Watching the Olympics this year, you couldn't escape the question of doping. Even if French television coverage showed primarily judo, equestrian, and handball, the controversy surrounding the use of performance enhancing drugs was still present. But during the Olympics there was an advertisement that played frequently featuring an African runner saying that the Olympics means that we can go faster, we can play better, etc, etc. And it is true. Each time a world record is broken, isn't that proof of human evolution? I got very nostalgic about this (I am exactly the kind of schmuck that the Olympic marketing machine targets). But then I began to think, is a new world record the sign of a superior human capability, or is it just the result of better equipment, more efficient training techniques, or drugs? I don't really see these three areas of advancement as being too different from each other. They all show that human physical ability is not enhanced by Darwinian evolution...the fastest and strongest are able to reproduce while the weak are slowly weeded out. Instead, the body is simply a vehicle for the ever-industrious human mind that is in the constant pursuit of products and ideas. The Olympics is not a physical competition, but a mental one and even more disturbingly, an economic one. After all, which countries have the money to invest in the development of athletes and training programs?

And as upsetting as it is to have my idealistic vision of the Olympics shattered by this new awakening, I began to wonder if all the hoopla surrounding doping is deserved. After all, if we are measuring the human capacity to do sports better, shouldn't doping be allowed? After all, it is a man-made creation that serves the purpose of pushing human physical ability further. You can make the ethical argument that the negative side effects render these drugs dangerous to the athletes. But you can't ignore the fact that every pair of Nikes worn also contributes to the widening economic rift in the world and is the physical embodiment of much more profound human suffering.

In Futurama, Blurnsball (the spiced-up version of baseball with multiball rounds, tigers, and balls on rubberbands) also has mandatory steroid injections. I say, next Olympics, don't kick the doped athletes out. Let them make it more exciting! And if people still have ethical problems, have a parallel event where its legal. I for one would like to see the freaks go at it!

So after a busy month getting my Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults), I have finally gotten around to writing my research proposal for my graduate program. I am swimming in topics and banal academic bullshit and find it quite strange that I am required to include a proposal of 8 to 10 pages as part of my application, but that at the end of January, I have to turn in another proposal of the same project that is 5 to 6 pages. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the more detailed proposal come after my first semester and not before? Well, French education has never made much sense to me.

I also discovered while wading through the vast amounts of wangling that are included in the programme brochure, that my proposed project will not actually be carried out this year. The 100-page dissertation that I will be defending next year will actually just be preparatory work for my doctoral thesis. And so, through lazy reading and desperation for a visa to stay in France, I have found myself entangled in deep academia. But hey, getting a PhD will certainly allow me to stay here for as long as I want. I can't imagine finishing this one quickly. What a funny world we live in.

Because somebody asked for it:

Need a mutton
A one mutt den
Not a mute end
A nude Tom net
Not a men duet
Edna Tot Menu
Menu to Dante
Nun to date me
No menu d'etat
Mad Uno tenet.
Dam Uno tenet!
Mad nun to tee
Mad note tune
Out damn teen!
Dun eaten Tom
Neat Nut Dome
Eat demon nut!
Don't eat menu.
Nude Mao tent
Tan mud on tee
Do net me tuna

Want to do your name? You can with Brendan's Online Anagram Generator!

MizMaya brought this site to my attention. Contemplate the Ball Bag for a while...if you dare.

http://www.disturbingauctions.com/index.pl

Kermit, Gonzo, Fozzie, and Ashanti try to evade Miss Piggy's evil watch as they make their way down the yellow brick road to ask Quentin Tarantino for a helping hand.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3603954.stm

Someone is going to have to tape this one for me in the US.

The only question left is who will Pepe be playing?

