Naomi Oh My!

Comme Hobbitude

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:44:11 +0100

Comme Hobbitude:

Oh internet!

How I Learned Canadian Geography

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:25:04 +0100

How I Learned Canadian Geography

Buy Me A Drink?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:20:00 +0100

Buy Me A Drink?:

So, in my absence from tumblr (I’m seeing another blog, I am so so sorry) a lot has changed! I quit my study abroad program halfway through and am now bumming through France/Europe working on organic farms in exchange for room and board until I fly to Nepal on MAY 25th for the summer!

Did someone mention Nepal?

No?

Oh that was me?

Well damn I’m glad I did because the project I’m helping out with over there seems absolutely great. I’ll be volunteering at a school called the Maya Universe Academy which is diligently working and changing what it means to go to public school in rural Nepal (a 60% literate nation, largely comprised of people who can go to private schools). Being the only free school in the region, it has no source of income other than donations/ trees from the locals in Tanahun. This is just a little something I’m trying to get going before I arrive. If you can participate that’s AMAZING! If not, or if you forget I’ll still love you. Seriously though, everything and anything helps!

To those ALSO none too hip, the title of this post is the link! Like wow right?

Bathroom

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 02:01:28 +0200

Bathroom

Métamorphose (or Good Morning Franz)

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:22:00 +0200

Naomi awoke from a night of fitful sleep to find that she had turned into a giant bug. Scared and a little bit hungry, lying on her back, she wiggled her many legs in the air and listened to the sound of her high-pitched whine. She bucked and wobbled, grabbing the air with her dozen hooked toes, her middle left foot just managing to lift a piece of damp wallpaper.

Finally exhausted, she stopped. She clutched the small square, wishing she could use it as a tissue until she realized she wasn’t crying. In fact everything seemed so ridiculous that Naomi couldn’t help but laugh a buzzing beetle laugh. She remained still, remembering hearing of this happening before. She imagined a huge beetle named Gregor knocking at her window, munching a rotting apple he’d pulled from his hip. “Better come with me.” He clicks, offering her a bite and two hooks, “I know how this ends.” Would this have happened if you’d not made it through the Iron Curtain? She hums. Gregor turns away to hide his misty eyes, and in a strangled buzz replies “Why would you say something like that?”

She takes his hooks and rolls onto her weight, accepting his bite of apple as she peers into the nightmarish hole in his exoskeleton. Naked joints slip by one another in slick black gore than runs un-corked down his leg and her pink bedroom wall. Small hairs of mold left by the apple circle it all like tinsel. Curious, she tastes the liquid now at her feet and the morbid spice sends her screaming to the ceiling. Gregor’s laugh pops crackily as he trains his milky eyes on her. He cooes until she slowly stops shaking and crawls down to him.

Some hours later, when Naomi’s mother came home, she found her daughter no longer able to speak. She would try violently, a screech in her throat, to scale her bedroom wall whenever her mother or father or brothers came near. She would tear open her fingers on the bare cement after she’d removed the remaining wallpaper.

The morning they wrapped her in a blanket and took her away, her mother picked up a rotten apple core from under the desk and threw it out the window.

What Have I learned from French People? Was the question I was asking myself on my way home from my...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:52:00 +0200

What Have I learned from French People?

Was the question I was asking myself on my way home from my new friend Adrian’s house. After my classes let out and after my friend Brendan and I spend half an hour watching our friend Clara do hand-stands, I was en route to the bike rack when I happened to laugh at this one guy (Adrian)’s shirt because it said something to the effect of “The Rice Krispies told me to.” Noticing, he walked over and talked to me a bit about Méli-Mélo (the on-campus international group) and different events in rapid parisian French. He offered to show me what turned out to be an ice-skating rink ON CAMPUS I’d had no idea about and that apparently a famous ice-skater from Poitiers revisits it all the time. “All the time” as in “this particular week”. Like right now.

Then we were biking again. It wasn’t clear to me whether we were going to my house or his, but we were headed towards Buxerolles, which was comforting. When we hit a stoplight and both of us went different directions, I whirled around and asked him what was up. He invited me to his house “real fast” and I stalled. On the one hand I had just spent the last 2 days in a sick fevery scarf-tangled mess at my house, missing school and the free events downtown. However, on the other hand I have never been one to necessarily put personal safety over adventure. So we biked the remaining tiny distance (turns out we’re almost neighbors) to his apartment.

There I was given water, a stack of comic books, and a comprehensive list of French radio stations/ podcasts by a guy who turns out used to act in Paris but who is also fluent in LSF (French sign language) and wants to work (as I understand it) as an interpreter. I sat, drank, read, watched, and listened for roughly 3 hours before I said “Je dois partir, j’ai faim!” (I gotta take off, I’m hungry!) at which point he stuck his head out of the kitchen and asked “Tu veux pesto?”

Pesto.

