Salut, la vie

Things are lookin’ up. I’m almost done with my annotated bibliography. I discovered that I was typing in font size 10, so when I scaled it up I’ve got way more than he asked for. Now I just need to make sure that I’m not doing quantity over quality. Next week, I begin to experiments! They’ve got most of a paper written, but need a little bit more data on flow velocity in this weird set up they have. It’s like a cylinder with an inverted cone on the bottom, and it’s full of tiny marbles. They’re looking at how water flows through it. Pretty sick, and I get to play with it.

I talked to some people at work! For entire minutes. We discussed where Oregon was. Also, one dude said that they’d take me out on my birthday. Not sure who he was talking about but mostly himself I think. How do you get to know people?!?! The only ones that talk to me are the ones who want to get into my pants. I guess you hook up with them and then they introduce you to their friends, who become your friends. Damnit. I have the worst strategies. The only other network I can think to exploit is the expat community, but I don’t just want to be friends with expats. Fuck.

After work, I took a detour on my way home. I was intending to go to an English bookstore (yeup, see above paragraph) but got distracted by everything else. I’m definitely going to continue to explore the area of town around the capitol. I wanna find where I was last time I was in Toulouse, because it was also very nice, but so far no luck. This area I was in today has a lot of tiny streets with all kinds of shop and restaurants. On sunny afternoons like today everyone is out with their friends at bars. I eventually meandered home and dropped off my computer. I went out again and crossed la Garonne, but the other side of the river wasn’t as nice as my side. 

Then I came home and ate salad and watched Asterix et Obelix aux Jeux Olympiques. The sound quality isn’t very good because it’s just a file and not a DVD, but if I watch it more than once I’ll pick up more of the rapid-fire French comedy. 

THE SUN IS COMPLETELY SET AND I AM NOT ASLEEP. FUCK YOU JETLAG.

Also apparently the water-people play soccer tomorrow afternoon. Down. But kinda too embarrassed to play. Oh but I want to. It’ll work out.

WHERE GRAFFITI IS ALLOWED

cans of paint litter the square

tall dark and ghoulish brick walls

they sing like a palace but run like a prison

boxing in with lips around the edges

the gate is wide

spread like a butler’s arms

but the walls cave in

ban to forget

that people in dreams

don’t come here

I finally sleep and then this happens

Just had a wild dream.

It began in the woods. A woman was running away from her husband. She waited in a field, and another person wearing clothing that covered every inch of their body brought two horses. It became known to me that this woman was black, while the other was white. There was a hint of romantic involvement. As they prepared to leave a bigot (not her husband) surprised them and was about to kill the runaway who had stayed behind to let the other woman escape…

Suddenly I’m in a cabin with a younger version of Ali. We talk about her future, and how she wants to be cool and popular. Our clothes both keep falling off, but we just put them back on and keep talking. I am amused by her ambition, and she recognizes this but still plans to succeed…

I am at gymnastics class. The high-powered mothers and skinny blond daughters mill around while the former talks and the latter stretches. It looks like a summer camp. I realize that I’m wearing the black and white sheer skirt I bought just before leaving the States. I ask my mother to trade clothes we me, as she is wearing black yoga pants, but when we do her pants become a black skirt again….

We are watching a comedy/documentary about a man who found a seedy bar and turned it into a novelty experience bar.  There are old things, red shiny booth seats, and mirrors everywhere. Suddenly I am in the bar, with Ray and some strangers. One is a man who is too drunk and has a large black bag. Another man is skinny and quiet, and a woman is lean and dark haired. As the drunk man stands up to go to the bathroom, the woman goes through his bag and takes some money, but not all of it. We laugh nervously and don’t tell him about the theft when he returns…

Ray and I are in the hallway outside of the bathroom. The dark lean woman is talking to Corinne and they go into the bathroom together. As they enter I say “NO!” I’m worried that Corinne will be robbed. Ray panics and takes me outside. He tells me that she is a very dangerous woman and might come after me for almost blowing her cover. It is dark and he leaves me outside, telling me he will go and assess the situation. Liana is drunk against a wall and beckons me over and starts to talk loudly but I beg her to be quiet as I wait for news. As we wait I notice there are other people: Ellie and a few unnamed bodies. Ray comes out and tells me to run.

