sarcasm and complaints

- people, please. wait, sorry, s'il vous plait. i know that "les bisous" - the kiss kiss on each cheek - is the french greeting. but when the ridiculously tiny university hallway is thoroughly crowded and there's but a one-person-wide stream of people moving through to get to their classes, do not stop to say "salut" to your friend, lest you incur the wrath of robyn pre-café (and already agitated at how long it is taking to get to class. and how claustrophobic it is. and likely already late).

- on a related point, yesterday when walking from the bus stop to my room i passed by three french friends, said, "salut! ça va?" and did the kiss kiss with all of them. i felt très french.

- i have been given short legs as part of my lot in life, and as such, my entire life, i have had to compensate for this by walking fast to keep up with people with normal-to-long legs. because of this, slow walkers have an incredible and inherent talent of getting on my nerves without even knowing it.

- on another related point, brandon once said to me whilst walking in downtown vancouver with me, "if i was your boyfriend i'd dump you." after i got over the shock of what he'd just said, he explained that i never wanted to walk beside him and was always a number of steps ahead. pfff. bad logic bran.

- a direct quote from one of my french profs: "ce qui est vrai d'ailleurs, n'est pas vrai en france!" translation: "what is true elsewhere is not true in france." how right you are, monsieur, how right you are....

- as my french seems to stagnate (although i'm told that i'm wrong and it IS, in fact, getting better...), my english seems to deteriorate. also, my notes are filled with half-sentences in french (since i start writing a point and in the midst of also trying to pay attention to what is being said next, i forget what i was writing), and random sentences in english, when i get too frustrated to try and write in french. ALSO, i don't have the neatest chicken scratch, and sometimes i can't even read what i was trying to say ('is that supposed to be french or english?? and regardless, what on earth kind of word is that??') ugh!! to illustrate, here is an excerpt of a page from my notes:

- souveraineté!!

- centralisé

- vereignbarung?

- la volunté des états

- pour lui… (?)

- la volunté collective qui sert la support disparaître (?)

- droit international fragmentaire

- relativisme des règles

- if the common will disappears, the obligation to follow the law also disappears

- man is a social being

- societies need norms, rules, ; violation of norms leads to disorder which necessitates a reaction, thus rules are necessary to maintain order

- inefficacité des sanctions

sigh. good thing i have a recorder? guess i'd need to actually listen to the recordings for it to be helpful...wedding/surprise trip home update coming soon. photos have all been added to flickr!

disclaimer: i can't figure out this darned formatting. sorry for the disarray.