Stress

Okay, I'm feeling stressed.

My friend who is defending her doctoral thesis in Paris today said that she should know by 5PM or so, Paris time,  if she was awarded her doctorate.  5PM is 1700 hours.  1700 in France is 1100 here, or 11AM.  Its now 3 PM. Not a word. If she didn't get it, she'll be devastated.

Trump is destroying the ideals of my country, and normal people are supporting it.  Not just the bigots and racists, but normal people.  And there's not a fucking thing that I can do to stop it.  The GOP won't.  And the Democrats can't do squat until they are in office, in two months. I swear, I just want to get the hell out of this country.  Never thought I'd feel that way.  Never thought we'd be this stupid, this incompentant.

The girl who stayed with us last year confirms she is coming to this area in December. She says she will stop by our house  Not stay, but stop by. Because the reason for the visit is this guy she met while she was living here.

My French aural comprehension sucks.  My Italian comprehension is nonexistent. 

Makes me wish I drank.

My Oh My

Comments Only Women Really Understand

I see Comments Only Guys Really Understand all the time and I think Man, most of these are stupid.  But THESE, I think make perfect sense.

Even the one about Lucifer's Waterfall. 

French

I am sure that the French periodically get together and scramble the meanings of their words, just to confuse me.

DANS means IN.  So why does

l'attente de son apparition est vécue dans l'angoisse

mean the expecation of its arrival is seen WITH anxiety?

Just to confuse me, of course. 

Artificial Intelligence... Among Other Things

Why is it that I regard sex toys for women as perfectly normal, but this as creepy?  Shouldn't it be the other way around? Maybe the sex-toys-for-women industry has a better PR function?

Scary

When your wife goes to the local doc to investigate a random recurring pain.... and they recommend a quick mammogram.... and you do searches on LEFT BREAST RANDOM PAIN and find all that it could be - including but not limited to cancer -- that's scary.

Finding out that the mammogram and ultrasound showed nothing abnormal was a relief.

Reading

I don't read the range of things that I used to read, and, thanks to the internet, my willingness to read at more than paragraph length on a specific subject is diminished, too. 

Just now, I was at a local library,  where I read an issue of The Atlantic that contained two articles that interested me -- one about Newt Gingrich and his effect on slash-and-burn politics, and one about the rise of artificial intelligence, both in tools like Alexa and in medical (and other) diagnostic tools (one company offers to generate real-time analysis of a patients affective state, and to use it to suggest questions that the physician might want to ask).  It also contained an article about the state of politics written by David Frum, who suggested that we need to save our society from Trump and Gingrich's style of operation (Frum used a catchy phrase which I don't recall to suggest that Trump wants more and more of our politics to be controlled by fewer and fewer people, and he's succeeding at it)

And yet as I drove home, all I could think of was gee, I wish someone would summarize those articles for me.

Politics

The great thing about being a conservative politician is that you don't have to care about people.  As long as you keep your Papa Dog head of party happy, that's all you need.  Because liberals suck at firing up people, and conservatives are great at appealing to their base instincts..

Israel Connect

In about two weeks, I start weekly sessions with two Israeli kids, and their teacher, to help them practice speaking English.  Should be fun.

If Only.....

Chokepoint

When I bought my smartphone, I switched to TMobile because they offered phones with a chip that could be swapped, which was something I needed in order to be able to connect the phone to a SIM that was owned by a French network. (Trivia: apparently Orange is the big player there; the other networks, such as Lebara, buy space from them.  Guess what happens when Orange itself gets tight on space?)

I don't objectively know if TMobile is better than Verizon, the company I did have a connection to; in fact, given that Verizon has wider coverage, Verizon is probably better.  But I like TMobile more.  Part of that is smart marketing. .  Part of it is that they seem more responsive.  Part of it is that their website is not cluttered with ten thousand services that they want to sell you, unlike Verizon's.

And part of it is stuff like this.

Weaselicious

Republican Mitch McConnell says there is no need for legislation to protect Robert Mueller because 'there is no sign that Trump plans to fire him'.  And, one presumes, if he does move to fire him, McConnell will say Well, shucks, too late, we can't do anything now.

And a California Republican apparently wanted to buy clothes for a vacation, but his wife said No, we don't have the money for that -- but just charge it to your campaign fund and mark it as Golf Balls for Wounded Warriors or Isomething like that.

I can see how this would take a lot of balls. 

Eating

I totally do not get why people like food that looks like this.  I get that they do, but even just the thought of biting into something like this makes me nauseous.  Now a decent burger - that's a different story.

