Oh Snow!

Well, apparently I can't get enough of the white stuff... Geneva is supposed to get 24 cm of snow in the next 24 hours, and I feel quite at home, like I never left Madison, at least from a climatic standpoint.  It did put a bit of a kink in things though, as the train route from Lausanne to Geneva is blocked.  For whatever weird reason, I left work a bit earlier today, thankfully, because when we got to Lausanne, a voice came over the loudspeaker and announced: "Ce train ne continuera pas jusqu'à Genève en raison d'un dérangement.  Veuillez descendre du train"  (This train will not continue to Geneve due to a disturbance (a.k.a. the SNOW).  Please get off the train.)

Oh dear, how will I get home to Geneva, I wondered?  That would be one hefty taxi fare.  All of a sudden, all the people who had just gotten off the train with me were running toward platform 6... we clamored to get on the InterRegio train, which promised to bring us to Geneva, albeit an hour later than expected.  All told, my commute took two hours and forty minutes on the way back today, rather than an hour and forty minutes.  The plus side?  I got to see lots of little villages that I wouldn't have seen otherwise (Morges, Nyon, Gland).  And it felt a bit like I was riding through a Christmas card, even if I was standing up squished into the empty space between two cars like a sardine for a lot of that extra hour. 

Tomorrow... SNOW DAY!  Which means I will write.  A lot.  For the diss. And have tea while I look out my window at the falling snowflakes...

Interesting Sales Tactics

And now for the funniest story from the Barcelona trip.  It was not the champagne-drinking birthday crew on the Easy Jet flight, nor the sweet French/Spanish bilingual little boy Maxime asking me... "Vous avez des enfants?" and "Pourquoi venez-vous en Espagne?" (though that was probably the cutest story of the journey), nor the crowds of older Spanish folks holding hands and dancing time-tested steps on a public square.

Oh no... this story is a tale of a Foot Locker employee's brilliant marketing skills.  The story begins with my need to find basketball shoes cheaper than I might find them in Geneva, where everything is ridiculously expensive (i.e. $250-$300 for b-ball shoes).  On Friday nights, I shoot hoops at the University's Centre Sportif Universitaire, and I am hooked.  I might be a little "nulle en attaque" (horrible at offense), but I love the game.  My old running shoes had me sliding all over the place when we had to do suicide sprints (oh yeah, we're core), so I knew I would want to find a pair eventually.  Carina and Felipe suggested we hit a few Spanish department stores, but there were no basketball shoes for women to speak of.  Felipe suggested Foot Locker--it's an American store!  They are sure to have them.

I roll in the store on my own, while Felipe and Carina printed pictures.  I perused the shoes on display but decided to be brave and ask a salesperson for help... starting in Spanish, then going in to English, once I knew he could handle it.  I explained what I was looking for, and the transaction proceeded apace, as he asked my shoe size.  41.  Interesting sales tactic number one: Raised eyebrows at the mention of my giant foot, he gently explains... well, we don't have any women's shoes in that size.  The basketball shoes we have though, they're all unisex, so don't worry about that.  You just want a shoe that fits.  I laughed, saying I knew my feet were large, and he said, no, no, it's really the Spanish women who are the anomaly: they have really small feet.  Good save, Jordi, the sale is not yet lost.

We stroll over to the selection of basketball shoes, almost all of which look decidedly masculine.  I will NOT be buying the LeBron James model, thank you very much, though the Jordans are tempting, more because they promise to make me fly and score mad points than for aesthetic reasons.  Then there's a pair of straight-up, practical, black Nikes... not too expensive and expressly made for basketball.  Yes, we'll try those and the Jordans, gracias, and the other glaring neon green monstrosities will be for some other unwitting customer.

Interesting sales tactic number two: Jordi returns with the big honking shoes, and I try them on.  Felipe has returned from photo developing and is there to offer his opinion.  I'm not sure how I feel about the black ones... are they comfortable enough, can I run around and potentially slam dunk (or at least score a simple layup)?  I'm not convinced.  So I try the Jordans.  I feel a bit like I'm an astronaut walking on the moon in these shoes... not so bad if I want to defy gravity? And this is where it gets interesting-- Jordi explains that the Jordans are not just for basketball, but really for walking the streets, a sort of status symbol... he'd go for the cheaper ones.  You know, Michael Jordan, the US, F**K the US, who needs the status!  The black ones, they're especially made for basketball.  Wait a minute, did a salesperson just say F**K the US to an American? (And how did he NOT know I was American with my non-British English accent?)  I laugh nervously, not sure if I heard correctly... a bit stunned, I look at Felipe, equally stunned, this time HIS eyebrows raised, not Jordi's.  I pretend to be a Harlem Globetrotter a bit, and I'm feeling the black ones more now.  I tell Jordi so, and I say, yeah, I'm American, but no Jordans for me.  Interesting sales tactic number three: Jordi covers his face with embarrassment, then says... typical Spanish joke, F**K the US!  You know?  F**K Spain!