We all start running, but I am out of breath and grab Liana and Ellie’s arms. Liana pulls me up but Ellie stumbles. We leave her behind and keep running. I am still out of breath, so I stop to hide by some trees in a clump in a parking lot.  The woman walks into view and scans the parking lot. Several times I am sure that she is about to leave, but something stops her. Finally she sees me. My black clothes have somehow become that pink and blue floral dress with the new velvet addition on the sleeve, and they betray me. We make eye contact, and I shake my head. She shakes her head too. I walk out to meet her, like the woman in the field. I say that Corinne is my friend, and she nods as if she understands. I suddenly know that Ray betrayed me, lied to her about the extent of my divulgence, and told her how to look for me. I also think that this woman may not be human.

I wake up, wondering why I didn’t wake until I had surrendered.

More Mundane Ramblings About (non)Adjustment

I bought orange toilet paper, for novelty. Little did I know that it was colored to underscore the fact that it was scented. I was only seeking the one unusual characteristic, but now I am stuck with both. It smells much like a car air freshener, but doesn’t really appear to freshen the air very much. I am clearly doing some serious living in Toulouse.

On that note, jetlag is still in its semi-fatal stage. My concentration is poor and my eyes are heavy, but I fight on for the cause of circadian rhythm. My strategic pool grows: after eating and spinning fans and reading some more science I have gone on to writing. I will later proceed to reading and perhaps finally a movie, though that will only prolong my alertness for a few minutes. I am tempted to continue on a schedule of early to bed early to rise, but then I will never ever have a life. If I am able to postpone sleep until 8 pm, I will be very proud of myself. I had some very strong coffee that is no longer in effect, which only makes my job now harder. At least I wasn’t falling asleep while trying to understand fluid dynamics this afternoon.

The question of internet remains a great trouble. I will allegedly have access to the internet soon, but I signed a document that says I will only use it for research. I’m going to ask how strict of a rule that is. The IMFT has wifi, but that is a place of work and I don’t want to mix business and pleasure. It’s going to be problematic if I can’t have internet here, because I don’t spend any Oregon business hours at the IMFT. That means I can’t call the bank, or skype my friends, or what have you. Luckily my father wakes at 5:30 am, so I will be able to contact him pretty easily. ON VERA.

Also, how will I look up punk shows and make a google calendar of all the things I want to do?

Things I want to write about later:

1.      1. Tips for solo international travel (especially students/young’uns)

2.    2.   Education, from the Perspective of One Who Has Seen Many Systems and Has Some Opinions Based on Slightly Removed Observations.

3.     3.  Buk Tox (Book Talks) cuz i reed

I guess I will publish these in order once a day like a queue in tumblr. Still pretty quotidian because I can’t deal with my life right now, but that’s what it needs to be and when my thoughts get deeper you’ll be the first to know.

Ville-samkeit

Waldeinsamkeit is an untranslatable German word meaning “the feeling of being alone in the woods.” I think I need a word for the feeling of being alone in a city. I think, though I’m too embedded to tell for sure, that the good and bad feelings of being alone in a city are really just facets of one feeling.  Maybe they are different interpretations of that feeling. I am feeling it, whatever it is.

I’m living in a tiny room, truly incredibly small. It reminds me somewhat of my room in Switzerland, except that the utility of space is maximized. I have a toilet, sink and shower tucked into a closet, a refrigerator in the corner, a closet that provides a third wall for a pair of shelves, shelves tucked into an indent in the wall, shelves under a stool, and a desk, with some shelves. The coup de grace is the bed, which pushes up to the ceiling when not in use. The stairs that take you to the bed also have shelves built in.

Crazy as it is, all of my stuff fits in this room. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t bring too much stuff. Too much clothes, above all. It will be nice not to have to do much laundry, however. I might mail some of it home. I’ll have to find a post office anyways, because my friends will kill me if I don’t write to them. Since I’m currently writing my blog posts in Microsoft Word, I am not overconfident in the accessibility of the internet to communicate.

The threat of not having internet is a rather looming. I discovered that one of the movies I brought (Closer) has some strange defect and will probably not ever play again. That leaves me I’m Not There to satisfy my need for moving pictures, if I will never be able to illegally watch Game of Thrones again. On the other hand, I brought a small library with me to France, so I shouldn’t want for distraction. 3 ipods means Pandora probably won’t be too sorely missed.

