La vie en France: It's all about the numbers

1 = number of phones I bought today (hurrah! phone-less no more!)

2 = the amount of phone numbers I have for said phone (it has to do with SIM cards and getting 5 € of free pay-as-you-go minutes...that's all.)

45 = minutes I spent sitting in McDonald's outdoor café today

4 = number of times I was asked for money by people begging as I sat outside ("Je n'ai pas des espèces! Je suis desolée!").

1,90 € = cost of a McDonald's cheeseburger in France (about $2.55 in the US)

1 = number of items on the French McDonald's menu called a "Chicken Shake" (We think it's like a shake-and-bake kind of deal: chicken with breadcrumbs and spices.)

1.5 = hours I spent in McDonald's taking advantage of the free wifi to plan potential spring break trips (Greece! Et peut-être les autres pays!)

5 = number of tries it took me to unlock the door to the apartment, even with my host mother coaching me from the other side

3 = number of pages I have to read (in French, obviously) before tomorrow

4 = days until my first potential trip out of Lyon (peut-être to the south of France! Ooh là là!)

8 = days until my birthday (just deposit the money in my bank account, thanks) =)

Day Two

So it turns out that yesterday when we arrived in the midst of a warm and sunny, albeit windy day, it was just Lyon lulling us into a false sense of security because today it is POURING. And thundering. And we have to lug our stuff all the way back to Lyon Part-Dieu, which involves a few blocks of walking and riding the tramway for several stops. Boo. Accuweather says we should have a two hour window of no rain between 1 and 3 pm (or, if you wanna get all French about it, 13h00 and 15h00), so hopefully we can make that work.

So far, though, I'm liking this trip. The hostel is really nice, aside from the fact that we don't have any hot water (or warm water. Or lukewarm water.), and I like the city. From what I can tell so far, it has a different vibe than American cities.

We haven't done a lot of real sightseeing yet, although we did walk around yesterday after getting dinner at a boulangerie et patisserie (bakery and pastry shop). I got cheese quiche and flan. The guy who worked there was very nice and didn't speak English, which forced us to use our French. He helped us out, though.

We walked around a little before heading back to the hostel for the night around 6. I stayed up until 11, though, to try and establish a normal sleeping pattern. I woke up around 8:15 this morning, so so far, so good. I'm a little tired still, but nothing a good night's sleep tonight won't fix. Hopefully.

I'm meeting my host family this afternoon. I'm still pretty nervous about this, since I don't feel like I have enough conversational French to really get to know anyone. Although I'm already realizing that I can get by with my French in public, so maybe I'm not as incompetent as I think.

Well, I should probably get up and get ready so I can head down to breakfast before it ends in an hour. And then I should figure out the best way to lug my stuff around so that both it and myself are not soaked through by the time we reach our destination.

Switzerland FTW

Zurich's airport had...
- 2 establishments boasting chocolate fountains
- complimentary chocolates on board every Swiss Air flight
- a Toblerone store that practically hits you in the face upon entering the airport
- no less than five chocolatiers offering free samples (truffles, Toblerone, fondue, nougat, etc.)
- a giant statue of a unicorn
- the cleanest, nicest-smelling bathrooms I have ever had the pleasure of using
- a view of the Alps
- did I mention the chocolate?

Lyon's airport had
- a shuttle whose radio was playing Tik Tok by Ke$ha.

I think we all know who wins this one. Je suis desolée, France.

It's hard to write a title when your post is this random.

Oh, well, look, isn't the Dartmouth campus just beautiful all covered in snow after yesterday's first snow of the season?

No. No, it is not.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a distinct difference between snowing and just plain snow. I like the former. The latter can go straight to Hades. (I know that that's not possible for snow, being melty and all. But I can fantasize.)

So while last night was beautiful and all silent-night-holy-night-y, today I'm left with some dirty gray crud all over the ground, making it impossible to walk anywhere without running the risk of slipping and falling and looking like a tool that hasn't lived in New England for the past 20-odd years.

