So I finally caved in and decided to watch Twilight, and finally see what the hell everyone was going on about. I'm watching in right now, and I've got through twenty minutes of a 2-hour film.
So far :
-I think kristen stewart is a terrible actress
-WTF is with all those kids fawning over her the first minute she sets foot in school(the guys are all over her, the teen journalist thinks she has really good ideas,other girl thinks she's funny)?That seriously doesn't happen in real life.
-The faces Rob pattinson makes when he first has to sit next to her in biology are AWESOME. He looks like he's about to throw up.
-Jacob is pretty hot. So is Edward when he's not about to puke. Which is funny because those two have been all over the internets for ages and I'd never seen the appeal.
-Why is everything so damn grey?
-Her voiceover is fucking awful
-Edward is bloody unpleasant
-and now he's watching her sleep
-turns down nice dude because edward is watching her,but supposedly is because she's going to Jacksonville
-Edward wants to know WHAT is in jacksonville!!!Not creepy. especially the part where he only knows because he eavesdrops. And then she falls over AGAIN and he scolds her because she's clumsy. Sounds rather like my father, come to think of it.
-Edward is a prick.
-I like the asian dude.
-Edward is telling her to stay away from him, because he is BAD. (sound advice, as far as i'm concerned)
-Bella is a Very Good Friend to the girls.It's very obvious. She tells the dude she turned down to ask the girl who likes him (Jessica?) to prom, and tells the other to ask Eric (asian dude) to prom since he's not asking her ,and we all know it's because he likes Bella. Jeez. (and her advice works!)
-And three vampires eat some fisherman. This is the second death after some guy was "eaten by animals" earlier, and for the moment they're the only interesting thing in this film.
-SUN!!!!
-shopping!pink and purple dresses!
-scary dudes in an alley start seriously harassing Bella, but Edward turns up!It's magic. Or stalking. And he wants to kill them because he knows the disgusting, disgusting things they were thinking.
-Edward says creepy things totally randomly.
-Trying to cut Bella some slack here, because hey, hard to believe and all that, but is she an idiot, or is it just me?Maybe he can't read her mind because....there's nothing to read!I'm mean. But seriously. Plus this blank slate vibe she's giving off is squicking me out.
-And now he's frustrated because he can't read her mind. Which is seriously disturbing. And she, instead of being, i don't know, relieved that this freaky dude can't hear what she's thinking, actually wonders if there's something wrong with her. Answer : YES.
-Really "romantic" moment where Edward goes "i don't have the strength to stay away from you anymore", and Bella flutters "then don't" is just hilarious. I don't get it. Seriously, this is the kind of sentence that should make a girl, or woman, think for a minute. Plus it feels sooo contrived. Might be the acting. It is not good.
-They've found the fisherman. Another "animal" attack. Bella's dad is sad.
-Bella's google-fu is awesome, and she has Understood.
-And she walks to the forest, and he follows her. And this is the lamest scene of the whole movie, up to now. Bella Knows!And she tells him! And she says 'i know what you are' and he goes "say it"and she says it!HE'S A VAMPIRE, you guys!
-Right, no, this is getting worse, he is running up to the top of the mountain so that she sees what he looks like in the sunlight. This actually, seriously blows. Vampires do not do sunlight, for christ's sake. And no place on earth is THAT cloudy. NO SUNLIGHT, Stephenie Meyer!
-SPARKLES!!!!!!Plus he opened his shirt so, you know, she could see him sparle properly. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.
-Edward is a tortured soul. Teen angst.
-Now he is showing Bella how much stronger than her she is; he is designed to kill, has killed people. Plus he wanted to kill her. he wants her blood!
But she TRUSTS him.
-her smell is a drug to him.Just say no, Edward!
-Bella knows he can control his impulse to kill her!Now what does that remind me of?
Oh yes. Women as guardians of sex. You know the drill. Women don't like sex, only give it up because they want marriage and babies, blabla, that men only agree to because they want sex all the time. Wev.Back to the mountain! (actually the scenery is lovely. Only good point here.)
-Now Bella's only fear is losing him!They're in love!But no kissing.
-And now they're lying in (wet) grass, staring at each other. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE ROMANTIC. The sun comes out!He sparkles again!
Funny how him sparkling makes me think more of christian iconography and angels than vampires.hm. Someone's got all this slightly mixed up! But no, he's pure...he doesn't eat humans!(at the moment). Could probably work in some redemption themes in there somewhere. But it smells of religion to me.A lot.
-Edward has smiled!Everyone knows they're dating!Other vampires are not impressed!
-In this world, vampires have no restraint as soon as they get a whiff of human blood.
Like dudes supposedly have no restraint because their sex drives are so high?boys will be boys?
-Bella knows vampires killed those two people. And they all have special powers.
Okay, after 1 hour,1 minute and 30 seconds of this, I give up. I will try and finish it another time, but this movie?Is bad. And I like a lot of bad movies. I am no connoisseur. But this is just fucking terrible. And it's creepy that this is peddled to teenage girls as a great romance. I'm still looking for romance here, people!
This makes me wait for the next episode of True Blood even more. I miss Buffy :(
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Musings
I was reading shapely prose today, first the post on the DLBs which drove me nuts, then followed the link back to "turn that douchehound upside down" in which hundreds of comments tell of daily harassment. By men.
But hey, everyone knows a woman can't tell of what happens to her in her daily life, right?
This probably rubs me even more wrong than usual, since something particularly...unpleasant happened to me not long ago. It was my best friend's 21st, and I crashed in her roommate's bed, a dude I've known since I was 14; never anything between us, and we've shared a bed after parties a good few times. Plus that particular night best friend had someone sleeping with her^^
But anyways. We chatted a bit; we were both pretty drunk, subject got onto sex. Every now and again he tries to get me to have sex with him; i used to treat it as a joke. But he knew I didn't want to, since I explicitly told him that if I had wanted to, i'd have made it known by now. I'm not shy like that. I don't want to fuck him, never have wanted to. On top of it all, he has a girlfriend of two years.
So I fell asleep. And woke up in the morning with no knickers on. Wriggled back into them, while realising some other dude that had been at the party had also been sleeping in the room, which really freaked me out, whispered "why the fuck was I not wearing anything on the bottom?" or some french equivalent, got a "i don't know" shrug of the shoulders, and got out.
You know what? i know he groped me while I was sleeping. I have vague memories of warm feelings during the night, but I am a very sound sleeper when tipsy. My body responded to whatever he was doing; I could see traces of it in my underwear. I can also feel it the next day if my clit has been rubbed pretty vigorously, and need I say i was feeling it then, and feeling completely confused about it?
But that I probably got wet and rubbed my butt against him or whatever while fast asleep? IS NO FUCKING EXCUSE for feeling me up when 1)I had while AWAKE told him i wasn't interested, 2)IN NO STATE to say yes or no.
I felt bad after that. Dirty. Used. Confused. Scared. I haven't seen him since.
I told my best friend that night. She said she believed me, and she saw how upset I was. i also felt the disbelief. "he would never do that". Well he did. I know he did.
He probably didn't think of it as anything. i probably "wanted it" "didn"t say no""likes sex so why should she mind""why would i do that to her, she's not hot enough for me"
I can hear it. He had no fucking right to touch me, and I fully intend not to see him again. Whatever friendship we might've shared is now tainted by this. In retrospect, I guess the fact that he still brought up sex every now and again should've tipped me off to his, but as I said, I took it in jest. After all, this was the dude, who is in no position to consider me "under him" jokingly once said so, when he found out I'd had sex with more people than he had.
But then the Best Friend said he did that to plenty of girls. Please tell me how THIS IS NOT FUCKING CREEPY??
I didn't know about it. Now I do.
D'you know, it's made me realise how lucky I have been that this kind of shit hasn't affected me much through my life.
Primary school was fine, although boys looked under my skirt the one time I wore one, but it seemed a game to me at the time. I found it funny. I wonder what the other girls thought about it. Their memories might not be so fun.
Middle school-well I was mainly insulted with variants of "nerd" and plays on my surname. By boys. And fat and ugly. Not a happy period. Oddly enough I got called a feminist a lot, because I was very vocal about girls being just as good as boys. Plus I got jokingly asked out; of course it couldn't be serious, i was fat and ugly!
High school was extremely satisfying on the other hand, since I grew out of my puppyfat and became pretty attractive; the dudes who insulted me in middle school tended to give me a bit more than a second glance then, and I had the satisfaction of thinking I wouldn't touch them with a fucking bargepole.
High school for me was from 14 to 17, basically the years I really hit puberty hard and turned into a woman, blabla, but I don't remember that much abuse.
I have to point out that I had a large posse of friends, many of which were male, and that helped a LOT. Especially as, in retrospect, I see that for teenage boys they were pretty damn nice about women.
I do remember :
-a couple of male "friends" trying to throw me in the river, not managing (mainly because I was definitely not against violence if necessary) and being thoroughly ridiculed by a teacher walking by, saying "you can't even throw a girl in the river, all three of you!".
In retrospect i can't believe that dumbass teacher just walked by when I was screaming and kicking their knees in.
-One of my friends warning me that her theen-boyfriend and one of his friends, both that I knew from middle school, were planning to throw me in the river if they saw me; that summer, i stayed away from the riverside because of this.
-at the swimming pool, a couple of arab kids, of about NINE years old came behind me and my group of girlfriends. I was lying on my stomach, in my costume, and I distinctly heard one of them say that I was in a perfect position to stick a dildo, and other such comments. I turned around and asked them how the hell they dared talk like that, and their sisters started screaming at us. It only calmed down when a couple arab dudes a bit older than us-I must've been about 17-got involved and told the girls and kids to back the fuck off- and then asked if any of us were single.
-The dude in the street who asked me if i'd go to the hotel with him when i was sixteen.
-a guy I didn't know spreading the rumour that I'd been in a threesome with a friend and a dude when i was 16
-Older guys expressing their desire to fuck me when I was very much not interested. An dvery much underage.
-oh my god I've just remembered my class(second year of high school) used to call me a cocksucker because they got their hands on a picture of me with a lollipop, and one of the dickheads actually asked my boyfriend of the time how it was with me. Plus they called me Clara Morgane, because my name sounds a bit like hers; she used to be a porn star.
Catcalls only happen to me when I'm out with other women these days, mainly in Marseille. I seem to exude a definite "fuck off" vibe. GOOD.
this just makes me so damn angry, and not a DLB of anger ;)
But hey, everyone knows a woman can't tell of what happens to her in her daily life, right?
This probably rubs me even more wrong than usual, since something particularly...unpleasant happened to me not long ago. It was my best friend's 21st, and I crashed in her roommate's bed, a dude I've known since I was 14; never anything between us, and we've shared a bed after parties a good few times. Plus that particular night best friend had someone sleeping with her^^
But anyways. We chatted a bit; we were both pretty drunk, subject got onto sex. Every now and again he tries to get me to have sex with him; i used to treat it as a joke. But he knew I didn't want to, since I explicitly told him that if I had wanted to, i'd have made it known by now. I'm not shy like that. I don't want to fuck him, never have wanted to. On top of it all, he has a girlfriend of two years.
So I fell asleep. And woke up in the morning with no knickers on. Wriggled back into them, while realising some other dude that had been at the party had also been sleeping in the room, which really freaked me out, whispered "why the fuck was I not wearing anything on the bottom?" or some french equivalent, got a "i don't know" shrug of the shoulders, and got out.
