Your moment of zen.

I seriously couldn't eat it. It was too cute. And yet, tragic, that it missed it's calling as an extra in a Sir Mix A Lot video.

The letter and the gnat.

I slept a lot through High School French.

I realized this recently during one of my six essay-exams in French. It's frustrating when you can talk for hours about International Law in a foreign language, but you're sitting there at the start of the next paragraph thinking,
"Fuck! What's the best connection word between these paragraphs? WHY did I throw away that hand-out?!WHYY!!!??"

Again, at the prefecture of Police today, when I officially decided to end my status as a visa overstay/illegal alien, my lack of attention span in High School came back to spite me. Now, I'm not only a little late with my application, I'm oh....3 months late.

Sitting in front of a surly Martiniquan woman, I had to answer a question I didn't really have an answer for: "So why did you wait 6 months to apply for your residence permit?!"
Possible answers included:
"I did nothing but drink the first two months here before school started"
"I'm completely lazy" or, even,
"Landlord tried to suck my blood, have had to bat her off with a broom for the past few months" (which is true)

Instead of beating me while during a ritualistic dance of the bureaucrats, It turns out, I only had to write a letter in front of the Martinquan fonctionnaire.
YES, a LETTER saying I was sorry and why I was so late turning in my dossier. So, I start out and write some complete bullshit about having difficulty finding the necessary documents, etc. etc. Then I get to the end. The French add some sentence at the end of every letter before the signature that is some variation of

"Let me lick your ass and offer you my best sentiments" or, for more severe letters,

"Lick my ass and give me your the assurance of your best wishes!"

I blanked. I had no fucking clue how to write this. In the ONE opportunity where someone stuck a piece of paper in front of me (outside of High School) and said, "GO! WRITE AN IMPORTANT LETTER IN FRENCH!" I couldn't perform. Damn you, IB French. Damn you attention span similar to that of an ADD gnat! Damn, damn, damn.

On the plus side, I'm a little less illegal today. I'll drink to that.

God doesn't care about cigarettes.

While watching a French-produced documentary on American evangelism tonight, they showed some especially hateful protestors with signs that said,

"GOD HATES FAGS"

Having been with British people way too long, my first thought was, "Why are they going after cigarettes?" "Is anti-tobacco activism the new Evangelical cause?!"

In other news,
I have 5 exams in the next week, and am completely panicked.
School drools. Find me a good translation of that in French.

-F

Un touchdown accordé aux Steeleurs de Pittsburgh!

Oh dear god, they've tried to do the Super Bowl.

France 2, complete with French commentators (Where the hell did they find them?!) broadcast the Super Bowl live this Sunday. It's funny, it may be the first time I've laughed consistently throughout the big game. Without getting to the sheer absurdity of the coverage, let's just fast forward to the Half Time show.

In a room literally wallpapered with American flags, a popular TV host has two guests with him: A French comedian, and as best I can figure out, a large man who was just cast as "Random French Black guy." (RFBG) I mean, seriously. I think they just picked the largest man in the country, and were like, "Hey! You look like you could maybe be American! Go on TV!"

Host turns to RFBG and asks, "So what do you like about American Football?"

RFBG: "What I like about baseball is..."
(host interrupts: "no no, this is Football à l'Américain"). RFBG looks kind of surprised.

The Comedian then takes it upon himself: "I like the helmets. The helmets are cool."

I'm thinking I could've done a better half time show, until I see the mysterious Third Guest. YES, a real live NFL Cheerleader.

Tits McAmerica with flowing blond long hair comes on, and they continue to not bother to translate anything to her, so she sits there looking scared, as RFBG actually begins to put his head nearer and nearer to her shoulder. They finally work on translating some hard hitting questions to her, as soon as they figure out she can't speak French.

Host: "So, why are cheerleaders so pretty?" (montage of American cheerleaders in background) (Tits McAmerica's breasts pop farther and farther out of her top)

Cheerleader: "Umm (being dubbed over, simultaneously)..well...there's a lot of us out there, and you know, only some of us can become cheerleaders."