Before the snow came along to liven up my travels with all the risks associated with walking on it, however, I had to find other ways to entertain myself as I walked around campus. "Haven't you ever heard of an iPod, Renée?" you might say. Well yes, snarky inquisitor, I have. But it's hard to listen to your iPod when you consistently leave it at home. And while phone calls are a good way to pass the time, they don't work so well when the potential recipient of your call is already most likely asleep. (No good conversation begins with, "Did I wake you up?" "...Yes.")

At any rate, I had to make my own traveling fun. And so I came up with the following: three word movie summaries. Try it the next time you're in line to badger Santa with your increasingly selfish and elaborate list of Christmas demands. It's actually quite challenging and relatively amusing. (Not as amusing as, say, a phone call or a Lady Gaga song, but whatever.)

Pride and Prejudice: First impressions lie.
The Princess Bride: True love forever!
The Silence of the Lambs: Cannibals know everything.
Bend It Like Beckham: Hey! Soccer's fun!
Dune: Get the spice!
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: What. The. Hell.
Pursuit of Happyness: Being poor sucks.
I Am Legend: I am angsty.
Crash: Everyone is racist.
Atonement: Liars kill people.
Roman Holiday: Italy is romantic.

See? Fun! And simple! I need simplicity after the term from hell. And finals. And after writing my literary theory paper about class consciousness and patriarchy in Gilmore Girls. Seriously, I will never be able to watch a Friday Night Dinner scene again without contemplating Rory's deep entrenchment in the middle class. I think I may have ruined (for the foreseeable future, anyway) this show for myself. Or made it more interesting. I'm not sure yet.

At any rate, I'm finished until March (woohoo!), at which point I will begin taking all my classes in French (oh $#!%). The bright side to that is that I'll actually be in France, which is I guess sort of a consolation prize for the major confusion I will be most likely be suffering at that time.

And Christmas is coming! The goose is getting fat! Please put a penny in the old man's hat! (What, really? I'm the only one that knows that song?) Except if you're going to put a penny anywhere, could you maybe put it in my Bank of America account? Kappa Delta dues really cleaned me out this term.

If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do. And as the song says (I'm paraphrasing here), if you haven't got a ha'penny get the hell out of the way, you're of no use to me.

Aaaannnd merry Christmas.

An Update for Kelly

Things I Suspect My Upstairs Neighbors of Owning, Based on Noise Level Generated
1. An anvil
2. Bowling balls (yes, plural)
3. Clogs (the big honkin' wooden Dutch kind, not the hippie Birkenstock kind)
4. A dorm-room-sized Mack truck
5. Many trophies recognizing the resident as International Foot-Stomping Champion
6. A pet elephant/rhinoceros/yeti.

Things My Upstairs Neighbors Will Soon Own If They Don't Knock It Off and Go To Sleep Already (For Pete's Sake, It's Two in the Morning)
1. Several mildly threatening notes
2. An ice pack for the black eye they don't have...yet.
3. My high-heeled black pumps (since I assume they won't give them back after I hurl them through the doorway and run).

Market Basket Quote of the Day

Bagger, to adult male customer: Would you like these bags in the carriage or will you carry them?
Man: I'll take them.
Man's elderly mother: Put them in the carriage! *mutters in disgusted tone* Don't be a hero.

In which the public, the media, the CPD, and others all gatz out

Normally I don't blog about serious issues - unless you count my Market Basket adventures as serious - but after all the hullabaloo (it's so rare I get a chance to actually use that word...) over the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Cambridge, I wanted to chime in.

The story is basically this: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was returning home from traveling last week. When he arrived at his home, the door was jammed shut, so he was forced to break into his own home. A neighbor saw this and, not realizing that Gates was the homeowner, called the police to report a possible break-in. Sgt. James Crowley responded to the call. Now this is where things become muddled. According to the police report, Sgt. Crowley asked Gates for ID. Gates refused and shouted, "This is what happens to black men in America!" He also apparently told the officer, "You don't know who you're messing with."

There's a gap in the police report as the officer filling out the report left Gates's home to go speak with the person who called about the possible break-in. When the officer returned, Gates and Crowley were on the porch of Gates's home and Gates was still shouting at Crowley and calling him racist. By this time a crowd of about seven had gathered and was watching the incident. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct.

According to Gates, his "disorderly conduct" was to merely demand that Sgt. Crowley give him his name and badge number.

