A Supposedly Fun Thing that's Actually Really Fun

I am a bit frustrated at work these past few days, dealing with some people who are, let's just say, difficult. I would love to have a big rant about this, but I am aware that public rants about professional issues can sometimes be a little bit harmful to one's career development, so I will keep the details to myself.

Instead, I'll tell you about a little side project I have going on, along with supposedly a couple thousand people around the world. Infinite Summer is a three-month long project in which people read and discuss the book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's a three-month-long project because the book is more than 1,000 pages long, including many many endnotes, some of which refer to other endnotes or have endnotes of their own.

I first heard of DFW when I met Nate; he (Wallace) is his (Nate's) favorite author. I'm pretty sure it was on one of the very first times we went out that he told me about IJ and its notes, the reading of which is essential to understanding the novel. I remember specifically that he talked about one particular endnote, an eight-page filmography of one of the book's characters. He said it seems kind of excessive but turns out to be really important. Intriguing!

Then last September David Foster Wallace killed himself in his home in California. Like lots of fans, Nate was very sad to hear of his death, and set about collecting as many non-published works as the internet could provide (he already owned all the published works.) It's unfortunate that a tragic death can create a whole new wave of fans for a writer or artist, but it is so. I read a few of his "easier" non-fiction pieces, including A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (about a luxury cruise) and Consider the Lobster (about Maine's annual Lobster Fest.) With a writing style prone to endlessly contorted sentences, detailed reference from everything from pop culture to linguistics to biochemistry, reading his works is both challenging and frustrating, but for these same reasons is also very rewarding.

But so anyway, being away from boyfriend and family and friends, living in a quasi-nunnery in France with no money and no TV, as it turns out is a situation that's very conducive to reading a complex and massive novel like Infinite Jest. I'm currently on around page 800, but when the Infinite Summer project started up on June 21, I doubled back to start again from the beginning, reading a first and second time simultaneously to keep up with my own schedule but also participate in the scheduled and spoiler-limited Infinite Summer forums. This means I am using four bookmarks (two for text, two for endnotes) and it means that I will have plenty of reading material for the rest of the summer, including this weekend, when I'm leading a group on a weekend excursion. And I'm not going to go into detail on why, but let's just say at the end of each long day I'll be glad to retreat to my room and read in solitude.

La stagiaire

I have now reached the halfway point of this internship: four weeks behind me, four more to go. Out of the seven groups of students coming over for summer programs here, six have arrived, and of those, three have already left. So as it happens, just as I am getting into the swing of things and learning the names of people and streets, the number of people who get to benefit from my increased knowledge keeps getting smaller.

I have to say it's a strange thing being an intern (stagiaire) again at age 33. I have supervised enough student interns in previous jobs to know that the range of capability and initiative can vary greatly from person to person. And I recognized some apprehension at first in the assignment of new tasks, when colleagues wondered just what end of that range I would occupy. Of course, I'm capable of managing my own work, so I don't think they are too worried about me.

My colleagues are busy with their own work, so I'm trying not to be that intern that constantly needs to be helped with her job...but the French language keeps getting in my way! Sometimes people have to explain things to me slowly, or a second time, because of some unfamiliar vocabulary. Sometimes I have to ask for help with wording of a phrase or interpretation of an e-mail I'm writing or reading. In short, I need a little more supervision than I want, which is sometimes frustrating.

And another thing! In general, I think I have a pretty good sense of humor and in general I like to make jokes and laugh with colleagues. Unfortunately, in my experience, the ability to show your full sense of humor is one of the last foreign-language skills to develop. I'm getting there, but not quite as quick on the draw with wit as I would like to be. I should work on this, because I'd much rather be remembered as the intern who was funny but didn't always say things right, than as the intern who spoke perfect French but was really boring to have around.

But overall things are going really well. I have finally learned enough about Dijon and the school to be considered some kind of expert for students with questions. I'm working on an extensive list of upcoming events in/near Dijon: in summer months the music festivals and free events abound! I'm keeping close track of exchange students' fall course registrations; I am involved in serious discussions re: student behavior and how beer pong is not an accepted part of French culture; I have nearly memorized the English-speaking doctor's phone number, and just today learned the word for "rash" (the itchy skin kind, not the behavior kind.) I get to be part of all kinds of fun tasks and activities, and who knows what is in store for the next month!

