Thought on leaving France, in terms of trampolines, accordions, and the moon...

For as much as I absolutely love it, the experience of changing location [and the lurch I find myself in during the days before I move] terrifies me. I've said far too many goodbyes over the past few days, and the weight of the future au revoir's is starting to overwhelm me. I am not ready to leave this city, region, or country. Saturday night I went to nº 23, where I said goodbye to two of my better "French friends." Beer, crying, dancing, smiling, laughing, shouting, hugging, kissing, more dancing and laughing, and finally we faded into the roar of the dancing crowd. It still hasn't really set in.

Lately I've been feeling like something of a trampoline. Or, something that hopes it is lucky enough to have the same characeristics as a trampoline. Every bit of me feels like its being tugged in a hundred different directions. I'm incredibly tense, but keeping it together. I feel the weight and power it has over me, but this tension is firm and not going anywhere. I've been able to spring back into shape after the blows I've been dealt most recently. My head would probably even stay on straight if I were confronted with more than I am handling now. But let's not test that theory, not just yet...

I'm also feeling like life is something of an accordion, and I am at the end of the longest "inhale" that my particular instrument has ever experienced. The bellows can handle no more, a rip or tear is almost imminent. I say inhale, instead of exhale, for a reason. Holding my breath in a car while driving through a tunnel has become almost second nature. But sometimes that driver in front of you is going so, so, so slow, or the tunnel is so, so, so long, and all I can do to hold on to the wheel is inhale the tiniest bits of oxygen in order to be able to tell myself I'm not "cheating" on this self-imposed breath-holding game.

I have been holding my breath for a very, very long time.

This impending exhale will be one of tornado-like force, and waterspout-like beauty. Nothing will be destroyed, per se, but landscapes will change rapidly and everything will look the same but feel different. And the notes from the accordion will be a beautiful release that will most surely flow into another inhale.

Leaving places is never easy for me. I wish I could just... be content. I feel better when I'm in motion, even if I'm only moving for the same of motion itself. Gah, I miss my bicycle. Being in such a different culture for so long has revealed to me many aspects of being an American that I absolutely love. I can't wait to be home and explore those aspects of life.

Studying abroad has, in some ways, felt like living on the moon. The most beautiful landscapes I've ever known. As a child, I never imagined being able to actually live here, especially not for as long as I've had the chance to. But here I am, on the moon, which is fully-inhabitable, despite my original fears. I'm looking out at the other stars, and they're not so far. But to get to them I've got to leave here, and, more importantly, take myself even farther away from home. My heartstrings are so tied to Oregon, to the idea of "home" that it represents in my mind. But at the same time, I've got to know what else is out there. My heart will never be content if I don't reach as far as I can.

A week from today I will no longer be Poitevine. Well, I'll always be Poitevine, but my residency will return to Oregonian, and after a few weeks of limbo, my feet will feel Oregon soil beneath them.

Hello, blogosphere!

The calendar says it hasn't been too long since the last time I had something to say here, but my mind [and body!] says differently. This week marks 2 years of having my hair dreaded, which is really huge, if only for me. I guess its a type of... wow, look at all the things I've done in the past two years! sentiment, which is somehow demarkated by a major change in hairstyle. I didn't have any time length goals when I set off on this adventure. Just going to keep with it until it doesn't feel right anymore.

Monday I had an exam in linguistique, which was different, and not as difficult as I was expecting it to be. I mean, yeah, I was sort of anticipating the same difficult as the second exam last semester. But this semester was determinants, not the subjunctive, so I am still standing proud, and feel good about that exam. I also had an exam in les français et la mer, which I am pretty sure I completely failed. It was horrible. I don't know what I was expecting, but I definitely awsn't prepared for a devoir sur table de 3h., which is torture. 3 hours to write an in-class essay on a topic, in a very, very French, methodological fashion.

In any case. I spent from about Saturday to yesterday studying for la société moderne française, and I managed to almost finish my dissertation. We did have four hours, instead of 3, and I was a lot more prepared for this exam. I was missing two paragraphs, but I feel good about my organization, sentence structures, and what I wrote. Somewhere around the third hour I was hit by a spell of delirium. My brain was only functioning in French, using words and explaining facts that I have never said or thought in English. Some words that I don't even know the English word for. I'm pretty sure I used at least 6 tenses: présent, passé composé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait, futur, conditionnel, futur antérieur, et subjonctif. Take that, grammar! It felt like a breakthrough, or the pinnacle of my academic career here. Afterward I was completely exhausted. Lucy and I mey up with Alex for dinner [mmmmm kebabs.... Lucy took the exam, too], then we watched an episode of Dr Who.

