Pensées

don't you love how fucking pretentious my french subject headings are? or maybe they're really not, because according to my cultural immersion EVERYONE IN THE WORLD SHOULD KNOW FRENCH. fuck espagnol with its less complex pronunciation. with an added pssh, because the french don't do pssh, but i'm sure that they'd welcome it if they were aware of it.

anyway, instead of cutesy anecdotes, and that thar stuff i done did, i'm opting a little reflection.

humility and study abroad. absolutely an unavoidable marriage if you experience this whole cultural immersion thing. i have a really good life here but i haven't had it easy. if i think about it, it isn't terribly easy to have to construct sentences in advance of saying them instead of well, just saying them. thoughts have to be simplified and unambiguous; with my language skills right now, i can't really afford or actually be profound or necessarily express what i want to express on a daily basis. but i can't emphasize how good a thing this is for me, as a kid who dabbles in egotism and being a damn good speaker of our fine english language.

besides the extra effort i have to carry out on a daily basis with the simple conveyance of thoughts through language, there's also the extreme self- consciousness of being a foriegner in a place that is not my home, although attempting to call it home for a short while. i always feel as if i'm being found out on a daily basis, and any little tic will expose my americanness. not necessarily in the sense that the french hate americans, because they don't, just that as an american, i ain't like everyone else here. i'm an alien. a foreigner. not a tourist, but someone who is struggling to LIVE day by day in a foriegn place as opposed to vacationing somewhere and living as a spectator of the fantastic little different things one comes across while in a different place.

when you study abroad, in order to make this experience worth something (worth something in the sense that i am GODDAMNED lucky to be doing this as i know so many people who don't have the means, or maybe the idea that it is something worth doing) I CAN'T afford to be a spectator. and a consummate wallflower, i've gotten by a lot of the time spectating and commenting. i have to live this if i want to bring myself up to actually living here. it applies to my language as well. i can't watch and wait until i know the subjunctive so well that i feel confident enough to use it. i have to jump in and fuck up in order to ever learn.

along with spectating, i have to use this experience as an exercise against complacency. i love geneseo and i miss its people and the ease of life dearly, but i'd say that i've had a complacent three years at school. and that's fantastic, it's great to have an easy life. it's great to be well- spoken and not afraid to speak up when the majority of my peers might have a little more trepidation doing so. also, it's great to be differently, or fuck that, well- dressed, when the majority of my peers have access only to malls. thus superficially and oh so deep down, it's easy to be my own ego bolstering self in g-town.

here, i ain't nobody. and that where it has to be.

it's as if i've got to hold my own against a powerful wave of what i'm not used to. if i'm complacent and wishy- washy, i'll easily get knocked down. if i hold too strong to what i've been grounded in, and dig my toes in the sand, i indeed will stay right where i am and won't change a bit. i've just got to be flexible enough and be ready to swallow a little bit of salt water in order to ride this wave home.

fuck me i'm good. i can still afford to have an ego in english. bitches.


in addition, we are awful pleased with franz' latest effort. didn't like it at first, but rampant references to brooklyn, biblical allegory, and emphasis on BLOOD AND DESTRUCTION make me smile.