The Pseudo-Protagonist

From the Pretentious Annals of my Subconscious: Volume II

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:18:23 GMT

Last night, I had a coughing fit while I was half asleep, and in my dream, I believed my coughs were poems.

Dear Life:

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:41:08 GMT

Can May please last a little longer than 31 days? The self that has, against initial impressions, learned to love the France, could use a bit more time on this end of the year; these months, after all that fucking counting, prove not to be enough.

From the Pretentious Annals of my Subconscious

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:27:56 GMT

Last night, I dreamt that I was searching fervently for copies of Nabokov books. I queued for hours at the front of what looked like a record shop until I got to ask the clerk, in French, not if he knew where I could find any Nabokov, but if he knew where I could find a copy of the Neutral Milk Hotel's first album (perhaps because it looked like a record store?). Somehow, he knew what I was really after anyway, and he sent me on a covert mission to the secret basement of the shop where there was a whole dusty English book warehouse. The books were arranged alphabetically by colour; don't ask what this means; I don't know. I had to evade capture on my way there, through a dusty labyrinth of stairs and dead-end doorways marked by emergency exit signs. I got there, and it looked like a fallout shelter-cum-mouldy library: the leftover set from a 1950s cold war movie. But, I was much distressed because when I found the 'N' section of this secret book fair, there wasn't any Nabokov at all. There was a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the 'N' section, but it was by marked as having been written by someone called Carter, which I found even more distressing than the lack of Nabokov. I mean, where I am in life if I can't even identify which titles were or were not actually written by Nietzsche? Obviously, I had to Wikipedia it upon waking to placate myself.

Analysis, in short: I really need to get out more.

Extended Analysis (including actual things that happen outside the realm of my dreams): to follow.

Losing my Voteginity (on a bad hair day!)

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:02:00 GMT

Today, I voted by absentee ballot for the very first time in the Pennsylvania Democratic Primaries. It was, of course, massively exciting and extremely official to the point of comedy.

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure who I wanted vote for; I don't pay a terribly great amount of attention to politics, and on the surface at least, there are things that I like about each of the candidates. In the end, I allowed myself to be swayed by the opinion of my good friend and future flat mate, Jane who knows and cares a lot more about American politics than I do. When the primaries started to get heated, I told her that I'd share my vote with her, and that she could argue for her candidate of choice, but that I would reserve veto power in case I developed strong feelings of my own.

So, today, while at a French boulangerie/café, we voted; I let everyone check boxes because America claims to be all about spreading democracy internationally! And then, we put the ballot in the OFFICIAL ABSENTEE BALLOT envelope! (Seriously, am I living in a cartoon?)

And I sealed it with my bona fide American saliva.

And in the end, I came to agree with Jane:

Untitled from MRNegro on Vimeo.

Whether somewhat sinister, or (now, practically) mathematically incapable of the win, we kind of have to help take this woman as far as she can run.

Alternaverse

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:57:26 GMT

What is there to say when it's sunny every day? When I spend Tuesday afternoons in parks drinking cider, nights drinking magnums of cheap rosé in outdoor cafés, and Wednesdays eating ice creams and having walks along windy beaches? When stealing chairs and dancing in fountains constitute normal Monday nights? When I have few classes, and no pressure to attend most of those on any kind of regular basis? When those classes that I do attend are taught by twitching ladies who speak neither English nor French, but only a strange, shaky mélange of languages in which sentences begin, but trail off into oblivion before they ever manage to find an end? When my only responsibilities are so located so far in the future that I don't even have to feel guilty about spending entire days window shopping and coffee drinking and chattering? When I've been watching so much Sex and the City that pick-up lines in supermarkets seem like acceptable ways to meet men?