You know what? i know he groped me while I was sleeping. I have vague memories of warm feelings during the night, but I am a very sound sleeper when tipsy. My body responded to whatever he was doing; I could see traces of it in my underwear. I can also feel it the next day if my clit has been rubbed pretty vigorously, and need I say i was feeling it then, and feeling completely confused about it?
But that I probably got wet and rubbed my butt against him or whatever while fast asleep? IS NO FUCKING EXCUSE for feeling me up when 1)I had while AWAKE told him i wasn't interested, 2)IN NO STATE to say yes or no.
I felt bad after that. Dirty. Used. Confused. Scared. I haven't seen him since.
I told my best friend that night. She said she believed me, and she saw how upset I was. i also felt the disbelief. "he would never do that". Well he did. I know he did.
He probably didn't think of it as anything. i probably "wanted it" "didn"t say no""likes sex so why should she mind""why would i do that to her, she's not hot enough for me"
I can hear it. He had no fucking right to touch me, and I fully intend not to see him again. Whatever friendship we might've shared is now tainted by this. In retrospect, I guess the fact that he still brought up sex every now and again should've tipped me off to his, but as I said, I took it in jest. After all, this was the dude, who is in no position to consider me "under him" jokingly once said so, when he found out I'd had sex with more people than he had.
But then the Best Friend said he did that to plenty of girls. Please tell me how THIS IS NOT FUCKING CREEPY??
I didn't know about it. Now I do.
D'you know, it's made me realise how lucky I have been that this kind of shit hasn't affected me much through my life.
Primary school was fine, although boys looked under my skirt the one time I wore one, but it seemed a game to me at the time. I found it funny. I wonder what the other girls thought about it. Their memories might not be so fun.
Middle school-well I was mainly insulted with variants of "nerd" and plays on my surname. By boys. And fat and ugly. Not a happy period. Oddly enough I got called a feminist a lot, because I was very vocal about girls being just as good as boys. Plus I got jokingly asked out; of course it couldn't be serious, i was fat and ugly!
High school was extremely satisfying on the other hand, since I grew out of my puppyfat and became pretty attractive; the dudes who insulted me in middle school tended to give me a bit more than a second glance then, and I had the satisfaction of thinking I wouldn't touch them with a fucking bargepole.
High school for me was from 14 to 17, basically the years I really hit puberty hard and turned into a woman, blabla, but I don't remember that much abuse.
I have to point out that I had a large posse of friends, many of which were male, and that helped a LOT. Especially as, in retrospect, I see that for teenage boys they were pretty damn nice about women.
I do remember :
-a couple of male "friends" trying to throw me in the river, not managing (mainly because I was definitely not against violence if necessary) and being thoroughly ridiculed by a teacher walking by, saying "you can't even throw a girl in the river, all three of you!".
In retrospect i can't believe that dumbass teacher just walked by when I was screaming and kicking their knees in.
-One of my friends warning me that her theen-boyfriend and one of his friends, both that I knew from middle school, were planning to throw me in the river if they saw me; that summer, i stayed away from the riverside because of this.
-at the swimming pool, a couple of arab kids, of about NINE years old came behind me and my group of girlfriends. I was lying on my stomach, in my costume, and I distinctly heard one of them say that I was in a perfect position to stick a dildo, and other such comments. I turned around and asked them how the hell they dared talk like that, and their sisters started screaming at us. It only calmed down when a couple arab dudes a bit older than us-I must've been about 17-got involved and told the girls and kids to back the fuck off- and then asked if any of us were single.
-The dude in the street who asked me if i'd go to the hotel with him when i was sixteen.
-a guy I didn't know spreading the rumour that I'd been in a threesome with a friend and a dude when i was 16
-Older guys expressing their desire to fuck me when I was very much not interested. An dvery much underage.
-oh my god I've just remembered my class(second year of high school) used to call me a cocksucker because they got their hands on a picture of me with a lollipop, and one of the dickheads actually asked my boyfriend of the time how it was with me. Plus they called me Clara Morgane, because my name sounds a bit like hers; she used to be a porn star.
Catcalls only happen to me when I'm out with other women these days, mainly in Marseille. I seem to exude a definite "fuck off" vibe. GOOD.
this just makes me so damn angry, and not a DLB of anger ;)
Saturday, June 27, 2009
On Michael Jackson
So, another one of a multitude of posts about the King of Pop.
I don't feel the same grief as many people around me, but it does feel..odd.
I didn't grow up during the height of Michael's fame; I never experienced the waiting for one of his albums, never got to think of going to one of his concerts, and now I obviously never will. I was fourteen in 2003, and watched the trial incomprehendingly. I'll never know if he was guilty or not; it's not up to me to say. I believe...I don't know what I believe on that count, but I'm not sure he was guilty, as I'm not sure he was innocent. What I am sure of is that he was profoundly disturbed, and needed help, and never got it.
I see people complaining a lot that these issues have been glossed over in the wake of his death, while others are going on about how he wasn't convicted so he must be innocent; now the second claim ignores what the justice system actually is, and I've not been seeing much evidence of the first, myself, but then I also find it impossible to not think of the darker sides of his life, whatever really happened. I'm not sure he was a child molester; I'll never be sure, I think, unless something comes up in the next few weeks, which is quite possible. But I'm fairly sure he had some extremely inappropriate attitudes which could've been abuse...no, I really don't want to go there. Suffice to say I'm not trying to erase all the bad-because there was a lot of bad-, but I'm also not going to be part of the people shouting "pedophile" like it's going out of fashion, although I can understand the furore at the perception of a child-molester "getting away with it". I don't know, I really don't know.
But he still was an important feature in my life.
You see, i grew up in France, in an english-speaking household, with an odd mix of cultures that's up to this day impossible for me to define. My family observes very few traditions; I can think of two indiscutable ones, a swedish Christmas eve smorgasbord at my grandmother's, and an English Christmas at my house, with no presents until after lunch and roast and christmas pudding and the like. My mother only cooks traditionally english food on such occasions, and other than that I think we were more brought up according to French usages than English ones, but I don't really know. The main difference I had with my friends growing up was the language and the fact that they all had a lot of relatives living nearby; I often envied my best friend's family reunions, while she still actively avoids them.
So the main way I related to my roots, up until I turned fifteen and first went to Scotland without my parents, was through books, music, and films. I turned fifteen in 2004; we'd had internet for years, but we only got broadband in 2006, so before that watching stuff online was nigh impossible, and we didn't yet have english-language channels, so most of the movies I saw were french-dubbed; it took me ages to get over watching Friends in English, for instance. Books on the other hand were in no short supply, and to this day i read mainly in English.
But music was something else.
When I was little, even in France(I say "even" because as a child it seemed like i was so very far from everything I'd known before) everyone knew Michael Jackson. His songs came on at every party; they still do. He was ubiquitous, he was the King of Pop. My dad actually used to live with one of his choreographers in the seventies in LA, of all the odd occurrences.
It's a very odd thing, how I relate to his music although it's in no way of my generation; an odd thing to watch my brother, who's only three years younger than I am and yet to who MJ's death is just a big thing for old people. But then my brother was always very much more French than I was...
I can't hear a song of his without it bringing back memories of my childhood; happy memories. And I can't listen to I want You Back without being sent right back to the Best Friend's old car, two years ago, when we drove from here through northern Italy, all the way from here to Venice and back, with her old CD player in the back of the car and that song blasting out from a 70's compilation CD. Good times.
Him, Elvis, Kurt Cobain-they were what I grew up with, they were what made me stop and think "hey, I'm part of this culture too". I watched his (old by then) videos on MTV, watched the new ones when they came out in '01. I taped Kurt's last live performance when it came on TV in 2004. But Kurt was more during my angsty teen phase, unsurprisingly enough; Michael Jackson was my childhood. Through his music, a part of me stayed connected to who I was, even when I was hiding the fact I spoke English from everyone around me and tried to be as French as i could.
And it made me happy, and made me dance, and it still does; and for these things I can thank him, and hope he rests in peace, and leave the darker aspects of his life well alone, while hoping those around him can have a peaceful life.
(Edit : Holy Shit, he actually made the intertubes crash.Insane.And there's not a blog or website that I've yet seen that doesn't mention his death)
I don't feel the same grief as many people around me, but it does feel..odd.
I didn't grow up during the height of Michael's fame; I never experienced the waiting for one of his albums, never got to think of going to one of his concerts, and now I obviously never will. I was fourteen in 2003, and watched the trial incomprehendingly. I'll never know if he was guilty or not; it's not up to me to say. I believe...I don't know what I believe on that count, but I'm not sure he was guilty, as I'm not sure he was innocent. What I am sure of is that he was profoundly disturbed, and needed help, and never got it.
I see people complaining a lot that these issues have been glossed over in the wake of his death, while others are going on about how he wasn't convicted so he must be innocent; now the second claim ignores what the justice system actually is, and I've not been seeing much evidence of the first, myself, but then I also find it impossible to not think of the darker sides of his life, whatever really happened. I'm not sure he was a child molester; I'll never be sure, I think, unless something comes up in the next few weeks, which is quite possible. But I'm fairly sure he had some extremely inappropriate attitudes which could've been abuse...no, I really don't want to go there. Suffice to say I'm not trying to erase all the bad-because there was a lot of bad-, but I'm also not going to be part of the people shouting "pedophile" like it's going out of fashion, although I can understand the furore at the perception of a child-molester "getting away with it". I don't know, I really don't know.
But he still was an important feature in my life.
You see, i grew up in France, in an english-speaking household, with an odd mix of cultures that's up to this day impossible for me to define. My family observes very few traditions; I can think of two indiscutable ones, a swedish Christmas eve smorgasbord at my grandmother's, and an English Christmas at my house, with no presents until after lunch and roast and christmas pudding and the like. My mother only cooks traditionally english food on such occasions, and other than that I think we were more brought up according to French usages than English ones, but I don't really know. The main difference I had with my friends growing up was the language and the fact that they all had a lot of relatives living nearby; I often envied my best friend's family reunions, while she still actively avoids them.
So the main way I related to my roots, up until I turned fifteen and first went to Scotland without my parents, was through books, music, and films. I turned fifteen in 2004; we'd had internet for years, but we only got broadband in 2006, so before that watching stuff online was nigh impossible, and we didn't yet have english-language channels, so most of the movies I saw were french-dubbed; it took me ages to get over watching Friends in English, for instance. Books on the other hand were in no short supply, and to this day i read mainly in English.
But music was something else.
When I was little, even in France(I say "even" because as a child it seemed like i was so very far from everything I'd known before) everyone knew Michael Jackson. His songs came on at every party; they still do. He was ubiquitous, he was the King of Pop. My dad actually used to live with one of his choreographers in the seventies in LA, of all the odd occurrences.
It's a very odd thing, how I relate to his music although it's in no way of my generation; an odd thing to watch my brother, who's only three years younger than I am and yet to who MJ's death is just a big thing for old people. But then my brother was always very much more French than I was...
I can't hear a song of his without it bringing back memories of my childhood; happy memories. And I can't listen to I want You Back without being sent right back to the Best Friend's old car, two years ago, when we drove from here through northern Italy, all the way from here to Venice and back, with her old CD player in the back of the car and that song blasting out from a 70's compilation CD. Good times.
