By wink of water

RIP Bird

2012-02-23T19:42:00.006-05:00

I had to put Bird down on Friday. He was by my side for the past 12 years, an amazing animal - smart, affectionate, curious, friendly, an incredible escape artist, and so charming that he persuaded neighbors in each different city that they should adopt him.

His first successful conquest was in 2000: Gina, the mother of my boyfriend at the time. Gina was living on Maui and just loved this friendly stray cat that kept coming by. Cats are considered nuisance animals in Hawaii (property owners often poison them) so she was afraid that he would get killed. She asked if I could adopt him, then when I said yes, got all his shots and sent him on a plane to Washington, D.C. My boyfriend drove him 8 hours up to Boston, meowing loudly the whole time. He moved in with me and my three roommates, and one of my roommates christened him Bird.

We then lived together in Washington, D.C. in a tiny basement apartment where I wasn’t allowed to have a cat; Seattle with Liz Korb; Williamsburg, VA with Arnie; Seattle again, in two different apartments (and we would fly him home to the Larsons in Arlington for Christmas); Paris, France, where he got to go on a little side trip to Belgium one Christmas vacation; and finally back to Boston. No matter where we were, he’d always come to door to greet me and complain that I’d been away too long, sometimes by nipping my ankle.

I have many stories I could tell about him - how he regularly escaped our Seattle apartment by cutting through duct tape, turning a window handle, and destroying the screen; how the old woman upstairs in Paris would take him in and feed him, so that he didn’t want our food anymore; how he once had a turf war with another cat and totally kicked its butt, leaving us with the collar and a very irate owner; how he let himself be carried like a rag doll by children and adults, a warm and fuzzy stuffed animal brought to life.

But mostly I want to say that he was a wonderful cat - my constant companion and best friend for the past twelve years. I will miss him very much.

Update

2011-10-13T12:48:00.003-04:00

He has no idea there's a fish in there, he's just obsessed with water

It's been a very, very long time since I wrote anything, and I never even finished blog posts from our China trip. Not to mention that we've been to France:

Paris en ete : it rained the whole time and I had to buy a sweater. Luckily, it was the end of les soldes.

... and to San Jose to see family:

... and went on an awesome scavenger hunt with my summer league team Fetch:

... and visited Provincetown for the first time, with one Ms Jess Williams:

... and spent a lovely late summer weekend in Maine.

Not to mention the myriad of gorgeous sunsets we enjoyed from our roof deck.

Oh, and I also went to Sectionals and Regionals with Cahoots, a really fun (and good!) mixed team out of Asheville, NC. My mom got to see me play club ultimate for the first time ever, braving the elements on an unseasonably cold weekend in Pennsylvania. We finished 5th - hope to be able to make Nationals next year!

This weekend we return to Maine for Clambake, and then we're mostly sticking around Boston until the holidays. I'm looking forward to lots of time at Thanksgiving and Christmas with my adorable nieces.

Yunnan

2011-06-19T21:32:00.000-04:00

We've been traveling around the Yunnan province, in southwest China. Some observations:

The food is amazing. We have a guide and he orders for us, but our one day on our own we had an equally good experience. Dishes are quite spicy. The meat is not always of the highest quality, but usually seasoned well. The vegetables a another thing all together. Fresh, crisp, tender, unbelievably flavorful. In the US or in France, too often veggies are overcooked, soggy, and totally bland. Here they are cooked perfectly.

Sanitation leaves a lot to be desired. The hotels have flush toilets, though often with a strange smell that suggests the composting variety. On the road it's nothing short of disgusting. The best version is a tiled hole to a landing spot four feet below. It's not an outhouse; in fact, it's much dirtier than that. You can see sunshine and what others left before you. There is definitely no toilet paper. You squat over the hole and each hole might be separated by a 3 foot wall to protect your privacy. In the worst case, it's a ten hole hall that you actually have to pay for. Instead of a hole, there's a trough running the length of the hall, of a depth of a foot. The leavings just sit in this tiled trough for god knows how long. One assumes that said trough is sprayed down periodically and the waste washed into some sort of receptacle, but one doesn't think this happens very regularly. Women's bathrooms have the additionally lovely detail of used feminine hygiene products just sort of laying out in the open. The stench is overwhelming.

The conjunction of old and new is one of the most interesting and confounding things about China. On the one hand, there are spanking new highways, high speed rail systems, and a billion people with cell phones - including those living in primitive conditions. On the other hand, the water is not safe to drink, sewage systems are often nonexistent, and farmers graze their ox on the shoulder of the road. Nothing brings this home more clearly than the mess of driving. Sharing the road are brand new Toyotas, BMWs, and Fords; overloaded and unstable dump trucks that travel very, very slowly; motorcycles with helmetless riders (including two year olds gripping the handlebars); tractors or motorcycles that have been modified into three wheel vehicles with a covered bed that can carry goods or people; bicycles; and horses pulling carts. This on four lane roadways as well as smaller village streets. C'est un bordel, c'est clair.

Having the guide has been a life saver for travel. These no way we could have driven ourselves, and the bus ride to Yuanyang would have left me a trembling mess. The terraces were worth the voyage - hard to imagine the centuries work it took to transform mountain upon mountain into sculpted farmland. They are breathtakingly beautiful. We have also seen many interesting markets with the minority villagers doing their daily shopping, heavy baskets resting on their backs and tied around their foreheads. Our guide brought us to a lovely restored Qing house that is now a hotel that we never would have found otherwise. It had 42 courtyards, a gorgeous garden, and intricate carvings on all the doors and awnings. Unlike some other examples of Qing architecture, this house wasn't destroyed by the Cultural Revolution, as the state used it as a hospital and government offices.

We are off to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest in the world. I think we'll see a lot of European backpackers.

Hong Kong

2011-06-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

First impressions: Gleaming white skyscrapers leap out of jungle canopy. Verdant, steep hills rising out of the sea, Vancouver island transplanted to the tropics. I have never seen a city so in love with capitalism. On Hong King island, shiny steel towers proclaim their creators in 10 story letters: Philips, Samsung, HSBC. Giant LCD billboards play 30 second advertisements on a continuous loop. There are shopping malls everywhere, filled with familiar stores. The streets are packed with shop after shop, with even restaurants and bars hard to find. Kowloon stores advertise with signs suspended seven feet above the sidewalk and stretching across the street; it feels like a permanent street festival.

The heat is unbearable. I am envious of the tourists with hats, the locals with umbrellas. People slowly jog along the promenade at 7 am, completely covered in sweat. Locals practice tai chi, moving slowly in loose, flowing clothes.

The city wakes later and stays up later than Boston or Paris. The commute doesn't pick up until 9 am. After dinner the stores are still open and people are still shopping. We go to the Kowloon markets at noon, mini-neighborhoods filled with flowers, birds, goldfish. The streets near our hotel are lined with food stalls, very similar to Paris except perhaps less refined - Paris in the 1800s. The smells are powerful and not entirely pleasant.

But elsewhere, the city is ultra-modern. The subway is speedy, quiet, and extremely well organized. Underground tunnels that are very clean, well-lit, and frigidly air-conditioned lead to numerous exits at every stop. It feels very safe; early in the morning, no one bothered an obviously confused tourist, and there are tons of police throughout the markets. Thus far I have seen only one person begging, which seems shocking in a city of this size and with so many tourists.

Today we'll seek out the old Hong Kong, though it's hard to find anything older than the colonial period. Then we go to China; I'm curious to see the differences, now that the mainland has embraced capitalism.

Glee mix

2011-05-30T15:01:00.000-04:00

Glee mix

I made my Glee mix, actually buying some songs to fill out the list. Mostly I kept the real version of the song when I liked them better. Sometimes the Glee cast members don't do much other than sing the same song note for note, and usually they lose in the comparison (very evident on Heart's "Alone"). That said, Lea Michele's version of "Jar of Hearts" and Darren Criss's "When I Get You Alone" are both a thousand times better than the original. Enjoy!

Tik Tok by Ke$ha

Blame It (On the Alcohol) by Glee Cast

Thriller / Heads Will Roll by Glee Cast

Rolling In the Deep by ADELE

Alone by Heart

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going by Glee Cast

Jar of Hearts by Glee Cast

I'm Not Gonna Teach You by Black Kids

Borderline / Open Your Heart by Glee Cast

When I Get You Alone by Glee Cast

I'll Stand By You by Pretenders

Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler

Defying Gravity by Glee Cast

Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine

Faithfully by Glee Cast

Valentine's Day mix

2011-02-12T11:07:00.000-05:00

Not really romantic, per se, but in time for that Hallmark-produced holiday. Mainly songs that missed the cut of my 2010 mix, or I hadn't heard before the new year.

Go Outside by Cults

What's My Name f. Drake by Rihanna

Acapella by Kelis

Cold War by Janelle Monae

Decisions f. Yuksel Arslan by How to Dress Well

A Case Of You (Joni Mitchell Cover) by James Blake

Blue Moon (Big Star cover) by Kendal Johansson

Baby Now by Nichole Alden

Glitter by No Age

Carolina by Girls

S&M by Rihanna

Burn Bridges by DOM

Desire Lines by Deerhunter

Mermaid by Okkervil River

I Only Know (What I Know Now) by James Blake

Career choices and writing

2011-02-05T12:40:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a lot of random stuff online lately, even more so than my usual diet of NY Times, Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Slate (all on LeechBlock, btw). A bunch of my friends write blogs, plus there are those random links people send out or have in their gchat status. Reading these sometimes, I'm jealous - not of the career of the escort in New York who blogs about her clients, but more of the writers themselves, that they support themselves through writing, or that they have the time to maintain a blog. That they get to write regularly, about interesting things; that they get to write fiction. My friend Lina writes a beautiful blog, and I often wish I could do the same thing.

On the other hand, I'm reminded of Lawrence's response to Peter's dream of doing nothing in Office Space: "You don't need a million bucks to do nothing. Take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit." If I want to write, I can just write. It's true that it takes time and energy, but it doesn't take money or even any more education than I already have. I could take a class just to have the motivation to complete assignments, I suppose. Or look for writer's workshops to join.

But this very career I've chosen, as far away it is from my love of reading and writing, is quite satisfying, and there's no guarantee I would actually like being a journalist, or a freelance writer, or even a novelist. For one thing, it's rare to make any money, and after years of grad school and postdocs, I'm a little tired of being poor. Moreover, money is a kind of proxy for recognition; I can't imagine the frustration of putting tons of time and effort into a piece of work only to have it rejected over and over again. And perhaps most importantly, I know that my happiness is very driven by how productive I feel. I would have to be entirely self-motivated to write, without even the outside pressure of conference deadlines or DARPA site visits. Even Lina struggled with writer's block. This was essentially why I decided to be a math major instead of an English major in college.

It's sort of absurd that it took me 6.5 years of a PhD and 2+ more of a postdoc to decide that I actually like computer science research, that it's engaging and fun, that I more often want to go to work than not, that it gives me a lot of freedom to keep learning about lots of different things and allows me to exchange interesting ideas with the smartest people in the world, not to mention that I get to read and write all the time and that my love of it makes me good at my job as a researcher. I'm even productive, most of the time.

Also, I get sent to places like this for important work meetings:

Best of 2010 (linked on facebook or email me)

2011-01-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

I have a lot to say and no time to say it, and even a minimal task like uploading and describing my best of 2010 list escapes me. But here we are, already one week into 2011 (it looks weird when you write it, doesn't it), so I must get started. Though I certainly can't hope to reproduce last year's more poetic effort, here's my mix. I am pleasantly surprised at how much I like it; I thought 2010 not nearly as good a year for music as 2009, let alone 2007. But there was definitely enough good stuff out there to make for some hard choices.

All of the Lights by Kanye West. I admit to feeling shocked and cynical about Pitchfork's perfect 10 for Kanye West's album. It's very good, no doubt - but impeccable? Kanye has a tendency to be overwrought, all pomp and circumstance, and frankly, some of his songs are so long as to be boring. That said, All of the Lights is certainly not timid, and packed with personalities, and it still succeeds. Something about that gorgeous horn line repeated over and over throughout the song holds on and won't let go.

my way by jj. The quote in the beginning is Charles Manson, I've discovered, and the rap is a sample of Lil Wayne's Don't Trip. He's not usually my cup of tea, but here, his weird vocals contrast nicely with her sweet voice, lending the song character that it wouldn't otherwise have. There's a gorgeous moment after the rap that never fails to fill me nostalgia, when she sings in a voice clear and true, unadulterated by the electronic scrambling that came before: "I'm yours, you're mine"

Tell Em by Sleigh Bells. Sleigh Bells is not everyone's cup of tea, trafficking as they do in distortion, noise, and generally muddy, loud sounds. But her voice is quite distinctive and pretty, and their songs just fill me up with energy. This song makes me think of a deranged pep rally.
I Feel Better by Hot Chip. For weeks, I thought the middle of this song was sung by a woman (showing how much attention I pay to niceties like band members). My favorite Hot Chip songs are all like this, pulsing forward with sensations of loss and longing, a general happy/sad feeling that's quite unique.

Madder Red by Yeasayer. There's just something so dramatic about the drums and "oohs" that begin this song, and the quiet, spare end of the verses before the recommencement of the drums: it could be very cliched, but instead it's well-crafted and works. The intelligent lyrics help, too: "It's getting hard to keep pretending I'm worth your time"

Not in Love by Crystal Castles featuring Robert Smith. This is like a really good Cure song, but better, because it's not cheesy. Crystal Castles is often a little much for me, too into the electronica for its own sake and not enough about constructing a good melody. But this song is the best of both worlds - a very real pop sensibility with completely new and interesting beats.

Tornado by Jonsi. I could have picked 2 other songs by Jonsi to go on this list, making that my favorite album this year. Best listened to on earphones on a train as you watch sheep and old farm buildings rush by.

I Think Ur A Contra by Vampire Weekend. It must be admitted that I absolutely detest the spelling of this song. But everything else about it is great - soft, sweet, romantic pop without sliding into triteness.

Afraid of Everyone by The National. I struggled a lot to choose my favorite off The National's new album, but not for the same reason as for Jonsi's. I am disappointed. I loved Boxer, loved nearly every song on it, and The National is probably my favorite living artist. But their songs on High Violet just mostly sound the same to me, and are not very interesting. I've fallen asleep more than once trying to listen to it. None really spoke to me the way "Slow Show" or half a dozen other songs on Boxer did. The album is still really, really good, just not up to my very high standards for the band. And Afraid of Everyone is as good an example as any other. (But the drums are amazing in this song.)

Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn. It's just raw pop and so cheesy but I love it. Robyn's trademark is danceable songs about longing and need and this one is quite sad, if you listen to lyrics: "Don't you tell her how I give you something that you never even knew you missed / Don't you even try and explain how it's so different when we kiss".

All I Want by LCD Soundsystem. Whenever I hear the opening bars of this song, it makes me want to cry and dance at the same time. I've never been a huge LCD Soundsystem fan, but this song just eats me up.

From the Mouth of Gabriel by Sufjan Stevens. What a beautiful song, what a beautiful album. He gets quite weird at times, and the strong religious overtones don't always work for me, but this song is lovely. The second half just soars. "And what a mess I've made of you. You probably would, but I won't let you run away. You probably should, but I won't let you run away this time."

Tightrope by Janelle Monae featuring Big Boi. I think she is so great, all bee-bop and swing, incredible voice and control (that minor stuff can't be easy), making music with a pop sensibility but no over manufactured feel. I like Big Boi but not enough to put one of his songs on this mix, so this will have to do.

Fuck You by Cee-Lo Green. Best pop song of the year? The video was just amazing, as was the Gwyneth Paltrow cover on Glee. He's so cheerful and I love his soul voice - in some of his other songs, it's too R&B for me, but here it works beautifully.

On and On by Girl Talk. Girl Talk is always my go-to when I need to clean the apartment or pack. He's really the master of the craft - the "Best of Bootie" mixes too often just combine the vocal track off one song with the backing track off the other (see Lady Gaga vs Nirvana). I like how he manages to combine short samples from numerous different songs in a seamless way that actually works. Thus far I prefer "Feed the Animals" but that's probably just because I remember dancing to the whole damn album at the end of 2008's Beaujolais party.

New city, new blog name

2010-12-26T20:33:00.000-05:00

My blog was originally named for the last passage in A Movable Feast (Hemingway) about Paris in the early days. I'm no longer in Paris, but in Boston, and I found a nice passage from Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and a River:

The train rushed on across the brown autumnal land, by wink of water and the rocky coasts, the small white towns and flaming colors and the lonely, tragic and elemental beauty of New England. It was the country of his heart's desire, the dark Helen in his blood forever burning -- and now the fast approach across October land, the engine smoke that streaked back on the sharp gray air that day!

The coming on of the great earth, the new lands, the enchanted city, the approach, so smoky, blind and stifled, to the ancient web, the old grimed thrilling barricades of Boston. The streets and buildings that slid past that day with such a haunting strange familiarity, the mighty engine steaming to its halt, and the great train-shed dense with smoke and acrid with its smell and full of the slow pantings of a dozen engines, now passive as great cats, the mighty station with the ceaseless throngings of its illimitable life, and all of the numerous, remote and mighty sounds of time forever held there in the station, together with a tart and nasal voice, a hand's breadth off that said: "There's hardly time, but try it if you want."

He saw the narrow, twisted age-browned streets of Boston, then, with their sultry fragrance of fresh-roasted coffee, the sight of the man-swarm passing in its million-footed weft, the distant drone and murmur of the great mysterious city all about him, the shining water of the Basin, and the murmur of the harbor and its ships, the promise of glory and of a thousand secret, lovely and mysterious women that were waiting somewhere in the city's web.

To me it's about longing and familiarity and restlessness and finding what you want. I read a few pages more and I suppose I have to read the whole thing now.

Writing again

2010-11-30T15:22:00.000-05:00

Animesh asked me sometime ago if I would continue to blog, and I thought no, but now I think maybe yes. Good practice to write a lot, and besides, my friends are scattered. I might be back in the US, but I have friends and family in Seattle, California, Colorado, New York, DC, and Paris. I'll put the last two mixes up here soon, just to have the record.

But I need a new title. Any ideas?

Les derniers jours

2010-08-25T09:35:00.000-04:00

Au revoir, Paris...ou plutôt à plus tard. Je déménage dans deux semaines, mais je vais passer une semaine à Crète avant pour ECCV. Frédo part même plus tôt, le 31 aôut, et je vais squatter chez Silvia pendant cinq ou six jours.

Je suis triste et heureuse. J´attends avec impatience mon nouveau travail, notre nouveau appartement, beaucoup de dîners sympas avec des potes anciens et nouveaux. Mais Paris va me manquer. C´est la plus belle ville dans le monde. J´adore la culture, les bons restos, les jolis jardins, les anciens bâtiments, les marchés plein de choses frais à manger...et surtout, mes amis ici. Les gens du labo vont éparpiller, et il serait dur de les voir tous ensemble (une conférence, peut-être). J´espère que je peux se rencontrer mon équipe plus facilement. Je vais revenir souvent à la France, et j´imagine que je passerais des jours à Paris. En tout case, je vous promets que je vais rester en contact.

Rentré

2010-07-29T08:25:00.000-04:00

It's been a month and a half since my last post, and that time has been full of traveling, work, frisbee, and friends. This weekend will be my first in Paris since...March, maybe? CVPR in San Francisco was a blur due to a deadline smack in the middle, but we managed to finish, the paper got accepted, and I got to see my brother and his family for Father's Day.

The weekend after we returned from California, we went to Grenoble, where Fredo did his studies, and visited with his best friend. Grenoble is gorgeous, this small valley tucked underneath the towering Alps, and there is tons of hiking and skiing close by. La Bastille overlooks the city from the north, and makes for a nice hike with pretty views. As it happened, a fanfare festival took place the weekend we were there, and so we went up Saturday night and listened to brass bands play far above Grenoble.

Back in Paris, we had a picnic by the Seine, a summer tradition that I have yet to do enough of this year. It's always funny how the tourists come by on the Bateaux Mouches and take your picture. Fredo brought out the LEDs for light painting and we had a great time creating surreal images. (Nice Notre Dame in the background, too.)

The next weekend we left for Prague, where I played Worlds with YAKA, the French women's team. Prague is a beautiful city, maybe even more beautiful than Paris, and I'd really like to go back and explore more. More pics here.

As for the championship, we finished 22nd, which is where we were seeded. A disappointment - there were at least two games that we should have won - but an incredible experience. I don't know if I'll ever get back to Worlds, or even Nationals, but if this is it then it wasn't a bad way to go out.

I had one very bad night/morning of traveling; we got back to the apartment really late, the cat was unhappy, I had to get up at 5 am to go to Oxford and give a talk, and it was my birthday... It all worked out fine, I got some sleep on the train, but I ended up feeling pretty sick for 2-3 days with a classic summer cold. No pictures of Oxford, they're on the other camera, but it's beautiful and seems like a really cool place to go to school.

Back in Paris for essentially just the 14th of July, we planned a big picnic for watching the fireworks, but unfortunately it rained, hard, all day. Instead we went to Guillaume's and had a nice potluck dinner; pictures here.

On the 15th we left for Chamonix's wedding in New York. It took place in a beautiful penthouse overlooking the Empire State building, and Chamonix made a gorgeous bride. We also took the time to visit with Claire and Deirdre, good friends from Seattle who are about to get married. They have the cutest dog in the world, hands down.

We were chugging away on the Internet often, in search of an apartment. And I think everyone should know this by now, but I got a postdoc at MIT, in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department; I'll be doing object recognition. It's for a year with an option to extend. My start date is September 20th. The plan is to go to ECCV in the beginning of September and then basically leave immediately after for Boston. After visiting New York, Fredo and I went to Boston for some work (for him) and essentially a full week of looking for apartments. And we found one! In Back Bay, just across the bridge from MIT, so still walking distance to work. Though I will need new boots (Emily...)

So after that marvelous success, we headed to Wildwood for the 10th anniversary of the Yellow Subs. Fredo took massive amounts of pictures, a selection of which can be found here. We played the 3-1 division and went undefeated, winning the tournament for the 5th time in 10 years! It was amazing to see my friends and play beach ultimate, and I'm really looking forward to living close to Emily again.

Until the big move, there's a mechoui, a visit from Meredith, a frantic attempt to see all the things in Paris I've missed, French class, and (of course) work. Not to mention ECCV, in Crete - computer vision researchers do really know how to pick their conference locations. That's the update, see you when I get back state-side!

Summer mix

2010-06-14T02:01:00.000-04:00

I leave in an hour or so for San Francisco (CVPR and my brother) and have yet to pack, but I got up at 4 am to work so I'm feeling virtuous enough to send this out. Summer mix, mostly pop, some of it French, a teeny-tiny bit of indie indulgence. Enjoy! (Linked on facebook or email me.)

Help Myself (Nous ne faisons que passer) by Gaëtan Roussel. I discover French pop by paying attention when the girls sing along to something in the minibus.

California Gurl by Katy Perry (Ft Snoop Dogg). I have a crush on her, though I don't think she's very talented.

Tell 'Em by Sleigh Bells. Albums I love so far this year: The National, Jónsi, Sleigh Bells. Pretty different, too. If you hated Crown on the Ground (ahem, Fredo), you're sure to detest this one as well. If you loved it, go buy the album!

XXXO Remix (Dirty)(Produced by Rieces Pieces) by M.I.A. Ft Jay Z. New M.I.A. out soon; this is no Paper Planes, but it's very pop (for better or worse).

Tightrope (Featuring Big Boi) by Janelle Monae. She is damn good, best new hip-hop artist I've heard in years. I need to listen to more.

Non non non (Écouter Barbara) by Camélia Jordana. This is the non-winner-but-better-singer from Nouvelle Star, which is France's American Idol. So, their Jennifer Hudson. Who almost made this mix as Glee made me really like that Dreamgirls song.

Airplanes Ft. Hayley Williams of Paramore by B.o.B.. OK, I realize this song is horrible. But this is a pop mix, and it is certainly very popular right now.

Dancing On My Own by Robyn. Swedish pop star, lyrics are sad, chorus is terribly catchy.