The other day, as the result of some silly discussion or other, one of the actual residents of the flat in which most of my friends here live - the flat where I spend all my time - made a sign to put on their door; it reads (in Franglais, of course) "Bienvenue au ALTERNATE UNIVERSE", and it speaks the truth. On the other side of that door, and in places all around this city, there exists a languorous space, different to those which I am used to inhabiting; normal rules and expectations are not applicable. And even though the things that happen in this space may sound strange when pronounced aloud, they feel routine. Days here produce impressions rather than stories, and as such, I can't capture them with my usual narratives. Maybe, in theory, that means that I should develop a new way in which to express them, but in actuality I'm not sure that I can be bothered. For now, all I can say is that I'm so glad I had to come here; I'm so glad I "suffered" through the fall, and meandered ambivalently through the winter; now that Spring has arrived, I'm convinced; I no longer have to tell myself to embrace it - I can even find pleasure in the bad bits.

Just a quick note to say...

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:33:20 GMT

...that the weather could be better, but that life is excellent.

The English Question

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:20:12 GMT

Several hours ago, I went outside to buy books and phone credit. I get only several steps away from my door when a older French lady stops me to question me about my attire, and whether or not I'd been frostbitten yet; this happens, perhaps, more frequently than it should.

La Dame: You haven't cold in your neck?
Me: Oui, but...
La Dame: Oh, are you anglaise?
Am I that obvious?
Me: eh...oui.
This is obviously a lie, but it's easier than explaining.
Me: It's less cold here than at home anyway...
This is not exactly a lie, but it's also not the reason I've come out without a scarf or higher-cut neckline; that had more to do with the fact that I continue to trust my weather widget when it is consummately wrong about the state of the weather, but what kind of stranger wants to hear about widgets? And how would one say widget in French anyway?
La Dame: Oh, Amerique? Where do you come from?
Me: Well...I live in Scotland, but I'm of American origin.
More lies. I may spend a lot of time wishing I lived in Scotland anyway...
La Dame: Me, I spent some time in America. I lived at Princeton
Me:Really, that's all close to me. I lived in Philadelphie.
This is an under-exaggeration, at best.

I don't even know what the honest answer is when strangers ask me if Vous êtes anglaise? I mean, I know that I'm NOT English, but do randoms on the street really want to hear my whole life story? Maybe a non, mais je suis fausse anglaise would come closest to the truth...

What I Did in Edinburgh: A List for Posterity

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:14:06 GMT

1. I drank gin.

2. I went to a "Popcorn Party" where I also drank gin; it was kind of slippery.

3. I went bowling (and drank gin). I hit some pins, not too many though.

4. I watched Hallam Foe, which I really wanted to like for its indie strangeness, its vaguely Catcher in the Rye-like qualities, its Edinburgh candy, and the fact that the leading lady's flat is shot like it's in my building (though they don't use our stairwell!), but which I could never quite manage to love in the way that I thought I should. I like it much more in retrospect, though I'm not sure that I care for it enough to sit through it again to see if I like it genuinely. Maybe if I get "home"-sick enough...

5. Steph and I danced around her parents' kitchen while we looked after her dog and ate M&S food.

6. We rode tartan buses.

7. We tried going to Edinburgh's version of this New York event in which 200 people went to Grand Central Station and froze in place for 5 minutes. Like most sequels, however, Edinburgh's attempt was second-rate due to overcrowding, lack of actual people trying to walk through the space in which everyone froze, and a profusion of really conspicuous photographers. In a style which, I believe is emblematic of most of our adventures, Steph and I went for a wander, missed the freeze by a minute, decided it looked lame, and went to All Bar One to have tapas for lunch.

8. We stalked Charlotte at her work, engaging another one of our recurring travel themes: drinking tea in palaces.

9. We went to the gay bar where my favourite Edinburgh DJ hosts a pub quiz. I successfully identified the theme tune to Greatest American Hero (thank you, Pop-Pop!). In spite of the fact that I was able to answer a single question, we did not win; I did drink so much gin I almost missed my flight the next morning.

