socially inept

so, yesterday i brought my friend katie home with me from school (she is one of the english assistants and she is from maryland :]) because she wanted to borrow our duffel bag for her trip to greece this vacation. (she figured that since she had a dance class at about seven she might as well just walk home with me and get the bag as opposed to having me bring it to school...) we gave her the duffel bag and made her eat something since i knew she would be too tired to make herself anything after she got home from her dance class...

she wasn’t so sure how to get to her dance class from our house so mark and i decided to walk with her so she wouldn’t get lost. as we were leaving, the man who lives in the apartment below us decided that he needed to come out and yell at us for being too loud...

(now, okay...mark at i aren’t the quietest people in the world its true. however, we actually try very hard to be quiet for this man. for the first month or so that we lived here we didn’t even think about how loud we were being...however when the concierge told us that the man below us had complained that we were too loud we started going to great efforts to be as quiet as possible for him. we take our shoes of the moment we come in, we try not to talk much louder than a whisper, we keep our music quiet, and we do all that we can not to slam the cupboards and doors to much. that should be good enough right? maybe in the U.S. it would be....but this is france....and they can get some pretty ornery old people in this country.)

so katie and i got to the apartment at about 5:30 and we left the apartment at 6:30 to get katie to her dance class by 7. we hadn’t really been much louder than normal and really most of it was just because katie didn’t know where the squeaky boards are in our apartment...

we were talking as we were going down the stairs and out came the man as we got to his floor...i saw him and as i was about to say “bon soir” noticed that 1. he didn’t look very happy and 2. he had absolutely nothing covering his bottom half. no pants...no underwear...( yes ladies and gentlemen...this man was only wearing a shirt and it was not nearly as long as i would have preferred it.) noticing these two facts i stifled my disgust (and slight laughter) and continued walking down the stairs as he proceeded to get mark’s attention and chew mark out for us being too loud (which may i mention was rather loud itself....) mark informed him that we always tried to be quiet and that we didn’t have wings so we couldn’t very well fly about the apartment. (the floor squeaks if you look at it...) the man then decided to tell mark that we obviously didn’t put enough effort into it or else he would never hear us and would live happily without being disturbed. mark tried to reason with him saying that we have to walk around to make meals and that in all honesty we aren’t home a lot anyway so he should be content that he doesn’t have to listen to us all day. again the man said that we don’t try hard enough and mark asked the man if he wanted to see what it would be like if we didn’t try at all to be quiet...the man had nothing to say for a bit and then proceeded to yell some more and mark just told him to have a good night and we walked away....

this is slightly frustrating and rather entertaining to me....the man is ridiculous....he wants us to make no sound at all (and if we do he smacks the ceiling with his broom or squawks up at us) but he feels no shame in yelling at the top of his voice in the hallway or in hitting his ceiling to get us to shut-up or yelling up at us....the things we do (walking...on squeaky boards...occasionally slamming a cupboard accidentally) only bother him...however i’m certain that the people that live next to him can hear him yell if we can hear him 1 floor up....and when he hits the ceiling he smacks it with all his might....the guy that lives next door to us hasn’t ever complained about us being too loud....

i don’t know.....the point is i’m really not sure how to reason with the man...and mark just wants to hit the old man upside that head he’s so frustrated....

how do you please people who expect you to be able to fly....?



also...why does highschool have to be so ... awkward....and why was i silly enough to be in it again? if it was hard the first time...it’s hard now that i’m married....i never was very good at being cool....and i’m still not...and i’m just so much better at being a loner...i dunno...i have some really good friends but nothing like what i had back home....and i really just want someone that can be my best friend that i can talk to about anything and they would laugh when i was funny or stupid...and i just want to be myself....i mean i guess thats what mark is now...but....he’s not at school with me....sigh....i’m just socially inept....and i can never think of anything interesting to talk about....i want to be done with school here....maybe i will feel better after the vacation....3 weeks should do me good.....

basically...i miss all you friends and family back home and the freedom i feel when i am around you....i love you all.......

hope all is well

praying for you always. :]

wow...

okay... so i'm sitting here doing some internetting at the university. i have a habit of doing that. it keeps me from oversleeping.

i'm in the commons area, by the coffee and food vending machines, when all at once some really crazy sirens start going off. i'm not entirely sure, but i suspect they are fire alarms. so... i wait and see if there's actually anything gonna be done about it. after a minute or so, people start filing toward the doors, so i follow suit.

now for the irony.