Despicable (Freestyle) by Eminem. This song isn't on the album (it's an overdub of a Drake song apparently) but Eminem is at his best when freestyling. This is E circa 1999, way better than all his singy stuff recently.

Drunk Girls by LCD Soundsystem. And now into the indie pop section. I was going to put on All I Want but I couldn't call it pop with a straight face.

Living In America by DOM. It's upbeat, so it qualifies.

Wait and See. by Diamond Rings. I don't know this band at all but they're "getting some buzz in the blogosphere", to use a tired phrase. I like the song and I like the period at the end of the song title.

Dieu m'a donné la foi by Ophélie Winter. She's pretty famous here, and blond and beautiful according to the Internet.

Open Your Heart by Madonna. You know that episode of Glee with all the Madonna songs? The mashup with Borderline and Open Your Heart made me realize that Open Your Heart is a much better song.

Defying Gravity (Glee Cast Version) by Glee. Let's be honest, we're all a little worried that Glee is only going to last one more season max. And frankly, the writers seem lost; after all the drama of Season 1 Part 1, Season 1 Part 2 was a little boring. Also Will's wife was basically the best character ever. But we'll always have the songs to buy, in $0.99 quantities immediately after the episode ends...[side note: Ben Lerner introduced me to this song 3 years ago and I'm tagging him to ask what do you think of the Glee version, and of Glee in general?]

Les voyages

2010-05-18T10:15:00.000-04:00

Ça fait longtemps que j´ai écrit...et je pense que la plupart des lecteurs sont américains (bien que je reçoive le spam en français maintenant) donc je vais continuer en anglais.

Just a small update: work (as always) and travel and practice and dinners with friends are how I've been filling my days. I went to Su Wu's wedding in North Carolina and saw bunches of friends, with a brief stop in Pittsburgh to visit Jessers, and last weekend went to the south of France with Fredo. He took lots of lovely photos, as always, which you can look at below:

East Coast summer

Nice

Grenoble

More to come, eventually, and lots of trips await: Malta this weekend, London (tournament) next, then probably Dijon, then Amsterdam, then to the States for CVPR and my (too-big!) nieces, then Prague, then Chamonix's wedding...and hopefully by July, it will be sunny and warm in Paris.

Printemps

2010-04-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

It is April in Paris and I am a cliché, having become part of one of those couples in the metro that I used to hate on, holding hands and snuggling and disgustingly happy. (I used to wish that I could, for once, see a couple fight on the street, since you really can't walk 50 meters here without seeing some couple making out. Then I did see a fight, and it made me extremely uncomfortable.) In any event, all this cheerfulness - the sunshine, the lovely apartment, the contented cat, the awesome team, the fantastic dinners every night - makes for one uplifting mix. (Jónsi helps, too.) Lots of stuff from Pretty Much Amazing, Aaron's blog, and the usual sources. Oh and Drew. Whom I miss dearly.

Go do by Jónsi

Rocket by Goldfrapp

I Am Not A Robot (Passion Pit Remix) by Marina and the Diamonds

Crave You by Flight Facilities

It's Fun To Smoke Dust (Queen vs. Pastor Gary Greenwald vs. Midfield General) by Lobsterdust

Window Seat by Erykah Badu

Generator ^ Second Floor by Freelance Whales

All to All by Broken Social Scene

Something Good Can Work (Ted & Francis Remix) by Two Door Cinema Club

Pieces of You by Wolf Gang

Fixed by Stars

Afraid of Everyone by The National

Last Call by Elliott Smith

Boy Lilikoi by Jónsi

I Am Not A Robot by Marina and the Diamonds

Linked on facebook or email me.

36, rue Broca

2010-04-06T09:27:00.000-04:00

For more pictures, go here

La rue Broca n'est pas une rue comme les autres. Si vous prenez un plan de Paris, vous verrez - ou vous croirez voir - que la rue Pascal et la rue Broca coupent à angle droit le boulevard de Port-Royal. Si, confiants dans cette indication, vous prenez votre voiture et enfilez ledit boulevard en espérant tourner dans l'une ou l'autre de ces rues, vous pourrez cent fois de suite faire la navette entre l'Observatoire et les Gobelins vous ne les trouverez pas.

La rue Broca, la rue Pascal sont donc des mythes? me direz-vous. Que non! Elles existent bel et bien... la rue Broca, comme la rue Pascal, est une dépression, une rainure, une plongée dans le sub-espace à trois dimensions.

Maintenant, laissons de côté la rue Pascal, qui est trop droite, trop large, trop courte aussi pour pouvoir accrocher le mystère, et parlons de la rue Broca seule.

Cette rue est courbe, étroite, tortueuse et encaissée. De par l'anomalie spatiale que je viens de signaler, bien qu'à chacune de ses extrémités elle débouche sur Paris, elle n'est pas tout à fait Paris. Peu éloignée, mais sur un autre plan, souterraine en plein air, elle constitue, à elle seule, comme un petit village. Pour les gens qui l'habitent, cela crée un climat tout à fait spécial.

-- Pierre Gripari, La socière de la rue Mouffetard

Paris au printemps

2010-03-23T10:36:00.000-04:00

Le printemps est arrivé: il fait très beau aujourd'hui et je n'ai pas envie de bosser. Mais, c'est comme ça, il faut travailler tous les jours, et j'en ai marre. J'ai raté la date limite d'ECCV (les résultats n'étaient pas encore assez bons mais je pense qu'on n'est pas loin) et donc on va essayer pour BMVC, à la fin avril. Pendant ce temps, il y a beaucoup de choses qui me rendent heureuse. Frédo est ici jusqu'à la fin août et il est en train de chercher un appartement qui soit bien pour les dîners et bien pour l'Oiseau. Je vais jouer avec YAKA à Paganello, à la coupe féminine, à Bruges, à Amsterdam, et à PRAGUE. Ma mère va me rendre visite très bientôt et on va voyager dans le sud, puis rendre visite à ma tante et mes cousins à Lyon. Et juste après la date limite de BMVC, je vais aller en Caroline du Nord avec Frédo et voir pas mal de mes amis au mariage de Su*Wu.

Peach blossoms: an early spring mix

2010-03-01T18:59:00.000-05:00

I was going to write this in French but I'm too tired. Two and half weeks to ECCV and it's really nothing but work from here on out. So many disconnected thoughts...really looking forward to the latter part of March, all of April, and the long Parisian summer. Spring has begun arriving here, florists tempting me with tulip bulbs that Annemarie rightly points out are not likely to survive another cold freeze; and indeed, we ran together in bright sunshine on Saturday, and Sunday a bitter wind blew through the city and threatened to rip my flower boxes clear off the railing.

I bought peach blossoms from the very nice woman downstairs (that is, downstairs at work), who informed me that they come from Italy. Bought a vase-like device to put them in at Carrefour and brought them home. Put water in the vase and was in the midst of cutting the stems when Bird knocked it over, the better to lap up fresh water. Needless to say, he has performed this trick multiple times since, even though I no longer bother putting water in the vase. Sigh. They are pretty though, aren't they? And he's a handsome creature despite his evilness.

New mix for you, what I've been listening to lately, mainly lots of new music. Hot Chip just recently put out a great album, and I've been loving Mumford and Sons. Sort of cheesy lyrics but so honestly sung. The Yeasayer song is also quite addictive. Charlotte Gainsbourg is super famous here, and her album was well-received in the US. The first song is a duet with Beck. She's the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, who duet on "Je t'aime...moi non plus", which I had to include for completeness. Joanna Newsom is not an artist I've loved in the past, mainly because her voice is so weird, but I like this song quite a bit. The Elliott Smith song was in Up in the Air, a reminder of how much I love him.

Finally, Sia...well, if you've got that tight feeling in your chest, like you just have to cry but can't, listen to this song and I guarantee release. Beautiful backing track to both the series finale of Six Feet Under and the best of Post Secret (which I came upon via so I saw this thing, shameless plug for a blog I contribute to). Enjoy!

Your Hands (Together) - The New Pornographers

I Feel Better - Hot Chip

White Blank Page - Mumford & Sons

Heaven Can Wait - Charlotte Gainsbourg

Madder Red - Yeasayer

Airplanes - Local Natives

Odessa - Caribou

Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons

In the End - Charlotte Gainsbourg

Waves - Holly Miranda

Breathe Me - Sia

Angel In the Snow - Elliott Smith

Here Comes the Sun Again - M. Ward

Good Intentions Paving Company - Joanna Newsom

Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus - Serge Gainsbourg

niouzes

2010-02-22T07:02:00.000-05:00

Frédo était ici (par hasard, pour le jour Saint Valentin). Il a pris beaucoup de photos flatteuses de moi. On a déjeuné à la Grande Mosquée de Paris, qui est très jolie. Il va rentrer juste après la date limite pour ECCV (très pratique!)

Mon programme est vraiment plein. Je bosse, je vais à les entraînements physiques de Yaka, j´appelle aux Etats-Unis, je dors, mon chat me mord car je ne suis jamais chez moi. Après la date limite, c´est encore pire; presque tous les week-ends sont chargés. En avril, je vais aller à Paganello avec Yaka le premier week-end; ma mère vient le deuxième et on va aller au sud; il y a un stage avec Yaka à Paris le troisième; et au fin, on va jouer la coupe féminine. Le mois du mai commence avec un tournoi à Bruges, et puis je vais voyager aux Etats-Unis pour le mariage de mon amie Su*Wu (et pour le frisbee sur la plage à la Caroline du Nord). J´aimerais que je puisse aller dans toute la France les week-ends suivants, mais on verra.

Et il y a beaucoup choses à faire. Il ne reste pas beaucoup de temps avec Annemarie, donc on va déjeuner ensemble à un bon resto toutes les semaines. On peut-être prendrait un cours de cuisine ou un cours d'œnologie. Je voudrais faire du ski; j´aimerais rendre une visite à mes cousins à Lyon et à Dijon. Oui, ma vie est dure.

Château de Pierrefonds

2010-02-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday I went up to Senlis to visit Elisabeth and Witold, friends of Dad, and we all went to see Château de Pierrefonds. It really beautifully dominates the landscape - it's on a very high point, and it's enormous. Originally built in the 12th century, it was completely gutted by fire during the time of Louis XIII, in one of those endless intra-aristocratic skirmishes that pretty much define a millenium of French history. (Incidentally, it is around this time that Les Trois Mousquetaires is set, which I have yet to finish; not to mention Proust, recommended by Witold's son. In both cases I am 3/4 of the way done and have been for months. Though, to be fair, with the Proust I am 3/4 through the book I own, which is volumes 1-3 and not even half of the complete work. Instead I have finished both The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (excellent) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (good, though too violent for my taste) and I am making steady progress on Au bonheur des ogres.)

Anyway, the castle was redone by Napoleon III about 150 years ago, and it's lovely, though a bit Disney-fied for my taste. I'm looking forward to seeing more châteaus this spring and summer. Suggestions welcome. Otherwise it's work, frisbee, sleep for me until the ECCV deadline March 17.

Some pictures:

Observation #2

2010-01-26T12:15:00.000-05:00

I'm old.

Not in any global sense, of course. I am not old enough to be President of the United States. I am not as old as my mother was when she had me (although she'd had her first child by now). I still get carded on occasion, which I consider quite a compliment.

But this may be my last season of elite women's ultimate.

I've been extremely lucky in that I've never had a serious injury in 12 years of high level play. This in spite of the fact that I am less mindful of my body's condition than others - I'm very bad about stretching, I hate warmups, and I hate running in general so each winter I allow myself to get thoroughly out of shape. Over the past three years, what with going through a hard breakup, writing my dissertation, and moving to France, I've found myself in the worst shape of my life. (I think the low point was February 2009.)

And now, at 30, getting in shape and retaining it has become so much harder. I am quite measurably slower, in both endurance speed and quickness. Luckily our team has already begun the process of training for Prague, with nothing but track workouts twice a week (i.e., no frisbee) for the first two months of the year. This is already helping, of course. And I'm pretty excited to actually be in shape for Yaka - they've never seen me play anywhere near as well as I can. My play makes a difference, too, with this team, more so than with Viva, because the team is smaller and my role is bigger. I am on the field all the time; it's like college all over again, except I don't have to captain. It's really exciting and fun.

But it's beginning to feel like the end. Like the competitive drive within me has died a little, or been replaced by my career. Like the other things I get from frisbee - camaraderie, an athletic outlet, the reward of hard work - I can find in other venues, like book club, soccer, dinners with friends, my lab. Frisbee is a kind of obsession, and I don't think I really noticed that when I myself was fully obsessed. Track workouts are harder and harder. Practices take up a good chunk of time. Tournaments pepper the summer and fall weekends, making it difficult to embark on any long term project, or even to spend a lot of time with people who don't play frisbee. Travelling is expensive and leaves less room for pleasure trips.

I love the sport still. And I know this is the time of year when everyone over a certain age, even Brett, starts talking about retirement. Talk to me mid-season, or at Prague, and you may well hear a different story.

But my playing years are numbered. Hard to envision a time when ultimate won't be central to my existence. Hard, but no longer unimaginable.

First mix of 2010

2010-01-22T16:13:00.000-05:00

Have to go to dinner, just throwing this up here. Linked on facebook.

Bad Romance Lady GaGa

Put it In a Love Song Alicia Keys (featuring Beyonce)

Bizarre Love Triangle (12" Version) New Order

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight The Postal Service

Horchata Vampire Weekend

Combat Baby Metric

HATARI tUnE-YaRdS

Lil Freak (feat. Nicki Minaj) Usher

Paparazzi (Redlight Remix) Lady Gaga

The High Road Broken Bells

La Marée Haute Lhasa De Sela

This Blackest Purse Why?

You Saved My Life Cass McCombs

There are Listed Buildings Los Campesinos

Running Up That Hill Placebo

What Would I Want? Sky Animal Collective

Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order cover) Frente!

Don't You (Forget About Me) Simple Minds

Observation #1

2010-01-19T13:07:00.000-05:00

Our elevator is having an existential crisis. It used to be that I'd come to work and call the elevator and hear her say: "Entrée principale. Porte ouverte." The doors would slide open, I'd select the fifth floor, and she would reassuringly tell me "porte fermée, en monter". After a quick ride up to the top floor, she'd say "Cinquième étage. Porte ouverte." Every day it was the same thing. She'd repeat these phrases over and over again with nary a change in routine.

I started to notice the problem at night. Occasionally I'd go into the elevator and press "RC" (ground floor) and she would say "Porte fermée", but the door wouldn't close. Then she'd say "Porte ouverte" then "Porte fermée" again, but in rapid succession. It was strange, her tone didn't change at all, but the repetition really made me uncomfortable. I was afraid of being near her when she was like that and would take the stairs.

But now it's become a permanant state. It is possible to take her from the ground floor up, but she never wants to go down. She'll say "Porte fermée" and start to close her doors, but then immediately contradict herself by thrusting them open again with a firm "Porte ouverte". It seems someone stopped her too many times by sticking a leg in the door, so now she's afraid of closing; if you back into the far corner, she'll sometimes be reassured enough to close the doors and be on her way.

Or maybe there's another explanation:

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.

-- Douglas Adams

Best of 2009

2010-01-06T10:27:00.000-05:00

(linked in facebook or email me)

My best best of ever (it helps that I'm looking for more music than ever before, and that I have lots of walking/metro time to listen to it). For those of you who faithfully download my mixes, this contains repeats. I thought about replacing some favorites with others, but it's my damn best-of mix, I'll do what I please. (If you're generally interested in such lists, please check out Pitchfork for a ton, including best of 2000s, and my favorite music blogs Pretty Much Amazing and Said the Gramophone.)

There is less pop than in previous years. Music magazines keep declaring the death of hip-hop; I hope not, but there was very little that made Billboard's Top Ten that I found listenable. There is way more electronic and other noisy stuff, best exemplified by "Crown on the Ground", a song I love that I expect some of you to hate. And, well, I'm happy, so the mix is, too.

What follows is the song list and my attempt to write about the songs. My favorite quote about this is usually attributed to Frank Zappa: "writing about music is like dancing about architecture". In other words, listen for yourself. And I hope your enjoy these as much as I do.

Percussion Gun by White Rabbit
the drums skip ahead, stumbling over each other, urgent, pulsating. his voice grows raw, scratchy, full of unrequited desire, anger, longing, need. he spits out "I know which way to run" and suddenly his fury fades. "oh, just give me some peace of mind"

Daylight by Matt and Kim
pure, unadulterated happiness. call and response like a child's song, a strong, melodic rhythm, comforting, easy. the lyrics are obscure but have a certain beauty in imagery: "sit back and wade through the daylight"

Crown on the Ground by Sleigh Bells
an assault, too loud, violent, harsh, pay attention, hey! muddy distortion, squealing noise, yet so demandingly catchy. be careful with this one, it makes everything else sound boring.

Nothing to Worry About by Peter Bjorn and John
cheerful but not quite sane, with syncopated knocking over a strong melodic beat. a weirdly bright run introduces the children's chorus and they exhort us with mostly nonsense lyrics to be happy. and I am.

Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective
welcome to summer: kids playing under a sprinkler, drinking beer at the baseball game, sun setting after 9 pm, late night barbecues, way too hot to sleep, kissing your sweaty, salty face. "just you, just you, just you, just you."

Dreamer by Lightning Dust
her voice trembles with the effort, melancholy, defeated. singing over herself, not quite in time, the chorus feels half-finished, unsatisfying. with disgust and pity in her voice she tells him "you're looking so confused, not sure you want to go and live a lie"

Where Do My Bluebird Fly by The Tallest Man on Earth
his voice isn't beautiful, at all; rather, strange and scratchy, yet tuneful and melodic. the imagery is lovely, referring back again and again to her "kerosene eyes", over the plaintive notes of the banjo.

Wake by The Antlers
this is a conversation for the bed, a confession, an opening, intimate, exposed, vulnerable. all my regrets, all my hopes, all the things I ever wanted to say to you. and you hold me, and stroke my hair, and forgive me.

Heart Skipped a Beat by The xx
spare, simple, the same side of the same conversation, but not quite in sync. they talk past each other even though they want the same thing. "sometimes, I still need you." hope and regret tinged with bitterness. "I was sure you'd give me more." "you made it clear you weren't near enough for me." listen for the heart's beat.

Halo by Beyonce
her voice begins deep, low, and ascends slowly, optimistically, the lyrics more prose than poetry, her runs impossible to imitate. a gorgeous love song, without complication. "you're the only one I want"

Kids by Chiddy Bang
catchy rap over a sample from one of the most addictive indie rock songs in recent years, MGMT's Kids. exuberant, cocky, arrogant, fun-loving. "tell Mommy I'm sorry / this life is a party / I'm never growing up."

No One Sleeps When I'm Awake by The Sounds
the basics: electric guitar, bass, drums, all the elements of classic rock, but a female singer and a woman's sentiment. she's demanding attention the only way she knows how, and doesn't care if she causes a scene or embarrasses herself. she's addicted to him and can't get out of it. "you know, it hurts so bad, just like I knew that it would. but I'd do it again if I could."

Moth's Wings by Passion Pit
hope, amazement, excitement, delight, in someone completely new and interesting and completely incomprehensible. bells trilling, glittering, propelling restlessly forward. it could blaze brightly and burn out, or stabilize and glow. impossible to know. just enjoy the ride.

Soft Shock by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
of course it's not a soft shock - rather a "sharp shock to your soft side" (love that alliteration). blindsided, damaged, wanting now to control everything, unable to trust. "what's the time, what's the day / gonna leave me?"

Ashamed by Deer Tick
remorse, nostalgia, but without bitterness, for all that we are, and all we could have been. the end is abrupt, unfinished. there was more to say but we never got the chance.

The Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine
"please remember me happily by the rosebush laughing" this song is impossibly gorgeous and incredibly sad. the lyrics say it much better than I can.

The Antlers

2009-11-25T07:47:00.000-05:00

I saw The Antlers last night at Nouveau Casino with Jan. It was a fantastic show. They played their entire album, Hospice, which is essentially the story of watching a loved one die in a hospital. It's very beautiful and very sad, and the lead singer is amazing at conveying pain in his voice and face. Nouveau Casino is another one of these small, intimate Parisian venues that I so adore. We were very close to the band, and I told them after how much I enjoyed their music (bravery due to Molly's excellent example). Here is a fan video for "Kettering", the first real song on the album, and lyrics below.

I wish that I had known in that first minute we met, the unpayable debt that I owed you
'Cause you'd been abused by the bone that refused you and you hired me to make up for that
And walking in that room when you had tubes in your arms, those singing morphine alarms out of tune
They had you sleeping and eating and I didn't believe them when they called you a hurricane thunder cloud
When I was checking vitals, I suggested a smile; you didn't talk for a while, you were freezing

You said you hated my tone, it made you feel so alone, so you told me I had to be leaving
But something kept me standing by that hospital bed. I should have quit but instead I took care of you
You made me sleep and uneven and I didn't believe them when they told me that there was no saving you.

Pepe le Pew en français

2009-11-23T14:52:00.000-05:00

J'ai découvert un truc très marrant aujourd'hui. J'adore utiliser l'expression "le sigh" qui n'est pas vraiment français, mais qui vient du dessin animé "Pepe Le Pew". Aujourd'hui, j'ai vu des videos (elles sont drôles mais je ne me suis jamais rendu compte que le but des blagues était de se moquer des français) et je les ai montrés à Guillaume. Il m'a dit que cela existe en français aussi mais que Pepe est italien. On les a regardés et c'est vrai! Il y a aussi beaucoup du monde qui parle avec un accent (de sud ou Belge). Vous pouvez les regarder ici:

Version française
Version originale (mais pas la même video)
----------
I love using the phrase "le sigh", which is of course not really French but comes from the Pepe Le Pew cartoons. I was showing them to my friend Guillaume today (they are funny, though I never realized that the whole point of the cartoon is to make fun of French people) and he told me that there's a French version, only Pepe is Italian (!!!) We watched one and it's pretty funny - there are little French puns, and lots of people with funny French accents (Southern, Belgian). The best is Pepe himself, who says "mon petit farfalle" instead of "ma chérie" (which is funny in and of itself - he's saying "my little butterfly", and the French do use butterfly as a term of endearment, along with bunny rabbit). Above you can watch a French version of Pepe Le Pew and the American one.

Mix -- current4

2009-11-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

Josef's birthday, courtesy Frédo

I'm a terrible person whose updates are less and less frequent. Work has been consuming the vast majority of my time (though there have been some very fun soirées, like the one pictured). But fear not, friends. Once I get my camera back (from Jess? in NYC after Christmas?), I'll take some photos of Paris in the winter, and also have more time to write about life these days.

We're getting to the end of the year, and of the decade, so I have all kinds of lists/mixes I'm constructing. This will be my last mix before the best of 2009 and thus includes some new songs that just barely missed the cut. And some pop. Frankly, I think pop music this year has been pretty terrible (just witness the ubiquity of Black Eyed Peas), but my heart holds a special place for Lady GaGa. And you must listen to the two covers, especially Sia's cover of Britney Spears. She makes the song unbelievably sexy. The Runaway will be on the (theoretical) new National album next year, very excited for it. Finally, there are two French songs: one by Carla Bruni, now the first lady of France, and one political song written in the 70s essentially denouncing the complacency of the French. Mix linked on facebook as usual.

A la prochaine...

No One Sleeps When I'm Awake by The Sounds

22 by Lily Allen

Gifted (feat. Kanye West, Santogold, & Lykke Li) by N.A.S.A.

Ring Ring by Sleigh Bells

Quelqu'un M'a Dit by Carla Bruni

Gimme More (Britney Spears Cover) by Sia

Dance In the Dark by Lady GaGa

The Sun Ain't Shining No More by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Presents by Via Audio

11th Dimension by Julian Casablancas

Velvet by The Big Pink

Hexagone by Renaud

Change of Heart by El Perro del Mar

Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna Cover) by The Bird and The Bee

Runaway by The National

Evan

2009-10-26T14:15:00.000-04:00

In the spring of 2003, I took a trip to Boulder, Colorado, to visit my beloved friend Lexi. She had recently moved there, part of the great scattering that takes place after college, where people end up in seemingly arbitrary places and yet stay there for the next decade. My closest friends were all following the same trajectory: move some place new; fall in love; move in together; live happily ever after. It didn't work out quite like that for most of us, of course. In many ways, we were all not mature enough for the relationships we found ourselves in. But it was truly a golden time, when anything seemed possible.