Him, Elvis, Kurt Cobain-they were what I grew up with, they were what made me stop and think "hey, I'm part of this culture too". I watched his (old by then) videos on MTV, watched the new ones when they came out in '01. I taped Kurt's last live performance when it came on TV in 2004. But Kurt was more during my angsty teen phase, unsurprisingly enough; Michael Jackson was my childhood. Through his music, a part of me stayed connected to who I was, even when I was hiding the fact I spoke English from everyone around me and tried to be as French as i could.
And it made me happy, and made me dance, and it still does; and for these things I can thank him, and hope he rests in peace, and leave the darker aspects of his life well alone, while hoping those around him can have a peaceful life.
(Edit : Holy Shit, he actually made the intertubes crash.Insane.And there's not a blog or website that I've yet seen that doesn't mention his death)
Thursday, June 18, 2009
In love with an idea
This happens to me a lot.
It's been nearly two weeks since that weekend in Scotland, and I never did hear from John, apart from his confirming me as a friend on Facebook. I'm not too fussed now, but I'll admit to being annoyed, and confused.
Probably because he seemed so damn interested. Dude, don't tell me you're going to write on FB if you're not going to, don't tell me "why d'you have to live in France?" in a wistful voice, don't tell me you've had the best time.
I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown over you, don't you worry.
I have a few ideas on the subject, the first being that boys often have a certain idea of girls, and so say this kind of stuff to appease them, i suppose; the famed "i'll call you" when they have no intention whatsoever of doing it.
i don't know, I just find it so dumb, as do many women I know. What's the point of making me expect something more? It doesn't really matter to me either way to start off with, and if I don't expect anything I won't be disappointed. But since I'm expecting to hear from you, I can wait and wait and get all paranoid and shit, which is time-consuming and a pain in the arse.
i'll never understand the logic, I must admit.
But then I've been hearing a lot about John, and apparently he's somewhat of a ladies' man, and tends to sign off and not give any news. Seems kinda stupid of him to fuck me in that case since his sister loves me to bits. Men can be very odd.
But there you are, I am definitely not heartbroken, which would probably surprise him, and I'm looking forward to the Best Friend's 21st this weekend :)
It's been nearly two weeks since that weekend in Scotland, and I never did hear from John, apart from his confirming me as a friend on Facebook. I'm not too fussed now, but I'll admit to being annoyed, and confused.
Probably because he seemed so damn interested. Dude, don't tell me you're going to write on FB if you're not going to, don't tell me "why d'you have to live in France?" in a wistful voice, don't tell me you've had the best time.
I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown over you, don't you worry.
I have a few ideas on the subject, the first being that boys often have a certain idea of girls, and so say this kind of stuff to appease them, i suppose; the famed "i'll call you" when they have no intention whatsoever of doing it.
i don't know, I just find it so dumb, as do many women I know. What's the point of making me expect something more? It doesn't really matter to me either way to start off with, and if I don't expect anything I won't be disappointed. But since I'm expecting to hear from you, I can wait and wait and get all paranoid and shit, which is time-consuming and a pain in the arse.
i'll never understand the logic, I must admit.
But then I've been hearing a lot about John, and apparently he's somewhat of a ladies' man, and tends to sign off and not give any news. Seems kinda stupid of him to fuck me in that case since his sister loves me to bits. Men can be very odd.
But there you are, I am definitely not heartbroken, which would probably surprise him, and I'm looking forward to the Best Friend's 21st this weekend :)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Singlehood
Title says it all. I am officially single again, after another argument with JJ made me say that this was it.
I know it's the better choice; he's been making me feel less than for a while now, he was going to dump me in august anyway, it's not as if it would have been very different. I still feel a bit weird about it though. I'm terribly bad at breaking up with people, unless there's a really definite reason, something I can point out that's immediately recognizable.
I'm trying to figure out how much of this was triggered by my weekend in Edinburgh, but if truth be told i've been thinking of ending it for a while, and just never had the guts, which is why i needed an argument to do it.
and the problem is he just won't stop talking to me now, what with texts and emails, and i need some space. And he's not even saying he wants me back and stuff, he's only said "well, i love you but i won't beg" man, i don't want you to beg, i want you to stop talking to me until I can deal with it. Like tomorrow. Although knowing that he actually didn't want to break up with me would've been nice, I'm definitely not convinced, but i'll survive.
I just need some time to figure this out. I have so much shit to figure out at the moment, it's not even funny.
I know it's the better choice; he's been making me feel less than for a while now, he was going to dump me in august anyway, it's not as if it would have been very different. I still feel a bit weird about it though. I'm terribly bad at breaking up with people, unless there's a really definite reason, something I can point out that's immediately recognizable.
I'm trying to figure out how much of this was triggered by my weekend in Edinburgh, but if truth be told i've been thinking of ending it for a while, and just never had the guts, which is why i needed an argument to do it.
and the problem is he just won't stop talking to me now, what with texts and emails, and i need some space. And he's not even saying he wants me back and stuff, he's only said "well, i love you but i won't beg" man, i don't want you to beg, i want you to stop talking to me until I can deal with it. Like tomorrow. Although knowing that he actually didn't want to break up with me would've been nice, I'm definitely not convinced, but i'll survive.
I just need some time to figure this out. I have so much shit to figure out at the moment, it's not even funny.
Up close and personal
So, last night I got back from a weekend in Edinburgh, which is one of my favourite places, and man am i depressed.
I went there for my lovely JB's 21st birthday party, and ended up spending three days partying and not sleeping much. I am completely shattered.
And I managed to end up cheating on JJ, but since we started arguing as soon as I set foot on French soil, I'm not feeling so guilty about that at all.
I'm just so tired. I had such a great time this weekend, I met some really lovely people, including JB's brother, John, the guy I got with, and it's such a brutal crash being back here, having to work and write my report and having JJ go on and me and all that. I just don't want to deal with anything, and I want to go and spend my summer over there, away from everything here.
There's always a place for me in Edinburgh, and that's the nicest thing ever.
So back to John...well it was great fun. It felt so good to sleep with someone who's actually really enthusiastic about sex, as opposed to JJ only really wanting to when we haven't seen each other for at least ten days. I always feel so bizarre with him, like there's something wrong with me. Plus his rebuffing me doesn't do my ego any good at all.
Yes, i know, I'm a bad person, blablabla. But hey, I'm happy with it, and he'll never know, so there.
I just want to go back there, and it's not for John. It's just because I love Edinburgh, I love the people there, i always have so much fun (no comments on that) and it just feels so comfortable. I don't know. It's a home away from home, I guess.
Funniest moment : picking up one of JB's welsh mates at the empty airport, and seeing this familiar woman walk towards us with two policemen, and then JB goes "oh, it's Susan Boyle" really loudly, in a surprised voice, and then Susan Boyle waves at us. And i was looking behind to see who she was waving at, while JB was turning red, and Sa was giggling away. A right trio of fools we must've looked, but it was funny. Plus now I get to go "oh...it's Susan Boyle" at JB any time, and she laughs. There was my claim to fame for the weekend^^(and she looked a bit spaced-out, but otherwise fine, to me. Very smiley.)
I went there for my lovely JB's 21st birthday party, and ended up spending three days partying and not sleeping much. I am completely shattered.
And I managed to end up cheating on JJ, but since we started arguing as soon as I set foot on French soil, I'm not feeling so guilty about that at all.
I'm just so tired. I had such a great time this weekend, I met some really lovely people, including JB's brother, John, the guy I got with, and it's such a brutal crash being back here, having to work and write my report and having JJ go on and me and all that. I just don't want to deal with anything, and I want to go and spend my summer over there, away from everything here.
There's always a place for me in Edinburgh, and that's the nicest thing ever.
So back to John...well it was great fun. It felt so good to sleep with someone who's actually really enthusiastic about sex, as opposed to JJ only really wanting to when we haven't seen each other for at least ten days. I always feel so bizarre with him, like there's something wrong with me. Plus his rebuffing me doesn't do my ego any good at all.
Yes, i know, I'm a bad person, blablabla. But hey, I'm happy with it, and he'll never know, so there.
I just want to go back there, and it's not for John. It's just because I love Edinburgh, I love the people there, i always have so much fun (no comments on that) and it just feels so comfortable. I don't know. It's a home away from home, I guess.
Funniest moment : picking up one of JB's welsh mates at the empty airport, and seeing this familiar woman walk towards us with two policemen, and then JB goes "oh, it's Susan Boyle" really loudly, in a surprised voice, and then Susan Boyle waves at us. And i was looking behind to see who she was waving at, while JB was turning red, and Sa was giggling away. A right trio of fools we must've looked, but it was funny. Plus now I get to go "oh...it's Susan Boyle" at JB any time, and she laughs. There was my claim to fame for the weekend^^(and she looked a bit spaced-out, but otherwise fine, to me. Very smiley.)
Monday, June 1, 2009
In memory of Dr George Tiller
I'd never actually heard of Dr Tiller before this, and I've been learning pretty damn fast. It's things like these that make me so damn thankful my parents didn't decide to raise me in the US.
He was shot in a church because he provided late-term abortions, saving women's lives.
I don't understand how anyone, much less a "pro-lifer" can justify this. Pro-life, my ass.
I'd never clearly before understood the extent of the harassment women, nurses, and doctors in the US face when dealing with abortion.
I don't understand the black/white mindset in general, but this makes it even more crazy. Can these people not read? Do they not know why people are allowed late-term abortions? I mean, maybe I have supernatural abilities because I have a vagina and so might face this situation, but seriously. How can anyone be so settled in their narrow little conceptions of right and wrong, of life and death.
I wish I could be at a vigil right now. I wish I could scream at all these people, browbeat them into being afraid as they try to do to women. I've never wanted to be in the US this badly, I think. Sad, isn't it.
I just can't get my head around it. I'm not crying over this death, but it's the second one to shock me badly in two weeks. Sylvain only died two weeks ago, and here comes another death that hits hard. This hits me hard because I am really worried about what will happen to all the women in the US now.
There are now, from what I understand, only TWO late-term abortion providers. How is that even possible???How are they ging to manage? Which students are going to step up to the task while knowing they risk their lives to help women, to save their damn lives?
Oh, yeah, a woman's life is worthless, I forgot.
You know, I had a pretty bad scare this month. My period was extremely late, probably because of shock and illness and stress, and I was seriously worried. I didn't even think about it. I am in no way fit to raise a child at this time in my life. I don't want to raise a child. All my thoughts are centered on going to Taiwan and studying and the like. It's just not a question. So I looked up exactly what to do if I needed to-one of my fears has always been to not know I'm pregnant until the 14th week, which is the limit here save for medical deformities and the like-the same stuff Dr Tiller was dealing with- and not being able to get an abortion. So I read that I have to call a hospital that provides abortion as a service, make an appointment, i'll see a counselor, make another appointment, and it'll be done.
Just where my parents live, I can go to three different hospitals that aren't more than half an hour away.
And if I can't afford it (that's possible, i think it's paid for up to 70% by the State)or if I don't want my parents to know, I could go to the Planning Familial, and they'd sort it out for me.
And I want everyone to have this choice. I want every woman to able to choose what the hell she wants to do with her body. Whether that's by contraception, so abortion isn't needed; cheap, easy to get, safe abortion for whatever reason ; State help if she wants to raise her child alone.