upon getting outside, at least 10% -- if not a full quarter -- of the students and faculty reach into their pockets... and start smoking.

new fun in the sidebar

so... there's something new and fun in the sidebar (as indicated by the title of this post).

when we're logged in, you can chat with us direct from the blog!

as long as the little thing isn't grey or red... we're online and available.

try it out next you see us online!

neverland in perpetuity

when do you start to learn responsibility?

i honestly don’t remember. i hate to say it, but i think i’m finally becoming an adult. or perhaps it’s been happening now for a while, and i’ve been unaware.

seriously... i always thought -- or at least i truly hoped -- that i would never become an adult. that i would get older -- yes. that i would learn things that adults learn -- yes. that i would live an adult life -- yes. but i’m not sure that i ever really believed that i would grow up.

that’s not to say that i have -- or that i ever will -- grow up.

what i mean to say is i never really expected to forget what it’s like to be a child. again... not what it’s like to play like a child, act like a child or behave like a child (in some respects, i think i do that better than a lot of kids half my age...), but rather what it’s like to reason as a child.

like understanding responsibility. when do you do that? when does that click in your head? i honestly can’t say that i remember.

granted... i’m a bit different when it comes to things of that nature. (perhaps i’m wrong... you’d have to ask my mother to verify this... but i think i’ve always been a very well behaved child, relative to other children my respective age -- writing papers, book reports and the like aside.) i think i’ve usually caught on to things of this nature a bit faster than others. but still. shouldn’t a child of 11 or 12 years have a decent grasp on the concept of responsibility for their actions?

the thing that brings this up:

today i was with half of the worst class that i teach, in regards to behavior -- and i was with the better half of them. they were acting like a bunch of chimpanzees out on a play date. i couldn’t get them to shut up for more than 30 seconds at a time.

there was for certain one student paying attention... and the others would pop in and out, so that at any given moment i had roughly half of the class with me. i consider that a good thing with this class... so i kept teaching.

over the course of the next 5 minutes, i went from an average of half the class to the one girl paying attention. in the past, at times like this, i stop and i wait. i wait for the class to figure out that i’ve stopped... and to get each other to quiet down.

i’d already done that several times today.

i had two kids that just walked out into the hall because they were tired of the noise, and the headache it was giving them. i tried to reason with them (who are often two of the more noisy ones in this group...) that they could do their part by a) being quiet and b) inciting the others to do they same. they assured me they had tried, but in vain.

so i had an idea.

i had everyone get back into the room, and into their seats, and made one final attempt to quiet them the habitual way. this, as i assumed it would, failed. so i went to the board and started to write something. they figured something was up... but weren’t quite sure what it was... so they hushed a bit, in case it was important, menacing or entertaining. if it was just more lesson, i don’t think they would have cared.

i wrote: silence

i told them: there are enough dictionaries in the back... everyone go and grab one. (i would have assumed at this point they had figured out what was going to happen... but i don’t think most of them understood until AFTER i had explained what was happening... which was after i wrote what they were supposed to do on the board. sometimes they’re really slow...)

i underlined silence and wrote beneath: take out your scratch paper notebook

and then: copy the definition 3x

i had noticed already that the two kinds of dictionaries had different lengths of definition. the one was about four times as long as the other. and one girl (the good one) had gotten a dictionary out of her desk. (her definition was really short...)

they all groaned and complained. especially when the ones that hadn’t totally understood what i wrote (even though it was in french...) figured out they had to do it 3 times. the ones with the bigger definitions in particular were unpleased. “sorry... that’s the way it goes. stick with the dictionary you picked.”

and i made them do it in... silence.

they had a hard time with that. they don’t like silence.

when there were about 10 minutes left, i had them stop. some had finished... most no. i asked them, “what is silence?” they read me their definitions. “what do you like better: learning english, or learning definitions?” it was the first one.

and i made up a new thing with them. from now on, whenever i esteem they are being too noisy or disruptive or inattentive... i start spelling a word in the corner of the board. i can put down one letter... or two. depending on how i’m feeling, and how big of a pain they’re being. once they word is fully spelled out... we stop. they get a dictionary. and i tell them how many times they have to copy the definition.

i think in the future, i’ll make them finish it. probably not the whole thing in class... a bit, but not all. the rest, they’ll have to finish and turn it in to me for the next class period. and if they don’t... more problems will have to come up.

i hate doing this. i hate punishments.

i don’t like getting them... and i don’t like giving them.

