recycling is for lovers

warning: i wrote this sept 14th but i wanted to start a blog so i figured this email i sent the first couple weeks would be appropriate seeing it is the only record my my life here until today, oct 7... sorry that was a little alarmist. i guess that wasnt a warning as much as a disclaimer.

Bonjour mes petits oiseaux!(this means “hello my little birds… my hostmom called me and her son ‘petits oiseaux’ and it makes me feel nice inside so I thought I would share the love.. but wait don’t get the wrong idea qbout the host mama… she is normally not so affectionate which is precisely why the term of endearment reqlly resonated with me… this is a much longer aside than I anticipated. I apologize). Anywhoooo im in France as you probably know, and if u did not know and u are receiving this email from me then we should reevaluate our friendship. In any case, it is Firday afternoon here and my French class is over and now im back in the apartment just chillin in the living room writing this email that I probably should have sent about 10 days ago. But alas… I have a good reason for being so mysterious regarding my whereabouts this past week and a half… I don’t have internet in my house. Ok that’s a lie. I have internet… please, this is France not some lowly third world country along the nile that shall remain nameless… but the thing is there is only internet in my host mom’s bedroom and she kind of freaks out when I go in there. I guess she doesn’t like the idea of random foreigner rummaging through her bedroom… At first I would go in while she was at work to u know, check email, read the news..(....facebook) thinking that what she doesn’t know wont hurt her. Then once she came home and I was eating a sandwich at her computer in her bedroom (ok the sandwich was bad judgment) and she was not a very happy camper. She then informed me that I need to pay for my own wireless… and so I did but the wireless doesn’t work on this stupid laptop and thus I can now only use the computer lab at the university which one, has stupid frnehc keyboards, two, is always crowded, and three, has a line of foreigners shooting daggers at u trying to hurry u up so they can use it… and under so much pressure I cant just relax and recount my many adventures. So there’s my excuse… take it or leave baby

Anywyassss, Paris is amazing. This is such a cool city… everything is so beautiful, all the buildings, the little streets, the little dogs (people here don’t use leaches to walk their dogs which is very bizarre to me, but the dogs are always so well behaved and I never see anyone running after a loose dog.. I think its symbolic of something americans are doing wrong with their dogs but I don’t feel like psycho analyzing it all at the moment). I wont go into much more detail about the city because I mean anything I say about Paris is bound to be trite and cliché so I will just sum it up in one, all encompassing phrase that they like say here in france: paris est le bomb diggity

Now, back to my host family. Well its not really a full fledged family… its an older woman by the name of Dominique who is the vice principal of a high school. The apartment is on the fifth floor of the highschool and im pretty sure the school pays for her to live there. And her commute in the morning is all of ummm… 4 seconds. Literally. Pretty pimp. She has 3 sons, 2 of which are older and one who is 20 and lives in the house with us until he goes off the school in Germany for his year aborad (he normally studies in Bordeaux.) his name is Guillaume and hes cool. He has long hair (so anti establishment) and I usually never know what hes saying cuz he speaks so quickly but nonetheless he seems pretty chill. (I usually don’t know what anyone is saying unless they are speaking at an insultingly slow pace. Then when they realize I don’t understand they start speaking English and I get insulted and say “non non je parle francais”… then they parle francais and I just nod, smile, walk away from the conversation baffled.) I hung out with him, his gf and their other friend in the apartment one night and it was so bizarre being the foreigner. They had to stop every once and a while to explain what they were talking about and they all speak so damn fast so a lot of the time I just observed awkwardly in the corner (not too different from amerrrrica!). but alas by the end of the night I could comprehend more of what they were saying which isn’t bad, But anyways, back to the Dominique… she lives alone and I don’t know where the hubby is (im assuming divorced… def noooot asking her anytime soon… at least not until I mend the rift that tore us apart after the sandwich-in-the-bedroom fiasco). Shes such a strong independent woman, I think her and beyonce would get along very nicely. Basically the first day she said something along the lines of “I lhave a lot of friends and I go out a lot so don’t expect me to be ur mom”. Which is a good arrangement seeing as I already have a mom and two moms seems a little redundant. But shes super liberal and an environment freak… and just when I thought we were over the sandwich in the bedroom incident she freaked out at me about recycling. Basically, I threw a plastic sandwich container thing in the “food” garbage can (I did not know this was strictly a food garbage) and she took it out, raised it in the air and bellowed “WHO DID THIS???!” then her head started spinning. I meakly said … ehh c’etait moi…. And she told me that plastic things go in the other garbage can not this one and then asked if we recycle in america and if I knoew what it was. I told her yes, we recycle in America. The next day I put my plastic yogurt cup in the recycling garbage and later on in the day she took it out, held it up in the air and bellowed “WHO DID THIS??” then her head started spinning. I meekly told her that I learned from yesterday that I must forget all my wasteful American ways and startrecycling. I thought she would be proud. Then she told me that dirty containers don’t go in the recycling bin and its only for paper plastic. Then she threw it away in the food garbage, even though it wasn’t food. I wasn’t about to argue with Al Gore junior but in my mind I really felt the yogurt cup should have been in the recycling garbage and not the food garbage. O well. C’est la vie! That’s French for, don’t argue with the woman whos feeding you.

