french – Page 4 – hannah ananas

It really is all relative

Tonight, I was reminded of a girl I met, while I was living in Toulouse, France. She was in school (high school, I believe), and doing a temporary internship at the place where I was doing my volunteering. She was from a small country that was at war (and it might still be, but I haven’t kept up with the news). She had a boyfriend and a baby of her own, in addition to a younger sister, I believe. She taught me much.

What I was discussing with my mom tonight is how relative things are in life. Just as in Aesop’s last fable today, with the bunny rabbits about to drown themselves in their exhaustion of living in fear, and suddenly discovering the frogs at the pond afraid of them, causing them to realize that someone had it worse off than they did, so is life. No matter what one’s struggles and turmoils, there’s always someone worse off. And I feel like our turmoils and struggles are saddening next to the real turmoils and struggles of other parts of the world. This girl spoke to me about her country of origin, and how they moved to France. And, when she spoke about it all, it were as though she were telling me about a class project, or how she went grocery shopping yesterday. Those, however, were not the subject matter. What I remember most of her story, is how people broke into her house one day/night, beat up her parents (and possibly her, too), and then took her father. Her family tried offering money as a ransom for her father’s return, but no information was even received regarding her father – they never found out if he even was alive or dead, or who had taken him. Just some men, she’d said.

I mean it that it were as though she were telling me about what she did yesterday after work/school. She was not sad in her words, nor was she hauntingly depressed in her eyes or spirit. She was living life as I was, and merely sharing about something. ‘Yeah, I don’t know where Josh went after dinner, but he left. We called him, but never got a response. Maybe he went home, instead of coming for coffees with us.’ That’s was the easiness with which she spoke – no premeditation or practice. It was just what’s so, and so that was how she told it.

I say a prayer for the world tonight.

Post-a-day 2017

My real voice

In college, I spent a summer studying in Germany. It was a language school setup, filled with foreigners, but in such a small town that everyone knew that we were studying German, and so everyone always spoke to us all in German. I had already studied abroad a few times before this adventure, and I had learned firsthand about what works and what doesn’t work, in terms of language immersion. I was dedicated to learning German, and so I made sure that I only spoke in German with others, even if they spoke to me in English. This made friendships hard among the people in my program’s group, since they all used English together; I came across a bit snobby, but I was just really committed to learning German.

I made friends with other foreigners rather easily, though, and especially ones in higher levels of German, which was even better for me. My German was improving immensely. But this led to a unique situation one day.

One day, near the end of either my time at the school or my friend Paul’s time there (he’s British), I found myself faced with a desperate Paul, actually begging me to speak English. Why?! was my repeated question to his pleas.

“Because I want to hear what you sound like!”

I don’t know if he was pleased or not by how I sound in English, but I spoke a little for him. And it was way weird, using English with him, despite the fact that I’d heard him speak English loads, and that it’s our common native language. I had just never used it with him.

And then this brought up a unique and interesting sentiment. He wanted to hear me, and that meant speaking English. I can guess that my native tongue was the one in which Paul believed my identity to lie. I know that it felt like I was setting aside a sort of mask when I switched to English with him. I even felt a little called-out… as though I had been hiding somehow, and it had been behind German. The real me (I) lay in English, in the English part of me.

Yet, years later, here I am, missing the parts of me that belong to these different languages in which I have lived. A part of me, true me (I), exists only on German, and others in French, in Spanish, and in Japanese. So much so that the real me (I) is this whole combination of languages – I feel a huge emptiness and feel not myself when I am using only English in my daily life. I listen to Spanish-speaking radio when I’m in Houston, mostly because I don’t get to use Spanish often enough. I read every night in French, and trade off an English book for a German one at times for my evening reading, too. I regularly pull out a Spanish book to read, or my German audiobooks. And I have noticed that I have been searching for a tolerably satisfying way to have Japanese in my near-daily life, too. (For now, it has just been the occasional music, and a perpetual repeat of a certain song being stuck in my head.) When I don’t have them all, it is as though a part of me is missing, and suddenly getting to speak with someone in them, almost reminds me of that mask I was setting aside in Germany with Paul… like I am again setting aside some mask I have been wearing.

Perhaps it is now a mask of monolingualism, pretending that I only speak English, while I long for the world to talk to me in several languages, all the time.