10. It was worth it.

Things I Love/Hate About Montpellier, Volume I

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:56:07 GMT

One of the things I dislike most about living in Montpellier has nothing to do with the city or country itself: it's the fact that I live alone, or more accurately, the fact that I live with someone I never care to see or speak to. There are a few advantages, but mainly a long list of disadvantages to this arrangement. When I was in Edinburgh last week, I was reminded of another drawback of which I had hitherto seldom thought.

I am not a morning person, and I hate waking up. Often, getting out of bed is one of the more torturous things I have to experience on a daily basis. Thus, I often take days off as opportunities to sleep well into the afternoon. Even when the sun or my body clock wake me and I feel fully rested, I'll often elect to stay in bed and carry on sleeping until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon just because I know I have nothing to do. But while I was in Edinburgh, I experienced a phenomenon about which I had all but forgotten: the desire to get up. When you're living with people whom you know and like, and when those people aren't morning zombies like you are, oftentimes, you'll hear them up and about before you'd ever considering dragging yourself out of bed, and having awoken to the sounds of gentle bustling, you might even be curious enough about the activities to want to get out of bed yourself. The smell of cooking breakfast, the muffled sounds of Jeremy Kyle playing in the living room, your curiosity about what happened last night and why your left ankle hurts when you bend it... all of these are things which, at one time or another, have trumped that strong inclination I have to while away the day in bed. And none of these are things which I will ever experience in France. On the other hand, however, there is an advantage to this: drifting between sleeping and waking for hours on end does produce vivid memories of dreams, which I always find entertaining. So, if this Sunday afternoon you're feeling bored enough to brave though accounts of someone else's dreams, here they are.

Dream Number One, aka Desperation:

I'm a Prisoner of War. Some of my friends are too, I think. It's the French Revolution or the Civil War or something - some ambiguous time in the 18th or 19th centuries. We're all wearing be-laced dresses with big skirts, and we have elaborate hair. We are meant to be mannered, well-behaved, "morally upstanding" ladies.

Some soldiers come in wearing britches, carrying guns and announce that they're going to violate our propriety and rape us. Everyone looks shocked and frightened. My immediate reaction? I point at a long-haired, rugged-looking man and call "Shotgun!", then spend the rest of the dream employing my waiting women to help lure him into bed with me, wondering why they'd threatened rape if they weren't going to put out.

Dream Number Two:

I'm an astronaut. I'm one of a team of five or six. I'm not sure what our mission is, but we're not even in this galaxy, and we're light years away from the Earth. We come to a solar system in which there aren't many planets as such, but there are many gigantic orange tubs which look like they're made of painted corrugated iron or something - like massive floating metal kegs amoungst the stars. Later, I learn, that they are airtight, and inside one can build a house purchased from google for £29.99. I'm never quite sure how google manage to ship house kits out this far, especially as the indigenous "people" are hostile toward earthlings and earth culture (read: America). But the affordable housing is the reason that the sole fellow earthling cites for having relocated there, and eventually her reason for betraying me. This extra-solar expat is a mysterious thirty-something woman married to an alien with whom she has produced several half-breed offspring which all look pretty humanoid to me. In addition to her house, she is in possession of a space car, also an inexpensive DIY google project. I seek her out because my spaceship has broken down and I have no way of getting out of this galaxy, or home to earth. She says that she can't help me, that we can't go home because the people here hate Earth, and don't want her inhabitants to know where they are. I promise that we won't say; all we want to do is leave, leave, never come back. She says it's too late. I question how they can profess to hate us so much when they still order their houses off of google, but i am not answered. I go back to my spaceship, hopeless. We try to fix our ship ourselves, but it proves to be impossible; we are falling. We seem to be crashing into a planet we had not seen before; it is built up, a veritable city. We try harder than ever to fix our ship or to veer off course, not wanting to kill and destroy the civilization below us. But, the ship slows down, and we land softly in the middle of a highway. We get out of our ship, amazed to be alive, and there are thousands of tiny people all around, crowding us. These people are not particularly hostile; they just seem curious, silent. Then, the point of view flashes back to an image of our ship, floating lifelessly in space. The perspective has changed, and so will our perception of everything we just experienced/saw; it's like the surprise ending of a bad sci-fi movie. The camera pans around the ship, and then eventually moves inside, where we see our decaying bodies lying with their eyes glazed and open, all of us asphyxiated. Flash back to the planet on which we had thought we landed, but which we now realize is the effect of our own deaths. We shrink down to the sizes of the people who had surrounded us, and as we shrink, we are all imprisoned in acrylic boxes, becoming little colourful plastic baubles who will never speak again.

