A Good Man

This is our trash can lid after 3-4 weeks. I thought I should take a picture before I washed it.


A Paraphrase of the conversation held after I cleaned:
Roommate: You cleaned the kitchen and bathroom? You're a good man.
Me: You, too, could be a good man if you would clean a bit every so often.
Roommate: See, so far I've benefited from having a higher dirt/mess tolerance than the rest of my roommates.

of bikes and ice

Riding home in this mornings ice was absolutely lovely. As I squeezed the breaks the ice would break off the rims of the bike and fly to either side of me. Upon arriving home I took this picture of the ice that remained on my bike. The streets were empty and being on a bicycle gave me a feeling of complete freedom.

If you have trouble with any of the equipment...

Please call 246-5249 and leave a message.

For $2.25 I can wash and dry a week and a half to two week's of clothes, down at the Laundromat.

HEY WASH ME

The other night at work I was mopping the floor and scrubbing particularly hard at some dried on food. As I was doing this I noticed that the floor was getting lighter. I decided to scrub a message into the floor.


I then had to scrub away a bit more at the floor in attempt to obscure the message so that no one would see it. I obscured most of it, none the less, an observant coworker spotted the WASH ME the next morning.

Beverton, OR (gallery)

Over fall break I traveled a total of 48 hours out to OR to go to my uncle's wedding. I ended up hanging out in OR for only 48 hours and spent only 4 hours in Portland. The weekend was very much like my photos. Proportionately there should be more in the car. It was good to get some family time in.

The Generosity of Strangers

Last night I went to borrow a couple of kitchen chairs, for the year, from family friends. While I was there loading two chairs into a car I was borrowing, a neighbor overheard us talking about furniture and came over to ask if I needed furniture. She had just move from Charlottesville and had a garage full of stuff she didn't need and was trying to get rid of.


The result was me coming home with a futon, leather cushioned chair, 2 lamps, a wall clock, a mirror, an oak dresser (all pictured), a printer, 2 couch cushions, 2 pots and a copper pan (not pictured. Fortunately the family friends had a pickup that they offered to transport the furniture in for me. While I will be returning the two kitchen chairs the rest of the stuff is now furniture that I own at no cost to me.


One amazing advantage of not having paid for any of it is that it allows me to more easily give it away when I no longer need it or am no longer able to carry it around with me. Now I have someplace, aside from the floor, to put clean clothes after they're washed. This was an amazing answer to prayers that I wasn't even praying.

Pepper to the Eyes (gallery)

I was awoken at 5am by stings of expletives yelled by someone going through intense pain. The shower came on and they continued to yell so I got up to find out what was going on. One of my house mates had put some extremely hot, hot sauce on his tongue. As it burned he touched, then rubbed his eyes causing his face to explode in pain. It took almost an hour in the shower along with calls to poison control as well as to a nurse mother before the pain was bearable. Things used in attempt to neutralize the pain were: water, whipping cream, yogurt, tomato sauce, baking powder and finally ice. Most of these helped but only very temporarily. This was all happening from 5 to 6am.

Because of a Cicada

When a cicada is flying around inside your house don't tell me that you don't cower in fear.

Moving and Moving In (gallery)

Today marks one week that I've been moved into my new house. We'll see how long it lasts (come on Julian why all the pessimism? give it a bit of time.).

A Slug

Yesterday I went to a JMU party. I could see the bottom of the cup through the full cup and foam of whatever was on tap. I talked for a little while with a young woman who commented on how old she felt being at the party. When I asked her how old she was she said that in a couple weeks she'll be 19. I wasn't the oldest one there but I was pretty close.


A couple nights ago some Guinness was left for me next to the back door. In hopes of chilling the beer faster I put it in the freezer. Ten minutes later I pulled the four pack out having seen a slug on the verge of freezing to death.

+30 miles

Yesterday I road around town working at getting the house that I just moved into, into a livable state. I had to get the water and gas turned on along with purchasing food and housing supplies. In all I managed to roll more than 30 miles in the heat wearing a button up shirt and jeans. The jeans needed washing as did the shirt.

Storms with Hail (gallery)

I'm back in VA. The people are amazing. The music is beautiful. The storms are off the hook. I've lived in, well, all over but VA is a really quality place.

