"You cheated!" "Pirate."
When I was teaching English to a bunch of French teenagers, I usually did at least one Talk Like A Pirate Day. It was never in September, what with the school year not really even starting until October. It was how I taught the kids the correct pronunciation of the American R. I found that a Frenchie trying to do a pirate RRRRR ends up sounding like an actual Anglophone, rather than a Frenchie who can't make a proper R sound. We'd start by watching a clip from Pirates of the Caribbean: The First of a Series Cursed with Mr Gibbs (the Black Pearl first mate) talking, and then we'd play a couple of games centered around pirate jokes. The exaggerated arrrrrrr was great practice for the kids.
The thing is, I showed them Jack Sparrow not because it was my first choice, but because I knew they already liked the film and it would keep their attention. I was fairly certain they wouldn't find my favorite clip funny. It's old (ancient in internets years), but it still makes me laugh. Enjoy your Nineteenth of September celebrations!
"But regardless of what weapons they try to use to effect silence, words will always retain their power."
When I was going to school in Paris, I would regularly have these dreams where I was attending graduate school in English. When I got distracted in the BNF, my daydreams would usually involve making comments in class without the ten minutes of double-checking grammar in my head that meant I never actually made comments in class. (I generally confined my speaking to conversations prior to class and required presentations.) But I had sleeping dreams about grad school in English - speaking English with my advisor, presenting papers in English, writing my thesis in English. It was all so glorious and idyllic in my dreams. But now I actually get to SPEAK ENGLISH IN GRADUATE SCHOOL. Exciting, I tell you.
The irony of this, though... I had my first class yesterday. As previously discussed, it's part of the library science program, where classes are full of librarians. And apparently, even librarians in the novitiate are committed - converted, even - to not speaking. All fourteen of us were in the seminar room, seated around a big oval table, waiting for the professor to come back and start class. NO ONE SPOKE. There were a few comments when people were first coming in, but FOR AT LEAST FIVE MINUTES, NO ONE SPOKE. No rustling, no movement, nothing. I kept wanting to break the silence with some joke about librarians and the sounds of silence or something, but I couldn't. It would have been wrong. I would have been shushed.
So... I may get to attend graduate school in English, but I clearly won't be speaking English.
"In the Schrute family, we believe in the five-fingered intervention: awareness, education, control, acceptance and punching."
I got a student ID today.
We moved to Illinois so Dave could go to school, and I had planned to get a job, because, you know, what else was I going to do? Well, it turned out that cornfield-based university towns in central Illinois are sort of short on jobs. About the time I got sick of sending out resumes, I remembered that just because I had quit my job and moved twice in six months because of my husband didn't mean that I couldn't do things that I wanted to do.
And what did I want to do? Go to graduate school to become a librarian.
Because you know what the best part of grad school in France was? The BNF (and other libraries and pure research). Remember when I waxed rhapsodic about the Death Star? Not that I made this decision because of my affection for French libraries, although I do miss the glory of the BNF...
However, I'd missed application deadlines for the fall (story of my life, missing application deadlines - that's why I moved to France five years ago), so I still have to apply. And that's a bit nerve-wracking, because it turns out the library and information science program here? It's the best in the country. To up the odds of getting in (and to start the program as quickly as possible) I'm taking a couple of classes this fall. Because I haven't been accepted yet, though, I don't exactly feel like a real student. Kind of like my program in France, I guess; it always felt a bit...odd.
Anyway, so today was the official move-in day on campus, which meant the population in town essentially quadrupled, and as I don't like people, I was dreading going to campus to get the ID card that I had to have before next week. The thing is, though, that it actually made me feel like a student in a really good way. Something about pushing through the INSANELY PACKED campus bookstore reminded me just how much I like school. And I'm really looking forward to the couple of classes I'm taking (because, really, who wouldn't be thrilled with "The History of the Book"?). I've felt fairly out of place lately, honestly - it's not like I'm *doing* anything here, you know? - but being surrounded by a bunch of students and their helicopter parents who were trying to figure out exactly which text they needed was apparently just the swarm of humanity I needed.
On a side note, I don't know that I've been in a crowd like that since I was in Paris, and I couldn't help but notice that despite the ninety-degree weather and mass of bodies packed into the relatively small space, it didn't smell bad. It was almost a bit disorienting. Ahh, la France.