Since then, the charges have been dropped and almost everyone up and down the totem pole - from the Cambridge Police to the Mayor of Cambridge - has apologized to Professor Gates. Arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley has not apologized, however, and says, "There will be no apology."

In his speech last night, President Obama remarked that, while he didn't have all the facts about Gates's arrest, he believe that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" by arresting someone who'd already proven that the house was his own, and commented that, despite the fact the the role of race/racism in the arrest was unclear, the incident served as a sad reminder that minorities, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics, are more often the targets of criminal suspicion and unjust arrests.

Sadly, it is true that minorities are more often the target of suspicion and arrest. I'm not disputing this fact, and I doubt that there are many people who would. Race relations in America are far from perfect - in many places, they're far from acceptable, let alone perfect. But in this particular case, the question is not "Does America have a race problem?" but "Was Sgt. Crowley wrong to arrest Professor Gates?"

As far as I'm concerned, the president himself acted "stupidly" when he commented on an event that a.) was a local - not a national - incident, and b.) he openly admitted he did not have all the facts on. If I were making a speech on national TV, a speech that would be heard by people both in America and around the world, I would want to make damn well sure that I had my facts straight, for the sake of personal and national integrity and for the sake of my own political well-being. I've been inclined to approve of President Obama up until this point - I did vote for the man, after all, and I will admit to celebrating his win with much cheering and hugging and jumping around - but this was a major political faux pas. Scratch that, it wasn't a faux pas - "faux pas" makes it sound too cutesy - it was a major political mistake. Please redeem yourself, President Obama. I don't want to give up on you just yet, but know that I won't forget your horning in on an event that - race-motivated or not - did not and does not officially concern you.

Moving on to the broader issue of the arrest in general: Sgt. Crowley is accused of racism for arresting Professor Gates. Let's lay out the facts of the case: A police officer responds to a report of a possible break-in. When he arrives, the suspect is already inside the house. The officer doesn't pull his gun. He doesn't yell at the suspect to get on the ground. Instead, he asks the suspect to step outside and requests ID to ascertain if the suspect is indeed the homeowner.

According to the police reports of both Sgt. Crowley and the officer accompanying him, Professor Gates initially refused to provide identification. According to a statement released by Gates's lawyer, Gates told the officer he was the homeowner and a Harvard professor and when he was asked to prove it, he walked to the kitchen to get his IDs from his wallet. I obviously don't know which of these stories is correct, not having been there. It's entirely possible that both stories have some degree of the truth in them; it's also entirely possible that stories are way off the mark. It's easy to misinterpret actions or words, and the situation is obviously a stressful one for everyone involved - for a police officer, any call can turn violent in a matter of seconds; for the suspect, one false move or perceived threat can mean arrest or having a gun pointed at you. (That sentence is not meant to imply that police are trigger-happy, merely that they have to worry about their safety when responding to reports of suspicious behavior.)

At any rate, if Professor Gates had merely furnished his ID without a problem (as his lawyer's statement claims), this would all be over and done with. And maybe he did show the ID immediately; again, I don't know, I wasn't there. However, it's what happened afterward that led to his arrest. Because Professor Gates wasn't arrested for breaking and entering; he was arrested for disorderly conduct.

According to his lawyer's statement, Professor Gates followed Sgt. Crowley out onto the porch, calling after him repeatedly to get his badge number and name, which Sgt. Crowley never provided him with. Once Gates stepped out onto his porch, the statement says, he was "astonished" to see several more police officers standing there. He asked the other officers for Sgt. Crowley's name and badge number. (Apparently none complied with his request.) Officer Crowley apparently then said, "Thank you for accommodating my earlier request [for ID]," then arrested Gates.

The abruptness of the last bit sounds fishy to me, especially when Gates's lawyer's account fails to mention the fact that by this time, several witnesses (according to the police report) had gathered outside. If it weren't for the witnesses, I might be more inclined to believe this part of Gates's story - after all, police intimidation and racial bias are nothing new (in general or in Cambridge), and it's entirely possible, theoretically, that some racist dirty cops could gang up on an innocent man and arrest him simply for the color of his skin. It's happened before in America and it will sadly no doubt happen again.

