January 22, 2005

I have the world’s smallest head. What gives? Everyone else in my family has a gargantuan head. And, because of my midget head, I have tiny eyes and a small mouth. The only thing on my head that might be normal sized (on any other head) is my nose. And don’t even get me started on the subject of my nose. Every time I look at my nose, I think of that line in Miss Saigon, where the mean female character takes her half-American child to her Pimp and he says, “Let me see his Western nose.” Just imagine if that kid had been me. The pimp would look at me and say, “Well, looks promising. She has freckles, green eyes, blond hair, pale skin, but… holy shit! Look at that honker! I don’t know what garbage heap you found this child on top of, but you better put her back! And bury her under something this time.”

But I really don’t mind my nose. I mean, it is not the prettiest one in the world, but I have no desire to change it. Plastic surgery—ick. I’ll just get laser surgery for my eyes and that will be it. Oh, and lose about thirty pounds. But whatever.

So it is raining today. I was going to go up to Vienne to see the Roman ampitheatre, but I don’t want to go in the rain. Anyway, today is my day to clean the kitchen.

Good news! I heave reached an eight year old reading level in French. This is a big deal for me. I am able to read Petit Nicholas and understand it. I only have to look up about two words for every six or seven pages. I am really proud of myself. In fact, I have almost finished my first “real length” book in French. I am going to have to go to the bookstore and get another one!

1:27pm

Well, managed to get the Argentinian (Natalia) pissed at me again. I accidently drank a glass of her orange juice. A simple mistake, really, when you think about it. All the bottles of Orange juice look the same.

“Justine. Qui a achete c’est jus d’orange?” (Justine. Who bought this orange juice?)

“Uh, Jo et moi.” (Jo and I.)

“Non.” And she turned the bottle of OJ so I could see the big, black N written on the side. Bloody hell. So I’m on the shit list. Again. But this time Jo thinks she’s on the list too, because Natalia informed her that she wanted to start going out with her, Llian, and Suzanne to bars. Last night the Brit group was thinking about going to a bar and they neglected to invite Natalia. Oh well. At least I’m in good company.

So tonight Jo and I are going country dancing again. Jo thinks it’s a geek fest. I love it. I find it entertaining. Imagine a room full of old French people, a crappy band, and some announcer trying to teach everyone a new dance. Now, keep in mind that the French are shit at giving directions. Imagine the announcer explaining the dance once (and I was convinced last time that he was just making it up as he went along—he never actually repeated anything), the band starting slowly and speeding up, and short, old French ladies wandering in and out of everyone’s dance space, completely lost. I mean, this is pee-your-pants-laughing entertainment.

I went to a birthday party a couple of nights ago and I was trying to get people to tell me cultural things they found weird/annoying about France. They weren’t into making a list, though, so here is my list, created tout seul:

1. Shops closing at lunch time. For two (at least) hours. Including grocery stores.
2. Rude bakery women.
3. That weird shade of magenta red that women between the ages of 45 and 60 dye their hair. Mom said they did the same in Germany too. Twenty years ago. This is not a color that appears in nature, let alone on anyone’s head.
4. Frog legs in a Chinese buffet. Then again, one of my Chinese students last year told me that the Chinese will eat anything. He then told me a story (quite seriously) about a family dog that had died when he was young. He said that the whole family was upset and that he had cried. And then they ate the dog.


I will add to this list later. Maybe. I just feel that I should be adding more cultural information to my ‘blog. Oh well. I have to write a cover letter. I hate writing cover letters. Yeck.