Lexi's love was Evan. Evan was blond, handsome, and strong, with a wiry climber's body and a kind face. Incredibly smart, he was also very modest, and carried his intellect lightly. That Lexi, who had already gone through hell in her life, had found someone so perfectly suited to her, so calm where she could be stressed, with a sweet, loving temperament that brought out the best of her own caring nature, was some kind of blessing; a sign that life, sometimes so unfair, could also redeem and renew us through unexpected and precious gifts.

On that trip to Boulder, we went climbing, which Evan was expert in and Lexi had lately taken up. I gamely went along, even though I'm afraid of heights. We attempted a steeper grade than one would normally bring a beginner on. Evan led and then remained up top, holding the rope and spotting from above. I made it 5/6 of the way up, then panicked. I couldn't find a hold, couldn't see how I could possibly make it the rest of the way. I surveyed the terrain, found myself quite high, and thought: "I need to get down. Now."

Evan was calm and reassuring. He essentially pulled me the rest of the way up. When I collapsed at the top, relieved and bursting with gratitude, I told him he had saved my life. He just laughed and told me I had done it all by myself. He was always gentle and self-effacing in this way, quietly brilliant.

Lexi took a 12 month trip around the world last year. While she was away, Evan was diagnosed with cancer. When she came back in February, it was in remission, but it returned in full force, with no hope of further treatment. She spent the last six months by his side as he grew sicker and sicker, the best caregiver that I can imagine. I don't think I have the strength to bear what she bore.

Evan is gone now. His memorial service was this weekend. To me, he will always remain that golden boy of 24, so strong and kind, a perfect match for my dear friend.

I love you, Lex.

Mes journées...

2009-10-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

5h30 - Je me leve. C'est la nuit profonde.
7h00 - Je pars de mon appartement.
7h30 - J'arrive au bureau. Il fait encore nuit, mais à l'est le ciel a viré au gris foncé.
19h30 - Je pars du bureau et je dîne.
23h - Je dors.

C'est vraiment métro, boulot, dodo, mais je vais au bureau à pied.

J'ai besoin de bonne musique qui me permette de tenir. Donc, voici un nouveau mix ci-dessous. Je vais l'afficher sur facebook comme d'habitude.

Daylight - Matt and Kim

We Sing In Time - The Lonely Forest

Sick Muse - Metric

Die Slow - HEALTH

Who Will (Buffetlibre Remix) - Patrick Wolf

Run This Town (feat. Kanye West & Rihanna) - Jay-Z

Medley (L'Usine À Adulte / Les Murs De Ma Ville Rmx) - Keny Arkana

You Ain't It - Themselves

Luck - Washed Out

Enunciation - Via Audio

830 Step To The Sea - The Ironclads

Handsome Furs Hate This City - Handsome Furs

Silver Moons - Sunset Rubdown

Canada - Themselves & WHY?

Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping - Grouper

Ramona Falls

2009-10-13T04:08:00.000-04:00

No time at all these days to post, so just a brief note. I went to PopIn last night for the first time. Schuyler is in town for the next two weeks, and we went out with her sister Molly and Molly's boyfriend Ryan. Silvia had forewarned me that it would be crowded and hot and impossible to move. Indeed, we didn't quite understand the set up at first and so weren't even able to get into the room to see the opener, Dear Reader (which sounded pretty good from what we could catch). Managed to creep down the stairs into the room for the headliner, Ramona Falls, the new project of Brent Knopf (of Menomena fame). I've been a huge Menomena fan for the past couple of years, and put a few Ramona Falls songs on the last two mixes.

The show was fantastic. The sound quality was really good, and frankly, I like it when spaces are that intimate. It was free, too, which is sort of unbelievable. After the show, I talked to Brent - Molly bought posters and boldly asked him to sign them - and he was super nice, drawing pictures on all five and telling me a bit about the tour.

I have yet to see a bad show in Paris. Slightly disappointed by Rock En Seine, but that just might be outdoor concert fatigue (plus, it's hard to match Sasquatch). Missed The xx at Point Ephémère last weekend, but they are coming back to play La Cigale in February. The La Roux/Passion Pit show sold out there months ahead of time, so I should probably get tickets now.

Have some posts in the queue - about European Club Championships and my trip to London, about UIST and Victoria and seeing my nieces (!!!), and about some of the fantastic research I've been exposed to over the past few months. I leave you with a link to a blog I like with an interview with Brent Knopf and a song for your enjoyment.

Musak #3

2009-09-30T10:21:00.000-04:00

The news just hasn't been very good lately, what with Flotsam and other losses (which I'll have more to say about later). And even before this weekend, I had been obsessively listening to The Antlers and The xx, not exactly upbeat stuff. So those of you who prefer my more pop/electro mixes, be forewarned: this is definitely in the slow/sweet/sad category. As usual, mix is linked in comments section on facebook, or email me.

VCR - The xx

Warm Heart of Africa (w/ Ezra Koenig) - The Very Best

Willie Taylor - Uncle Earl

Mr. Switzerland - Lady Drama

Kettering - The Antlers

To Build A Home - The Cinematic Orchestra

Apartment Story - The National

The Snow Leopard - Shearwater

The Darkest Day - Ramona Falls

The Hollow Earth - Thom Yorke

Like a Diamond - Glass Ghost

Never Seen - Lightning Dust

Seeplymouth - Volcano Choir

Funeral Singers - Califone

Heart Skipped a Beat - The xx

Il y a 6 mois...

2009-09-11T09:19:00.000-04:00

...je suis arrivée à Paris, avec un doctorat, un emploi, un appartement, et deux chats, mais sans une bonne compréhension du français et sans avoir beaucoup d´amis. Six mois plus tard, ma vie est devenue très différente qu´à Seattle, plus solitaire, plus tranquille, mais aussi pleine de travail. Il y a deux ans et demi, j´ai annulé mes fiançailles; cette relation ajoutée à la précédente font onze ans de relation sérieuse. À la fin, j´étais perdue, sans plus savoir vraiment qui j´étais ou ce que je voulais faire de ma vie. J´ai décidé de déménager en France, par amour de la langue française et à cause de mes idées romantiques sur la France. C´était aussi, tout simplement, pour choisir une nouvelle direction dans ma vie.

Mes dernières années à Seattle étaient très plaisantes, avec beaucoup d´amis, beaucoup de sorties, beaucoup de concerts, et beaucoup de longs dîners bien arrosés. C´est vrai que Seattle me manque. Mais j´aime ma vie ici. J´ai de la chance car j´adore mon travail. Il m´a donné nombre de satisfactions que je n´avais pas avant.

J´adore aussi mes amies d´ultimate à Paris. Mon équipe est très semblable à Viva (mon ancien équipe). Les filles sont proches les unes des autres, mais elles sont aussi chaleureuses et accueillantes. Elles ont beaucoup de talent, et on pourrait bien gagner à Londres! Je suis enthousiaste à l´idée de jouer et de devenir plus proche d´elles. Je voudrais toujours mieux comprendre le français, mais ça va arriver, j´y crois.

Enfin, Paris est vraiment belle; j´adore ce soleil après sept ans de nuages. Il y a beaucoup de beaux parcs...de fleurs tombant des grands immeubles anciens...les immeubles eux-mêmes, imposants et charmants. Je vais au bureau à pied tous les jours, en écoutant la radio française, en regardant les femmes chics en route vers leur travail, et en admirant toute la beauté de la ville, la mienne.

Et maintenant, il faut que je travaille. Ci-dessous, des photos d´une visite à Rouen avec Animesh et ma nouvelle clôture pour mes chats (malheureusement, elle ne marche pas parfaitement, car Bird peut sauter sur les pétunias, mais je crois qu´il n´aime pas ça car c´est trop haut).
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You can now subscribe by email.

2009-09-09T14:02:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Animesh for the advice on how to do that. (Also thanks for the tea. I hate being sick.) Next post will be full of pictures, of Rouen and the kitty barrier (which is not as successful as once imagined), so go ahead and subscribe by clicking this link, also over there to the right. Oh and for all of you reading on facebook, the real site is http://www.cherniavsky.net/neva.

another quickie...

2009-09-07T09:16:00.000-04:00

...and sans pictures this time, the connection at my park is super flaky right now. Life these days is full of work and frisbee and not much else. European club championships are in two weeks in London, and since the beginning of September it's been double practice both weekends, practice Monday and Wednesday nights, and team meeting last Tuesday night. This, together with my new rule that we can't speak English in my office (Jan is maybe not so happy about this), and going out to dinner with French friends from the lab, means I've been listening to and speaking more French than ever before. It's really good. I can understand a lot more, though speaking is always the last to come.

For two hours in the morning, I work at my apartment on grammar, vocabulary, written expression, and oral comprehension, out of books I bought after my course was finished. The grammar and oral expression books are pretty much the same, but the vocabulary and written expression books are both for French speakers I think - pretty advanced vocabulary. My dad gave me a huge French-English dictionary for my birthday and it's coming in handy. This is one area that I think books are so much better than the internet. There's something really nice about flipping through a dictionary, seeing words that catch your fancy, cross-referencing them, looking at the special boxes with unique linguistic notes.

I finished my John Grisham in French (which really wasn't that good a novel, even in French) and am about 1/3 of the way through "Les Trois Mousquetaires" (which those with good memories will remember from my online profile for The Stranger). I've also finished the second volume of Proust and am on to "The Guermantes Way". I must note that Proust in English is much harder than Dumas in French. Alyosha also gave me a book by Adam Gopnik, a New Yorker writer, about his ex-pat years in Paris, called "Paris to the Moon", and it's wonderful, I wish I could write like that. He describes things perfectly, like how the ambulances sound plaintive here - expect an excerpt soon.

I leave you with a great article by Krugman that nonetheless does not answer the question posed in the title: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? In another life, I'd be an economist. Seems like there's a lot left to be discovered in that field. The very messiness might frustrate me, though.

Previous post part 1

2009-09-02T13:39:00.000-04:00

Not too much time, but I promised an English translation of the previous post...I'll begin with the cats, and write another one later about the pool, and maybe add some in about Rock En Seine.

So, I had some trouble with my landlord. The saga begins months ago, when I first leased the apartment; I had an idea that he was going to be way less laid-back than my landlord in Seattle (not hard, Carl is pretty much the most easy going guy ever - great for parties, not so great for getting a ceiling leak fixed). He was worried about the floors, the walls, etc, said I couldn't put anything on them, gave me some other instructions as well. I chose to ignore the bit about the walls (I really needed a coat rack, for one) and went about my daily living.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="My staircase, aka "service stairs""][/caption]His apartment is on the floor beneath me and beautiful. It takes up the whole floor, in a typical Haussmannian arrangement - each floor is a flat, except the top floor, which is divided up into apartments. Back in the day, these served as maid's chambers. Thus, there is a big front staircase for the first five floors, and an elevator that fits between the spirals, but it only goes to the front doors of each of the five flats. Moreover, my landlord is wealthy enough to have bought another apartment on the sixth floor and built an internal staircase from his flat to this other space; a fine mother-in-law suite, if you will. There was a funny moment early in this story when he called to let me know Bird had escaped "down the service stairs"...I ran home, worried, wondering where on earth the service stairs were, and then I realized that what he thought of as service stairs were just my regular staircase. No other way for me to get to the apartment. (And of course Bird had gotten nowhere. I doubt he even went down all the flights of stairs. Thus far, the amount of stairs has really confused both cats. There are also two big heavy doors that automatically lock in between him and the street, and I can't imagine anyone deliberately letting a cat out onto the street. I got home and Bird was at the top of the "service" stairs, yowling.)

In any event, since I live above him, I've weathered the occasional complaint about noise from him. Now, keep in mind, I'm never home, and the place is tiny; it's not as though I'm throwing parties or playing music into the wee hours. The noise is from things like, oh, me making the sofa into a bed every night, or the fan's vibration through the floor. But I did my best to address his concerns.

Meanwhile, the cats would enter and exit as they pleased by my window, though there wasn't anywhere for them to go. For a while, Bird was visiting with the neighbor, but that stopped at some point. In any case, I figured that after three months, Bird would not be able to get anywhere else and would be content with sitting in the gutter, surveying his kingdom.

I figured wrong.

Somehow, Bird managed to jump from the sixth to the fifth floor. This is really a mystery to me, as the leap is quite substantial and there's not a whole lot of room to land. He did this three times, entering into my landlord's apartment each time, with a subsequent phone call to me about the issue. He might have menaced the landlord's cat; he certainly jumped on the beds, which really shocked my landlord (who doesn't allow his cat to sleep on the beds. But why even have a cat then?) The fourth and final time was 4 am, as I had mistakenly believed that Bird wouldn't leave my apartment if I were in it. He called and yelled at me; I spent the next hours restlessly tossing and turning, trying to figure out how I could prevent Bird from escaping and not tempt him into endangering his life.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sorry buddy"][/caption]I built a fence the next day with Nodira's help, and I believe I have now fixed the problem. It's chicken wire and he hates it. He sort of tries to climb up it, but he can't get a good grip on anything. At first we had just blocked off everything open, but Bird immediately went for the climb-up-the-side-of-the-building-and-get-a-claw-on-the-railing method, so I put chicken wire on the sides as well. Nodira was very impressed with his intelligence. He immediately tested its defenses and every day he reassesses. He studies the top and contemplates if he can leap up. He attacks the weak points where the different sections of wire fence meet. I still don't leave the windows open when he's alone or I'm sleeping; I'm afraid he'll escape again, or worse, hurt himself in an attempt.

My landlord would prefer me to leave, and I would prefer to live with French people in shared housing, but moving is expensive and I do not have the time to search. I don't have time for anything right now except frisbee and work (sound familiar, Seattle?) Last weekend was a double practice; this week went Monday practice, Tuesday team meeting, Wednesday practice, Friday Jess's friend Marie in town, and this weekend is another double practice. I'm glad I have some track workouts under my belt because all day practices are quite tiring. So, more later...

Mes chats et les français à la piscine

2009-08-28T11:56:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_428" align="alignright" width="224" caption="No more fun for him"][/caption][English version to come.] [S'il vous plaît excusez mes erreurs!] Pendant les dernières six semaines, Paris était vraiment vide. C´était calme et tranquille, mais pour moi c´était un peu trop solitaire. Ma boulangerie préférée me manquait. Heureusement, c´est le fin de vacances et tout le monde est rentré. Malheureusement, mon proprietaire est rentré aussi; malheureusement car il n´aime pas mes chats, surtout Bird.

Pour être hônnete, je ne lui maîtrise pas très bien. Je le laisse faire tout ce qu´il veut; il peut sauter sur le lit, marcher sur la cuisinière, et (bien-sûr) sortir par la fenêtre. C´est cela qui a créé des problèmes. Je pensais que Bird ne pouvait pas sauter du sixième étage au cinquième, où mon proprietaire habite, mais je me trompais. Il a sauté et est entré chez lui. Il est probable qu´il aie menacé son chat. Il est certain qu´il a tout exploré - les chaises, les lits, la canapé - et qu´il a laissé ses poils.

Donc, après la troisième fois, mon proprietaire était en colère contre moi; après la quatrième, à 4h du matin, il m´appellé et il m'a crié. Ainsi admonestée, je n'ai pas fermé l'œil de la nuit. Le lendemain, je lui ai écrit un message très contrit, mais il n´a pas encore répondu. Aussi, j´ai fait un peu bricolage - j´ai construit une barrière. Bird est très brilliant, aventureux, et déterminé, mais je crois que je l'ai battu. C´est vrai que je préfèrerais habiter ailleurs, peut-être avec des gens français, cependant c´est cher, c´est difficile à trouver une bonne situation, et je n´ai pas de temps à chercher. Donc, je vais rester ici, même si mon proprietaire ne m´aime plus.

À part le stress des chats et mon travail, tout ça va bien. Le week-end dernier, je suis allée à une piscine sympa. C´est un peu sud de Paris, dans un grand parc, et je pense que la piscine est un bon exemple des différences entre la France et les États Unis. Aux États-Unis, les gens sont quelque peu prude. À la plage, les restaurants exigent de tout le monde porter les chemises et les chaussures. Aussi, les enfants ne peuvent pas courir près de la piscine ni plonger dans la piscine peu profond. À cette piscine, personne ne peut porter le short, y compris les femmes. Les hommes doivent porter le Speedo. (Pas mal pour nous filles! Eh bien, ça depend...) Les enfants se jetaient la tête la première, sans crainte pour la profondeur de la piscine. Je portait une robe sur mon maillot, et j´ai été demandée de la enlever! Cela ne se passerait jamais aux États-Unis. Les français sont très rigides sur quelque choses et très détendus sur autres, et, à moi, la rigueur est très arbitraire - comme l´affaire des timbres pour mon carte de séjour (voyez mon article précédent). J´ai des autres histoires comme ça, sur le chauffeur de bus par exemple, mais pas assez de temps...des amis arriveront demain, j´irai Rock en Seine le vendredi, et il y a un double entraînement ce week-end. A+!

Musak #2

2009-08-20T13:57:00.000-04:00

Still have lots of time to listen to music, though these days I really try and get my daily dose of French hip hop (and if there's something French you like, send it my way!) Meanwhile, here's what I've been listening to lately, a mix with the very imaginative title of "current2". Slower and sadder than last time, the end of summer? But I just love the opener, even though I am religious opposed to songs over 6 minutes. I have to thank my usual influences, The Tape, Hype Machine, and the KEXP Music That Matters podcast; I took a bunch of songs from Shannon's midsummer podcast. As usual, the mix is linked on facebook, or write a comment below, something legit so I don't think you're a Russian spammer (i.e., "you're my Adonis" isn't going to work this time).

Wake - The Antlers

Sometimes I Realise - Engineers

Russia - Ramona Falls

Eyes As Candles - Passion Pit

Salt Air - Chew Lips

D.O.A. (Death Of Autotune) - Jay-Z

Where Do My Bluebird Fly - The Tallest Man On Earth

Rock Bottom Riser - Smog

Dreamer - Lightning Dust

Ashamed - Deer Tick

Imaginary Friend - The Plugs

Wooo - Vitalic

Harold T Wilkins - Fanfarlo

Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap

Embers - Just Jack

in a park at the bottom of Rue Mouffetard

2009-08-15T12:45:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_416" align="alignright" width="199" caption="A French king in Basilica St Denis"][/caption]Okay non-French speakers (that is, the vast majority of my readership), I know you were afraid that you would have to learn a new language in order to continue enjoying my piercing insight, witty observations, excellent taste in music, and gorgeous photography, but not to worry, I really haven't mastered French at all yet and that post took me hours to write. It's true that certain changes are taking place - I'm losing English words, as Christian promised, and I am not a huge fan of this fact. Getting to know French is also changing my manner of speech in English. For example, I now say things like "it's true that" and "it's bizarre", not to mention "in fact" - French phrases translated directly to English, ones that I would not normally use very much in conversation. (Annemarie said "we'd profit by" the other day, a truly odd thing to say in English but a fairly common French phrase.)

So, what is happening? Well, my schedule is crazy still. French is going well, work is suffering a little, probably also because what I'm doing right now is really very boring, but very necessary for the project to progress. I am much more comfortable in the language than I was. I've finished my first French book and begun another. I'm talking to strangers in French. I still miss a lot, but it's getting better.

[caption id="attachment_414" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Montmartre"][/caption]Deirdre and Claire came for a visit and it was wonderful - some pictures here, more on facebook. They loved Paris and we did lots of fun things together...picnicked, met up with Deirdre's cousin, heard her boyfriend play in a nice bar in St Germain, next day got dressed up, went to a club, went to Basilica St Denis (which was fascinating, all the French kings are buried there, I need to write a post about French vs English history and my understanding of how events 1000 years ago created the differences that exist today), went to Montmartre, had some wine, some beer from a guy selling them illegally there, took lots of pictures, pretty sure tourists were taking pictures of us, slept, went to the Marais, had fallafel and dessert and got to experience rude French waiters, had a lovely picnic at Champ de Mars, went to a bar near the Pantheon and played spoons. All in all it was fantastic, despite some drama involving the cats and plumbing problems. I always think it's funny how people love Flotsam at first, then after a while realize how annoying he can be, and grow to love the more-intelligent-but-less-friendly Bird more...

[caption id="attachment_415" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Claire and the cats"][/caption]This visit followed a surprise visit from Luke and Manny, who I didn't know very well before but who are extremely cool people and yet another reason to return to Seattle. Right now there's a pause in visitors, and then a slew, Nodira next week, Nate and Jenny the following, Marie for a couple of nights, my mom and Bill, I go to London, Liz, then I go to Victoria, then Schuyler returns with me. It's really nice to be able to show people the city. I'm especially looking forward to nice long French lunches and dinners with Mom.

And at this moment, I'm sitting at the bottom of Rue Mouffetard, in my favorite park - favored because it is close to my apartment, has nice benches under the shade, has working free wifi, and has tons of cute kids frolicking in the playground. They remind me very much of my niece, another visit I'm looking forward to, though it won't happen till next summer. Adorably, the kids are obsessed with the water pipe for washing their hands. Everyone speaks French, of course, and I'm finally starting to eavesdrop instead of tune out when I hear French. A neat evolution. Mais ne vous inquietez pas...I'll still write in English, I promise.

International calling, cheap.

2009-08-13T16:24:00.000-04:00

If you're temporarily traveling to a foreign country and want to make calls out, I recommend getting a calling card (PennyTalk and NobleCom are both good sites) and using pay phones or whatever available landline you can find - the calling cards are super cheap, way cheaper than actually using a mobile phone to call out.

If you are in a foreign country (say, France), and have a mobile phone, people can call you direct through a cheap service such as Mobile Caller. But if you want people to be able to call you without incurring any charges on their side, here is what you do.

1. Get a Google voice number - currently only available by invitation to people in the US. You can get around the US requirement by using an IP address masker such as Anchor Free Hotspot. As for the invitations, request one, it shouldn't take too long.

2. Sign up for Localphone. Localphone is a service that gives you a local phone number to call for each of your contacts in a foreign country. So if I were to use it normally, I would put in my location as France, and add my mom's number, and it would give me a French number that connects me to mom. And that call is very cheap. The only catch is, I have to tell it where I will be calling from. So, I put in my location as France, give it a French landline number, and have to call the French number for mom from that landline - this is so they know who to charge.

For my friends to call me, I started out by using this service backwards. That is, I listed my location as Seattle, and added my own (French) mobile phone number as a "friend" I wanted to call. Localphone then gave me a Seattle number to call that rings my mobile. But I needed to put in each friend's number that wanted to call me, so localphone would know to charge me. For example, I gave my mom the localphone number, and added her number to my list, and then she was able to call the localphone number and ring me. But this isn't a great solution generally.

With Google voice, I can have just one number to give everyone, and I don't need to individually add them. I list the Google voice number as my phone number, and my French mobile as the friend I want to call. Google voice routes to my localphone number, which rings my French mobile. And voilà, my friends can all call a Seattle number and my French mobile rings, and it costs me only $0.11/minute (which is very cheap by French mobile standards).

The really nice thing about Google voice, for those who travel regularly, is that you can change what number it rings. So you could set it up this way for when you're traveling, but then have the Google voice number revert to ringing your US cell when you're in the States. Which, come to think of it, is what I will do when I visit...

Call me!

2009-08-13T13:03:00.000-04:00

I got a Google voice number, it's in my info on facebook, it's Seattle-based. I've connected it with my Localphone account and now if you call my Google voice number, it will ring my mobile in France, costing me 11 cents/minute (not bad, I promise). I would have done this back in June, but it took a while to set up the whole thing as they disapprove of IP addresses outside the U.S. To get around that, I used Anchor Free Hotspot Shield. Which might allow me to watch Hulu, too.

You can send texts to that number and it will go to an online account where I can read them (but I basically still prefer texts to go directly to my mobile, if it doesn't cost you too much). Google voice will also transcribe voice messages you leave and I can read them, kind of curious to see how well this will work.

If anyone wants to know how to use Google voice to dial your international mobile phone, leave a comment and I'll write a post about it.