Today is the first day in a long time that I've had to sleep in and sort of relax. I know I have a lot of work left for school, but I also need to start thinking about packing and getting things home, what to bring while I travel, etc.

Travel! Well, not quite travel. I've found a farm to work on, outside of Barcelona, for two weeks, before I leave Europe. I'm leaving the Poitz the 18th, getting there the 24th, then I'll spend the night of the 9th somewhere in Barcelona, and be home way, way, way too soon.

April's coming to a close...?

Near the top of the list of reasons that I do not want to leave France is its epic healthcare system. A few weeks ago I went to the doctor to talk about an ongoing "health problem" that I've been dealing with for a number of years. We worked our way through my medical history [hurrah dictionary!], and after about half an hour of the most patience anyone has shown me over the past eight months, the doctor takes a good look at me and tells me that modern medicine is probably what's kept this problem from going away, and probably making it worse. She then prescribed me a number of homeopathic "medications" and went on about how modern medicine, namely antibiotics, treats the symptoms while generally aggravating the actual sources. These are things I've learned empirically over the past few years, but that no doctor has ever admitted to me. I. Absolutely. Love. The. French. Indeed, over the past month I've seen more progress with this problem than over the past five years. With only one 2-week round of antibiotics, and a plurality of tinctures/homeopathic remedies.

I'm starting to stress out over final exams, and how to get to Barcelona in order to get home. I know it'll all work out, I'm just not exactly sure how. [Especially since the doctor I've been seeing wants to see me at the beginning of June, and I'm sort of hoping to leave Poitiers around the middle of May...] There're a lot of things about "the future" that feel really uncertain right now. Like, how to get all of my crap to the other side of the pond. It was suggested that I not ship much, because of how backed up the post is [thanks, volcano!]. On the other hand, I'm not really interested in traveling with ALL of my stuff. Three dictionaries, my massive "trapper keeper", my computer, silverware etc. No, thanks. I'm also super behind on letters, which disappoints me. I seem to be able to get a good batch of postcards out every couple weeks. I don't know if they're making it over to people, or if they're sitting somewhere between here and there [once again, thanks, volcano!].

On the theme of home. A lot of my girl friends are going to be out in Eugene at the end of June, and nothing warms my heart like the prospect of puzzle and movie nights, the solstice, coffee, the community gardens, vegan cooking, veganism in general, too many hours at the Goat, bike rides by the river, and time spent in trees. I'll also be in Oregon in time for summer classes, and Ted Toadvine is teaching his envorinmental philosophy course, which will be the last course I'll have the chance to take from him, because he's going on sabbatical next year. At the very least, I want to creeper on it, because I think it'll give me a good feel for what I may or may not want to write a senior thesis on. At any rate, I should email him and beg him to not leave, and not leave us all with Peter Warnek as an advisor again. Blah. Do not want.

Other than that, not too much to report on. We had a Centre Oregon excursion this weekend, but my camera batteries died about two hours into the trip, so all I have is a number of postcards somewhere in my journal/bags that came with me. It was an exhausting weekend, full of thousands of stairs, a bunch of old, old churches, some caves and cave paintings, an underground river, and a moonlit chateau invasion [complete with barbed wire climbing... needless to say, my hair got caught many, many times]. Tonight Jess and I went for a long walk along the railroad tracks and on into Biard. We were standing on a bridge when the train went under us. Which reminded me that possibly my favorite song, ever, is Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective.

tickets...

Tickets cause existential crises.

And it is way, way too early for that.

A ticket was purchased, meaning I have a date, an exact date on which I am leaving, and a time that I will be in Portland, Oregon. It's still bizarre and a bit painful to think about it. my mom sort of snuck it up on me, first giving me "until the end of the week", but then giving me all these dates and prices, and telling me that Stef will be home for Monster's graduation. Going to Denmark really isn't a practical possibility at this point, because of the volcano that erupted in Iceland, shutting down most European airports. It was late here, and my brain feels like constant hangover, despite no substantail amounts of alcohol in ages, and I said okay.

As what I feel like is some sort of compromise, my mom suggest that I think about finding work and moving to Eugene when I get home. I want to settle in Eugene. I want to live there. Not just go to school there. I'd stay and work in a coffee shop or wash dishes. I am desperate for roots, and my heart has already started to put them out.

