Song of the moment: God's Bathroom Floor- Atmosphere
Dose of amusement: As I gladly return to embrace my caffeine addiction, these might help you kick yours
Foucault quote of the day: "There is no need for arms, physical violence, which each individual under its weight will end by interiorizing to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual thus exercising this surveillance over, and against, himself. A superb formula: power exercised continuously and for what turns out to be a minimal cost."
Well I'm not going to lie, I doubt that the title of this post is correct but either way today sure made me love Spanish.
Fortunately, I have managed to find a time to eat breakfast when no one else comes, so I can just read and eat in solitude without having to utter I don't speak French. I've grown rather weary of the word. Regardless, today was a much better day! The woman who speaks spanish worked again and we had such a good conversation, my spanish is ridiculously rusty but speaking with her made me feel fluent because I was finally able to ask all these questions that the french language barrier had prevented. I saved myself some money by explaining to her how the other women kept telling me I need to pay 40 euro, the annual fee to the library but since I would only be there for two weeks it was cheaper for me to pay the weekly fee, which the other women didn't understand. She also finally helped me find a huge section of audio tapes and another Foucault book section I didn't even know existed. It was just so wonderful to talk to someone and be understood. Coming here has really made life a lot simpler in the happiness department. If someone understands me, then I consider it to be a good day. I always forget life's small but pleasurable daily victories.
I also met a scholar at lunch who spoke english and was so nice to me. Sadly, she was only at the library for that day. And even though she had a ton of work to do, she told me to please ask her for help if there was anything I didn't understand. It was just the nicest thing in the world. I didn't trouble her because the offer was enough to make my day.
Finally, in my third and proudest communication victory of the day I made a friend! The chef I had mentioned earlier, who clarified that contrary to popular belief I'm not hired help, had several nice conversations with me in english. We talked and laughed, and I realized that it is something I haven't done in days: had a real conversation with someone. I know, this serves me right for being far too talkative for my own good all my life.
Before dinner I sat out in the garden an read. It was absolutely beautiful. All the pics I've included today are from it, so you can check it out for yourself. The chef also told me that all the fruits and vegetables they use to cook come from the garden, isn't that awesome?
Today has also led me to believe that the dinner hour is a torture device. Honestly, it is just cruel for me to sit for an hour and fifteen minutes only understanding the last names of my favorite authors! Foucault, Sartre, Camus, Deleuze, Derrida...It's like a contest to see how many of my favorite authors they can name and discuss and I have no idea what they're saying. Regardless, I just sit in silence the entire time and wish I understood. Now if Paul is out there reading this, I know he's saying to himself "it's about damn time you learned to keep your mouth shut for that long woman." Ah yes perhaps he is right; as the juliana theroy says "the silence is a secret, a weapon in disguise, listen to the silence, open up your eyes." Oh well, even though I feel I have taken a vow of silence for two weeks, I agree as does each one of you who knows me, that it's probably a good thing :p As a side note- the French are ridiculously polite at dinner. Before eating anything, they first offer to serve everyone else and everyone waits for the rest to finish a course before moving on to the next one. This only worsens my predicament because I really want to be polite and offer them things but I don't know how to, so my inadequacy is mistaken for rudeness. I've tried gesturing inquisitively with the wine bottle but sometimes they don't understand. I have also learned that salad is eaten after the main course, I must have missed the memo on that.
Well sorry for a lack luster email, hopefully the beauty of the garden will compensate for my sleepiness.