Anyway… I’m exhausted. And I miss Paul. He was studying opera, and was a really great guy. I wonder if he’s been really successful with opera these past several years. Maybe I can go see him perform one day. That would be awesome. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

The end of the day

At the end of each day, I have my alone time. It is not an intentional act of mine, this alone time. It just happens. And I think it is necessary for me as a person… even though it isn’t intentional.

Whenever I am with people overnight somewhere, and we all head off to bed around the same time, everyone is usually surprised the next day to discover that I was awake close to an hour after we had all parted ways. My mom, I think, is accustomed to my going to bed later than she does in the first place, and so she doesn’t really notice it until we travel together. When we’re staying in the same room, she usually complains a good amount, until she finally goes to sleep and lets me finish my bedtime stuff.

Which brings me to my bedtime stuff. I would call it my bedtime ritual, except that it isn’t actually a ritual. And it isn’t exactly a routine either, because the order and timing change around, depending on the night. It’s just what I do before going to sleep. This includes, but is not limited to flossing and brushing my teeth, using the bathroom, washing my face, changing clothes, and reading. Such has been the case for the past few, possibly even several, years. This past year has added to it my showering, cleaning and irrigating my ears, and writing for my weblog (if I haven’t yet done it that day (which is most days)). Sometimes, I stretch after my shower, too, but I usually forget that one.

These things don’t necessarily take all that long under normal circumstances. Ask me to do them all in the middle of the day, and I’ll be finished quite quickly. But having me so they all at night, just before bed, means having them take around an hour, possibly longer. Like I mentioned, this time is my alone time. Perhaps it is a subconscious act, taking so long to do it all, my mind giving me a chance to unwind after whatever the day brought me. Some nights, I am utterly exhausted, and yet I still take around half an hour to get everything finished and actually turn out my light to sleep. Sometimes, I just find myself standing or sitting somewhere around my apartment or room, waiting… I suppose I must be waiting for the unwind to finish, or something to that effect…

Whenever I travel to dance events, there is usually someone already asleep by the time I come in to go to bed, and definitely by the time I am finishing my bedtime stuff. So, I usually find myself sitting on the bathroom floor (or next to a cracked-open bathroom door, if there isn’t really space to sit on the floor in the bathroom) in my pjs and with my hair wet, reading from my two books.

The first book is always the same. I began reading from it daily over three and a half years ago, as part of my desire to read the whole thing. I have kept to my word on it (although there are two or three days where I honestly couldn’t remember the next day if I had done my reading or not, so I read extra to make up for what might have been missed) since I began, and have read at least a little bit every day. I didn’t want to give myself a set amount that would burn me out, so I just said that I had to read something. That could be as little as a sentence. Some nights, it has been. Some nights, it has been pages. Usually, it is a few sentences or a little section within a section. One day, I will finish it. In the meantime, I am learning all sorts of outdated French words as I read through this Bible.

The second book is a different story. It isn’t even a requirement. I began the requirement to read each day several years ago, before the Bible thing began. Back then, I would find myself reading messages on envelopes or greeting cards as I was going to bed, because I needed to read at least a whole sentence in that day as part of my goal to read every day (which, in turn, was part of my goal to read lots and to read often). Now that I have the Bible required for every day, the second book is just for pleasure. For days when I’m at a particularly boring part in the Bible, I wanted to have something else to make the reading exciting and worth doing – extra encouragement, so to speak. So, the only requirement of the second book is that it be something I like reading. Right now, it is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The last one was Catch 22, and the one before that was a Sophie Kinsella. What exactly it is changes with each new book – just whatever’s next on the list, and also feels right for my nighttime book (gotta have something positive before bed, because those thoughts go with me into sleep). Another rough requirement for my nighttime book (Bible included, actually), is that it be only my nighttime book – I don’t carry it around and read it during the day, too. When I did in the past, I would rush through it so quickly, I’d be without a nighttime book again in only a couple or few days, and the whole purpose would be lost. So I have daytime books now, in addition to my nighttime ones. They’re usually on my Kindle (which is super cool), for easy transport. My nighttime books are always real books, because I don’t really have to haul them around. When I do take a trip, I usually just photograph the pages, if I’m limited on packing space/weight.