Since 2005:

[Each number indicates a major change in living situation, which was connected, almost each time, to a friends group change and many, many major environmental changes]

1. September 2005 : move to Oregon from Alabama

2. August 2007 : move to DC for school

3. December/January 2008 : move to Eugene for school

4. June - September 2008 : spent the summer in Salem

5. September - December 2008 : lived in hell with Miki

6. January -June 2009 : Cuckoo's nest

7. June-August 2009 : spent the summer in Salem

8. September 2009 - present : Poitiers, France

So, either:

9. June -August/September 2010 : Salem

10. September 2010 : move to Eugene for an indefinite amount of time

or:

9. June 2010 : move to Eugene for an indefinite amount of time

My heart is tired and weary and ready to be settled and planted and develop a coherent reality.

Sorry for being all. Heavy, and stuff. It's about that time, though. Seven months is a long time to feel unpotted.

random update, not really updating anyone about anything...

The new Broken Social Scene album is out, and, well, wow. I sometimes absolutely love pop music. They're on the same label, Arts & Crafts, which has done work with Stars, Feist, The Most Serene Republic, and Amy Millan, so it's no surprise that this album is so magical. I love when bands from when I was younger let out new CDs that don't disappoint.

My folk visit was really, really lovely. [There are photos up on my facebook, but apparently you have to be logged in to see them.] We made it to the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, the Rodin museum, Centre Pompidou, Versailles, Notre Dame de Paris, saw the grands magasins, la Tour Eiffel, ate plenty of bread and cheese, and walked, walked, walked a ton. The one time we decided to take a taxi, it was a total failure. We waited at a taxi stand for more than half an hour, then finally decided to hoof it. We managed to hail a cab while we were walking, which was more or less a Sunday morning miracle.

I've been back in Poitiers for a few days now. I ended up not going to Norway, partly for financial reasons, partly for academic reasons, and partly for personal reasons. Next weekend [23-25 April!] we're going to the Dordogne to explore caves and see what all there is to see out there, which is going to be lovely, but exhausting. I know that seeing Daniel would have done me a world of good, but there were too many factors involved that made it difficult for me to leave France.

I still don't have a ticket home [typical]. There are some really reasonable tickets from Copenhagen to Seattle anytime until 16 June, and the train down to Salem is always $30, it seems. However, Monster's graduation is 10 June, and it would be nice to be there for that, but would be cutting it down to 2 weeks of travel in France, a week in Denmark, then straight home. Honestly, there's a lot about graduation time festivities that I wouldn't mind missing out on this year. But, on the other hand, if I am home that early, I could take a couple of [easier] classes at Chemeketa, to finish up requirements and leave myself more time next year to work on things like a thesis and post-graduation plans.

After a lot of talking with Cat, my trusty... well, sort of like my exterior conscience?... I've realized that it's going to be better for me to spend the summer in Oregon. There are a ton of people I miss, and little daily things that I am looking forward to being able to do, like pick blackberries and drink bad, warm beer [okay, okay, never done that legally in the states, but...], and ride my bike and drink American-style coffee. I may miss my bike more than I miss anything or anyone else; the freedom of mobility that comes with it, the complete self-reliance. Also, Stefanie has talked about all "the girls" spending a week together in Eugene. Oh, how I miss those women.

Okay. Time to get over to the library and force myself to work on this paper some more. My brain is so tired of French; I can see myself being able to write out a real philosophy paper in English right now, but it feels like such a stretch to do such synthetic work right now. So many layers of thought that I've been away from for far too long. It's like my brain is getting all mushy from being overworked for so long. Just a few more weeks, though.

I am horrible at keeping up with this thing.

One of the major setbacks of not updating this blog very often, is that it then becomes very difficult for me to create any sense of continuity. Oh, the challenge of composition.

So. Where were we?

The exam for les français et la mer is not until sometime in May. Max was mistaken, and practically gave me a heart attack. Also, my philosophy paper got moved to sometime in May, which means I only have two exams this week. Downside to the paper being moved is that the professor wants 6 to 8 pages, single-spaced, and French paper is longer than American paper. Alas.

I have decided against Going Nowhere, instead I am going to Denmark to visit family. My mom's been cheering for me to go there for about five months now. Despite my Danish heritage, I've never really had it on my list of places I dream of visiting. I know that my mom was there when she was about my age, and had the time of her life. A part of me feels like she wants me to relive her experiences, or relive them vicariously through me. But, if she did have a fantastic time, what do I have to lose? I'm sort of excited to get to know this side of my family. I met Uncle Torban a few years ago when he was visiting Oregon, and he's a lot like my grandpa Carl, whom I adore. En plus, Keelie, one of my cousins, visited them a couple of years ago, and from what I've heard, she really liked Denmark.