Christ am I glad to live in a secular country. My thoughts go out to Dr Tiller's family, friends, staff, to the women he helped, to those who need his help, and basically to anyone who needs them tonight :( .
Fuck you, prolifers. Fuck you. I hope there is a hell, so that you burn in it for advocating murder. Not just his, but the murder of all the women he saved and would have saved.
I don't give a flying fuck about "tarring all prolifers with the same brush". Fuck that shit. I don't give a damn if you're moderate-you never hear about the moderates. By not speaking out, you've just been condoning all the "Tiller the Baby-Killer" rhetoric that led to his murder. You've been condoning the people who posted his address and phone number. Fuck you too.
Here's my take : there's no prolife about this. You're prochoice or antiabortion. And anyone who's advocating taking away a woman's right to choose, instead of, oh, I don't know, advocating birth control and sex education, can kiss my ass.
I just can't believe it's the 21st century.
here are the links to much, much better posts on the subject.
He was shot in a church because he provided late-term abortions, saving women's lives.
I don't understand how anyone, much less a "pro-lifer" can justify this. Pro-life, my ass.
I'd never clearly before understood the extent of the harassment women, nurses, and doctors in the US face when dealing with abortion.
I don't understand the black/white mindset in general, but this makes it even more crazy. Can these people not read? Do they not know why people are allowed late-term abortions? I mean, maybe I have supernatural abilities because I have a vagina and so might face this situation, but seriously. How can anyone be so settled in their narrow little conceptions of right and wrong, of life and death.
I wish I could be at a vigil right now. I wish I could scream at all these people, browbeat them into being afraid as they try to do to women. I've never wanted to be in the US this badly, I think. Sad, isn't it.
I just can't get my head around it. I'm not crying over this death, but it's the second one to shock me badly in two weeks. Sylvain only died two weeks ago, and here comes another death that hits hard. This hits me hard because I am really worried about what will happen to all the women in the US now.
There are now, from what I understand, only TWO late-term abortion providers. How is that even possible???How are they ging to manage? Which students are going to step up to the task while knowing they risk their lives to help women, to save their damn lives?
Oh, yeah, a woman's life is worthless, I forgot.
You know, I had a pretty bad scare this month. My period was extremely late, probably because of shock and illness and stress, and I was seriously worried. I didn't even think about it. I am in no way fit to raise a child at this time in my life. I don't want to raise a child. All my thoughts are centered on going to Taiwan and studying and the like. It's just not a question. So I looked up exactly what to do if I needed to-one of my fears has always been to not know I'm pregnant until the 14th week, which is the limit here save for medical deformities and the like-the same stuff Dr Tiller was dealing with- and not being able to get an abortion. So I read that I have to call a hospital that provides abortion as a service, make an appointment, i'll see a counselor, make another appointment, and it'll be done.
Just where my parents live, I can go to three different hospitals that aren't more than half an hour away.
And if I can't afford it (that's possible, i think it's paid for up to 70% by the State)or if I don't want my parents to know, I could go to the Planning Familial, and they'd sort it out for me.
And I want everyone to have this choice. I want every woman to able to choose what the hell she wants to do with her body. Whether that's by contraception, so abortion isn't needed; cheap, easy to get, safe abortion for whatever reason ; State help if she wants to raise her child alone.
Christ am I glad to live in a secular country. My thoughts go out to Dr Tiller's family, friends, staff, to the women he helped, to those who need his help, and basically to anyone who needs them tonight :( .
Fuck you, prolifers. Fuck you. I hope there is a hell, so that you burn in it for advocating murder. Not just his, but the murder of all the women he saved and would have saved.
I don't give a flying fuck about "tarring all prolifers with the same brush". Fuck that shit. I don't give a damn if you're moderate-you never hear about the moderates. By not speaking out, you've just been condoning all the "Tiller the Baby-Killer" rhetoric that led to his murder. You've been condoning the people who posted his address and phone number. Fuck you too.
Here's my take : there's no prolife about this. You're prochoice or antiabortion. And anyone who's advocating taking away a woman's right to choose, instead of, oh, I don't know, advocating birth control and sex education, can kiss my ass.
I just can't believe it's the 21st century.
here are the links to much, much better posts on the subject.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Heartbroken
I can't deal with this.
Saturday night, one of my university friends and his girlfriend were run over by some drunk dude, and now they're dead. I'll be going to his funeral on wedsnesday.
I found out Saturday evening, and I've been a wreck ever since. I can't believe it. I can't accept this.
Sylvain and I weren't the best friends in the world, but I really liked him. We'd met a year and a half ago, the first time the uni was blocked while I was there, in the last months of 2007. We were both active, trying to get our uni back on track and be able to go back to class, and those were good times. He was truly a lovely guy. In all the time I knew him, even when the rest of us were pulling our hair out in rage, he always had a joke and a smile. I actually nearly went out with him, but at that same time i met my exboyfriend, and that was that. I find it hard to get my head around. What would have happened if I'd been his girlfriend?Would I be the one being buried tomorrow? Or would we not have been at that place at that time, would he still be alive now?
He was a history student, and wanted to be a teacher. An intelligent guy, and a handsome one to boot. i truly believe the world is missing out without him here, and now I'm angry. I'm so angry. Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be him? i'm sure everyone thinks that when someone they love dies, but I just...can't. Wednesday I'm going to have to face him dead. his parents, whose pain I cannot even begin to comprehend. All the friends I don't know. And worse of all I'm going to have to face the friends we had in common. I'm going to see Etienne, his best friend at uni. Gael, who invited me to his mega birthday bash just a day before Sylvain died and I know he was supposed to be there too, and Aymeric, and god knows who else. I nearly feel i shouldn't be going, because I wasn't as close to him as they were, but I'm grieving too. Oriane says this is the best homage anyone could have, that even people who weren't that close to you are grieving for you, and she's probably right.
When i first found out, I never realised it would be this hard. I've never had to deal with sudden death like this before. The only person close to me who's died was my grandmother a year and a half ago, right around the time I met Sylvain actually, and I had six months to prepare for her death, although I still miss her. Him...it's so sudden. It's so fucking unfair.
The nights are the hardest.
I wish I could make sense of this somehow, but all that goes through my head is that Sylvain's dead. I'm never going to see him again. I'm never going to see his curly brown hair, never going to see his smile, hear his laugh, hear him teasing me; we're never going to have a coffee break and smoke cigarettes at uni, i'm never going to see him strut around with his raybans and brown leather jacket; never going to run into him at the library doing his research and sitting with me to make fun of my chinese work, to make me talk to him because he's sick of working; never going to go drinking with him again, and take silly pictures; never going to be happy when I see him again, because I always was; he could akways be counted on to make me smile. Never going to hear one of his stupid jokes, never going to hear him make fun of all our anarcho-communists, never going to hear him try and make me come to one of the university parties, never going to hear him say I'm not wearing enough clothes on purpose because i want to flirt, never actually going to flirt with him, never going to argue about the world and hear about his latest history work.Never, ever, ever.
And it hurts so much I can't breathe.
Jesu, if I'd known...well, what. I can't have regrets now. It's too late to wish I'd spent more time with him, and it wouldn't have changed anything. Maybe it'd even hurt more.
This is one of those times where I nearly wish i believed in God, because it's sort of comforting; and then i think that if there is something out there, and that whatever it is planned for this to happen? Well it can fuck the hell off, with all due respect (so=none). i don't really believe in fate and all that; i wish I did, it would make this a lot easier, to believe that it was sylvain's fate to be run over by some drunk dude and die at the age of 21 with his girlfriend.
But I just fucking can't.
I just hope that bastard spends the rest of his life being sorry.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
He might not have been my lover, but this...says it all.
Saturday night, one of my university friends and his girlfriend were run over by some drunk dude, and now they're dead. I'll be going to his funeral on wedsnesday.
I found out Saturday evening, and I've been a wreck ever since. I can't believe it. I can't accept this.
Sylvain and I weren't the best friends in the world, but I really liked him. We'd met a year and a half ago, the first time the uni was blocked while I was there, in the last months of 2007. We were both active, trying to get our uni back on track and be able to go back to class, and those were good times. He was truly a lovely guy. In all the time I knew him, even when the rest of us were pulling our hair out in rage, he always had a joke and a smile. I actually nearly went out with him, but at that same time i met my exboyfriend, and that was that. I find it hard to get my head around. What would have happened if I'd been his girlfriend?Would I be the one being buried tomorrow? Or would we not have been at that place at that time, would he still be alive now?
He was a history student, and wanted to be a teacher. An intelligent guy, and a handsome one to boot. i truly believe the world is missing out without him here, and now I'm angry. I'm so angry. Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be him? i'm sure everyone thinks that when someone they love dies, but I just...can't. Wednesday I'm going to have to face him dead. his parents, whose pain I cannot even begin to comprehend. All the friends I don't know. And worse of all I'm going to have to face the friends we had in common. I'm going to see Etienne, his best friend at uni. Gael, who invited me to his mega birthday bash just a day before Sylvain died and I know he was supposed to be there too, and Aymeric, and god knows who else. I nearly feel i shouldn't be going, because I wasn't as close to him as they were, but I'm grieving too. Oriane says this is the best homage anyone could have, that even people who weren't that close to you are grieving for you, and she's probably right.
When i first found out, I never realised it would be this hard. I've never had to deal with sudden death like this before. The only person close to me who's died was my grandmother a year and a half ago, right around the time I met Sylvain actually, and I had six months to prepare for her death, although I still miss her. Him...it's so sudden. It's so fucking unfair.
The nights are the hardest.
I wish I could make sense of this somehow, but all that goes through my head is that Sylvain's dead. I'm never going to see him again. I'm never going to see his curly brown hair, never going to see his smile, hear his laugh, hear him teasing me; we're never going to have a coffee break and smoke cigarettes at uni, i'm never going to see him strut around with his raybans and brown leather jacket; never going to run into him at the library doing his research and sitting with me to make fun of my chinese work, to make me talk to him because he's sick of working; never going to go drinking with him again, and take silly pictures; never going to be happy when I see him again, because I always was; he could akways be counted on to make me smile. Never going to hear one of his stupid jokes, never going to hear him make fun of all our anarcho-communists, never going to hear him try and make me come to one of the university parties, never going to hear him say I'm not wearing enough clothes on purpose because i want to flirt, never actually going to flirt with him, never going to argue about the world and hear about his latest history work.Never, ever, ever.
And it hurts so much I can't breathe.
Jesu, if I'd known...well, what. I can't have regrets now. It's too late to wish I'd spent more time with him, and it wouldn't have changed anything. Maybe it'd even hurt more.
This is one of those times where I nearly wish i believed in God, because it's sort of comforting; and then i think that if there is something out there, and that whatever it is planned for this to happen? Well it can fuck the hell off, with all due respect (so=none). i don't really believe in fate and all that; i wish I did, it would make this a lot easier, to believe that it was sylvain's fate to be run over by some drunk dude and die at the age of 21 with his girlfriend.
But I just fucking can't.
I just hope that bastard spends the rest of his life being sorry.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
He might not have been my lover, but this...says it all.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
And this is it
It's 2:26 am.
I've just finished one of the least urgent things I had to do to prepare for my next ten days of exams, but at least I did something; I seem to be afflicted with an inability to work, and yet work I must if I don't want to fail.