Bonjour Dijon

Two and a half weeks ago, I was at home putting the final touches on a semester-long group project, proofreading our 60+ page proposal, getting ready for our final presentation, and not really thinking too specifically about my upcoming internship in France. In quick succession the unresolved elements of my life came together: we succeeded in subletting out our apartment for the whole time we’d be away, I’d finished off my final assignments one-by-one. Nate and I had worked out our travel plans: he, on tour until mid-July, will come to France afterwards for two weeks and we’ll return together. On the very last day of classes, after a successful presentation, I was offered and accepted the job I had been hoping to get for next year. Whew! The end-of-semester fog of stress cleared and it was time to pack.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in my little room here at the Tremouille Young Ladies’ Residence in Dijon, France, exhausted after 24 full hours of car-train-plane-bus-plane-bus-train-bus-train-taxi transit. The residence, mostly for students, is female-only (as you may have guessed from the name) and run by Catholics; the room décor and furniture are spartan and what I imagine to be nunnery-like. It’s clean, though, has common kitchens and lovely gardens and terraces, and best of all is very very cheap, which is important on my measly intern stipend. It felt great to unpack after carrying luggage all around all day in the 90 degree heat. Bedtime was early because of jetlag and to prepare for an early start to my first work day: 5 AM meeting time with a colleague to ride together to Paris to pick up two groups at the airport. Both groups are U.S. college students, participating in summer programs abroad at Burgundy School of Business, my employer for the next two months.

Last week, I was settling in. My supervisor, absent at a conference the previous week, had returned and given me lots of tasks. I was getting to know my colleagues and finally had a proper tour of the building where everyone was very nice and welcoming. My French is doing great and I’m having no trouble communicating. I had realized with a shock that I’ve been speaking this language for twenty years, and decided it’s time to stop worrying about the words I don’t know or don’t pronounce right. I was finally beginning to know the answers to some of the questions asked of me by the group: Where is the student restaurant? How do I access the wireless network? Why did it take so long for the waiter to bring my coffee? Where do I go to get medicine for this sore throat? What does that sign say?

This week, I’m taking on more responsibilities. A new group arrived yesterday, and I gave them an introduction to Dijon and a tour of the school, and tomorrow lead two groups on a visit to the Regional Counsel. I’m enjoying the little perks of the job, like the opportunity to participate in field trips and the occasional wine tasting. I like the way my involvement in these programs neatly connects my past and future careers: tourism and education abroad. Of course, my clothing and shoes are all wrong and with no budget for shopping I will have to resign myself to always looking like a foreigner…but I don’t mind so much.

For photos of my first couple of weeks, click here.

Sharp knives and hot oil at 1:30 AM

The first week of classes went well, I like all my professors and the classes seem interesting so far. Last night we went out with some classmates to celebrate the end of the first week. We started at a friend's house where we watched the debate. We made up our own very flexible rules for a debate drinking game, which included taking a drink any time:
-Obama said "Look" at the beginning of a sentence
-McCain said "Warshington" (or any mispronunciation)
-either candidate dropped names, especially of an Average Joe met on the campaign trail (hello, bracelets!)
-we felt like it

It was a good time, and from there we continued down to the local wine bar, which apparently becomes the local hip-hop club for the Barely Twenty-One crowd in Brattleboro on weekends. Given their raging youthful hormones perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised that a fistfight nearly broke out in the bar, requiring four police officers and a state trooper to intervene. That was a good sign that it was time to go home.

In a larger city, a long night out might call for a visit to the local greasy pizza place, greasy kebab shop, or (my favorite) greasy french fry stand, but sadly none of these are available here. So we decided to go home and make our own greasy snack. It perhaps was not such a wise decision to handle sharp knives and hot cooking oil after consuming a number of alcoholic beverages, but we went for it anyway...and it was GREAT.

Our fries took only about 20 minutes and were flavorful and delicious. Here's how to do it:
1. Cut two potatoes into french fry strips, as thick or thin as you want.
2. Pour about an inch of cooking oil in a deep pan, and heat it on medium
3. Put a couple of tablespoons of flour, some salt and pepper, garlic powder, and any other flavorings you want into a brown paper bag. Add the potatoes and shake it all around.
4. When the oil is hot, put the potatoes in the pan (careful not to splash yourself) and cook them, flipping, poking and rotating so they cook evenly and don't stick together, until they're a nice golden-brown.
5. Drain the fries on several paper towels, then put them in another brown paper bag while still hot. Add salt, and shake them all around again.
6. Scarf them down ravenously, preferably with mayonnaise, but ketchup and mayo mixed works too. Yum!