The weather has become all... spring like. It's cold and windy and rainy one moment, and the next it's warm and sunny and lovely; the flowers freshly watered and everything is blooming and shining in that fantastic way that it does this time of year. The time change [Europe observes daylight savings time at a different time than North America] has really thrown me off. It stays light so late, yet it's somehow still pretty light even when I wake up at 7am. Last night I forgot to turn the heater off before falling asleep, and woke up sweating around 5am. My sleeping self decided to turn off the heater and open the window. I think some baby birds have already made it out of their eggs! Such singing and squawking and whatnot, all through the night! There's nothing that remotely resembles a screen on my window, so I don't know what sort of little creatures have access to my room. At any rate, the sensation of waking up to such fresh air is. Well, it's refreshing.

I've been drinking a lot of maté lately, which, I think, has been affecting my dream-cycle. Such vivid, elaborate dreams. I don't really record them, which may or may not be smart? They don't correspond much to reality, but they're definitely my subconscious self working a lot of stuff out. From what I've read, if people share the same maté leaves from the same bombilla [drinking communally], they will have shared dreams. Hrmmm...

Time is so distended. I have this week of classes, then two weeks of break [one week with my folks!!!, then a week in Norway visiting Daniel!], then one week of history classes and two weeks of CLFE classes, two weeks of exams, then I'll be technically "free" from Poitiers on 15 May. Back in February my train was more than 2 hours delayed, so SNCF reimbursed me 66% of my ticket. I mailed in the form, not really hoping for anything. But yesterday I got a letter with 31.60 Euros worth of rail vouchers. It was nice to get that, even though I don't have any immediate plans to use it. Today makes seven months in Europe, which is absolutely absurd in its own way. I can hardly wrap my mind around it. Last night I went for a very, very long walk through neighborhoods I've never seen before. It happens all the time. How have I lived here for so long, yet explored so little? Or. I feel like I know so much of this city, but every time I leave my house I seem to discover a new corner of it.

The next time I update I will probably know when I am heading home. Weird to find myself at this point already. Stefanie Holloway has promised she'll make it out to Eugene when I get home. Also, my sister is looking into visiting Seattle/Portland/Salem with her boyfriend, whom I have yet to meet!, around the end of July. Wow. How is it already so near summer again?? When do I register for fall classes? How am I going to finish all of my undergrad studies in just one year? There are so many things I want to learn, so many classes I want to take! And I don't even know where I'll be living in the fall. Perhaps a sofa, until I can find somewhere real. Hmmm...

eating avocados again

Since we last spoke!

- studying for les français et la mer, as well as a good amount of reading for philosophy. I may have figured out my exams schedule, and if so, I am not looking forward to it

- I've been in contact with folks about Going Nowhere, and think I am going to end up there for a few weeks this summer, which means not going home until the end of July.

- agonizing over when to go home: follow my heart, follow my head

- consuming a nice [7 euro] bottle of red wine over the course of 3 days. a.k.a. giving the wine the time it deserves to be appreciated

- hours spent at Parc Blossac with friends and sunshine

- finally got around to putting photos on my walls, mostly thanks to some photos from Lauren that really do warrant wall space

- half a dozen organic eggs at the market is only 10¢ more than half a "conventional" dozen eggs at the gorcery store

- got grades back for CFLE midterms. 12,5 in history, 13,5 in linguistic. French grading system is so. French. Bizarre to content myself with the "numeric equivalent" of 60-65%, even if it is a really, really good mark

I have a stack of stamped envelopes waiting for me to fill them with letters and seld them off. It may not happen until after exams next week, but I will get letters to these folks.

Eating Like a Normal Person.

In light of the knowledge that France doesn't mistreat their animals the way the American meat industry does, I have decided to try to "eat like a normal person." Further, I've been feeling really weak and out of it lately, and I think it has something to do with my protein intake. Buying eggs directly from the farmer does alleviate the majority of the adverse feelings I've indoctrinated myself into feeling over the past few years.

This does, in some ways, makes me feel like I am giving up. For the first few months after I moved out of my host parents house I refrained from eating bread and cheese, even avoided most alcohol until fairly recently. But once Ja, after becoming really sick from eating too much gluten, said something I may never forget. "We do this to ourselves." He then went on to talk about how before he became vegan he could eat almost anything he wanted, but now can hardly stomach fries that've been cooked in the same oil that's cooked meat.

