My life as a schnook.

So there's been a definite lack of posting recently. Hard to explain other than the fact that nothing's been particularly "funny." I'm surrounded by the people I love the most, and feeling warm and fuzzy inside doesn't make for a good blog.

This said, I've been watching a lot of mob movies recently. When everything falls apart in my life, I always turn to organized crime movies. Gives me a sense of order in the universe. It also made me realize that I've been living in a world akin to the Witness Protection Program. Anonymity. Absolute security. NOTHING happens here. So, I give you the Ray Liotta quote that best summarizes the transtion from Paris to Delray Beach.

"Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over. And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different; there's no action...I have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody... I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."

Because I can't take it anymore, I'm moving to London. To have massive amounts of financial and personal insecurity. But at least I won't be living like a schnook.

Alumni of Sciences Po, unite and serve

Okay, so just kidding about having "The Fallout." For about the first week, I enjoyed a sort of touristic sort of awe about home. All the American accents! All the fat people! AND All the central air conditioning! But then, of course, all this must sour. To summarize the past couple weeks,

July 12-August 1: The Great Tits-Uppage of 2006. Where everything in my life, in short, goes tits up. War, tears, much gnashing of teeth, etc. Essentially, all the elements of a telenovella-- a really bad one.

August 1- Present: Despite being 'tout sur le dos' I decide to actually do things. Mainly, try and find desirable job for next year, and go to gym for a while to not think about how I don't have a job. Oh, and watch lots and lots of bad TV and movies.

Marking the end of this current period was our recent family wedding in Denver, CO.
My mom's side of the family, a bunch of lovely and crazy francophones, made this highly enjoyable. Highlights and Lowlights:

Highlight:
My grandmother, whispering to me during the wedding: "The last time I saw the bride, she was about 10 pounds heavier, she looked good. It didn't make her nose look so big. Oh, maybe I shouldn't be saying that."

Lowlight:
Being the only single woman, besides my 10 year-old cousin, to stand there and catch the bouquet. Luckily, she caught it.

Highlight:
Having an actual French waitress serving us at the wedding.

Lowlight:
Said waitress graduated from Sciences Po with a degree in Carrieres Internationales. I shit you not. The conversation went as such: "Vous etes diplomee de Sciences Po?!!" "Oui oui" (she says, in waitressing outfit)...

My parents' eyes sort of glazed over. THIS is what we're sending our daughter to Paris for?! Mention de chomage...no joke...

Luckily, she went on to say how she pursued hotel management after graduation and had an eye for moving to the States for this stuff. Still, made me kind of nervous. I'm not killing myself to eventually land a menial job in the suburbs of Denver.

On that note, wish me luck.
Cheers, y'all.

The fallout.

All apologies for the massive lack of posting. In 50 words or less, I have been on vacation in Budapest/Croatia, packed up my apartment, then realized that I have, in fact, no plan for next year- things that, individually, do take up a lot of energy.

I had next year all lined up in Beirut, but seeing as there's been a mass exodus of foreign nationals out of Lebanon, looks like I'm not going to be taking my colonial sejour after all. As much as I would like to go to Cyprus, I'd rather not be taken there by an army helicopter.

Meanhwhile, I'm in Delray Beach, languishing. I had warned my parents that I would be going through post-European withdrawal and to take it easy on me.
I had hoped for a re-education in all things American; maybe we'd order pizza and go out to the shooting range, and my dad would buy an XXL wife beater, just for the occasion.

Instead, I came home to where, it became obvious, my europhilia was incubated. "Should we pick up a baguette on the way home?" dad asked in the car from the airport. I mumbled something about how technically, they should hardly be called proper baguettes. Once at home, I began talking about the war in Lebanon, and my mom flipped on the news. "Oh, we only watch BBC Worldnews anymore." No CNN. No FOX. Of course, The BBC.

Fine, so, they have the common sense to watch better TV media than what the US can produce. Maybe they'd take it easy on me for movies and TV shows. "I've been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsey's 'Kitchen Nightmares..'" mom continued. Flipping through the list of TiVoed shows, I learned that for all intents and purposes, our remote has been frozen on BBC America and the Independent Film Network.

As painful as it is to constantly be reminded what exactly I'm missing, it's lovely to be able to talk to my parents about my trip to Croatia, and their life in London when they were just married, and the superiority of Paris. I guess it's good to be home.

sordid? adorable? who cares!

Just had to share with the world my favorite ad, bar none, of all time.

SO CUTE, but yet also quite clever: here


For those of you who kvetch about my exclusion of non-francophones, all you need to know is the tagline: "Everything's more intense."

enjoy, I've still got a fair amount of work until my grande fête this saturday.
xoxoxox

Cathartic whinging.

I promised to at least try make this blog funny. I never said it wouldn't make me sound like a horrible person. Hasn't been a post in a long while, because I've been lacking decently humorous episodes of my life, seeing as I've been in a hell MONTH. What enormous of amounts of work CAN do, though, is make you awesomely mad at the world. Without further ado, The Shit List.

1. American tourists. Jesus titty-fucking Christ, we are one ugly, fat nation. Granted, I swear I didn't think so before, and I probably won't think so when I go back, but man, we are so annoying. Or maybe it's a new passport requirement? Don't bring with you: lighters, explosives, or pesticides. DO bring with you: 10 tons of lard, ugly white sneakers really ugly caps, and your OUTSIDE VOICES whenever you're in a quiet place. Shudder.

