Bisous Nation

I know I'm lag-status on putting somethin new up hurr, but let's be real and assess the situation at hand - it's mid-February, I'm a little bored, cold and don't really have anything good to say. Then again, the latter 3 of those points apply approximately 98% of the time so... Snap. Well then. Here goes more of the same...

Last week a French teammate and I had to be the trophy presenters at this local sport association recognition night (say that 10x fast...) and it was mostly an unmentionable experience save one thing. Ok, actually two things. The first is that I got to be a trophy girl. A fully-clothed trophy girl on a drafty, tackily decorated 70's-era stage. How many of you can say that? What was actually somewhat worth mentioning was the fact that we had to hand out probably 15 or 20 trophies on this fateful eve, and for each one had to greet both the person presenting the winner and the winner. No big deal. It's at this point in the game I must point out, however, that this greeting was conducted in the form of the French custom of "faire la bise" (which I ranted a little about back when I first got here) aka an ever-changing number of air-kisses, or bisous, on the cheek.

This is all well and good, being that it's been 6 months back in this 'hood I'm finally (mostly) getting over the weirdness factor - except for every so often when you get a creeper who slips in a REAL kiss on one or both cheeks... the perp is almost exclusively of the male sort over age 45. I definitely need less of that in my life. But I digress.

So consider this pro tip/knowledge dropped: I say "ever changing number" of bisous due to the fact that depending on where you are in France & Belgium you have to greet people with either 1, 2, 3, 0r 4 kisses. This can be problematic and awkward for obvious reasons. In Albi, for example, you greet folks with 2. In Montagnac, where I tore France up as a young'un, it was 3. I've been told it's 4 somewhere in the North, but I can't remember where so maybe that's just an urban legend? Somebody Wikipedia that noise. Point is, it's all very confusing and in my opinion, a little/a lot awkward.

I prefer kissing strangers of the non-Brad Pitt variety at this distance

I understand cultural differences and whatnot but where I'm from a stranger gets a hearty handshake, a nod, heck, a high-five or a chest bump but there is definitely no kissing goin' down. The weirdest thing, in my opinion (that's the 2nd time in a minute I've prefaced my thoughts with "in my opinion". Am I secretely fearing some onslaught of French hate-mail/comments for this? Screw it.) is that strangers get a bisou but close friends get the same treatment too. Where's the love? I likes me a nice big hug when I see a buddy. Unfortunately, I'm alone in this sentiment over here. It's like back in the day the greetings for both strangers and loved ones were averaged out and they figured half-way between a handshake and a full-body hug is a kiss for everyone...? That's democracy at its finest.

Anyway, probably the worst part of this nonsense is that when you meet a large group of people, everyone has to bisous everyone else, sans exceptions. This was demonstrated on Tuesday and on one ocassion where we had to say hi to a team of 15 yr olds and it took no joke, a good 20 minutes for 12 of us to give 12 kids 3 kisses each. The number of kisses thrown around is mind boggling. How 'bout just a wave and hey to the group. Less bisouing, more work.

So culture lesson aside, Tuesday trophy presenting got awkward not only because of all the stranger kissing going on (and you best believe there was some creeper kisses bein slipped in left & right...yikees) but because in the town we were at they for some reason rock the 3 bisous. Take note. Bear in mind place is less than 20 km away from Albi so needless to say, the 3 bisous-ing was information that would've been useful earlier in the evening. We didn't get told until like 8 people in and this resulted in a lot of awkward on-stage waiting for extra bisous that weren't bein given out and then for the rest of the evening half the people tried to accomodate us and go with 2, which only left me hangin'. My question for the day is then: How do they decide to go with 3 instead of 2 like everyone else in this region? And if we're going to be kissing, why more than 1, period?

Discuss amongst yourselves and please share any/all insight. I still have 3 months left over here.

P.S For anyone who questions the awkwardness of said situations - picture kissing your coach/boss. 'Nuff said.

Pomp Up the Jam

Ah college graduation. So many emotions. So many memories. Ok, so I could hardly write that without gagging a few times. But truthfully, I've longed for this day for nigh on ...16 years? There were times, many of them, I thought I would never make it. But alas, Thursday, the coveted title of college graduate was finally mine.

As I reflect on the last 4 years, I notice it all begins to blur together into an indistinguishable mass of papers, studying, and boredom. And papers. To give you a better idea of how excited I am, it boils down to never reliving this last week - hours spent slaving away in front of a hot computer, likely writing something awful and mostly incoherent; Tuesday's lovely presentation on punctuation marks (yes, you read that right); and exams that made me wonder when - and more importantly - why in ___'s name I signed up for this whole thing of my own accord.