Lately I've been enjoying going to markets and buying small bits of nice cheeses, then sitting in the springtime sunshine to enjoy them. I even had a glass of Haute-Poitou Chardonnay with dinner the other night, something I've never really done before. I think it's my relationship with alcohol that I am most willing to develop, moreso than my relationship with food. Last weekend and the weekend before, with Jess and Andrea, we just drank a glass, or a bottle between the three of us, with our meals. Alcohol has always been such a "contraband!" Now that I am old enough to drink in every country where it is legal, I still feel that irritating obligation to feel "ashamed", and the odd relationship with myself for not feeling guilty. Blah.

Anyways. On to the cool thing I found out about the French university system.

As I have explained numerous times, to numerous people, the French university system is very different than the American one. Here, if you are a biology major, you ONLY take biology classes, and they are all with every other biology major in your year. The university gives you your "emploi du temps", and you follow it. You have a few choices in "elective" type classes, but for the most part, it's set for you.

This was, of course, quite a stark contrast when comparing it with the American system. In the states, each department offers a certain number of courses, at the 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 level. You're faced with a certain number of requirements, both general education and major/minor specific, which you have to fulfill. There's a lot of freedom in our system. Don't feel like taking that 8am class? No problem, wait until next semester, something else will be offered at a different time! Not interested in biology? No problem, you can take psychology classes to fulfill science requirements! Additionally, it's incredibly rare that two people graduating will have taken exactly the same courses, even if they're in the same major.

So. Here's what I found out this past week. While the university student government here has almost no power, in comparison to the American system, their students do elect candidates to a very, very important council of a different type. [Granted, at the UO, the ASUO is mostly in charge of spending "student dollars", while French students don't have to pay any sort of "incidental fee".]

These councils are "le conseil d'administration", "le conseil des études" and "le conseil de la université". The latter two essentially function on the premise that the students elected to the council work with the professors in a given department. The elected student officials operate as liaison between the students and their professors. If the students want more hours of German, fewer hours of English, philosophy students have a particular interest in Bergson and really don't want to take another class on Descartes, they express this to the members of the "conseil des études" and "conseil de la université." The council members then pass this on to professors, who work to meet these requests.

The super cool part comes in with "le conseil d'administration." Once the professors have proposed their classes to the admin, the students on this council work with the admin to choose which classes will actually be offered. The students actually have the power to override decisions made by the admin [within reason, I'd suppose].

So, chew on that difference.

[Granted, at least in the philosophy department at the UO, if a student can gather enough other students for a reading group and find a faculty sponsor, they can creat a "class" and get credit for it.]

Alright. Time for a shower and some sleep.

Rochefort

Oh dear. How am I going to keep things around here "updated" if I don't keep up with what I do, when I do it, etc.

Last weekend was really nice. I went to the Sunday market with some friends and we had a nice picnic. It's been wicked cold here, the type of cold that hurts your hands and makes you want another sweater, even when you're already wearing three. Lucy's mom was here last week, and it was really a treat to get to meet her. I'm exicted to visit them in Philomath this summer. I love meeting peoples parents and learning about their relationships. we went to Jasmin Citronnelle for tea and scones on Wednesday, and then I spent a few hours with Lucy and her mum on Thursday evening.

Thursday I went with Jess to a Kabaret at Numéro 23. It was really silly, from what I could understand of it. The singing, dancing, and music was inpressive. Three bassons and an electric keyboard. Three singers, but the musicians all sang along at parts. It made me remember that I need to find somewhere to use my tap shoes. I miss dancing in almost every sense of the word.

This weekend I trekked out to Rochefort with Jess for her friend Andrea's birthday. It was a rather epicurean weekend, consisting of a lot of cooking, champagne, and conversation. The train to Rochefort is still out because of the storms we had a few weeks ago, and the wait for the next bus from Surgères, where the train took us, to Rochefort was a two hour wait, so we ended up hitching and got there in under half an hour. We went to the market, where all of the food was remarkably less expensive than in the gorcery stores. [Also, we bought chicken that still had some feathers on it...] I wish I knew more about French farm subsidizing. I have started looking into WWOOFing farms, and think it may be good to look into finding a farm soon, if that's what I am going to do this summer.

Tonight I washed my hair with dishsoap. It worked really well, my hair feels cleaner than it has in ages. Almost two years, and I still don't have a real washing strategy worked out. Lucy was lovely enough to spend a couple of hours helping me maintain my hair, but there's still loads of work to be done. I keep going back and forth between loving and hating it, but it's just so long and has been so long, and I'm just not quite ready for change.

