Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!
I feel like I've been on nonstop mode since last week and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Got to be a tour guide and find my inner Monica when Justine was here. I am an OCD neurotic crazy freak at heart, it's nice to find that that's appreciated sometimes. There are plenty more people coming, so I'll have lots of fun embracing this side of me in the coming weeks.
A few updates on ma vie:
-orchestra rehearsal at the Opera Bastille last Saturday was merde. I was just angsty the whole time because I was so tired and since I had had no time to practice since that Tuesday. The conductor needs to realize that these Saturday rehearsals don't do shit, and that sometimes it's better to give people some time to themselves than to try to force something on them. I know the other players must not think much of me - I can't play that well (I'm probably the worst second violin) and my French is heavily accented (the last blog I posted is, I suppose, at testament to that fact). And I know I should practice and work double to make up for this, but the fact is I feel no motivation.
-After orchestra rehearsal a bunch of us were walking into the Bastille metro when Diane (a first violinist, a really nice and very stylish Sciences Po student) suggested we should take out our instruments and stands and play in the station. Why not? I know I was frustrated enough to do something crazy like that. So we did Handel and Beethoven. Total earnings: 30 something euros in about 45 minutes. Not bad at all. Not to mention I'm probably in about 50 people's random photos/home movies. I'd never done that before, but there's something nice about playing in public where people can hear you. I might do that this summer when I'm in NYC, though I'm definitely not asking for any money... me by myself is basically boo-worthy.
-That same Saturday night I had to get to a play near the other opera, Opera Garnier. On the metro on my way there, I sat by the door. A few stations before I had to get off, there was an elderly man, in his late 50s I would say, standing outside who was trying to get the door open but had not succeeded. As this had happened to me the first time I rode the line 4 (though I was on the inside getting out), I decided to help him by pushing the button from the inside (stupid non-automatic doors). He sat next to me, reading the New York Times. He asked me if I recognized a few Chinese characters in a picture of Tibetan monks protesting the Beijing Olympics. I named a few for him. Then he asked me if I spoke Mandarin fluently.
That should have been a warning sign -- no Parisian person is that nice/conversational, especially not in the metro.
He got off at the same station as me (though I wonder now if not deliberately) and insisted on helping me find the theatre where I had to go even though he himself got a bit lost along the way. I was stressed out about getting there on time since the piece (Ionesco) was for a class and I had to write something on it after seeing it. He made conversation, and I revealed more details about myself than I probably should have (i.e. the city where I'm from in China, where I live in the U.S., where I go to college, etc.) without even noticing it. He asked me if I'd ever gone to see an opera in Paris or the Comedie Francaise. I said no. He said "cela me ferait plair de vous inviter voir un opera ou un spectacle avec moi un soir" -- " it would be my pleasure to invite you to an opera or to a play one evening."
Okay, in hindsight I know I should have walked fast in the other direction. But actually that sounded like a good deal for me -- accompany an elderly man to a show, get to see it for free. I honestly didn't realize the ulterior motives in that sentence. I don't know if it's reassuring or devastating to know that I can still be so naive sometimes.
We set a rendez-vous at the Cafe de Flore for the next evening. En gros:
it was awkward. he kept trying to put his hand on my knee/hold my hand the whole time. his arm slid around my shoulder. i moved. this happened several times until he actually remarked on my distancing myself from him. i said nothing. i refused the wine he offered me and told him i'd already ate, which was true.
here's what i learned about him (if it was true):
his name is charles. he was a professor of physics at some university in paris. he's traveled all over the world and has friends everywhere in paris. he's taught at mit. he's met nelson mandela and the dalai lama and jean-paul sartre and simone de beauvoir, among others. he is originally from Prague and thus has a Czech accent.
we met a lady of Russian origin who sat at the table next to us and who makes documentaries about the sciences. She was fascinated by him (either that or she wanted to save me from him, which if the case I really appreciated). she made a joke in the beginning about nabokov being from the czech republic. ew.
in any case, the lolita to this old man i was not. we parted and i don't think i will be seeing him again. i still don't fully understand his motives (he couldn't really have thought i was THAT easy, could he?).
