We're leaving together, but still it's farewell

Day before the flight. Whew. Still gotta finish packing, cleaning my room, etc.

Yesterday, I finally visited the Eiffel Tower. Spectacular view, even though I only went up to the second story rather than taking the lift to the very top. I also visited the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum. It was free, which I hadn't expected, but only because they were in between exhibits and the majority of the museum was closed. Sigh.

The end-of-year reception at Reid Hall was quite nice.

Not much more to say right now. I'll probably post more of a wrap-up after I get back.

Paris isn't quite burning...

but a lot of people aren't happy with Sarkozy winning. Today, the students at the Sorbonne voted to stage a strike in protest of Sarkozy's plans for educatio, shutting down classes, the school, and a large part of the Blvd St. Michel. By the time I arrived near the scene (around 9 pm), unaware of what was going on, the street was completely cut off and surrounded by more police vehicles than I've ever seen in one place (including at least one APC), and hundreds of cops (flics) in full riot gear. I'm not sure yet what provoked the massive police presence, but large numbers of the striking students were being arrested, searched, and packed into buses, and I heard what sounded like some kind of crowd-control fire; I took a few photos of the scene, which I can't post right now.

There were, of course, a number of people also observing the scene from a distance. One of them was a sixty-something Russian man who got into a heated discussion with some French students about politics; at one point he claimed that he had no problem with the Putin regime because "I can go everywhere, there is no problem!" Seriously. Russia.

back from a Lynching

I finally saw the David Lynch exhibit at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, which is only a few blocks away from Reid Hall. I have to conclude that the man is completely goddamn insane, but brilliant. For instance, I saw most of an early short film that was about an abused boy who "plants" some weird rock thing on his bed, that grows and eventually becomes a grandmother-like figure, who helps the boy in his attempts to end his parents' abuse. Or something. It's a lot weirder than it sounds; there was some Terry Gilliamesque animation, and a completely random scene of characters crawling around on all fours and barking like dogs. My favorite part of the exhibit was the incredibly disturbing Distorted Nude series. Now, I really need to see some more of his films.

Six days to go

Well, Sarkozy is the next president of France. Can't say I'm terribly surprised. I hope that this doesn't set the tone for France during his presidency:

...several thousand of his opponents gathered about a mile away in the Place de la Bastille and the Place de la Republique, where they threw stones and bottles at police who fought back with tear gas and truncheons.

Four vehicles, including a bus, were set ablaze in Argenteuil, the immigrant district where Sarkozy made his infamous scum remark. There also were reports of scattered violence in Lyon, Nantes, Toulouse and Rennes.

Anyway, I'm leaving in six days. Yup. Gotta clean my room, buy a few souvenirs, visit a few places I haven't seen before, send another package of extra stuff home, and prepare to navigate the wilds of craigslist.

I had the final of my gender course today. Harder than I expected; hopefully I didn't fare too badly.

12 days and counting

I'm finally done with my stage. It wasn't the best experience, overall; the kids were cute, but I really didn't care for my bosses. They were extremely rude, both to me and to many of the children, and they spoke no English and generally seemed to have no clue how to deal with someone like me with less than perfect French skills. Glad that's over with. My workload isn't too bad, either. Unfortunately, now I have to deal with finding housing and employment in NYC this summer, which is not going to be easy.

Saw Spider-Man 3 today. I enjoyed it, mostly. The theater was ridiculously crowded, but then again, today was a holiday. The cinema in question - the biggest megaplex in Paris, I think - had some guy running around in a Spider-Man costume before the movie. Just embarassing.

Tomorrow, I'm going to another one of the political events I've mentioned earlier; I'll be watching the Sego-Sarko debate with a bunch of other people, in an Irish pub near St. Michel. Should be interesting.

Finally, I can add something else to my list of things to do before I leave Paris: Today, I found a cinema that's showing Pink Floyd's The Wall starting tomorrow. Fantastic.

Saturday in the park

Spent most of Saturday at the Parc de la Villette having a picnic with some multinational friends. The weather was gorgeous, the food was good, and the company was quite nice. The park itself is pretty interesting - lots of examples of avant-garde architecture, including several huge museums and a striking Imax theater, the Géode, which is a huge, silver sphere.

Working on a sort of book report for my cinema class, about science fiction cinema. Hard to believe that I have only two weeks left here.

more notes

Slightly anxious about classes resuming tomorrow (I think, anyway - my Gender class has nothing listed for tomorrow in the syllabus, but I'm guessing that that's just an error). Hard to believe that there are only three weeks left until the group flight home.

Today is the first round of France's presidential election. I assume, along with most others here, that Le Pen won't make it to the second round this time. I certainly hope he doesn't.

Question after seeing a screening of The Philadelphia Story the other night at a charming little cinema that specializes in showing old films (there are a number of these in Paris, particularly in the 5e and 6e arrondissements: what's the point of watching a subtitled comedy if you don't know the original language? The subtitles can only capture a portion of the dialogue, and so many of the nuances are lost. I guess this is true for a lot of films, and not just comedies. Of course, watching English-language films with French subtitles has also made me realize how much I'm missing when I see a foreign-language film with English subtitles.