The Long-Haul

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:18:40 GMT

I'm going back to France tomorrow. Once in a while, I slip and say that I'm going 'home' which implies good things I guess, but immediately, it always sounds wrong to me. My mushy little single bed (into which I stopped sinking only after I unpacked and shoved my too-big suitcases underneath, creating accidental support in my search for storage space) in my lonely little tower room will never quite be any genuine kind of 'home' to me. I'll be glad once I'm there (I can't really justify hiding out here for any longer), but the prospect of nearly ten more hours of travel time does not excite me, especially since I always find leaving Edinburgh impossibly hard. Is it even physically possible for a week to pass this quickly? Didn't I just arrive last night?

Tonight should be good (pub quiz in the gay bar!), and I shall fill in the events of the week (not that there were many events to speak of) once I recover from the combined effects of early morning travel and whatever state I drink myself into ce soir. (Oh, hungover plane journeys, will I never learn from you?) I think that beginning tomorrow, I shall be in France for the long haul. Since I arrived in September, I have never spent an entire calendar month there, but unforeseeable events aside, I don't think I'll have much cause to leave France in the next three. I'm ready for that though; these next three months will be the crisis point - a kind of do or die style approach to my French education - in regard to my French language skills; most of what I don't learn in the coming months, I probably never will. I no longer expect to attain absolute fluency, but I'm ready to immerse myself both literally and figuratively in the Franceness, and do the best I can; there will be no more coming up to breathe; next time I taste Anglo air, I will no longer be an ERASMUS. That's a bit of a daunting prospect, so I'm glad that I was allowed the indulgence of this week.

Undone

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:03:08 GMT

I'm back in Ed now, and even though things are a bit weird, it's excellent in most imaginable ways. I made a return to Faith last night. They had a "popcorn party", which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds; a guy stood on the club's balcony with a great big tube of a cannon and shot "£600 worth of popcorn" onto the dance floor. Then, everyone was drunk (us on £10 champagne and £1 sambuca, first year style) and dancing with popcorn in their hair and under their shoes and in their bras.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing here, but fuck I don't want to be anywhere else. I'm afraid that this return will damage me, that it will undo all of the positive France love I've been able to muster recently. I always knew I loved Edinburgh a great deal, but I think I had almost forgotten quite how much I love it until I got back here last night. It's so windy the shutters rattle, and so freezing my be-flip-flopped feet turn red, but I kind of can't stop smiling, and I wonder how, when I have to leave in six days, I'm going to be able to think of anything else.

February of Fun France "Facts": Fin

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:54:36 GMT

So, I've obviously fizzled on the "facts" of February front...but just because I've had little to say doesn't mean things haven't been good. These past few weeks, France has been better than it's ever been, and I'm enjoying being here immensely, every day. That said, I'm going...back to Ed for a week because...I don't really know why...but I'm excited about it nonetheless. Importantly, however, while I may be excited to go to Edinburgh, for perhaps the first time ever, I am not desperate to go. So, I'm travelling to Edinburgh on Thursday (via Nimes and Nottingham and it is going to take FOREVER because I choose to live in only the most inconveniently located European cities), and I'm going to shiver for a week, and then I'm going to come back to Montpellier (via London and Marseille which will also take approximately forever) the next Thursday at which point I hope it's very sunny and warm here. And it will all be excellent. And I will write about it, really. I enjoyed the "facts" of February while they lasted, and the France does not stop here; it is, however, going on hiatus for the rest of Feb.