Proust, la langue française et moi

2009-08-10T11:53:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_398" align="alignright" width="199" caption="Sacré-Coeur"][/caption] [Je remercie Sabine pour les corrigés.]

C’est ma première note en français et c'est approprié, car elle va traiter de mon combat sans merci avec la langue française, les français, et Proust. Ma décision de déménager pour la France est un peu compliquée et, en fait, tout commence avec la lecture d’Hemingway en companie d'Arnie il y a plus de sept ans. Mais il est vrai que la raison principale pour laquelle je voulais vivre en France pendant un certain temps était d'apprendre le français. C'est un peu étrange car je n'ai jamais étudié le français auparavant. En fait, j'ai étudié l'espagnol pendant six ans au lycée et à l’Université. Mais je pense du fond du cœur que la langue française est la plus belle du monde et je tiens vraiment à la parler.

Ceux qui me connaissent savent que je peux faire preuve d’une grande détermination quand je désire réaliser ou apprendre quelque chose. Malheureusement, il s'avère que je n’apprends pas très bien les langues. Je peux apprendre la grammaire et le vocabulaire, mais parler et comprendre ça reste un peu difficile. La preuve: dans la réalisation de cette note! Je ne sais pas comment parler ou écrire à la manière des français. Mon style n'est pas tout à fait exact, il est plus américanisé en fait! J’ai tendance à livrer une traduction directe de l'anglais vers le français.

Cela fait que les relations avec les français sont parfois difficiles, car je ne comprends pas toujours et souvent je ne parviens pas à dire tout ce que je veux. Pire, je ne peux pas donner une bonne image de ma personnalité. Je ne peux pas blaguer, ni user de sarcasmes, ni choisir les mots appropriés pour exprimer mes idée. J’ai parfois l’impression de parler comme un enfant de trois ans! C'est très frustrant!

Toutefois, j'ai déjà appris des choses très intéressantes. La langue a une influence directe sur la pensée. Il y a beaucoup de similitudes et de différences intéressantes entre l’anglais et le français. Pour commencer par une première remarque : la langue française est un peu négative, avec par exemple l’utilisation d’expressions telles que « pas mal » pour commenter quelque chose de très bien et « c´est terrible! » pour quelque chose...humm...de pas terrible du tout. (C´est un peu trop dramatique voire mélodramatique. Le français est un peu théâtral :) ) Il y a aussi beaucoup de faux amis. Par exemple, le mot "versatile" existe dans ces deux langues mais il a un sens complètement différent: en anglais, c'est positif comme adaptable, polyvalent alors qu’en français cela veut dire instable, changeant. Il est pour moi très frustrant de chercher les mots afin d’illustrer clairement ma pensée. Il y a des mots que j'adore en anglais, comme "lovely" - je les utilise tous le temps. Mais ça n'existe pas en français. On peut utiliser « charmant » mais ce n'est pas exactement le même sens. Mon ami Guillaume m’a suggéré "merveilleux", mais, pour moi, ça ressemble à "marvelous" et je n’aime pas du tout. Ca sonne faux et « vieillot » et "cheesy" (un autre mot qui n'existe pas en français « ringard » peut-être). Néanmoins, c'est vrai que merveilleux sonne mieux que "marvelous" (car de toutes façons, le français est plus beau que l'anglais). Je n’oserai m’attaquer à la différence entre les phrases "je t'aime" et "je t'aime beaucoup" – car ça c'est exactement le contraire et la nuance entre ces deux expressions est d’importance. J’ai donc décidé que je ne les utiliserai jamais (ce qui est bien dommage car tout le monde me conseille de tomber follement amoureuse d’un bel homme français pour pratiquer et apprendre !)

[caption id="attachment_402" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="photo de Flotsam sans motif"][/caption]Je sais qu’il faudra du temps. Ce qui me va très bien - si je ne suis pas satisfaite de mes progrès, je resterai juste plus longtemps en France. La lecture et l'écoute sont pour moi plus faciles. En ce moment, je suis en train de lire le premier volume de Proust en anglais, mais je voudrais lire le prochain volume en français. Je lis aussi un roman de John Grisham en français. Et cette semaine, j'ai assisté à un cours de deux heures sur Proust en français, et je me suis aperçue que je comprenais beaucoup de cette conférence. J'aime les cours de civilisation à la Sorbonne, j'espère pouvoir en faire plus.

Enfin, Proust. C´est très différent des livres que j’ai pu lire par le passé. D’ordinaire, je lisais des romans contemporains (américains et britanniques), ou parfois, de la littérature américaine classique. Je n´ai jamais lu les grands auteurs de la littérature française tels que Molière, Hugo, Zola, Dumas, Flaubert, Camus, Sartre, Proust. Proust est hautement recommandé; c’est la raison pour laquelle j'ai commencé avec lui.

C´est beau. Il écrit la vérité, avec de minutieux détails sur l´endroit, les personnalités et les styles de ses personnages, et (surtout) leur psychologie. Un ami écrivain, après avoir lu le passage que j´ai affiché au début du mois, a dit que sa plume est très différente de la littérature américaine moderne. Aujourd´hui, les auteurs décrivent la vie intérieure par les actions et les mots des personnages; le lecteur doit en déduire les émotions. Mais Proust écrit tout: tous les sentiments, toutes les pensées, toutes les sensations, tous ses personnages croient, sentent, écoutent, voient - la manière dont ils font l'expérience du monde qui les entoure. Proust est capable de décrire ces émotions pendant des milliers de pages, et c´est vraiment la vérité, ces détails minutieux qui constituent la vie elle-même.

Un jour, j´aimerais pouvoir lire et écrire en français avec la même facilité qu’en anglais (ou tout au moins, presque). Une étape à la fois...

On a encore gagné

2009-07-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

Two weeks, two wins, not bad...this will be brief as I have to work, but YAY we won Eight Nations, it was awesome; about 2/3 Yaka, some fantastic pickups that I wish were playing with us in London, 11 players total; my calf was pulled, from the track workout I think, and started to really affect my play the first game on Sunday, as the pain spread to my shin and then my ankle and then, when I put a brace on, the other ankle, so I had to stop; iced, had a nice 4 hour break between games, got taped, was able to play the final; we were up 15-12 when the cap went on, scored, and the second-to-last point went on for something like 15 minutes; I´m guarding Kate Wilson who plays for Holland, speedy cutter, great thrower, and my ankles were definitely protesting, figured that after that point I would take my cleats off; luckily they eventually scored (after we gave fans about 20 turnovers worth of reasons to hate watching women´s ulti), we received the pull and scored in four passes, for the win and the tournament. We went undefeated on the weekend, and the Dutch were the hardest match by far. Looking forward to London.

And now, to totally switch topics so I can include some gorgeous photos (courtesy Roger, from this link), on Monday after the Venice tournament, we went to the Venice Biennale, an enormous art exhibition at the Arsenale, where they used to make ships. Huge, gorgeous space, with an insane amount of modern art. I´ve never seen anything like it; the space is so big, the artists can do things that would be impossible otherwise. One of the best parts of living here is how easy it is to get to other parts of Europe. I´m going to take some extra time in London in September, and hopefully visit with Dan in Barcelona in August.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Venice"][/caption]
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Simone Berti"][/caption]
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Matteo Basile: http://www.matteobasile.com/"][/caption]
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Giacomo Costa: http://www.giacomocosta.com/"][/caption]

On a gagné à Venise!

2009-07-21T12:02:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_380" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Casa Babylon"][/caption]I have just returned from a fantastic weekend in Venice, playing the first ever Redemption beach ultimate tournament with a great international team. We had 3 French players, 2 Americans, a Venezuelan, a Colombian, a Brazilian, a Brit, a German, and an Algerian. The tournament took place on the beach in Lido and was very well-run, with lined fields, plenty of water, score boards, clear schedules and announcements, great parties (including fireworks!), and a nice warm Adriatic sea to swim in. It was much better organized than Wildwood, for example, which has existed for over 10 years.

To get there, I took the night train from Paris, which was an incredibly civilized way to travel. Unlike, say, the night Amtrak from Boston to DC, the seats convert into beds, and everyone with a seat can sleep. It's very restful too; the motion of the train is like a lullaby, and I woke up to bright sun, blue skies, and charming, colorful Mediterranean houses. We took the vaporetto (the public transport boat) through the main canal of Venice to Lido, which is an island about 5 minutes away. From there, we could have rented bikes for the camping, and this is my suggestion to anyone visiting Venice: stay in Lido at the camping and rent bikes to travel around the island. Instead, we took the bus everywhere. It's okay but not nearly as convenient or nice as biking. I also have to mention that we didn't pay for anything, because (according to Thomas) the Italians are paid by the government and it doesn't matter how well they do their job, so they don't bother you for not swiping a card.

The camping was great, the parties were great, my team was so so nice, and we WON! Which is always the best way to finish a tournament. I've played 4 tournaments this year and been in the finals for all of them, but this is the first victory. Hopefully I will repeat next weekend in Girona with Yaka. Which brings me to a post I started ages ago...

I played my first tournament with my new team, Yaka, in Cologne, Germany last weekend [that is, the first weekend of June]. It was a lot of fun and made me feel like I was finally a part of France. The girls are incredibly nice and friendly, very very welcoming to me, in spite of the language barrier. I'll be practicing and playing with them the entirety of my time here, including upcoming tournaments in Venice, Barcelona, the European Club Championship in London, and Worlds 2010 in Prague.

Some notes:
[caption id="attachment_378" align="alignright" width="278" caption="Silvia and I in Cologne"][/caption]
1. The girls are really open and really care about each other - a tight-knit group of best friends - and have completely welcomed me into the group. This is different than elite ultimate in the States, and may be unique to Yaka, though I think it does have something to do with the way the French view friendships. To Americans, the French feel cold, but to the French, we seem that way - superficial, without any real deep feeling, able to smile and ask "how are you?" without really caring about the answer. There are boundaries in American friendships that can be very difficult for a non-American to understand and overcome. The downside of this deeply felt friendship in the French is that it can be impossible to make friends in the first place - best friends have known each other since grade school. But ultimate is a whole other story; the team dynamic makes it a bit easier to jump right in. Teammates need to trust and respect each other, and that's a lot easier if you like each other too.

2. European spirit is way way better. I really wish we would adopt some of it in the States. Get rid of cheers after games unless someone is really inspired, and instead circle up immediately after the game and talk about it. It takes less than five minutes. It doesn't have to be fake, either - differences are definitely acknowledged, especially when there have been a lot of calls or general bad feelings. But it can be stated once and then it's over; you've said your piece about the game and can let it go. And it maintains a higher level of sportsmanship in general, because you know after the game you're going to be in that circle, and the knowledge of that can prevent you from losing your temper in the first place. Europeans are certainly just as competitive, want to win just as badly, but they really maintain the original idea of spirit, which I think we're losing in the US.

3. The level of play is much higher in the States. This can be a little frustrating for me. Here, there's not much of a college ultimate scene, let alone juniors, so players don't have the experience of being coached. Having less intense experience in general (that is, playing games-to-go at Regionals, quarters at Nationals, etc) means that things are harder mentally. I find the girls take losses very hard, and sometimes aren't all that happy after wins, if we don't play well. Some things that are very common in the States - certain drills, throwing patterns, offenses, positioning on defense - aren't known here. The fitness level isn't the same. Shockingly, over 90% of my team smokes. There aren't these ridiculous track workouts, a blessing and a curse, as I hate track workouts just a little less than I hate not being in shape. (And yes, I'm going to start leading some this week.)

On the other hand, my team is really very good, and has a lot of natural talent. Very impressive considering the lack of coaching. The starting seven would make most teams in the US. They are fast and have good throws, particularly break marks and long shots. In general we are less disciplined than I would like (we take a lot of chances deep, e.g.) but usually make up for it with very intense defense.

I'm really looking forward to 8 Nations next weekend in Barcelona, and London in September. I need to get in shape. I don't think I've been this bad since before I started playing ultimate (12 years ago). My speed is okay right now but my endurance is shot. But Kevin gave me some good ideas for short-and-intense workouts, a la the rats in the NY Times, and I'm going to try and make it happen each morning between 6 and 6:30 am. Good times.

Reading Proust

2009-07-15T11:46:00.000-04:00

It's amazing, albeit exhausting. I am now done with Swann's Way but I have six more volumes to go. Eric and Lea will remember the massive paperback I bought at Shakespeare and Co; well, that's only the first 3 volumes. It also happens to be the oldest translation and (apparently) not the best. This can be seen in the translation of the title, À la recherche du temps perdu, which my book renders as Remembrance of Things Past (a quote from a Shakespeare sonnet), but is more accurately In Search of Lost Time. For the final volumes, I'll get the newer translation, which is available in Britain (but not in the US until 2018 - thank goodness for amazon.co.uk). That's your caveat for the below. It is in fact not even a complete paragraph in the original; I've cut text from both before and after the excerpt, it would be around twice as long otherwise.

--------------
Swann could not without anxiety ask himself what Odette would mean to him in the years that were to come. Sometimes, as he looked up from his victoria on those fine and frosty nights of early spring, and saw the dazzling moonbeams fall between his eyes and the deserted streets, he would think of that other face, gleaming and faintly roseate like the moon's, which had, one day, risen on the horizon of his mind and since then had shed upon the world that mysterious light in which he saw it bathed. If he arrived after the hour at which Odette sent her servants to bed, before ringing the bell at the gate of her little garden, he would go round first into the other street, over which, at the ground-level, among the windows (all exactly alike, but darkened) of the adjoining houses, shone the solitary lighted window of her room. He would rap upon the pane, and she would hear the signal, and answer, before running to meet him at the gate. He would find, lying open on the piano, some of her favorite music, the Valse des Roses, the Pauvre Fou of Tagliafico (which, according to the instructions embodied in her will, was to be played at her funeral); but he would ask her, instead, to give him the little phrase from Vinteuil's sonata. It was true that Odette played vilely, but often the fairest impression that remains in our minds of a favorite air is one which has arisen out of a jumble of wrong notes struck by unskillful fingers upon a tuneless piano. The little phrase was associated still, in Swann's mind, with his love for Odette. He felt clearly that this love was something to which there were no corresponding external signs, whose meaning could not be proved by any but himself; he realized, too, that Odette's qualities were not such as to justify his setting so high a value on the hours he spent in her company. And often, when the cold government of reason stood unchallenged, he would readily have ceased to sacrifice so many of his intellectual and social interests to this imaginary pleasure. But the little phrase, as soon as it struck his ear, had the power to liberate in him the room that was needed to contain it; the proportions of Swann's soul were altered; a margin was left for a form of enjoyment which corresponded no more than his love for Odette to any external object, and yet was not, like his enjoyment of that love, purely individual, but assumed for him an objective reality superior to that of other concrete things. This thirst for an untasted charm, the little phrase would stimulate anew in him, but without bringing him any definite gratification to assuage it. With the result that those parts of Swann's soul in which the little phrase had obliterated all care for material interests, those human considerations which affect all men alike, were left bare by it, blank pages on which he was at liberty to inscribe the name of Odette. Moreover, where Odette's affection might seem ever so little abrupt and disappointing, the little phrase would come to supplement it, to amalgamate with it its own mysterious essence. Watching Swann's face while he listened to the phrase, one would have said that he was inhaling an anesthetic which allowed him to breathe more deeply. And the pleasure which the music gave him, which was shortly to create in him a real longing, was in fact closely akin, at such moments, to the pleasure which he would have derived from experimenting with perfumes, from entering into a contract with a world for which we men were not created, which appears to lack form because out eyes cannot perceive it, to lack significance because it escapes our intelligence, to which we many attain by way of one sense only. Deep repose, mysterious refreshment for Swann - for him whose eyes, although delicate interpreters of painting, whose mind, although an acute observer of manners, must bear for ever the indelible imprint of the barrenness of his life - to feel himself transformed into a creature foreign to humanity, blinded, deprived of his logical faculty, almost a fantastic unicorn, a chimera-like creature conscious of the world through his two ears alone. And as, notwithstanding, he sought in the little phrase for a meaning to which his intelligence could not descend, with what a strange frenzy of intoxication must he strip bare his innermost soul of the whole armor of reason, and make it pass, unattended, through the staining vessel, down into the dark filter of sound. He began to reckon up how much that was painful, perhaps even how much secret and unappeased sorrow underlay the sweetness of the phrase; and yet to him it brought no suffering. What matter though the phrase repeated that love is frail and fleeting, when his love was so strong! He played with melancholy which the phrase diffused, he felt it stealing over him, but like a caress which only deepened and sweetened his own sense of happiness.

French class begins

2009-07-11T10:27:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_366" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="La Sorbonne"][/caption]
This week I began my intensive French classes at the Sorbonne. I've been pretty nervous about this whole plan, since 25 hours a week of class is quite a lot. I also wasn't clear on the class times, and the woman who gave me my oral exam told me "ce n'est pas possible" to work and take the class; moreover, she told me I would be in class from 8 am to 4:30 pm. When I pointed out that this was way more than 25 hours a week, she said there was an hour for breakfast, an hour for lunch, and 1.5 hours of lab, then said "bonne courage!" in this particular French way, where instead of meaning "good luck" it means "you can try but I don't think you'll succeed." As far as I could figure, this meant I would actually be in class from 9 to 3 and would have to skip the afternoon lab.

Luckily, this is not the case. It turns out that there are several different classes, starting at various different times; mine starts at 8 am, the earliest possible, goes till 10, then there's an hour of phonetics, then an hour for lunch, then another 2 hours of class. This is perfect for me. The class is at a satellite location of Boulevard Raspail (not far from Alliance Française) and it's 10 minutes by metro to work. Thus I'm able to take class all morning and be at work in the afternoon and evening, and I don't need to stay until midnight to get something accomplished. I also suspect "bonne courage" woman helped arrange this for me, for which I'm grateful. Then again, 8 am is probably not the preferred start time.

Immediately the class has made a big difference. I can understand everything the professor is saying, and just listening and understanding French for 4 hours a day truly helps me to start thinking in the language. I have a lot more confidence in striking up conversations with people, including at frisbee and with random men telling me about their socks in the laundromat. I've been reading too, both my John Grisham (L'heritage, or The Summons) and Le Petit Prince. I haven't started listening to only French music but I don't think that's going to happen; I just don't know enough French bands.

Although the timing is perfect for me, working and taking the class is still quite difficult. I'm not super tired, intellectually - the French is in a completely different part of my brain than computer science - but I haven't been sleeping at all. Previously, my routine had been to wake up when the sun wouldn't let me sleep anymore, typically at 7 am, run (sometimes), shower, clean the apartment (necessary every day because of the cats), make coffee, eat breakfast and read, and roll into work between 9 and 10 depending on how into my book I was. I would usually go to sleep between 12 and 1, at 11 if I was really tired. It's hard to sleep much earlier than that because the sun is still up.

But nowadays, that schedule is impossible. I would very much like to keep running in the mornings but so far I haven't been able to. Nor can I actually clean the apartment; these days I don't even bother making the bed into a couch. I think the cats prefer it anyway, and I'm only in the apartment to sleep. I wake up at 6, make some coffee, do my French homework, then shower and get ready; I try to leave the apartment by 7:30. I get to work around 2:30 pm, but if I need to do any shopping I have to do it then. Moreover, if I have any activity (frisbee, friends of friends in town, special events) I have to adjust my schedule, usually by working later another day. Wednesday nights are summer league and it's seriously necessary for my mental health (no practice since I came back, everyone's on vacation). I'm working weekends, which I find pleasant, because it's so much more relaxing than getting up at 8. This week I had several nights that I slept less than 4 hours. Surprisingly I feel great, but sometimes when the alarm goes off at 6 am, I hate my life - my loud apartment, my cats that don't want to sleep at night because they're starved for my attention, my 8 am class that I have to get up for and my challenging post-doc that makes me stay up too late.

That said, I really think I'm living a dream. It took me a very long time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I've always been good in school and I'm interested in a fair number of things; I love math, find it to be incredibly beautiful, but I also love literature, and politics, and economics, and interacting with people. I think I could have been content in a number of different professions, but I am delighted to find myself happy in the one I've chosen. I get to spend all day long working on interesting problems, surrounded by incredibly intelligent people, talking about cutting edge research and learning from the best. And I'm paid to do this! I don't have to teach, I don't have to sit in boring meetings, all I have to do is think; think, and implement. And I love to think. I am doing exactly what I want to do. So don't feel too sorry for me when I complain about my lack of sleep; I'll sleep once I've learned French, and published a paper in computer vision, and won a European ultimate tournament.

carte de séjour

2009-07-05T16:44:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_363" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="All my fancy IDs"][/caption]
I have a backlog of ideas for blog posts...I have a half-written post about Yaka, plus one about interesting CS research. But today I will talk about my carte de séjour. The pic is me with all my fancy IDs - an ID for ENS, one for the Sorbonne, and, of course, my carte. (The first two are among the most famous universities in France.) For those who don't know, to be legally in France you need a carte de séjour that you renew annually. It's pretty expensive too, 300 euros the first time and 70 to renew, though my employer reimburses me. My wonderful secretary handled all the administrative details, though I did need to get my birth certificate translated into French and get my mom to scan my college diploma.

This speaks to my first beef with French bureaucracy, which is this: they require an enormous amount of documents, but each of these is very easily faked. How are they going to verify my college diploma? My birth certificate? The translation wasn't very official looking at all, though it did have stamps on it. It's as though stamps make everything completely kosher. They also make you sign things in blue ink, as though that somehow prevents forgery (color printers, anyone?) I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money on the documents required to bring the cats, including overnight shipping of veterinarian's certificates to the USDA in Olympia, and they didn't even look at them. They told me at customs that it was enough that I had them.

In any case, documents in order, I awaited the call from the prefecture. The day finally arrived. I went to ANAEM to get my medical exam and carte. The medical exam went off without a hitch, though I found the process quite strange. They require an X-ray of your lungs, so I was ushered into a closet with two doors. I locked the first and was instructed to strip to my waist. The second door opened and I entered a large room with two women and an X-ray machine. It was really strange to be hanging out with them with no top on. X-ray taken, I got dressed and exited from the door I came in. Then there was an interview with another woman, who took my blood pressure, asked about my medical history, and reviewed my X-ray. And then they gave me the X-ray. "Yours to keep!"

[caption id="attachment_361" align="alignright" width="300" caption="My X-ray, against the window of my new building"][/caption]Thus far, things were going swimmingly. This all changed when I came to the main desk. I was lacking in a document, and I was lacking in payment. You have to pay in stamps that you buy from a tobacco store. Why not pay there? Why pay in stamps? Why a tobacco store? What is the logic??? I have no answers. French people don't think it's weird, though.

So I went to work (Bastille - Place d'Italie, direct metro ride). At lunch, I got a sandwich and went home, picked up my document, and bought 300 euros worth of stamps from the tobacco store next door. I chose to bike to Bastille this time - hot day, and I was in a dress, but the metro is hot too and costs more than Velib. I show up in the office, dripping sweat, and they inform me I've bought the wrong stamps. And "everyone knows this". Apparently, it's not enough to buy 300 euros worth of stamps in 30s, 20s, and 10s - NO, you must buy 3 stamps of 55 euros and 9 stamps of 15 euros. Why? Why? I almost cried, but they were unmoved. Wrong stamps. Come back tomorrow.

I tried to exchange the stamps at a nearby tobacco store, but no dice. Somehow, although they are equivalent to a kind of tax cash, they are not exchangeable. I rode my bike back to my original tobacco store next to my apartment. He luckily was willing to exchange them - otherwise, I don't know what I would have done. Not only would I be out 300 euros, but I'm pretty sure my bank doesn't allow me to take out more than 500 euros a week (security for the carte bleue). Unfortunately, he didn't have enough 15 euro stamps.

Back to work. The next morning, I get up early to go to the tobacco store and Bastille, but at the store, they still don't have the stamps. Come back in an hour, they say. Instead I go to work and come back in the afternoon. The stamps are ready for me so I go to Bastille, arriving Friday afternoon at 4:30. I'm told that it was way too late to do anything administrative, so I smile and say "je ne comprends pas". She mutters something unpleasant about me not understanding, and it then takes her all of two seconds to take my documents and give me my carte. Which I have now, and it's good until January 31, and I really hope I don't have to deal with the French government till then.