Host: "So why do you all look the same?"
(A brilliant question, if you ask me)
Cheerleader: (pause) "Well, we all have to have long hair." (another awkward pause)

All of this confirms my suspicion that we Americans are just as much a national laugh for the French as the frogs are for us. Here's a translation guide to French American Football, which took me a fair amount of time to figure out:

Rot-lees-bear-gurrr: Roethlisberger
'Asselbeck: Hasselbeck
Le wide réceveur: Wide Receiver
Les linebackeurs: Line Backers

The funniest thing being, I imagine that they gave the soccer (read: real football) commentators a half-assed explanation of American football and told them to cover the Super Bowl, so the tempo of the commentary is WAY too fast for a football game.

"And 'Asselback has the ball and he's GOING! ALLEZ! ALLEZ! (play ends). Oh. And another break."

All in all, I far prefer French American Football. There's only one thing that's worse about this Super Bowl:


French ads suck.

French people say the darndest things

As I said to a friend recently, the only things I don't like about living abroad are:
1) School (in general)
2) French people.

An excerpt of the things I've heard in the past week out of the mouths of frogs:

1) "American's different than English. It's mixed with other languages."
-Taxi Driver, who was also drumming rapidly on his steering wheel while driving

2) FRANCE=CHARLES DEGAULLE=FRANCE AS COUNTRY OF VALIANT RESISTANCE
(Written on the chalkboard in class)

After seeing the look of shock and horror on my face, the professor had to add,
"Yes, it is only in France that this is taught."

3) "I'm sorry, can you type less loudly?"
-Girl in National Library.

I swear to god, it took *so much* willpower to mumble, "I'll try" instead of snapping her in two. (Yes, I could probably have done it quite easily)


4) NEW ADDITIONS to badly translated French-man texts:

"I kiss you very much!" (Je t'embrasse beaucoup, literally)

"I propose to you to take a coffee..." (Je te propose a prendre un cafe..)

That's all I've got for now, but expect a Part Deux, without a doubt. Cheers!
I leave you with a picture of THE CUTEST CAKE EVER MADE, seen in the Dalloyau store window:

How to apologize for vomiting on carpet.

Apparently, the more difficult and self-important my school gets, the more debauched my behavior gets.

Without getting into any details, here are the results of my
"How to apologize for vomit on a rug Poetry Contest";

Sorry I got so wild last nite
And my vomit on your carpet so white
I'll gladly give you some time,
Some elbow grease and some 4-0-9

-Jon Raviv, 2005


In other news, I'm feeling super bereft with the girls and Team Scheib gone:
Here are some are some photos of our winter Paris bender. Plus Canadians.

James being saluted by Nicolas after jumping in the Seine. Keep in mind it is also *December* at this point. Damn Canadians.



Team Awkward:




Note: Mikey is singing? yelling? in this picture and most of the others:



I see this view of the tower every day, but when you're drunk and it's New Year's and your friends are there it's pretty damn exciting.




MICHAEL SCHEIB IS A GOD



Bonne nuit, guys.

And the bells were ringin' out for Christmas day

Nothing has been particularly *funny* as of late, except if you consider everything going really well for me to be kind of funny.

I've been happier than a pig in slop.

First, Dublin for Christmas. Amazing. I spent most of my time on Shauna's couch moaning about the superiority of Anglophone countries:

"French...cunting bastards...mmmmmm...English language....mmmm..."

Irish TV is a beautiful mixture of the best of American and British TV. Absolute heaven, after 5 channels of shitty French game shows. Shauna's family, The Sheehys, are the nicest, warmest folks, ever. In fact, My parents seemed kind of disturbed that I wasn't particularly homesick on Christmas eve.

Shauna lives in Bray, just outside of Dublin toward the coast, so on St. Stephen's day we went for a tour of the seaside towns of Dalkey, SandyCove, Killinerney (or something like this. Someone correct me). The vista inspired James Joyce's Ulysses and the entire town was marked with his literary-ness.

I won't drone on anymore. An Irish Christmas in pictures:


Shauna, doing her "BRAAAAAY" face.
(Bray: Dublin :: Ft.Lauderdale: Miami, except 1/100 of the scale)




Out in Bray, at the chipper's. This is, apparently, a place where French fries are sold.



Dalkey Harbour, on Dublin bay:



I love how desolate this picture is. More Dublin bay.



Sniff. I miss Delray's Seaspray.



Dalkey. Quaint like whoh.



Me and Arnie Pie on the streets of Dublin!