why can’t they just grow up?

the bells

so, of all the odd things to be taking place today...

i’m walking home from work, where i’ve just been astounded again (more at the end...), when the bells of the church start to ring. this, i take as a normal occurrence because it happens every hour -- at least. and, seeing as how it’s very near noon, i assume it is for the hour.

so, as i said, i’m walking. it seems to me that the bell has been having at it for a very long time... something quite more than 12 rings. and, sure enough, as i sit and count 12 more rings i’m assured that my suspicion is correct.

for at least 5 more minutes the bell continues to ring. this is the first time i’ve known any bell to do that on a friday at noon, so i hop in to the nearest tabac and ask the nice man at the counter if there’s something going on. he’s newer to the region, and says he’s not sure... but proceeds to ask the next customer that comes in... who also has no idea.

nor does the man i stop on the street.

odd.

-------------------------------------

as for the astonishment at school, there are two reasons i was in such a state:

1.
1. for the past 3, if not 4, lessons with the younger of my classes at that school we have been learning the alphabet. (whether or not 7 year old french kids need to know the english alphabet is an entirely different matter... i just was out of ideas one day, and thought they might like to sing...) the first lesson or two was singing the song. then, because i had absolutely no idea what to do one day... i went down the roll, picking kids’ names at random and writing them on the board. they had to read the letters out to me. (they really, really liked this activity... i need more ingenious ideas like that to keep them all occupied...) today, again with no idea really what i was doing, i reviewed one more time the alphabet song, correcting their mispronunciations; i reviewed colors and food; and then i went through the food vocabulary, spelling the words out loud while they searched their lists for the words. they had to raise their hand when they found it. then we spelled a few more food items of their choosing together on the board. this, too, went over entirely way too well with the little people.


2.
2. as i’m getting done with class, i head over the computer room to check for a couple of emails that i’ve been waiting for (with no luck...). in the hallway, the kids are lining up and getting their coats and what have you on so they can go home to lunch. there are a couple of classes at the school i don’t teach, either because the kids are too young to start english or because their teacher is adept with the language and teaches them herself. the particular horde of children i ran into in the hall fit in the latter category. they know i’m the english assistant, and that my name is mark (i often speak to their teacher between classes or before lunch... always in english), but they don’t really know me. the last few times, i’ve said hello to them and asked them how they are doing. the largely shy away and seem all sorts of timid-like. this time, i said hello to a couple of them... asked how they were... and then asked their names. i worked with them a bit to help them understand my accent and get what i was saying. the bright little buggers figured it out... and next thing i know i’m surrounded by 20 little frenchies saying, “my name is...,” making sure that i hear each one of their respective names. they were fascinated by me, it seems (also, a bit surprised to learn that i know french). the teacher was later telling me that they want to have me come in with them some time for a lesson (which i would not be opposed to). never would i have thought that simply speaking my native tongue would cause such a reaction among a group of people... even midgitiles.

king for a day

sunday, we were invited over to the beaulieus. i have a bit of a link with the family beaulieu, just like i have a sort of connection with the branch president. the older of the two sons at home (i’m not sure if they have any other children besides the boys...) was in my mission. we were only serving in the mission together for a month and a half, and he was on the other side of the mission, so i never met him. but, i heard the name of elder gregory beaulieu several times through the course of my mission.

so... like i was saying... we were invited chez beaulieu for lunch. it was quite lovely. like a lot. one word sums it up: raclette.

for those who are not familiar with the marvelousness of raclette, a brief explanation follows, complete with pictures!

raclette means scraper... or something to that extent. it’s also a kind of cheese. the name of the cheese comes from the dish, which comes from the small wooden scraper that you use during the course of the meal.



to truly have eaten raclette one MUST have a raclette machine. (there’s a microwave version out now... but i’m not sure you can do that. it’s like saying mashed potatoes and instant potatoes are the same thing. lies!)

one places one’s cheese in the small tray, which is placed under the grilling surface. there’s a heating element under this last, which serves to both melt your cheese, and grill your cold-cuts and vegetables. sometimes there’s a place to cook crepes too.

the cooking surface is usually non-stick metal, but there are stone ones... and i've seen glass.



while the cheese is melting, you take one or more boiled potatoes (the potatoes here are a yellow potato... very moist and dense, with a slight buttery flavor...) and commence to cut or mash it on your plate. you can also add cold-cuts and vegetables, grilled or not.