L'été est arrivé! (music mix)

2009-07-03T13:39:00.000-04:00

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="337" caption="unfortunately, I'm not there."][/caption]My apartment is unbearably hot. The cats can't do much more than search out the coolest corner and sleep, except at night, when they delight in knocking things off the dresser. This whole week it's been in the upper 80s. Work has moved to a nice new building at Place d'Italie, where we have plenty of space and air conditioning, though the latter has yet to actually work.

Summer means music, specifically pop, specifically infectious, danceable, gooey stuff that I always associate with hot days and long, fun nights. I went in search of the latest and greatest while in the States, but even the Miami Beach clubs weren't playing anything new. A quick tour through Billboard's singles this year reveals why - it's been a very very bad year for pop thus far.

Luckily it's been a fantastic year for indie, and pretty decent for remixes. So without further ado, here's my summer mix...starts with some pop, segues into remixes, next some indie, and finally some nostalgia. (But no MJ. I actually don't own any. Not a fan, sorry.)

Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective: This song is so happy, so summer. The lyrics in the beginning pretty much describe every night for me.

Just Dance - Lady Gaga ft. Colby O Donis: I think this might be the best pop song of 2009. Lady Gaga has some pretty stupid songs, but I actually think the lyrics on this one are funny (maybe unintentionally so).

Old Time's Sake - Eminem & Dr. Dre: Eminem's new album is definitely better than Encore, but not as good as any of the others. This is my favorite song off it, classic Dre, the two of them not taking themselves very seriously.

Kids - Chiddy Bang: MGMT sample, fantastic.

Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas: It's my understanding that the Black Eyed Peas is getting lots of playtime right now. Maybe they've released the seminal summer songs this year? They were better with Fergie, oh well.

The Fear - Lily Allen: She's so great.

Halo - Beyoncé: So I don't like Beyoncé as much as I like Rihanna, but I have to admit, she has a better voice. Rihanna couldn't pull off this song. Guilty pleasure, the kind of song we'd listen to in the car, windows down, really loud, belting out the high notes.

Armistice - Phoenix: Loving Phoenix right now. They're playing a pricey concert at the Zenith (big venue) in October.

Day 'N' Nite (Crookers Remix) - Kid Cudi: It's sort of a boring song, so great for a remix.

That's Not My Name (LA Riots Remix) - The Ting Tings: Not really sure what's up with The Ting Tings. They have indie cred? Somehow? Even though they're veterans of the British version of the Mickey Mouse Club? But again, the repetition/generally catchiness works well in a remix, where you can ignore the stupidity of the lyrics.

Ce Jeu (D.A.D 4evr Remix) - Yelle: I totally grabbed this from The Tape and it turns out, a. it's in French and b. it's awesome.

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear: Another great indie album released this spring.

The Ghost Of You Lingers - Spoon: This is my favorite song off of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Odd choice, I know. Something about the keyboards and the ethereal question "would you ease my mind?"

Soft Shock - Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Missing them at Belfort this weekend. I love this song, love her voice, so sweet, so sad - "what's the time, what's the day, gonna leave me?"

Why Can't I? - Liz Phair: Came on while on shuffle the other day. Nostalgic.

Mona Lisa - Guster: And the quintessential in nostalgia. Early college. Man, these guys have been around a long time now. Fun fact #1: they went to Tufts. Fun fact #2: they played ultimate there. A few years later, they came to watch Sectionals before their performance at Spring Fling.

Enjoy! (Link in comments section on facebook, or email me.)

Somewhere over the Atlantic ocean

2009-06-29T03:57:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_338" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The family at graduation"][/caption][caption id="attachment_336" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Getting my wizard robes, next to Dr Cherniavsky"][/caption]
I'm back in Paris now, after a week in Seattle and a week in Miami Beach. My visit home was a lot of fun, though somewhat marred by a very bad ending to things with Mike C. We won't ever speak again. I hate bad endings, because it feels like they invalidate everything that came before. This one was particularly unnecessary as I live in Paris. But in retrospect, it was completely inevitable given his personality. I just wish I had evinced better judgment earlier.

In any case, that freed up a lot of time to spend with friends and family. My grandparents and Aunt Mary and Uncle Tim came out to Seattle for the weekend, and we got to go on a boat tour, see some different neighborhoods, and have a very nice fancy dinner at Oceanaire. My mom threw me a graduation party at Elemental, which my brother crashed in a surprise visit from California. I got to spend quality time with a bunch of great people and it made me really, really miss Seattle.

[caption id="attachment_337" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Wu Liz and I at Elemental"][/caption]One of the hard things about moving, though, is I feel neither here nor there - stuck somewhere over the Atlantic ocean. Life in Seattle is moving apace. My friends are in new relationships and I don't know their partners; frisbee has undergone a huge upheaval, rather difficult actually, but I haven't been there to grasp the extent of the changed circumstances and emotions surrounding that; friends are leaving town, so the Seattle as I knew it doesn't exist anymore. At the same time, I'm not quite settled here yet. I have some friends, but they are new friends, and we are not yet invested in each other's lives. I have my team. I think after a couple more tournaments, and my intense French lessons, it will feel a lot like Viva. Most of all, I have my work, and it's been dominating my life in a way that it never has before. I love it, but working a lot doesn't make a city feel like home.

[caption id="attachment_340" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Miss Williams"][/caption]My best times here so far have been spent with visitors. Somehow, I need to make my own space here, my own friends, a reality in which I exist and am missed when I'm not here. Three months is not enough time, but hopefully six will be. I begin French lessons next week; I begin running every morning tomorrow; already, I have a pretty full tournament schedule. It's a good start.

Bienvenido a Miami

2009-06-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_330" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Miami Beach"][/caption]I've been here three days and I can't get that Will Smith song out of my head. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, the main computer vision conference, takes place this week each year. For me, it's a good chance to get up to speed on the state of the art. This weekend is workshops; the actual conference begins tomorrow. Since what's happening today is pretty much outside anything I'm likely to do, I have permission to skip it - I slept in, luxuriously, the most since I've been on vacation, and I plan on hitting the beach and the pool later. Unfortunately I left my camera in Seattle, along with my electric toothbrush, so these crappy cell phone pics will have to do.

Miami is very strange. It reminds me a lot of southern California - or Newport Beach, where my cousin lives - in that it's full of large breasted women in small clothes. It's unbelievably hot, of course. It's also really expensive. Miami Beach in particular seems to exist as a playground for very rich people, and a place for tourists to go and gawk at rich people. Case in point: our conference hotel, the Fontainebleau. French for blue fountain? But of course it's spelled all wrong. It is huge; the lobbies are all marble and attractive little seating areas; it seems like there are a zillion staff members dashing about, to help you with anything you need. The pool area contains something like 7 different small pools, surrounding by beach chairs and big circular beach cushions with umbrellas. The latter look incredibly comfortable and fun, but they are $200 a day to rent. There are at least three bars in the pool area, not to mention multiple restaurants in the hotel, a spa, a gym, a hair salon, a club...everything you would need is contained in the hotel, which is good, because it's in "mid-beach" and not walkable to anything. [caption id="attachment_331" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Fontainebleau"][/caption]

I must note how odd this seems as a choice for a computer science conference. There are over 1000 of us, overwhelming male, from all parts of the world, generally pale, unmuscled, and not dressed to impress. It is not very difficult to tell the conference attendees from the regular hotel guests. Moreover, this peculiar American-style hotel, self-contained and requiring a car to go anywhere interesting, is very off-putting to the many Europeans. They complain that there's no good cafe in walking distance. I haven't bothered to disappoint them with the news that there's unlikely to be any good cafe anywhere in south beach.

I have no idea what the hotel rooms are like, since I am paying my own way and am not actually staying at the hotel. Instead, I am five blocks away at Versailles condominiums (French again!), which was probably a very nice hotel in 1950. The lobby is old, the hallway smells funny, only one elevator works, everything needs a new coat of paint. The outside of the building badly needs to be cleaned; drips from the air conditioning units have stained the walls. But my room is fine - a little studio with a Murphy bed, cheerfully painted in bright orange, with a kitchenette, coffee maker, microwave, TV, and even some mystery novels on the bookshelf (and "Law School for Dummies" - what?) To be honest, it's much bigger than my apartment in Paris, and similarly equipped. Except I don't have a microwave, TV, or coffee maker. The only problem is the shower, which only has two settings: hot and hot. Better than its fearsome cousin, cold and cold, but it's tough to enjoy a scalding shower.

[caption id="attachment_329" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="An abandoned hotel (quite common)"][/caption]My hotel is in the mid range of places; it is also on the beach, like the Fontainebleau. Walking down the boardwalk, you will see very expensive and nice places next to abandoned buildings, boarded up with weeds growing around the remains of the swimming pool. Bizarre and sad. Last night at dinner, we were constantly asked by beggars for money, quite aggressively, as we sat at our table outside. It was in striking contrast to the very expensive stores and restaurants in that section of Miami Beach.

Needless to say, it's very different from both Seattle and Paris, and not someplace I'd like to live, though I do want to see what a south beach club is like. My Parisien lab mates are counting the days till our return. Six days, by my measure - lots to learn before then, plus a nice brown tan to work on. Going to go read Proust by the pool now.

Life is good

2009-06-08T18:03:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_289" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="This is painted on the wall just outside my apartment"][/caption]

Working late but have some time as my code takes ages to run. I discovered upon plugging in my camera that I had loads of pics from Mattson's visit, so I thought I'd take the time to post a few. Next post will be about Germany and my thoughts on my team, the differences between European and American ultimate, and how bad cold rain is for IT bands.

But the long and short of it is, we finished second to a very good Munich team (that won Europeans last year), I love the Yaka girls, my IT bands survived, and I found out when I got home that my UIST paper on MobileASL got in. Life is good. (No idea what the equivalent French phrase is, else I'd use it.) I'll be in Seattle on Friday, and in Victoria, BC in October.

OK, on to the photo gallery:

[caption id="attachment_296" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Modern architecture in Paris: Bibliothèque Mitterand and bridge"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_290" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Another view of the Bibliothèque Mitterand"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_288" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Another painting outside my apartment"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_291" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Rue Mouffetard and Mattson"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_307" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Even in the 50s, the French were more chic"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_293" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mattson noted that this is a Hemingway quote (see above)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_297" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Garden across the Seine from Notre Dame"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_304" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Notre Dame"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_295" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Just because it's touristy doesn't mean it's not impressive..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_287" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="...or beautiful"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_301" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Real gold in that sword"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_302" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sunbathers on the Seine"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_308" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Mattson in Paris"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_298" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mattson's feet, Bird showing camera awareness for once"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_303" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Cats fighting. They do this all the time. Of course, this is why I brought Flotsam from Maine."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_310" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="It's not fair. Flotsam has no teeth"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_309" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Fatties (Lea's foot this time)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_292" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="That book was fantastic btw"][/caption]

Brief update

2009-06-04T08:37:00.000-04:00

Things are very busy - I've lived in my new place for 2 months and 8 people have already spent the night there (and sometimes we are three to the room). Mattson and I had a lovely visit for four days, very productive [you still owe me the strengths book] and now Dan is here through Friday. Then I am off to Cologne to play in a tournament. The Yaka girls invited me to play with their team, so I am now a Yaka (someone told me this in French and it was very confusing). This means Cologne this weekend, 8 Nations in Spain in a few weeks, European Club Championships in September and (drumroll please) 2010 Worlds in Prague! I am really happy. My French is coming along, supplemented by slang, verlan, and incredibly incomprehensible emails from the team. I regularly say "ouais", which is like "yeah" (a more casual form of yes) but sounds strange coming from someone who doesn't speak French very well. It's a highly addictive word, though.

In any case - thanks for all the book recommendations, please keep them coming. If you've taken Myers-Briggs, tell me your personality type, Mattson has renewed my interest in such things. And go read Obama's speech in Cairo.

Summer reading

2009-05-26T06:25:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_278" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Jardin du Luxembourg"][/caption]It's hot. Unbelievably so - as hot as it ever gets in Seattle, sun pouring into my south-facing apartment until well after 9 pm. Any DC native reading this will justifiably call me a wimp, but I'll parry with "no AC" - it is somehow unGallic to artificially cool the air. My choices these past few nights have been between the noise and the heat; opening the windows offers a cool breeze, but there are loud cars and people on my street until the wee hours. So, in classic Seattle style, I've bought a fan and earplugs.

[caption id="attachment_277" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Some relief in the shade"][/caption]Still, despite the heat and noise, I love my little apartment. I don't have internet at home, which leaves me lots of time to read. Perhaps too much time - I often get caught up in my book and arrive at work much later than planned. I brought with me to Paris some well-loved Jane Austens (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Lady Susan) and a few books I had purchased but never found time to read. The Jane Austens I read right away, the best cure for loneliness imaginable, though unfortunately too light to be long lasting. My favorite is Lady Susan, a minor work but so much fun. Then Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, not his best in my opinion, a quick, sad read about a poor fisherman. Back when the movie In Cold Blood came out, I bought Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, packaged with two short stories. Oddly, I think I prefer Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly to the version in the novella. The short stories were quite good though; perhaps I ought to read In Cold Blood, though in general I'm not a fan of true crime works.

[caption id="attachment_279" align="alignright" width="224" caption="Sleepy Flotsam next to books"][/caption]A friend of Mike's gave me In the Beginning...Was the Command Line, an essay by Neal Stephenson and available online for free. It's a interesting take on operating systems, Windows versus Mac versus Linux, though it basically became immediately outdated with the introduction of OSX. Also, any CS people out there who haven't read Stephenson really ought to; Cryptonomicon is my favorite (I find Snow Crash too unpolished and The Baroque Cycle trilogy badly in need of an editor), but he is quite prolific, and writes intelligently about our milieu. I then read Middlesex, given to me ages ago by Liz, and very enjoyable, though I'm a little surprised it won a Pulitzer. It's a well-plotted book, with a fascinating, meandering story line, yet for me it somehow stays on this side of popular fiction. I don't think it will age well. On the other hand, I didn't want to put it down.

[caption id="attachment_280" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Seine, timeless"][/caption]And right now I'm reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky. She was a Jewish French novelist, already popular in the late 1930s, when she had to flee Paris; she wrote Suite Française while hiding in the countryside, where she was eventually found, sent to Auschwitz, and murdered. Her daughter had kept the manuscript but thought it was a diary; it was only recently that she realized it was a novel and published it. The book places me squarely in Paris, at the time of the German invasion and occupation, and makes me want to read more French literature. On the other hand, it's not at all what I expected - the characters are for the most part upper middle class French who stupidly do not realize what is happening to them and are in any case superficial, selfish, and entirely unsympathetic. (Apparently she had quite a bad relationship with her mother, who after the war refused to take in her orphaned children - the scathing portrayal of the rich women in the novel is her only revenge.)

But this too will soon be done. So does anyone have suggestions on what I should read next?

So much to say and so little time

2009-05-22T08:27:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_266" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sardines at Point Ephémère"][/caption]I've been meaning to write a post for some time now - lots has been happening, lots of people are coming through, life is moving apace, never mind all the work I have to do despite all the holidays in May. In this post I'll write about Becky and Ethan's visit a couple of weeks ago, in the next about my latest news.

Ethan had a conference in Amsterdam, an excellent opportunity for a little European trip. (Those systems guys have it the best: loads of grant money, cool sponsored trips, articles in Wired, conferences in the Dominican Republic in February. I do get to go to Miami Beach, but it's in June; not as bad as Rutgers in August, but if it's going to be Florida, it should be cold back home.) He and Becky arrived Friday night around 8 pm and we met up with my friends Guillaume and Jan at Point Ephémère, my new favorite club in Paris. We actually had kind of a disastrous experience with the waitress, where a frustrating series of missteps culminated in us getting charged for both the incorrect dish brought and the dish ordered that never came. This caused Guillaume (as kind and calm a person as you will ever encounter) to actually lose his temper. I caught "C'est incroyable!" but the rapid French that followed was way beyond me.

[caption id="attachment_267" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Jan taking a picture of Guillaume who is taking a picture of me"][/caption]In any case, the food was good and cheap, so we will pardon the waitress. At around 11 pm, we entered the club, planning to hear the band Love Is All - but the club was empty, everyone outside smoking cigarettes, and entry was free. Turns out that when they say 8 here, they mean 8, and when there are 3 bands, they each go on for about 45 minutes apiece. Coming from Seattle, where the headliner often starts around midnight, this is very odd indeed. I have to confess that I was pleased. Love Is All is a little noisy for my taste, so I made better use of my 12 euros by buying reasonably priced beer.

Meanwhile the music was fantastic. PB&J, Vampire Weekend, Franz Ferdinand, Mates of State (I think - I could never figure out why I knew one song), and best of all, everyone dancing! Despite the wonderful music scene in Seattle, I always found it tragically bizarre that no one dances. Jess and I would often get dirty looks, bouncing around to Helio Sequence or Okkervil River. But these songs are so danceable, I just can't understand how anyone can stand there, barely nodding to the beat. It's not that the French are better dancers than Americans, but they are unselfconscious. And there seems to be an understanding that this is what's expected at a club.

[caption id="attachment_265" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ethan is perhaps a little jetlagged"][/caption]A great night all in all - I would have stayed longer, but Becky and Ethan were tired after a long week, and indeed ended up sleeping till after 11 the next morning. We went to the market at Rue Mouffetard then to the Seine and had a lovely picnic of bread, cheese, avocado, dates, strawberries, and saucisse, marred only by the fact that it started pouring. Then to Shakespeare and Company, where I realized that I really ought to read some classic French literature (more on that in another post). And finally back home, to prepare for our four hour dinner at the Hidden Kitchen.

The Hidden Kitchen is a private supper club run by Seattlites Braden and Laura, out of their gorgeous flat in the first arrondisement. There is space for 12, and I'm not sure it's exactly legal (especially in regulation-happy Paris), so shhhh. (Seeing as Clotilde Dusoulier has written about it on her blog, I don't think it's a very big secret.) We met our fellow diners while being served an apertif (some kind of orange-infused champagne). Then the meal - 10 courses, paired with 7 glasses of wine, 4 hours of interesting conversation with expats and visitors, and rice krispie treats to end the meal. It was really spectacular; there was an especially delicate poached egg dish that we agreed was our favorite of the night. I also got some inside info on how to watch streaming American TV here (Hulu and the regular broadcasters are blocked, since they make so much money rebroadcasting dubbed versions).

[caption id="attachment_264" align="alignright" width="225" caption="What post is complete without a picture of one of the kitties?"][/caption]We spent the next day visiting some fantastic places to eat from Clotilde's book: Blé Sucre, a lovely bakery in the 12th; the nearby Marché d'Aligre; L'As du Fallafel in the Marais; Le Loir dans la Théière, also in the Marais and known for incredibly delicious lemon meringue tarts; and finally, for dinner, a lovely small crêperie in Montparnasse called Ti Jos. Ethan and I also ate at Le Pre Verre, which was fantastic, and has quite a good deal for lunch; as it is very close to work, I have some hope of convincing my colleagues to forsake the school cafeteria one of these fine spring days. Clotilde's book is now my bible - she has yet to steer me wrong in my eternal quest for good restaurants at reasonable prices.

It was an action-packed trip; funny how these incredibly fun visits often leave me feeling in need of a vacation (just in time to get back to work). Nonetheless, my schedule is falling into place, as is French, frisbee, work, and friends - more on that when I get some time for another post.

Why I love Barack Obama

2009-05-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

He sees the world in shades of gray.
------------------------------------------------------
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Notre Dame Commencement

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Notre Dame, Indiana

Thank you, Father Jenkins for that generous introduction. You are doing an outstanding job as president of this fine institution, and your continued and courageous commitment to honest, thoughtful dialogue is an inspiration to us all.

Good afternoon Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame trustees, faculty, family, friends, and the class of 2009. I am honored to be here today, and grateful to all of you for allowing me to be part of your graduation.

I want to thank you for this honorary degree. I know it has not been without controversy. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I’m only 1 for 2 as President. Father Hesburgh is 150 for 150. I guess that’s better. Father Ted, after the ceremony, maybe you can give me some pointers on how to boost my average.

I also want to congratulate the class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. And since this is Notre Dame, I mean both in the classroom and in the competitive arena. We all know about this university’s proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world – Bookstore Basketball.

Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year’s tournament, a team by the name of “Hallelujah Holla Back.” Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the “Barack O’Ballers” didn’t pull it out. Next year, if you need a 6’2” forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.

Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you are today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare – periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.

You, however, are not getting off that easy. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and the world – a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It is a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations – and a task that you are now called to fulfill.

This is the generation that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit – an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

We must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. We must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity – diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.

It is this last challenge that I’d like to talk about today. For the major threats we face in the 21st century – whether it’s global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease – do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups.

Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

Unfortunately, finding that common ground – recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a “single garment of destiny” – is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man – our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education you have received is that you have had time to consider these wrongs in the world, and grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexing things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, men and women of principle and purpose, can be difficult.

The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardships can be relieved.

The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.

As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me.

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website – an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that – when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.”

Understand – I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it – indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory – the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

It’s a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. The lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where “…differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love.” And I want to join him and Father Jenkins in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today’s ceremony.

This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago – also with the help of the Catholic Church.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. A group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

It was quite an eclectic crew. Catholic and Protestant churches. Jewish and African-American organizers. Working-class black and white and Hispanic residents. All of us with different experiences. All of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help – to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in those neighborhoods. Perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn – not just to work with the church, but to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.

At the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads – unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty, AIDS, and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together; always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said, “You can’t really get on with preaching the Gospel until you’ve touched minds and hearts.”

My heart and mind were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside with in Chicago. And I’d like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling.

You are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You will be called upon to help restore a free market that is also fair to all who are willing to work; to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or someone who simply insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communications than have ever existed before. You will hear talking heads scream on cable, read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and watch politicians pretend to know what they’re talking about. Occasionally, you may also have the great fortune of seeing important issues debated by well-intentioned, brilliant minds. In fact, I suspect that many of you will be among those bright stars.

In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. Stand as a lighthouse.

But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds.

For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

So many of you at Notre Dame – by the last count, upwards of 80% -- have lived this law of love through the service you’ve performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. That is incredibly impressive, and a powerful testament to this institution. Now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn’t just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens – when people set aside their differences to work in common effort toward a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another – all things are possible.

After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African-American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the “separate but equal” doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God’s children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the twelve resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of the commission. It included five whites and one African-American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. They worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. Finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame’s retreat in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal.

Years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered that they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away. Life is not that simple. It never has been.

But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived. Remember that in the end, we are all fishermen.

If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God’s providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations on your graduation, may God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Aunt x2!!!

2009-05-16T13:10:00.000-04:00

Today I received a text at around 11:40 am from my brother: "Baby girl cherniavsky 5 pounds 6 ounces... Strong voice ... Resting comfortably in the nursery". So I am now an aunt x2! The video included here is of Sierra version 1.0, 2 years old and now a big sister.

Musak

2009-05-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_240" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Elin, me, Jessers, and Lizzie at the Capitol Hill Block Party last summer"][/caption]I have a lot of time to listen to music these days: I have no internet at home, I walk a lot, I have to take the subway for over an hour to frisbee practice twice a week - the list goes on. I've been more aggressively searching out new stuff, often on The Tape, Passion of the Weiss, and KEXP's podcast. The first is my absolute favorite music blog; they cover both the indie bands I like and also the latest pop/hip-hop. I love Guilty Music Mondays. The second is a blog by an LA journalist, and he's quite a good writer who mostly covers hip-hop. Lastly, KEXP is the (public) independent music station in Seattle. They present a wide variety of music ranging across the whole indie landscape, though some subgenres are sparsely covered.

I am sadly absent from both Sasquatch and the Capitol Hill Block party this year. There are a couple of festivals in France that I'm looking into (I will definitely be at Rock en Seine - I'm really looking forward to Asher Roth. Kidding. Seriously.). But in the meantime, here's a mix of my latest favorites. It's quite cheerful, a little unusual for me. I'll post the link in the comments section on facebook.

