Small funny life moments

Life has been producing some small amusements lately, and I've been posting most of them on Facebook...but for those of you not on Facebook, and for documenting life, I want to put them here.

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Fellow schoolmate: Where are you from?
Me: America.
Fellow schoolmate (completely serious and amazed): Jamaica?!
Me (picturing my white skin, blue eyes, and light hair): No, sorry. The United States of America.
Fellow schoolmate (clearly disappointed): Oh.

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CSI discovered that many of my favorite things in life begin with the letter B: balconies, brick walls, books, bagels, blogging, backgammon, boys, Besançon, bleu cheese, blankets, bracelets, bacon, blackberries, boots, babies, and the Bible.

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February 2nd was the Fête of the Chandeleur (or Candle Celebration). I didn't know that the French had a day set aside to celebrate my family! "If Candlemas Day is clear and bright, / winter will have another bite. / If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain, / winter is gone and will not come again." The celebration was originally to celebrate Jesus being presented at the Temple 40 days after His birth (and thus, candles being lit to celebrate)...but it has turned into a groundhog type day of seeing if winter will continue and eating crepes to celebrate. Even still, I was able to make many French people laugh with my declaration that the French were actually celebrating me and my family on the day of the Chandeleur.

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My grey hair is bizarre. It is contained to just the front half of my head--there's a distinct line from one ear, over the crown, to the other ear...and all the grey hair is in front of that line. Not only that, but I have this one solid streak (I call it the Tunisia streak, because it definitely popped out while I was there) that is about a half inch wide, and can be hidden when I part my hair on one side. The streak is kinda cool, though, because it looks like I did it on purpose.

So one day, CSI and I were looking at the bizarreness in the mirror, and she exclaimed, "It looks really cool! Have you ever seen the Graduate?" I stopped her and said, "Look, Missy 23-year-old, if you are about to compare me to Mrs. Robinson, you better watch yourself. I do not wish to be likened to an icon of middle-age seduction." She did it anyway. Told me my streaks look like Mrs. Robinson's. She insists that it was a compliment, that she was telling me I look like a movie star. I told her she could have said Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffanies instead.

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I was expecting a package from my mom. One particularly lousy day after language school, CSI and I walked into the hotel. The front desk girl, who knew I was expecting a package, grabs a clearly-American package and walks towards us...and then says to me, "Not for you." And hands it to CSI. I was so disappointed it was laughable. My package arrived the next day, and I got a chance later that week to practice using the word "the next day" to tell this story in French. And oh! My Auburn National Champs t-shirt (a surprise) was in the package...which made it an even more awesome package than expected. Thanks again Mom!

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In language class yesterday, there were two particularly awesome cross-cultural moments. First, we'd listened to a song that mentioned the French identification card, which for American, is the equivalent of our driver's license. It's a plastic card with picture, important info, and is used to prove that you are who you say you are. When Prof pulled out his to show us, everyone followed suit to pull out theirs. It was the first time at this school that the class got so rowdy that the Prof couldn't get us to hush. It was awesome to see that (1) all of us, no matter our nationality, had a little plastic card, (2) that the cards really did seem similar, again, no matter the nationality and (3) how fascinated we all were with each other's cards.

Then, for an exercise in using the imperative tense (do this, do that), he chose me and the other English speaker to be "artists," and we had to make a living replicate of a famous French painting by telling our classmates how and where to stand. After we'd successfully gotten the class to recreate a live version of one of my favorite paintings, seen below, someone started to take a picture. One of the Arabs who was "in" the painting jumped up as if on fire and yelled, "No! No! No!" Not because, as some Muslims have a problem with being in photos because it's an 'image', but because he didn't want the photo to be posted on Facebook. The whole class erupted in laughter...because, again, no matter our nationality, we all have Facebook

accounts and none of us want embarrassing photos posted for our friends to see.