Sunday, 30 October 2011
French vs. British part 1
While Mother was here visitng, we took her to Blenheim Palace. Her English had improved a lot thanks to several language courses combined and crammed into a period of couple of months preceding her visit, but still was not up to understanding the guide there. I was therefore translating for her, as quietly as I possibly could, she was actually bending over to keep her ear as close to my mouth as possible.
At one point, I noticed a posh looking lady giving me evil looks. Didn't think much of it, but the next thing I knew, the lady spoke: "Can you stop talking, I can't hear her (meaning the guide) if you are speaking in the same time." No please, no nothing, no being apologetic, and the accent leaving no doubt the lady was French.
I didn't bother responding, just pulled Mother away from the lady, so that we would not disturb her anymore - the 'a bit English' part of me in control clearly, although the 'a bit French' part of me gave her an evil look and started listing snappy responses to her 'polite' request.
After the tour, I told Paul all about it, and being both English and really nice, he opposed me vehemently, saying that I could not generalise.
But of course I can.
This is not to say that each and every French person would have behaved the same. Just an average one, as the French society teaches its members to function in a certain specific way towards others, and the English one in a different specific way - had the lady been English, my bet is she would have moved away from us, if I was really disturbing her. That is not to say, of course, that each and every English person would. Just the average one.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
like riding a bike
'I bought a piano' I told my parents.
Mother immediately provided me with such an amount of good advice that I fervently wished I had not bought the piano at all or at least that I had had the presence of mind not to tell my parents about it.
Father said not to worry, that it was like riding a bike - one did not forget and it came back quickly.
Well, not really.
Not after twenty years (NB. saying this makes me slightly alarmed. I actually had not played the piano for twenty years. I am old enough to not have done something for twenty years. Not sure what to do with this).
Still, the piano has been bought and now is standing in my living room, like a wild animal that I have to tame knowing very well that it is not going to help me (might have something to do with lots of white 'teeth' staring at me as soon as I enter the room).
I am going to try though, as being able to play the Moonlight Sonata has been on my bucket list long enough and it's time I learnt it. Especially now that I have paid stupid money for a piano... (it reassures me that I am not likely to actually kick the bucket any time soon as it will take a lot of time to learn the stupid thing. That and a surgery enlarging the span of my fingers!)
Mother immediately provided me with such an amount of good advice that I fervently wished I had not bought the piano at all or at least that I had had the presence of mind not to tell my parents about it.
Father said not to worry, that it was like riding a bike - one did not forget and it came back quickly.
Well, not really.
Not after twenty years (NB. saying this makes me slightly alarmed. I actually had not played the piano for twenty years. I am old enough to not have done something for twenty years. Not sure what to do with this).
Still, the piano has been bought and now is standing in my living room, like a wild animal that I have to tame knowing very well that it is not going to help me (might have something to do with lots of white 'teeth' staring at me as soon as I enter the room).
I am going to try though, as being able to play the Moonlight Sonata has been on my bucket list long enough and it's time I learnt it. Especially now that I have paid stupid money for a piano... (it reassures me that I am not likely to actually kick the bucket any time soon as it will take a lot of time to learn the stupid thing. That and a surgery enlarging the span of my fingers!)
Friday, 7 January 2011
On Elvis
Whenever I watched footages from concerts, or other events involving the presence of stars, I would sigh with lack of understanding and a feeling of certain perplexity at the teenagers and no-longer-teenagers waving frantically at their idol(s) and screaming their hearts out in an almost religious trance. Do not get, do not approve, get a life.
And then I watched Elvis with Jannick. And there we were, two mature women in their 30ies, otherwise mostly reasonable and calm, crying and screaming at the telly, pressing our hands to our lips with emotion as if trying to contain the squeeky noises that were forcing themselves out of our throats (but failing miserably).
(Other people present retreated to the conservatory for the duration of the concert.
Paul, me thinks, had a hard time getting to grips with what was happening to his normally rather much less noisy girlfriend.)
