les vacances.

so i don't have classes this week for les vacances des toussaints [all saints day]. almost the entire country has the week off, at least all the students. so with all this new found spare time i've gotten my shit together {kind of} and updated my flickr. there are some pictures of france and some other stuff i've been working on. the french pictures have all, more or less, shown up here, but whatever. i haven't been taking nearly as many pictures as i should, mostly because my digital camera is on its last legs. i have taken about 6 rolls of analog but with no access to a dark room or scanner and pro developing costing 20 euros {roughly $34 thanks to the ever rising exchange rate}, those pictures will stay hidden on the negatives until well after i get back. so happy {limited} browsing.

p.s. the EU has already 'fallen back' for the end of daylight savings time, so for the next week the time difference between here and the west coast is only 8 hours.

darfur est la nouvelle chine.

darfur has become the new china. today during our usual, large sunday afternoon meal, one of my host brothers, vivien, was complaining because he didn't like anything my host mom had made to eat. my host dad looked at him and said to stop complaining and eat otherwise he would send him to darfur. it's odd to think that just within my lifetime the image of suffering has changed so much. china used to be the go to nation to threaten kids to eat their vegetables. unfortunately today it is a nation plagued by civil war resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the loss of almost an entire generation. my host dad was just making a joke and i don't think vivien understood the scope of what was said, but it's hard to think of a worse place to be sent, especially when you're hungry and seven years old.

sans titre.

i don’t know why i ever chose to grow up. i wish i could go back to the five year old me running around in sundresses, barefoot in the grass and climbing trees and tell her to stay there. to never leave that place. that simplicity. that joy. the sunshine. that easiness. someone to take care of you so you can just be you. and live. and taste life. but now you can’t count on anyone to take care of you, but yourself. and even that proves fatal most days.

now things are messy. complicated. painful. difficult. dark. heavy. i still haven’t figured out just how it happened. i suppose it was a slow unraveling. one that sneaks up on you one day when you realize nothing is as it was before. it stems from a slow realization of the harsh realities of this life. the realization that it can’t be easy. that life’s beauty is short lived and fleeting. that there are more people to tear you up than to love you. a heart becomes more of a chew toy than a beating source of passion and life.

i don’t think you see a light when you die. i think you see the brightest light when you’re born. surrounded by love and attention. and then the darkness slowly starts setting in. not much at first. just like a cloudy day with the sun bleeding through the blanket of clouds. then the day gives way to dusk. then one day you find yourself in a cave with just a flashlight. you can see enough to avoid tripping over what’s right in front of you, but you can’t see enough to find your way out. then one day the batteries run out. and now you only have an old lighter in your pocket. just enough light to see your hands in front of your face. but it quickly becomes too hot to hold and will, too, soon extinguish. and then you’re left, alone, and lost, in a dark, cold cave. i can only imagine death as the darkest dark. blacker than any night known on this earth. so black that you know you’ll never get out of it. never go back. never feel the sunshine again.

les pubs.

one thing i like about watching french television are the pubs or commercials. they're short, easy to understand and sometimes just plain bizarre. like france's recent campaign for calcium consumption. it invovles a giant cow sitting down and squirting milk out of it's utters that little skeletons dance in. because dairy products are 'friends for life.' see for yourself.

la confiance.

piggy backing off my last post, it's been rather refreshing living in a country that actually trusts their citizens. i first realized this a few weeks ago when i bought some hot chocolate mix. when i got home i was looking at the container to find the directions and felt oddly uncomfortable that there weren't any. then i snapped out of it and realized all i had to do was add enough powder to my taste to some hot milk. not difficult at all and rather logical and i didn't need printed directions to tell me how to do it. on the contrary, in the US everything has very explicit directions and outrageous warnings against every single possibility. i'm pretty sure there are many websites and books detailing these outrageous warnings that an intelligent person would never think of doing. but i'm sure somewhere along the line someone did something stupid then sued someone and someone had to pay a lot of money so now companies feel the need to hold the hand of every consumer in order to protect themselves from liability. a lot of it is really unnecessary and it's nice to be away from it.

i also learned today in my french civilization class that there are 12 communists in the current french general assembly (equivalent to the US house of representatives). as the new york dolls said, better red than dead.