I am feeling really unsatisfied with a couple of my classes. We had some exams last week. On the linguistic exam we had the question:

Expliquez pourquoi on dit:

1. Vous avez fait des progrès.

2. Vous avez fait de gros progrès.

Explain why one says:

1. You have made some progresses [des = plural, "progrès" itself has the same spelling in the singular and plural]

2. You have made a lot of progress[es] [in this context it's very ambiguous as to whether "progrès" is singular or plural, because of the "de gros"]

So, the difference between the two has something to do with this really inane rule "le règle de 't'as de beaux yeux", which seems to be more or less made up by my professor. It has to do with it not being absolutely necessary to use "des" [plural, meaning "of the" or "some", depending on the context and whether it's acting as a definite or indefinite article]. I asked a number of French students that I know here, and none of them knew about this rule, or could explain the difference. Or, the difference that they explained was SO nuanced that i wanted to kick someone. Further, apparently it would be quite bizarre for a French person to say "gros" in this context.

Beyond that, we have had 6 weeks of class, and the professor of my Sartre/Merleau-Ponty class has LITERALLY not said a single word about either of their philosophical systems. He has, however, wasted 5 classes [10 hours!] talking about Freudian theories of jealousy and causes of male homosexuality. And one class trying to explain how Lacan has turned Freuds "principles" into something of a Hegelian dialectic movement [which can still lead to homosexuality?], which I really disagree with. Unfortunately, this professor doesn't seem to want to be engaged by the students, especially not the foreign one who can hardly articulate herself.

On another note, I learned something very, very interesting about the French education system, which I don't have the energy to write about now, but am going to allude to now, so that tomorrow or the next day or at some time in the future I'll remember to write about it. I keep having these recurring nightmares about going home early and not being able to take exams over here, or about not being able to get home for one reason or another and missing a lot of Oregon summer. Jess suggested some responses for me to give my dream self, so hopefully next time I'll be able to get out of the loop.

a possibe solution??

"It is not only envy, it is also admiration, yes, sincere admiration: in the way that man puts all of his energy into writing there is certainly a generosity, a faith in communication, in giving others what others expect of him, without creating introverted problems for himself."

-Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler

I'd like to think that that's the solution to my blogging issues. It inspires curiosity: would life be "easier" if I weren't so interested in philosophy? I've been in loose dialogue with an old friend who's always accused me of creating this type of problems for myself. I guess I just don't know what I'm supposed to be writing about [like there's some sort of formula?], or what people "expect" to read about, and I feel the need to respond to those questions before setting out.

Anyways. Tuesday I had lunch with Boots, then got some groceries and walked home from the fac, a 45 minute walk. It'd been a long while since I'd done that walk, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Last night I went for about a 45 minute walk, and it made me miss going for hikes up the butte to watch the sunset with friends in Eugene. I feel really disconnected from the things that I was learning to love this time last year. I'm not quite sure how I am supposed to respond to this realization. I find myself longing for a lot of things that I know I just can't have right now. In any case, I started sprouting some garlic on Sunday, and planted two cloves of it today. One of the cloves is on a mission, and I wish I had compost to offer it as a thank-you for growing so earnestly.

It's pretty lovely and sunny here. I woke up this morning to sunshine. Then I was lucky enough to get to talk to Cat and Mariah for a while on the internet before going to class. Seale had posted a link to the new Minus the Bear song. I'm surprised at how much I enjoy the new sound they're going for. When "Into the Mirror" came out it took me a while to get used just how. plain. sexy. their new stuff is. "My Time" is the new song, and I really, really look forward to them coming out with a new album and going on tour in the fall and continuing to be an epic band, despite their changing sound.

After class I came home and drank some tea and painted, listened to a lot of good music. Then I decided to go out and see what was happening in the world of Easy Cash Pawnshop at Le Grand Large. Now I am the proud owner of a silver Decathlon road bike. I wish I could raise the handle bars a bit, but they'll be fine the way they are for now. The pedals are made for clip-in bike shoes, which may be better in the long run, because "regular" pedals tend to tear up the soul of my birkenstocks somethin' awful.

I reread Anthem on Monday. I really don't know why. I can't even figure out why I brough the book here. The whole text is undoubtably available for free online. It's really not worth the 2-hour read, it takes up way too much space for how short of a story it is. And. Well. It just. Sucks. It's a negative definition of capitalism/"objecitvism" [Ayn Rand's philosophy], opposing it to a type of dystopic collectivism in which anything done for the individual is considered evil or immoral. In the end the reader is left thinking that this individualism is what's going to lead us to knowledge and freedom. It's a good enough idea, but the novella is so short that you can hardly justify disregarding a single idea, and some of the things packed in there are really disagreeable [bending nature to your will, for one]. So here I am, picking at bits and pieces of two different larger trains of thought. There are parts of both which I wholly agree with. I need to get home, to real philosophy classes and real inerlocutors with whom I can engage myelf and discuss these types of ideas.