Nothing To Worry About by Peter Bjorn & John: always makes me smile

Little Secrets (LehtMoJoe Remix) by Passion Pit: really looking forward to the album

I Poke Her Face by KiD CuDi ft. KanYe West and Common: this is hilarious, courtesy of The Tape

Lisztomania by Phoenix: they are French!

Everything With You by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: coming to town May 26

Idiot Heart by Sunset Rubdown: my preferred Wolf Parade singer

Masked Moniker (Pop Eulogy) by CasOne: pretty sure it's also from The Tape; Kentucky rapper

Tightrope by Coast: peppy Canadians

Crack A Bottle (DiscoTech Remix) by Eminem: you all know I'm going to get the album. He's at least stopped feeling sorry for himself

Pistol Dreams by The Tallest Man On Earth: everybody's latest fave, sweet, a little sad

Moth's Wings by Passion Pit: hands down my favorite on this mix, I play this song over and over

Ursuline by Malajube: heard it on KEXP and actually figured out it was in French. listen and you'll be impressed, it's very difficult to make out the lyrics.

The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine: super super sad!

You Can Have What You Want by Papercuts: continuing on the theme...

Young Adult Friction by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: back to cheery

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel: this one is all Mike Hamm and his status updates

Pictures of the new apartment

2009-05-12T06:15:00.000-04:00

I have a lot going on these days - people in town, good news regarding Yaka, preparing for my trip west for graduation - so this will be short and sweet and contain only pics. I promise to write more soon on the weekend, which was a lot of fun and included a delicious meal at The Hidden Kitchen. I also want to post a mix, but might do that only to facebook. OK, without further ado, my pics:
[caption id="attachment_231" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The apartment from the foyer"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_230" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The apartment from the kitchen"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_234" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Sleepy kitties"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_233" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="A bookshelf makes a world of difference in my happiness"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_235" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Sliding mirror door into bathroom"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_232" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bird helping me put together furniture"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_229" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="At night, all cozy"][/caption]

Holiday

2009-05-08T06:59:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_220" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Bois de Vincennes"][/caption]May is full of holidays here. A week ago was Labor Day, traditionally a day of protests, and nothing was open; today is another holiday (checks wikipedia) - Victory in Europe day. Nothing was open a week ago, but some stores are open today, and later I might do a bit of shopping. For now I am all alone at work, which is actually kind of nice.

Last week, the beautiful day and lack of ability to run errands convinced me to go to Bois de Vincennes with Guillaume, another post doc. The park is large and green and basically everything someone missing Seattle would want - boaters, kids playing, lovely blooming trees, winding paths through woods. We then met Bryan for drinks and dinner and chanced to see a great band in the bar (Pica Pica). We were lucky to be sitting on stools, as it got very packed, with people sitting on the floor (including really cute kids). The band was advertised as "street music" or "gypsy jazz" - an accordion, a violin, and a guitar. I was half in love with the violinist by the end of the set.

Below some more pics of Bois de Vincennes and the band, taken on Guillaume's iPhone. Later, some pics of my new apartment.

A+!
[gallery link="file"]

Exploding vacuum cleaners and pie

2009-05-01T11:49:00.000-04:00

I was going to title this post "ubuntu, vncserver, and exploding vacuum cleaners", and fill it with lots of useful information about how to install vncserver on an AMD64 ubuntu box, but 1. it's a gorgeous, and a holiday, I shouldn't even be at work, and 2. Jenny asked me about my pie secrets. So instead I will briefly talk about pie, after I explain about the exploding vacuum cleaner. And then I'll go boating in the Bois de Vincennes. (If anyone really wants to know about vncserver and ubuntu, just comment or something and I'll explain.)

I was convinced by really persuasive reviews on Amazon to buy a Bissell Pet Eraser and I was so excited when it arrived in the mail, even though it had cost more for my mom to mail than it cost me to purchase originally. My couch (and indeed, nearly every surface) is perpetually covered in cat hair, and I spend every morning sweeping and dusting, and still it's a constant battle. The small-but-powerful vacuum cleaner was my latest sally in this war, and I had threatened to vacuum the cats themselves. (This was a completely idle threat, as that would be unimaginably cruel. There are only two things in this world that frighten Bird: vacuum cleaners and roller bladers. Back in the day, Arnie and I invented our own version of rosham called pen-vacuum cleaner-Bird.)

So, I plugged in the vacuum cleaner, turned it on, and there was a very loud popping sound and strong burnt smell. So I turned it off. Then, good engineer that I am, I turned it back on and let it run for a while longer. There was presently a small electrical fire in the vacuum cleaner, which frightened me into fumbling for the off switch, which I managed to find but not until after an even stronger burnt smell had filled the apartment.

Lesson: voltages are different in Europe. This doesn't affect laptops, because they have their own transformers in the plug, but apparently it affects all other small appliances. Therefore, I continue to lose the battle against the cat hair. I am of course going to return the vacuum in June and demand a full refund.

Now, for my pie secrets. First of all, I recommend that everyone get The Pie Book, which is amazing - it has fantastic recipes and extremely detailed instructions on how to make all different types of pie dough. Graham-cracker crusts and Oreo crusts are super easy and super tasty, and his chocolate cream pie recipe is to die for.

There are basically three things I do to make good pie dough. The rest of the steps are standard and so not included.

Freeze the fat. I keep butter and shortening in the freezer specifically for this purpose.

Grate the fat. When it comes time to put the fat into the flour (recipes usually suggest cutting it into the flour in small pieces until it's pea-sized), I use a cheese grater, or better, a food processor with the cheese grater attachment. Take your frozen butter and grate it in, mixing as you go. Then do the shortening (I do it second because it's messier, it doesn't freeze as well). Now you have lovely cold dough, with smaller-than-pea-sized bits, to add water to.

Roll on wax paper. This tip is directly from the pie book. When I roll out the dough, I do so on a piece of wax paper. This has the added advantage of being exactly the right size for a 9" pie. And to put it in the pie plate, you simply flip it over and peel off the paper. No more battling with sticky dough attaching itself to counter tops!

OK, hopefully that's enough information, but let me know if not. Time to explore Paris - I can't do errands (everything is closed), and no one is at the office, so I must celebrate France's Labor Day in a very French fashion (i.e., by not working).

Moving

2009-04-27T06:34:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_208" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Six flights of stairs"][/caption]

This weekend was easily the worst one I've spent in Paris. It wasn't the weather, though the gloom and drizzle reminded me of home; it wasn't the newly felt absence of Campbell, though I really could have used a boyfriend-like person. Quite simply, I hate moving. Moving in Paris, without a car or any friends to call on, traveling up six flights of stairs, purchasing and transporting furniture, not to mention the cats - well, let's just say it was not fun.

I actually began quite optimistically, though on the later side, on Saturday. I took my huge backpack (a gift from my brother and invaluable for this whole process) and a duffel with wheels given to me ages ago by my grandmother, and walked the mile from my old apartment next to Jardin Lux to my new apartment near Rue Mouffetard. Those two bags were full of clothes, including some that I'll be putting in storage in Maryland soon. They were heavy and I was pretty tired after hauling them up the stairs, but looking forward to my next venture - shopping.

I headed to Place d'Italie, where a cheap hardware/furniture store had been recommended. And indeed, it was exactly what I was looking for, cheap stuff that I would put together myself. I really wanted to get all my clothes in a dresser before moving the cats as they infect everything with mounds of cat hair. The guy at the store expressed some concern with my ability to carry said dresser, but I assured him "je suis forte". I did a good job all the way across the mall and up the stairs. Then my arms gave out.

I don't think I've maxed out my muscles this way since the days that Lina and I used to spot each other, trying to bench our body weight. My forearms ached. I would pick up the long box, travel about 15 feet, then put it down. I only needed to go about 1/4 of a mile, to the bus stop, and it took me a half hour. It would have taken longer, but a kind woman stopped and helped me for the last 100 yards. After getting off the bus, I had maybe 50 yards to go but my body was really protesting. I was moving the box by rotating each corner on the sidewalk and someone else took pity on me and helped me - all downhill, thank goodness. I got it into the building and then brought up the pieces of the dresser in 3 trips.

[caption id="attachment_207" align="alignright" width="224" caption="The cat carrier on top of the duffel"][/caption]I had all kinds of plans for my Saturday, of more trips to and fro my apartment, of putting the dresser together and even of going out that night, but it had been three hours since I started moving and I was already spent. I hopped on a Vélib back to my old place and thought about taking a nap, but eventually decided that Vélib might be a good way to move. I brought over the last of the clothes and the first of the books, filling my field bag and the big backpack again. The field bag, heavy with books, went into the basket on the Vélib.

Now, you might think this is a bad idea, and I might agree with you. I was super unbalanced. I later discovered that this might have been a problem with the particular Vélib I chose, but the upshot was I felt at any moment that I might fall over. Going straight was okay but any turns were tricky. And let me just rant for a second about scooters and motorcycles in Paris. They are CRAZY. They weave in and out of lanes, cut off drivers, go the wrong way down the street, and sometimes use the sidewalk. Worst of all, they often use the bike lane. They treat bicyclists like cars and cut as close as possible to them when passing. Here I am, completely unbalanced on this Vélib, with a huge backpack and big black duffel in the basket in front of me, and all these scooters are passing between me and the car next to me. One guy even had the nerve to grin at me. And on occasion, a car would sit in the bike lane while the owner was picking up a baguette or dropping off a pizza, and then I had to maneuver around them, into the primary traffic lane, full of irate drivers. It was terrifying. My only saving grace was the ride between apartments was short. Trip number 2 out of the way, I headed home and crashed.

On Sunday I got another late start, this time due to dread of the whole process. I packed another load of books in the big backpack and various items into a smaller backpack, set the smaller on in the basket on the Vélib, and headed over. Since it was Sunday, the roads were much less crowded and I made it without incident. At the new place, I spent a couple of hours putting my new dresser together and getting the apartment in order. Then I went back to retrieve my very important companions.

[caption id="attachment_206" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Bird, checking out the neighbor"][/caption]I decided to bring the kitties on top of the roller duffel, so I could roll them along while I carried their litter pan, litter, and various other heavy things on my back. This was by far the worst trip of the five. For one, the bag on my back was really, really heavy. The kitties themselves weigh about 35 lbs total, so dragging that wasn't so fun, either. And though Bird didn't seem to mind seeing the streets of Paris, Flotsam was having none of it. He screamed his head off the whole way, prompting startled stares from strangers and little kids and dogs to follow us. As is usual when I travel with him, I was in no mood for sympathy expressed for Flotsam. It's really not that traumatizing. [caption id="attachment_205" align="alignright" width="224" caption="Bird on a wire"][/caption]

When we arrived at the bottom of the stairs, I let them out, meaning to carry them one at a time up; but they both dashed out and made a run for it up the stairs, so I chased after them and encouraged them to keep going. Bird slowed down after three flights or so, Flotsam after only one, so I kept picking him up and putting him six steps higher, all the while saying "allez allez!" Good kitties that they are, they dashed right to the door of the apartment, where I let them in and they promptly hid under the bed. But Bird pretty soon managed to explore the property, especially the outside and the neighbor's flower boxes.

I made one last walking trip this morning, after spending the evening and morning cleaning my old apartment, which included a 7 am trip to the laundromat. I am exhausted and must work, go to class, work some more, hand in the keys, and go to ultimate. But at least it's done. Once I get the new place more set up, I'll take pics. It's really nice and I'm happy to be there. Hopefully I won't move again for a long time.

Senlis, Chantilly, and my new apartment

2009-04-19T17:19:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_187" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Weird ornamentation and gargoyles"][/caption] Three posts to catch up on the events of the past ten days, lots of words and lots of pictures. This weekend I visited my dad's friends Witold and Elisabeth at their home in Senlis, a lovely medieval town about a half hour north of Paris. Their house and the town reminded me a lot of Chaponost, where my family lives near Lyon. Elisabeth showed me the Gothic cathedral, the Normandy-style houses, and the ancient Roman towers. The latter were from the 3rd century AD (!!!) I find myself getting used to how old things are in Europe, to the point where a 19th century Haussmann building seems quite young. And yet Arnie and I were proud of how old our Seattle Craftsman house was (built in 1902). Gothic cathedrals are so weirdly lovely. I wish they still built churches this way, with alcoves for statues and strange gargoyles. Even the statues that are meant to be beautiful, like those above the front entrance, have this odd surrealist aspect to them. What a different way to worship - how interesting the transition, from the mosaics in Ravenna to the Gothic cathedral to the Renaissance and beyond. [caption id="attachment_189" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Statues embedded above the main entrance"][/caption]

Today we went to Chantilly, famous worldwide for horses and its enormous chateâu. My camera died, but I'll link instead to a lovely photo from Wikipedia. The building is so big, it took me over an hour to walk through it, and I didn't see the private apartments. (And somehow missed the monkey room.) Then I walked out and realized I had no time to explore the vast grounds, which includes lots of ponds with swans, an English garden, gazebo, a labyrinth, stables, tennis courts, Henri's lawn, "le petit parc", and a kangaroo enclosure. Google won't tell me how many acres the grounds make up, but I would estimate they are at least four square miles, the chateâu itself comprising only one small piece. We did get to see some competitive jumping, a sport alive and well in France. I would like to tour the Grand Stables when my mom comes to visit; I'm not sure the horses actually appreciate the lovely large windows, not to mention the sculptural ornamentation surrounding them, but I do love to see how the French aristocracy lived (we are - sadly or happily - lacking for any true aristocracy in the US). [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Château de Chantilly"][/caption]

Back in Paris, I picked up the keys to my NEW APARTMENT!!!! I am very excited, because it's bigger and nicer in a neighborhood I prefer (but still close to the Jardin Lux). The only problem: stairs. Lots and lots of them.

So, interestingly enough, the setup of my building, a classic Haussmann, is quite standard. Each floor is a flat, and very expensive. The front staircase thus leads up to only one door, the front door to each apartment. Because they are civilized (and rich), there is a lift installed inside that front staircase.

But there is also a back staircase, for the maids. Back in the 1800s, the maids lived on the top floor, in tiny rooms, and used the back service stairs to get from their apartments to the flats they served. I live in what used to be called "chambre de bonne", literally "the maid's room" (since bonne is maid. I actually thought this was "good room" but I've since been corrected.) Some apartments are still advertised this way, but only if they are very nice.

Anyway, even if one could put a lift here (and there's really not any room), one wouldn't, because it would only serve us poor kids on the 6th floor. Oh, and don't forget, the French count like computer scientists, so I have to walk up seven flights of stairs to reach my apartment.

But that's a minor quibble; I much prefer my new place to my current one, no lift and all. It's bigger; the stove and kitchenette setup is nicer; the bathroom is a lot nicer and has a toilet; the ceiling doesn't slope so severely; the window is large, and I can even have plants! I move in sometime this week. Campbell comes tomorrow, which is ever-so-exciting, and I have tons of work to do by Tuesday, which is less exciting. Pictures of the new place below, as always click for a larger version.

[gallery]

Paris in the spring time

2009-04-19T15:35:00.000-04:00

Today it's raining, but in general Paris in the spring time has been everything the poets and songwriters describe. My favorite place, the Jardin Lux, has exploded with flowers. Tulips, daffodils, dogwoods, cherry blossoms, all in pretty pastels. When I arrived a month ago, I took the first picture on the left; pretty, but no leaves at all on the trees. Yesterday, I took the picture on the right. (Note the Parisians eating McDonald's. They love McDonald's here. I don't really understand it.)

Here are some more pictures of the garden. I haven't really captured it all; on Sundays, it is so lively, with joggers, flowers and statues, lovely winding paths under blindingly green trees, children playing, and old men tossing petanque balls.

OK, so let me answer some of the most common questions asked of me.

Question. How's your French?

Answer. Still not great. It was nice going to Italy and then coming back, and realizing my French isn't as terrible as it feels. On the other hand, I can barely communicate with the patient postdocs who practice with me, let alone my French ultimate teammates. French class isn't great, because the level is a little too easy; on the other hand, I have to miss two weeks, so perhaps it will be better when I return. I've been listening to Champs Elysées, a French news program with audio exercises, at speed. I've had some success with that, but my speaking is well behind my listening. Reading and writing, I'm better at. This summer I will be taking very intensive classes at the Sorbonne, and ideally surrounding myself with French (getting my news in French, listening to music in French, etc). But for now, it's difficult, especially with how much I'm working.

Question. Speaking of that, how is work?

Answer. Work is good. Very very challenging. Probably more so because this isn't my area of expertise, so I'm learning a lot, all the time, just to do what's minimally expected. My supervisors are quite good and very hands-on, more so than I'm used to. I like it, because I think this is how I will excel, but I'm also stressed out a lot, and very tired. I take the weekends to explore the city. Otherwise, I'm usually exhausted when I get home, and can't do much more than watch American TV on youtube.

Question. So how's your social life?

Answer. Pretty much nonexistent. Various people are coming to visit, and that spurs me to actually go out, eat at restaurants, go to bars - explore the nightlife of the city. But eating out is really expensive and not always worth it; it's tricky to find good places. Drinks are also really expensive, as are cover fees. Bands that would be relatively inexpensive in the States are very pricey here, so I have yet to go to a show. Nonetheless, I want to; I follow music blogs and get Lylo every two weeks, the listing of all the shows in Paris and the surrounding areas. So if I'm feeling peppy one night, I can go on my own. In this also, not speaking French is a barrier. I would like to go out alone and meet people, but I'm essentially afraid to strike up conversation in French (and I feel like speaking English is rude).

All that said, I do have the beginnings of a social circle - postdocs at the lab, Animesh and the Rhum-Rhums crew, the Yaka girls, family friends of Dad, and of course my family in Lyon.

Paganello and Venice

2009-04-19T15:13:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_149" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Yellow subs, Paganello finalists"][/caption]

I spent the last week in Italy, first at Paganello, a beach tournament in Rimini, and then in Ravenna and Venice. Paganello is a very big European tournament, with four divisions (mixed, open, women, and juniors), and around 100 teams total. Taking place every year on Easter weekend, it is expensive but incredibly well-run. The schedules are organized and game scores are updated regularly; fans can easily follow the action at the fields or online. And amazingly, lots of locals come out to watch the games - chic Italian women in heels, carefully stepping along the sand into the stands.

My team, the Yellow Submarines, has been playing together for nine years, but has never made the trip across the Atlantic to this premier tournament. And in our first time, we placed second! We played a total of three games in the arena, which was the showcase field with stands, and there were hundreds of people watching. It was an amazing experience, "best weekend ever", and I was so glad to be there with my closest friends.

[caption id="attachment_148" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Me, Emily, Wu, Mer, and Paul"][/caption]

After the tournament, I traveled with Schmucker, Emily, and Dave to Ravenna to see mosaics, and then up to Venice. I wish I'd taken more time off and spent the next few days with them, because we had a lovely time. The mosaics in Ravenna are religious art pieces from the Byzantine era, created around 500 AD. It was incredible to think of the age of the Christian religion - these are of course pre-Renaissance, pre-Middle Ages, and they feel very old and unusual indeed. But Christianity was already an old religion then. Not to mention Judaism; for this reason, I'd really like to visit Jerusalem sometime.

And then, Venice - what a spectacularly unique place. There are no cars, only tiny, winding streets and water everywhere. It seems crazy that anyone would think to build on these islands, but of course there was more land 2000 years ago, plus they had to escape those barbarian invaders. The city is lovely and decaying, and it seems an almost impossible proposition to save it. It is sinking into the Adriatic. Mold attacks everything, and the buildings are all very old, much older than those in Paris. The Italians also seem less able to maintain their buildings than the French; for instance, on the big Plaza, soot mars the white facades. In Paris at least, buildings are constantly undergoing restoration, and this sort of damage is not common. Venice is also not the bustling city it once was; its primary industry these days is tourism, and that gets quite tiresome after awhile. Still, we stayed in a lovely hotel, had a fantastic dinner (with great, cheap, local wine), and really enjoyed our trips along the Grand Canal in the water taxi. It was all too brief; I came back to Paris after spending less than 24 hours in Venice. I hope some day to return.

Here is a video I took from the water taxi of Venice, and below is a gallery of images from my trip; click to see a larger version.

[gallery link="file"]

False positives haunt our dreams

2009-04-08T18:22:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_143" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Face detection, but not the scary kind"][/caption]It's late and I'm still at work. To be expected, as the week was fairly unproductive up until a meeting with Josef refocused me. As I've mentioned before, my lab is quite good, and he's emblematic of that. He essentially introduced bag-of-features to the vision community with a paper called Video Google, and he works as hard as any researcher I've ever been around (and that includes you, Adrien!) Incredibly brilliant and incredibly nice, a good supervisor for me, as sometimes I need to be pushed, but ever-so-gently.

Right now I'm doing work involving face detection, and the title of the post is from Josef. I'm currently watching my script run just to be sure it doesn't do anything stupid. When bounding boxes flash in the wrong places, those are the ghosts that haunt us. In this picture, of course, everything is kosher.

Tomorrow I leave for a week's vacation, the first I've had since Christmas, and desperately needed. I'm going to Rimini, Italy, for Paganello, a European beach ultimate tournament. My team, the Yellow Submarines, is celebrating our ninth year together. We're pretty good - we've won Wildwood a few times - but in nine years, a lot changes. Back in the day, Schmucker was reluctant to take me and Emily on the team, since Em was Dave's new girlfriend, I was her friend, and he didn't trust that we were any good at ultimate. We changed his mind pretty quickly. Then Dave and Em got married and had two kids, I moved to Seattle, Jared to NC, Pavel to NY, Geneva and I made it through grad school, and now I'm in Paris. Throughout all of it, we managed to get together at least once a year to play a tournament. I missed last year though, so I'm really looking forward to playing Paganello. It will also be great to see some Tufts alums (Becca, Anne-Marie, Sally) and Seattle friends (Wu, Zucker, Drew, Mer. Mer counts as Seattle because that's where I met her.) Plus apparently most of Yaka is on my flight tomorrow. Animesh is taking care of the kitties, who are certain to hate me by the end of the week. And with that, I'm off! Pictures and posts from Italy next week.

Paris as a tourist

2009-04-05T17:07:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_99" align="alignleft" width="225" caption=" "][/caption]

Yesterday I played tourist - hard-core, not like I've been doing, which is wandering neighborhoods and pretending like I know where I am and sneaking photos when no one is looking at me. Ethan Danahy, a friend from way back when (Tufts circa 1998), was in town with his mother, and they were doing Paris. Extensively and exhaustively. I couldn't imagine seeing all the things they did over the course of a month, let alone three days. Ethan's mom especially went on a whirlwind tour of the city and saw all of the major sights. While it's not really in my nature to explore this way - I prefer long leisurely days within just one neighborhood, getting lost so I'll know my way the next time - it is nice to see all the highlights. For example, I had yet to go to the Eiffel Tower, which we went to Saturday night. Ethan took this lovely pic (more pictures below).

The day started with some necessary preparation for my trip to Rimini next week - namely, a bikini wax. Now, I'm not going to go into details, but this is a public blog and I need to provide a public service. In French, a bikini wax is called épilation du maillot. If you Google "Paris bikini wax", you get blogs asking where to get a bikini wax in Paris. So I will provide the answer, or at least a better way to search. If you're cheap, like me, you can go to Espace Épilation. It was fine, and definitely a lot less expensive than the States, though you should be warned that they are not real keen on providing any kind of privacy. If you're not cheap, you can go to Cityvox Paris and click on bien-être et beauté, and find something well-reviewed. Regardless, what you should be searching for is épilation. Google translate will do the rest.

[caption id="attachment_125" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Vélib station outside my apartment; note the gorgeous cherry blossom tree in bloom in the Luxembourg"][/caption]

I got to my appointment via a new mode of transportation that is hands-down the best way to get around Paris: the Vélib. It's a subsidized bike rental system in place throughout Paris and in some other cities (Barcelona, Lyon - Jon Froehlich did a project about the bike rentals in Barcelona when he was at Telefónica). In Paris, you need a subscription, and with the handy dandy carte bleue I finally got from my bank, I can buy a one day subscription from the bike stand. Cost? 1 euro. Cost for a yearly subscription? 26 euros. The first half hour of rental is free, the next half hour is 1 euro, the half hour after that is 2 euros, and then it goes up to 4 euros per half hour. Essentially, it is not designed for long day trips, but as a public transportation substitute for the bus or metro. There are Vélib stations all over Paris, and you basically pick up your bike from one, bike to your destination, and leave it at that station. It is a wonderful system.