Well, that convinced me.  I bought the shoes... and some socks, too, and as Jordi walked to the cash register with my purchases, his co-workers murmured in admiration: He's a professional... I laughed and said yeah, he's a REAL professional.  Jordi sheepishly grinned.  His co-workers just didn't know the code word for selling to Americans.

Post-script to this story... this is exactly why we need good language teachers.  Pragmatics.  What is appropriate to say and when.  This guy clearly didn't get that during the slang lesson.

On kindreds and "âmes soeurs"... reflections in Barcelona...

This past weekend I traveled to Barcelona to reunite with two of my dearest friends from my first year abroad, Felipe Welsch and Carina Haldenwanger.  It had been eight years since I had seen Felipe and four years since I had seen Carina (we reunited in Morocco a while back and had also seen each other in Montpellier before that...).  In any case, the point of the story is, that while "things" change--we've all moved on in our lives, moved around, worked different jobs... and they even got married (to each other!)--some things just never change.  It was such a joy to be in their presence again... we had lots to catch up on, and then there were also the contented, comfortable silences born of just being together.  The weekend really wasn't about touring the city too much (Carina and I had done that when we came to Barcelona the first time when we were living in Montpellier :)), though we did some... it was lovely to see the Mediterranean and enjoy the energy of a city by the ocean.  It is amazing what a temperate climate can do for the soul!  It was more about enjoying each other's company (and lots of great food!) and talking about things that matter, as we always did before.

It called to mind a passage I read in Khalil Gibran's The Prophet, which I sent to my kindreds before I left Madison...

"And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. 
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered. 
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. 
And he is your board and your fireside. 
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. 

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay." 
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. 
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. 
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. 

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. 
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? 
Seek him always with hours to live. 
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. 
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. 
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches (tomorrow!), I'm thankful for the friends in my life to whom I give my best and who give me their best in return... for the friends who enrich my life with meaning and are willing to ponder the important questions with me (even if they don't necessarily have the answers)... for the friends I am sad to leave but whom I know are never far from my heart... for the new friends I have discovered who make me feel at home... for the friends I know I will find again, and it will be just the same as always.  What a wonderful gift!

More train philosophy...

Apparently, the commute to Bern provides endless fodder for blog entries.  This past week, I ran into a friend at the train station (Bernard--he's an older gentleman in my theater workshop, a retired physics professor from the Université de Genève who enjoys talking about philosophy and religion.  We bond.), and this made the hour and forty minute ride fly by.  Geneva is kinda like Madison in that you're sure to run into someone you know at some point throughout the day.  Further reinforces the whole "I am never lost" idea. 

The ride home was also interesting, as there were two people quietly reflecting on their commutes: one woman was peacefully reading the Bible, and one gentleman was peacefully reading his Qur'an.  I don't know if they even noticed each other, but I did, and again, it made me smile.   No conflict, no violence necessary.  Just communing with God, Allah, whatever you want to call the Supreme Being out there... in peace.  There's certainly a lesson in there somewhere. 

As for the lesson in Wednesday's train ride home... well, I was eating an early dinner on the train because I was going directly from Bern to a university lecture by Franco Moretti, and I went to throw away my garbage in the little trash cans provided underneath the fold-out tray tables.  Unseeing, I plunged my hand into a big pile of mustard, thrown away by a passenger who came before me.  The gentleman next to me, obviously amused and better prepared than I, offered me two tissues to clean up the mess.  Lessons from this particular encounter?  Look before you leap (or throw away your trash).  Think about the messes you are leaving your successors.  And thank goodness for random acts of kindness.

Seeing and Blindness

Every Tuesday and Wednesday I travel to Bern, and every day the commute is different.  The light seems to make Lac Léman shine a bit differently each time, sometimes there are groups of rowdy high school kids making their way to the nation's capital on a school trip, other times there are feisty jokers offering me coffee and poking fun at passengers, mouths open, softly snoring.

This past Wednesday, a blind gentleman sat down next to me in Geneva, and in Lausanne, a group of blind people and their companions joined him.  First of all, I was amazed that they found each other--there are just so MANY cars on a train.  I was typing away on my dissertation for a while, but I couldn't help but listen as they chattered about censorship for audio books.  I had no idea this existed, but they were very emphatic as they explained the situation: many blind folks listen to books on tape rather than read them in Braille, and a certain books on tape company decided not to record a book that had erotic material in it.  Fascinating.  Of course, hearing a book and reading it are two very different activities.  On one hand, there's a certain level of theater and performance involved; on the other, it's a very intimate, solitary activity--the voice in one's head reads all the words and characters, and no one risks hearing any racy material, since it's all enclosed somewhere in the safe confines of the skull. 