But still, it was Jannick and me and lots of wine and Elvis. Not Westlife or the likes.
Yet, I now know from which part of one's insides those screams emerge and that it is not possible to contain them.
So I no longer judge.
NB. I was told later on that it was rude of us to watch Elvis instead of all of us doing something together. Maybe so. But then I remember another social gathering during which people put on football that some of us had no desire to watch and that was ok. I sometimes get a paranoid feeling that if someone else does it, it's ok, but when I do it, it's rude...
And then I watched Elvis with Jannick. And there we were, two mature women in their 30ies, otherwise mostly reasonable and calm, crying and screaming at the telly, pressing our hands to our lips with emotion as if trying to contain the squeeky noises that were forcing themselves out of our throats (but failing miserably).
(Other people present retreated to the conservatory for the duration of the concert.
Paul, me thinks, had a hard time getting to grips with what was happening to his normally rather much less noisy girlfriend.)
But still, it was Jannick and me and lots of wine and Elvis. Not Westlife or the likes.
Yet, I now know from which part of one's insides those screams emerge and that it is not possible to contain them.
So I no longer judge.
NB. I was told later on that it was rude of us to watch Elvis instead of all of us doing something together. Maybe so. But then I remember another social gathering during which people put on football that some of us had no desire to watch and that was ok. I sometimes get a paranoid feeling that if someone else does it, it's ok, but when I do it, it's rude...
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
On New Year's Resolutions
I have a computer now.
It is new (never happened before) and shiny and brown (although Paul claims it's actually black, the box said 'dark brown' and I choose to believe them).
I have my own computer now, it is sitting on the kitchen table and using it does not involve climbing up into the freezing loft and waiting for three hours for it to start and then three more for it to open Internet Explorer.
It is sitting on the kitchen table 24/7 and so is available to me also when Paul is not home eg. when I'm not too busy talking to him/serving dinner/watching Neighbours or QI.
I have a computer, it is mine, it is available with no restrictions in space and time, and I have no more excuses especially while I justified the purchase of the said computer to myself (4 years on less than a student budget in France conditionned me into believing that any purchase requires a valid justification and 'I want it' is valid only for items worth less than 10 pounds and once a month) by:
1. getting better about staying properly in touch with all my friends scattered about the globe
2. updating my blog regularly (cause otherwise what's the point?)
No excuses.
It is new (never happened before) and shiny and brown (although Paul claims it's actually black, the box said 'dark brown' and I choose to believe them).
I have my own computer now, it is sitting on the kitchen table and using it does not involve climbing up into the freezing loft and waiting for three hours for it to start and then three more for it to open Internet Explorer.
It is sitting on the kitchen table 24/7 and so is available to me also when Paul is not home eg. when I'm not too busy talking to him/serving dinner/watching Neighbours or QI.
I have a computer, it is mine, it is available with no restrictions in space and time, and I have no more excuses especially while I justified the purchase of the said computer to myself (4 years on less than a student budget in France conditionned me into believing that any purchase requires a valid justification and 'I want it' is valid only for items worth less than 10 pounds and once a month) by:
1. getting better about staying properly in touch with all my friends scattered about the globe
2. updating my blog regularly (cause otherwise what's the point?)
No excuses.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
On my problem with London
I don't like going to London much.
I don't like going to London, because I don't feel comfortable in big cities with all their crowds in haste.
But mostly I don't like going to London because I like it too much. Like Paris. Like Berlin.
I spend the day doing the touristy stuff, pushing my way through crowds, being pushed myself, clinging on to my handbag and to Paul's hand so that this whole unspeakable energy and movement would not suck me in and make me disappear.
