L'chaim!
Sorry for the long post...
Right, so status update... I was going to update Monday, but life got in the way, and then the internet died... again. So here's the deal: I went to a couple concerts on Saturday (part of the FIG), started with a pretty cool interpretive dance troupe named "Danser Sans Compter" (Dance without Counting)... unfortunately the name was somewhat prophetic as they had numerous sync issues. But the choreography and ideas within the performance were excellent. And to be fair, it was their first performance of the festival, so there might have been nerve issues. Then I went to a flamenco concert which was awesome: two guitarists, two vocalists, and a dancer. Then to a concert of a group called "Les Matelots Errants" (The Errant Sailors) who were also awesome, though I understood maybe a third of it, because it was difficult to hear (we were in a bar) and I don't know nautical terminology in French. But awesome nonetheless. From there I went to a fireworks show, where one of the apprentice techs almost died. On three separate occasions. He had trouble lighting things, while the other guy didn't, and so things would start going off before he got clear. It was bad. But the fireworks were excellent, better in fact than several 4th of July displays I've seen.
Sunday, I wandered around the FIG, read, worked on stuff... not much really happened. Monday, we had a meeting in Épinal (which is basically the county seat of the Vosges department) for all of the English elementary school assistants in the Vosges department (of which there are 9, including me). So there's a 6 girls and 3 guys. One guy is American and the other's Scottish. The country breakdown is 5 Americans (3 are from NY... which I find weird (Though 2 are from upstate) the 4th is from Oklahoma), 1 Canadian (who brought her husband (who doesn't speak French)), 1 Scot, 1 Brit and an Irish gal. The Irish gal has a really strong Irish accent (think Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in August Rush)... even when she's speaking in French, and the Scot has the same thing with a Scottish accent. It's totally awesome. I spent most of the lunch chatting with them. They are supremely awesome people, but unfortunately they both live an hour away from me by train.
Also, I have gotten profoundly irritated with people when they laugh at my pronunciation of my home region. I am a child of Appalachia. They're the Appalachian Mountains App-a-latch-in. It's not App-a-lash-in, App-a-lay-shin, or App-a-lay-chin. But nope, apparently not to the Yankees. Granted I really want to just drag them out to Chauncey and watch the epic-fail. ...Sorry, I'm just a little touchy about my home region. In fact, one of the 3-4 times I've gotten pissed off in the past 4 years was because of a comment about Appalachians (the people) and how someone was obviously uneducated because they spoke with an Appalachian accent. Hoo buddy. That was a fireworks show. 15 minutes, and I pulled out an Appalachian accent that would have made my brother proud.
Anyway, my contact person told me an awesome joke in French so this'll be translated (both into English and $), and then for those of you who don't speak French, there'll be an explanation: So this French guy decides he wants to learn English, so he looks through the ads in the newspaper and finds an ad for "English lessons: 50 classes for $800" and he thinks this is a little pricey, so he keeps looking and finds "English lessons: 50 classes for $500" and he kinda wavers on it and keeps looking and then he sees an ad for "English Classes: 50 classes for $50" and he thinks "This is the one for me." So he writes down the address and goes to it and there's no sign, but instead there's just this house in the middle of a suburb. So he shrugs, and walks up to the door and knocks on it, and this little old wiry guy opens the door. So the guy says to him "I'm sorry, but this isn't the place for English classes is it?" And the guy responds "If! If! Between!" ... (Right so the word in French for "if" is "si", but it's also what you say if you want to respond "yes" to a negative question: such as the one in the story. The word for "between" is "entre" which is phonetically identical to "entres" which is the command (2nd person singular, so also informal) "to enter". Yeah, not as funny if you don't speak both languages, sorry.)
Then she was asking me if I had any luck finding a piano (I asked her if she knew where I could find one... she didn't). So we were chatting, and she asks me if I play anything else, so I tell her Trombone, Baritone, and I sing. Turns out her husband, M Dessonet, is in a choir... so I tagged along. It was a blast because 1) I missed singing in a group so much, and 2) the director says "What do you sing" and M Dessonet says "he sings both tenor and bass" and the director's eyes just widen and he says, "well sing whichever you're more comfortable with." And then one of the tenors yells "we need more tenors!" So I wander back to the tenors, do all of the introductions, and we start singing stuff. So we get to one song and we get to the end of the song, and the director is breaking the song down by part, so he plays the Soprano part and then has the sopranos sing it, repeat for Alto's, then he gets to the tenors. He plays the part and everyone laughs. Why? Because it's a baritone (barbershop) part. (This is funny because in barbershop the baritone part is written last, and is whatever notes are left over, so it normally sounds like an 8 year-old playing piano with an elbow and foot. But put with the rest of a quartet, it sounds awesome). So we sing it 2-3 times till everyone (all 4 of us) gets it. So then we sing the entire song, and we get to that part, and I nail it, but the two guys to my left totally f-it up. So we end, and the guy to my left says to the guy to his left "did you hear him?!" Then he turns back to me and said "you said you're here for 3 years right?... Damn."
Today I got a care package from my mom... filled with JIF and Reese's Cups. God I love my mom. Anyway I think that's about it for now.
Big 3:
Best: take your pick from the stuff above.
Worst: Finishing L'Etranger par Albert Camus. He spends the entire book making the most apathetic character ever, and then does all of the actual philosophical discussion in the last 15-20 pages, once he's made sure you no longer care what happens to the him.
Funniest: Many... too many to choose from. But I think it goes to the announcement that my hall-mate (the New Zealander) won this competition at the FIG... and they announced him as an Irishman.