Aside from this conversation, which I quite enjoyed, the woman sitting across me was sharing her delight about taming the beast of the ticket machine on her own.  (Man!  Delighting in such simple things--which aren't so simple, when you don't have the gift of sight.  The machine is all touch screens.  Imagine!)  When the controller came around to check tickets, she proudly furnished hers, and the controller explained that she didn't need a ticket, since she was accompanied!  Apparently there's some Swiss law or regulation that allows a blind person to ride for free, if his/her companion buys a ticket.  He reimbursed her for the ticket on the spot, and she kept exclaiming how charming he was to do so!  She took the majority of the refund, but she asked, ever so politely, if it would be a case of corruption if she gave him the 3CHF in change that remained in thanks for his kindness.  You know, treat him to a coffee.  He sheepishly smiled and accepted the gift.  And it was one of those moments that made me happy I'm human.  Just people being nice to other people.  It happens all the time, on trains, if we can just open our eyes and look.

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur.  L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

Live like we're dying...

This past weekend I visited a dear friend from college who was visiting his aunt and uncle in Basel.  Unfortunately, the circumstances of his visit were not happy ones.  His aunt was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and his family made a special trip to be with her while they can.  As we wandered the streets of Basel, the conversation turned to the big question: If we ourselves were pronounced terminally ill, would we do anything different in terms of how we live our lives?

My friend's aunt has decided to continue to live her life as she has been all along.  No need to do a million things she hasn't done yet because she has lived her life with no regrets along the way, taking advantage of everything this life has to offer.

The question gave me pause for reflection... Do the people I care about most know it on a daily basis?  Am I happy with my profession, and do I feel like what I do matters?   Am I living my life fully?  As it stands at the moment, I think I am... and that makes me happy.  I think I could always do better at the first question, but I try to let my friends and family know I am here and that I love them. And ever since I decided to do the Ph.D. in French, I've been much happier professionally--it's opened many doors for me, introduced me to lifelong friends, and in general, I love being in the classroom and thinking about how French language and literature are relevant and pertinent today. 

Today of course, was a bit of a lazy day... the first in a long time.  And I think that's important, too.  Sometimes we need some time to just mellow out.  I don't want to be so busy that I can't enjoy the life I'm living either. 

Comfort...

It may serve as a comfort to us, in all our calamities and afflictions, that he that loses anything and gets wisdom by it is a gainer by the loss.

~L. Estrange Today I've been thinking a lot about things that cause discomfort and things that bring solace.  Discomfort is often caused by separation from the very things that comfort us most--family, friends, and loved ones who are our rocks in times of trouble, the routines of daily life that are known commodities--whether picking up staple items at the grocery store (yes, thank you, I know exactly what brands i want, and a lip gloss will not cost me $22) or getting a document printed at the university (about 40 minutes for my first print job at the UniGe... now that I've got things down, I think I can do it in 5-10).  Small, seemingly mundane things take on new meaning in an unfamiliar context.   A few things that have brought me comfort in the past few days?  My discovery of Lay's potato chips, peanut butter, and M&Ms available for purchase in Bern (I know--ridiculous items, horribly bad for me, but alas... I'm American. :))  Tea and real conversation with a kindred.  Halloween festivities with new friends.  The promise of a real, homemade Thanksgiving meal.  Skype/gmail conversations with my besties.  Sunset over Lac Léman. Then there's the news of the mid-term elections... Russ Feingold didn't get re-elected?  The House is now dominated by the Republicans, while the Senate remains controlled by the Democrats?  A country divided. Hardly comforting news, this.    But maybe there is some comfort in it after all--America is founded on a democracy, and the people have spoken.  I don't agree with "the people's" decision, but then again it's their right to vote, and my right to disagree with the outcome.  We have a right to express our opinions freely (unlike some countries), and America has sent a message.  And those of us who don't agree with the message should take heed.  As Estrange says, if we lose and gain wisdom, then our loss is gain.  It's change we can believe in.  There are still two years to work to correct the damage wrought by previous administrations... and doing that together is the only way to succeed, really.  All politics aside. On a personal note, I am continuing to embrace all that Switzerland has to offer, transforming my temporary loss of country and "dépaysement" into wisdom (hopefully! though I'm not planning on growing a white beard in the process) and indescribable benefits.  The passage of time will bring me all too soon to another departure... and there will be loss and gain all over, comfort and discomfort when I return.  But also the knowledge that yes, I can.  :)