There are two types of music I like to listen to while riding my bike. No, not Country AND Western. Happy and Angry. Seems kind of contradictory on the surface, but it really makes perfectly good sense. Carefully molding my Pandora radio station named after a song by Meredith Brooks that rhymes with "itch", has brought the perfect mixture of both happy and angry-sounding songs that has minimized the need to give song after song the thumbs down. Granted, every song has something to do with either breaking up or not being able to get what you want. But how can one be disappointed when Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" is immediately followed by Sublime's "Santeria." I mean, really. Today, my bike ride was rewarded with two Yael Naim songs. The first, the ever smile-inducing "New Soul"; the other, a song sung totally in French and completely un-understandable to me, but makes me happy, nonetheless, "Paris".
Hearing those French lyrics made me think of my beloved Paris and how I miss it so. The street markets with the litany of medieval shops--patisseries, fromageries, boucheries, etc, etc. The pleasant surprises like the Rodin museum that we would not have discovered if it had not been on our Paris pass. The sleazy, windy and yet, historical streets of Montmartre. The gardens. The never ending gardens, each with a pond surrounded by children piloting toy sail boats. Ah. I miss it. Time to go back. Hearing these lyrics sung in a thick, French, Grrrrrrttttttttthhhhhhhhh accent, also made me think about that one time, in French class when I proved myself the worst French student ever.
It was fall semester at Purdue. There was a conversational French class being offered at the International Center. I decided it would be a nice distraction and accompanied my friend, Monika, to class every week. Monika was taking the class because she had taken a job in Paris and needed to learn the language. I took it because, for one, I thought I would actually become Juliet Binoche after one semester, and two, I knew Monika would not stick it out without moral support. So, there I went, once a week, to embarrass myself. One episode, in particular, is unforgettable. We were learning (or supposed to be learning) the phonetic difference between similar words and I just was not getting it. Stuck on mispronouncing un (one) versus un (a or an), I went round and round with the instructor and never got it. It went on for what seemed an eternity. She repeating "un" and "un", and me repeating it back. This was followed by my patient instructor shaking her head and exclaiming, "No, no no! Der ees a diff-er-a-ance! Don't you heeeer it?" After each interrogation, I had to admit that no, I did not hear the difference.
Un. Un. No! Un. Un. No! Etc, etc, etc. After a while I began to wonder why the CIA ever thought to sit suspects in a room for hours on end with Metallica blasting, when they could have achieved the same effect in less time with a persistent conversational French instructor determined to get the worst student in the class to hear the difference between un and un. I was so flustered, that when it was my turn to read aloud from our workbook, I mistakenly said "por favor" instead of "s'il vous plait." The class got a good chuckle out of this; especially the star student show off seated across from me. But this further reminded me of the first time we went to Paris. The week before, I had a recurring dream that when we got there, I kept speaking Spanish instead of French (I know neither fluently). In reality, my dream came back to haunt me, as every time I started to say "s'il vous plait" in Paris, I had "por favor" on the tip of my tongue. The end result was me never saying "please" once during this first visit, and surely earning the title of rudest American tourist ever. Bonne nuit.
Hearing those French lyrics made me think of my beloved Paris and how I miss it so. The street markets with the litany of medieval shops--patisseries, fromageries, boucheries, etc, etc. The pleasant surprises like the Rodin museum that we would not have discovered if it had not been on our Paris pass. The sleazy, windy and yet, historical streets of Montmartre. The gardens. The never ending gardens, each with a pond surrounded by children piloting toy sail boats. Ah. I miss it. Time to go back. Hearing these lyrics sung in a thick, French, Grrrrrrttttttttthhhhhhhhh accent, also made me think about that one time, in French class when I proved myself the worst French student ever.
It was fall semester at Purdue. There was a conversational French class being offered at the International Center. I decided it would be a nice distraction and accompanied my friend, Monika, to class every week. Monika was taking the class because she had taken a job in Paris and needed to learn the language. I took it because, for one, I thought I would actually become Juliet Binoche after one semester, and two, I knew Monika would not stick it out without moral support. So, there I went, once a week, to embarrass myself. One episode, in particular, is unforgettable. We were learning (or supposed to be learning) the phonetic difference between similar words and I just was not getting it. Stuck on mispronouncing un (one) versus un (a or an), I went round and round with the instructor and never got it. It went on for what seemed an eternity. She repeating "un" and "un", and me repeating it back. This was followed by my patient instructor shaking her head and exclaiming, "No, no no! Der ees a diff-er-a-ance! Don't you heeeer it?" After each interrogation, I had to admit that no, I did not hear the difference.
Un. Un. No! Un. Un. No! Etc, etc, etc. After a while I began to wonder why the CIA ever thought to sit suspects in a room for hours on end with Metallica blasting, when they could have achieved the same effect in less time with a persistent conversational French instructor determined to get the worst student in the class to hear the difference between un and un. I was so flustered, that when it was my turn to read aloud from our workbook, I mistakenly said "por favor" instead of "s'il vous plait." The class got a good chuckle out of this; especially the star student show off seated across from me. But this further reminded me of the first time we went to Paris. The week before, I had a recurring dream that when we got there, I kept speaking Spanish instead of French (I know neither fluently). In reality, my dream came back to haunt me, as every time I started to say "s'il vous plait" in Paris, I had "por favor" on the tip of my tongue. The end result was me never saying "please" once during this first visit, and surely earning the title of rudest American tourist ever. Bonne nuit.
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