And I don't want to fail.
I'm leaving.
Three years here have done me in. I am sick of my studies, I am sick of French humanities universities and the strikes year in, year out, sick of the small permanent mass of communist throwbacks dreaming of 1968. I am tired of worrying about whether I'll get through a whole semester or not this time, tired of worrying whether we'll get thrown out of class each time they hold a meeting-this happened twice already and now the whole uni is shut down.
So, I'm off; I am graduating, and I am moving to Taiwan to get my chinese up to scratch.
I'm scared. But I'm anticipatng it like crazy.
Financially, things should be ok if I make enough this summer to pay for my university tuition over there. Socially, half my class is moving to Taiwan, which is quite entertaining :) I'm exaggerating, but my darling F will be there for five months, O is coming with me as an independent student, and Vic and C have scholarships with uni.
I finally talked it over with JJ today; he's happy for me, but he clearly told me we were through when I left. I felt so lonely.
I was expecting it; JJ's a chronic paranoid, he'd go crazy with me on the other side of the world; in his perspective we'll be better off split up, which makes me sad. I wasn't sure, but I would have been willing to give it a go, if he'd had some faith. But instead...well, I guess we'll see, the girls coming back don't have many flattering things to say about Taiwanese men^^
I tried telling JJ I wasn't going there for men, but he just can't deal with that kind of stuff. I find it amazing. But apparently he's still in shock we made it past the one-month mark, and that i actually fell in love with him.
I had a conversation with my mother that shook me to the core today, about this same subject. I told her JJ hadn't taken it too well, and she laughingly said "you're so cruel to your boyfriends".
We were talking about him telling me we were over the moment I left France, and she was all "well you can't love him that much if you're leaving".
I swear to God, I nearly had a heart attack.
My mother routinely tells me I don't care much about my boyfriends. She happens to be right pretty often. It's not that i don't care at all, it's just...I can't get sentimental, and over-the-top, all the movie stuff girls are supposed to do and like, all that crap, you know? Well I don't mind watching it, but any guy who expects me to act like that is basically screwed. I'm hopelessly pragmatic, very take it or leave it, I'll never go on loving someone who's left me, it's not part of my DNA somehow, I don't know. I could never be the heroine of some dramatic love story; I'm incapable of that kind of feeling. Which I find worrying, sometimes. I wonder if my incapacity to sustain a relationship winds from there. And then i tell myself that I'm twenty, so fuck that.
I told her I wasn't the one who wanted to stop when I left, but that there was no way I was going to put my life on hold for any man. No way, period. I don't think he'd want me to, either. He'd be happy if I stayed, but there's nothing for me here at the moment. I need a year out. So yeah, scratch the plans that make me excited as hell, that are part of my career plan, because my relationship will be over? I don't think so. I told her as much, saying that if I had to forsake my life's plan because of love, it was a very crappy love indeed, and i didn't agree. If someone can't love me like that, and support my choices, well then yeah, it'll be over. And yeah, I'll cry about it, because I love JJ. it's going to be bloody painful, come to think of it. Prince Charming says I should dump him before he can, but that's really shooting myself in the foot. Pain now, less later? Possibly, but I'd rather not.
I don't know, it felt so...strange, the implication that it was my fault, coming from my mother. I unfortunately immediately flared up, going "so what, i should stay because some guy will leave me?". She backed down, saying "no, it's just a bit extreme, other people could think differently"
Well, obviously. But this is what I think. I'm allowed to think it's better; I'm not forcing anyone to do the same, or giving long lectures about how it's the right way to go. There's no right way. I might personally think that giving up what you want to do for the person you love is a dumb thing to do, that doesn't mean I think that the people who do this are dumb. Different choices suit different people.
It just felt so goddamn weird. I'd never felt this kind of undercover attack on my ideas from my mother. I bet people will say I'm overreacting, but this is me, and this is my mother, and there's never been the slightest hint of anything like this before.
Which is probably why I'm so damn assertive on the subject. And will be single in approximatively four months and a half. Yay me.
I've just finished one of the least urgent things I had to do to prepare for my next ten days of exams, but at least I did something; I seem to be afflicted with an inability to work, and yet work I must if I don't want to fail.
And I don't want to fail.
I'm leaving.
Three years here have done me in. I am sick of my studies, I am sick of French humanities universities and the strikes year in, year out, sick of the small permanent mass of communist throwbacks dreaming of 1968. I am tired of worrying about whether I'll get through a whole semester or not this time, tired of worrying whether we'll get thrown out of class each time they hold a meeting-this happened twice already and now the whole uni is shut down.
So, I'm off; I am graduating, and I am moving to Taiwan to get my chinese up to scratch.
I'm scared. But I'm anticipatng it like crazy.
Financially, things should be ok if I make enough this summer to pay for my university tuition over there. Socially, half my class is moving to Taiwan, which is quite entertaining :) I'm exaggerating, but my darling F will be there for five months, O is coming with me as an independent student, and Vic and C have scholarships with uni.
I finally talked it over with JJ today; he's happy for me, but he clearly told me we were through when I left. I felt so lonely.
I was expecting it; JJ's a chronic paranoid, he'd go crazy with me on the other side of the world; in his perspective we'll be better off split up, which makes me sad. I wasn't sure, but I would have been willing to give it a go, if he'd had some faith. But instead...well, I guess we'll see, the girls coming back don't have many flattering things to say about Taiwanese men^^
I tried telling JJ I wasn't going there for men, but he just can't deal with that kind of stuff. I find it amazing. But apparently he's still in shock we made it past the one-month mark, and that i actually fell in love with him.
I had a conversation with my mother that shook me to the core today, about this same subject. I told her JJ hadn't taken it too well, and she laughingly said "you're so cruel to your boyfriends".
We were talking about him telling me we were over the moment I left France, and she was all "well you can't love him that much if you're leaving".
I swear to God, I nearly had a heart attack.
My mother routinely tells me I don't care much about my boyfriends. She happens to be right pretty often. It's not that i don't care at all, it's just...I can't get sentimental, and over-the-top, all the movie stuff girls are supposed to do and like, all that crap, you know? Well I don't mind watching it, but any guy who expects me to act like that is basically screwed. I'm hopelessly pragmatic, very take it or leave it, I'll never go on loving someone who's left me, it's not part of my DNA somehow, I don't know. I could never be the heroine of some dramatic love story; I'm incapable of that kind of feeling. Which I find worrying, sometimes. I wonder if my incapacity to sustain a relationship winds from there. And then i tell myself that I'm twenty, so fuck that.
I told her I wasn't the one who wanted to stop when I left, but that there was no way I was going to put my life on hold for any man. No way, period. I don't think he'd want me to, either. He'd be happy if I stayed, but there's nothing for me here at the moment. I need a year out. So yeah, scratch the plans that make me excited as hell, that are part of my career plan, because my relationship will be over? I don't think so. I told her as much, saying that if I had to forsake my life's plan because of love, it was a very crappy love indeed, and i didn't agree. If someone can't love me like that, and support my choices, well then yeah, it'll be over. And yeah, I'll cry about it, because I love JJ. it's going to be bloody painful, come to think of it. Prince Charming says I should dump him before he can, but that's really shooting myself in the foot. Pain now, less later? Possibly, but I'd rather not.
I don't know, it felt so...strange, the implication that it was my fault, coming from my mother. I unfortunately immediately flared up, going "so what, i should stay because some guy will leave me?". She backed down, saying "no, it's just a bit extreme, other people could think differently"
Well, obviously. But this is what I think. I'm allowed to think it's better; I'm not forcing anyone to do the same, or giving long lectures about how it's the right way to go. There's no right way. I might personally think that giving up what you want to do for the person you love is a dumb thing to do, that doesn't mean I think that the people who do this are dumb. Different choices suit different people.
It just felt so goddamn weird. I'd never felt this kind of undercover attack on my ideas from my mother. I bet people will say I'm overreacting, but this is me, and this is my mother, and there's never been the slightest hint of anything like this before.
Which is probably why I'm so damn assertive on the subject. And will be single in approximatively four months and a half. Yay me.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Found this floating around on the internet
Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions: [I've altered these, the old ones made it messy]
1) Bold those you have read.
2) *Star the ones you loved.
3) Italicise those you plan on reading.
Instructions: [I've altered these, the old ones made it messy]
1) Bold those you have read.
2) *Star the ones you loved.
3) Italicise those you plan on reading.
*1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (I've read this God knows how many times)
*2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (love this too)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (not fond of this one)
*4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (I was eleven when I discovered this, and i loved it. it got less good as it went on, though).
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (I know a few of the stories, through my grandmother's stories and stuff, read some in prose, but we don't have copies of the Bible lying around-I grew up in an atheist household)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (never been very interested in this one)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (a good book, it's just that I don't intend to read it for fun)
*9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (This is fucking brilliant)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (I started it, and forgot about it)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (one of the books that rythmed my childhood)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (started this, got bored, forgot about it)
*13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (this is nuts)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare* (you can't count all of them as one book, i have the complete works but haven't read all of them)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
*16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (lighter than the Lord of the Rings series, since it's meant for kids, and very, very good)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (I liked the movie, what can I say)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I read quite a bit of Dickens when i was a kid, the adventures of Mr pickwick and the like, but I'm not that interested anymore)
*24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (This is a fantastic book, I tend to like stuff that has to do with history, and it's set during Napoleon's wars, which I had to see as part of my education, blabla. It's great)
*25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (one of my favourites)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (i've heard a lot about this)
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (I have this, but I've never felt like reading it)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
*29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (another childhood book of mine)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (read this when i was a kid, too)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (don't like)
*33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (love this too)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (another great Austen)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (this is part of the Chronicles of Narnia)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (I quite liked this, but the movie is too long)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (another childhood book)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
*46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (I think they might have gone through the drawers under my bed)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (read it for school when I was a kid...forgot just about all of it)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (and I have this, I suck)
*52 Dune - Frank Herbert (excellent SF)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
*54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (I love Jane Austen)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (I think my mother has this, there're a good few Vikram Seths lying around the house)
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (read it for high school, interesting book)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (I read his second book, "A spot of Bother" and liked it very much)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (So much hate)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (not intending to read this-I was traumatised by the Little friend (is that the translation in English? We borrowed it from a french library when i was a kid) )
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (sad,sad, sad, but good)
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (I love Alexandre Dumas)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
*73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (I always have this book where I live, it's like a lucky charm)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
*77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (Another kid's book, actually I have the whole series)
78 Germinal - Emile Zola (ugh, no way, I can't stand Zola since I had to read Le ventre de Paris for school)
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (I think I was fifteen when I read this. It's powerful.)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (read every single one of them, and i'm surprised there're no Agatha Christies on this list)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (funny, I don't know this, and I've read a LOT of Enid blyton)
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (this is a book just about every kid in France reads at some point. It's lovely)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
*97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I also grew up reading Roald Dahl, including his adult books, like the collection of short stories Kiss Kiss)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
That comes up to 36, i'm pretty pleased with myself :) Funny thing is I read most of these when i was a kid. I'll see if i ever get around to reading more of this list.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Pretentious and shameless
JJ and I had a slightly heated discussion last night.
Namely, him pointing out that I was pretentious.
Now, that's not an accusation I'm often faced with; I get cold, indifferent, heartless,secretive, stubborn, and a good few others, but pretentious doesn't come up much.