A Different Take On The Need For Affordable Health Care

Hmmm......

French thoughts

We got back from France (and Italy) just over a week ago.  In the process, we evaded the brutal heat that is hitting parts of Europe now, we met three conversation partners whom I had never met in person before (one of whom gave me two massive books about Italian cooking and about the history of her seaside ville, and another of whom gave me a delightful commemorative T shirt for the French win in the World Cup; both are much appreciated, but I have to say that the T shirt is particularly close to my heart because the colors on the sleeve can be read as ours (red/white/blue) or theirs (blue/white/red; it is a quiet giggle for me to think that I'm wearing a shirt with the French colors on it, and no one knows it)

Plus, we got to see our friends in Toulouse, and stay on their farm for a few days -- hot, beause people there don't believe in air conditioning, but still quite nice; we got to see our friends in Bourgogne (arranged so that we would not be in Paris for 14 July, instead seeing the local fireworks -- that didn't work out, because the wife was recovering from some emergency surgery, but it was still good), we got to see my friend the Sorbonne doctorante, and, perhaps most notably, we got to stay with the family of our French exchange student, which was simultaneously overwhelming -- they are very nice, very generous people who stunned us on more than one occasion - and heartbreaking - I had to admit to myself that except for the occasional trip, I'm not going to  see her ever again, which saddened me a lot.  I know, I know, her life is there, not here.  She's their daughter, not ours. Still, the part of me that still believes in Santa thought that maybe, maybe.....

But overall, it was a very nice trip.

Thinking

I am startled and amazed when I realize how utterly vicious my thoughts become when I think about the current hard-core conservative environment.  Utterly vicious.

And perhaps the scariest part is that I'm not sure that I want to change, because I don't see any benefit in doing so. 

Air Who?

I like the image of flying on Air France.  Its classy, at least in my mind. What ISN'T is the fascination that AF staff has with going on strike, every summer.  We're going to France this summer, and yes, the tickets over and back are on AF.  But this will be the last time, I think.  Enough is enough.

Today

Today's the day that our French exchange student goes home.  We're sad.  Not devastated, but - sad.  Wishing that things were different.

The Return

This week, my American daughter returns to her new home in Virginia, and my French daughter returns to her home in France.

Meanwhile, my wife will be on a trip with her mother and sister, leaving me and the cat.

Going to be lonely around here.

Departure

This is the last week of the French exchange student as a resident in our home.  This coming Sunday, she gets on a plane for Paris.  We are sad, because we really bonded with her. 

I am sure that as things happen, we will become just a memory to her, but still: when her mother thanks us energetically for always being there for her daughter, and for being very supportive - in fact, she referred to us as famille et amis - family and friends -- well, its hard not to have warm feelings about their whole family.  That's a little ironic, because our contact with her parents has been minimal -- something to do with both of them working, and a six-hour time differencee between here and Paris.  But still:  we feel warmly toward the girl, and by transference, toward the family, too.

Even if they're curiously reluctant to let us adopt her.

Move Along, Move Along

Every available sitting surface in the Empire State Building observation areas has one of these spiky edges to make sure you don't rest there a bit. Except the toilets, and where they sell you stuff.

É Giusto

Light

Just finished reading Friday Night Lights, about high school football, most notably in Odessa, Texas

After hearing about the TV series, I was expecting something uplifting -- tales of  occasional despair, yes, but ultimately acheivement, success, bonding, resulting in those guys who put up signs commemorating their high school football team of fifty years ago, and its winning season. Happy Days, but with footballs.

Not what I got.  FNL is, ultimately, a story of exploitation and misery. And being dumped for the newer, younger, faster model.

Nicely written, though.

wool

The feeling keeps coming back to me that our resident French exchange student is pulling the wool over  my eyes about something to do with  her relationship with a local guy.  I have nothing concrete to base that on -- just a feeling, based on something she said awhile ago about a situation where I thought he was lying, and she said No, I told him to say that.  And there is awareness that she is not above gaming the system - for example, getting to arrive in first class of the day a few minutes late (normally a reprimand or detention offence) by stopping at the nurse's office, showing the nurse a recent bruise from sports, talking briefly about it, and then getting a pass from the nurse to show up late without penalty.  Or the time that she did something in her sport which should have gotten her tossed from the game for a while, but she said Sorry in this meek voice with this cute French accent, and the referee just said Don't do it again, and let her continue. So it's just a hunch, that she's getting away with stuff, but it bugs me. I don't know if that's happening with this guy - or if I should care.  After all, she's leaving in about two weeks, and then she isn't my problem any more.