"Well, couldn't they have found a nicer way of putting it? Like relaxed or unhurried? Relaxed, laidback sperm I can handle, but sluggish?" *
Dave and I spent a month traveling around visiting family, and seconds before we left my parents' place in Utah in the middle of May to actually MOVE to Illinois, my mom shoved a magazine in my hand and mentioned that there was an article I needed to read, plus said issue was a first for a friend. The article was entitled "Infertility: When Children Don't Come Easily." I can't say I loved the article, honestly, but I doubt I'll ever much love things related to this. Still, I can deal with the infertility a lot more easily than what it all started with.
[WARNING: TMI FOLLOWS] See, I got pregnant six weeks after Dave and I got married. I'd been on the pill for years to control horrific periods, but since it was never for birth control, I usually skipped a day here and there in the middle to stretch out my cycles. Apparently, my spotty (but effective-for-pain-management) usage worked well, since I stopped taking the pill ten days after the wedding and was pregnant the very next month. I was due 13 February 2011. We were excited and surprised, and I was exhausted and nauseated and somewhat useless at work. Things were fine at the six-week appointment. Then, things were not fine at the eleven-week appointment. I was still feeling icky and exhausted, except now there wasn't a good reason for it. The heartbeat was gone, the sac was contracting, but my body wasn't giving anything up. So, we tried "medical management" (you take some pills and your body completes the miscarriage) but that didn't work at all, although I did find a new 10 on my personal pain scale.
Next step: D&C (or "surgical management"). That was one year ago today, 28 July 2010. It was predictably awful.
I shut down emotionally after that. The depression I'd struggled with and managed to varying degrees hit with full force, and... something changed. I'm not sure how to describe it, really. We'd been getting ready to tell people (only our families and my boss knew), and during the pregnancy I'd purposely not talked with a few close friends because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep quiet about it and we wanted to wait before broadcasting it. After, I didn't want to talk to anyone, and the tears were nearly constant. Worse, I didn't know what to say in ANY situation, and everything felt very out-of-body.
In September, I did my first social-y thing and went to lunch with a friend who worked just down the street from me, and I had no idea what to say. I was with someone I think is terrific, we were at a usual restaurant, and I felt completely lost. Things have gotten better since then, but it's only been in the last couple of months that I don't constantly feel like I'm just going through the motions of life. I'm fairly certain that the five months in Georgia and then the last two months in Illinois have helped - I've literally gotten some distance. Something is still a bit off, and will likely always be. Everyone has a few experiences in life that are marked by a before and an after, and I guess this is one of mine.
The kicker: my body got all jacked up post-miscarriage. Not just your basic infertility, but my periods last for only 36 hours, and I can't stop gaining weight no matter what I do, and my hair is falling out, and my eyes are too dry to wear my contacts, and my skin is the envy of lizards everywhere, and I can't stay awake (or asleep) for more than three or four hours at a whack. So far, my OBGYN in Georgia put me on Clomid (which worked, but didn't stick; apparently, fertilized eggs can find no purchase in my rocky womb) and the one in Illinois ran a single blood test and told me that he couldn't help me, so go see a family doctor. I've got an upcoming appointment with an internal medicine doc - maybe she'll be more useful. Because my body is so broken, the fact that I'm 0 for 3 isn't nearly as bothersome.
You know, I've been meaning to write this post for ages, but it's been... fairly difficult. I hope I'll get back to more writing, because for me, this has been a huge roadblock to posting anything. Anyway, that's it. An explanation for the last year, I suppose.
Title Quote *This has nothing to do with Dave; our issues are all me. Hugh Laurie just makes me laugh with this line.
"So, for my genealogy report, I decided to write on my great-great-grandfather, Captain Archibald Witwicky, who was a famous man."
Dave is gone for AT, and since I don't know anyone here yet, I've spent the two weeks scanning something like 800 old family photographs. One of my favorite musty boxes was full of pictures from when my grandma Helen (who I never met, as she died from MS complications in 1973) served in the Army near Marburg, Germany for a year. She was a nurse.
Most of the pictures were unlabeled, and she was in very few of them, but there were so many that I was able to piece together a decent idea of her time there. She was there in 1946-1947, stationed here:
Kinda bleak, if you ask me. It was clearly pretty cold, if this picture of her labeled "Setting my camera" from February 1947 is any kind of an indicator. I think this was taken in the Netherlands, likely on the way to a festival at a frozen bay (hence the boots).
Going through her photos was a reminder to get out from behind the camera more. I think there are maybe two photos of her, total. Also, I need to label all the stuff I took while living in Paris; no one else will ever know who/what is in the picture. They might be able to figure out some people, though. Example: one of my favorite parts of analyzing the photos was realizing that she clearly had a sweetheart in Germany. His name was Sam, and he started as a first lieutenant, although he was promoted to captain while they were together. He was in the Medical Corps, although I'm guessing not a doctor since I think docs are pretty much always at least captains. No idea what his last name was, or what happened to him or anything, but he was a good-looking guy.