Im exaggerating a bit but she is very liberal which I enjoy… shes just a little particular about the way things are done. She nice though and im happy here. It’s a 30 minute commute to school on metro and walking which is different from last year’s rolling out of bed ten minutes before my 8:50 in icc and getting there on time. O and they play simpsons here twenty four seven.. not unlike the US. But its funny cuz all the voices are dubbed and they sound diff from the originals… and they pronounce Milhouse like “MilhOOSE”. Mad funny. I think my French is improving from all the simpsons watching.

Lets see what else…. Ive been having French class everyday for 3 hours. Small problem: I may or may not have cheated on the online placement test and they placed me in the highest level French class. Initially that sounds ok because being around people better than me will force me to improve. No. no no no. Im in class with fucking Voltaire and the creators of the French language. Everyone there is pretty much fluent. And then theres me… but don’t worry, my suckiness did not go unnoticed for my teacher (who by the way is the sweetest most awesome little French lady in the world… she wears the same outfit everyday.. literally, everyday, and that’s kind of weird but I mean im over it) came up to me on Monday and told me that I would be more comfortable in the level below. I think she thought I would be offended and upset by this demotion but I received the news with much enthusiasm and I think that confused her a bit. Nonetheless… now I am where I should be.
Switching topics… the people here are all really nice so far. There’s Australians, Koreans, Spanish, madddddd germans (shaun u would be very happy here) and a poopload of fellow Americans. (OO kavita… there is someone here from Botswana that goes to penn. I asked her if she knew u but she said no. You should probably work on that reputation of yours a little bit more this semester. ) Probably 50% of the time kids try and speak in French to eachother but a lot of times people default to English, even people who English is not their native tongue (that sentence was so awkwardly worded sometimes I wonder if I am who English is not my native tongue). I thought that was weird at first but I guess most people’s English is so strong these days that its easier to communicate that way than butchering French. It makes me feel bad for being a part of the Anglophone imperialism but I mean, whatevs. But nonetheless people definitely click off into groups of their respective motherland…. Germans with germans, Spanish with Spanish… but I think that’s just for now and soon itll be less so. Or maybe not.

Hmm but yeah each day, particularly the very first week, has been filled with a lot of administrative craps… getting bank account, cell phone, carte de sejour, etc… and everything in France takes a million years to do, million hours of waiting in lines, etc etc so its been pretty hectic. There have been some activities organized by the school to do like sight seeing things around Paris. So far I went to the Louvre (where tom hanks starred in the Davinci Code), Musee d’Orsay (my favorite art museum I’ve ever been to.. except that one in Rome that starts with a B I cant remember though what its called), Assemblee Nationale (capitol hill for French people), Bateau Mouche (night boat along the Seine to see Paris all lit up… prob the most touristy thing u can do here but really really pretty) and some other stuff I cant think of at the moment. Its all been cool and I am enjoying myself a lot so far. I havent gone out too much but what I have seen of the bar scene is… well… expensive. It’s a nice change from standing in line for Busch lite at a keg but I think the novelty will wear off soon and my cheapness will overcome. The rugby cup is happening here too so every night there are people from whichever country is playing running around drunk out of their minds… yesterday it was Scotland vs France so there were literally millions of people running around in kilts. Literally, millions, Seeing the kilts blow in the wind made me nostalgic for my field hockey days. Well not so much the people that were running around but I DID see some that were sitting on the bench… those people were a little more relevant to my former field hocky career.

I love being a foreigner by the by. In a weird way I like not knowing the language and being confused everywhere I go.. its very humbling. Now I know what my forefathers felt like when they came to America for the first time… aka my mom and dad. Ive met some Russians here and I hear them in the street everywhere I go. I guess a lot of them come here for vacation. Regardless, my peeps need to chill with the following me around. O, I have been eating a lot of baguette and cheeses of all kinds… the host fam loves them some cheese and wine. So yummmmmy…. Although I just realized that by the time the year is over I will most definitely be a rolly polly.. more rolly than I already am. Prob will need to buy another airplane ticket so I can fit in the seats on the way home. I onder if AirIndia does that. So yeah… that’s my life so far. Its really nothing too grand but its exciting being in a new place. I miss y’all very much and I hope some can come visit at some point in this year. I can show u the sights and ish. Not that I know the sights very well but maybe we can discover them together .O and a side note to mag and ba: I met about 5 people who know people who transferred to barnard. U guys aren’t original.O and Maggie: I met some1 from Hopkins. I didn’t ask her too much about it. But she DOES know jon chui. She didn’t know u though. Same advice I gave to kavita applies to you. Ha ok BYE(that’s English for: Au revoir!)

PS: I have some pics I can put up but I wont clog ur email boxes cuz lord knows ive been at 97% full for the past 3 months and one gigantic file will clog up my account forever. Im thinking of starting a blog instead of the email thing. Ill keep u posted. No pun intended.