One of my New Years resolutions was to learn to dance.
So last night I dragged the French boy to a Cuban Dance Workshop in town, with no idea what to expect. We had an eccentric black guy from Cuba (who ’spoke with his body’, especially his pelvis - phwoar!) who taught us the moves - although it wasn’t in English - it was in French and a bit of Spanish (Españ-çais maybe? haha). So the French boy had a slight advantage (although who said the French could dance?).
I’m convinced we can both learn it together, even if he does slightly have two left feet. The French boy is great when it comes to dancing to electro music (music he loves) and freestylin’ when out partying but found the choreographed dancing a wee bit harder. Funny to think that we did meet for the first time while dancing - at a Scottish traditional ceilidh dance. And he won me over.
Practise will make perfect. We will be shaking our stuff at a Salsa bar in no time.
Today I found out that a school friend is engaged… via facebook.
Since when did Facebook become a means to announce an engagement?
Or even to announce a new relationship or a break up? I find it slightly awkward when I see that one of my friends has changed their status from ‘in a relationship’ to ’single’ all of a sudden.
I blame Facebook for creating all sorts of social dilemmas where there wasn’t any before. I have recently had people add me as their ‘friends’ who I consider acquaintances who I would barely recognising passing in the street. Since when did they become my ‘friend’?
When I started seeing a Scottish guy while living in Edinburgh, I discovered that he had not only checked out my facebook, but also had been through all of my photo albums, checked out my friends, my interests, favourite movies. Suddenly he started mentioning things I knew I hadn’t told him (yet) or photos from events that were from 3 years ago. He knew everything about me without the traditional ‘getting-to-know-you’ period. Slightly stalker-ish. Needless to say, I didn’t stick with him for long.
My crappy stickfigure drawing of what happens when you get culture shock and start feeling a bit homesick (thanks to my amazing drawing skills in Microsoft Paint - ha).
I’ve been reading a book Culture Shock: France about how this cycle is completely natural and can happen many times to us all, in varying intensity, over varying periods of time. The beginning of a cultural transition.
I am feeling a little weary about France because in all of my travels over the past year in Europe, I have been living in Scotland (where English is obviously first language) and just passing through places rather than actually living there, so knowing the very basics was enough. But when I move to France, this will be my first time living in a foreign country. And it’s kinda scary.
It’s been interesting reading through various blogs of other expats living in France and their experiences. Some good experiences, some bad experiences, some awful. But it is a challenge I have to do, even if i do feel like the stickman in the middle sometimes.
You may have heard of the 365 day self portrait challenge.
Make 1 shot per day, of yourself. Post them publicly on flickr. Which people can then freely comment on.
These photos can be of any body part of your own to be considered and you are only really bound by your own creativity.
Many brave ladies have put themselves up on flickr every day for the world to see, starting off reserved, leaving themselves open to public criticism and stranger’s judgement. And we all know what is easier to give than receive and that is, criticism. But the amazing thing is that so many of them get a major confidence boost, with strangers liking and commenting on their photos and seeing beauty in the person that they can’t necessarily see themselves - you can see the change in people’s photos as they become more confident. Pretty cool.
Here is one person’s take on a self-portait. Ha.
Lets be honest, how many of us have pictures of ourselves that we just love? Females are their own worst enemy at times. We are quick to point out our obvious flaws in every picture (that others may not even see), so putting up 365 photos up for the world to see is an achievement in itself really.
All credit to those who give it a go. I don’t feel the need to do it myself but love checking out others who did.
One particular lady I came across who has some really interesting shots (and obviously is a great photo editor) is Katie, a self-taught professional photographer who gave it a go. Her photos are intriguing, creative and each has a story.
Check out her 365 day photos here:
care of katielee
Enjoy. and if you are feeling ambitious, give it a whirl.
When the French boy decided to come with me to New Zealand, I warned him not to mention two things to New Zealanders while he is there…
1. the 2007 World Cup where NZ’s World Cup dream was over when the French beat us…
In a competition where NZ was tipped to win (one anonymous person even made a bet of 4.2 million dollars on us winning), the French beat us to it. The win meant that the French would go on to face England in the semi finals and the All Blacks would head home with their heads hanging low. New Zealand is a rugby obsessed nation and our passion for this great sport is mirrored by it’s players performances on the pitch, because the All Blacks are often ranked right up there. Not this time. The country went into mourning.
2. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique…
The Rainbow Warriorwas a ship of the environmental organisation Greenpeace, which was active in supporting a number of Greenpeace protest activities against seal hunting, whaling and nuclear weapons testing during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was all about promoting peace. Two French agents, in 1985, bombed the Rainbow Warrior, killing a photographer on the boat in the act. The French govt initally denied any involvement and jumped on the “terrorist act” bandwagon.
