hardly remember how out of place I used to feel during my first few months in France.

Anyway, I guess I'll get back to grinding out papers. Only 14 more pages to go...

Christmas Vacation

After my last message, I decided to push myself a little bit and actually do something besides relaxing. A few days ago I bought cream cheese and peppermint extract, and yesterday I made peppermint cheesecake brownies. They are very tasty indeed and I have to keep myself from eating too many of them!

Yesterday I also got the chance to practice my Spanish. My mother works with deaf and hard-of-hearing children, and yesterday she went on a home visit to one of their houses. Little Fani's parents don't speak much English, which makes for an interesting problem for her and my mother. At school and with my mother, her speech therapist, Fani speaks English, but at home she is surrounded by Spanish. Since she couldn't hear until age four, when she had an operation and received hearing aids, she is already behind other children in language development. My mother thinks that, added to this delay, she is also experiencing language confusion by learning three languages at once (English, Spanish, and American Sign Language). But when I met her yesterday, she didn't seem to be doing so poorly! She could say "Where is..." and "Donde esta...", and play little listening-comprehension games. It really made me think about how lucky I was. Even if I can't always pronounce French correctly, I can hear the difference between the words. Little Fani has problems hearing the difference between "kite" and "nine."

I was embarrassed to hear how my Spanish has declined since learning French. I couldn't remember simple words if they weren't similar to French--I even forgot how to say "Christmas" which everyone knows if they listen to Feliz Navidad! But I think that Fani's mother was happy that someone could explain even a very little bit to her.

Today we are headed into town to go to a store called "Chocolatier." They are giving out free homemade chocolates and giving a discount on prices! We might also play a little bit of Scrabble, since today is my mother's last day at work and can stay up a little bit later. Now I think I might go get a brownie...

What a Week!

I know that I haven't posted during the week for two weeks, but I think I'll have more time now. I finished late Monday through Thursday and started early every day of the week, going to the Prefecture and waiting for them to tell me to leave. On Tuesday, the crowd rebelled, with people shouting and pushing and shoving. The security guards were called and since there was a troublemaking American right in front of me (Faites votre travail! he would shout in a heavy accent--Donnez un ticket!), I was physically pushed out of the room. Finally on Thursday, after arriving at 7:00am (when the parking lot opened) and waiting for four hours, I was allowed to talk to the workers. What did she do for me? After a week of telling me that they no longer stamped the prolongations onto the forms, she went in the back and stamped it for me.

As I walked away, I heard a woman screaming "Je vais la tuer! I'm going to kill her!" The police ran past me towards the cave. Yippee. I'm going back in 3 months.

Luckily Friday was much better. I worked a long, but normal day (9am-5:30pm) and then picked Jube up after his conseil de classe. We ate Mexican food and went to see Capote. As I was looking up the times for the movie, I didn't know what they had changed the name to for the French public. I headed to the French Google and typed in "capote," and received the strangest responses--I had forgotten that in French, capote is slang for condom! Oops! But, although I was a little bit nervous, I finally found the new name (Truman Capote, wow, what a difference!) by typing in "capote film."