We had a lovely storm with hail and changing wind patterns that blew furniture across the porch.

thoughts on going back to the US

Recently I've been getting more and more excited to return to the US. During my time here I've learned to appreciate the US for it's amazing vastness and its culture for its wide diversity. (I hope the delusions continue)

Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. needs to stop adding abriviations to his name and start doing his job!

Even though the surgeon general puts warning messages on alcohol and cigarettes people still drink and smoke. My question is, why aren't more things that are bad for you labeled as such by the surgeon general? I mean if America is fat why what's the surgeon general doing to discourage kids from eating candy or sweets? As far as I can tell, nothing! Is anyone else scandalized? I guess not. The French put the warnings in ads for alcohol and cigarettes but they don't stop there. They have little warnings at the bottom of their advertisements for soda pop, too, for example saying "for your health, avoid snacking between meals" or "for your health, avoid eating things that are very sweet, very salty or very fatty" along with at least one other slogan which I can't remember at the moment. According to wikipedia "The Surgeon General also has many informal duties, such as educating the American public about health issues and advocating healthy lifestyle choices." I don't remember the Surgeon General doing any such thing aside from the cig and alcohol. How am I supposed to know that a lot of sugar is not good for me????

Americans: Introduction

I have started writing this posting now five times causing me to realize how important this subject matter is. As it holds such great importance and I don't at this moment have the time to address this issue in its entirety I have decided to start a small series which I hope to conclude within the week. The series concerns things relating to Americans and French especially Parisians.

I listened last week to an excerpt from "Me Talk Pretty One Day" an essay by David Sedaris., In this essay he talked about being an American living in Paris and many of his observations ring true to me so now I will open up. As he says, "people are often frightened by Parisians but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American." We American critics of Americans in Paris are not a small group. There are lots and lots and lots of us. We walk by you on the street, we watch you from across the metro station, we cast disparaging looks at the way you dress, the way you carry yourself and generally the way you are. We despise you because we know that we are you and we can't stand it.

Let me illustrate from my experience. I know a number of americans that I am cordial with. That is to say that I humor them in the same way that they humor me. That is not to say that I haven't had actual friends I appreciate that are American while I've been here. The reality is that those that fall into the cordiality category are much more numerous. What defines the cordiality category? Well I can't stand them because they are so very American: loud, obnoxious, narcissistic,and oblivious. The problem is that when around them I exhibit similar characteristics. Thus I attempt to avoid them. I am certain that some that fall into this category feel much the same about me and that is alright as long as we keep away from each other.

exporting shorthand

On mondays and tuesdays I help the people from my work surf the internet. Today I was watching as one of the workers was chatting on some messenger service. He typed in "LOL" which amused me because it means "laugh out loud" in english. I asked him what it meant and he said "ça veut dire rigoler quelque chose" meaning approximately "it means to laugh or something."�

coffee service

This is actually a post from last month on my other blog that I forgot to post here.

"Can I have a coffee?" I ask while signaling the server with my hand.
"how many sugar packets?" the server responds.
I close my fist leaving the index finger out to signal that I would like one packet.
As the server turns I realize my error. The server brings the coffee and there are two sugar packets on the saucer. I tell him he can take one back and he apologises saying that he though that I had told him I wanted two. I had only raised one finger but I had raised the wrong one. If I only wanted one sugar I should have put out my thumb. The index finger should only be extended, to accompany the thumb, should I want two.

Stories: Immigration in Northern Ireland

I had been mildly nervous about going to Northern Ireland to visit an old housemate who is there as a Mennonite Mission Network volunteer. The issue was that I didn't have my french residence card but only my application expired receipt (another story). Technically you aren't supposed to travel on one of those as you might not be let back into the country if your visa has expired and you don't have the residence card.

I arrived at Belfast International, got off the airplane and followed everyone toward immigration. There were two lines, one for EU nationals and one for everyone else. I felt lucky as the line for the EU group was 70 or 80 people long and there were only a small family another guy, aged 20 and myself all of us American. The family was interrogated and past through after five minutes. Then the guy went up but had not filled out an address filled out on his immigration card. The immigration officer started interrogating him closely: asking who he was visiting how long he was staying; asking for his return ticket information; asking how much money he had on him and deriding him on not preparing enough to visit Northern Ireland. The guy was completely rattled. I wrote down an incomplete address. By this time there was no one left in the EU line.

