**N.B.: I sent this out as a mass email a while back, and decided it would serve just as well as a blog entry. I'm sure you'll agree.**
So first off—I had a very cynical, bitter New York friend who lived in Paris for a year and hated it. He never tried learning French, didn’t like wine b/c it wasn’t as manly as beer, made friends of mostly the ex-pat persuasion…well you can probably see where this is going. Anyway, when I got to Paris he was excited to share with me his “reason # [whatever] to hate the French” list with me. I was having none of it and changed it to “reason # [whatever] to laugh [insert annoying French habit here].” Yes, it took me over an hour of standing in line to buy 6 grocery items (and that was in the fast lane…) with less than 10 people in front of me, but hey, it’s funny! Most of these reasons aren’t actually super amusant, but if you don’t laugh you just go insane, is what I always say.
**kK Tangent 2,000,206**
I’m pretty sure Dr. Bob Kelso is doing his own French voice over. I could be wrong…it’s almost 2 am and I’ve just spent about 4 hours trying to converse en francais at a surprise dinner party at Squash's house. Yes, I have NO internet connection but I DO have several free channels of awesomely awful French tv. Every so often I get lucky and catch a dubbed version of True Lies or Rambo 800,001, but most of the time I get stuck with reruns of Bones or NCIS (heh heh stuck, dude, those shows are AWESOME) and now, as you can see, I’m stumbled upon a Scrubs marathon. Apparently the French can’t think up good crap shows on their own so they dub over ours and pass them off as their main selections. You should see what the fuck they actually DO produce and pass for on-air-ing…my favorite was the one about a girl in a dance troupe who was having an affair with her dance instructor and…*drumroll* someone was trying to KILL HER. I didn’t actually stick around to see if they did her in or not…I was distracted by the fanfrickintastic French MUSIC videos on the next channel over. OMG YOU MUST check out L’Assassaphonie from Mozart L’Opera Rock. It’s gotta be on YouTube somewhere. Maybe I’ll find the link myself and send it to you, if you’re really good little boys and girls. Anyway, back to my original tangent—Bob’s French voice sounds an awful lot like his English voice. I’m just sayin’.
**possible end of kK Tangent 2,000,206**
**possible end of kK Tangent 2,000,206**
So I’ve moved into my teeny-ass apartment…when I say teeny, I mean I have to put the bed back in couch position in order to move around the room. And yes, there’s only one room, although I guess the bathroom could count as a separate room since it has a door (which I can’t close when I’m sitting on the toilet…I know, TMI, but I’m just sayin’…) but we’re just stickin’ with the one-room cabin image here. In the mornings I like to squeeze out onto my petit balcon and sip on my hot instant coffee and sneak in bites of my croissant buerre (if you don’t specify ‘buerre’ you get some crap waxy substance masquerading as croissant) as the fat ass pigeons swoop over to the roof of my building and schloop their heads over to stare at me in a very disturbing “Birds” rendition as they wait for me to share my breakfast. Fuck you, fat ass pigeons.
Anyway, so location: I can walk 10 minutes to the Eiffel Tower, 15 to Musee D’Orsay. I hear more English than I do French around here, but luckily I have the aforementioned tv with lots of French-speaking crazies chatting or dubbing or singing, whatever. And my friend Stephanie has two French roommates, and I get to try practicing with them. I’m paying in rent more than I actually make (bye bye, savings in pitiful dollars…) but I’ve posted for English lessons so hopefully I get a few 15 Euro-an-hour-paying clients soon. Plus we supposedly get reimbursed for part of our monthly metro pass, and I am hoping and praying the French government agrees I made such a pittance in 2007 (200-friggin-7?? Why do they need to know my salary in 2007!) that they’ll help me pay some of my rent. Who the fuck knows, but it doesn’t hurt to ask I guess. So much paper work it makes my eyes cross.
Did I mention it’s on the 5th floor…sans elevator? Yup, my calves are going to be auditioning for calf-modeling by the end of this school year, you just wait and see.
OK, school: I’ve only had one week of observation and training so far, and haven’t actually taught my own class yet. That starts next week. I’m already shakin’ in my boots. Actually, I think some of it will be really awesome…a couple of classes are really well behaved AND like to try their hand at speaking English, so WHEW. Other classes are like der…no words at all, English or French. Hmmm, that should be interesting…I mean, they didn’t even laugh at my goofy dance! Whatevs. I’ll break ‘em. I don’t really know how all this is going to go…I’ve never seen myself doing the teaching thing (you all know how much I heart me some kiddies…) but since it’s what got me to france I’m gonna give it a chance.
Never mind, Kelso’s voice is done by a frenchie. Damn, I was really impressed for like two seconds.
Heart you all…I’ll write more soon. Tomorrow I’m going to a store to try and order internet installation…If I can get a good price and agree to their service terms, THEN they will start the paperwork for the technician to come FIFTEEN DAYS LATER. MuthaFU---
heart,
KK
OK I decided to do the work for you: http://www.youtube.com/
ENJOY!!! I know I do... heh heh
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