Language Lessons.

Remember in the MTC when literally translating expressions like, “I’m pickin’ up what you’re throwing down” (for those of you who speak french, we’d say, “Je ramasse ce que vous jetez en bas.”  ha ha ha) was really funny?  well to me, those things still are funny, and now it works the other way around, French to English. And to add to it, I’m like a child when it comes to hearing swear words in French, and it just makes me giggle.  I can get into a spectator mode when I am surrounded by Second Language and it’s like i’m watching it on tv.  It’s just not that real.  So the extra step of literally translating those things just adds to the entertainment.

I won’t burden you with the actual French, but I will tone it down and give you the translation.  So let’s say you’re late and running to the train, but it whizzes by as you reach the platform.  Two seconds too late.  One might say in English, “Agh! That sucks!”  Here, the translation would be, “Agh! That makes me crap!”  or, if you’re really mad adding a “Hooker!” in the mix always adds some spunk.  So it would be, “Agh! Hooker! That makes me crap!” Think about that sentence for a second.. it’s pretty good.  Anyway, the “That makes me crap” phrase is pretty versatile because you can actually use it with people as well.  For example, if someone were bothering you, you might say, “I can’t handle her,” or, “She’s killing me,” or “She’s so annoying.”  Here, they can simply say, “She makes me crap.”  Not bad, eh?

Expressions of surprise are all pretty good too.  Let’s say you just found out your friend has to pay a $500 speeding ticket.  You could say any of the following to show you’re shocked: “Hooker!” (Once again this comes up… believe me, I’m not exaggerating about the omnipresence of this word.  It’s everywhere.) “Mashed potatoes!”, “Thumbtack!”, or “The cow!”  Don’t believe what you hear, no one actually says, “Sacré bleu!”

I could go on about how screaming “YOUR FACE” means “Shut the F up” and how there are about 8 different words for face, each with a slightly differing degree of politeness, but it’s almost 2 AM and i’m going to choose bed.  Thank you for reading, and try to incorporate, “Thumbtack!” the next time you’re surprised… it’s not a natural reaction.

Gem Finding

Well after that photo exhibit there isn’t much that can compare, until I saw the video to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” on a friend’s blog.  WOW.  Have you ever watched it?  It’s seriously. amazing.

The trenchcoat! The dancing / arm moving / kicks!  The blond and the pirouettes! The black dude in suspenders! The constant thumbs up! The voice from that face!!  The clapping! The flashing blue lights! The shoulder moving!

Watch it again!

No time.

Have to work in 5 minutes, but saw a photo exhibit at the Jardin du Luxembourg and the pictures are phenomenal. So good that it made me cry in the streets of the 6th arrondissement.

(photo from http://www.mekong-lexposition.com)

This is just one, and I can’t really post on here because they’re not my photos, and the ones able to be saved are tiny like this one, so just click on the link and love it in better quality.  http://www.mekong-lexposition.com/

I feel like I need to post but I don’t really have that much to say.

So in order to make up for that I took a picture of myself eating a Madeleine de Proust.  [click for intense French lit.] From Proust’s real ville. Wow. Unfortunately while eating, I didn’t have an involuntary memory experience.  I really tried, yet nothing came.

I know you’re all looking to see the length of my hair which you can’t really in this picture but you can see my awesome 80’s wave of the bangs. You’re welcome.

2. If you decide to take a flight, make sure you get a layover in Paris because I love seeing old friends in the Charles de Gaulle terminal 2. Exhibits B-C: (thanks Corrine for the photos)

Above we show our enthusiasm for the great French cuisine that is available in this airport, which would be none at all.  Let me just say though, i reveled (seriously so giddy and beaming like a pre-teen at a Hanson concert in the late 90s, ie me if I had ever had that chance) in the opportunity to be around all English speaking people and laugh at things and have great conversations about face licking and bronchitis and families and happiness.

3.  I REGISTERED FOR THE GRE.  For no reason really because I have no idea what I will ever do with it.  Just in case though right?  I am enjoying the iPhone app for the vocab, I’m not going to lie.  Why the GRE? I guess to just prepare for the worst. Which would involve anything causing me to go back to school.

4.  Work is grand.  Paris is a delight.  Shopping is a drug.

5.  I get why people are vegetarians, because among other reasons sometimes the thought of eating the muscles of mass produced and mistreated animals is just gross. And every couple of years I go through the no-meat thing.  But here I eat meat straight from a butcher and I don’t know if you’ve ever done that but it’s pretty much amazing.  It actually tastes like something you want to eat again, instead of eating for the pure necessity of protein.

6.  I’m coming home!! In February for two weeks.  I know i’ve said it before but I am saying it again because I found out the exact dates, but i lost the half sheet of paper sooo I can’t really publish it right this second.  but get ready to hang out with me.  I’ll hopefully hit a couple states when I’m in the New World so pencil me in please.

Oscar Wilde’s grave makes me feel weird.