Photographic evidence

It's a quiet weekend here. Nate is in Charlottesville celebrating his friend Nick's 30th birthday, and I am working on my first two papers for school. One is done (and was submitted this afternoon) and the other one should be fairly easy, so it's not a stressful time here.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and we hiked up Mt. Wantastiquet, the local peak just across the river in New Hampshire. It was a nice hike and the view was beautiful:


(See the white buildings in the center of the photo? That's my school.)

We're lucky to have had beautiful weather most of the time since we've moved here. Last weekend we picked apples, a fine New England tradition. Can you see me in the tree?


I finally uploaded some photos from our move. Here's one of our long and narrow room. Thankfully, it looks a lot better now:


To see more photos of the apartment and our weekend adventures, check out my photoset on Flickr.

First week

Friday marked the end of the first week of classes for me in my re-entry into academic life. Actually, it's a kind of strange segue from work to school, because here we have one intensive course all day every day for the first week. So, less than a month after leaving my job I find myself on an 8:30-5:30 schedule again! But luckily the day is broken up into lectures, activities, group work, and discussion, so the tedium of all-day class is kept at a minimum. (Of course, it doesn't keep me from nearly falling asleep at least once per day). The point of the class is to understand theories about working in multicultural groups. To do so, each class is divided into small work groups. I got very lucky and got a really great, nice group. We work together well and have a lot of fun. That's definitely made this week much easier.

In our studies and class discussion of team work, sometimes I have to laugh because we are covering so many topics that I find extremely relevant to my past work experience. In fact, we even used some of the vocabulary that was used in a work retreat I attended with my department at Penn State this past May. Luckily, the environment is so different, that concepts which seemed completely cheesy and stupid when presented in May (to a highly cynical group of co-workers) seem to make complete sense and be extremely useful in this supportive academic environment.

In other updates, I got a work-study job at the library, which is good. It's not a typical library front-desk job, where I might have time to do some homework, but it's a very flexible job for which I can define my own hours each week. I registered for four classes which will start next week, and I'm pretty pleased with my class schedule. I have Fridays free and on Mondays my class doesn't start until 6:15 PM.

I've been taking the bus to school, which is really easy, and free for me since I'm a student. I have about a 5-minute walk to the bus stop, so that will make it easy in the winter when I can avoid driving in the deep Vermont snow. So far Nate seems to be enjoying being a stay-at-home boyfriend, with financial stability for at least a couple of months from his work as a Tour Director this summer. We picked up a few more items for the house yesterday, like a small bookcase and an ironing board, but hopefully that will be the last time for a while that we haul heavy items up to our 3rd floor home. We also bought a rocking chair at the Salvation Army and are pretty psyched to have that! I'm already envisioning cold winter evenings in the rocking chair with a glass of wine, a blanket, and the cat on my lap. Nice. Oh, yeah, and a few books to read and papers to write, too. But let's not worry about that just yet.

Milestones

It's been a great summer for me, and there is a lot of news to update. I'm writing from my new home in Brattleboro, VT, where I begin orientation for a Master's program tomorrow. I was at Penn State for two years, which was about enough for me--I worked with fun people and enjoyed having students around all the time, but the bureaucracy of a large university was not a good fit for me so it was time to move on. I had a great summer in State College and moved away just as classes were starting so it was perfect timing for me.

Of course there are a lot of changes afoot here in Distant Wanderings land: the move brought with it lots of tasks like packing and loading trucks, changing addresses, setting up cable and electricity, finding the grocery stores, drilling holes for shelves and hooks, and the obligatory trip to Ikea. Although I've done this process before, this time it had a new and exciting twist to the process because I did it all with a partner. My boyfriend Nate decided to move to Vermont with me, and we moved in together on the 5-month anniversary of the day we met. I suppose that's pretty fast, but it feels like the right decision for us and we are loving it!

I am really glad to work together with Nate on everything from storage of pots and pans to measuring windows for curtains to scrubbing the greasy stains off of the oven and stove. But at the same time, it makes me pretty amazed at the independent woman I've become in my years of living alone. As we arrange the bedroom furniture I marvel at the memory of setting up the bed at my new apartment last year and moving the dresser across the room, both tasks accomplished by myself. I am proud of the skills I have developed over the years, like hooking up stereo speakers and measuring and drilling holes to hang things on the walls. But it's really nice, and a lot more fun, to be able to share these tasks with someone else.