Anyway, I made it through the rest of my stuff too quickly tonight, so I had to spend more time on this than I had intended – I’m exhausted! Going to read now (and we’ll see if it happens quickly, because I’m really liking where I am in Zen right now) ad get to sleep as soon as possible! Sweet dreams, world.

Post-a-day 2017

Blessings through a headache

My head hurts. I think I need food, water, And sleep.

As I thought about just now how my head hurts, I realized that I can express that fact/sentiment in five languages, and without even having to think about it.

My head hurts. (Duh)

Me duele en la cabeza.

J’ai mal à la tête.

Ich habe Kopfschmerzen.

あたまがいたい。

Rad, huh? My life is super blessed. Thank you, God. Now, I’ll have a bit more water, and then sleep!
Post-a-day 2017

Normal or normal?

I guess that whatever we are accustomed to having around us, ends up being what feels like “normal” to us. Like how my life never seems to feel very exciting or special – it has become my experience of “normal”, and therefore can’t seem exceedingly exciting or abnormal to me.

I regularly feel as though everyone can speak loads of languages, and so I’m nothing but average (or even below average) in that field. But who are my acquaintances? Well, we tend to end up spending time with people who, in some way or other, are quite similar to ourselves, do we not? It is no wonder, then, that I have so many friends who are bi- and multilingual, and who have not only visited but lived in at least one country other than their own. This isn’t to say, of course, that all of my friends meet this criteria. Certainly not. I just happen to have a lot of friends who do.

So, when I have a night like tonight, where my friends and I sound to an on-listener like we can’t seem to pick a language, as we constantly switch around between English (our one common language), French, and Japanese, I all too easily forget that this is not normal in the world. Sure, it is normal for me and for my life, but that doesn’t mean that everyone does it regularly. It doesn’t even mean that half the world could do it regularly, even if they wanted to do so.

Or perhaps they could. I think, nonetheless, that I severely underappreciate my language abilities, by subconsciously expecting that the people who most closely surround me are an average sample of the whole. What is normal for one person simply is what is around that person in life. And two people with closely aligned lives might find the same things as one another to be normal. So, of course the people who are out doing the same things I live to do, tend to see the world in a similar way to how I see it, and hold a subconscious standard of “normal” that is similar to my own. That’s why our paths cross in the first place – we’re all into* this particular kind of awesome.

Filing a room with awesome people doesn’t mean that they aren’t all still awesome, just because the standard in the room is about equal. It just means that you have an extra-awesome room that is full of a ton of awesome people.

I guess what I am aiming to say here is that, despite my feeling below-average and utterly “normal” and boring at times, I realize now that I am not viewing things outside of my nearest surroundings (so to speak), and that I realize that I am, in fact, awesome. And I’m proud and happy about that.

Peace, y’all. ❤
Post-a-day 2017

My Dating Life

A friend of mine suggested I write about dating life in a foreign country. However, I cannot entirely speak to the subject, because 1) I have not dated anyone here, and 2) I haven’t really dated people back home either.

However…., I do have some interesting dating and dating-ish stories I could share. So, I’ll do that instead. 🙂

We’ll begin with my first date, as it was, indeed, an odd beginning to an odd history of dating.

Date #1

My high school boyfriend and I split up the summer before college, out of being reasonable. How it happened is a story for another time, though, as it is well worth telling, but just not now. We remain to this day friends, and so were on good terms as the summer neared its end. One day, when we were in the same place, John (that’s his name, you see) did something adorably wonderful. He asked me on a date. No, I do not remember the exact words he used, however, I remember that he did use explicit words quite similar to, “Would you go out on a date with me?”

While we had been a couple, we had often laughed at the fact that we had never been on a single date. Every time we were arranging something that would have ended up as a date, we found ourselves desperately longing to invite so-and-so to come, because he/she would just LOVE it, or something like that. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to be alone together. It was merely that we love our friends and we are generous. Also, a good amount of the time, my mom would be with us for things. She often would be planning something really neat, and I would be going with her, and one of us would think of how John might enjoy the activity, too, and then either pick him up or have him meet us somewhere to join in the activity. A lot of people found it odd that my boyfriend and I (and often my friends, too) did so much with my mom, but it was just way fun for all of us. That being said, most John’s and my one-on-one time was spent standing outside his house as I was about to drive home at night, and never on actually going out to do anything (i.e. dates).

