Kelly Diot

Interesting things I’ve seen /done recently:

· A lady taking her dog for a walk IN A STROLLER. Excusez-moi, Madame, but isn’t the point of walking a dog to give it exercise?

· A lady riding her bike down the street singing opera very loudly.

· For kids learning to ride a bike, the French have bikes with handles on the back (kind of similar to the handle of a shovel) so parents can hang on to their tots without having to bend over. Genius.

· The use of “wetback” as a technical term for Mexican immigrants to the U.S., and the term “Taco Belt” for where they migrate to in the textbook my students are reading. Yikes. I don’t want my students visiting the states and horribly offending someone. Going to have a chat with the teacher about that one. In fact, the whole book is strangely written in a way I would never speak. I don’t even think Brits speak that way. For example, they were learning about Thanksgiving and instead of just regular pilgrims they call them the “Pilgrim Fathers.”

· My students have the cutest French accents. One was doing a presentation on Central Park and said, “Ze park is in ze ‘eart of Man’attan. Zere is a big green space. It is splendid and serene.”

· On my way home today I found an awesome bookstore and bought a French copy of the book that the show True Blood is based on. It was an easy read in English. I’m going to try and read a few pages a day to improve my French.

Today we had orientation, which if it were the States, we would have had BEFORE we started school. It was a bit dull. ß Wow, can you tell I’ve been hanging out with Brits? It was all information I would have LOVED to know last week, but now that I’ve been to my school it was fairly redundant. I did get a few good tips and even a free delicious lunch out of it. I met a girl named Sandra that is from Orange County and is here doing a grad program through NYU. I can’t imagine taking five classes on top of being a language assistant. Yikes. I have been eating yogurt every day, it is SO good here. I love it. It is dessert for lunch and dinner. Which I guess makes up for the pastries for breakfast.

I have been going up seven flights of stairs to my room for the exercise. I’ve realized that from a combination of bike riding and running my calves are rock solid, so I figured I would do my derriere some good. J I haven’t seen anyone else on my floor so I have a lot of privacy when I finally reach the top floor wheezing uncontrollably. I love my room, but I’ve kind of been an idiot since I moved in. The first morning I was hurrying down the stairs to leave for work, totally biffed it and missed three steps, falling on my knees on the landing below. I haven’t skinned my knee since I was like seven years old. Maybe being an American in Paris makes you regress to a previous infantile state? That’s how it feels sometimes.

Then, today I needed to send an e-mail to my school about whom I am observing tomorrow before I left or they wouldn’t get it in time to get back to me before tomorrow. There is free internet downstairs so I took my computer out to the street. Of course on the bench outside my front door my computer couldn’t pick up the network I needed, so I ended up squatting on the corner like an idiot precariously balancing my computer on my (injured) knee only to find that I had lost the signal AFTER logging in to my e-mail. Of course I was running late so I ran (okay, I lost some speed toward the top) up seven flights of stairs with my computer. I quickly deposited it in my room and hurried back down, careful to avoid recreating the scene of my accident yesterday only to trip on my way out the front door DIRECTLY in front of a Frenchmen, who smiled at me sympathetically as if to say, “Silly American.” Le sigh. Sometimes my life is like a sitcom that is only not funny to ME because I’m living it.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Stupid American in France! ;)

Joyeux anniversaire à moi!

To quote The Beatles, they say it's my birthday. It snuck up on me this year with preparing for and experiencing Paris. I thought I would be sad today to not be home, and I am to some degree, but in a way I feel like this whole trip is a birthday present to myself. :)

I got up this morning and went running! Woot!

I am currently apartment-sitting for a friend, Agnes. She is an English professor and her apartment is absolutely lined with books. There are literally different sections like Sci-fi, Early English Literature, etc. It's very cozy. We had coffee together before she left and it turns out that she and her girlfriend have been watching the L Word! I showed her the picture of me and my friend Alyson with Jennifer Beals (of Flashdance fame, for those of you unfamiliar with The L Word). When I showed it to her, she said "Hold on," and immediately dialed her girlfriend. In French she said, "You won't believe what I'm looking at right now. A picture of my housesitter with Bette!!! And it's real!"

I could literally hear her squealing on the other end, and apparently she said she'd kiss my feet...lol. Too funny. They invited me to come watch the L Word with them sometime.

I've been enjoying quiet evenings at home. I made myself tortellini with eggplant, tomatoes, and mozzarella and enjoyed a glass of red wine. I started reading a book that Agnes recommended. It was really cozy, and an awesome book. I need to finish it. I'm going to be living here for a while and I don't want to blow all of my money. That and when it's this cold I can't motivate myself to do much. I can't wait for my winter coat to get here.

Well, I'm off to take a shower. I'm going to go do something fun for my birthday with Maja, meet up with some other language assistants tonight at a Canadian sports bar (insert Canadian jokes here), and see my French friend Maria who just got back from studying in Denmark. Oh, and eat birthday pasteries, bien sur! :)

**

Update:

I just took a shower. My God. Agnes wasn't kidding when she said, "Don't worry about water on the floor, just make sure it doesn't sit there too long." The water in the shower comes from the sink, and is connected to the tap. Apparently they used to build them this way in Soviet bathrooms, and whoever built this apartment building thought it was brilliant. You turn on the tap to the temperature that you want, and then pull a tab to make it come on in the shower. I had to pull a curtain around the tiny white porcelain square on the floor that is the shower, and pulled the tab. There are a couple of tubs on the floor to catch some water. I got in, started washing my hair, the water was hot, everything was good. Then I realized that the shower was quickly filling up. The other side of the curtain was bowing out with water. After dealing with complicated showers last summer, I told myself "People use this shower. It works. Maybe there's something you don't know." I tried to ignore the rising panic until the side of the curtain couldn't take the water anymore and collapsed out, releasing a wave of water onto the wood floor that is so NOT designed to be a bathroom floor. After swearing and shutting off the water for a moment, I realized the curtain was covering the drain. I pulled it back and instantly the shower emptied. Merde. Another case of "stupid American."