Lost In Translation

Yesterday the American and I became national French celebrities.

There I said it.

Ok, not exactly. But I did have an interesting day yesterday... Allow me to paint a picture.

I wake up, late as usual, and roll to practice for another day of fun and games in the gym. The day before, my freshly haircutted coach (see video) informed us that the local news was coming to practice to do some feature on my team before we start league this weekend in Paris. Little did I know, they wanted to do some kind of feature on the new recruits. That's all fine and great until one realizes I'm the only one among the new kids that supposedly speaks some brand of intelligible French (this is debateable for reasons to be made clear very shortly).

Anyway, halfway through practice - just about at that point where my rugged good looks are being highlighted by my loose ponytail & the beads of sweat running down my forehead - the newslady ("it's anchorMAN, not anchorLADY!") asks if she can interview me for a second. At this moment, my coach also informs me that he neglected to mention they also want to come over to my (really clean) apartment after practice to interview me in my native environment. Shwa? Say WHAT. I had no choice and basically spent the entirety of the interview trying to remember not to pee my pants. This left little cognitive effort to be devoted to actual thinking so it was a rousing success.

So there it is - the rags to riches story of my rise to French fame and glory.

Actually it was horrendous and I apparently forget how to speak french since, as mentioned above, coherent sentences were too much to ask for and my accent takes a significant turn for the worse. All in all I make a great impression. The best part is that at one point, I say "Je suis excitée" (my pronuciation is debateable on camera but that's what I was supposedly going for) which translates to "I am excited". At least in my head.

My lovely brother informed me however, that upon watching the video today with a French Canadian teammate in the Motherland, he was told "je suis excitée" actually means other things...Wow. In the interest of trying to keep this blog PG rated, I'll leave you to do some Sherlock Holmes-ing... but I'm pretty sure an online translator can point you in the right direction... Fortunately, my friend reminded me that nobody expects athletes to say anything intelligent anyway. Unfortunately, I reminded him that nobody expects them to make sexually explicit comments either, so I'm still toast.

Moments before my life would change forever with one slip of the tongue...

Luckily though, the story takes a turn for the better because today an actual, bonafide Frenchman told me it can in fact mean BOTH I'm excited and I'm "excited" so I'm not as brilliant as it initially appeared. French-Canadian vs. Frenchman? No contest. I'm taking his word for it.

Anyway, the video is online in all its glory so y'all not living in la belle France (make that anyone outside my region in France... the 'national celebrity' part might have been a little embellished...) can also partake of the bounty of me at my brutal finest. Click here and then on 'Mercredi 08 Octobre' to enjoy. The volleyball part starts about halfway through...

Feel free to comment away on the trainwreck...