Speaking of home, I am thinking more and more of getting home in time for the Country Fair. I suggested the date 7 July to my mom, but apparently the whole family is going to be in NH then, including Stef [aaaaaaaah, why did she have to pull the sister card?? I wouldn't care so much if it were just m and d and the monsters, but her!], which has me torn. I just want to go home. I don't want any other layovers. I want Oregon, right away when I get back to the states. I'm still not positive what I'm going to do with my summer. The girls are all going to make it out to Eugene for a week, and I must, must, must be home for that. I think that having a bike here is going to make being here a lot easier on my heart, though.

for the curious, the adventurous, for those who still write letters:

My address:

Caroline Beranek

1 Rue de la Roche d'Argent

Bâtiment A, n° 226

86000 Poitiers

FRANCE

Yep, I live on "Silver Rock Road", or "Rock of Money Road", depending on how much of a jerk I feel like being about translating it. At any rate, the pub that's attached to the building is called The Silver Rock, or something along those lines.

In other news:

Poitiers seems to think it's springtime. It's currently 12°C, the sunshine and the showers coming and going every half hour or so. More than once I've been seduced out for a run, only to be caught in the throes of an overwhelmingly windy burst of rain. Poitiers is an overwhelmingly windy city in general. I've been running trough the neighborhoods in centre ville, partly to get to know my city, but also in a [futile] attempt to escape the wind. My Alabama self can't run comfortably in anything other than Soffe shorts... I can't decide if I prefer the comments of people I pass or the stares/shouts/occasional honks from cars. Such are my troubles.

Also, some punks thought it'd be a good idea to put a coffee machine on the first floor of my building. And, for those of you who do not live in France, let it be known that machine coffee in France is still 10 times better than anything I've found in the states, even in Oregon. So, now, for 40¢ a cup, I can inundate myself with café allongé whenever the urgency strikes me. That's not to say I've any plans to slow my tea consumption, only that now coffee is definitely making a re-emergence in my life. I was recently treated to coffee from a percolator, which was absolutely wonderful, fresh, and strong. I've also discovered something called Café Bonbon, which is a shot of espresso poured over sweetened, condensed milk. Yum.

And, as always, I am agonizing over when to go back to Oregon. Rumor has it that exams here are done by the middle of May, which sets me to traveling about a month sooner than I thought. [Oh, Oregon, you and your trimester system, how you've screwed with my perception of the academic calendar!] I've developed these fantasy bike rides that I want to conquer [Still no luck on the bike front here], and the more I think about it, the more it feels like the Country Fair would be the best way for me to reunite myself with Oregon.

Hmmm...

hair...

After months and months of agonizing over the "cut, comb, or maintain" question, I've decided to sit down and repair this relationship the right way.

Here's to being narcissistic enough to believe people are reading this.

What's up, blog?

Uh. Hmm. I've been mostly writing in my real [pen + paper] journal lately. I've spent a lot of time obsessing over the possible interpretations of the phrase "the difference is in the details."

My and Lucy's attempts to "faire des soldes" resulted in us going in halfsies on a 500-piece High School Musical 3 puzzle, and then putting it together in something like an hour and a half. It was a pretty lovely way to spend a Saturday night. Sunday I finally went to Le Musée Sainte Croix with Alex and a friend of hers. The museum is just across the street from where I live, yet it was my first time there. It was deceptively huge; we spent close to three hours there and didn't make it to every part. Luckily, all French public museums are free for European Union students and people who're under 26. All museums includes places like the Louvre, le Centre Pompidou, and le Château de Versailles in Paris. Plus, almost every "major" town/city in France has its own "check out how epic we are!" museum. I went to the one in Angoulême with a friend a while back, and it, too, was surprisingly comprehensive.

After however many years of studying French [4, now, it would seem], I think I am finally beginning to understand how to use the partitive. We're working on it in the linguistique class that I'm taking, and, at long last, I think I actually "get it". I was reading La Nausée earlier, and every time I can across du, de la, de l', or des I seemed to be able to make the distinction between "some" [indefinite] and "of the" [definite] in their use. It's little moments like these, when the grammar makes more sense in an important way, that I feel just that much more capable of understanding the meaning behind the words in a much more productive sense.

I think this may be the homesickness talking, so take what follows with a grain of salt:

There are a number of things about France that I find myself really not liking.