And hour later, after 3 helpings of the pesto rice he made us, I finally left. Adrian is another wonderful piece of evidence that I am, as my friend Mikey once told me, absolutely where I should be, doing what I should be doing. And less “me-related” he is just one of those “excellent people.”

When I arrived home, my host mother surprised me with a red journal/sketchbook as a “just cuz” present. Later, when I was celebrating today with a helping of my 80¢ tub of chocolate ice cream, Odile came up next to me and dribbled chocolate syrup on top. I wish I believed in reincarnation because her and Yanna would come back as mythical beasts with powers of telekinesis, flight, teleportation, transfiguration, lazer-vision, ice-palms, and always the exact change for everything they want in their pockets.

"Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside..."

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:20:43 +0200

““Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth.””

- Anne Sexton

Période Glaciare, my first french graphic novel....

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:28:29 +0200

Période Glaciare, my first french graphic novel. Post-apocalyptic archaeologists try and piece together our society upon discovering the Louvre.

I address my thoughts this way

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:01:00 +0200

I address my thoughts this way to

Diffuse the tangled netting of grammar

And understanding that holds my English

Brain to the floor and licks the

Toes of my mind. The glacial pace of

Comprehension takes no pains

in humbling my cocky college self as it

Shoves my head into the troph

of knowledge where I learn that languages are

big and that it’s very hard to breath under

water. Often I wonder what I look like through

this growing window in the language barrier.

Do I seem nice? Am I anything like I think?

The window peers at my feet, sized 40 here, a

View of how I shuffle when I’m nervous,

which is luckily less than most. I hope that if I feed it

the blood that drips from throwing myself

into the fan, it will grow into a lovely set of

French doors, and the neighbors will lend me

A key just before I break a pane so that

I may walk and talk, polite but colloquial,

With the natives who have enough beautiful

Rubble to ignore.

Walrus

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:00:00 +0200

Walrus

France Deux

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:32:20 +0200

France Deux

French 202 Oral presentation

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:12:55 +0200

French 202 Oral presentation

Un Poème D'amour À Le Futur Simple

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:37:52 +0200

Je connait l’imparfait

je suis ‘gressive à subjunctif

je pense que le passé composé

soit un peu O.K.

Mais je t’aime futur simple

ma grammaire adorable

les finis sont sucre

si j’étais lucre

je t’acheterais une voiture

parce que tu es mon amour.

How I learned French geography

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:29:59 +0200

How I learned French geography

Mouche

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:19:00 +0200

It’s a good day. Nice and sunny. I can do anything. So sunny. It’s a good day. Whoop! Little breeze there. Hummmmm. Hum. Hummmm. Getting kinda windy. Still a good day. Cloud. Dammit cloud go away! Shoulder’s a little sore. That’s O.K. What’s that? Whatsthatwhatsthatwhatsthatwhatsthatwhatsthat?

Warmer. No sun here though. O.K. day. What’s that? Person! Personpersonpersonperson, Food. I think there’s food. I’m pretty sure there’s food. There has to be food. Where’s the food? Hum. Hum. Hum. I hate that watery sound people make. Irritating. Stupid. Swatting. Swatting is stupid too. Hummmmm. Something smells. I taste something. Hummmm……..FOOD! foodfoodfoodfood. Wantwantwant. Foodwantfoodwantfoodfoodwant.

AH! HUM! Swatting is so stupid! Fine. Window? Ouch. Window? Ouch. Window?! Ouch! Window?! Window?! I see sun! Where’s window?! Ah! Hum! Hum! Window? Ouch! Hum! Window? Ouch! Bad day! Horrible day! The worst day! I hate today! Window?! Ouch!

O.K. sit tight. Just sit for a second. Calm.

WINDOW!?! WHAT THE FUCK! WINDOW?! OUCH!!!!

Sit. Sit. Shit. Sit. Calm down. You’re O.K. Food? Maybe. Hummmm……Bah! Person! Stop swatting! Today sucks! Sit. Sun gone. Sitsitsit. Kind of cold. Window? Wiiiiiiind-ooooooow? Ouch. So tired. Ouch. Really really tired.

Ouch.

Nutella apples: The best, nay, the ONLY post-french school...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:36:00 +0200

Nutella apples: The best, nay, the ONLY post-french school snack.

One French Minute

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:44:56 +0200

One French Minute

September 11, 2011

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:34:44 +0200

I have tried at least a half -dozen times to write down how I feel about 9/11 as an American spending this significant cultural anniversary abroad. I couldn’t decide if I should write about how the world has changed, or how my life has changed, or how I feel about the whole damn thing. I still can’t. Everything I try to commit to this post is simultaneously too big to write down and too small to really express the mixture of pride and grief in my heart.