None the less I received very much the same treatment. Including questions about how long I had known my friend what our relationship was and so on. After finding out that I was on my way to a town a ways from Belfast he derided me on not having a housing situation for that night as it was late and no bus would be going to there that night (I was going to stay with a couchsurfer I had never met but didn't want to complicate anything further so didn't mention it.). They then decided that they wanted to search my bag. Which they did as I stood by providing helpful comments.

Immigration: "what is this?" opening a notebook from my bag and indicating some taped together pages.
me: "it is my notebook and that is my journal from when I was in Guatemala and Bolivia"
Immigration: "we're going to take a look at it" cuts the tape and begins flipping through it. "We obviously can't read it all, what is it"
me: "it is just my thoughts and so on"
Immigration: "so nothing really interesting"
me: "to me yes."
Immigration: finding a picture of my family. "What's this?"
me: "that's my parents and my brother, we are at haystack rock in Oregon."
Immigration: "is that a well-known place?"
me: "Uh, locally I guess."
Immigration: pulling out a book from my bag "Hemingway, A Moveable Feast"
me: "A must read as a young person living in Paris."
Immigration: "well I won't have that opportunity now will I."

After a total of 45 minutes waiting and another 45 being interrogated. I think the officer was trying to make a point as he concluded with "You realize that if I had shown up in your country in the same state that you showed up here I would have just as much difficulty entering. I'm going to give you a level 3 entry, because you haven't completely convinced me. This means that next time you try and come in you will be interrogated just as closely. I said thank you and made my way to the couchsurfer's place on the very last bus from the airport for the night.�

Reaction to the election.

Sunday was round 2 of the French elections. Up until that point the most common opinions that I had heard were, "I'm afraid of Sarkozy winning" and "Anyone but Sarkozy." I had heard only a couple of people say that they were actually going to support Sarko. Sarko being the candidate for the right. None the less 45% of the french electorate voted in his favor. 15% abstained from voting. Election celebrations for the right take place at Place de la Concorde and celebrations for the left take place at La Bastille. However as the left lost Bastille was the sight of protest. The French are used to protests so bars stayed open until the riot cops started gassing the streets. As the gas started filling the streets resturants and bars closed their door with patrons inside to wait for the air to clear. This ment for some friends of mine staying at the bar until 2am. "Les flics" were dressed in full body armor which reminded me of mid-evil armor just made of more modern materials instead of metal. The most impressive thing to me was the way that the Police stood in their lines while the protesters hung out in the streets and the observers ate and drank in the bars all waiting for the bricks and bottles to be thrown and the gas canisters to be opened. They ended up having to wait at least three hours for the action. Enought time for two or three beers I guess. Decent business for the bars.

Why doesn't the US have fast trains?

This past weekend I went to visit a friend who is an Au Père in Germany. To get there I had to take a combination of trains which took about 8 hours going (that included an hour and a half of layovers) and 9 hours coming back (due to a delay). According to google maps the same trip by car should have taken just under 8 hours. While on this trip I rode a high speed train in Germany which toped 100 mph and a high speed train in France which reached about 150 mph. On the return trip my second of three trains was delayed causing me to miss the third. This didn’t really matter though as I simply caught the next one which left 20 minutes after I got in.

In the US I have ridden the train multiple times from Elkhart, IN to Martinsburg, WV which ends up being often a 14+ hour ride without a train change. The distances however are about the same as those of my trip this past weekend.

About a month ago the French broke the speed record on standard train rails with a very High Speed Train. This train will start carrying passengers at speeds up to 350 mph by the end of the summer.

The Eurostar carries passengers from the heart of Paris to the heart of London in 3 and a half hours. As you don’t have to show up early for security one could leave ones house in Paris and four hours later be at a friends house in London 4 hours later.

Re-teaching

At work on Mondays and Tuesdays I oversee 18 workers, three at a time, as they use the internet. I've been supervising this since mid October. The evidence of the workers' mental illnesses is most evident during this time. The workers have differing levels of ability when it comes to computers. Some have access to computers at home and there is clear evidence. Others however are sitting down in front a computer for the first time.

I have shown them, many of them on multiple occasions, how to use google for searches. One of the difficult parts of this is when having shown a worker eight or nine times how to make use of a search I find that they search, look at the search results page and then proceed to search for something else without having actually looked at a web-page. It seems as though some of them will never understand how to actually get information out of a search without help. Another difficult part is that for some of them after two or three weeks of no computer use they have to relearn how to do things they previously could do.