But then we sit somewhere for a drink and I start watching people walking past and my mind starts imagining the lifes they have, what it would be like to be their friend or colleague or neighbour, and I spot a street with particularly nice (interesting, unusual, ugly) houses (trees, shades, lamp posts, you name it) and I start wondering what it would be like if that street was mine, if I lived there/walked past it every day, if the pub/cafe I'm sitting in was my pub/cafe, what friends I would have if I was hanging out here, what kind of job I'd be doing, and a whole new unknown life starts unravelling itself in my mind.
The itch.
Later on I get back home, I wash off all the metallic dust of the underground, and I feel relieved that all that buzzing and chaos are far away from me and I am safe in my little house. The itch subsides a little.
But then I go to bed and I fall asleep listening to the cars driving past my window and I wonder where they are going to, are they going to one of those unknown lives I lurked into earlier on that day? Or to yet a different one, in yet a different place?
What is it like? What would it be like to live there?
And it saddens me that I will never find out...
I don't like going to London, because I don't feel comfortable in big cities with all their crowds in haste.
But mostly I don't like going to London because I like it too much. Like Paris. Like Berlin.
I spend the day doing the touristy stuff, pushing my way through crowds, being pushed myself, clinging on to my handbag and to Paul's hand so that this whole unspeakable energy and movement would not suck me in and make me disappear.
But then we sit somewhere for a drink and I start watching people walking past and my mind starts imagining the lifes they have, what it would be like to be their friend or colleague or neighbour, and I spot a street with particularly nice (interesting, unusual, ugly) houses (trees, shades, lamp posts, you name it) and I start wondering what it would be like if that street was mine, if I lived there/walked past it every day, if the pub/cafe I'm sitting in was my pub/cafe, what friends I would have if I was hanging out here, what kind of job I'd be doing, and a whole new unknown life starts unravelling itself in my mind.
The itch.
Later on I get back home, I wash off all the metallic dust of the underground, and I feel relieved that all that buzzing and chaos are far away from me and I am safe in my little house. The itch subsides a little.
But then I go to bed and I fall asleep listening to the cars driving past my window and I wonder where they are going to, are they going to one of those unknown lives I lurked into earlier on that day? Or to yet a different one, in yet a different place?
What is it like? What would it be like to live there?
And it saddens me that I will never find out...
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Aix
The difference between France and Poland, just as between England and France, is that I have never missed my life in Poland and I miss my life in France dearly - all aware that I am that I'm much better off in England, I can't help but miss my little appartment at the foot of a pinaide, the terrasse with a rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and so many good times, and so many other big and little things that I left behind.
So every time the plane starts to descend above the Marseille Provence airport, a big ball of nostalgia climbs into my throat and it feels like coming home (ah, difficult notion that of home, when you're me... but on that another time).
Then I spot Mount Sainte Victoire as the plane turns, then the first shock of the heat, the first gush of the Mistral, the ball in my throat keeps growing.
Then we get on the coach to Aix and I see all those place names, Pinchinades, Vitrolles, la Duranne, les Milles, names that were once new and full of promises now greet me like old friends making the ball in my throat grow even more. I does not matter that I have never been in many of them, I have read them, seen them, heard them, savoured the way their sounds rolled out of my mouth so many times...
Aix is still Aix.
The colours, the little streets, the blue shutters spotting the ochre facades of the bastides, the baguettes, the cheese, the wine, Pastis, the marketplace, Mamie's ratatouille, everything stopping for lunch, the cycadas driving you mad with their monotonous screeching, the oppressing heat, people stopping in the middle of a roundabout to get a newspaper, the bourgeoises riding their shopping trollies across your feet and failing to apologise... and Mount Sainte Victoire reigning overlooking all this madness and beauty, impassible and majestic.
Some friends are gone, some are still there. Some have drifted away a force de distances, the important ones greet me as if I had never left.
I still have my seat at the bar in Cafe le Verdun (although you can't smoke in there anymore) and Pat still accepts a glass of wine I pay him and then knocks a round off my bill.
Mamie and Papy are still Mamie and Papy, growing older without changing at all but each time I see them, I feel the painfully aware that they are not eternal.
