Sunday, February 13, 2011

Il était une fois…

Sorry for the blog absence as of late. Things have been going well chez moi – I finished my last appointment with the kinésithérapeute (physical therapist) before the rendez-vous with the orthopédiste next month. Jury duty calls for later this month. While the world keeps turning, I’ve had several fairytale experiences in the past few weeks.

Tout d’abord (first of all), I saw a production of “Phantom of the Opera” at my old high school. I knew that the drama department was still strong, but how those kids could sing! Last May, I visited l’Opéra Garnier with my friend M before our flights home. Basking in the glow of the opulent fixtures and reveling in the watercolors of Chagall, Leroux’s story and Webber’s play finally came to life for me. My father picked up the film “Language of the Enemy” from Redbox before reading any reviews. (SPOILERS) It starts off as an intense meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before becoming an international romantic comedy version of Romeo and Juliet. Maturity has made me more generous with respect to films and I appreciated many of the small details: the décors, the anecdotes of past generations. I could not, however, bear the silly sociolinguistics of the film. The protagonists speak to each other in Arabic for a few minutes, but spend the rest of the film speaking to Israeli and Palestinian characters in English. Oh well, I should just rent “Carlos” and read subtitles for dialogue (10 languages)!

Last week, my parents and I braved the icy roads to journey to College Town. They went shopping while I spoke to former professors about My Future PlansTM and Important GoalsTM involving graduate school, a career et le français. The physical part hadn’t changed much – the five minute walk felt much longer, the computer stations were all full and the foreign language stacks still tempted me to partir là-bas (leave for there). I didn’t recognize a single student’s face, but was received with much warmth and advice. ThesisAdvisor asked about my past experiences and looked over my future dossier for graduate schools. MajorAdvisor reminisced about his own travels in France and wanted to know how the assistantship program was doing. TripAdvisor, who guides at least 40 students a day, spoke in a quick clip about others who had chosen my potential paths. SocialAdvisor helped me refashion my ideas such that new portals of progress opened before my eyes. College wasn’t a wonderland for me, but it was nice to return to a place of strength and comfort and to receive wisdom from those who had gone before me.

This is why I value education so much. I had wonderful high school teachers, but I saw them as imposing knowledge on me. My professors, par contre (by contrast), see themselves as intellectual guides and have given me the tools and confidence to follow my own dreams. Hopefully one day, some students will say the same about me.

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