Being so far away has been tough, especially as French media does not shy away from recognizing today with the same footage that irritated me so much as a 9 year old in southern California when it played on every station for 3 days. Watching the mixture of human calamity in that footage 10 years later, the fear that would turn into sadness, anger, compassion, love, and emptiness, transcends nationalism and puts me face to face with this fucking kaleidescope of human experience. We are so alone, and at times we can feel so alone that it surprises us when our solitude is interrupted by events of togetherness, whether it’s a tragedy or case of love that draws us back into the ensemble of human beings.

This is way too wordy.

All 9/11 has taught me is that horrible things happen and 10 years is not too far away to cry about it. However, not only is it not an excuse, but it is a license to love has hard as I can for as long as I can because people are fucking beautiful monsters.

In Lyon I.....

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:38:00 +0200

*Navigated myself across the country with minimal help from strangers. It matters not that SNCF is relatively idiot-proof, France is now my bitch.

Lesson#1 Apparently infants no longer get to freeload off their hardworking mothers in these tough financial times, but rather earn their keep as living line-spot holders. I turned around at one point to check for my 12-25 card in my backpack and saw that the mother that had been accompanying the baby carriage (equipt with baby) behind me had vanished. The only thing I could come up with was “ummmm………?” A few minutes later, just as I had come to terms with the fact that I was now going to have to raise this child (I’d picked the name “Gus”) the mother returned and hopped back in line.

Miss you Gus.

*Spent several hours over a couple days in Le Musée des Beaux Arts

Lesson#2 Turns out, armed with a photo student I.D., one can gain not only free admission to nearly all the museums in France, but also free audio guides. Awesome awesome awesome aweseome!

*OWNED at air hockey

Lesson#3 I get really competitive when it comes to air hockey

*Walked around the old old old streets of Lyon all night with my friend Josh from Poitiers

Lesson#4 One should watch the natives to successfully avoid being arrested. I spent the first two days regretting not jumping into the fountain of Lady Liberty next to the Musée des Beaux Arts, which I had held myself back from doing because I thought it would be a bigger legal tangle than I was prepared for. After coming out of the museum one day, I saw a battalion of young people covered in shaving cream dancing in the fountain. I decided I was in the clear. That night, walking with Josh, we sat on the lip of the fountain as I took off my belt and boots feeling my resolve being to eb. After minutes sitting there putting it off, a group of drunk locals serendipitously stumbled by and dared me. The rest of the night squelching around in a wet dress was exactly what the doctor ordered.

*Went to Mass

Lesson#5 All those Disney castles I’ve been seeing here in France actually serve one hell of a function. Every 8^th of September the Cardinal and the Mayor of Lyon come together at this special mass and give talks. Makes for a very crowded church in a 64% Catholic country.

Lesson#6 The 8th of September is also the independence day of Brazil. Coincidence?!?!

Probably.

In France, Even Feet Are Fancy.

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:39:45 +0200

As a woman from Oregon equipt with a perfectly adequate set of getaway sticks I walk everywhere I’m not biking when I need to get around Poitiers. Poitiers is a pint-sized town compared to it’s big brothers and sisters like Lyon and Paris so walking from downtown to the little ‘burb of Bruxerolles where I live has never really occurred to me as a problem after my initial attempt.

My third day in France, the day of the bazarre, I decided to give walking from our house to centre ville a shot. I asked Yanna how long she thought it would take and she responded with the most genuinely horrified look I may have ever seen.

“Non non non, c’est trop loin! Essaie pas!” No no no, it’s way too far! Don’t try!

Feeling nervous but assuring her I wouldn’t die, I hit the bricks. Half an hour later I was standing in front of the Notre Damme de la Grande, which is an old church that marks the dead center of downtown.

Too far? FALSE!

Furthermore, as I operate under the belief that Poitiers rearranges itself whenever I turn around for a sec, I am often asking the locals for directions. Whenever I ask any French person the direction to Bruxerolles from anywhere, even from WITHIN Bruxerolles, I get the same horrified look and a “Yeah it’s there, but really really far.”

After 2 weeks of qualitative data as the result of being perpetually lost, I’ve come to the conclusion that to the French, if it’s more than an 8 minute walk, why on earth would you even try it?

However, goofy as it may seem to someone raised, for the most part, entirely on the west coast of the United States, it cannot be said that the French are being particularly persnickety. They do afterall have killer shoes in every sense of the word. And even though I’m comfortable clubbing in either Jedi-boots or tennis shoes, it’s only because I’ve emotionally figured out how to be OK with having my feet outshined and my wallet 200 euros fatter in my (possibly neurotic) narrow-eyed suspicion of the cost-worthiness of a bus pass.

And all those well-dressed people usually follow up their warnings with ride offers. At the end of the day, French people (maybe just people in general) are just really really nice.

A word on French driving: Medians here do not have the ridiculous purpose of posing a physical barrier between you and other lanes, but rather, are stepstools covered in trees, benches, bikes and people from which one can better watch oncoming traffic from the comfort of one’s vehicle.

Don’t ask me, I’m the crazy girl that walks.