Bad Attitude

The French are a mean group of people. Here are the things that people have done to me when I run:
1. Glare at me
2. Stare at me
3. Run alongside me
4. Ask "why are you running?"
5. Yell at me (mean things)
6. Yell at me (um, you know...)
7. If I start walking, yell "run! run!"
8. Laugh at me

This is why I have to take the metro to the park to avoid ridicule. This is why I can't wait to go home.

Famous In Japan

Would you rather flood your room or not shower? This may be a hypothetical for some, but for me it's a real-life situation. The drain's broken, last night I chose short shower with no hair wash. My hair is greasy and my room smells like mildew from the towel I used to soak up the water that flooded my room. I hung the towel out the window to dry but then it started raining. Also, did I write earlier that I am probably on Japanese TV? I walked into a shot because the filming was in my way at a local market. Then I decided if I was going to be on TV I was going all out, so I just kind of stubbornly shopped in the way of the shot for about three minutes. Those Japanese are so polite, they didn't say a thing!
Speaking of racism, I met an Australian woman who told me it was okay if Obama won because he's not a real negro. Hmm, I agree with the former part.
Today a Japanese movie is filming outside my building. It involves a child crying over the body of a man with blood streaming out of his head. I watched them shooting that scene from different angles for maybe ten minutes. It must get pretty old for the kid. And uncomfortable for the guy. I guess the movie business isn't so glamorous after all. I definitely wasn't in the movie image-wise, but maybe you can kind of hear my footsteps in it. Get ready Japan, here I come!

Don't Know What It's All About

For the first time in my life I have started actually noticing people’s bodies in pop culture. My research has kind of made me start looking at them more closely. It honestly seems strange to me that so many girls do this naturally; I’ve read a LOT of fashion magazines cover-to-cover and have never felt inferior about anything except my income. Same with movies; when people talk about how curvy Scarlett Johannsen is or how Keira Knightley is ghastly I really have never thought about it. I mean, they’re both skinny but not frighteningly so, beyond that I never noticed anything. I don’t mean to say that the images on screen don’t have an effect on me, I’m definitely more conscious about my skin, clothes, or social awkwardness after watching certain movies. Bodies of celebrities all seem just skinny to me, though.
Why do girls watch these bodies so carefully? In real life between the ages 18-21 I’ve fluctuated up and down at least ten pounds, but I know that regardless of how thin I am it’s my mood that pushes people towards (or away) from me. I have to think that this is pretty universal; obviously obesity is something else but society doesn’t really pick bones day-to-day between healthy-regular and healthy-skinny weight. Really, who notices? Even since my exercise regime started I dropped a few pant sizes and only N has picked up on it. So why are people so vicious about fluctuations of models or celebrities? I read a theory in a study that said that the obese are more likely to stay that way when they see these impossible images of what “skinny” is. I feel like Charlie Brown, it’s a depressing thing to think about and it makes no sense.

Because You Care

All of the classes I wanted were at the same time. Thus my fall schedule:

MWF Schedule
*Crafts of Writing Fiction MWF 10:50-11:50 10223
*19th Century American Lit MWF 3:30-4:30 10231
*Pilates 4:45-5:45 MWF 10657

TR Schedule
*Quantitative Thinking For Policy Analysis TR 9:40-11:10 10270
*Swimming I 1:20-2:30 TR 10642
*Revolutions and Evolutions 3:00-4:30 TR 10774

9:40!? Why even bother going to bed, it's practically still night! Thanks for nothing, Macalester.

Almost Famous

I saw one of my favorite bands the other day, the Brunettes. When asked to describe their music, I have to say twee. Then when people don’t know what that is, I have to say, you know, like the Juno soundtrack? Ohhh. Juno co-opted my music and culture. On the plus side, I now have an easy cultural category to be fit into. Anyway, it was kind of weird because I got there way earlier than necessary, and since I was by myself I had to sit and pretend to read the movie listings for thirty minutes before I got up the courage to say hi to the guy sitting next to me. He was an English teacher, so we had a good time talking. The opening act was an synth-pop DJ named Anoraak, which was kind of fun since I was into synth pop for about three days the week before. The next band was French but wrote their songs in English; they were kind of twangy Elliott Smith types. The Brunettes, however, were awesome. The girl is great, it’s clear that her expressiveness is what makes the band when you see them live. The exciting part is that they had a dance contest and guess who won? Yep, me! To be fair, the announcement was in English, so I may have been among a lucky few who understood. But I got to meet them to collect my reward, which was the end of a bottle of whiskey they had backstage. It was really cool!