when the cheese is bubbling and melted, you proceed to pour it over you potatoes. if the cheese sticks to the tray... you scrape. hence, raclette. then... before you do anything else, you put more cheese in your tray and place it back under the grill. there’s nothing worse in this world than having to wait 2 whole minutes for your cheese to melt, while your meat and potatoes get cold... and your belly is yelling “FEED ME, YOU IMBECILE!” bad form. cheese first, then eat. trust me... it’s for the best of everyone.

we then had some salad (what french meal is complete without it?) and bread... and then dessert (what french meal is complete without it?), which was a sort of creamy pastry thing. it had a puff pastry type crust, with a pastry cream inside (like in a bavarian cream?), and a whipped topping on top, vanilla or praline flavors. good.

and that’s how we spent our king’s day. though we didn’t figure that out until monday... because i couldn’t remember when it was exactly, and so i had to ask folks. (at least in france, it’s the first sunday of january... other sources tell me other things... but i’m in france... so i’m better than you, and that’s that.) so we had to eat our king cake on monday night. (which isn’t so big a deal, because i don’t think we’d’ve been able to down another thing that night...)

king cake, or galette des rois, is eaten on king’s day, or la fête des rois. it’s another puff pastry (i’m not sure i’m describing that properly... very much the same dough that a croissant is made with... buttery and flaky) filled with frangipani, a sort of almond paste. on the inside, there’s a fève, or bean, (which is actually a little porcelain figurine...) hidden in the pie (it’s more of a pie that a cake...). you cut the confection, and tradition says that the youngest person, usually while hiding under the table, dictates at random who will receive which piece. whoever finds the bean (chew carefully...) wins the crown that comes with the cake, is named king/queen for the day. the tradition celebrates the epiphany, or the moment when the magi kings (the gentiles) had the christ-child revealed to them. it’s a catholic thing. it’s also a louisiana thing. but, i think that it’s done during mardi gras in that part of the world.

winter wonderland

ok... so there’ve been all sorts of holidays going on around here these last days.

first off... i believe it was on the 13th there was the branch christmas get together. a little pageant, and a few things to snack on (mostly different cakes, pies and cookiesque items).

on the 24th, we had a nice little evening here at home. whitney filled you in on that already, in about as much detail as there was to give. except that the power went out in the afternoon... for about 3 hours. the main level of the building had power, but not anywhere else. so we all gathered around the staircase to talk about the power being out, and to speculate about why it had happened... and why the devil the main floor still had power. then there was turning off all the breakers, and then systematically turning each one back on until the offending apartment was found. (i believe they were out for the evening, and they just decided to leave the breaker off for that place until they could get an electrician to come in and regulate the problem... and as i recall, they weren’t very happy to have their power cut, and were threatening to go to the police over it. our poor concierge... what was he to do? leave the one apartment out, or turn their breaker on and have no juice for the other 29 places in the building?)

christmas day, we were invited to the bigay’s house. they had the whole family there: their four sons (mickaël, sabastien (with his girlfriend, élodie), pierre and yann), réné and florence, ming wan (random chinese friend of the family)... and us. vaitiare, a tahitian girl in the branch, was invited too, but unable to come. we had a right regular french christmas: oysters, smoked salmon, foie gras... and then for the main course we had duck with a mushroom and creame sauce. dessert was a homemade bûche de noël. uh... you could probably consider a pumpkin roll as being a variation on the bûche de noël: sponge cake with stuff in the middle. it was a raspberry flavored one. we also had american apple pie (provided by the americans...) this came in normal and non-spiced (the french have this thing with spices and not using a lot of them... except garlic. ok that’s not entirely true... but still). we also were invited back for dinner... which was much simpler: salad, zucchini soup and some left over things from meals precedent. we brought a bottle of champomy to share with everyone (it’s like martinelli’s). all in all, a really nice time.

for new year’s eve... we stayed up watching the first two highschool musicals (for lack of other things to watch), and made some apple rhubarb tarts to go with another bottle of champomy. we also had more fun with the power going off... but only in our apartment and the one next door. we’re on the same breaker with the neighbor. for some reason, it decided (for about 10 minutes) to shut itself off every 45 seconds or so. it was doing that a little bit yesterday too... but only like 5 times.

and that’s been our winter holiday season so far. more to come in a few days. :)

the wonderful view from the top of the staircase chez Bigay...

my wifers!

all the dishes left over from the dinner... for 12 people...

the table during dessert time

patrick and whitney chilling in the living room