So, he asked me on a date. The plan was to go out to dinner at this great vegetarian Indian restaurant near my house, and then to go to see a musical together downtown. John was driving (and not I for once). When he came to get me for dinner, it was sprinkling beautifully, and we somehow ended up going swimming (or at least playing in the backyard in the rain) instead, and my mom went and picked up food for us. The three of us then had dinner at my house together. At the musical, the two seats that John had purchased (with the help of his father) turned out to be across the wheelchair section from one another, leaving a gap of about a meter between our two seats. I squat on the ground next to his seat for a bit, and then I think we eventually moved to a couple of other empty seats, so we actually could sit side-by-side. It was a fabulously tragic date, which we both absolutely loved, because it was so terrible on paper, but so delightful in experience.

And that was date #1.

Date #2

A few years ago, I attended something called VIRTUS Training. It is essentially a seminar for people who will be working at schools, for them to learn about identifying child sexual abuse. In other words, it was a seminar on child sexual abuse. It was at this wonderful seminar that I met my second date – or so I believe it was my second date, anyway. He was sitting near me in the training, and I think wasn’t even in my discussion group. However, we exchanged various faces at different things throughout the evening, and ended up in conversation afterward. After probably a good half hour of talking outside afterward, he very beautifully expressed that he had enjoyed talking with me very much, and would I like to continue talking over dinner some time soon? I agreed, and I gave him my number in order to arrange the dinner at another time.

For the dinner, he told me that he was “old fashioned”, and so was it alright that he pick me up for the date? I originally agreed happily. However, my sister told me it was a terrible idea, and got me all nervous, because I didn’t really know this guy, and what if it went horribly? (It went wonderfully, but still, she got me nervous nonetheless.) But my worries proved pointless, because, as I had just purchased my new car the day of our date, I had to take it for my family to see (and test drive, of course), which put me behind schedule for our date. Since that was the case, I just met him at a restaurant midway between where I was in town and where he lived, so he didn’t have to wait so long nor have to drive all the way to my house (which was quite far for him).

I eventually ran into him again while I was still working at Starbucks, but it was quite busy at the time, and so we really didn’t get to chat (though I totally wanted to do so). I had not saved his number, and so couldn’t call or message him again after that. (Sometimes, you just don’t plan on getting a new phone before you’ve saved a number, ya know?)

And that is what came of date #2, when I met a guy at a child sexual abuse seminar.

Date #3

My third date, in my opinion, is the best of the three – yes, there have only been three – and also the most uncertain. It is uncertain, because I simply hadn’t known that it was a date, and I’m still not certain as to whether it was a date. You may judge for yourself as to whether it was a date or not. 😉

In France, there is a wonderful carpooling website, which helps anyone travel almost anywhere normal in France (and even to nearby destinations in neighboring countries). I used it constantly for travel while I studied in Toulouse, and therefore used it again when I went to visit a couple summers ago. It was in this carpooling from Barcelona to Toulouse that I met this party boy.

We didn’t talk much on the drive (I slept mostly, and he talked with the other passengers.), but we did a bit near the end, and he asked for my Facebook. I felt no aversion to the guy, although I knew that we led very different lifestyles, his being a party boy and my being…. well, just not. I like dancing and music and all, but not the drinking like crazy part. He had even offered me a section of his sandwich on the ride. because, I know you, so, of course, we’d share your sandwich. 😛 I liked the guy, despite our obvious differences. He was just really open and friendly and honest.

And, as a bonus, quite handsome. Think tall, dark and fancy hair, tanned skin, and quite fit. Yes, he could carry me quite easily in his arms. (I have no idea why that is something I notice about guys – whether they could carry me or not. I just always notice it.)

Turned out that his apartment was literally the next street over from the AirBnB where I ended up staying. Via texting, he asked if I wanted to get a bite to eat with him one night. Yes, of course. (I’d be eating alone otherwise, and he had been great company already.) ‘Do you want to meet me somewhere, or should I pick you up on my scooter?’ Scooter, please. (One of my dreams in life has been to ride a scooter with a cute guy in Europe, thanks to MaryKate and Ashley.)