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 12: Reminiscences Part II

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:10:13 GMT

This is the first day I was ever in France:

It was also the first good day I had in a European country. I also couldn't remember how to say "sorry", "excuse me", or "these are too small" in French. All of these things make me feel ineffably better about now.

February of Fun France "Facts" day 10

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:34:26 GMT

This is in the square at the end of my street in September when the Rugby World Cup was being held in France, occasionally in Montpellier. They were having what I imagine was a "Styles of the World" fashion show, because I heard them bandying about the word "Ecosse" several times while I was at the cashpoint. A sucker for anything that goes down a runway, I investigated, arriving just in time for the pièce de résistance: this fabergé egg of a convertible "wedding dress". Who says the French are all fashionable and chic?

How the French Zoo Was So Dire It Taught Me to Feel Sympathetic Towards Animals I'd Normally Despise

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:23:32 GMT

As it turns out, the Montpellier Zoo is one of the more depressing places at which one could hope to pass a few hours during an idle afternoon, and today, I had the great pleasure of spending my hangover there. To be fair, I don't recall having been to a zoo in at least a decade (and isn't it scary how I'm starting to reference life events in terms of DECADES? When I started this blog I could scarcely have done that...). So, it's possible that all zoos are rather bleak wastelands which make their patrons face the futility of their collective existence, while making them feel guilty about whatever small part they may play in the perpetuation of this torture, but that I had just forgotten about it. I mean, I guess that there is something fundamentally sinister about lining up to see an animal in a cage... But, actually, no. THIS zoo has to be worse than normal zoos. It was a veritable labyrinth composed of badly sign-posted, rocky, hilly, winding paths, in which the animals are nearly impossible to find. And, if you do happen to find any animals, they are either (1) somehow sickly or deformed, (2) one of a seemingly infinite variety of subtley different, yet entirely uninteresting species of goat, or (3) housed in the most desolate and compact of wire-fenced cages. This bear, for example, was a zoo highlight, and it spent the five minutes I observed it ramming against the fence in an attempt to escape, then eating what we thought was a rock, but which actually turned out to be a mouldy bit of baguette (and only the French would possibly think that feeding a baguette to a bear was a good idea...), and finally, poking dejectedly at the ditch you see in the top left bit of this photo.

But, you know, at least it had this atmospherically stagnant pond surrounded by an electric fence for scenery and shenanigans!

By far, however, the most disturbing thing I saw today was this one-eyed, twitching ostrich.

You can't really see that it only has one eye in that photo because I was unwilling to risk my own eyes by getting close enough to the fence to get a proper picture of it. I mean, that thing had an alarmingly flexible neck, and there's really no telling what it's capable of. So, maybe I didn't come away from today with a new-found sympathy for animals so much as a new-found fear of being chased by one-eyed ostriches...

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 8: Voyeurism Volume I

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:26:40 GMT

In my French apartment, the windows are all, figuratively speaking, open; there are no substantial curtains or blinds. Covering my bedroom windows are only horrible, chintzy, transparent odes to privacy; even my door contains an insert of smoked glass. In the bathroom, there is a window (albeit high up, tiny, and generally obscured by steam) that is perpetually naked. So, in theory, my neighbours could be watching me any time I care to leave my lights on. And if Amelie or Mimi Parent is anything to go by, they're probably sitting outside with binoculars. Strangely, this is appeals to my vanity in such a way that it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it probably should.