Our apartment is "quirky" to say the least. It's the attic of a 3-story Victorian house, and comes with slanted, low ceilings, bizarrely shaped closet space and unwieldy "nooks" in some of the rooms that pose a definite challenge in the decoration department. The main room is about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide (although the ceiling starts to slant down after only 5 feet or so). I think we have done a great job at engineering the room so far, and it is now divided into three sections: a living room, a dining room/kitchen extension, and what we are calling the "sunroom" - a kind of ironic name since although the apartment boasts windows facing all four cardinal points, the sunroom's window is the sole window facing north and therefore receiving the least direct sunlight.

There's lots of work to be done, but I'm having a really good time doing it. We're also really excited to explore our now hometown, which is a really liberal, earthy, hippie type of place. We are only a block from downtown, which is full of little shops and cafes and a surprising collection of international restaurants for such a small place. One of our biggest joys so far has been the ability to buy wine and beer in the grocery store! After two years in PA, where liquor and beer are sold in separate government-sponsored stores (and in fact, there are two kinds of beer stores depending on the quantity you want to buy) this is such a relief that it almost left more of an impression than the wonderful farmer's market, the variety of activities and events going on around town and the plethora of hiking/walking trails accessible from just a couple blocks from our apartment.

This year promises to be exciting, challenging, probably difficult at times, but hopefully fun throughout. I hope to blog more frequently (but, luckily for you, less long-windedly) about all of the things that are going on in my life. I hope you'll stay tuned!

On the Road

May and June have been a pretty crazy month for me. In the past four weeks, I've been in eleven states (plus DC), slept in eleven different places, and racked up more than 2,600 miles on my odometer (I don't even want to think about how much the gas cost for those miles). I've had a lot of fun, though, and the fact that I have no road trips planned for the near future makes me feel almost ancy.

Some highlights of the New England roadtrip:

• Visiting former Bates haunts with old friends, climbing Mount David and eating brunch in Commons (it was New Commons, but the French toast still tastes the same).
• Camping in ME and VT with Nate, discovering Burlington (a very cool city) and exploring shops and neighborhoods in Brattleboro, planning for my move there in September.
• Swimming in Lake Champlain to cool down from the 95-degree heat (yes, even in Vermont!)
• Kicking off the summer season floating in Candlewood Lake, bonding with my family over gin and tonics and cheese and crackers.
• Wading in Kent Falls.
• Revisiting my youth by playing on the tank and dancing old-timey style in the bandstand on the green in New Milford.
  
• Rediscovering beautiful New England and getting excited about living there again!

The trip was a blast from beginning to end, although the one low point came when I realized I had lost my camera. (Yes, some of you may remember this is the second time this has happened to me, don't remind me, I'm kicking myself really hard for being so absent-minded). So I've had to borrow photos from other people to show off my adventures.

From Basil: Alison and Henry and I in front of Old Commons, feeling nostalgic for the small and middle rooms.


From Nate:
Where did I go to college?


Overlooking the Connecticut River in Brattleboro:


Ice Cream Mecca!


Who took that?


Oh, and we also learned a little bit about Maine's own Moxie soda:

Road trips!

Today is the first day in two months that I've spent at home, alone, with no agenda or plans or responsibilities. It's wonderful! I took two naps already.

May and June are very busy months for me, and I'll be spending a good amount of time traveling. Recently, I've been spending some quality time with my car, and in the next couple of weeks I'll be spending even more time driving. This past week the driving was mostly a bad experience. For future reference, the next time I suggest that it will just be easier to drive to Washington, DC, then New York, then back home again, remind me that IT WILL NOT. I should take the bus or train like other normal people. The combined travel time for these three legs of the journey should be about 12 or 13 hours, and yet from Tuesday through Friday I spent 19 hours driving, and about $30 in tolls. The terrible traffic I encountered and moments of getting lost in unfamiliar places could be described as a comedy of errors, and yet it WASN'T FUNNY. I was so relieved to get home on Friday night that I've been content to do absolutely nothing this weekend.