Not that she IS a problem - we all like her.  But when you start wondering about whether she's gaming the system in one sector, you begin to wonder about others.

Maybe what's really bugging me is that she's coasting through this year.  Of course, thats somewhat expected - as an exchange student, her grades don't count for anything so long as she keeps them above failing, and she does know that when she returns home, she'll have to take the year 'for real'. So she's putting in some effort, but its somewhat play acting, too..  Not taking it seriously. And that bothers me.  But if its true, as before, I don't know if I should really care. The year doesn't count, after all.

Or is it something else? 

Both Tah and Dah

According to the counter on DuoLingo, as of this morning I have done language exercises in French and Italian every day for 365 days.

FIB

Equivilence

Watching the (old) pilot for the (much, much older) Time Tunnel series, and it occurs to me:

The Time Tunnel is Quantum Leap.

CAMERAS

Today I discovered that taking pictures in bright sunlight with a camera phone is a very bad idea when the sun can easily glint off the display, so that you can see your own reflection better than the thing you're trying to photograph.  And having a camera phone which will switch from front to rear cameras with a light swipe on the screen will result in many pictures of your own scowling face -- not that you could see it at the time, due to the aforementioned sun-glinting-problems.

Technology.  Fun when it works.

Pronunciation

French pronunciation is seriously messed up.

Comment voyez-vous votre avenir, for example.

Sure, the first part is kohmon voyyay vooh, that's obvious.

But no way is votre avenir is  voh trav en eer.   It's clearly vohtruh veneer.  Clearly.

Argh.  Seriously messed up.

Talking

I have a new French conversation partner -- and she's a research physicist working in fluid dynamics!  Wow, this is going to be fun!

BP

Which in this case stands not for the destroyers of the Gulf but for Black Panther, the new movie being hailed as the rebirth of the superhero genre.  I went to see it yesterday, and upon resturning home looked again at one of the reviews, noticing this time that it said this was 'the best movie with a predominantly black cast'.  And exactly how many of those ever show up in North America?

I really wanted to like it.  Right up to the end, I thought maybe it will get better.  Never did.  Though I did like the character who was the evil relative.  He, at least, had character, force, strength, purpose.  The rest -- it kept making me think of other movies. Of the By our power combined chant of Captain Planet, of the battle scenes in Zulu (decades ago), of the wise and insightful elders of so many movies, of the Force mysticism and the attack on the Death Star from Star Wars.  Or, and the spunky kid sister who mocks the hero and secretly adores him.  As if the script's approach was lets try this, no, lets try that, wait, lets try.....

Maybe next time, guys. 

Thinking

This morning, I read two articles. 

The first is about the guy who was the team doctor for USA gymnastics for years, and who was convicted of molesting dozens of young girls.  The second is about a private club in London which would gather money for distribution to charities through private social events at which 'tall, thin, pretty' women were employed to do pretty much whatever it took to keep the rich, entirely male clientele happy.

I would not have believed either one, six months ago.  That something happened, yes, I would have believed that.  But that dozens odsf girls were molested?  That a private event right out of the 60s occurred?  Surely not.  Yet apparently something did happen, and happened often enough, in the first case, and egregiously enough, in the second , to result in legal proceedings.  That it took this long for such proceedings to start is dismaying, even now.  But it is happening,  I thought.  The facts are horrible, but action is being taken.

Then I read in the article about the USA doctor where the judge read part of the doctors statement aloud to the courtroom.  And one phrase got me. "The phrase caused a stir in the courtroom".  My goodness, what did he say? I wish I'd done more?  Damn, but that was fine? 

 No.  He said Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. 

That's what got people's attention? That's what the judge thought worth highlighting?  In all that you could have cited -- and in the case of the judge, did -- this is what upset people?

Don't misunderstand.  The guy in this case really does sound like a slimeball, as do the guys in London.  But when we get to the point where quoting an old proverb  ( from Wikitionary - First written as "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd." in the 1697 play The Mourning Bride (Act III Scene 2) by William Congreve ) causes people to be startled? That seems a bit much to me.  Selecting it sounds to me like reaching.  This guy did wretched things, and people are upset by his literary allusions?

Why? 

Information

When will school principals learn that hiding the truth from students about catastrophic events rarely works? The kids are not stupid. 

In this case, my wife, who works at the school, called me to tell me that a student had killed himself, and that the school administration did not want to tell the kids unless they brought it up.  Surprise.  They knew.  Does buckets for belief in the trustworthiness of the school administration. 

A Minuet in Power

....and no, that's not a typo. It's a game, and it sounds fascinating.