2. Sciences Po Librarians. So, I may not do the "returning books" thing well, and I have general angst about the school's resources, but man, they're just MEAN. Except for cute Stefan, who knows my name. Yes, I go to the library that much.

3. The White Dog's owners. Let me explain.
Oli's seen it, so at least I have a witness to say that it actually exists, and isn't some LOST-like appearance. So basically, some crazy old rich person in the next block, instead of actually walking their dog, just LETS it out, and lets it wander around the block for hours on end. Literally, wanders around in circles, and looks scared and won't let you touch it. Which, seeing as its the quiet stuffy 16th isn't such a problem, but the poor fucking dog just drifts around with the most pathetic look on its face.
I actually incredibly sorry for it. You have to understand that this is coming from a girl that kicked a dog on a date once.(when the guy wasn't looking, and it was kind of a gentle tap) (and the dog wouldn't stop licking its balls, it had to be done).

Man, this list could go on, but let me just add a few more:

1) People who call themselves "princess," allow their parents to, or even worse,call themselves "Daddy's little princess"

2) Posers in Paris. People who, despite their extremely strong accent, try and speak French to anglophones. Bite me, everyone can tell you're American, go fuck off.

3) Anyone who works in French administration, anywhere. Just trust me, you'd hate them too.

4) THAT GUY/girl in your classes. Sadly, at Master's level, it only gets worse. In France, it's ten times worse. They all have names: "Donkey lips" (arabic class), "La petite grosse" (Enjeux Po class), "Belligerent Canadian" (every class), etc.

5) Pretentious hippies. Either you're hippy, and chill, or your pretentious, and not. Don't try and name drop things like, "Oh, yeah, I went to this really mind-blowing session of Oonamamweh last night. It like, changed my life." Although, you know what? Don't care what you're saying anyways.


Anyways, now I should get back to the work I've been bitching about, although god knows I could go on. This is awesomely cathartic. Night all.

The French citizenship test, partie No.1

In dishonor of Sarkozy's latest proposal on curbing immigration to France, I'd like to offer my own personal Citizenship test for the Republic.


FRENCH CITIZENSHIP TEST


#1. You are a male between 11-80 years old. You see a blond girl speaking English on the street. You do which of the following:

a. Say nothing
b. Look her up and down, imagine her naked, and continue loafing
c. Scream out "'Ello! 'Appy Birfday!" then look her up and down, imagine her naked, and continue loafing

The correct answer is: C



#2. You see a man with long hair and orange-tinted skin. He:

a. Has Been stranded on a desert island with nothing but carrots to eat
b. Is an average man- a Sciences Po professor, for example
c. Is the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin

The correct answer is: B or C


#3. Cheating is wrong.
a. True
b. False
c. Irrelevant statement in French society

The correct answer is C



#4. What was France's position in the Second World War?

a. There was no Second World War
b. We surrendered like little bunnyrabbits
c. Heroic resistance against the coward Saxon invaders.

The correct answer is A or C



#5. What is most important to know about the United States?

a. The girls are cheap and easy
b. Bush=bad
c. The worst of its music: Sean Paul and Ben Harper

The correct answer is: All of the above

"Are you now or have you ever been..."

If you're looking for zany adventures, see the blog prior to this. This said, I felt I had to share.

I auditioned for a part in a movie today. (!!)

Really. Sketchy story short, I was walking down the street with none other than Joseph Swan, Esq. I barked something at him in American English. Then got approached by French film student-looking girl who thus gives me an appointment to go to the bureau of her film company. Les Films du Poisson. Look, it actually exists.

Today I had my appointment and I got ushered into their converted apartment-office off of Republique, and was ignored for a solid 15 minutes. I've never felt cooler.

Everyone in the office was in a hurry, but yet they didn't seem to be doing any work, and still looked incredibly important doing this sort of nothing. Painfully Parisian. And in movies! No, not "movies," films.

Finally, woman that randomly picked me up pulls me into audition room and describes the role. I learn that I would be auditioning for the following part:

• It's 1980. I'm an American Girl
• Who has just returned from a Kibbutz in Israel.
• Declares, "Je suis communiste."
• Then takes the main character to the Art School (Ecole des Beaux Arts a Paris)....
• ...Where she is a nude model. *cough*
• And then takes her to Le Palace, an old Parisian club that the movie is attempting to recapture
• She walks into the club and knows everybody, is really cool (seriously, no way I'm getting this role)
• Where She then does drugs in the bathroom, and corrupts main character.
  

Awesome.

It also occured to me that I should have loved and nurtured my drama/film friends more, at a time like this. I'm sure that I wasn't supposed to be feeling this stupid and unprepared. Or maybe I should've remembered the tough, real life lessons of acting camp when I was in 5th grade.

Woman hands me the script and tells me to pick any line I want and read it.

Another nightmare. I pick the line that sounds the prettiest in French and I feel I wouldn't trip over. "Je pose pour les etudiants des Beaux Arts." I mean, it almost rhymes, goddamnit! She must've sensed my pleasure at how pretty that sentence was, then points me to the one phrase I was avoiding:

"Je suis communiste."

I mumble. "Encore" She says. "JE SUIS COMMUNISTE" I blast, trying to sound as socially concerned and militant as possible.
Anyways, so, if there ever were a time to finally just own up to the fact that i'll NEVER be able to run for public office, this is it. Somewhere, deep in a closet in Paris, there will always be a camcorder in Paris that has a recording of me saying I'm a fucking communist.

And if I get lucky, there will be footage of me playing a cokehead nude-model communist!

Goodnight.

PS: Home...



I love the Delray.