Other than this trip, the rest of the summer's road trips should be lots of fun. The good times started on Memorial Day weekend, which was a really fun weekend spent with Nate. First we hiked local landmark Mount Nittany, and on Sunday we embarked on a GeoDate. We took out a Pennsylvania Atlas, flipped a coin to choose between the pages in the vicinity of where we live, and then threw a dart at the chosen page to determine our destination. The winner? Yarnell, PA, a place so small, it's not actually a town at all! Along with nearby Rhoads, Fetzertown, Runville, and Dry Top, Yarnell is included in Boggs Township, population 2,783.

View Larger Map
It was a sunny day, and we parked at the church, were greeted by several local dogs and had a picnic by a small stream. Afterwards, we stopped in at Jack's Snack Shack for ice cream, and asked the owner, Ed, about any local attractions not to be missed. We also clarified the correct pronunciation of the town's name (according to Ed: "yar-NELL. It used to be called YAR-nell, but over the years, I'm not sure why, it changed to the more fancy pronunciation of yar-NELL.")

Ed suggested we head up Devil's Elbow road to see the "engine" carved into the rock. Ed's particularly rural pronunciation at first shocked me into expecting a silhouette of a Native American tribesman of some kind, and I was relieved to realize that he meant a train locomotive. A local attraction, the train was carved in the 1800s but its artist and reason for being seem lost to history and subject of some local speculation.

(Photo by Nate)
The train was pretty interesting, and while checking it out we met two families who had come to show their kids the train and go on a Geocaching excursion. Geocaching, which was a new concept to me, is a worldwide hobby for GPS and exploring enthusiasts. Containers are hidden, their coordinates and details written up online for other geocachers to seek them out. These sleuths sign a logbook and take and/or leave trinkets to be later deposited in other geocaches in other locations. (Oh, and for the record, Nate and I were calling our day a GeoDate even before we met the GeoCachers!)

This turned into a fortuitous meeting, because our new friends told us about a local spring where we could fill up our water bottles, and pointed us towards another Geocache at a historic church about a half-hour away. Thus we continued the adventure, seeing more beautiful countryside, learning about some local history and finding another treasure trove.


I highly recommend the GeoDate as a great way to get to know someplace (or someone) new, especially on a beautiful, sunny day at the end of spring. In fact, we plan to use the dart-throwing technique in another week during our New England road trip through Maine and Vermont. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Peru Part Four: In which we rough it on a beautiful island and I get ready to return home

At times during the past couple of weeks, I´ve thought wistfully of what must be the pleasant early-May weather back home. But I have never yearned for May flowers quite as much as in the past few evenings spent on the coast of Lake Titicaca. It´s bone-chillingly cold up there, and alpaca mittens and leg warmers can only go so far to warm one up. Despite this, we had a great trip out to visit three islands in the lake. The first was actually a group of man-made islands formed from reeds. The islands are soft and squishy and the inhabitants (when not selling trinkets to boatloads of tourists) live a very traditional life.

From there we moved on to Isla Amantaní, where we spent the night at the home of a local family. Theirs is a very rustic home: although we did have actual beds to sleep on, there was only an outhouse, no running water that we could detect, and no electricity. No electricity means no heat and no heat means sleeping all bundled up in full winter regalia including aforementioned alpaca goods, plus winter hat and ski coat, covered with two alpaca wool blankets. But add to that the stillness of a vehicle-free and tranquil island, the contented exhaustion at the end of a day of hiking to explore its scenic hilltop temples, the sound of gentle waves lapping at the shore, and overall it was a beautiful place to spend the night. The next day we visited Isla Taquile, another beautiful spot, but one whose lasting impression will always be the 500 steps leading up from the port to the town. The other night, we went to a bar and Marco and I wanted to dance, but felt winded after just one song. These are the effects at 12,000 feet of altitude, so imagine what 500 steps can do!

Now I´m back in Cusco, wandering its pretty streets and killing time until my flight tomorrow. Marco and Edward are in Arequipa, but they arrive in Lima tomorrow, at the same time as I arrive for my seven-hour layover, so we plan to meet up and explore the city together, at least for a little while.

It´s been a great trip, full of challenges and lots of fun, but I´m definitely ready to go home again.

Here are some photo highlights of the last few days:

Playing house with a couple of local girls on the floating islands, and (as usual) having some fun with my flip-screen camera:


Our house and outhouses on Amantaní (the green one is a squatter toilet--just a hole in the ground with two places to put your feet--and given the state of the actual toilet, I´ve never been so happy to see one of those.)


Group picture at the top of Isla Taquile´s 500 killer steps:


Oh, and did I mention I ate guinea pig?