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 7: Apropos of Yesterday

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:20:50 GMT

It took a while for Montpellier to grow on me; when I first got here, I wasn't sure that I'd ever mange to understand it, let alone grow to love it. But I think I finally have; there have been inklings of it since November, but now, my love of things French has definitively reasserted itself. And, it has managed to surpass what, even recently, were growing feelings of incomprehension, annoyance, and general loathing for anything even vaguely Francophone. This shift was inevitable, really, as I love shiny things, even more so when their glow is understated. And, while, on cloudy days it seems nigh impossible to see Montpellier's glimmer through the inconvenience of shop hours, futile bureaucracy, leering urban nomad men, and dog shit-encrusted streets, when the sun is out, it is impossible to see anything but how Montpellier shines. And, how can I not love the winding labyrinths of streets lined with boutiques and cafés? Or, the ancient cathedrals, aqueducts, and walls from the moyen age? And the beautiful squares and parks, and (of course!) the 2 euro wine? These things exude shiny wonder, and I cannot help but love them a lot. Montpellier is not as striking, or as readily suited to my tastes as Edinburgh, but I love it all the more for having to have worked for that appreciation. Of course it helps that I now have reliable Internet access, that I know my way around, that I know more than one person... but today, I was walking home from Uni, there were street musicians playing, the sun was strong overhead, and I had to try my very hardest to keep from dancing home. New York used to inspire that kind of joy in me, when I couldn't stop giggling for sheer love of the place; Edinburgh did it all the time with its stunning sunsets and its pointy-roofed buildings. And now, in spite of all my apprehensions, Montpellier has done the same. If I can hate so many things about a place, harbour so many feelings of resentment toward it, and still, at the end of the proverbial day, want to dance home, it must be love...right? Maybe not life-long, so-called "true love," but certainly something at which I can look back with a sly, wistful smile with the knowledge that it taught me so much when it caught me unawares. Here's to semester two...

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 6: Crazy Excellence

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:14:15 GMT

Is it obvious that I wrote yesterday's Fun France "Fact" as a backdated after-thought when I stumbled in from Mardi Gras celebrations at 2:00 am? Because it should be; there was no way I was going to be in at 11:59 last night because I have an inappropriately strong (and well documented) love of Mardi Gras. It was nothing legendary, but a very nice night with friends and lots of shiny beads and pancakes (crepes and nutella and ice cream, yum!) and wine and beer, and eventually, Sambuca at the Australien. I am always asked to, but never quite know how to explain the American Mardi Gras tradition of beads and tit flashing, never having experienced it first hand. But, that will not stop me being festive and coercing everyone around me into donning too-shiny plastic jewelry with me. Oh, I do love Mardi Gras, even more so now that the Brits are around to insist we eat pancakes while we drink too much, wearing too many beads!

And today was very lovely as well, so sunny that beer and sidewalk cafés seemed the only conceivable options for afternoon activities. At the table behind us, sat the most surreal man. He was drinking Desperados, wearing a kerchief type garment around his neck, as well a other generally rugged and well-worn clothes. And he had a green parrot sitting on his shoulder the whole time, which, every once in a while, sneaked a sip of his tequila beer. We all thought it was quite excellent, because, wouldn't we dress up as pirates and drink Desperados if we happened to own parrots well-trained enough to sit on our shoulders all afternoon? But then, he then turned around and licked the parrot's tail, at which point we figured he was probably more crazy than excellent.

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 4: Anti-cultural traditions

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:04:17 GMT

When I first arrived in France, I was a bit homesick for anything Anglo, which, as a consequence of my suburban American upbringing, means anything mass-produced and bigger than it needs to be. And so, with these misplaced longings for massive chain stores and fast food, began the tradition of going to Odysseum at the end of the tram line to indulge in the comfort of Ikea, and McDonald's make-your-own McFlurries. I'm not sure what it is about France that brings out the McDonald's cravings in me. I think maybe it's a rebellion against the fact that you can write off many of France's confections as cultural activities, and doesn't that defeat the whole point of indulgence?