And yet, I am still very uncomfortable with the idea of not having internet. There is a loose cable in this room that may be the one I need, otherwise I’ll have to buy an RJ45 thingamajig at the FNAC. I also need a password and username from the water-people if I’m going to have internet here. Alternatively, I can find a café or something, or use my lunch break at the water-place to check facebook.  Skype calls will be harder.

I know these posts are pretty banal but I need to write all of these things down so that I stop worrying about them on a loop in my head.

Oh, also, the kitchen doesn’t have any pans, pots, forks or knives. I suppose I need to invest in those. Or I will become a salad-cheese-mustard-and-bread-ist and not eat anything else, which is very appealing.

It is kinda chilly here, which I greatly appreciate. It barely broke 20 degrees C here yesterday. Feels a little more like home.

Edith’s half-melted cast of her face sits on one of the many shelves. So far it mostly makes me sad but maybe it will be nice later on. 

I wonder if I feel uncomfortable in Toulouse because it bears very little resemblance to Madrid. It’s unlike any other city I’ve been in. I’ll try to give it a chance.

Classic case of ville-samkeit.

So this is how it is: The France Situation

I'm in France, right, until August 16th. So far I haven't got any internet at home so my current strategy is to walk to 2+ miles to work an hour early, and sit outside by the Garonne and do my internet-y funtimes before staring at the computer even more inside as I create an annotated bibliography of visualization of biofilm diffusion coefficients.

I've been writing a lot anyways, even without the internet. It's all in Microsoft word and I'll be posting it gradually because I would rather do that than put it all up at once because I'm a tease.

In the meantime, see you at 9 am Toulouse time and midnight PST.

Love and stuff,
Julia

Good Morning, France

6:06 am in Toulouse, France on June 3^rd 2013. In an hour the Carrefour will be open, and then I will have food and toilet paper, two crucial and currently absent ingredients of life. Yesterday, deeply saddened because the entire city was closed out of respect for the Sabbath or respect for relaxation, I began to fall apart at around 6 pm. I watched Closer in an effort to occupy my mind without using it, and this had some mild success. At 7:20 the program that played the movie crashed completely and depressed me even more. The problems that I have with this computer are ill-timed and overwhelming. I feel that I should be entirely capable of defeating them and yet feel powerless against them.

Excuse the tone of Weltschmertz, I’ve been reading This Side of Paradise since 4:45 this morning and it’s impossible not to absorb some of it. That was a primary concern as I began the book, noting that the only qualities that the protagonist and I shared were ones that caused me a great deal of trouble and eroded the more respectable parts of me. I’ve said myself that one should read things one disagrees with, however, and this book is an exercise in that. Amory’s triumphs are failures, and his failures triumphs in my mind. The danger of reading a disagreeable thing that is well written is that it is too easily absorbed. I love to read poorly written ideas that I disagree with, because I have no trouble rejecting them.

On the other hand, as long as the offending ideas remain small and easily codified in the midst of poetry they can still be useful. I found this in The Bluest Eye which gave far too much pity to rapists. This excess of pity served to solidify my own hatred of them by deciding that their compassion could come from other sources and I was free to detest them completely. This is also false, but I do love extremes and I will feel it until some other case makes it impossible.

 It’s nice that I never have to express this twist to my philosophy, because it seems disingenuous. I frequently allow myself to believe things that are wrong, in such a way that can be changed whenever necessary. That’s not really belief then, is it? It’s just filling in a blank where belief ought to be.

Freewriting is magnificently dangerous; I don’t know why I allow myself to indulge. It makes me wish I was one of the slow and studied people like Edith, who don’t allow their unguided mind to make them who they are. My brand of meditation is equally messy. I become whoever I am with no thought of whether I want to be that person, and even smaller consideration of whether that person is in any way “good.”

Who I am is not something latently outside of my control, but I allow it to be because… well, who knows. Laziness, pleasure in surprises, no impetus to do better; could be anything.  Perhaps because I have faith that I am already what I want to be and all that is left is to discover her. That’s a little kinder.

Here I am very different from Amory Blaine, and yet by reading a book about him I could easily become him. What an unnatural paradox; I must have made a mistake somewhere. The hours between 12:20 and 4:45 are a dozy mess and I blame them for my strangeness this morning.