unfair

All I want to do is

post pictures
eat some carrots
watch Evangelion
write emails
knit
wander around outside
read yesterday's New York Times Magazine
tell you about London

but instead I have to pack.
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  henry van dyke

Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings, --
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free, --
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

--Henry Van Dyke  ¶  0 comments

  les misérables

Here is an excerpt from an email Fischer sent me:

"In the same way that a 2-hour lunch could get absurdly tedious, so can an 8-hour or 10-hour or 16-hour workday. But on the other hand, they could be done very right. What do French people do with the extra leisure time that they choose to take? Do they seem as if they are better at using their free time? I hope there is more public merry-making, if there is a whole country of people that put a high value leisure: I hope they don't just spend it alone."

Which reminded me of an article that appeared in Le Monde last week, the opening of which I have translated below:

"The Frenchman is worried. He is more anxious than his European neighbors about the future of his children, he dreads becoming poor, homeless, or losing his job, he is distrustful of the police and the justice system, of globalization and the unions and Parliament; he is even more suicidal [than other Europeans]. And this, in a country rather less poor and less unequal than the average European country.

'French people are the ones who are worrying the most, who are complaining the most, even though the country is not doing so badly,' says a surprised Julien Damon, the head of the department of social questions at the Center for Strategic Analysis. 'France is doing well,' he says again, 'better than certain 'déclinologues' [made-up buzzword to describe naysayers and pessimists who say France is on the decline] want to let you believe, those who talk about bankruptcy-- but even if there was a decline, French people are more anxious than their neighbors.' ...The French are the most worried about the risk of downward mobility, and 86% think that 'anyone could fall into poverty over the course of their lives,' versus 62% on average in Europe. 13% think that they could 'become homeless one day,' just behind the Latvians and the Lithuanians. An explosive score, compared to the Danes and the Dutch (1%), the Germans, (2%) or the British (8%).

How do we explain this anxious side of the French?"

The article goes on to suggest that French people are more actively conscious of social ills, that poverty is more visible to them and because poverty is a recurring, long-running issue that has been on the table in elections and public discourse persistently for decades (unlike in the U.S., where attention [in my opinion] paid to poverty waxes and wanes). It also says that their glorious social model is not so glorious, designed under the assumption of a father working full-time and a mother who stays home and cares for the kids, and that the erosion of this model in a country with a 10% unemployment rate is causing "anguish."

Of course, none of this directly answers Fischer's question. Well, if you ask me, I think that the French feel less guilty about spending time doing things they enjoy, and they don't compartmentalize "enjoyment" or "leisure" as just another task the way Americans often do. And, it just so happens that one thing they enjoy is complaining a lot.

I know what you're saying-- "eve, stop talking and show us a picture." Fine. Here it is, the softer (and weirder) side of cultural intersection.




"So soft." Because what child wants to take a snooze on a crusty ol' baguette? No no, I need Harry's American Sandwich for all my bread-bed needs.

And of course, at the bottom, the requisite reminder to "for your health, practice a regular physical activity." Cause if not, American bread will turn you into a comatose little girl.  ¶  0 comments

  back from london

Well, the GRE was good, but London was great! I'll be going back with my mom when she comes--

Oh man, I just realized that last night I dreamed I was making pancakes. Mmm, pancakes.... Usually I remember my dreams in the context of thinking they're real and then realizing they're dreams. Like, "Hey, where the heck are my pancakes? Aw man, they were pretend!" Last night I had a pretty weird assortment of dreams. I dreamed I was swimming in a dolphin tank, and when I got out my friend Jonathan came up to ask me if I could give him zombie makeup for Halloween.

Halloween... I sure am sad about that. I think I will find something to do Wednesday night, but it just won't be the same. The French do not get it, and my friends aren't hear to get together and dress up with. Well, next year I will have to make up for it by having a Halloween party of tremendous proportions.