I should make it clear that there are also others who after months away from a computer can sit down and type up the weekly menu for the cafeteria. Some of the workers are more "lightly" handicapped than other. I doubt that I would necessarily notice that some of the "lightly" handicapped were even handicapped if I didn't know otherwise.

When you interact with people that do not suffer from degenerating illnesses you assume that they will develop abilities. However in my work I have had to get used to the fact that some of the workers' abilities don't develop and in a few cases their abilities are very slowly diminishing.

The End in Stight

We are coming up on the end of April already. I've been telling people here that I am going to be leaving at the end of July. This reality that there are only three months left is beginning to scare me. I think that it is primarily because I am beginning to feel connected to this place and the people that I am hanging out with. In many ways this fear of leaving is illogical because many of the friends that I have here are seemingly as transient as I am. A friend of mine from Indiana that I try to hang out with at least once a week will be leaving at the end of May. The first CSer that I hung out with here in Paris will be leaving at the end of June and then some of the others that I know will be leaving by Aug. Pretty much everyone that I choose to hang out with is leaving. Most are enrolled in schools somewhere in the fall.

The time though is approaching when I need to quickly do all of those things on my list of things I had wanted to do while I was here. This weekend I am hoping to go and visit a friend in Germany then in three weeks go off to Ireland. I am really not seeing as much of Europe as I had wanted to but then I think that that is one of the problems of living somewhere you end up getting stuck there. I had wanted to go to italy or spain as well but now I doubt that I will make it to either. It just feels as though there won't be the time. Leaving Paris in three months I feel will be strikingly similar to leaving Abidjan five years ago. I will know the city and some of the country. I will know some of the habits and customs of the people who live here. But most importantly many of my friends will have left at about the same time that I left. The home that I feel Paris is now will never exist again.

Why you can't fire people.

In many ways my work here feels like the factory that I used to work in in Northern Indiana. Really it is not remotely similar but none the less there are similarities. A big difference though has to do with the way Amis takes responsibility for its employees.

There is for example a worker who had some slight mental issues and was essentially with out a fixed domicile (SDF). Then a couple of years ago he had an accident where he fell down some stairs and his condition has worsened. I am not aware of all the issues he faces. I believe that he lives alone at the moment but apparently his living space is a mess. He has a fairly strong smell. Not a smell of sweat but generally one of not clean. He also has no family at all. The point being that he shows up late for work and then leaves at lunch though he is supposed to work till 4:15. This is not good. At the factory I worked in it would not be a problem because he would have just been fired months ago. The supervisors and organization though feels a responsibility to improve his situation. Thus they are trying to find him a living situation where he would have some supervision to make sure that his living space was in order and such. This is a many month long project. It has been determined though that to improve his work ethic his housing situation needs to be improved. We can't fire him because he will find no other work and then he will lose his living space and then he'll be on the street. Unfortunately it is also difficult to hold onto him if he shows up for 2-3 hours of work a day.

This is not the only case like this. How do you discipline workers who if they lose their jobs there is no question that they will be on the street? An organization like this can't operate without reliable workers. It is a business.

First try at a Vid (its short)

le bilan

I'm finely getting out of Paris. After just over six months of Paris I will be out for about two days. What happiness! A nice slow train ride will take me to Basel and then from there to Luzern. I will be in Luzern for almost exactly 50 hours then I will come home again. I didn't really have anything else that I was looking to say so now I am at a loss as far as how to conitnue this post.

Next week I start working full time as I have temporarly finished my french classes. I am looking to take classes in preparation for the exam DELF B2 which is an exam that establishes that my ability in the french language is of a level that is right below a University level of french. In the month of May I will take classes Tues and Thurs in preparation then I will take the exam in June. I am not excited about having to put in 35 hours a week at work but I have found many excuses to go into the city to see friends or go to events. I had been afraid that if I started working full time I would just end up going from work to my studio and back. Anymore I don't want to go home. The weather is nice and the days are longer.

Yesterday I noticed a guy on a black bicycle really checking out my bicycle and I noticed he too was on a fix. The third fix I've seen here. He was english. The french don't ride such silly bicycles. We echanged contact info and might get together with another fix he knows and ride around sometime.

I need to go home do the dishes and some wash so that it will be easier to come home from Suisse.