So, he picked me up on his scooter, and drove me to a cool restaurant in a part of town I’ve always loved. We sat outside, and it was fabulous. I had him order for me whatever he thought was best to have. I’m usually more of the raw vegan diet type, but I roll with the culture these days, so I graciously accepted a delicious and innerly-pink steak. We chatted and had a great time, and when he went in to pay, I followed a bit behind, and asked what I owed. He, a bit surprised, said that I owed nothing, as he was paying for everything. It was my turn to be surprised, but I did not even consider that this was a date – perhaps he’s just really nice to the foreigner girl visiting his hometown.

And so, we went and got some beers from a store, and he showed me around his huge, old-fashioned apartment, which he shared with this rich guy with a really nice car, as he put it (I don’t remember what the car was, but it was legitimately a very expensive car.). We hung out and talked, and it was totally great. When I finally reached home, and told him that I was home safely, he sent me a message that had me suddenly see the evening in a slightly – meaning entirely – different light. It was in a light and friendly way, and even with a wink smiley face, so it was not meant to be nasty or inappropriate. However, he said that ‘he would have preferred that I had stayed there.’ Oh, my… At last I came to the sudden idea that this might actually have been a date. I then got super excited that I was not only on my third date ever (Whoohoo!), but on a date with a gorgeous French guy, and IN French. How cool is that?! Way cool. Seriously. It was awesome. Dreams fulfilled that I hadn’t even dreamed up yet.

And that was date #3. I think, anyway. 😛

Those have been my three official-ish dates (I’m still not sure about that third one). They were each wonderful in their own ways, and I find none of them to be too standard (slash at all standard). I loved each and every one, and I look forward to raising the bar each time to more ridiculous scenarios surrounding my dating life. (I need to share about my coffee dates and the likes, too. Those have been fun, for sure, and very international.)

I’m super tired now, so I’m going to sleep. However, I plan to continue with the coffee dating and other date-related things that weren’t actually dates. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Eggs and Trilingual Songs

While dying eggs for Easter tonight, my friend and I were listening to and singing along to various songs from various musicals. For the most part, this was all in English. However, when I decided that, judging the songs and musicals we’d had so far, it was time for a bit of Frozen, this all changed.

Frozen, you see, happens to be one musical that this friend doesn’t know too well in English, but really only knows in Japanese. I, naturally, picked up all the words in English due to the extreme cultural love of the songs back in the US. And, to make things more exciting, and to test our true knowledge of the songs, I happen only to have the soundtrack in French. (I know, I’m a special one.)

So, what does that all mean? Well, it means that my friend and I had a grand ole time singing along in Japanese and English to a song in French, both of us laughing regularly as we did our best to focus on the words we knew that we knew, but seemed so incredibly difficult to get out. I’m not sure that I have ever focused so much just to sing along to a song before tonight. It was somewhat intense and absolutely delightful. I’d totally do that again. 😀
Post-a-day 2017

Japanese Verlan

Tonight, I learned that Japanese has its own version of French’s verlan. For those unaware, verlan is, for the most part, splitting a word in half, and then putting the second half first. So, the word l’envers, splits to l’en and vers. Keeping in mind the pronunciation of each part, you switch them to vers+len, and then alter spelling to keep the same sounds, giving you ver+lan, verlan. Thus you have the word for backwards, l’envers, in verlan. As I mentioned, I learned tonight that Japanese has its own version of this same concept.

The sentence I was given was the following:

I ate sushi with a woman in Roppongi.

Onna to roppongi de sushi wo tabetta.

That is the original, normal version. The slang version was then as follows:

Naon to ginroppon de shiisuu tabetta.

ナオンとギロッポンでシースー食った

The funny thing to me about this slang, is the users of it. The friend who was informing me of this slang mentioned later that “[h]igh school students don’t say that. Elder people may understand. Remember this.” And so I have learned the slang of the current 30+-year-olds in Japan. We think, anyway. He told me to test it out, so I could see who understood it. We’ll see how well that goes over – I had a fancy Japanese word to use at the hanami (Sakura-viewing picnic) this past weekend, and everyone just assumed a mishearing or misunderstanding had taken place on their side, because why would a foreigner know such a fancy word, hmm???? 😛 But I think this one has better potential for fun. 🙂
Post-a-day 2017

Inglorious Basterds

Last night, as I was going to bed (Or was it at some point in the middle of the night, when I woke up? Or even this morning?), I recalled the film “Inglorious Basterds”, and had a slight desire to watch it. I have seen it already, but this film and I have a sort of special connection, and for various reasons.

