I can hardly believe all of the things I've been talking about and thinking about and wanting to do are finally falling into place. I'm turning in my dissertation at the end of the week. I've got a short-term, temporary full-time festival job. I'm sending out queries about jobs for when I get home. I've sent out queries about shooting music videos ( Read more... )

Gruesome rain has taken over Edinburgh. Not necessarily in buckets and sheets, more like a thin, continuous mist that has been raging in between spurts of heavier downpours and the odd lightning bolt or two. (Or are those festival fireworks? One can never tell in this town...) Not only is it rainy, it's also windy AND cold - the perfect festival ( Read more... )

I made my triumphant return to the Filmhouse the other day to see the new Cèdric Klapisch film, “Paris.” I had wanted to see it at the Edinburgh Film Festival, but missed out, so I’m glad it came quickly to general release. It was a bit odd, seeing the streets of Paris, the landmarks, the buildings - just as they were, just as they always are. They ( Read more... )

So I've been back in Edinburgh for a couple days, living with the coolest German ever, my friend Sabine. Her other flatmate is German, and she had a German friend staying with us over the weekend, so I am happy to say there has been a lot of Deutsch-sprechen. They keep teaching me German words. It's fantastic. Sabine and I spent the weekend hanging ( Read more... )

I stood at the corner of Place de Clichy for about five minutes with a sign on my bike that read "A VENDRE, 25 EUROS"... Soon enough, a young woman walked up to me and bought it. I waited while she got some cash across the street, and in a few minutes she was back, money was exchanged, and away she rode on my best Parisian friend, the pleasure- ( Read more... )

And what a day it was. I took my bike on a final ride. Now I need to figure out how to get rid of it. Maybe an early morning wandering around one of the bridges with a FOR SALE sign. A VENDRE, that is. I got rid of some clothes (and bought some new - used - ones), did some packing, and some laundry, and wrapped things up here at the trusty flat ( Read more... )

My last days in Paris. Ah, the sadness. Yesterday I spent hours riding my bike around the Seine, to the Tour Eiffel (well, the closest I've been to it yet), through Paris Plages, down to the Pont de Sully, past the Palais Royale. It was kind of an epic journey through Paris, but fantastic. All in all, I rode for about 2 hours straight, then on-and- ( Read more... )

Is French the language of love, or is that Italian? Oh bother, I can't speak either, anyhow ( Read more... )

I went to the flea market, les puces, today. Around the perimeter it's more like a low-end fashion district you might finds in any city: knock-off designer sunglasses, Adidas track suits, slogan-y t-shirts, and the like. But the further into the thick of things you are, the more small antique dealers you'll see, the more clothes, the more old stuff ( Read more... )

I found a bunch of fortune cookie-fortunes in my wallet the other day, smudged by coins and battered by time, but all with wise words of advice, applicable every day. That's a quality fortune. One fortune stuck out to me particularly, maybe just because of the Engrish-ish sentence construction, but it seems particularly applicable at the moment ( Read more... )