Right, so status update... I was going to update Monday, but life got in the way, and then the internet died... again. So here's the deal: I went to a couple concerts on Saturday (part of the FIG), started with a pretty cool interpretive dance troupe named "Danser Sans Compter" (Dance without Counting)... unfortunately the name was somewhat prophetic as they had numerous sync issues. But the choreography and ideas within the performance were excellent. And to be fair, it was their first performance of the festival, so there might have been nerve issues. Then I went to a flamenco concert which was awesome: two guitarists, two vocalists, and a dancer. Then to a concert of a group called "Les Matelots Errants" (The Errant Sailors) who were also awesome, though I understood maybe a third of it, because it was difficult to hear (we were in a bar) and I don't know nautical terminology in French. But awesome nonetheless. From there I went to a fireworks show, where one of the apprentice techs almost died. On three separate occasions. He had trouble lighting things, while the other guy didn't, and so things would start going off before he got clear. It was bad. But the fireworks were excellent, better in fact than several 4th of July displays I've seen.
Sunday, I wandered around the FIG, read, worked on stuff... not much really happened. Monday, we had a meeting in Épinal (which is basically the county seat of the Vosges department) for all of the English elementary school assistants in the Vosges department (of which there are 9, including me). So there's a 6 girls and 3 guys. One guy is American and the other's Scottish. The country breakdown is 5 Americans (3 are from NY... which I find weird (Though 2 are from upstate) the 4th is from Oklahoma), 1 Canadian (who brought her husband (who doesn't speak French)), 1 Scot, 1 Brit and an Irish gal. The Irish gal has a really strong Irish accent (think Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in August Rush)... even when she's speaking in French, and the Scot has the same thing with a Scottish accent. It's totally awesome. I spent most of the lunch chatting with them. They are supremely awesome people, but unfortunately they both live an hour away from me by train.
Also, I have gotten profoundly irritated with people when they laugh at my pronunciation of my home region. I am a child of Appalachia. They're the Appalachian Mountains App-a-latch-in. It's not App-a-lash-in, App-a-lay-shin, or App-a-lay-chin. But nope, apparently not to the Yankees. Granted I really want to just drag them out to Chauncey and watch the epic-fail. ...Sorry, I'm just a little touchy about my home region. In fact, one of the 3-4 times I've gotten pissed off in the past 4 years was because of a comment about Appalachians (the people) and how someone was obviously uneducated because they spoke with an Appalachian accent. Hoo buddy. That was a fireworks show. 15 minutes, and I pulled out an Appalachian accent that would have made my brother proud.
Anyway, my contact person told me an awesome joke in French so this'll be translated (both into English and $), and then for those of you who don't speak French, there'll be an explanation: So this French guy decides he wants to learn English, so he looks through the ads in the newspaper and finds an ad for "English lessons: 50 classes for $800" and he thinks this is a little pricey, so he keeps looking and finds "English lessons: 50 classes for $500" and he kinda wavers on it and keeps looking and then he sees an ad for "English Classes: 50 classes for $50" and he thinks "This is the one for me." So he writes down the address and goes to it and there's no sign, but instead there's just this house in the middle of a suburb. So he shrugs, and walks up to the door and knocks on it, and this little old wiry guy opens the door. So the guy says to him "I'm sorry, but this isn't the place for English classes is it?" And the guy responds "If! If! Between!" ... (Right so the word in French for "if" is "si", but it's also what you say if you want to respond "yes" to a negative question: such as the one in the story. The word for "between" is "entre" which is phonetically identical to "entres" which is the command (2nd person singular, so also informal) "to enter". Yeah, not as funny if you don't speak both languages, sorry.)
Then she was asking me if I had any luck finding a piano (I asked her if she knew where I could find one... she didn't). So we were chatting, and she asks me if I play anything else, so I tell her Trombone, Baritone, and I sing. Turns out her husband, M Dessonet, is in a choir... so I tagged along. It was a blast because 1) I missed singing in a group so much, and 2) the director says "What do you sing" and M Dessonet says "he sings both tenor and bass" and the director's eyes just widen and he says, "well sing whichever you're more comfortable with." And then one of the tenors yells "we need more tenors!" So I wander back to the tenors, do all of the introductions, and we start singing stuff. So we get to one song and we get to the end of the song, and the director is breaking the song down by part, so he plays the Soprano part and then has the sopranos sing it, repeat for Alto's, then he gets to the tenors. He plays the part and everyone laughs. Why? Because it's a baritone (barbershop) part. (This is funny because in barbershop the baritone part is written last, and is whatever notes are left over, so it normally sounds like an 8 year-old playing piano with an elbow and foot. But put with the rest of a quartet, it sounds awesome). So we sing it 2-3 times till everyone (all 4 of us) gets it. So then we sing the entire song, and we get to that part, and I nail it, but the two guys to my left totally f-it up. So we end, and the guy to my left says to the guy to his left "did you hear him?!" Then he turns back to me and said "you said you're here for 3 years right?... Damn."
Today I got a care package from my mom... filled with JIF and Reese's Cups. God I love my mom. Anyway I think that's about it for now.
Big 3:
Best: take your pick from the stuff above.
Worst: Finishing L'Etranger par Albert Camus. He spends the entire book making the most apathetic character ever, and then does all of the actual philosophical discussion in the last 15-20 pages, once he's made sure you no longer care what happens to the him.
Funniest: Many... too many to choose from. But I think it goes to the announcement that my hall-mate (the New Zealander) won this competition at the FIG... and they announced him as an Irishman.