So, anyway, this morning, I did something monumentally stupid: I balanced my full-length mirror on top of a bunched up hoodie at the precarious edge of a swivel desk chair which was, of course, sitting on my most uneven and ancient tiled floor. And, surprise! That mirror broke. So, I had no choice but to venture to Ikea this afternoon to purchase a new one. And, once I was at Ikea, there was no choice but to go to McDonald's for McFlurries because the tradition had been established, and also because they're delicious. At McDonald's the usual crowd of chavvy young Frenchies were hanging around, causing trouble for the lonely McDonald's security guard, begging everyone else for some phone credit so they could gather more of their friends to hang out at the ever-cool MacDo. And, of course, why wouldn't you want to hang out at McDonald's when they're still playing Christmas muzak in February? I, apparently, cannot get enough of it, anyway.

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 3: Reminiscences

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:22:50 GMT

This is a Wednesday night in late September. It is the night that we discover "ERASMUS" (i.e.: cheap booze) night at what is now my favourite Montpellier bar, Bar Huit. I like it because it's shiny, it has cute bartenders, and it plays just the brand of English music which makes me smile, and when I'm drunk enough, sing along.

On that first night there, we had the dubious pleasure of meeting "Collins", a long-time Scottish expat. He's that leathery looking fellow behind me on the right in this photo:

"Collins" kept eavesdropping on our conversations and inserting himself into them where he saw fit. He spoke to us only in Franglais, even though he insisted we speak English whenever we slipped in a bit of French. As it turns out, he hailed from Wick, a place which, not a month earlier, while on my Hitchhiker/birthday tour, I had learned first hand is one of the most northerly, industrial, and depressing places in all of Scotland.

As a result of the aforementioned student night, my friend Katie and I drank several bottles of wine between two of us and became rather drunk. "Collins" took this opportunity to invite us back to his house to drink whiskey and champagane, an invitation which we refused most vociferously, because even when severely drunk, going home with a strange leather-skinned man does not sound like a good idea, and being drunk, we told him so explicitly. So, he felt the need to clarify his intentions: "I do not want to fuck, I would just like for you to come to my maison." Needless to say, we ran away from "Collins" and Bar Huit that night giggling incessantly, and to this day that phrase is still amoungst the most infamous things that can possibly be said in Franglais, and it is repeated constantly.

February of Fun France "Facts" Day 2: Triumph

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:27:45 GMT

Today, for a few brief minutes in the afternoon, France was perfect. The sky was clear; the sun was bright enough for complete warmth, but the air was still crisp and cool. There was a full brass band playing triumphant music into the streets, and the January sales were still on. There were just the right amount of things I wanted left in my size, cheap enough that I didn't have to feel horribly guilty about purchasing them. Then, I went for a walk up to the Peyrou, and had a stroll around the Arc de Triomphe. I'm pretty sure it's a requirement that all French cities have at least one of Arc de Triomphe; I think Montpellier has at least two...there may be three.

Letting Go

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:07:01 GMT

I hate that all I ever write here anymore are excuses, that all I ever do anymore is stream TV series off the Internet, that half of my meals are comprised solely of Prince biscuits (which, to be honest, are not the best bad-for-me things I could be consuming in France: Land of Cheeese and Pastry), that all I ever do anymore is complain. I know I've said it before, but today I mean it; today, I am fully embracing la France. This could be the only time in my life I ever live here, could be the only time I ever live on the Continent at all; one never knows. France is lovely, and I'm glad to be here, chaotic though it may be. From here on out, there will be more shiny pictures and delightful anecdotes so that, for the very least, when I look back, I will remember more of France than cold showers and my shocking inability to do anything outwith consuming vast amounts of American television after the Internet finally arrived. If I don't manage that on my own, hold me to it.

My Year (in Cities) 2007

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:04:37 GMT

2007 has been an excellent year, if a bit strange, at times, during these latter months. I don't think I can face too much recapping and reflection at this precise moment, which means that it will almost certainly never happen. So, all I can offer up is My Year in Cities just like last year, and hope that it speaks for itself.