[caption id="attachment_115" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Vélib"][/caption]

The only downside is, biking in Paris is slightly terrifying. They do have big bus lanes on major roads that only bikes, buses, and taxis are allowed on, but taxi drivers are crazy. Just like all Parisian drivers. You sort of have to be - often roads have no lane markers, and it's a free-for-all with the bikes, buses, taxis, scooters, motorcycles, and jaw-walking pedestrians. (By the way, Seattlites, it turns out that when you leave Seattle, you immediately start jaw-walking again.) Oh, and no one bikes with a helmet, and women often bike in skirts and heels. I wore heels all weekend. The bikes themselves are enormously heavy and have only 3 gears, and sometimes it's just stuck in one of those gears. But any hills are very minor, at least in the central area that I bike in, so the heaviness and lack of gears is no big deal. There's also this nice big basket on the front for groceries and whatnot. Biking through Paris yesterday and today, across the Seine, down these lovely boulevards, was an amazing feeling - like this city was my home.

[caption id="attachment_111" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Voltaire"][/caption]

My appointment was in St Germain, on Rue de Seine. Some pictures below. There are lovely art galleries along these winding streets, and for some reason, a PacMan ghost on the wall. Today, in Le Marais, I saw an Oscar the Grouch version. It's weird too, because they're all pixelated. Graffiti? Public art? Who knows. I sat in a café and wrote, thus crossing one item off my to-do list, then wandered toward the river past a lovely garden with a statue of Voltaire.

[caption id="attachment_108" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Louvre square (top of horseshoe)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_120" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Louvre pyramid, museum extends on both sides"][/caption]

I noted as I crossed the Seine to the Louvre that it was enormous. I mean, I remember from going there with my mom 12 years ago that it was exhausting trying to walk through it, but from the outside it's obvious why. First of all, coming from the Seine, you enter into this big square, maybe 100 yards on each side. I walked in and thought, "hmm, oh yeah, the Louvre is really big, I remember." Ha. You exit the square and you're in the central plaza, with the famous pyramids, and the museum extends out both sides for another quarter mile, at least. It's ridiculous. I must say that I have close to zero desire to go into the Louvre, despite my fascination with history (it was first built in the 12th century). The museum is just chock full of tourists and it is very tiring to try and see everything, or even just the "important" pieces. What I would like to do is to explore it bit by bit, in hour long chunks, over the course of the next year - but that will get expensive.

[caption id="attachment_106" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Northeast corner of Jardin du Luxembourg"][/caption]

I wandered about the Palais Royal (pretty) and the Jardin des Tuileries (less pretty) and now I have to put in a plug for my favorite place in Paris, the Jardin du Luxembourg, which has all these other places beat by an order of magnitude. Maybe it's because it's less formal, and more in bloom, who knows, but it seems to me that most Parisians agree. At any rate, you find them at Jardin du Luxembourg but certainly not at Jardin des Tuileries.

We went to the Eiffel Tower, where we took a zillion pictures, and had a fantastic dinner at Café Constant. Our waiter was from New York and super nice; the place was totally packed as we were leaving (we had an early dinner), always a good sign. At the next table over, the couple was feeding their dog foie gras under the table. We were inside and upstairs, by the way. Then Ethan and his mom headed to the Arc and I headed home to change. The plan was to go to la Fleche d'Or, but it was pretty late and my feet hurt a lot, so instead Ethan met me at my place and we were out in the St Germain. And despite it being a little after midnight, the bar was packed. We got kicked out at 2 am and went to the club next door, which had a line; it took us about 20 minutes to get in. Once in, we descended stairs to this cave-like club playing your standard French stuff, which is electronic remixes of new American pop mixed in with older American pop (plenty of Michael Jackson, some "Pump Up the Jam", "Groovers in Hall", some Madonna). I find the focus on American pop a bit disconcerting - aren't there some good French rappers and pop singers? - but I can't really complain, since I know all the words.

So, the club was packed, and we danced and danced, and it was super fun, and around 4 am I hit a wall (we can blame "Soul Man", which I didn't feel like dancing to) and took a cab home. The party was still going strong, I can only assume these things go till dawn. Check another item off the to-do list. I still need to go to Fleche d'Or and see some live rock music, but I am very pleased by my first foray into the Parisian nightclub scene.

This of course sort of killed my Sunday, which I meant to spend going to museums, as it is the first Sunday of the month and they are all free. I really want to see the Calder exhibit at the Centre Georges Pompidou and tried to today, but this turned into a minor disaster that basically involved me waiting in different lines for about an hour before being told that I didn't have the proper ticket. I won't go into it but it was a horrible experience and made me hate everything about being a tourist, most especially other tourists. I think the bottom line is, I need to suck it up and pay money and go to these things early Tuesday mornings, or something. After all, what's the point of living here if I can't experience the place like a local?
[gallery link="file"]

Shopping in Paris

2009-03-29T11:53:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_73" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="L'Église Saint Eustache"][/caption]

Yesterday I went for the second time to Les Halles, an area of shops, including a big mall, near Châtelet in the center of Paris. Les Halles was the traditional open-air wholesale market of Paris. It was created in 1137, by Louis VI le Gros, and the first permanent structures were built in 1183. In 1632, L’Église Saint-Eustache was completed, located at the entrance to Les Halles (Louis XIV received his first communion there). Napolean III built more permanent structures , different pavilions for different types of products.

But today none of that exists anymore; the pavilions were destroyed in 1971 and the market moved to Rungis. In its place, a big, ugly, underground mall was built, and fountains and walkways placed on top. The Forum des Halles is cramped, crowded, dark, and very oddly laid out. And it is full of shops, in particular, shops I can afford. In fact, the whole area is good for that. One strange thing: many of the biggest stores have equivalents outside, above ground, mere meters from their mall location. I guess you reach the most people that way. The mall is quite popular, especially on Saturdays (like most places in Paris, it is closed on Sundays).

[caption id="attachment_74" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Entrance to Forum des Halles"][/caption]

This is because Parisians love to shop. And I fit right in. There's tons of eye candy in this city, in the form of gorgeous window displays on long blocks of stores. Of course, I can't afford the vast majority of those places, which is why I'm glad for Les Halles - the shops are a lot cheaper, and there's not one but TWO H&Ms. I went to the one inside the mall, which is enormous. I later discovered on my way home that there's an H&M five blocks from my apartment.

For those of you who don't know (basically, my mom), H&M is a big clothing chain with inexpensive and trendy clothes based out of Sweden. Those Swedes. They really know how to do style on the cheap (i.e., Ikea). Go to their website, you can watch the clothes fly on and off a model as she walks down the runway in her underwear. (I thought this might not be the case on the US-based website, but it is! Click on different clothes under spring fashion to see.)

As anyone who has shopped in a different country knows, sizing can be tricky. I remember a (very slender) friend shopping in Japan and not being able to fit into anything, even extra large sizes, because the women there are so petite. And of course, we have size deflation in the US, and French women are skinny. (This is not universally the case, but for those that shop at H&M it's pretty much true.) There are bonuses to this - I fill out the tops in unexpected but attractive ways. But skinny jeans? It ain't gonna happen. I don't have super wide hips, but I'm an athlete. I've got gluts, quads, and calves. These pencil-leg pants just aren't going to work. But that's okay. I'm a strong believer in wearing things that make you look good and feel confident, regardless of the fashion of the time. Incorporating current trends into your look: great. Trying to squeeze a bootylicious bod into Kate Moss clothes: not so great.

[caption id="attachment_71" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Redskins store in Les Halles?"][/caption]

Shoes were another difficulty. Amy would have serious trouble. I'm a size 9 US (40 European); that was the upper limit available, and many shoes did not come in my size. I managed to pick up another pair of heels and some flip flops. I'm rejecting the look of ballet-style flats. My mother will be horrified to hear this, but I much prefer heels, even though they're killing my feet (especially with all the walking I do).

All in all, I spent a bit, got a lot, and also picked up a SIM card. So if you're in the US, call this number: 1-425-296-2950 (should be local to Seattle). If you're in France, it's 06.64.99.94.29. If you want to talk for an extended period of time, get PennyTalk and call me directly on the mobile.

PERDU

2009-03-27T17:59:00.000-04:00

[caption id="attachment_43" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="The couch as a bed, when the apartment is not in shambles"][/caption]
Yesterday was a very exciting day. After working till Sierra's bedtime on the UIST paper, I awoke at 7 am - not exactly bright-eyed and busy tailed, but wide awake. I was (am) very tired, but my brain wouldn't let me sleep. Kinda like when you have too much coffee late at night. So of course I went right back to work and managed to get a close-to-final draft of the paper done. Where "right back to work" means I worked on my laptop, in my pajamas, not bothering to turn the bed back into a sofa. Made some eggs on my horrible horrible burners. Left the apartment in shambles when I went to French class at 1:30.

French class was good. I should maybe jump a level, but I like my teacher a lot and I'm missing a week in Italy. I think it's okay; good practice. But what's even better practice is trying to speak French over the phone in order to obtain an apartment. For instance, today I had an appointment and I was very proud of myself for managing to make this appointment. Unfortunately, in relating it to a labmate, I said the time and he said "douze heure or deux heure?" And I just laughed. Because I had no idea. Later, someone called for me and we established that it was at 2, by saying "quatorze". Saw the place today, on rue Cardinal Lemoine, which avid readers will remember is where Hemingway had his first apartment. This was within a stone's throw, totally cute building, totally tiny and dark apartment - so, not taking that one.
[caption id="attachment_44" align="alignright" width="300" caption="I\'ve been watching a lot of French soccer. "][/caption]

But back to the larger story. I had an apartment rendez-vous at 7:45 pm, this one very close to work, 3 blocks away. Gathering my things to leave, I double check to make sure I have my keys. I do not. They are not in their usual pocket. They are not on my (already really messy) desk. They are not in some other obscure pocket of my bag, nor in my coat, nor in my jeans, nor in the bathroom, nor in a random drawer. My keys are gone. I indulge in a bit of cursing, grab my dossier (because I'm now going to be late) and run out the door.

I'm in a terrible mood, trying to figure out where on earth I'm going to sleep tonight, praying that I left the keys at French class. I have the door code so I get into the building, but the ad said it was on the 6th without a lift, and there's a lift right in front of me. I take it, but it only goes to the 5th floor, and there's nowhere further to go, and only one door (it seems there's only one door per floor). So I get back in the elevator and go down, thinking there must be some staircase I've missed. I notice a door to the outside and peek out of it, but it seems to lead to an alley. I hear a guy come down the stairs and wait, hoping it's my landlord. Which it is, it seems, and he directs me to what I thought was an alley but is just a passageway to the back of the building, where there's a staircase. He tells me to go the sixth floor (ok I assume this is what he told me, I don't ACTUALLY know what he said, but the information was conveyed) and he leaves. I trudge up seven flights of stairs because in France, they are good computer scientists and start counting at 0. But the building is promising, nice and old, in a great neighborhood, steps from the rue Mouffetard.

I make it to the top of the stairs and wait - there's no open door or anything, and I'm starting to doubt that guy actually WAS the landlord. Maybe he was just telling me that the studette is on the 6th floor but I'm supposed to knock on doors.

I am not at all interested in knocking on doors.

I am about to descend back down the stairs when I hear a door open. The same guy comes up the stairs, but from the fifth floor. We go to an apartment at the end of the hall, still occupied.

It's gorgeous. Small of course, but at 14 sqm it's 40% larger than what I currently have. There's a full bathroom and the kitchenette is far nicer, with a real stove top and a nice stainless steel sink. And it has high ceilings and a big window overlooking the courtyard (no vis-a-vis, like I have now, not that I've ever minded that sort of thing). It does not come furnished, he explains, and I nod agreement, and we establish that we will go somewhere else to work out some details.

Where we end up going is his apartment, which is on the fifth floor. Mystery solved. And it's BEAUTIFUL. It takes up the entire floor, with a large living room, dining room (where his family is having dinner), and bedrooms in the back. This is the equivalent of 5 or 6 apartments above, maybe more. Lovely high ceilings, old windows, gorgeous moldings. To be rich and lucky! I can't imagine it was an easy find.

So we sit down to talk details and he comes out with this perfect English. This is sort of baffling. He doesn't think he speaks very well, either, but he does, and it's much, much better than my French. The apartment is very popular but he wants to rent it to me because I'm American. He wants me to talk to his children in English. Which I agree to do. I'm not exactly sure what this will entail, but I guess we'll see! His daughters are young (maybe 7 and 4?) and very very cute.

Upon leaving the place, I'm in a much better mood, because I appear to have found a great place to live. There is still the problem of the keys, though. On my way back to the lab, I run into Jan, a Dutch postdoc, who I talk to for 15 minutes or so; he offers up his place if I still can't find the keys. Long story short, I can't, so I walk about 30 minutes down to rue Tolbiac and Jan's shared apartment. And his place is also quite nice - large, as big or bigger than my Seattle apartment, and shared with 2 others. There are 3 bedrooms, a shower room with washer, a toilet room, a large kitchen (by French standards, roughly the size of mine in DC), and a living room. The period details are nice too, and their living room looks out on Église Sainte-Anne de la Butte-aux-Cailles. Speaking of Butte-aux-Cailles, we had dinner there, and it was great - a neat little neighborhood, lively, sans tourists, good food, good bars. It would be cool to have Jan's situation, a nice big place with French roommates, but it seems difficult for me to achieve, as I don't speak French very well and I have two cats. Ah well.

I woke up early as usual and walked to Alliance Française. I conducted all my inquiries in French and discovered, to my great pleasure, that the security guard had found my keys! No need to bother the concierge, or the agency, or poor Nathalie (the secretary) with the loss of the keys and all the mess it would entail. I went home and the cats even still had some food left. I was so grateful to be there, I took an hour to make it clean and livable again.

On tap for the weekend - some clothes shopping at H&M (elementary school girls dress better than I do), some ultimate watching at French nationals, grocery shopping, getting a SIM card, sleeping, maybe checking out a church. Writing. Taking a Velib around town. It will all happen, I swear.

on my to do list

2009-03-26T08:56:00.000-04:00

I've been working quite a bit, what with UIST and another deadline, plus getting up to speed on my project here. It's actually great, but it means I have a long list of things to do that I haven't gotten around to yet.

1. Sit in a café and write letters and postcards. OK, this may seem like a gimmee, but I bought tons of postcards and writing materials my first day and haven't had a chance to sit down for a few hours and write. Blame work, ultimate, and this blog.

2. Explore churches. I'd like to find a place to regularly attend but I'd also just like to experience French catholicism. There are tons of churches, everywhere - it seems like a neat way to explore history and art would be to visit services at a different one each Sunday. (There's actually a ton of famous art in old French churches, but you have to seek it out.) Alas, thus far I've only managed to sleep on Sunday mornings.

3. Go dancing. I would like to find some cool places to dance, ideally before people start visiting me, so I actually know where to go.

4. Go to shows. There's definitely a live music scene here but I'm not at all tapped in. There's a blog (linked to from here) with upcoming indie shows, but it's not exactly threeimaginarygirls. Oh how I miss you, Seattle.

5. Go to Lyon. For all those of you who feel terribly neglected by me (I'm pretty sure that's everyone, since I've been totally out of communication), it may make you feel better to know that I have yet to see my relatives in Lyon. Which is two hours away. I really need to plan that out someday soon.

It's Thursday, thank goodness, because this has been a rough week, what with the French classes and my new early schedule. This weekend I'm going to watch Yaka play (win) French nationals, go to Rum-Rum, and otherwise probably explore a few more neighborhoods. Oh, and sleep. Paganello is like a beacon of hope - a whole week off (my first days off since Christmas, come to think of it), Emily and Dave coming all the way to Europe sans (lovely!) children, a chance to see Drew and Zucker, beach, sun, ultimate - I really can't wait.

more on learning French

2009-03-24T09:12:00.000-04:00

This is somewhat of a test post so I'll keep it short. (To those on Facebook: my real blog will be hosted by my brother and WordPress, which means I can control the way it looks and have nice big pictures. http://www.cherniavsky.net/neva This is a test to see how well things import.)

It looks like my schedule is going to be quite rough on the days I take French, more so on Mondays, when I also play ultimate. The class is 1:30-4:30 but it takes me 15-20 minutes to walk there. So, in at 7, lunch at 12, back around 5, leave at 8 is my aim. On Mondays I have to leave earlier to get out to Noisy-le-Sec, so I'll probably come in a little earlier. Eeek! Worth it I think, though. I already feel a lot better, after just one lesson.

Lunch here is mandatory, a tradition I quite like. In the States, we tend to eat at our desks to make it clear that we're still working really, really hard. It's all a lie, of course. The French are actually more productive per hour than Americans. Chalk it up to lovely long lunches and coffee breaks - when you're working, you're working, and when you're not, you're not.

New blog!

2009-03-24T03:32:00.001-04:00

Blogger doesn't let me manage things the way I want (especially images). I've moved my blog to wordpress.

http://www.cherniavsky.net/neva/

To Follow, use an RSS feed:

http://www.cherniavsky.net/neva/?feed=rss2

To see cute pictures of my niece, see http://www.cherniavsky.net/sierra

Le Marais

2009-03-22T15:59:00.000-04:00

Today I explored the Marais, another expensive arrondisement with lots of shopping and museums. The feel of the Marais is different from the Saint Germain, mainly because it is a little older. It has tons of museums, that I'll explore some day - it's hard to justify spending my time at museums when there's so much of the city I haven't seen.

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I began by taking the metro to the Place de la Bastille. Naively I thought the Bastille still existed (umm, no). In its place there's a tall gold pillar, the Colonne de Juillet, a monument to the revolution of 1830 with the names of dead revolutionaries inscribed upon it. On the Place de la Bastille is the Opera Bastille, a building that the French regard as unlovely. It does, however, have a Mahler concert going on according to the banner, and I do love Mahler.

I went down the rue Saint Antoine in search of the Hotel Sully, which I found, though apparently it was actually a hotel and not the museum I was looking for. After a rather unpleasant conversation with the manager, I never found the proper place, which was irritating - apparently it has a bookstore with all kinds of Parisian history books in both English and French. I would like to know more about the history of Paris. Oh well, next time.

The Place des Vosges was my next stop, and quite impressive - certain to be on the list of personal tourist suggestions to my friends. It is a square surrounded on all four sides by a palace built in the early 1600s.

From there I went walking along the rue Francs-Bourgeois, a narrow, medieval-style street lined with expensive shops underneath very old buildings. I got a little tired of taking pictures of old buildings because there are quite a few, but here's two.

It was quite crowded, because it was Sunday, and the only places open on Sunday are in the Marais. This is because historically the Marais is the Jewish quarter; today, it hosts a Holocaust memorial museum and a museum of Jewish history in Paris. The Jewish population of Paris dropped from 300,000 to 180,000 during World War II, but there has been lots of immigration since (from Africa, amongst other places), and the population is now in above 700,000, the largest in Europe.

Arnie had suggested I get some fallafel and there's no better place than the rue des Rosiers. For 5 euros, I had a delicious meal, which I ate slowly as I wandered up the rue du Temple.

One stop I had planned to make was the Enfants Rouges, but I was too late. A block away is a place I might rent next, at 10 rue Picardie. I visit tomorrow but I wanted to get a feel for the neighborhood. The neighborhood is fine, but not as nice as my current place. I think I need to talk to my agent and see if we can come to some accommodation. I think my place is too small right now but maybe it's not. Or maybe he can help me find some place else.

What didn't help was walking up from rue Picardie to whatever road that was on my way to Republique. A little smelly, some vacant buildings, a lot of graffiti (including, shockingly, on the statue of the Republic itself). There was also some kind of gathering happening - a protest, a concert, a biker gang convention (there were a lot of bikers), who knows. It certainly felt very French.

I wandered away and hopped the metro home, then went around my nearly deserted neighborhood, hoping to be able to do laundry. I was in luck, for a little market, the laundromat, and a boulangerie were all open. I was able to get the cats some more food so they didn't keep me up all night, get myself some good bread for dinner, and do my laundry (where I'm currently writing this note).I have some work to do tonight and then a busy day tomorrow - work, see this apartment, go to French class, back to work. I need to skip ultimate because of the apartment appointment unfortunately. If I get up early enough, I'll run instead.

Hemingway's Paris Part 2 - Saint Germain, Jardin du Luxembourg

2009-03-22T09:46:00.000-04:00

After leaving Shakespeare and Company, I headed back to Boulevard Saint Michel and down rue St André des Arts, another narrow and charming street in the Saint Germain neighborhood. I then turned on rue Jacob, the street of Michaud's, Pré aux Clercs, and the hotel Hemingway stayed in when he first moved to Paris, Hotel d'Angleterre. Michaud's was an expensive restaurant Hemingway could only afford to go to on occasion, as on this one, after they had won some money at the track.

Le Pré aux Clercs

Hotel d'Angleterre

Café de Flore and Les Deux Margots

It was a wonderful meal at Michaud's after we got in; but when we had finished and there was no question of hunger any more the feeling that had been like hunger when we were on the bridge was still there when we caught the bus home. It was there when we came in the room and after we had gone to bed and made love in the dark, it was there. When I woke with the windows open and the moonlight on the roofs of the tall houses, it was there. I put my face away from the moonlight into the shadow but I could not sleep and lay awake thinking about it. We had both wakened twice in the night and my wife slept sweetly now with the moonlight on her face. I had to try to think it out and I was too stupid. Life had seemed so simple that morning when I had wakened and found the false spring and heard the pipes of the man with his herd of goats and gone out and bought the racing paper.
But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.

I then turned on Boulevard St. Germain des Prés and discovered that Lina had opened up a sandwich shop in Paris. Apparently it has lots of locations worldwide, including a strong presence in the Arab world.

Lina's new financial venture

On Boulevard St. Germain Hemingway would get drinks with other famous poets and writers at Les Deux Margots. Café Flore was Simone Beauvoir's retreat from her cold apartment.

Saint Germain is famous for its shops. I've come to the realization (and it's a really obvious realization) that there's a whole community here of very rich people, including very rich expats. In fact, the feeling in the city center (within the 20 arrondisements circumscribed by the Boulevard Périphérique) is decidedly upper class; certainly it's an expensive city, so most working class people live outside of Paris and commute in. Certainly different than DC, where I grew up, which has some very rich neighborhoods (Georgetown and much of NW) but also some very, very poor ones. Within Paris itself, no one will assign a "bad" neighborhood. This changes once you move outside the Boulevard Périphérique.

American Apparel

In any case, Saint Germain has its share of the comforts of home (Starbucks, American Apparel), as well as upscale chic shops that I can't afford. There was a line out the door for Hermès for some reason. The prices for the clothes are written in the window so I didn't even need to go inside and fall in love with anything. Which is too bad, because I desperately need new clothes - mainly because Seattle "fashion" and Parisian style couldn't be more different. I definitely have nothing for nicer weather. That said, they have a big H&M in Les Halles, so that will hold me till I can get to the States and a large Good Will.

I was very very tired and hungry at this point in my walk, but I knew I would be at the Jardin du Luxembourg soon. First, a stop at Hemingway's apartment after he left Hadley (I know, sad) and married his mistress.

Home with second wife

And now to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Every morning I cross this beautiful, peaceful place. There are joggers and pétanque players and bright light streaming through paths criss-crossing the park.

Pétanque courts

Le Senat

There's an enormous building housing the Senate and statues and trees, and a beautiful line from the Senate to the Observatory.

Le Senat

Line to Observatory

In this it reminds me of Washington, DC, where I grew up and which has lovely lines connecting all the monuments. I remembered that it was designed by a Frenchman and read some more about him. Pierre L'Enfant was born in Paris in 1754 and fought in the American Revolution under Lafayette. People forget how much the French helped us during the American Revolution. All these historical things are important to keep in mind - they inform the way other cultures think about us. In any case, L'Enfant was asked by George Washington to design DC, and came up with a plan, but basically fell out with the bureaucrats who felt that his plan was too grandiose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L%27Enfant_plan.jpg
He finally gained recognition in the early 1900s when they redesigned the Mall according to his specifications; what you see today is his original plan, thus its similarity to classic Parisian design.