It is just getting dark at 8:00 now. It makes it significantly more difficult to come home at 6:00 p.m.. It is way to early to come home. When I go home I in the evening I don't go back out except on an occasional friday or saturday. What this means is that I go into my studio eat something (tonight I was dealing with left over cheese which meant three cheese, raclette, reblochon and emmental, mac and cheese), listen to american radio (tonight NPR's Fresh Air and All Songs Considered) and then use the internet (yes, it is like using the bathroom) and then go to bed. Part of the reason I don't go back out is that to go into the city would mean about two more hours total in transit. I used to go sometimes to the movie theater but haven't in over a month. I should go back but they aren't showing anything that has excited me.

The problem is that for more than a week I've avoided going home. Saturday it was even 4 in the morning and I was riding around downtown Paris not wanting to go home. Maybe I need to get out of Paris. On that note I am going to Switzerland Thursday night for a total of about 50 hours. I will be seeing friends I know from EMU one who is Swiss and one who is living this year in Germany. I needed to get out of Paris in November and then again in February and now I will finely at the end of March/beginning of April. Got to love mood changes/depression.

I mean without depression the normal wouldn't be any good, only the really good would be good. And no life isn't that bad today I ate lunch with friends and then drank coffee and watched people in a park with an American friend. Life is good I just need out for a moment.

remotely disconnected.

(To help you connect to me I have added links. Click on the picture or any links for more info or pics or videos.)

Living here in Paris I feel that I am significantly disconnected from american life and what is happening "au States" (as the french refer to the US). At the same time I am immensely connected. I listen to National Public Radio for two hours a day. I listen to Slate magazine. I listen to a summary of the front page of the NY Times. I listen to Public Radio International and indie music stations out of Seattle and NYC.

I know more about indie music in North America than I have my entire life. Wednesday night I went to a Malajube show an indie rock band out of Montreal. No one who reads this really knows who they are but I think a couple of you might by the end of the year. They sing in french but have managed to attain a substantial following in english speaking canada. Their music is energetic and catchy even when you don't understand what they are saying. I listen to Beirut, Okkervil River, Peter Bjorn & John, Devotchka, Arcade Fire, Tokyo Police Club and a few others. Many of these groups feel to me kind of mainstream but I really don't know if they are talked about in the US. I mean I am sure people are talking about the Arcade Fire and people should be talking about Beirut but I kinda think they aren't.

When it comes to news I often do well on correctly answering the questions for "NPR's wait wait don't tell me" which I listen to while making/eating pancakes saturday mornings. We can discuss the war between radio and television which radio lost and what that all means in relation to "This American Life." Or maybe it would be interesting to talk about religion and marijuana in relation to the court hearing concerning "bong hits for Jesus." How about dollar coins with presidents faces on it. The 2 euro coin is worth half a five dollar bill. Do the presidential races interest you? What do you think about the differences between Hillary and Obama? The differences between their speeches (Obama vs. Hillary) announcing their candidacies were interesting. How about Hollywood swinging of support to Obama? What do you think of the spoof of Hilary clinton with the 1984 apple commercial? Or what about the Republican party. Is America's Mayor really going to be able to gain the support of the Republican base especially when you bring to mind his failed marriages, his having lived with a gay couple, dressing in drag among other things. Do you think that McCain has a chance either though? Is he really the "maverick" the media pretends he might be, because he seems like more of a straight shooter? Or would you rather talk about the scandal with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales?

This last week I called and chatted (sometimes in video) with people in the US, Germany, Honduras and England. I also called and sent many a SMS to people in Paris. My NCAA March madness bracket is doing poorly at last check I had picked only 60% of the winning teams. I paid substantial attention (from my point of view) to the music festival South by South West in Austin (I listened to shows by 12 artists and individual songs from multiple other attending artists). I also went to see the Oscar winning "The Last King of Scotland."

Am I even in France? Well this morning I ate camembert while preparing the pancakes. Last night I listened to "cool parisian biker kids" talk about their full suspension mountain bikes after riding my 42/16 fixe with them up the highest hill in Paris in Montmartre. They drank dark beer with a shot of strawberry sirup in it. While I have been writing this four or five trains have gone by my apartment. Each one lasts about 6-8 seconds. The trains are the TGV which have a cruising speed of 187 mph. Next weekend I am going to Switzerland to maybe go snowboarding for two days if there is still snow. Tonight I will hang out with American, Spanish, Portuguese, Chilean, French, English, Italian, Swiss and a few other nationalities of people. Tomorrow I'll eat lunch with a Canadian, a Portuguese, two French and a Malagasy. I am watching the approach of the April 22 elections, curious about the sudden increased support of centrist candidate Bayrou while being slightly disappointed in the fall of support for the leftist candidate Royal. I am also amused that according to polls more men are likely to vote for Royal more while women are likely to vote for Sarkozey. Last week I also posted on a social network a music video for the french rapper Kamini. So yes I am in Paris.

