Wow, I actually got to a Dooce post early! When I read the post, there were 11 comments. By the time I got through the Typepad sign-in rigamarole, my comment was the nineteenth.
Makes you wonder how many viewers she has at any one time. I can't imagine.
Don't you just love a new haircut? The fragrant products they use, the blunt, non-split ends, the bounce, the body, the sass? And it only lasts one day.
I don't know about you, but no matter how closely I watch what the stylist does--how she blows out my hair, what products she uses, whatever, I can never achieve the same result. Is it a secret that they learn in stylist school? I wish I knew.
There must be some lesson in here--take the time to appreciate the small luxuries, fleeting though they are, But the lesson I choose to take away is: Don't wait five months between haircuts.
Because I have worked at the same place for over a year now, and THREE separate people didn't recognize me this afternoon. Had to stare at me for a full twenty seconds before they recognized me. What does that say about me?
It is well known that once you come back from abroad, no one really cares about the awesome things you've done and the wonderful sights you've seen. It's probably the hardest part of the reverse culture shock, and the one I struggled with the most.
You learn pretty quickly to bottle up your thoughts and to try to be the person that everyone expects you to be, the one they knew before you left (but who you left, inexorably, in the airport). The only ones who can ever understand are the ones who have gone along with you.
So upon return, you latch onto those few who have traveled and you share your stories. A friend and I have been doing just this, alternating weeks, inflicting our twelve-pound scrapbooks and our mile-long stories on each other. It's emotional; it's rewarding; it's exhausting. Reliving such an integral part of my formative years takes a long time!
This is my story.
I took French in middle and high school. Around sophomore year, I realized that I was good at French, liked it,and wanted to study it more and maybe even make a career out of it. The idealism of sixteen.
Knowing that I planned to major in French in college, and having several older friends do a Rotary year abroad, the next step was natural. I applied, was accepted and went to Biarritz, France three weeks before I turned eighteen. 
Biarritz is a seaside resort town, famous for its fashionable history and its surfable waves. This was the first time I ever lived by the ocean, and I believe I'll never be happy far from it anymore.
The Rotary Club prepared me well. All the students from my region got together three times throughout the preceding year, and we did exercises about cultural adaptation, emotional readiness and openness. I know that if I hadn't had the extensive support network of the Rotary Club, I never would have survived that year abroad.
In the next entry, I will relate some of the most memorable stories and moments from that first year abroad.
The title of this post links to a very thorough website on writing systems. For linguists and others casually interested in language, it's worth a read-through.
I used to be able to transcribe IPA with reasonable accuracy, although I've pretty much lost the nuances. The one linguistics class I took (senior year of college, spring semester) explained so much to me that I wished I had taken it much earlier. Beyond cleaning up my pronunciation in French, it made me more aware of how sounds and words are formed, and how grammatical structures link together words according to a set of complex rules. If ever I were to pursue a doctorate (hah!), it would probably be in linguistics and second-language acquisition. Here's to dreaming!
I'm having trouble finding my own voice for this blog, which is why there have been so few postings over the last almost-year. I don't want to write about my work, although there is plenty of material there, believe you me. I don't think it's nice to blog about anyone close to me who doesn't know that I'm doing it, and since I have told nobody about this blog, there goes that source.
So mostly I'm left with my own musings. Which don't really seem to amount to much. I'm not particularly funny. I don't even keep up with world events or politics to a degree where I would feel competent to write about them. I don't travel enough lately (serious lack of funding) to merit any reflection on intercultural experiences, which was the original intent of this blog. What's left that hasn't already been done? And that wouldn't bore any reader (including myself) to tears?
Maybe this is a hint I need to find a new hobby.
Yes, it is definite. I defended my thesis on Dec 7th, successfully. It was not as difficult as I thought, although there were awkward moments.
Such as when I couldn't think of the word in French for "streamlined." I stopped, searched around, euhh-ed for a couple seconds, stepped out of my body to think "God, I must look like an idiot," tried to find a different way of saying it, and finally just stopped the sentence and started all over again. Not exactly what you want to do when trying to impress a panel of four unsmiling French people with lots of letters after their names.
(I later asked Frenchy what the translation was, and he couldn't think of one. It appears that this concept doesn't exist in France. I should have known!)
Afterwards, I asked my advisor if one could say maîtresse instead of maître, and he got all stumbly and red and fumbly and said "well, no, not me, uh, well...." and then, a moment later, asked if I knew what I was really saying. Hello? Did you not just consider me fit to hold an advanced degree in French Studies?
I announced the news in my Christmas cards. Yes, now that I am free of guilt when doing un-thesis-related tasks, I actually wrote Christmas cards! And I'm knitting! Totally guilt-free! Guilt-be-gone! Now with two-thirds less guilt!