"April come she will, when streams are ripe and swelled with rain. May, she will stay, resting in my arms again."
A few things from the past two months, in chronological order -
Whitley City, KY - this little hamlet is on the Tennessee border, in the hollers of the Appalachians, and... it's... exactly like it is on TV. This was Dave's first area on his mission; he was here for eight months. The street names were interesting, certainly:
and we had some really great food here, where things clearly hadn't changed in decades:
"It moves so fast. It's like hockey with words."
So it would seem like I'm not spending too much time online, but really I'm just not writing. I've been working on a long post for a while now, and one day I'll get back to regular posting, but... not yet, I guess. Still reading blogs, though. For example, I sliced off a piece of my index finger on Friday night, so doing anything to my hair that required liquids wasn't going to work. Once I'd bandaged it up, though, I found that one of my favorite person's blogs had the answer here, with the vintage braid-y look, like so. I am a serious fan of Kara's style, hair included.
We also took a couple of pictures of the fronts of heads while at the hockey game (Southern Professional Hockey League, Columbus Cottonmouths vs. the Huntsville Havoc. Columbus won), and this one made me laugh a bit. This kids is incredibly good-natured, even when Dave is booing over his head. I'll definitely miss him (and his parents) when we go to Illinois, although it's nice that they'll only be a couple states away in Kansas. Did I mention that we're moving to Illinois? We'll be a couple of hours south of Chicago, but two hours from Chicago is the closest I've been in years. Grad school is looming for Dave.
OH! And something on a completely different topic. So Dave and I finished watching Dr. Zhivago last night, and I have to say, I don't get why so many people loved this movie. When I was a kid, it seemed like every mom I knew LOVED this film. WHY? Am I the only person who is really annoyed by films about adulterers? (Also, too long, but that's neither here nor there.)
"I don't negotiate with terrorists. I smoke them out of their hidey-holes."
Dave is on the verge of finishing his training course, which he is VERY excited about. I'm excited to have fewer beyond-stinky socks in the house. This photo is from their culminating training exercise, a coordinated operation involving the entire company (161 soldiers). Dave is at the edge of the woods, behind the ravine. The spouses (well, wives really, since the infantry is all men) got to stand on top of one of the buildings in the fake village to watch, and I have to say that after watching (and smelling) the whole thing - smoke, flash-bangs, lots of fire - I finally got why he always came home covered in a slight stench. (Cheesy observation: war stinks.)
"Now you've gotten me kicked out of a funeral. Just add it to the list. Kicked out of PetSmart, kicked out of Santa's Village, kicked out of theSalvation Army..." I've been working on a few things lately, hence the lack of posting, but I thought I'd share a little update in the meantime. The developer of our apartment complex was here this afternoon fixing something, and he mentioned that the Dumb Neighbors had been evicted. And when he'd asked the manager why, she said that there were more reasons than she could list before the close of business. Kinda made me laugh, although I'm glad that the Dumb Neighbors ended up going back to their parents, rather than arrested. Maturation: it's your friend.
"In case you haven't noticed - which you haven't, 'cause from what I can tell, you don't notice anything ever - we are not very functional whenwe're high." I had no idea that I had turned in to a Mr. Heckles-esque neighbor. Well, sort of. See, we live in this fairly small apartment complex northeast of Fort Benning. It's brand new, and after a couple of months, only ten of 36 units are occupied. One of the units is occupied by a couple of guys who are some of the most magnificently stupid people I've ever met. So, let's start with the fact that we're in a town with a ton of soldiers, what with being just northeast of Fort Benning. From my limited experience, this means that half the male population sports the very unfortunate high and tight and a lot of stores advertise a military discount. It also means that a significant percentage of people here are fairly motivated to not do or be around illegal things.
Let's go back to the Dumb Neighbors. On Friday, I arrived home just after one in the afternoon. I'd been working out with friends, so perhaps I was already a bit feisty. Driving in, I noticed two of the Dumb Neighbors standing in front of the building, both smoking, and one very obviously emptying his bladder while exposing himself. Again, this is the middle of the day, in broad daylight - a fact that seemed to have escaped the Dumb Neighbors' notice. I walked over to the Dumb Neighbors, to inform them of the inappropriate nature of their actions. Apparently, the Dumbest Neighbor was smoking. Which meant he had to pee outside on the two-foot strip of grass between the front of the building and the parking lot. Expressing my displeasure with this decision left them dumb-founded.