Ana and Mia

I wanted to write my research paper on the effects of advertising and brand image. For example, if Chanel releases a campaign showing athletic women in their clothes, will people begin to associate Chanel with athleticism? Or elegance with athleticism? Will rich athletes be more likely to shop at Chanel? Unfortunately, after trying four of the best fashion institutions in Paris I couldn’t find a compendium of advertisements for any brand. So now I’m writing on the effects of anorexia on the fashion world, and vice versa. Original, right? Oh well, at least there’s already huge amounts of research. I kind of got sidetracked with looking at a bunch of pro-ana websites. This is apparently a huge phenomenon of mostly teenage girls writing fasting tips and thinspiration to one another. It’s pretty bad…no, it’s really bad. One woman wrote about how she was going to be deemed an unfit mother if she didn’t cut out her anorexic habits. A high school girl described how she had to break her fast for a salad at her parent’s anniversary dinner because it made her mom cry when she said she wasn’t hungry. There are people on the site trying to fight their anorexia and get back to healthy weight, mixed in with those who are trying anything to drop (one girl at 5’8” mentioned her goal weight is 96 lbs). These sites are really troubling, and haven’t been getting very much media attention according to wikipedia. France passed a law to ban any pro-anorexia websites last week, but facebook and myspace say it’s too difficult to draw a line between support to get better and pressure to lose weight on many of the sites. After seeing the livejournal one I see what they mean; when one girl posted her pictures (which actually looked on the skinny side of healthy) people were telling her she looked great, not specifying any suggestions to lose or gain. Anyway, I didn’t really realize how much the thinspo/mia/ana community comes together. The creepiest thing is that their messages sound like those of normal teenage girls, “OMG I feel like such a fatty I had ½ granola bar for breakfast and an apple for lunch. Hope I can get out of dinner if my parents let me but probs not UGH!” With maybe some frowning faces at the end. Girls with the same stats email each other to plan diets to lose four pounds next week etc. I’ve seen a lot of bulletin boards and web communities but never like this. My high school hypothetical internet equivalent would have been something like “UGH can’t get E Major up to 160 BPM my teacher says it’s too fast anyway but I’m stuck at 120! Anyone want to coordinate metronome speeds next week?” I don’t need to ask to know that those bitches on the clarinet board would never coordinate their metronome practice with me. I just think it’s sad that the ana group I looked at is the most supportive and friendly internet group I’ve ever seen. If these girls were getting this kind of emotional support in their school lives, would things be different?
The way one girl conceptualizes ana is as a girl who lives inside you and only gets the food that you deny yourself. If you eat too much, she dies. If you don't eat at all, you die. I think it's safe to say I killed ana. Whoops.

Slapstick

I fell down the stairs today. Not a little bit, I actually fell and then slid down maybe four stairs. And then I had to turn over onto my stomach to get myself up. I think tomorrow about half of my left leg will be purple. Hey, I just thought of something: is the book the Color Purple named so because she was bruised? I never got far enough in for the explanation.

Not Free To Pick Up

I went to the fashion and interior design museum again, which was great. I’ve never gone through the furniture part before, but it was actually really fun. The best part is a room full of designer chairs that you can sit in while you watch a montage of clips from movies featuring furniture in the museum. I sat in this bed type chair, and it was heavenly. The angle it props up at is really perfect. This makes me wonder what separates a really expensive piece of furniture from a regular one? That chair seemed really great, but I think it was the design and not the craftsmanship that made it so good. But really, I have no idea. I’m just wondering because I’ve been furniture hunting on craigslist and prices seem crazy for couches. I feel like it shouldn’t be that hard or expensive to make an okay couch.