I do not like French methodology, which seems to be everywhere. I've never considered myself much of a proponent of Cartesian philosophy [sorry, Monsieur Descartes...]. I have distinct memories of suffering through Beata's lectures on methodology and forcing myself to memorize the four precepts of The Method [fromDiscourseon the Method, if you're really, really interested...]. I'm caught in a chicken/egg paradigm. Is this methodology fixation because of Descartes [he's been referenced in almost every single one of my classes...]? Or was he just one of the first to put into words what is actually a very, very French tradition?

Okay. That was vague. French-ruled paper has four "lines" per "line". My friend Jess is an assistante, which means she teaches English in a collège [elementary school]. It's through her that I've learned the purpose of so many lines. She explained to me that it's so that students can have a visual aid to learn how to draw their letters. All French hand-writing in, essentially, the same. I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it does. I love my hand-writing, and cannot imagine having been told since a very early age that my writing style must be a certain way.

Also, all written works for class must follow a format that irritates me, and I don't think it's just the typical "you pretend to hate it because you can't do it" attitude. In middle school I was taught how to write a 5-paragraph essay [you tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, you tell 'em, and then you tell 'em what you told 'em!]. I can write a damn-good 5-paragraph essay, man. I mastered, conquered that beast.

And I loved nothing more than that magical moment when Mr. Woods told me that he would not accept that format, ever, under any circunstances.

Being forced back into that tradition, but in an even more exigent way makes is stifiling me.

And, to finish this complain session. I am taking 3 history classes. In each of them, every time the professor goes on and on about how some other country did something epic, such as the Spanish Amarda, they have to toss in an the end that France was doing something equally or even more epic at the exact time. It's always just as an aside.

The actual example that I'm thinking of right now is France's colonial territories during the XVIIth century. Cool, France. You had Canada. You had Louisiana. You had a MASSIVE piece of land [foughly 1/3 of what is now the US] that you sold to the United States. Can't we just get on with the history class? Must we dwell on past French glories?

And then there's overwhelming pride in the professor's voice as he tells us about how France was the first country to track sailors throughout the entirety of their careers, keeping accounts of where and when they went, their pay, etc. [Learning about Les Livrets Ouvriers was also a rather irritating form of control that I learned about last semester...] I just feel like being one of the first countries to keep those records, to be one of the founders of that kind of invasion of privacy isn't really something to be particularly proud of. Alas.

I'm not even going to get into the actual headach that was the bureaucratic process of getting my titre de sejour [visa]. Suffice it to say that "top-down coordination is only necessary when people must be made to do something they would never do of their own accord".

Wow. That was a lot more complaining than I was planning on. Maybe I'll just complain to Emily when she gets here, and delete a lot of that. Meh.

Okay. I can do this.

So, I've been the keeper of various livejournals over the course of my internet career, but I've finally decided to move my life over to blogspot. If you're horribly interested in the angst of the past seven or so years of my life, I can link you, but otherwise, welcome to my present.

Yesterday was Friday. I woke up early enough for a morning of tea, yoga/stretching, a leisurely breakfast, and made it out to campus 15 minutes before my class actually started. I love this time of year --- the daily gain of a few minutes of daylight in the morning and afternoon. The Poitevin sky isn't as gloomily grey as Oregon's. Makes me a bit homesick, and my body isn't quite sure how to react to blue skies in February. I managed to fit in a run in the 2 hour break between translation and history. Mix that with a night of heavy drinking, and you've got about the perfect combination for a super sore Caroline.

After classes I came home and napped and listened to The XX for a bit. Drank some tea. Made dinner [veggies, rice, the usual...]. Formulated more solid evening plans than just "make it to the Irish party." Emily and Bryan came over around 8.30, I think? They got here earlier than I'd anticipated.

Wow. So. There's the play-by-play of my yesterday, up until that pesky moment of self-consciousness/awareness showed up. And this is why I am a horrible blogger.

Okay. Back to the mundane:

We hung around my room for a bit. I played some neat new music, Delphic and Chew Lips, which were both surprisingly good.

See. Yeah. I'm horrible at this blog business. Last night I went to a party, talked to a lot of people, got drunk, kept talking to people, went up and down the stairs a few times, "fait des bises" waaay too many times. Sat on the stairs and talked to Max for a long time. That was nice. Walked home, passed out, woke up hung over.

Today I've cleaned my room [seriously the most daily task I have in my life], done laundry, showered, ate some vegetables for "brunch", stretched for a good bit of time, and consumed enough tea to make up for how horridly dehydrated my poor body is after so much rum. Now I'm going to go "faire des soldes" with Lucy, then attack some homework.

Okay. That was a good first try, I think.