Anyway! London. So, the person who had agreed graciously to host me for the night was a woman named Candace. I didn't know anything at all about her except that my mom had met her at some point last year, so when I showed up on her doorstep Wednesday morning I had no idea what to expect. She turned out to be a rather august creature: a Radcliffe-educated filmmaker-turned-novelist, the first black woman admitted into the Directors Guild of America, an expat of some dozen years or more, living alone in a tremendous house just north of London's center. She was encouragingly talkative and pleasantly blunt, informing me in short order that she was in the middle of a divorce, that she was raised in Connecticut and while her neighbors thought it odd for her to have the whole enormous house to herself, where she was from it was perfectly common for single women to live in houses much bigger than this one, that she had expected to end up in Paris but found London friendlier, although she went to Provence every year, that she had hosted Michelle Obama at a fundraiser the previous week, and would I like honey with my tea? For my part, I was not raised in Connecticut, but I was raised to be able to talk to lots of different people about lots of different things, and I know my fair share about books, the Obama family, and what I want in my tea. After an hour of excellent conversation, I headed out to lunch and the British Museum, with an invitation and a promise to return home for Candace's excellent dinner and more conversation.

The British Museum is so cool! Very well-curated, with lots of interesting information provided on all the collections (unlike the Louvre which more or less leaves you to fend for yourself). I will try to trick you into thinking it's a generic natural/human history museum, but don't be fooled! I think the thing I appreciated best were the Viking things and the collection from the Roman era in Britain, because you don't get to see that stuff in museums that often. I mean of course they have tons of Egyptian things, but I've seen lots of Egyptian things. But, they were cool too! It was all cool. Would you like to see a few pictures...?

Ramses had a giant head:



Oh my!



Perhaps my single favorite thing in the museum: this collection of the Lewis Chessmen, carved somewhere in Scandinavia during the 12th century.

...Well... I guess the human skull inlaid with turquoise was pretty cool too.... Okay, I had many favorites.



Viking silver! Being less artsy and more, you know into pillaging, the Vikings tended to just chop their silver up into ingots for easy molding and remolding and trade.



When I got home, I had a delicious dinner, more good conversation, and a hot bath. Did someone mention something about a test?  ¶  0 comments

  bizarre happenings

File this under "Is this really happening?" Tonight I checked out a place in the Latin Quarter called Le Who's Bar (yay mangled English). Three American men, 1) from Detroit, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, or somewhere similar, 2) over 300 pounds, 3) smoking cigars, 4) and all bearing an uncanny resemblance to John Goodman, were harassing the bartender, who was Bilbo-sized. Seriously these guys were so un-Parisian I feel like aliens must have transported them here as some kind of a joke. They entertained themselves by picking up the bartender, carrying him around, and taking pictures of it. He seemed to enjoy it, so hey. I was also tempted to take pictures but didn't want to call attention to myself. Meanwhile an elderly Middle Eastern man was singing pop songs over pre-recorded reggae beat versions of the backing tracks. His setlist (which I dutifully recorded on a receipt from Monoprix) included "Wild World" by Cat Stevens (which I am listening to as I write this post, for proper inspiration), "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, "Imagine" by John Lennon (it was really awesome hearing the American guys sing along to that one), and "La Bamba"by Ritchie Valens. A megamix if I've ever heard one. The bathroom also had a picture of Bart Simpson on it and inside there was a mysterious thing over the sink that I thought was a soap dispenser but it kind of looked like an avocado? And no soap came from it. France = full of mysteries.

Anyway it was good to do something fun since I have been studying and working a lot recently. It's gotten colder here recently, which in some ways is very unpleasant but also feels natural; I have spent much of my adolescence walking home in the cold and semi-dark with a big scarf up to my mouth and my shoulders all hunched up, listening to music, so it sort of makes me feel in my element. On the way home tonight I also stopped at Pozzetto, my neighborhood gelato place that gets WAY too much of my money, and where I had an outstanding debt because the other night when I went there I didn't have small change and the tall, surly, perpetually unshaven Italian man who works there told me to just pay next time, which was an act of faith because it's gotten colder and there very well could have not been a next time. But, I am a woman of my word and I was happy to stop and pay him the three euros on my way back tonight.

Psyched for London! I bought a nice big new memory card for my camera so I can take lots of pictures. But you're not bored of Paris yet, are you?

I sure hope not.....







Here is the hallway to the Bibliothèque Baudoyer:




Vive la république française! Even though its strikes annoy me majorly.


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