Last year I wasn't even a quarter this connected. So by being super connected I feel just as disconnected from my old lifestyle. I don't know what issues that I hear talk about aren't being talked about by my friends. I know many of them are still as disconnected as I was which makes me feel isolated.

International service has changed since my dad was here for three years in the 70s. He only talked on the phone a couple times with people in the US and then only with family.

This is long enough.

(why are you even writting this?)

So recently I have taken to writing my thoughts that take place while I am typing in parenthesise. (you can't spell for your life) I feel like it is a bad habit. I even do it sometimes when I am writing stuff out by hand. The problem is that when I write letters by hand for example I get really distracted and so if I start writing in the letters where my mind is wandering a one page letter will turn into a five page letter which takes at least five times as long to write and so my mind wanders five times as much. The point is that I guess I am just amusing myself. hahaha I am so amusing to myself. (are you really going to post this? yes I am cause it makes me feel like I am updating myself even though I'm not really saying anything. "updating yourself" are you? that is so like you just thinking about yourself.) The point is (you have no point and no you shouldn't post this). (good job being grammatically correct with your period outside of the bracket, you think you are so cool.)

Photo Gallery: Mardi Gras at the Happy House

Scanning

So I visited a friend of mine once who had moved from the H'burg to the city and she introduced me to the concept of scanning. The idea is that you look around at people and if your gazes meet and hold a little while it makes it potentially okay to walk over and introduce ones self. This is at least my understanding of the concept. It allows for an entry into meeting someone that you otherwise would have no reason to tal to.

In Paris you apparently are not allowed to meet people in the metro. I think this kinda holds true for most cities. I mean it is somewhat allowable if there is no one around and you are looking to bum a cig or vice versa. The cig in this case can be used as the reason to meet, at least that is one way it works here in Paris. There is an art student who I have seen twice on the metro. Both times she has been sketching the other passengers. I want to ask her if I can see her sketches sometime.

The thing that makes me uncomfortable though is when you scan, catch a gaze and then it holds and it becomes a battle of wills who will look away first. I got into one of these earlier today on accident with a girl wearing a 9 inch nails hoodie. It lasted for 3-4 seconds and ended when I blinked a touch slower than a normal blink. Maybe I am just spineless.

"Did I already greet you by the hand?"

This question introduces a topic that I have often had problems with in the United States. I feel, though this isn't necessarily true, that Americans are cold and impersonal. This comes from traditions of greetings. In the United States at points it seems as though we try our hardest to avoid greetings as though they are an inconveniences. When we show up at a large gathering we might wave a greeting and say "hello everyone." After that the greeting obligation is taken care of. If people are busy they might wave or even forget the greeting all together if there has been some general awareness of the other's presence for a little while. When one leaves it is similar, you wave or shake hands from a distance, a yard or so.

In contrast when I get to work in the morning. I go around and shake hands with everyone and say hello to each one. There is no waving or nodding a greeting. On a couple of occasions not wanting to interrupt conversations I have entered a room and avoided the greeting. At that point someone is sure to comment on me being tired or something as a reason for not having greeted them. It can sometimes be hard to remember if you greeted someone when you shake thirty or forty people's hands in the morning. So the question, "have I already greeted you by the hand?" becomes one asked hopefully not more than once a day. The situation also has give rise to the necessity of the "re-hello" when someone accidentally greets you a second time.

Self Analysis

Currently I am suffering from a bout of low motivation. Today it is my french homework which was supposed to be easy enough, a hundred word summary, along with a desire to get the essentials done and call it a day.

So what are the essentials?
Get up, eat something, wash my face.
Get to work before 8:20 AM.
Eat lunch (this one is the easiest daily task)
Go to my french class.
Go home.
Eat something for dinner.

Wow, looking at that having written it out makes for a boring life. I should add some fun things to the list. Okay fun things do exist on the list but they are not daily they happen every few days. Perhaps I need a girlfriend to keep me out of the house more.