He went on to claim that he didn't see it as a bad thing, which then led god knows how to his assertion that everyone should have a dream and follow it, or something, me pointing out that he was crazily privileged to be able to think like that, him pointing out that he's had a shitty life, which is true, and explains partly why he's slightly insane, but still, wev. Back to the point.
Apparently my pretention lies in my having firmly seated opinions about things. No, I didn't quite get this either. It's also in the fact that I have a very low tolerance for stupid people. Or people that I consider to be stupid, in any case. I know, it's not very kind of me, but I do my best to be nice, and when I can't, I go away. I think there's worse as non-tolerance goes, no? I don't know.
But yes, I have strong opinions about things; I'm an opinionated bitch. And obviously I have these opinions because I think there's a shred of truth in them. And I'll argue to the end if no-one conclusively shows me that I'm wrong, because I like being right. It's a terrible fault of mine.
But I know I'm often wrong. And I can accept it, because I'm only human, for fuck's sake.
But christ on a bike, pretentious? I'm pretty confident, I guess, I'm pretty satisfied with my brains, my looks, myself in general.
I'm also reserved and secretive and shy in situations I'm not comfortable with, I don't tell people what the fuck is up with me, I don't share my life and feelings and everything with people at the snap of a finger.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be pretentious if I was a guy. JJ is pretentious ; he freely admits it. He's also deeply insecure about certain things, he's a strange mix.
He's the first guy who's ever really argued back at me, even though last night I felt seriously frustrated by our argument, I just couldn't come out with everything that was running through my head, namely "fuck you, you wouldn't be saying this if I was a dude, that is total and utter bullshit, damn you just called me pretentious for saying things were bullshit, man this is frustrating, privileged bastard, how come you get to voice firm and clear opinions when I'm pretentious for doing it, now I'm incoherent and if I point this out you'll calmly demonstrate you never said such a thing, or something"
In my defense, I was very, very tired last night; tuesday was a hard day, including a presentation at 8 am that we finished late the night before because F had a computer bug and we had to redo all her part, complicated. And yesterday's classes started at 8, finished at 5, so it was pretty long.
I don't know if it was just because last night I was really tired and grumpy and depressed but I really felt like JJ was dismissing my opinions.
Like they didn't count.
I don't know. I probably imagined it, JJ loves me mainly because we talk a lot, and i've got to admit it's refreshing. I'd better go to sleep and stop mulling this over. I just don't have time.
I have to write a letter persuading a jury to take me on as a Frenc TA in Taiwan. Laughs and giggles this is. Ppffft.
Namely, him pointing out that I was pretentious.
Now, that's not an accusation I'm often faced with; I get cold, indifferent, heartless,secretive, stubborn, and a good few others, but pretentious doesn't come up much.
He went on to claim that he didn't see it as a bad thing, which then led god knows how to his assertion that everyone should have a dream and follow it, or something, me pointing out that he was crazily privileged to be able to think like that, him pointing out that he's had a shitty life, which is true, and explains partly why he's slightly insane, but still, wev. Back to the point.
Apparently my pretention lies in my having firmly seated opinions about things. No, I didn't quite get this either. It's also in the fact that I have a very low tolerance for stupid people. Or people that I consider to be stupid, in any case. I know, it's not very kind of me, but I do my best to be nice, and when I can't, I go away. I think there's worse as non-tolerance goes, no? I don't know.
But yes, I have strong opinions about things; I'm an opinionated bitch. And obviously I have these opinions because I think there's a shred of truth in them. And I'll argue to the end if no-one conclusively shows me that I'm wrong, because I like being right. It's a terrible fault of mine.
But I know I'm often wrong. And I can accept it, because I'm only human, for fuck's sake.
But christ on a bike, pretentious? I'm pretty confident, I guess, I'm pretty satisfied with my brains, my looks, myself in general.
I'm also reserved and secretive and shy in situations I'm not comfortable with, I don't tell people what the fuck is up with me, I don't share my life and feelings and everything with people at the snap of a finger.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be pretentious if I was a guy. JJ is pretentious ; he freely admits it. He's also deeply insecure about certain things, he's a strange mix.
He's the first guy who's ever really argued back at me, even though last night I felt seriously frustrated by our argument, I just couldn't come out with everything that was running through my head, namely "fuck you, you wouldn't be saying this if I was a dude, that is total and utter bullshit, damn you just called me pretentious for saying things were bullshit, man this is frustrating, privileged bastard, how come you get to voice firm and clear opinions when I'm pretentious for doing it, now I'm incoherent and if I point this out you'll calmly demonstrate you never said such a thing, or something"
In my defense, I was very, very tired last night; tuesday was a hard day, including a presentation at 8 am that we finished late the night before because F had a computer bug and we had to redo all her part, complicated. And yesterday's classes started at 8, finished at 5, so it was pretty long.
I don't know if it was just because last night I was really tired and grumpy and depressed but I really felt like JJ was dismissing my opinions.
Like they didn't count.
I don't know. I probably imagined it, JJ loves me mainly because we talk a lot, and i've got to admit it's refreshing. I'd better go to sleep and stop mulling this over. I just don't have time.
I have to write a letter persuading a jury to take me on as a Frenc TA in Taiwan. Laughs and giggles this is. Ppffft.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Annoyed
Roommate dearest and I went out this morning, went to look at the shops, happily toddling around, looking in a couple clothes shops, but not bothering to try anything on, until we got to Mango.
Now I've never bought anything there, because it's usually far out of my price range, and completely unnecessary, but today, we both saw nice jeans, which happens once in a blue moon. So we decided to try them on.
And that was the drama of the day, because those fuckers cut the damn trousers a size under the usual.
So let's disclose details ; I'm a size 38, i think that's a UK size ten. Yeah, on the small side. Roommate is a 40, or UK 12, but then she's only 10 centimeters taller than me, so it's kind of logical. I can't fucking believe the dudes at Mango decided it would be a good idea to make us feel-or rather, try to make us feel- fat. because that's what happens when you pull on a pair of trousers in your size, and find out they don't fit. You don't stop to think that it might be the cut, that you might be bloated because of your period or something, or that the sizes in this shop might be skewed. No. You go straight to the "OMG I'm fat!" belief that society instills in you as early as fucking possible.
Well guess what? Didn't fucking work. We just left the trousers there, and got the hell out, fuming that they dared try to make us feel like we should be thinner.
My whole point would be : get the fuck away from me and stop trying to shame me into being thinner and so take up less space.
Not going to work. There is no valid reason whatsoever for me to feel fat, for god's sake. I'm normal. I feel for all the people larger than me out there-life must be hellish. Constantly getting told you're not good enough gets worse the larger you are.
Fuck off, society.
Now I've never bought anything there, because it's usually far out of my price range, and completely unnecessary, but today, we both saw nice jeans, which happens once in a blue moon. So we decided to try them on.
And that was the drama of the day, because those fuckers cut the damn trousers a size under the usual.
So let's disclose details ; I'm a size 38, i think that's a UK size ten. Yeah, on the small side. Roommate is a 40, or UK 12, but then she's only 10 centimeters taller than me, so it's kind of logical. I can't fucking believe the dudes at Mango decided it would be a good idea to make us feel-or rather, try to make us feel- fat. because that's what happens when you pull on a pair of trousers in your size, and find out they don't fit. You don't stop to think that it might be the cut, that you might be bloated because of your period or something, or that the sizes in this shop might be skewed. No. You go straight to the "OMG I'm fat!" belief that society instills in you as early as fucking possible.
Well guess what? Didn't fucking work. We just left the trousers there, and got the hell out, fuming that they dared try to make us feel like we should be thinner.
My whole point would be : get the fuck away from me and stop trying to shame me into being thinner and so take up less space.
Not going to work. There is no valid reason whatsoever for me to feel fat, for god's sake. I'm normal. I feel for all the people larger than me out there-life must be hellish. Constantly getting told you're not good enough gets worse the larger you are.
Fuck off, society.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The world has gone nuts around me
I don't even know where to start.
Sarkozy is trying to teach Obama how to negotiate with Iran, which is kinda funny
My teachers are still on strike (week 2! out of my seven-week semester!I am screwed!)
But I actually support this strike because if this law goes through...they (and us along with them) are in deep shit.
France has been stormed, snowed in, stormed again, it's been a crazy month for weather here, and power cuts all over the place.
Fires in Victoria and crazy dudes blaming them abortion. From what the news told me a good number of the fires were criminal, but who cares about plausible? I'm still trying to get my head around that one.
Rihanna has allegedly been beaten up by Chris Brown, her boyfriend, and the world is blaming her, and it makes me want to throw up. A lot. And then cry. And then hope against hope that he gets sent to jail. And that all those motherfucking victim-blamers choke.
I've been hired as an English teacher by Acadomia, a company that provides private lessons all over France. I'm nervous about it.
Grades are coming out little by little, and I'm doing pretty well for the moment, especially in chinese, so I'm pretty hopeful.
I have a new presentation to get ready for march third "Social pressures faced by women ages 20-30 in modern China". F and I dreamed that one up and it should be pretty interesting, but we don't have much time.
Nearly everyone's back from their semester abroad, it's nice to see them all again!
And I might be pregnant...crossing fingers, touching wood on this one, I don't face a real risk since I always use BC, but I'm worried. So waiting a bit more, then testing. We'll see.
Sarkozy is trying to teach Obama how to negotiate with Iran, which is kinda funny
My teachers are still on strike (week 2! out of my seven-week semester!I am screwed!)
But I actually support this strike because if this law goes through...they (and us along with them) are in deep shit.
France has been stormed, snowed in, stormed again, it's been a crazy month for weather here, and power cuts all over the place.
Fires in Victoria and crazy dudes blaming them abortion. From what the news told me a good number of the fires were criminal, but who cares about plausible? I'm still trying to get my head around that one.
Rihanna has allegedly been beaten up by Chris Brown, her boyfriend, and the world is blaming her, and it makes me want to throw up. A lot. And then cry. And then hope against hope that he gets sent to jail. And that all those motherfucking victim-blamers choke.
I've been hired as an English teacher by Acadomia, a company that provides private lessons all over France. I'm nervous about it.
Grades are coming out little by little, and I'm doing pretty well for the moment, especially in chinese, so I'm pretty hopeful.
I have a new presentation to get ready for march third "Social pressures faced by women ages 20-30 in modern China". F and I dreamed that one up and it should be pretty interesting, but we don't have much time.
Nearly everyone's back from their semester abroad, it's nice to see them all again!
And I might be pregnant...crossing fingers, touching wood on this one, I don't face a real risk since I always use BC, but I'm worried. So waiting a bit more, then testing. We'll see.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Even the gay friend thinks his opinions are better than mine
I got thoroughly annoyed the other night.
I was talking to a friend of mine, a couple nights ago, and the discussion turned to China.
I study chinese. (I go on about this at length through my blog)
I find it insanely annoying when people spout out stereotypes, especially the ones I know are wrong.
And here I was, trying to point out that all the stuff he was saying was just repeating what the media says, only for him to claim that he was surprised that I didn't know better and that he kept himself informed about China and the like.
Dude is an Italian major. I helped him throughout high school.
I got sooooo pissed off. I was angry that he was brushing off the history I'd learnt, the things i'd come to know as a student of chinese, things I learned through my chinese or taiwanese friends, from my teachers, from my friends in China, with a "I know just as much about this as you do".