I Can't Even Handle The Preview

I have been hearing a woman screaming on and off in the apartment building next to my office through the wall for the past week or so. Sounds like labor pains, not like a specific cry for help. I wasn’t sure what I should do, and felt kind of reluctant to call the police since I already called them once for a screaming woman about a month ago. In elementary school they told us if you call the police too many times they stop coming, is this true? They also said if you call for a fire and there’s not one then you go to jail. I guess I might find out the French laws about calling the police too many times by the time I’m through here. But the Funny Games trailer made me decide that I should take the risk of looking dumb. I looked dumb. They were actually really nice about it, but it’s on and off, and of course when they got there she was quiet. You would think the police would be able to go into whatever building they needed to, but they didn’t have the code for the apartments next door to me so they called it a day. Great job! Another thing the Funny Games trailer did was keep me up late two nights ago. Why do those guys want to hurt that family? And what is it about those all-white golf clothes that make them look so harmless? I will readily admit that if a serial killer in all-white golf clothes knocked on my door and asked to borrow some eggs I think I would let him in. Not anymore, though. Thank you, Funny Games trailer. You compensate for the ineptitude of the local police. PS just because I linked the Funny Games trailer doesn't mean you should watch it.

Dirty Underbelly of the Arrondissement

I’ve been running around my neighborhood a lot, and now I understand why people don’t sneer at me when I tell them what section of town I live in. The rest of the 14th is actually really beautiful; high-quality restaurants and stores line the wide sidewalks bustling with business people. My neighborhood is barely within the border of the 14th, and about a block away from me all of the well-maintained facades are replaced with run-down Chinese restaurants and struggling local vegetable stands. There’s no place like home.

(Poorly Written, Half-Assed) Movie Reviews of Every Movie Seen Since I Got Here

Sorry no posts for a while, internet was down and then I had some big presentations. Anyway, here come a lot...

Darjeeling Limited: I liked this one! It reminded more of Bottle Rocket than any other movie Wes Anderson has done. The short “Hotel Chevalier” before the real movie was great. The soundtrack left me a little nonplussed compared to all of his other movies, but it was still great.
Be Kind Rewind: This is my least favorite Michel Gondry movie. Yeah, I get that he’s breaking the fourth wall in a whole new way. Big deal, Michel. It was so self-conscious that it made it hard to think about the actual plot. There were some really funny Jack Black parts though, and the end was touching.
Crimes of Oxford/The Oxford Murders: The real crime was the robbery that occurred when I bought the ticket, haha! Seriously, it was a pretty dumb movie. Really over-the-top dialogue in the cheesy romantic sideplot, and the real plot was not that engaging. Plus some of the math that was supposedly difficult for the grad student at Oxford was stuff that I did in fifth grade, and I really think they should have had at least one math person look over the script just to make sure it was semi-reasonable.
There Will Be Blood: The beginning made me think the whole movie was going to be boring, but once I got through the first ten minutes I started loving it. I really want to start talking like Daniel Plainview, and saying things like “Say I have a milkshake and you have a milkshake (this is true, see!)” Unfortunately, this is not a popular pastime in France. This has the best reviews of any movie out in theaters right now over here, including No Country For Old Men, which isn’t even in the top five. Maybe because the French hate zealots? Everyone was cracking up during the crazy church scenes.
Disco: Frank Dubosc, a 40-year-old unemployed divorced father, needs money to pay for a vacation for himself and his son. He and his two aging misfit friends get the old disco group back together and enter a contest for which the prize is two tickets to Australia. Will hard work and the help of a lovely young ballet instructor be enough to transform these three old men into gold medalists? Cliched and great movie. Loved every second.
J’ai Reve Toujours d’Etre Gangster: I have tried to get into this movie three times, and it has always sold out. Last time I was twenty minutes early and the person in front of me bought the last seat. But I really like the trailer.

Free Lunch

There is such a thing! I was walking to the metro station while a sushi place was closing down for the day and one of the employees stopped me on the street and invited me to pick out a free take-away box. I got a salmon roll and it was delicious. After eating that I was getting thirsty, and there was an Orangina promotional van on the sidewalk giving away free mini-bottles. It was amazing. I was kind of mad at Orangina for their gross ads featuring sexualized and anthropomorphized animals/plants, but now that I got that free drink from them I think I'm going to call it even.

My eventual destination was the library, but I gave up on that because the line to get in was three hours long. I don’t know why it’s so popular; I went back today and got in after a mere forty-minute wait and it was a pretty typical library. I heard a couple talking behind me excitedly about what they were going to do in the library; the girl was going to work on revising a paper and the guy was going to find something fun to read. That was really cute.