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-I decided to do the Nike+iPod challenge at Paris VII, which is turning out to be really cool. I got a pair of Nike+ shoes that have a sensor and that hook up to my iPod to record the miles, calories, etc. I've run. The top 15 get to participate in a university-wide challenge, apparently, with the prize being the shoes and the kit. My question is this -- what are they going to do with the shoes we've already worn? I have to say, though, despite all the human-rights violations Nike was (is?) criticized for, they've come up with and executed an excellent idea.
The funny thing is, I wasn't even going to do this challenge after I'd signed up for it on a whim ("Oh, I'll get to run more! I'll lose some pounds, motivate myself ..." ). Come Sunday morning (when I was supposed to pick up the shoes from the campus rep, I was wayyy too tired from the play Saturday night to even think about waking up. But the campus rep called me. Several times. And left a message. So I thought it'd be only polite to respond. A phone call later and I'd said I'd be there (there meaning the 13th, which is damn far) in 30mins. 30mins later and I'm still in the metro at Chatelet, which is like practically only halfway there (to be fair, I was in my PJs when I had called).
Anyway, I finally arrive and am very apologetic, especially when I see that this campus rep is actually pretty cute. Of course I am quite frazzled (note: I had not slept particularly well all that week) and just take the shoes and leave, basically. He looked me up and down (I was wearing my Coach meadow boots) when I got there, hopefully in an approving manner. Afterwards it occurred to me that it would have been nice of me to invite him for a coffee or something (after all, he was just there with his car waiting for people, or maybe not, I don't know... he must have been tired after spending the whole morning giving out shoes and repeating the same speech). Drat.
I sent him an e-mail today, basically apologizing again and asking him out to coffee sometime. I'm pathetic, really, I know. No response as of yet. He must be really confused and/or taken aback (after all, in France asking people out to coffee is usually the guy's job, and it usually means a date, which I guess is the message I wanted to get across). Crap. I am just hopeless. Oh, well, life is short and I guess we'll see what happens. But still, rejection (even by e-mail) hurts just a little.
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Going to play violin at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute of Young Blind People... okay that's not the right translation but close enough) tomorrow night. I'm glad I get to do this-- the pieces are easy enough if I've practiced enough (a movement from Handel's Messiah and Laudate Dominum by Mozart), and it'll be nice to be appreciated as a violin player for once. Reminds me of Nathalie Portman's little vignette in Paris, je t'aime. Maybe I'll find a cute blind Romeo (god what is wrong with me)
I'm off to wash up and sleep -- just got back from Erica's birthday/St. Patrick's Day celebration at an Irish pub in the 6th close to chez moi. It was nice, but I realized that I can be quite awkward at times and that my French still has a looong way to go. And when her boyfriend asked me "tu as un amoreux dans ta vie?" [bascially, do you have a boyfriend] i don't know why i couldn't just answer in the negative.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Feeling cynical about France
I want to preface this by saying that, in general, I love my year abroad in Paris and I really wouldn't have it any other way. I could not imagine staying at Smith for my junior year.
But some days/weeks are trying. This is one of them.
I am taking a course called "Théâtre à Paris", in which we read the texts of plays and then go to watch the productions. It's a great course because I know that I'd never take advantage of the many plays here otherwise.
The professor, on the other hand, is not so great. He corrects our grammatical/syntactical faults constantly, even sometimes while we are giving a presentation. I understand that some professors like to interrupt a presentation to ask questions, that's fine, but to correct our language skills? I find that more than a little bit annoying, because it's very difficult to finish up your thoughts after that. If the interruption actually has to do with the subject matter of the course, then it's fine. However, if it's something banal like "you should have added '-ons' to that verb conjugation" it gets old, fast. Not to mention it wastes time.
He needs to understand that we're there to learn about theater, not phonetics. Sure, a phonetics course would be useful, but we're not taking one. I appreciate that he wants us to pronounce things correctly, but I don't appreciate that he takes too much of class time doing so, straying from the real topic at hand. Besides, correction should be done politely and tastefully, without snide commentary like "How can you not know this after months of being in Paris? This should come naturally to you!"
Speaking of which, he addresses each of us using the "tu" form, which is the informal form of "you." Normally, I don't mind this, but it's not typical for a professor and with him it's starting to sound more and more condescending. ("Prononce-le bien!" "Pourquoi tu prononces le 's'?")