I managed to shut him up eventually, but i was trying to figure out why, why, WHY he thought his opinions were more valid than my facts.
I'm of the opinion that it's because he's a man, and hey, we all know a man's opinion is better than a woman's, right?
**depressed**
I was talking to a friend of mine, a couple nights ago, and the discussion turned to China.
I study chinese. (I go on about this at length through my blog)
I find it insanely annoying when people spout out stereotypes, especially the ones I know are wrong.
And here I was, trying to point out that all the stuff he was saying was just repeating what the media says, only for him to claim that he was surprised that I didn't know better and that he kept himself informed about China and the like.
Dude is an Italian major. I helped him throughout high school.
I got sooooo pissed off. I was angry that he was brushing off the history I'd learnt, the things i'd come to know as a student of chinese, things I learned through my chinese or taiwanese friends, from my teachers, from my friends in China, with a "I know just as much about this as you do".
I managed to shut him up eventually, but i was trying to figure out why, why, WHY he thought his opinions were more valid than my facts.
I'm of the opinion that it's because he's a man, and hey, we all know a man's opinion is better than a woman's, right?
**depressed**
Monday, February 2, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
On Beauty
I've been thinking, a bit, about the pressure to conform.
We all have to subscribe to some ideal beauty to be happy; I guess we all live in a culture of fear, to encourage consumption. And of course, it's always harder on women than on men.
After all, men aren't told they have a sell-by date. Men don't have to wear make-up to pass, they can walk around with acne scars, dark circles, with no-one commenting on their tiredness/"petite mine" as they say in French. Men can have grey hair, it's stylish; women have to dye it. Women are expendable, dontcha know? So we have to stay pretty. Have to wear heels, make-up, uncomfortable stuff, sexy stuff, have to look good for others and not for ourselves, because we don't know what we want and are just there to provide eye-candy for men.
I wasn't pretty as a pre-teen. I was fat, badly dressed, mainly because it didn't interest me that much, and spent my time reading. But I still started wearing make-up in my third year of middle-school (there are four years of middle-school and three years of high school in France), mainly because it provided an armour, something distinctive other than the fact I was a foreigner. I liked colouring my eyes a lot. And then I developed acne, so that started me off on skin stuff, foundation and the like.
And I continue to this day.
I love make-up. I love how it makes me look, I love how it makes me feel. I'd say I wear it for myself, but that probably wouldn't be true, because I know make-up makes me prettier, whatever my boyfriend might say about loving me without it. It's also somewhat of a societal pressure, since a woman with make-up is seen as making more of an effort.
I'm definitely not going to stop, although i've been going easier on the skin stuff, having stopped wearing foundation, and I hate that some can call me antifeminist or stupid for this. I understand some of what's behind my make-up wearing, but I'd just rather go on telling myself it's my choice and I do it for myself. Ultimately, I believe it is, but I know there are pressures out there that have made me who I am.
My roommate wears make-up once in a blue moon, because she has insanely sensitive skin, and no-one gives her stick about it, except her boyfriend, who is very much attached to appearances. I worry about that, and try to gently point it out when it comes up, but I can't really take his behaviour head-on. But that's a whole different post. And she's fine like that.
Sometimes I wonder if it hasn't been a lot easier for me growing up here than it would have been in the Uk or the US, because I don't feel as many pressures as others seem to. I feel that women are more casual here, or maybe I'm imagining it.
Or maybe I'm just extremely privileged.
I mean, I'm conventionally attractive, I'm white but not 'pasty', I have dark, thick, straight hair that hairdressers coo over (I recently went to the hairdresser's for the first time in five years-I just find them annoying) but that I ultimately leave alone- I was amazed to meet Brit girls my age when i was fifteen: every single one of them I met had hair straighteners and they all used them once or twice a day, even the girls who already had straight hair. Us Frenchies were baffled, since the most I do to my hair is blow it dry-hey, it's winter^^although I do possess a pair of straighteners, present from my aunt, uncle, cousins when I was sixteen (on my mother's side, the Brit side of the family).
And my American cousin kept telling me her hair was usually a lot nicer because she hadn't brought all her hair products with her-no idea what she intended to do to it, it looked fine to me. People confuse me.
As for clothes : well I hear that French women are classy and often boring, wear too much black, etc etc.
I think simplicity is valued here, but I'll direct you to Garance Doré's blog on more about the cliché.(here's the English version)(it's a great post, really well written and funny :) )
Our stereotypes are that British girls let it all hang out, with clothes that are too tight, too short, too vulgar. This, of course, isn't always true, but many of the girls/women I've seen on the street do fall into this. And I find it extremely ugly, but that's only my opinion, after all, to each their own. I just find it strange, because I'm taking that they dress this way because they feel good like that, at least, I hope so, for them. There's nothing more unpleasant than dressing in a way that doesn't fit or suit you, that you don't feel comfortable in.
I like feeling attractive; I like feeling sexy. I love dresses-in summer. The rest of the time I run around in jeans and a top. I can't stand feeling constricted, so I shun anything too-tight, too short, scratchy or fidgety. My version of sexy doesn't always fit in with mainstream expectations; right now I'm wearing a soft green jumper and a pair or grey trousers-probably what would be called slacks-that float around my legs, and I feel extremely sexy. Add on my beloved combat boots, and I'm happy.
But this is just another version of what's acceptable.
In France, casual clothes are more common; the short, over-the-top sexy stuff is for parties, and frowned upon in everyday life.Not t say that you can't wear a mini-skirt, but the "only one" rule is very well assimilated; basically, show cleavage, or your legs, but not both at once.
And I just don't know how you get away with clothes that aren't practical; This migth stem from the fact that people in France walk a lot more than in America, because of the way cities have been constructed historically, I guess. But I walk everywhere; uni, friend's places, food-shopping, clothes-shopping, everything. So shoes that are going to hurt, a skirt that's going to ride up, a dress that's going to trail along? nope.
it's like high heels. Just not practical, and made, IMO, for men's enjoyment. But I love a pretty pair of heels. I just love shoes in general. But I'll never wear anything that will hurt. I don't really get the point, and the women i know seem to agree :)
But still, only women...
We all have to subscribe to some ideal beauty to be happy; I guess we all live in a culture of fear, to encourage consumption. And of course, it's always harder on women than on men.
After all, men aren't told they have a sell-by date. Men don't have to wear make-up to pass, they can walk around with acne scars, dark circles, with no-one commenting on their tiredness/"petite mine" as they say in French. Men can have grey hair, it's stylish; women have to dye it. Women are expendable, dontcha know? So we have to stay pretty. Have to wear heels, make-up, uncomfortable stuff, sexy stuff, have to look good for others and not for ourselves, because we don't know what we want and are just there to provide eye-candy for men.
I wasn't pretty as a pre-teen. I was fat, badly dressed, mainly because it didn't interest me that much, and spent my time reading. But I still started wearing make-up in my third year of middle-school (there are four years of middle-school and three years of high school in France), mainly because it provided an armour, something distinctive other than the fact I was a foreigner. I liked colouring my eyes a lot. And then I developed acne, so that started me off on skin stuff, foundation and the like.
And I continue to this day.
I love make-up. I love how it makes me look, I love how it makes me feel. I'd say I wear it for myself, but that probably wouldn't be true, because I know make-up makes me prettier, whatever my boyfriend might say about loving me without it. It's also somewhat of a societal pressure, since a woman with make-up is seen as making more of an effort.
I'm definitely not going to stop, although i've been going easier on the skin stuff, having stopped wearing foundation, and I hate that some can call me antifeminist or stupid for this. I understand some of what's behind my make-up wearing, but I'd just rather go on telling myself it's my choice and I do it for myself. Ultimately, I believe it is, but I know there are pressures out there that have made me who I am.
My roommate wears make-up once in a blue moon, because she has insanely sensitive skin, and no-one gives her stick about it, except her boyfriend, who is very much attached to appearances. I worry about that, and try to gently point it out when it comes up, but I can't really take his behaviour head-on. But that's a whole different post. And she's fine like that.
Sometimes I wonder if it hasn't been a lot easier for me growing up here than it would have been in the Uk or the US, because I don't feel as many pressures as others seem to. I feel that women are more casual here, or maybe I'm imagining it.
Or maybe I'm just extremely privileged.
I mean, I'm conventionally attractive, I'm white but not 'pasty', I have dark, thick, straight hair that hairdressers coo over (I recently went to the hairdresser's for the first time in five years-I just find them annoying) but that I ultimately leave alone- I was amazed to meet Brit girls my age when i was fifteen: every single one of them I met had hair straighteners and they all used them once or twice a day, even the girls who already had straight hair. Us Frenchies were baffled, since the most I do to my hair is blow it dry-hey, it's winter^^although I do possess a pair of straighteners, present from my aunt, uncle, cousins when I was sixteen (on my mother's side, the Brit side of the family).
And my American cousin kept telling me her hair was usually a lot nicer because she hadn't brought all her hair products with her-no idea what she intended to do to it, it looked fine to me. People confuse me.
As for clothes : well I hear that French women are classy and often boring, wear too much black, etc etc.
I think simplicity is valued here, but I'll direct you to Garance Doré's blog on more about the cliché.(here's the English version)(it's a great post, really well written and funny :) )
Our stereotypes are that British girls let it all hang out, with clothes that are too tight, too short, too vulgar. This, of course, isn't always true, but many of the girls/women I've seen on the street do fall into this. And I find it extremely ugly, but that's only my opinion, after all, to each their own. I just find it strange, because I'm taking that they dress this way because they feel good like that, at least, I hope so, for them. There's nothing more unpleasant than dressing in a way that doesn't fit or suit you, that you don't feel comfortable in.
I like feeling attractive; I like feeling sexy. I love dresses-in summer. The rest of the time I run around in jeans and a top. I can't stand feeling constricted, so I shun anything too-tight, too short, scratchy or fidgety. My version of sexy doesn't always fit in with mainstream expectations; right now I'm wearing a soft green jumper and a pair or grey trousers-probably what would be called slacks-that float around my legs, and I feel extremely sexy. Add on my beloved combat boots, and I'm happy.
But this is just another version of what's acceptable.
In France, casual clothes are more common; the short, over-the-top sexy stuff is for parties, and frowned upon in everyday life.Not t say that you can't wear a mini-skirt, but the "only one" rule is very well assimilated; basically, show cleavage, or your legs, but not both at once.
And I just don't know how you get away with clothes that aren't practical; This migth stem from the fact that people in France walk a lot more than in America, because of the way cities have been constructed historically, I guess. But I walk everywhere; uni, friend's places, food-shopping, clothes-shopping, everything. So shoes that are going to hurt, a skirt that's going to ride up, a dress that's going to trail along? nope.
it's like high heels. Just not practical, and made, IMO, for men's enjoyment. But I love a pretty pair of heels. I just love shoes in general. But I'll never wear anything that will hurt. I don't really get the point, and the women i know seem to agree :)
But still, only women...
Friday, January 23, 2009
Blog for choice
So all over the blogosphere I've been seeing people talking about what Roe vs Wade means to them.
Maybe I read too many US-based blogs.
For me? Well, on a very personal level, nothing at all. Roe vs Wade doesn't sit in my psyche the way our abortion law does, or the way Britain's abortion act does.