They do grow flowers in the garden - there are greenhouses I pass everyday, and staked plants that are inaccessible to the public along the periphery. These are labeled with their species; I'm excited to see them bloom in the coming months.

But today I start my walk from a different location, along the north-south axis instead of east-west, as Hemingway did.

You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all of the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you sat and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the Place de l'Observatoire to the rue de Vaugirard.

There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the painting were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.

There are tons of joggers in the Luxembourg, at all hours of the day and night. The park is closed at night, so instead they jog around it (which makes no sense at all). Otherwise, you don't see runners in Paris very often. They don't just run around whereever, as you would in Seattle or other cities. Perhaps it's like NYC in this sense.

On a Saturday, there are lots of people in the garden. I hadn't quite realized what it would be like, since I always cross in the mornings and (when I don't work too late) in the evenings. It was lovely sitting in the sun on the grass, eating my baguette and cheese, watching and listening. One other thing: the French are very publicly affectionate. I can't decide if it's sweet or irritating.

Not to be dumb, but somehow I never noticed this ENORMOUS statue of a head. I pass right by it every day, too.

I continued down towards the Place de l'Observatoire; lots of kids playing soccer, on bikes, on little scooters. Then I arrived at the Closerie des Lilas, the café just around the corner from Hemingway's second apartment with Hadley, on rue Notre Dame des Champs.

113 rue Notre Dame des Champs

His old apartment is now an unlovely building housing students, but you can get some idea of what it would have looked like on his street.

Closerie des Lilas

The Closerie des Lilas was the nearest good café when we lived in the flat over the sawmill at 113 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and it was one of the best cafés in Paris. It was warm inside in the winter and in the spring and fall it was very fine outside with the tables under the shade of of the tress on the side where the statue of Marshal Ney was, and the square, regular tables under the big awnings along the boulevard.

And now I am quite close to home, and how strange that it already feels like home. I pass the Rue d'Assas, going the long way around to stop by Gertrude Stein's apartment. My place overlooks the Rue d'Assas, and it is a lively street with many shops.

Close to the corner, I discover a pet shop (brilliant!) and manage to carry on a conversation in French and get some new litter. I won't bore you with further details, but this made me very happy.

Gertrude Stein's apartment

It was easy to get into the habit of stopping in at 27 rue de Fleurus late in the afternoon for warmth and the great pictures and the conversation. Often Miss Stein would have no guests and she was always very friendly and for a long time she was affectionate. When I had come back from trips that I had made to the different political conferences or to the Near East or Germany for the Canadian paper and the news services that I worked for she wanted me to tell her about all the amusing details. There were funny parts always and she liked them and also what the Germans call gallows-humor stories. She wanted to know the gay part of how the world was going; never the real, never the bad.

And earlier, about his first visit: There were many things to understand in those days and I was glad when we talked about something else. The park was closed to I had to walk down along it to the rue de Vaugirard and around the lower end of the park. It was sad when the park was closed and locked and I was sad walking around it instead of through it and in a hurry to get home to the rue Cardinal Lemoine. The day had started out so brightly too. I would have to work hard tomorrow. Work could cure almost anything, I believed then, and I believe now. Then all I had to be cured of, I decided Miss Stein felt, was youth and loving my wife. I was not at all sad when I got home to the rue Cardinal Lemoine and told my newly acquired knowledge to my wife.

Hemingway's cats

I feel the same about the park, and work. Often I work too late (it closes at 6:30) and must walk around the Luxembourg, and it always makes me sad. But luckily I have sweet cats to come home to, and in this I am like Hemingway.

He loved cats; descendants of his cats still have the run of the Hemingway museum in Key West. Mine, due to the tiny size of my apartment, are finally starting to sleep together, although Bird essentially tolerates Flotsam.

There were no babysitters then and Bumby would stay happy in his tall cage bed with his big, loving cat named F. Puss. There were people who said that it was dangerous to leave a cat with a baby.

The most ignorant and prejudiced said that a cat would suck a baby's breath and kill him. Others said that a cat would lie on a baby and the cat's weight would smother him. F. Puss lay beside Bumby in the tall cage bed and watched the door with his big yellow eyes, and would let no one come near him when we were out and Marie, the femme de ménage, had to be away. There was no need for baby-sitters. F. Puss was the baby-sitter.

Hemingway's Paris Part 1 - The Latin Quarter

2009-03-22T09:45:00.001-04:00

A Moveable Feast is one of my favorite books and Hemingway is one of my favorite writers. He wrote it, thirty years after the fact, about his life from 1921-1926: But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy. This romantic idea of moving to Paris, this adventure, was born in the days when I was young and in love and we would read aloud to each other from A Moveable Feast.

My work, l'École Normale Superieure

The book opens with a description of a bar on rue Mouffetard, Café des Amateurs, which hosts an ice cream shop today. The Café des Amateurs was the cesspool of the rue Mouffetard, that wonderful narrow crowded market street which led into the Place Contrescarpe. Rue Mouffetard is only a few blocks from where I work, and I had dinner along it last night (very good and very cheap!)

It is still wonderful, narrow, and crowded, full of people and little shops, relatively inexpensive all around. I walked up Rue Mouffetard to Hemingway's little flat, described in my previous note.

Hemingway's first apartment

From there, I headed around the corner to where he wrote most days, on rue Descartes, which was a hotel those days.

...the climb up to the top floor of the hotel where I worked, in a room that looked across all the roofs and the chimneys of the high hill of the quarter, was a pleasure. The fireplace drew well in the room and it was warm and pleasant to work. I brought mandarines and roasted chestnuts to the room in paper packets and peels and ate the small tangerine-like oranges and their their skins and spat their seeds in the fire when I ate them and roasted chestnuts when I was hungry. I was always hungry with the walking and the cold and the working.

Rue Descartes is very near the Panthéon, which I'd stumbled across one day while trying to get home but hadn't fully taken the time to appreciate. The Place du Panthéon is incredible - three gorgeous, imposing buildings, lovely 18th century apartment buildings on the streets leading up to the Place - the scale is very hard to convey with photos, but I'll try.

(What follows are completely unverified internet facts.) The Panthéon was originally commissioned as a church by Louis XV. It is in the shape of a cross that is 352 feet long and 272 feet wide. The height of the dome is 272 feet, and Leon Foucault hung an iron ball from the dome of the Panthéon to demonstrate the rotation of the earth.
I've tried to give some idea of the scale. The doors are enormous. There were a lot of students out today, but also tourists taking pictures (like me!) Across from the Panthéon is the the Mairie du Véme, basically the town hall of the 5th arrondisement. Apparently when the Panthéon was commissioned, it was to be flanked by a school of law and a school of theology, but the school of theology was never built. In its place, the Mairie was built.
The school of law is associated with Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Université Panthéon-Assas Paris II and has the Revolutionary slogan Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité across the front.

Contuning on, I passed the Sorbonne, where I will be taking classes this summer. The Sorbonne was founded in 1253 as a theology school, but the building today was commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu in the 1620s. I turned on Boulevard Saint Michel (the first chapter of the book is titled "A Good Café on the Place St.-Michel"), making my way to the heart of the Latin Quarter. This area is crowded and fun, kind of touristy, but for the most part I only heard French.

And now I've arrived at Shakespeare and Company, the very same place Hemingway describes in that beloved chapter. It has moved from its original location on rue de l'Odéon and is now almost directly across the Seine from the Notre Dame.It is still as Hemingway described, piled and piled with English language books everywhere, old and new. I will come back some day that's not Saturday, and properly explore. I love books and old bookshops, what a great way to spend a few hours.
This was actually very close to the bar I had drinks in with Animesh (from INRIA) and the authors of a podcast on Paris, Kylie and Katia.

To be continued...

Excerpt from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

2009-03-22T08:45:00.001-04:00

In those days there was no money to buy books. I borrowed books from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l'Odéon. On a cold windswept street, this was a warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive. Sylvia had a lively, sharply sculptured face, brown eyes that were as alive as a small animal's and as gay as a young girl's, and wavy brown hair that was brushed back from her fine forehead and cut thick below her ears and at the line of the collar of the brown velvet jacket she wore. She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me.
I was very shy when I first went into the bookshop and I did not have enough money on me to join the rental library. She told me I could pay the deposit any time I had the money and made me out a card and said I could take as many books as I wished.
There was no reason for her to trust me. She did not know me and the address I had given her, 74 rue Cardinal Lemoine, could not have been a poorer one. But she was delightful and charming and welcoming and behind her, as high as the wall and stretching into the back room which gave onto the inner court of the building, were shelves and shelves of the wealth of the library.
I started with Turgenev and took the two volumes of A Sportsman's Sketches and an early book of D.H. Lawrence, I think it was Sons and Lovers, and Sylvia told me to take more books if I wanted. I chose the Constance Garnett edition of War and Peace , and The Gambler and Other Stories by Dostoyevsky.
"You won't be back very soon if you read all that," Sylvia said.
"I'll be back to pay," I said. "I have some money in the flat."
"I didn't mean that," she said. "You pay whenever it's convenient."
"When does Joyce come in?" I asked.
"If he comes in, it's usually very late in the afternoon," she said. "Haven't you ever seen him?"
"We've seen him at Michaud's eating with his family," I said. "But it's not polite to look at people when they are eating, and Michaud's is expensive."
"Do you eat at home?"
"Mostly now," I said. "We have a good cook."
"There aren't any restaurants in your immediate quarter, are there?"
"No. How did you know?"
"Larbaud lived there," she said. "He liked it very much except for that."
"The nearest good cheap place to eat is over by the Panthéon."
"I don't know that quarter. We eat at home. You and your wife must come sometime."
"Wait until you see if I pay you," I said. "But thank you very much."
"Don't read too fast," she said.
Home in the rue Cardinal Lemoine was a two-room flat that had no hot water and no inside toilet facilities except an antiseptic container, not uncomfortable to anyone who was used to a Michigan outhouse. With a fine view and a good mattress and springs for a comfortable bed on the floor, and pictures we liked on the walls, it was a cheerful, gay flat. When I got there with the books I told my wife about the wonderful place I had found.
"But Tatie, you must go by this afternoon and pay," she said.
"Sure I will," I said. "We'll both go. And then we'll walk down by the river and along the quais."
"Let's walk down the rue de Seine and look in all the galleries and in the windows of the shops."
"Sure. We can walk anywhere and we can stop at some new café where we don't know anyone and nobody knows us and have a drink."
"We can have two drinks."
"Then we can eat somewhere."
"No. Don't forget we have to pay the library."
"We'll come home and eat here and we'll have a lovely meal and drink Beaune from the co-operative you can see right out of the window there with the price of the Beaune on the window. And afterwards we'll read and then go to bed and make love."
"And we'll never love anyone else but each other."
"No. Never."
"What a lovely afternoon and evening. Now we'd better have lunch."
"I'm very hungry," I said. "I worked at the café on a café crème."
"How did it go, Tatie?"
"I think all right. I hope so. What do we have for lunch?"
"Little radishes, and good foie de veau with mashed potatoes and an endive salad. Apple tart."
"And we're going to have all the books in the world to read and when we go on trips we can take them."
"Would that be honest?"
"Sure."
"Does she have Henry James too?"
"Sure."
"My," she said. "We're lucky that you found the place."
"We're always lucky," I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too.

learning French

2009-03-20T14:44:00.000-04:00

Today I went to Alliance Française and promptly failed the oral exam. I did impress them with my written skills and use of the passé composé, but they explained (in French so I didn't catch all of it) that I wasn't very good orally so I should just be in the lowest level. It turns out that evening classes are all on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I won't be doing that, because it interferes with ultimate, and I think making French friends is at least as important to me learning French as taking the class. So instead I'm taking the "extensive" classes, which are more hours per week (9 as opposed to 4) and take place Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, either in the morning or afternoon. The afternoon is cheaper, plus I think it's better for work (I leave a little after lunch and then come back). I figure I'll take these through June, then do the intensive Sorbonne classes for July and August (25 hours/week), and by then I'd better damn well understand French.

I work long hours. Yesterday it was 9:45 till 7. I'm trying to get into work before 9 but it's a struggle - I'm still having trouble sleeping for whatever reason and often go to bed quite late at night. Watched some college bball in a Canadian bar in St. Germain - a lovely neighborhood that I have not been to yet. I got some great advice about finding a new apartment, which is: don't ask about the cats. The leases don't say anything about pets in general, and besides, once you sign a lease it's virtually impossible for the landlord to kick you out. Yay socialism! So I will resume my search in earnest.

It is so very lovely in Paris right now. I hate to brag to the Seattle folks (ok, I love it) but it's been sunny and warm since I arrived. Blue skies, and so so bright, temperature of Seattle summer almost. It seems my timing is perfect. The Jardin du Luxembourg is beginning to bloom and it's absolutely gorgeous. I'll take pictures as things progress, maybe pictures every weekend. I'm hoping to explore some other neighborhoods this weekend, probably in concentric circles around my place and my work. This will also help me figure out what neighborhood I want to live in.

OK, to work.

lost in Paris

2009-03-17T04:00:00.000-04:00

So I got lost today for nth time, this time walking back from work to home, which is just amazingly dumb, because if there's one thing I should have mastered by now, it's the (very short) walk between work and home. I was wearing my most uncomfortable pair of shoes, 4 inch boots with a teetering pointy heel, and knew I was in trouble when I spotted a large, beautiful old building I'd never seen before. (This is the second time seeing a big landmark meant I was lost - the first time it was the Pantheon.) It turned out that when I came upon this structure (later deduced to be the Val de Grâce), I wasn't completely off track, but then I compounded my mistake by turning the wrong direction. I am pretty stubborn but when I realized I was in the 14th, I finally took out my map and figured out how to go home. The long way, down Port Royal. Funnily enough, an English woman asked me in French where Notre-Dame des Champs was, and I actually knew, because it's very close to my apartment, but I couldn't really get it out in French and then she brusquely said "Nevermind". She was gong the wrong way (and we were already pretty far).

I was doubly irritated at getting lost because I'd left work late (after 6:15) considering I wanted to eat something and leave for ultimate by 7. Thus I finally went to the boulangerie. It was delicious! And cheap! Got home, tore off some bread, changed into ultimate clothes, it's already 7:25 and practice is at 7:45 in Noisy-le-Sec, which is really far away (12.7 km to be exact). Took the metro and RER and OF COURSE got lost again. And Noisy-le-Sec felt much more deserted and strange than Paris - it seems to be a working class suburb of Paris, and there are lots of apartment buildings and shops, but no one was out. Anyway, this time there were lights so I knew where to go even if it wasn't the shortest path. Except, wouldn't you know it, there are two stadiums with lights within a quarter mile of each other, and I went to the wrong one. Finally found the right one and couldn't figure out how to get in, so I jumped the fence. Rolled in about an hour late, as far as I could tell.

Totally worth it though. Playing ultimate tonight was probably the happiest I've been since moving. The girls are all really nice, and it just feels so good sometimes to touch a disc.

I'm exhausted. Postdoc is exhausting. Everyone works really hard. I stayed up late last night because I couldn't sleep and definitely paid this morning - I need to get an earlier start if I'm going to be leaving at 6 for ultimate or French classes. People come in early and stay late. It's challenging, but I wanted a challenge. Glad to have the outlet of ulty though.

My apartment

2009-03-15T20:41:00.000-04:00

The post you've all been waiting for. Let's see how facebook handles lots of photos in one note...

Let's begin by saying goodbye to my gorgeous Seattle apartment. For some truly great photos, see http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/nchernia/apartment . But above is Bird when we moved in, June 2004.

And here is Bird on Sunday, March 8, 2009:

Doesn't look five years older, does he?

OK, now for what you've all been waiting for. Nothing makes me feel more like a tourist than taking pictures, but I promise to take some on the next nice day on my walk to work. Which is through the Jardin du Luxembourg, directly across the street from the entrance to my apartment.

The front of my building is gorgeous and imposing. It's a little tough to give the proper idea of scale, but the doorway is just enormous. The call buttons are at about shoulder height, if that gives some idea.

Once inside, surprise! You are not in a building but rather a kind of walkway between buildings.

There are apartments to the right and left, the ones with the gorgeous facade from outside. Mine, however, is further in.

There is essentially another building. My window looks out not on the Jardin du Luxembourg, but on Rue d'Assas - which is quite famous, actually, as I neighbor the building where they shot "Last Tango in Paris". My door is also big and imposing, and there is yet another digicode entrance.

I live on the 5th floor, which is actually the 6th floor. However, unlike many Parisian apartments, mine has a lift. I am amazed at the engineering - the building is from the 19th century, and clearly the lift was put in much later, inside the spiral staircase.

The top floor doesn't have carpeting or wood floors, but rather stones. Here is my door; notice immediately to the right is the door to the toilet.

It's annoying that the toilet is outside my apartment, and shared. It's also annoying that the door doesn't latch, because the cats want to run out all the time, so I have to lock the door with the key every time I use the facilities. I've taken to letting them run around, because they can't really get anywhere, what with all these doors in their way. Bird does go all the way down to the bottom, though.

And now, my apartment. Here is the set up now, as I type.

Normally, I don't have the table out.

The kitchenette - hot plate, microwave, electric water heater. I don't even use the microwave. Originally all items were on the counter, but I prefer to stash them away until I'm using them.

You'll notice plenty of space still to store things. This is because I don't have all my boxes yet. Also, the crawl space up top is quite useful, both as a hiding place for Flotsam and as a relatively large place to store things (like my suitcases and clothes that I wear only on occasion).

The shower is the other super annoying thing. It is REALLY small.

I can't really turn around in it without either turning off the water or making it very cold or hot. And I love showers. Also, the hot water doesn't last very long at all (I guess I have my own personal water heater, lucky me).

The couch turns into a bed at night, and basically pulls out to halfway beyond the table. It's decently comfortable. I am not very picky about this sort of thing. I think if someone comes to visit while I'm still living here, they will have to share my bed - there's no room for a second air mattress.

The window keeps things nice and sunny, and so far the cats haven't ventured outside on the rooftops.

Perhaps they are more intelligent than I give them credit for. I am up high and look out on more gorgeous Parisian buildings.

Here is the apartment I described previously, with the piano.

And finally, some pictures of the rooftops that the cats won't venture upon, and the fall they would take if they did so.

yesterday and today

2009-03-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

still no pictures and still no Skype, darn it, I meant to get a headset today. I get intimidated, that's the problem. I did go shopping and Christophe showed me around my neighborhood - lots of great things close by. it was actually quite an adventurous day. went to Les Halles, which is this weirdly enormous mall, underground, VERY crowded. this is where I got the cheap things I needed to complete my apartment. got myself a French press, which was a dire necessity, plus some groceries, a little drawer thing to put my toiletries in, a hamper, some cat food. these bastards hate the cat food, of course. it's like pate. who knew French cat food would be different? I let them run about the apartment stairs today. this is all part of my plot to actually meet some of my neighbors.

my place is finally getting set up as I like it, though I am still missing some boxes. oh, I had a great conversation with my concierge yesterday, and by "great" I mean I understood every 5th word, about. I think something arrived for me on Wednesday. I am not sure what or what happened to it. I did manage to ask where the trash was (la poubelle, which I called la basura, but this was enough to communicate what I meant). the apartment is so small that I need to keep it meticulously neat and clean, and this is pretty frustrating. I am on the lookout for a new place.

the lab is great, I really like my colleagues. I am intimidated, but as mom said, that's probably good. I have a project already, dealing with emotion recognition. I've also asked about where to dance and where to watch indie rock, and there are lots of opinions on that. Christophe also said you can get this card for 20 euros a month and see all the movies you want in Paris. and there are a LOT of cinemas. so, this might be a good activity for me in the coming months. plus I'll be playing ultimate hopefully starting on Monday, and starting French classes the week after next. I hope to take intensive classes at the Sorbonne in the summer - it's just a question of how long. my big priorities are doing well at the postdoc and learning French, so there won't be much time for anything else, including ultimate, sadly. on the other hand, I need to get exercise somehow - not sure how long this "jogging in the Jardin du Luxembourg" is going to last.

ok, I really meant for this to be short, but I guess there's a lot to say. Á demain!

ho-kay.

2009-03-13T00:30:00.000-04:00

No pics yet, sorry. I'm tuckered out. I opened a bank account today, no small feat, then talked to all the incredibly brilliant people in my lab. Really smart PhD students, not to mention the researchers I'll be working under. It seems I'm the only woman, in a lab of about 20. Now I'm boiling pasta and gazing into the gorgeous penthouse apartment across the street, which appears to have a couch, 2 chairs, and a piano! My place is about as big as the piano. On the other hand, theirs is undoubtedly ridiculously expensive.

This evening I walked to the 1st to buy a kitty litter pan from a very strange pet store. they were rather small (notice a theme?) and sold all sorts of animals - rabbits, gerbils, mice, chicks, chickens, roosters, birds, dogs. I felt so sorry for the dogs, puppies in glass cages. the place smelled terrible, too. I didn't see any cats but it would have depressed me further. Anyway, they had cat pans but no litter. I was wearing my second-most uncomfortable pair of boots, so I decided to metro home, which turned out to be a terrible idea. The subway was super crowded and I still had to walk a lot to change trains, plus I was standing the whole time.

However, on the walk between the subway and my place, I was further impressed by my neighborhood. I live adjacent to the Jardin du Luxembourg and can walk across it to my work in about 10 minutes. Tomorrow I plan to jog in it. On the non-garden side, it turns out there are a bunch of cute shops, restaurants, and cafés. And a Boulangerie! So, tomorrow I will also overcome my fear and have some breakfast and coffee. And sign up for French lessons...and get a SIM card...and buy an adapter.

Paris, je suis arrivée

2009-03-11T23:33:00.000-04:00

I left Seattle at 7:45 pm on Tuesday night and it's now 8:10 pm on Wednesday night in France. This will be short, I'll do a longer one once I've had a chance to take some pictures. But let me just say, after spending over $200 at the vet getting the kitties checked and microchipped and getting my vet to sign a million things, then Fed Exing the forms to the USDA in Olympia and paying them $100 to endorse them, then panicking because Denmark is very specific that they must be microchipped before their first vaccination for rabies (which is just stupid, since what do you do if you've had your cat vaccinated but never microchipped?)....nothing happened. I arrived in Copenhagen, was told the cats were checked through to Paris (so I didn't need to alert the Border Inspection Post, which I had, via email, but I was worried because I hadn't faxed them notification) and was told that "their papers will be checked in Paris, if at all." If at all!!! Well, it's true, they didn't really check their papers. A cursory glance. I definitely didn't need to get them endorsed and probably could have faked the whole thing. They didn't scan the microchips, either. In fact, the toughest part of taking the cats was getting a cab to drive me to Paris with them. Not sure what the prejudice is there, but most cabs wouldn't take me. Needlessly documenting my cats for this trip: around $350. Having them in my apartment in Paris, in a crawl space near the ceiling, glaring down at me for what I've put them through: priceless.

Also, there was a crying baby on the plane, and it occurred to me that life would be better for everyone if we could put children in the cargo hold.

I've heard that people in Paris always speak English to Americans, but that has not been my experience - no one speaks English to me. (And in Copenhagen and on SAS, everyone assumed I was Danish.) The cab driver and I sat in silence for 45 minutes, since he didn't speak English and I certainly wasn't comfortable striking up a conversation in French. Upon arrival and signing the documents, I immediately went out to find some kitty litter. There is a teeny tiny market 2 minutes from my apartment (think NYC grocery), and I thought it highly unlikely that they had kitty litter, but found some cat food. He asked me (in French, of course) what I was looking for, and I could manage to say it had to do with my cats, but how do you say kitty litter in French? Finally, I said "toilette pour chats" and he said "ahh!" and indeed, had a few boxes of litter. Then I asked for a box via pantomime, which of course he didn't have, but he gave me a wide, flat cardboard box that had been used for apples. Perfect. Brought it all home and both cats immediately used it.

So I've got internet and a telephone and I will be posting all the info about my address, etc tomorrow. I'll take some pics of the apartment too (which is about half the size of my bedroom in my old apartment). But for now I'm going to get some sleep.