He asked me to read a text out loud today. By the end of it, I almost cried. "Mais tu prononces toujours la fin des mots où il ne le faut pas! Pense à ne pas le faire!!" [But you pronounce always the endings of words where you shouldn't do so! Think about not doing that!!] --- He could have said the same thing in a more polite tone of voice... the way he said it made me feel as if I was so dumb, as if I could just think about not doing that, as if I was so lazy for not simply taking the time to think about it.
Not just that, but he also started to bang his hand on the desk and occasionally yell "non" every time I did pronounce something wrong. Return to primary school, anybody?
I don't think he succeeded in making me want to pronounce things better; if anything, he's pretty much diminished my self-esteem and made me really not want to say anything to him ever again.
Oh, and one more thing: the entire class is composed of Smith College students. And he's apparently been teaching it for many years. I'm not saying that he should be used to it by now, but rather that he should have learned to correct our stupid, annoying American accents in a less outdated fashion. And if they annoy him so much that he can't stand correcting them politely and without his little rants, then he should think about teaching elsewhere.
But some days/weeks are trying. This is one of them.
I am taking a course called "Théâtre à Paris", in which we read the texts of plays and then go to watch the productions. It's a great course because I know that I'd never take advantage of the many plays here otherwise.
The professor, on the other hand, is not so great. He corrects our grammatical/syntactical faults constantly, even sometimes while we are giving a presentation. I understand that some professors like to interrupt a presentation to ask questions, that's fine, but to correct our language skills? I find that more than a little bit annoying, because it's very difficult to finish up your thoughts after that. If the interruption actually has to do with the subject matter of the course, then it's fine. However, if it's something banal like "you should have added '-ons' to that verb conjugation" it gets old, fast. Not to mention it wastes time.
He needs to understand that we're there to learn about theater, not phonetics. Sure, a phonetics course would be useful, but we're not taking one. I appreciate that he wants us to pronounce things correctly, but I don't appreciate that he takes too much of class time doing so, straying from the real topic at hand. Besides, correction should be done politely and tastefully, without snide commentary like "How can you not know this after months of being in Paris? This should come naturally to you!"
Speaking of which, he addresses each of us using the "tu" form, which is the informal form of "you." Normally, I don't mind this, but it's not typical for a professor and with him it's starting to sound more and more condescending. ("Prononce-le bien!" "Pourquoi tu prononces le 's'?")
He asked me to read a text out loud today. By the end of it, I almost cried. "Mais tu prononces toujours la fin des mots où il ne le faut pas! Pense à ne pas le faire!!" [But you pronounce always the endings of words where you shouldn't do so! Think about not doing that!!] --- He could have said the same thing in a more polite tone of voice... the way he said it made me feel as if I was so dumb, as if I could just think about not doing that, as if I was so lazy for not simply taking the time to think about it.
Not just that, but he also started to bang his hand on the desk and occasionally yell "non" every time I did pronounce something wrong. Return to primary school, anybody?
I don't think he succeeded in making me want to pronounce things better; if anything, he's pretty much diminished my self-esteem and made me really not want to say anything to him ever again.
Oh, and one more thing: the entire class is composed of Smith College students. And he's apparently been teaching it for many years. I'm not saying that he should be used to it by now, but rather that he should have learned to correct our stupid, annoying American accents in a less outdated fashion. And if they annoy him so much that he can't stand correcting them politely and without his little rants, then he should think about teaching elsewhere.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Everybody needs to sin a little
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight.
The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.
~
We're all going to Hell then, I suppose. Seriously, I'd like to think this declaration would make a littel bit of a difference in the world, but I really don't know. I mean, how much power does the Vatican hold over people's lives these days, anyways? Catholics have committed far greater "sins" over the years than forgetting to recycle. No matter how well-intentioned the guidance, I can't help but to think the Catholic Church just wants people to sin. Repentance and hail Mary and all that ... After all, can't do the time without doing the crime, eh?
The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.
~
We're all going to Hell then, I suppose. Seriously, I'd like to think this declaration would make a littel bit of a difference in the world, but I really don't know. I mean, how much power does the Vatican hold over people's lives these days, anyways? Catholics have committed far greater "sins" over the years than forgetting to recycle. No matter how well-intentioned the guidance, I can't help but to think the Catholic Church just wants people to sin. Repentance and hail Mary and all that ... After all, can't do the time without doing the crime, eh?
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