Switzerland

in geneva. long flight.. saw stars saw shooting star out window. awesome. saw sunrise.. ate. met cousin. all systems go. YEAHHHHHHHHHH (exclamation point)

I will be located at the lower left hand tip of the blue arch nestled in the orange hook that marks a boundry for Switzerland and France on this map.
Welcome to Annemasse.
~a slice of france
Posted by Hello

011+33+citycode+countrycode

Suggestions:
a) learn to love this sound: brrrrreeeeep. Brrrreeeeeeeep [followed by voice. or not]
b) memorize: the calling code- good for calling from anywhere in Canadunh to your loved ones in Fr*ance.

Nothing is automatic at 3am or 5am. This was clear when my directeur picked up the phone and i found myself trying to make my brain synapses FIRE. Discovery: All nighters/insomnia produce varying results at any point in life. Thanks to my new found love of the Brrreeeeep and the french that still flowed (al be it sluggishly) in my brain this early morn, I remembered to say bonjour, renseingments, and vous. all very important. I called at three AM my time, and the 1 minute phone conversation was a little less than warm- he was [v.] "occuper", and would call back. He didn't call back so I did, at 5am. He had by then received all my desperate friday and saturday messages, as well as my twice-returned e-mail--While my early-morning french was somewhat halting-- i even used "briser" when appologizing for my 'broken' french (oh yes, that's right, I did), that is ok.

This reminds me of another France-related early-morn occurance-- another hesitant and desperate phone call for information-- though those days I was still on an island in the middle of a river . There is nothing like not being committed to speaking any language in particular when a French answering machine picks up: suddenly I was speaking english with alternating french accent (think Frroaahnse) and a flat cndn-english accent. It feels like you are suddenly making honking sounds from your gaping mouth (loud belly wrenching honks), and you can't stop; all you want to say is "hello, please, help me." And it wasn't even a dream. really. there was a witness. Cure for embarassment by mortification.
...say it with me:
011+33+ city code+ country code

In preparation

Shira,
originally uploaded by blueolive.

A little catch-up: Unusual events thread their way into the unexpected reality of what it means to "Prepare to Leave for France" --august 28th and present.

I am standing looking down at 6 unclothed dolls with my shirt wet to the elbows. An old and forgotten bathtub-side ritual has brought me here. Now I am looking at these figures confident and happily staring up at me, all eerily identical with pearly whites outlined in pink lipstick. You may recognize them too. Each of these red and white super-combos is complimented by a pair of extraordinarily blue eyes that remain undimmed even after all this time. Must be the blue blood. It began with a furtive glance. I had been teetering on the edge of my memory pool using an old tooth brush to scrub (to my surprise) the long forgotten beaming and adoring faces of B***ie and "My L***le P*nies". They had become a mere blur--- a pink feeling... a blue feeling..-- in my memory. Now I know the reason for the furtive glance. I have, I like to think, railed against these things with out looking them in the eyes since I pushed off childhood and headed for deeper waters…well different waters. I have steered clear of their penetrating and petulant faces, for fear of falling back under their spell. It is a fear linked to the horror I will have if I discover that in fact early child-hood programming has left me susceptible to liking the colour pink.

All this just so I can sell these freshly washed insipient traitors to an innocent passer by. I have forgotten more than I thought. Including satisfying long hours of contentment. Time really was slower. Hours flowed like molasses. My childhood was laid out in front of me on blankets in the grass and boxes on the pavement. M. kept anxiously worrying that I was selling it all for too little. She is as attached to it as I am. More so maybe, she bought (into)it first. The proceeds from this sale/purge/closure will go towards a jaunt across the ocean. I say jaunt the same way I write childhood in miniscule letters. Neither takes up quite the same space in writing as they do in my head.


**And although I have yet to make contact with the primary school teachers I will be working with, I am kind of excited by the fact that I don't know what I'm doing or exactly how it's all going to happen...

a confession

It is with a fair amount of trepidation and embarassment that I am daring to join the blog litterati whose company I recently discoverd I keep ;) . I will do my best to keep this interesting...little postcards from this side of wherever. That said, please keep your phone lines free on sunday at 3 am your time. jk. This is not a replacement for personal contact or paper and ink letters, but rather some in-the-mean-time suplementary material to ride out the distance and time between us...