I Suck At Reading

I finished my book today. It was called The History of the Eye, and I would not recommend it to the faint of heart. I saw it on the Penguin list of 100 best books of all-time, so don't judge me for reading about some teenagers having sex with and killing a priest. And cutting out his eye. Ow!
Now I have to find a new book, and I've decided it's inexcusable to just read gossip girl. So I went back on the list of classics to try to find something. Madame Bovary? Boring! I couldn't even get through that one in English. Les Miserables? Too long. And probably full of crazy 19th century vocab I'll never use. I already saw the play, so there's also no suspense.
I'm stuck between Pére Goriot and the Charterhouse of Parma, but I'm guessing I'll go with the former since it's Balzac and I can acquit myself of some guilt for not getting through some other Balzac novel about a crazy woman who only repeated one word. After going through this decision process, it struck me that I suck. Instead of delighting in the classics of literature, I tend to be really dismissive of something if I don't like it. Madame Bovary is presumably a pretty good book, but about half way through I just couldn't take her whining anymore. It was the only book I brought to the beach, so instead I just stared at the ocean, which was much more enjoyable for me. What am I missing?
I made a rule that I will only read French in France, but so far I've only read two books. It takes so freaking long to look up every word I don't know. I have been realizing that I only use a certain amount of words and phrases every day, over and over. This is probably true in English as well, but I have a larger vocabulary in English for writing and reading. In French it's just not there. Today I looked up the word "to lift". Then I looked it up again, because I forgot it within an hour. Ugh.

Really Makes You Think

The expression “really makes you think” is something that I’ve been using ironically, but I don’t think that anyone else thinks it’s funny, or maybe no one knows I’m joking when I say it. How could something force you to think? I usually say it after someone saying something like “all those stars are so far away”, or something really cliché like that, so it seems kind of obvious that I’m joking. But I think I’m just making people think I’m stupid. Now this is making me think!
Anyway, top 40 radio is on in the office all day, and here are some songs that have been making me think:
1. Let's Make love in The Club by Usher: this song is about how Usher wants to “make love in this club” and he doesn’t “care who’s watching”. The situation as I understand it is that a girl he’s dancing with really wants to make love in the club, and he needs some convincing, but if she “keeps this up” then she might really get to make love in the club with Usher. But it never explicitly says she wants to make love in the club, it’s just kind of an implicit understanding that she does. It’s kind of heroic and comforting of him to make love to her, especially because she’s stressed that “her baby left school”. Just a little charity sex.
2. Wanna Be Startin' Something by Michael Jackson featuring Akon “I met her on a walkway/Stared as she walked by/She turned back at me sideways/Said ‘I can’t help but ask’/Do you wanna be starting something?” First of all, what the hell kind of walkway is this? Is it like a moving walkway in an airport? Or like a boardwalk, maybe? The walking side of a bike path in a public park? Second, she can’t help but ask if he wants to get with her? He is staring, so I don’t think she has to excuse her question by saying she “can’t help” but ask it. And who says they “can’t help but ask” anymore? Is this song based on a Jane Austen Novel? And third, the question “do you wanna be starting something?” could easily be misconstrued to mean “do you want to fight me?” If the world’s cutest boy (PS) asked me if I wanted to be starting something, I would run away. Anyway, they go back to her place and he wishes he “could tell you what (he) saw/Sexiest woman in a negligee” Umm, I think you just told me, then. They “hit it off until the dawn”. I think this song could be a pick-me-up for guys who stare at women in the hopes that they can be starting something. It’s their version of “Don’t Stop Believing”. Hold onto that feeling!
3. Take You There by Sean Kingston “We can go to Bahamas/Sip pina coladas/Shorty, I can take you there/Or we can go to the slums/Where killers get hung/Shorty, I can take you there” The whole song is based on the premise that this guy is asking where his girlfriend wants to go: the Bahamas or the slums? Hmm, tough one. He won’t think less of her for choosing the Bahamas; “Baby, it’s up to you, it’s whatever you like”. He is “known in the ghetto”, so and it’s where he’s from, but he has no problem with not taking her home. So it’s not a question of their relationship getting serious and he needs to take her home. It’s literally just her choice between pina coladas or watching killers get hung. The refrain says “Or we could go to a place you would like/the beach…welcome to paradise”, so he knows that she would like the beach. And the “or” before “a place you would like” shows that he knows that she doesn’t like the slums. So why is he even asking this question?

This is how I spend my days. This is the way I live.

Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

I am sick and it’s only getting worse. I finally (day three) went to the pharmacy and bought twenty dollars worth of cough medicine, which in France means four days of pills to stop my runny nose and a small bottle of throat spray. I know what you’re thinking: why not buy an all-in-one medicine for colds, like NyQuil? Well, I’m way ahead of you, but France is not. They looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if there was one medicine that could do both things.

I went in to work sleep-deprived and voiceless, hoping I could just watch eBay auctions quietly. Asked Jean-Paul if there was anything to be done, unfortunately, there was. We have a lookbook with all of the product placements in magazines we’ve done, and I had to update it. Anyone who remembers my stunning performances in Book Arts knows that I have no talent for cutting in a straight line (the teacher thought I had a learning disability, it’s that bad). It probably goes without saying that I fucked it up, but for illustrative purposes: I started, lunched, came back and started pasting in a brand that has it’s own lookbook, undid that, realized that all the brands have to be separate, undid more things…Plus the cutting is clearly uneven, and there’s glue on the pages. Awesome.

I was doing so well on my diet and exercise, but now it’s all gone to waste. I can barely even walk up the stairs without feeling like I’m going to fall down, so I’m kind of stuck in bed. Today I had the most delicious pastry that I’ve ever eaten, I think. It was called the divorce; it’s an éclair filled with light chocolate crème and coated half with coffee-flavored icing and half with dark chocolate, with a small line of whipped cream down the center. I think I’m going to make that mistake again.

The Negative Effects Of Your Friendly Neighborhood General Store Clerk

There are two friendly neighborhood general store clerks in my vicinity. I have to take a break from one because he asked me out and I said I don’t have a phone and ran away. I went to the other one to see if he had the kind of razor blades that I use, and he didn’t, but he offered me some Bic disposables. I told him I needed another kind, but he told me his kind was really good. He seemed kind of sad that I didn’t want them, so I pretended like I did actually like them and I bought them. Then he didn’t have my change, so he gave me some candies of the same value instead. It was all cute enough until I came out of the shower and saw the streams of blood running down my legs. And out of two points in the centers of my palms. Just kidding. But I seriously did cut myself pretty badly.

Museums and Stuff

I went to the Natural Science Museum on Saturday, it was great. I liked it because it wasn't one of those ones where you have to read a lot to get anything out of it. One part was huge crystals and other pretty rocks, and another part was crazy things that live in the depths of the sea. There's some weird stuff down there. I felt kind of ungrateful since the third part was about dinosaurs, and I don't like dinosaurs as much as a lot of other people I know. I did enjoy the awesome dinosaur statue outside the museum, though. It was kind of like the one outside the McDonalds on Tanque Verde in T-town (holler!).

After that I went to an eco fair and got a free biodegradable bag to carry my groceries in. Jealous? Walked across the Seine, had some food that wasn't a sandwich or a pastry (soup!) at Wannajuice, and since it was Saturday night Nola and I got drunk and watched the little mermaid. I realized for the first time that Triton has the power to make Ariel human, so why can't he just make himself human sometimes to come visit her? Or vice versa, give her and Eric some gills and tails and they can come down for the weekend? And why do they all speak English? Plotholes!

Absurdly Boring

I saw a Ionesco play on Thursday. I'm not really clear on who picked it because we went in a large group, but if I ever find out who it was then that person will not be allowed to plan future events. Plot synopsis: a boy's family is mad at him. Then he says he likes potatoes, and they are all very proud of him. They set him up with a girl, but he doesn't like her because she only has one nose. So they put some more noses on the same girl, and they fall in love. This half lasted two hours. Everyone thought the next act was going to be an entirely different play since it had a different name, but it was actually part two. The grandpa of the boy dies, and then the girl and the boy give birth to chicken eggs. Then they make an omelette out of the eggs. The end.

The weird thing is that there were parts where I kind of enjoyed it in a creepy kind of Lynchian (real word?) way. But I ended up just feeling really irritated about it when it was finally over.

Synth Pop

I know this is nothing new, but I'm still not over these:

1. West End Girls: You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone/ Just wait 'till I get you home/ We've got no future, we've got no past/ Here today, built to last

2. Inner City Pressure: So you think maybe you'll be a prostitute/ Just to pay for your lessons, you're learning the flute/ The ladies won't pay you very much for this/ Looks like you'll never be a concert flautist