The whole debate about abortion in the US utterly dumbfounds me. Frankly, I grew up in a country where a woman's right to abortion isn't even thought about, except by one of our very right-wing ministers once in a blue moon, so discovering the whole fight it was in the US when I was a pre-teen came as somewhat of a shock.
And the non-logic astounded me-it still does.
You're against abortion, but you're also against birth control?
That destroys any argument you might've had of this being about the babies. See, if the life of a fetus was your main problem, you'd advocate birth control. You'd be pushing for it to be free, readily accessible, all that.
But no. This is about women. This is about the belief that women cannot make their own choices, cannot act responsibly, must be controlled. This is about the fact that you would have your daughters obey you and then their husband. This is about the fact that you have no respect for beliefs different from your own.
And that you despise us.
I'll always defend any woman's right to have an abortion, whatever the circumstances, be it because of rape, an accident, or simply because now is not the right time. There is no "good" or "bad" reason to have an abortion. The choice is ours. This is about our bodies, our lives-and nothing will ever convince me anyone has a right to tell us what we should do.
Maybe I read too many US-based blogs.
For me? Well, on a very personal level, nothing at all. Roe vs Wade doesn't sit in my psyche the way our abortion law does, or the way Britain's abortion act does.
The whole debate about abortion in the US utterly dumbfounds me. Frankly, I grew up in a country where a woman's right to abortion isn't even thought about, except by one of our very right-wing ministers once in a blue moon, so discovering the whole fight it was in the US when I was a pre-teen came as somewhat of a shock.
And the non-logic astounded me-it still does.
You're against abortion, but you're also against birth control?
That destroys any argument you might've had of this being about the babies. See, if the life of a fetus was your main problem, you'd advocate birth control. You'd be pushing for it to be free, readily accessible, all that.
But no. This is about women. This is about the belief that women cannot make their own choices, cannot act responsibly, must be controlled. This is about the fact that you would have your daughters obey you and then their husband. This is about the fact that you have no respect for beliefs different from your own.
And that you despise us.
I'll always defend any woman's right to have an abortion, whatever the circumstances, be it because of rape, an accident, or simply because now is not the right time. There is no "good" or "bad" reason to have an abortion. The choice is ours. This is about our bodies, our lives-and nothing will ever convince me anyone has a right to tell us what we should do.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Tired of it
I'm so tired and depressed tonight.
I'm in the middle of exams, at the moment. I actually failed one pretty badly today. Spectacularly badly, really.
I'm so tired.
I get bouts of "I'm so tired and sick of it all and I want to give up" periodically, but this one has been going on a bit too long for my liking.
I know it'll pass. But I wish I was back to my usual self, who's in my head right now screaming "snap out of it already, you twit! There's no more reason than usual for you to fail and be a total loser!"
But it's not working very well.
being depressed kinda kills any will I might have had to work in the first place, and I berate myself for it, and nothing gets any better.
And I'm nowhere near having my period, so bleuuh.
I seem to expect a lot of myself, but I don't do much to fulfill those expectancies, because, well, I've never had to. I've always breezed through with minimum effort.
I've always wondered how different things would have been if I'd had a more serious approach to things. If I'd made different choices.
Gone to a high school further away that offered chinese as a language ; passed the entrance exam to Sciences Po; basically just worked harder.
I'd probably be having even worse problems with stress, spasmophilia and depression.
I'm just moaning over nothing, I know. I'm twenty in precisely five days, I'm already in my third year at uni, and even if I fail this semester I can pass resits in September.
I just need to get a life and move on^^
I'm in the middle of exams, at the moment. I actually failed one pretty badly today. Spectacularly badly, really.
I'm so tired.
I get bouts of "I'm so tired and sick of it all and I want to give up" periodically, but this one has been going on a bit too long for my liking.
I know it'll pass. But I wish I was back to my usual self, who's in my head right now screaming "snap out of it already, you twit! There's no more reason than usual for you to fail and be a total loser!"
But it's not working very well.
being depressed kinda kills any will I might have had to work in the first place, and I berate myself for it, and nothing gets any better.
And I'm nowhere near having my period, so bleuuh.
I seem to expect a lot of myself, but I don't do much to fulfill those expectancies, because, well, I've never had to. I've always breezed through with minimum effort.
I've always wondered how different things would have been if I'd had a more serious approach to things. If I'd made different choices.
Gone to a high school further away that offered chinese as a language ; passed the entrance exam to Sciences Po; basically just worked harder.
I'd probably be having even worse problems with stress, spasmophilia and depression.
I'm just moaning over nothing, I know. I'm twenty in precisely five days, I'm already in my third year at uni, and even if I fail this semester I can pass resits in September.
I just need to get a life and move on^^
Monday, January 12, 2009
Thinking
I'm exhausted.
Passed two exams today, wrote a load of shit.
One of those dumbass Charlie's Angels movies is on TV and I'm screaming at its sexism every five minutes (plus racism, stereotyping and general stupidness)
Last week's exams, that were cancelled because of the snow, have been change-to moments where I HAVE FUCKING EXAMS! so I'd better get down to uni tomorrow morning and rant.
Interesting discussion at Shakesville
All I know is that it would be easier if I were a man. But I don't want to be a man. I don't want to go through life as a male, in all likelihood unaware of my privilege, I don't want to be not interested in the things I'm interested in now.
What would change if I were a man?
I wouldn't be scared of going home at night, alone
I wouldn't have to fend off unwanted (attention as much)
I wouldn't be shot down as hysterical/angry/gossipy or whatever else is used to dismiss my opinion
I could pee standing up (always wanted to do that), never ever use birth control apart from condoms again (although that is all I use at the moment), never have a period which would be lovely.
I'd probably be another version of my brother, who's average-to-tall, blond, has the same eyes and a similar face structure to mine, and his hair is nearly as long. ANd seeing as the men in my family are skinny as hell, I'd be skinny as hell, in all likelihood. I'd just have dark hair, instead. I'd be a carbon copy of my dad. With straight hair.
My mother would be sad she no longer had a daughter for all the girly stuff we do together, even if it's just chatting.
My father would be sad too, because he's proud of me for who I am.
In my choice of studies, I would have been pushed towards the better schools more than I was, although I chose not to go. My sudden inability to comprehend math when I got to high school would have been questioned and possibly sorted out, although my parents tried to get me help(I went from an average of 15 out of 20 to an average of 5).
I'm in a predominantly female field of study, but I don't feel the males in my classes get more respect than I do. Perhaps because many of our teachers are highly-qualified females, or maybe I just didn't notice.
I'd be lauded for my interest in world affairs, instead of art students like the Ex's friends trying to teach me economics when I've been doing economics courses for the last six years and he never had.
I'd be confident and not aggressive, conversational instead of gossipy, proud instead of arrogant, cocky instead of insolent.
I'd miss my girlfriends, and the strong relationships i have with them.
I might be gay, but there are good chances I'd be bisexual, since at nineteen I'm far from having totally explored my sexuality, and I'm quite attracted to women, without knowing if I could go through with it.
I'd probably miss getting glammed-up, but I'd love dressing as a male-I do my best with my brother, but it's just not the same :P
I'd miss dancing the way I do, because it would look plain weird on a man.
I'd have been pushed towards guitar or saxophone or drums instead of flute when I started music.
I would probably have my driving license by now, instead of my parents letting me not bother.
I'd have to resist societal expectations to drink a lot more.I hardly drink, and it's unusual enough in a girl, to be completely amazing in a guy.
I'd probably be braver, and possibly have my dad's ease and immediate friendliness with people. I'm open and talkative, but as a woman I've been conditioned to be careful. Without this, I'd probably dare a lot more. I might have changed countries after high school, I might've been ready then, who knows.
I'd be mysterious instead of being intimidating and cold!
Sweet...
Passed two exams today, wrote a load of shit.
One of those dumbass Charlie's Angels movies is on TV and I'm screaming at its sexism every five minutes (plus racism, stereotyping and general stupidness)
Last week's exams, that were cancelled because of the snow, have been change-to moments where I HAVE FUCKING EXAMS! so I'd better get down to uni tomorrow morning and rant.
Interesting discussion at Shakesville
All I know is that it would be easier if I were a man. But I don't want to be a man. I don't want to go through life as a male, in all likelihood unaware of my privilege, I don't want to be not interested in the things I'm interested in now.
What would change if I were a man?
I wouldn't be scared of going home at night, alone
I wouldn't have to fend off unwanted (attention as much)
I wouldn't be shot down as hysterical/angry/gossipy or whatever else is used to dismiss my opinion
I could pee standing up (always wanted to do that), never ever use birth control apart from condoms again (although that is all I use at the moment), never have a period which would be lovely.
I'd probably be another version of my brother, who's average-to-tall, blond, has the same eyes and a similar face structure to mine, and his hair is nearly as long. ANd seeing as the men in my family are skinny as hell, I'd be skinny as hell, in all likelihood. I'd just have dark hair, instead. I'd be a carbon copy of my dad. With straight hair.
My mother would be sad she no longer had a daughter for all the girly stuff we do together, even if it's just chatting.
My father would be sad too, because he's proud of me for who I am.
In my choice of studies, I would have been pushed towards the better schools more than I was, although I chose not to go. My sudden inability to comprehend math when I got to high school would have been questioned and possibly sorted out, although my parents tried to get me help(I went from an average of 15 out of 20 to an average of 5).
I'm in a predominantly female field of study, but I don't feel the males in my classes get more respect than I do. Perhaps because many of our teachers are highly-qualified females, or maybe I just didn't notice.
I'd be lauded for my interest in world affairs, instead of art students like the Ex's friends trying to teach me economics when I've been doing economics courses for the last six years and he never had.
I'd be confident and not aggressive, conversational instead of gossipy, proud instead of arrogant, cocky instead of insolent.
I'd miss my girlfriends, and the strong relationships i have with them.
I might be gay, but there are good chances I'd be bisexual, since at nineteen I'm far from having totally explored my sexuality, and I'm quite attracted to women, without knowing if I could go through with it.
I'd probably miss getting glammed-up, but I'd love dressing as a male-I do my best with my brother, but it's just not the same :P
I'd miss dancing the way I do, because it would look plain weird on a man.
I'd have been pushed towards guitar or saxophone or drums instead of flute when I started music.
I would probably have my driving license by now, instead of my parents letting me not bother.
I'd have to resist societal expectations to drink a lot more.I hardly drink, and it's unusual enough in a girl, to be completely amazing in a guy.
I'd probably be braver, and possibly have my dad's ease and immediate friendliness with people. I'm open and talkative, but as a woman I've been conditioned to be careful. Without this, I'd probably dare a lot more. I might have changed countries after high school, I might've been ready then, who knows.
I'd be mysterious instead of being intimidating and cold!
Sweet...
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Panicking
SO Christmas was good, so was New year's, spent the holidays with JJ, had a lot of fun, didn't do a scrap of work and came back to my flat thinking "shit, i'm in trouble".
My exams were supposed to start last week but five were cancelled because of the snow. (Snow!you can't understand how amazing this is to us)
ANd now i have marketing and economics tomorrow and I am so screwed.
My exams were supposed to start last week but five were cancelled because of the snow. (Snow!you can't understand how amazing this is to us)
ANd now i have marketing and economics tomorrow and I am so screwed.
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