For one thing, I first saw the beginning of it on my first trip to France, on my Freshman year JanTerm in Cannes – a sort of momentous occasion, its being my first time there and all. One of the students working at our dorm’s café was all excited about watching it, and got us all to sit around to watch it at the café. After only a few minutes, I was uninterested in the film, and I left (as I recall).

A few years later, I finally watched the whole film, though I forget currently when and how. So, it was meant to be comedic and historical and action-filled. Got it. Now I’d seen it, so I didn’t have to see it again.

Then, while living in Vienna (though that part’s somewhat irrelevant), I saw two films that I loved. The first was “Keinohrhasen”, with the German actor Til Schweiger. I fell in love with the film, and has a soft spot for Til because of it. Then, I saw in theaters the film “Django Unchained”. I somewhat fell in love with the German character of the film, played by Christoph Waltz, who is Austrian-German himself. By calling to mind before the start of the film that this was a Quentin Tarantino film, I was able to enjoy the full beauty and glory of the artistry that was “Django Unchained”.

Once back in the States, however, I recalled that I had not given just perspective to “Inglorious Basterds” as a Quentin Tarantino marvel, but had judged it relative to the average film. (I grew up in love with Kill Bill, you see, and learned QT’s style of gore and revenge and all that, somehow learning to enjoy and appreciate it because of the setting and story that was Kill Bill, probably with a bit of guidance from my brother Michael, who had shown me the films in the first place.) So, I decided it was high time to watch the film again, though this time as a Quentin Tarantino film, instead of a regular one.

And so I did. However, allow me to point out the setting of this film: WWII in Germany and France (or, at least, a France filled with Germans), with Americans interspersed. When the movie began, it took me about ten minutes (?) to realize that something was amiss… or, at least, something felt like it must be amiss.

I eventually realized (and even had to pause the film for the extreme laughter that arose from within me) that it was the fact that I was completely missing the subtitles. I was not, however, missing the dialogue. I was just merely ignoring, nay, not even noticing the subtitles, because I simply understood what was being said. The laughter came suddenly and from deep within – it was like this film was made for me, in a sense. I now spoke decent French and German (and still fantabulous English, of course), and this movie played back and forth between my three main languages. It was a perfect mix of cultures and language for my language-loving mind.

Now, that was great, but it got even better. Then, I found Christoph Waltz AND Til Schweiger in the film. Add that all to the expectation of Quentin Tarantino’s style, as well as the gorgeous Brad Pitt (yeah, I have a soft spot for him, too), and I was in love with the film.

You’d think that’d be enough to have a special bond with a film, but there’s one more bit to it all, and a rather profound one at that. Seeing this film shortly after seeing Django had me notice something quite peculiar. In Django, Christoph Waltz was quite obviously ‘the good guy’ of the film. He had obvious morals that were oh-so-lacking in the other characters, plus he was totally BA* with his skills and tactics and sense of style. In a way, in the time and place of Django, being German was ideal, and being American was kind of terrible. (Do you see where this is going?)

Now, look at “Inglorious Basterds”. Are the roles not 100% switched? Christoph Waltz, whose character once was somewhat idolized for his status of being German, now was considered the worst of the worst in morals because he was German. And the Americans were appropriately on the high ground this time. Had it been another actor, I’m not sure I would have made quite the same connection. But I found it amazing that this one man – and yes, I am aware that Christoph Waltz was not present for any of these actual periods of history, but just roll with it – could, at one point in time, be honored and respected for being himself (German), and, at the next, be despised and hated for being himself (German).

And so, I have this forever attachment and special relationship with “Inglorious Basterds”, which also inevitably drags along a bit of moral contemplation on the mentality of the human species throughout the course of human events (especially conflict). And, of course, Christoph Waltz. None of this would have truly linked together so well without his wonderful collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, as well as his total enrollment in the characters he played (I truly loved the one, and was distraught by his death, and despised the other, hoping throughout the film for his immediate death.). Nods and hats off to you, sir. And Quentin Tarantino – you’re awesome, too, sir.

🙂

*bad-ass

Post-a-day 2017