My Year in Cities 2007:
-Edinburgh, Scotland
-Fuldon, Scotland
-Berwick-Upon-Tweed, England
-Glasgow, Scotland,
-Inverness, Scotland
-Nairn, Scotland
-Stirling, Scotland
-Balado/Kinross, Scotland
-Bordeaux, France
-Perpignan, France
-Port Bou, Spain
-Tossa de Mar, Spain
-Barcelona, Spain
-John O'Groats/Remote, northerly places whose names I forget, Scotland
-Montpellier, France
-London, England
-Nimes, France
-Marseille, France
-Beziers, France
-Aix-en-Provence, France
-Avignon, France
-Lyon, France
-Grenoble, France
-Philadelphia, Homeland
-Atlantic City, Homeland

The Surreal Life

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:35:22 GMT

In ways which I am currently too exhausted (from doing what, I could not tell you, but exhausted nonetheless; watching TV and eating baguette is tiring, I guess...) to tell, the past few months of my life have been incredibly, unbelievably surreal. I now, at least, understand why the French love absurdism so much: they dwell in absurdity. And I, I suppose, dwell in its shadows, pretending to be English, wondering if life is really so incomprehensible and unpredictable as all this, or if my French is just too sub-par to understand. While at first, the absurdity was too much to take in and enjoy simultaneously, ever since the end of October, it's been getting better and better, and I've been loving it as much as I've been laughing at it. Or maybe things just got better at the end of October, as it's more or less the last time I regularly attended a class...as one of my professors said "you must have noticed that French University is one of the most depressing places to be in the world" (that was, of course, after he shouted at the militant student/strikers, calling them all cunts). And I would attest, that my specific University - University Montpellier III Paul Valery - is one of the most disheartening, disorganized, overgrown, depressing places I've had to spend more than three consecutive hours in since high school. But, I've kind of grown fond of the surreal life that is etre étudiante at a French University (although mainly, the striking). So, here I am, clinging to the very last vestiges of a month-long era of lighthearted, coffee and wine drinking, entire-TV-series-in-one-day-watching, carefree shopping, house-pants-wearing, utter confusion and insanity, and I'm struggling to capture it before the reality of it slips away. But already, it's gone. I'm going home tomorrow, a week sooner than planned (because of threatened plane strikes, parental begging, and lack of anything better to do), after nearly a year away, and the spell is about to be broken. But I was languishing anyway, wasn't I? Before the countdown closed in on me, and I realized the dream was about to be over. I am incredibly glad to be going home. Since my 19th birthday, I've spent only 12 full days in the Homeland. And while there's a part of me which relishes the verity of that sentence, thinks of it as an achievement, the ever-expanding sentimental part of me doesn't like at all what that implies. For, while I like a bit of distance, I do not want to be distanced from my original home.

So, I'm putting away my proverbial picket, shelving my glass of wine, heading back to America for a month, and very glad for it.

Back on Strike?

MelissaTheAesthete@comcast.net — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:48:11 GMT

I went to Uni at 9:00 this morning to go to my first class in three weeks, only to find that all the buildings were blockaded and that the strike was not so over as the university website still insists. A very nice militant French student explained to us that they were not on "official strike" but that they were, nonetheless, barring entry to all buildings for reasons discernable only if one were to travel to Amphitheatre A, but did we have any coffee and/or rum for him to drink?, it was colder than he expected it to be on his stake-out. I'm still unsure as to whether or not I'm on strike; unsure as to whether I should be frantically revising for exams taking place in less than a week, or casually drinking wine in cafés all day long because I have nothing better to do. At least I now have WiFi in my flat though! I can puzzle through the strike, pretend to revise, and procrastinate by watching entire series of Dead Like Me all at once! Also, it's a good job that I have internet because when I asked my professor this morning what I should do to revise for his class, which I have only ever attended thrice, his advice was as follows: "Well, my class is about Greek myths, so I suggest you read about them on Wikipedia; there's some pretty interesting stuff on there."

So, if I write on Wikipedia that l'Université Paul Valéry is on strike for the remainder of the semester, that all exams are canceled, and that all ERASMUS students will pass, does that make it true?