I’ll get to him in a minute.  First piece of news: I have a FRIEND in Paris!  A friend that I actually knew from before France, someone that I didn’t have to meet here! It’s so nice to have someone that I KNOW.  That hasn’t happened in years I feel. I’ve been out and around and moving and traveling that I get to meet a lot of people and don’t really come across old friends.  But my dear friend Jeff Dickamore (aka Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo pageant, aka French 101 teacher for FOUR freaking semesters) put aside his lofty ideas to be a lawyer, picked up and moved to Paris to go to the Cours Florent – THE acting school in Paris. This is us on the subway:

So having friends is great, but having friends in Paris is magnificent.  We drink over-priced beverages in cafes, we cart around his luggage from couch to couch, we see graves that people have deemed worthy of being pointed out on a cemetery map.  It’s glorious.  Near future plans: World cup qualifier match between France and Austria, some orchestra outing, the Pantheon. We will also take suggestions and recommendations.  He will also take donations for lodging.

So today we went to Père Lachaise which is that cemetery where Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and others lay.  we didn’t have time for the Jim but Oscar’s grave just made me feel weird and question why we visit people’s graves in the first place.  I mean, people that we don’t know.  Is it to lipstick tag it?  It is to pose next to it?  It just all seems so stupid to me.  And Piaf’s was really lack luster.  It wasn’t even on the edge of the patch so you had to cross over some no-name to get to her and it was just black and shiny and had her name written on it.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but i guess it wasn’t that.  The cool thing about the cemetery was there were a bunch of holocaust monuments.  It didn’t stop at one or 2, there were like 15.  And it must be said, it was quite moving.  Which brings me back to something i’ve mentioned before and i’ll say again about the glory of Paris – you can put monuments and statues and sculptures just about anywhere and it doesn’t seem out of place – on highway exits, in the middle of a round-about (insignificant ones, not like the arc de triomphe or something), even the family i work for has one on their entryway.  And it looks great.  Anyway, the Holocaust part was the cemetery’s most redeeming quality.  I would put pictures but I only borrow cameras, I dont actually have one for myself.  It’s a purchase I really want to execute, but it’s hard to actually do.

Other nuggets:

– the dad/husband in the family recently got into a scooter accident ! Whoa! But he’s ok.  it was scary though/funny now because at the time we were driving behind him a ways and it was around midnight and we saw him on the side of the road, limping and bleeding and a little further down, we saw the scooter in about 100 pieces.  He’s good now though. Scrapes and bruises.  Lucky.  Worst part is he had 3000 euros cash in his front pocket that was lost in the crash, only to be found again by some lucky passersby.

– My sister/brother-in-law/2 nephews just moved to JAPAN!  Whoa.  Good luck ya’ll and make sure you have a guest room for me.  Can I come be your nanny?

– I’m coming home for 2 weeks in February !! Which means probably a week in utah because by golly I miss that Beehive state.

That’s all for now.  Vive the US soccer team!

some summer pictures.

This is a view of the summer house at night.

This is the view of the pool.

I went to Monte Carlo!

Everything there is clean and nice and looks expensive.  Even the train station.

I also went to Nice.

Ahh, the Mediterranean.

Star Wars and cotton candy.  He needs nothing more.

Kids in adult sunglasses never stops being cute.

Beach time.

Family – extended and otherwise.

Here is a link to a whole album if you want more from this summer.  More updates to come.

it took 6 years but I finally did it.

Well, everyone, I have an important announcement to make.  After six long years of perhaps maniacally cutting my hair (i.e.: before any big paper or test, when I was bored, when I would sweat, when it was summer, when I would help cosmotologists with their portfolios), one noteworthy event of actually using a #4 and mowing the whole head down with some borrowed clippers (huge mistake), I have finally arrived at a new milestone: proper ponytail ability.  Yes.  I even calculated, and it has been since 2003 that this was possible.  Do you realize how long ago 2003 is?  It’s the year that SARS happened. SARS.  We’ve been through so many other epidemics since then – Bird flu, that tomato thing, swine flu (which by the way Frenchies are freaking out about).  I just wikipediaed 2003 and it was also the year of the release of the made-for-tv movie about Martha Stewart where Cybil Shepherd yelled, “Slut!” to her daughter through the car window… or something. In any case it was really really good.  Anyway.  I could probably talk about life in France and my summer in the south and my day in Paris and how I just want to go shopping and spend money and buy jeans and new shirts and today i tried on this dress that I really really wanted to buy and couldn’t stop looking at myself in the dressing room, but the more important thing at the moment is my hair update.  Because most of you haven’t seen me in like a year or something because strangely I don’t even really have a home in America anymore, which is slightly unsettling.  In any case, I can put my hair in a ponytail.  And I don’t even have a desire to cut my hair right now, which is a sentiment I don’t think I have had since about age 7.  So bravo for me. I’ve turned over a new leaf, started a new chapter; I’m a new woman.