HOWEVER, are we to believe that seven witnesses stood by and watched as a calm man was inexplicably handcuffed on his porch and led from his home for no reason at all? Are we going to contend that ALL these witnesses are so racist that they would allow the CPD to infringe upon some of the most basic rights of American citizenry? I could maybe believe that power-hungry police attempting to play God could arrest a man they were biased against for no real reason. What I have a very hard time believing is that said man's fellow citizens would allow it - knowing, as they do, that if one innocent person is the victim of power-hungry police, anyone could be the next victim.

According to the police report, Professor Gates was yelling at the officers and causing a scene. No witnesses have disputed this (although, in the interest of fairness, none have confirmed it, either. Why isn't the media talking to these witnesses? Why haven't they been made part of the investigation?). Although almost every report of the incident points out that it is not illegal to yell at a police officer, what is the very definition of disorderly conduct? According to FindLaw.com, "Almost every state has a disorderly conduct law that makes it a crime to be drunk in public, to 'disturb the peace', or to loiter in certain areas. Many types of obnoxious or unruly conduct may fit the definition of disorderly conduct, as such statutes are often used as 'catch-all' crimes. Police may use a disorderly conduct charge to keep the peace when a person is behaving in a disruptive manner, but presents no serious public danger."

Everyone has agreed that Professor Gates "present[ed] no serious public danger." If the police report is indeed correct, however, and not biased (as many people have pointed out is possible), Gates was most certainly "behaving in a disruptive manner"; after all, the whole situation drew a crowd of witnesses and prompted Professor Gates's neighbor to snap the now-infamous photo of the arrest. Calmly conversing with officers and complying with requests just doesn't draw attention like that.

The question now becomes, was Professor Gates's outrage warranted? Was he indeed the target of racial discrimination, thus igniting the angry and indignant behavior that led to his arrest? If he were the target of such discrimination, did he really believe that yelling at the police about it was going to make the problem go away? Whether or not other aspects of this situation were racially motivated, the disorderly conduct arrest in and of itself appears to be totally justified. If Professor Gates felt that he was targeted as a result of discrimination, there would have been ample opportunities for him to address the issue in court rather than from his front steps.

The charges against Professor Gates have since been dropped, but Professor Gates is still demanding an apology from Sgt. Crowley, who refuses to acquiesce. If he was indeed the target of racism, I can absolutely understand Professor Gates's demand for an apology; my only question is this: if he truly believes that he was the target of racism AND he believes that his arrest was totally unwarranted, why isn't he pursuing this through litigation rather than in the court of public opinion? I feel like his point about the racism entrenched in the American criminal justice system would be better taken if he could achieve some kind of official decision on the matter, rather than a "Gee, I sure am sorry (but not really)," from the arresting officer.

The biggest problem of all in this case is the media and public whirlwind surrounding the case, which has only made headlines because - let's face it - one of the men at the center of it happens to have his own page on Wikipedia. If Joe Nobody had been arrested on the same charges in the same situation, there would have been a couple angry letters to the editor about the sad state of American race relations and that would have been the end of it. However, because Professor Gates is well-known in academia and is friends with many poiticians, including Massachusetts state governor Deval Patrick and President Obama himself, the entire incident has been whipped up into a media frenzy of finger-pointing and speculation (and here I must apologize for my blogger self's part in all of it). What would be best would be for both parties could just drop the specifics and move on, while the rest of America uses this not as a debate over who was right and who was wrong (again, I'm as guilty of this as the next person, but I'll try and contain myself from here on out) but as an opportunity to take a hard look at race in modern America - as far as we've come, we still have a looooong way to go.

Aaaaand...you're welcome.

New text from Roger
Sun Jul 12
4:53 pm

You inspired my cousin to start tweeting in haiku

Exhuming Creativity

Yes, that was a play on words - the creative juices are flowing (you might say I'm exuding creativity) and I am posting a new entry, thereby resurrecting this blog (exhuming it).

Okay, that was weak. It's 12:29. I'm smack dab in the middle of a bunch of work, and I'm sleep-deprived (and, by staying up this late when I have to wake up for work at 6:30 am, I am not doing anything that is conducive to solving this problem). Give me a break.

Anyway, I hadn't written any haikus in a while and inspiration struck me, so, without further ado, I bring you...