When two of the French Agents were caught in NZ (posing as married couple ‘Sophie and Alain Turenge’), a police investigation ensued and both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and 10 years in jail. However, come 1986, and a political deal between French President and NZ President, the Frenchies agreed to pay NZ$13 million in return for the two French agents to be jailed in their own country.
The worst part of the whole thing (that kiwi’s have a long term memory about) is that upon returning to France, both of them were freed by the French Govt, therefore getting away with this crime. And are apparently still living. A complete cover up by the French government and to this day, a lot of New Zealander’s believe that these agents were acting on orders from the French Govt.
It is the only time New Zealand has been under attack and we feel strongly about it since it was a peace promoting ship - the irony of it. Most kiwi’s strongly believe they committed an act of war in our country and got away with it and think it was a shameless act by a shameless government.
And we are still pissed about the fact that the French government swept the Rainbow Warrior bombing under the carpet. When I told the French boy about it, he had no idea that this had happened. The French govt has done a good job at keeping this under wraps.
I’m sure most French people living in this day and age would be appalled by what the French did (I know my boyfriend is). I think what we have to remember is that it was the government at the time that screwed up and that is who to blame, not every French person (who probably don’t even have a clue that it happened). We will never forget that it happened but the blame should be in the right place.
New Zealand. Nuclear free and proud.
A beautiful song kiwi’s made to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Anchor me.
Another example is Anaïs, whose songs are full of wit and energy, with the same avant-garde experimental style.
In an interview with Camille, she says people say often say, ” ‘Oh, your voice can sound like a synth(esiser)’. No, a synth can sound like your voice. The voice was there before. Most synths, they imitate choirs, but we were there before them.”
“I like to play,” she admits. “I like to play with words, to play an instrument, to play with my voice, to play with the stage…”
I have been convinced by the French boy to move all of my posts from my Vox travel blog up until now and update them to my own server and use this blog from now, so here we go.
People often think the French are snobby and only want to speak their language.
A lot of people have the misconception that the French do not want to ever learn or speak English. This can easily be mistaken as impolite and unfriendly. But the French boy has a different take on it - from a French perspective. The French love their language so much and take great pride in it. And because they love their language so much, they are scared of sounding bad in another language, like English.
I know that when I was in France over christmas, I would dare not speak it sometimes because I thought my French was bad, and it was a matter of self-confidence.
The other thing I think is that some people go to France and expect them to speak English rather than their native language - we can’t really expect that.
Additionally, there has never been a huge emphasis on the French learning English until recently as French President Nicolas Sarkozy has put more emphasis on learning English.
At the risk of sounding very feminist right now, the media really sux for making young females these days think it’s cool to dress sexy at such a young age.
I hadn’t watched music videos for a long time while overseas (as I didn’t really watch TV) but as I flicked over to the music channel, I was shocked at the running theme of sex, sex, and more sex in nearly every music video. Especially considering the quite specific market these are playing to - young pre-pubescent girls.
Young girls clothing is getting more and more provocative. We have shops (catering to that age group) with slogans like “MILF in training”, “I taught your boyfriend that thing you like” or such blatant ones as “I screwed your boyfriend”.
More and more young girls are becoming sex objects – so who is to blame? Are these young girls going through earlier puberty (biology ahead of her mentality) and ‘growing up faster’ or is the celebrity-driven media and peers influencing them to want to wear these clothes?
would you want your girl dressing like this?
Maybe the rampant sexual health statistics in New Zealand may have something to do with how they dress these days. Do these 10 - 14 year old girls even know what ‘being sexy’ means?
By sexualising these young girls they are being put in danger of being mistaken as being older which can have major consequences. Adults may find themselves attracted to young teens, so it makes me wonder if this is causing much bigger problems… anybody thinking paedophilia?
Most older guys would admit a few years back that Hilary Duff and the Olsen twins were hot even though they were around the age of 14 at the time. I guess the difference is being attracted to a young girl and actually ACTING on it. When researching this topic on google, not surprisingly most searches on “pre-teen girls and sexy” came up with hardcore porn, so has the term pre-teen become an erotic term in itself?
Are we going to wait until our 6 year olds are all dolled up, walking around with g-strings hanging out the top of their jeans before we feel the need to acknowledge this problem?
A blog about my life and travels and everything in between. ♥ Love my friends, wine, music & travelling the globe. I am a kiwi girl with a frenchman. Ponder for a moment, stay for a while or come back often.
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