Wow, again. That sounded french. Or at least that is what a few french have told me. "Find a french girlfriend." No I think that what I really need to to finely get my bicycle repaired that will get me out of the house. It would also be nice if my cough would go away. (I was sick for the majority of last week)

A day before the funeral for the 4 year old son of the one of the other supervisors all of the workers were told about what had happened. Fortunately we didn't know any details so we could honestly say we didn't know the details when they asked. In my workshop where we had eight workers in the morning by the time noon came we only had five. The others had all left because they weren't feeling well. A small delegation of six or seven workers and supervisors went to the funeral the next afternoon. One of the workers who apparently knew the children a bit didn't come to work for the rest of the week. I wish I could say things are better now but you can't say something about a situation like that.

This evening I ate some most amazing crepes with a friend from Elkhart who is in town studying for the semester. We both had as a main course buckwheat crepes with a cheese/spinach/cream filling and an egg on top. This section is just to illustrate that I am doing well and enjoying life.

When I got home I got to try to help settle a little dispute. I walked up the stairs and was confronted by one of the other residents standing outside of her room on the edge of tears so much so that when I asked her what was going on she started crying and told me that she had been "let fall" by one of the other residents. For a while I was confused wondering if someone had fallen but it turns out there was some offense taken when the meal plan (who eats with who and when) was shuffled. It was all sorted out though I was confused at points and uncertain how to mediate the situation. Fortunately one of the other residents helped with that.

Bon, je ne veut pas vous engueler avec une long histoire. (please excuse my spelling)

Breaking Tragedy

Life is hard. Generally speaking. It seems like again and again the community where I work has been rocked by bad news of people dying. A couple of weeks after I had gotten here one of the 28 residents that lived at the house where I live died. She had been sick for a while and had actually not been living in the house for some time before I got there. The residents were hit hard. For more than two weeks after her death I was regularly asked if I was "au currant" or up to date on what had happened. The questions were asked again and again, "but why her?"

Last week one of the workers in my workshop died. He was in his late fifties. Everyone was informed at an all center meeting. One of the other monitors told me later that the worker had taken his own life, then, "but don't tell the workers because it will bother them."

Today during the morning break I was again brought up to date. One of the other supervisors' son of four years old had fallen and impacted his neck in such a way that he died over the weekend. The supervisor had the week before shown me a picture of her two sons. They were smiling and when you looked closely at the picture you saw that the older one had his finger up the nose of the younger one. Whenever she talked of her sons she would always be smiling. Another supervisor told me, "she is a good mother who lived for her two sons." She called in to say that she wasn't going to be at work this morning and didn't explain. A little while after a friend of hers called in and explained. Once again I was told "but don't tell the workers it will bother them." Before you tell the workers any hard news they need to be prepared.

A common statement in the workshop is "we all have problems here." I find that the monitors have to hide their problems and the gravity of others problems in an attempt to maintain a level of stability in the lives of the workers. Otherwise the work will stop and for a week or two we will be asked, "but why her?"

He is not lost well at least not entirely.

The days are getting longer. I can tell because it is starting to get light again before I get to work. The daylight is very welcome.

The last month has been an amazing month. I submit my apologies for taking more than a month to update. I thank you if you are reading this because it means that you have been better at checking than I have at writing.

Over the last month I have: had visitors for about 15 of the 30 days (4 people, 3 groups), celebrated christmas by eating from 9pm the 24th dec. to 1am the 25th of dec (a meal that consisted of eight or nine different appetizers, a main course and thirteen options for desert shared among seven people), celebrated the new year with a few hundred thousand people where a friend's camera of the evidence was stolen (here is a video of the celebration !!languge caution!! I found on youtube I was about a hundred yards closer to the arch than the people taking the video ) had some surprise visitors for three nights (EMUers), got used to living alone again. Realized I need to get to know more people here.

This is where I am today. Today I am staying longer at school sitting on the internet so that I don't go home where I will sit in my kitchen thinking I need to clean my apartment but doing nothing more than listening to podcasts while eating junk until 8:30 when I use the internet again. The good news is that I have plans for socializing this weekend (coffee or museum with someone who also lives in the banlieu sud and potentially a theme party). Oh and the NFL conference finals are this weekend. I haven't paid any attention but I'll be at The Great Canadian at midnight sunday for the colts game live.