I'd like to say that the 'so many emotions' running through me right now are excitement and pride. And for once I'd also like to say that I do in fact feel those. Mostly though, I'm excited that I never have to turn in another paper. I also feel healthy sense of pride in having successfully graduated from university after having turned in many a poorly written paper on such delightfully interesting topics as vowel space and low-back mergers in Canadian English, and the use of low-friction type in Renaissance Europe... I still haven't wrapped my head around how it's stretched me as a student and person.

The sad part of this comes when I remind myself that I've always wanted to go to graduate school. Thus, my days of paper writing are also far from over. In reality, my aspiration to attend graduate school is maybe not solely a 'want' but something more of an absolute necessity at this point. Since I graduate with degrees in French & psychology - or as I more appropriately refer to them, 'Useless' & 'Everyone's-Mom-Has-This-Degree-Too' - sans master, I'm pretty sure I'm what is scientifically referred to as Toast.

Now, let the record show, I really do like school. In admitting that, I think my rating just shot up at least 64 points on the nerd scale... but at the risk sounding like a callous brat, I said it. Sacrifices had to be made. I've thoroughly enjoyed parts of my academic career, but most of those parts will only be fondly remembered and enjoyed once said career comes to a close. I can already feel myself looking back on the awkward days of freshman year with lighthearted mirth. That's until I snap out of it and remember all that went along with those and the 3 years of days that came afterward...

So, in a word I'm pretty jazzed to be done. For a while at least.

Anyway, convocation itself was a delight. After sitting through the first hour of ceremony and two of the worst speeches I’ve ever heard (my parents can vouch for that), my time came... I followed everyone else dressed in Harry Potter-style robes us to the podium proudly marched across the stage to shake hands with people I’ve never met dressed in medieval Beefeater outfits. I was poised to accept my prize – the coveted empty diploma case. And just like that, about 3.37 seconds later, my time was up. The moment I had longingly waited for was complete! Now all that was left was another two hour wait before I was free to leave.

Side piece:

Academic Regalia - I understand the whole tradition thing but let us take a moment to analyze the ridiculousness that is academic dress. For example, the mortarboard: if it’s required that we wear something that looks like a checkerboard fixed on a hat, surely we can put these to better use. Carrying things on top gets my vote. Nothing says personalization & utility than, for example, balancing a fishbowl on a hat. Or in keeping with the checkerboard theme, let’s get a board game Velcro-ed up on there. Heck, you could put serve a lunch buffet on it. More egg salad, anyone? Another personal favourite, the dean’s outfits: layers of coloured puffy sleeves, stripes and a lot of tassel. And lest we forget, more fabulous hats that look something like a velvet bouffant with a gold raccoon tail attached.

Raw Style

While long, boring and mostly pointless, I felt graduation ceremonies offered a sense of closure. This closure did not, nay, COULD not come any other way. One might argue the realization that I had finished college would have come when I walked out of my last exam. Not so though, because there was no guarantee I had actually PASSED. Then again, there was also still no guarantee I had passed by graduation... But that’s beside the point.

No, in my eyes the real reason closure came yesterday was because it was free. I’ll repeat that. Graduation is one of the only free events that is hosted by Arizona State. This is significant because I would have thought that the weight and reality that freedom what mine (at least financially) would have come when I paid tuition for the last time. This was clearly not the case. This is because I knew this was not the last time I would be forced to hand over my valuable pennies. For example, You’ve graduated and want to leave ASU? That’ll be $40 please. You have 2 majors? That’s another $20 please. You’re a fresh alumnus? We need a $20.08 donation please. You have skin, eyes, and possibly hair? We’ll find a way to charge you something, please... And it goes on and on, AND ON.

Anyway, with abundance of time I now have on my hands, what will I spend my time doing? Well, un-spectacularly for now at least, mostly the same things I did before...Only now without the crushing burden that the due date for that bio lab is fast approaching. THIS is freedom! Unfortunately, this is the point at which most people remind me that life after school – aka work – is no better. Well for now I’d rather live in denial and go to all kinds of lengths to avoid the ‘real world’. I’m sticking it to the man! I’ll comfort myself with the idea that I’ll be playing volleyball overseas for as long as I can and then... going back to school.

Well then. Here’s to closure.