And the house at the Roc Fleuri is still there too, with the pinaide behind it and the terrasse in front, the rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and good times...
Indeed, places where you were once happy should not be allowed to go on without you.
So every time the plane starts to descend above the Marseille Provence airport, a big ball of nostalgia climbs into my throat and it feels like coming home (ah, difficult notion that of home, when you're me... but on that another time).
Then I spot Mount Sainte Victoire as the plane turns, then the first shock of the heat, the first gush of the Mistral, the ball in my throat keeps growing.
Then we get on the coach to Aix and I see all those place names, Pinchinades, Vitrolles, la Duranne, les Milles, names that were once new and full of promises now greet me like old friends making the ball in my throat grow even more. I does not matter that I have never been in many of them, I have read them, seen them, heard them, savoured the way their sounds rolled out of my mouth so many times...
Aix is still Aix.
The colours, the little streets, the blue shutters spotting the ochre facades of the bastides, the baguettes, the cheese, the wine, Pastis, the marketplace, Mamie's ratatouille, everything stopping for lunch, the cycadas driving you mad with their monotonous screeching, the oppressing heat, people stopping in the middle of a roundabout to get a newspaper, the bourgeoises riding their shopping trollies across your feet and failing to apologise... and Mount Sainte Victoire reigning overlooking all this madness and beauty, impassible and majestic.
Some friends are gone, some are still there. Some have drifted away a force de distances, the important ones greet me as if I had never left.
I still have my seat at the bar in Cafe le Verdun (although you can't smoke in there anymore) and Pat still accepts a glass of wine I pay him and then knocks a round off my bill.
Mamie and Papy are still Mamie and Papy, growing older without changing at all but each time I see them, I feel the painfully aware that they are not eternal.
And the house at the Roc Fleuri is still there too, with the pinaide behind it and the terrasse in front, the rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and good times...
Indeed, places where you were once happy should not be allowed to go on without you.
Monday, 19 July 2010
On being told to shut up
The kind of child to tell you to 'shut up' (or 'f-off' as a matter of fact) is usually a distraught individual struggling to become human and thinking that being rude and fearless of consequences is what being an adult is all about. As far as they're concerned life is seriously shit and they will fight anything they can by all means possible, just in case.
And most of the time, you can see how distraught they get once they realise what they'd just said. Or, at the very least, how upset and worked up they got before saying it.
You still get angry, you shout at them, you give them detentions, but you don't hold grudges and deep inside you just wish you could use a magic wand make them less miserable and less angry at the entire world.
And then there is Kenisha (not a real name). Kenisha thinks you're dirt. Kenisha thinks that all is due to her and if she wants to talk, she will talk, whether you are trying to teach or not has no importance what so ever. And when you say 'Kenisha, could you please stop talking?', Kenisha looks at you as if you were a fly on her sandwich and says 'Shut up'.
Somehow I think Kenisha will follow into her sister's footsteps and get excluded before finishing year 10.
And I know that next time Kenisha sends a door into my face, I am not going to be willing to talk about it and make it go away in hope of establishing a positive relationship with her.
Screw that.
And most of the time, you can see how distraught they get once they realise what they'd just said. Or, at the very least, how upset and worked up they got before saying it.
You still get angry, you shout at them, you give them detentions, but you don't hold grudges and deep inside you just wish you could use a magic wand make them less miserable and less angry at the entire world.
And then there is Kenisha (not a real name). Kenisha thinks you're dirt. Kenisha thinks that all is due to her and if she wants to talk, she will talk, whether you are trying to teach or not has no importance what so ever. And when you say 'Kenisha, could you please stop talking?', Kenisha looks at you as if you were a fly on her sandwich and says 'Shut up'.
Somehow I think Kenisha will follow into her sister's footsteps and get excluded before finishing year 10.
And I know that next time Kenisha sends a door into my face, I am not going to be willing to talk about it and make it go away in hope of establishing a positive relationship with her.
Screw that.
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