BRIEF SKETCHES OF LIFE EVENTS THAT HAVE OCCURRED SINCE I LAST BLOGGED

I. Ode to Facebook Friend Requests
Just because you know
Forty-seven of my friends
Does not make us buds.

II. Ode to Friends Who Plan Me a Surprise Birthday Party
Michelle and David
Are clearly super awesome
I so love you guys.

III. Ode to Getting Stuck Behind George H.W. Bush's Limo on a Narrow Maine Road
Just driving along...
Uh-oh, security car!
Better turn around.

IV. Ode to the Warm Weather
I love that you're here
Please never leave me again
Flip-flops make my life.

V. Ode to My New Job
Walking to my job
Takes me longer than doing
The actual work.*

*But I like it.

Oooh, I'd better get back to doing some real work; it's getting late. Plus, my fingers are cramping from all the 5-7-5 syllable counting I'm doing. Peace out.

Oomis Gloomis

I am one of those strange people that occasionally relishes being sick.

I am a very busy person but deep down inside I am very lazy, and being sick offers one the rare opportunity of being totally sedentary. Not only do other people accept this, they encourage it. So you can understand my point of view.

I have some fond memories of being sick. In ninth grade when I got colds, I'd snuggle under the covers and watch Law and Order: SVU on DVD while eating tomato soup (with cheese, sour cream, and bacon bits - which, if you buy the right kind, are actually 100% vegetarian) and drinking orange juice. When I went to Florida in May and my stomach decided to stage a full-on rebellion and I almost had to get an IV, I still got to watch Shanghai Nights in a hotel bed, all nice and comfortable (except for the yacking-into-a-wastebasket portions of the day). And in between yackings, I felt tired but otherwise okay.

You might be wondering why I am boring and disgusting you with a history of my prior illnesses. I'll tell you why: because I'm sick right now and it is NOT FUN. At all.

After three days of hacking cough and intense throat pain and two nights of night sweats and weird, half-awake dreams, I schlepped over to the campus health center, expecting (almost hoping) to be diagnosed with some kind of ominous-sounding ailment. (I say "hoping" because having some kind of sinister disease at least makes your misery justified in a sense, whereas having a boring old cold is just a cruel, anti-climactic cop-out.) Thirty minutes, 20 questions, and a throat swab later, I was told that - basically - I have a cold.

I reject this diagnosis.

To the health center's credit, the nurse was really nice, and she didn't at all imply that I was a wimp for making such a fuss over a cold; in fact I think she genuinely realized how miserable I was (and am). But still, it was disappointing. In the throes of a night-sweat-induced semi-hallucination, I had diagnosed myself with bronchitis coupled with a sinus infection. And to be told that I didn't even have a lousy case of strep was just plain disheartening.

What I do have, however, is another sleepless night of chills and sweats to look forward to, followed by another day in which I will not leave my bed. This is actually getting boring.

I KNOW I have work to do. It's just a question of mustering up the motivation to make myself DO it. I have to select all my classes for next term by 4 pm tomorrow...I haven't even looked at the course catalog. I have only the vaguest of ideas of what I'd like to take. I could have taken care of all that today and crossed it off the ever-growing list of Things I Have To Do, but noooo. Similarly, I have not started the English paper I have due on Monday, have not sent my history prof a more detailed version of my term paper outline, have not sent my religion notes to the classmate who asked me for them two days ago, have not been keeping up with my "readings journal" for history, and have not finished reading Huck Finn for English. On the bright side, however, I DID finish (finally!!!) Anne of Windy Poplars, my least favorite of the Anne of Green Gables books, so I can move on to Anne's House of Dreams, which is one of what I believe to be the better ones. (My favorites, though, are the original Anne of Green Gables and Anne of the Island. Anne of Avonlea didn't seem to me to have much of a plot to it. I know all the Anne books are pretty much just vignettes, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.)

And now I am off to read some Anne's House of Dreams. Before I do, though, I want to thank my friends - on the off-chance that they are reading this - for all their help over the past couple days, bringing me food (thanks, David!), running errands for me (thanks, Mich!), surprising me with OJ and cough drops (thanks, Michelle!), and just checking up on me and offering to help me out with anything I need. You guys are the greatest!