The next morning when I was leaving the house, the Slightly-Less-Dumb Neighbor (not one of the original two) introduced himself to me and apologized, although he also seemed to think that "I was smoking!" was an acceptable reason to pee out of doors when an enclosed toilet was available less than 15 feet from the urination site. A couple of hours later, the pungent stench of a dead skunk started wafting through our windows. I poked my head out the back door and reminded the original two Dumb Neighbors (along with two others) that it's generally a good idea to keep illegal activities inside where other people are less likely to guess what you're doing, especially when said illegal activity can be identified so easily at a distance. (That's, um, pretty paraphrased.) The Dumb Neighbors came over an hour or two later to apologize, although really - unless you're going to say that you'll never ever EVER do anything like that again (which they didn't, because we all know they WILL do it again) there's not much point to apologizing.
In the evening, my favorite neighbor stopped by. He is a Ranger Instructor (if you don't know what that means, you can start with this YouTube video). I love the fact that he lives next door to us; he has a ginormous dog and a serious arsenal and he can be really mean, which means that with Dave spending more than half of every week out in the field I am still very safe. Anyway, so the RI stops by to talk about the Dumb Neighbors and how lucky they were to be dealing with me rather than one of the soldier neighbors. Oh, and it turns out the two others smoking the dead skunk moved into the next building down, and the RI is fairly convinced they're drug dealers, which means now is the time to start placing bets on how long it will be until the cops are here.
Let this be a lesson to you, Small Bear - don't do dumb things, because first you'll be yelled at, and then you'll get arrested. (Also, I highly recommend living next to a Ranger Instructor - great stories, good grilling skills, excellent security.)
"Yes, you will be in hell, but I will feel better having you there. That is what a relationship is. We average our misery."
Dave is the field, likely wet and freezing. It's been cold and rainy all day, but I've been all toasty warm except for a 5-mile walk/jog this evening. Even that comes nowhere close - it isn't living entirely out of doors for 96 hours. I've spent my day cleaning and cooking and burning my fingertips with hot glue. I still haven't figured out how I got here, to Army Wife, when I was so recently Grad Student. Not that I don't enjoy the part where I spend my days doing whatever I want - it's just... kinda weird. I'm sure I'll trace it all out one of these days, but for now, my warm, dry bed is calling.
"Aunt Clara had for years labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually 4 years old, but also a girl."
It's remarkable how difficult it is to get back into the habit of doing things, isn't it? I've started so many posts over the past month, but none have come out properly. Thus - no posting. Anyway... I don't really have anything of importance or even interest to post. At the moment I'm listening to the CD "Santa" put into my stocking a few days ago, enjoying some downtime with Dave. We're in NC visiting my sister and her family for the holidays, although we're leaving tomorrow, having gotten here over a week ago. My parents got here a day or two after we did, and we brought along a buddy from Dave's platoon who is from The Gambia. He's Muslim, and so my nieces and nephews enjoyed sharing Christmas traditions with him. And he liked A Christmas Story, as one should. Oh! And when he and Dave were discussing injuries they've gotten during Army training, I ended up with a new favorite phrase: "Better a bruise than a bullet."
Also, Dave says to tell the world that he loves the chess set I got him for Christmas. Not sure why that needs to be broadcast, but there it is.
"See, I did join the army, but I joined a different army. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms. "
So. We're in Georgia. Settled, sort of -- we even finally got our internet hooked up. Dave is already is bed, as he will be up at 3:45 am for a 4:45 report time. You know, it's that sort of thing that makes me glad I'm not the one in the military. So what am I doing here? NOT having a job, mostly. It's only been a couple of days but I've been enjoying it, and I'm fairly certain I'll enjoy it even more as soon as I actually get everything unpacked and our life feels a bit less cluttered. Annnnnnd, now that I'm not spending all day working in front of a computer, I'm looking forward to getting back to writing here, especially now that it will be more Army Wife and less Expat in Paris.
"Okay, would ya mind, just skip to the end." "To... the very end? 'For a while.'"
Obviously, it's been ages and ages since I last posted anything, and even longer since I last posted with any regularity. But! It's time for that to change, and so... posts. And we're starting out small, with a bunch of pictures from the wedding to which I alluded in my last post. Enjoy -- and check back soon for actual, regular updates.
to regular posting, but... not yet, I guess. Still reading blogs, though. For example, I sliced off a piece of my index finger on Friday night, so doing anything to my hair that required liquids wasn't going to work. Once I'd bandaged it up, though, I found that one of my favorite person's blogs had the answer here, with the vintage braid-y look, like so. I am a serious fan of Kara's style, hair included.
