The W: A Rambling Study of Photoless Blogging

Sunrise Today:
7:57am

French Vocabulary Lesson:
claquettes - flip flops
acariâtre - cantaknerous

You'll notice a few things about this blog post. First: the brief account of practical knowledge prefacing the body of this literary chef d'œuvre. I have my reasons. To explain the second item first (because I'm all about digressions and convolutedness), I've been keeping a running list of the new words I'm learning. I haven't recorded all of them, but I have made a point of noting words that I find particularly useful and/or amusing. (Case in point: above.) The former item, the sunrise time, relates to a brief anecdote from the week:

My courses at the University of Nantes started this week, and my very first class (The Literary History of the 19th Century) commenced at 8:00am on Tuesday morning. Factoring in the 15 minute walk to the tram, the amount of time I would spend waiting for and riding the tram, the walk to the building, and the inevitable time I would spend being lost, I decided to leave myself a generous hour to get from home to class. In other words, I planned to leave at 7:00am. Much to my chagrin, the sky was absolutely pitch black when my alarm sounded at 6:00am. Figuring the sun would start to rise as I slouched through the necessary morning ablutions, I hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Half an hour passed and I was dressed. Fifteen minutes later I had eaten breakfast (I've been doing that here). That adds up to forty five minutes, and even in the time it took me to calculate that sum, the sky remained decidedly, stubbornly dark.

I checked the weather: no rain. I checked my email: nothing doing. I read the newspaper online: that was depressing. Finally, I googled "global sunrise times" and discovered that the sun did not plan to grace Nantes with its presence until nearly 8:00am. So, at 7:10, I plunged into the night of morning. While the walk to the tram doesn't take me down any sketchy alleyways or narrow streets, it's long, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little afraid. Although I generally feel quite safe here, there are times when I am rudely reminded that I am a woman traveling in a foreign country. Sometimes, the young men here think it's okay to slink up to me while I'm staring at the ground waiting for the tram in the evening and shove their faces into my line of vision, forcing me into the eye-contact I've been told to avoid. It's no real threat, but it's a display of power -- no, machismo -- that I find quite off-putting. But, I digress.

Fortunately, though the sky could have been a 2:00am sky, the streets were what anyone might expect of pre-rush-hour morning streets. Businesspeople, uniformed school children, bedraggled university students. Soon, I was reveling in the crisp air of an autumn morning in Nantes. Crammed into my tram car with all the other morning commuters, I watched the sunrise. The sky turned purple, then pink, and was still working on blue by the time I found the amphitheater for my class. Moral of the story: the sun rises very late here. I find this both disturbing and amusing. I would like to document the gradual decrease of daylight hours here in Nantes, and I'd like to take you along for the ride -- hence the sunrise report.

In the spirit of digressions and disorderliness (and postmodernism), before I continue with my linear narrative, I'll briefly point out (and explain) another thing you might notice (or have noticed) about this entry (aside from my excessive use of parentheses...but that's not too out of the ordinary, anyway, is it?). There are no photos. I have no new photos to show you right now. Last Saturday night, I had a serious case of "The Plunge," as depicted in a graphical representation of "The W" earlier in this blog. Therefore, I did not go out with my friends or make plans with them for Sunday (no Planetarium, in the end). As much as I love it here, and as happy as I am with my friends and with Marie, sometimes a girl's just gotta cry.

Things took a turn for the better on Sunday, which I spent with Marie. I hope that these Sundays we spend together continue. This past Sunday, we went to two exhibitions in Nantes: a photo exhibit at Lieu Unique -- or LU, that's right the original Lefevre-Utile, LU cookie factory that's been converted into a bar/art space. Nantes: home to the industrial chic avant garde. Among the displays, there was an incredibly disturbing display on domestic slavery and violence, but I also found the artistic activism of the whole piece to be incredibly refreshing. Each panel comprised a simple photo of the façade of a building on one side, and one woman's story of abuse on the other. It made me feel how easily a façade of normalcy can conceal abuse and how sometimes closed doors are all it takes to deter prying eyes. It was a bit much for me in my fragile, W-ridden emotional state, but I'm glad I saw it. LU also apparently hosts artists, and we stopped by the "studio" where the current artist-in-residence had been working on these enormous wall-sized sketches of a young boy. Really stunning.

After that, we went to Scopitone, a very new age exhibit in one of the hangars over on Ile de Nantes (not far from the Elephant). Most of the displays at Scopitone incorporated multimedia and had some interactive component. I won't even attempt to describe any of what I saw there, but you can check out the website if you're curious. (If you can't tell, I just figured out how to add hyperlinks to blog posts.)

Marie's nephew Arnault and his friend Sarah actually came with us, and that just added to the fun, since they're much closer to my age -- mid-20s. It was also totally refreshing to spend the day speaking French with real French people. I haven't done enough of that yet since I'm kind of scared of the university students, but I can tell I'm getting better. There's still a lot of practical vocabulary that I'm lacking, but I'm learning, and the people I speak to are patient enough to teach me -- and hey, Conversation Club started this week! It's about half IES students and half local French students; we break off into smaller groups, each with a discussion-leader (animateur) and spend half the time speaking in French and half in English. We met some really nice French people this week, and every time someone actually understands what I'm saying, I feel more confident in my speaking ability, which just makes me giddy to practice some more. For once, a productive cycle.

Now, we return to my classes -- but there's a logical segue! I still haven't gotten up the courage to strike up a conversation with any university students. On the bright side, I understood about 80% of what my professors said this week, and I'd say that's a pretty respectable portion for the first week of class. Two of my classes (Literary History and African History) are lecture (or CM) classes in huge amphitheaters. In the spirit of cultural relativism, I've tried not to let my small liberal arts school sensibilities get in the way. The professors are very smart and with each passing year I stand more in awe of educators who engage a room with their verbal essay-writing. I miss having professors who care about my opinions, but for the time being I'm just as happy to keep them to myself in a packed amphitheater. In fact, my smaller class (a TD) is by far the most intimidating. The professor allows the students to speak up and expects each of us to deliver an oral presentation at some point this semester... I don't want to talk about it. At any rate, we're reading 18th Century erotic literature and philosophy, and the salacious reading material is engaging and easy enough to understand, so I'm content. Incidentally, textbooks are so much cheaper in France!

I stand both in awe and horror at how much I have managed to write of the mundane facts of my existence (albeit, a French existence). I will conclude by informing you that I had my first Salsa class today (my ju-jitsu alternative) and I'm making progress, both dance-floor-deftness-wise and French-friend-making-wise.

Tomorrow, I will again wake up before sunrise for an IES excursion to Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo, just north of here. Photographic evidence of history and hijinks to come.

To my devoted readers who have gotten this far, I thank you and wish you the bonne-est of bonne nuits!