So, after my class tonight I went to check out the Ex-Pat American Meet-Up held ironically at Cafe Oz. It was a bizarre mix. Only a few of us: me, a singer from Pavillion, NY (that's about 30 mile from where I grew up), a funny older woman who is also a Cornellian, and a diplomat's wife who wants me to meet her quadrilingual, model daughter and work for the press agency of Democrats in France. But in addition to the 4 Americans, there was also a Bulgarian, a French guy, and a Russian. It was pretty funny. The Americans got very political (all Kerry supporters) and drove the others away. The French guy (who wanted to practice his English) told us we were all ridiculous, citing the fact that there is very little difference between our two parties. So there you have it, the French people would probably vote for Nader.

Bear Passes Out After Only 36 Beers

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A black bear was found passed out at a campground in
Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local
beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.

"We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and wondered what was going
on until we discovered that there were a lot of beer cans lying around,"
said Lisa Broxson, a worker at the Baker Lake Resort, 80 miles northeast of
Seattle.

The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into
campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled
down the suds.

It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a
mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck
with it for his drinking binge.

Wildlife agents chased the bear away, but it returned the next day, said
Broxson.

They set a trap using as bait some doughnuts, honey and two cans of Rainier
Beer. It worked, and the bear was captured for relocation.

Stephane and I are going to Turkey in a couple of weeks to visit our friends Uraz and Oya (and another friend Erez who recently move to Istanbul from Paris.) This is very exciting! I can't wait to go back. I went for the first time with Mr. George Jaramillo and we ate, drank, and smoked our way through a beautiful and tasty country. Unfortunately, my favorite restaurant in Istanbul is now a pile of rubble after the goddam terrorist attack on the British Consulate, but I am sure we will find new places. I am actually a little nervous about going without George. I mean, will Stephane be brave enough to venture into the International UFO Museum? Will he be patient with me while I smoke a nargileh in front of disapproving men? We shall see. In any case, I am very excited to see our friends and to visit one of the most magical cities in the world again. I am a lucky girl!

I continue to love the French more and more.

French author urges slacking from the L.A. Daily News.

The first communication I've gotten from NewMusicBox folks in 2 months is well worth it. David Rakowski is a composer that I talked to several times to write news stories during my days in New York. He recently got an earthlink account and free web space. I think it could be the best composer site I've ever seen. It is highly amusing, particulary "Davy's Lexicon" and "Buttstix" (in which he extracts the sticks that have been stuck up his butt by the music establishment.) Have fun!

http://home.earthlink.net/~ziodavino/album1_001.htm

So tonight I used the word charp and it made me think of that HBO television show and subsequent book that came out in the early '80s: Sniglets, words that should be in the dictionary but aren't. Of course, there is a list of sniglets on the Web, so I thought I would point you to it. Enjoy! And be sure to find out what a charp is.

www.letterjames.de

I went to the ATM yesterday to take out my bi-monthly allowance of 200 euros. There was a problem: I have no more money in my checking account. I am running on empty.

Did you ever see "An American in Paris"? I am kind of living like Gene Kelly now, depending on my patron to give me a few bucks so I can eat. Good thing I bought that box of ice cream bars before the financial crisis of 2004 or who knows what I would have for dinner!

On a whim (and a loan), I signed up for a Cambridge University English language teaching program a few weeks ago and I began my training last Monday. It is a lot of work (9am to 6:30 pm plus all of my lesson planning and homework at night). Every day we have 2 and a half hours of "teaching practice", where we actually give the class and I have to say that no matter how poorly my lesson goes (like Friday's attempt to explain the difference between "I'm going to meet her tonight" and "I'm meeting her tonight") I come out of it exhilirated. I am learning so much, not only about the English language, but about learning styles and methods, people, and time organization. I think that I may have found myself a career.

Yes, I know, it doesn't pay well, but I can do it all over the world. I have been thinking about teaching for a long time. It is the only profession that I was able to come up with that fulfilled all of my criteria (transferable skills that allow me to work in both France and the US, more than 2 weeks per year of vacation time so that when I have a family I will be able to spend time with them, working with people, sharing knowledge, being a lifelong student, working with a subject I am passionate about, making use of my creativity and resourcefulness, being relatively independent but part of something bigger, doing something that is helpful to others and the world, etc.)

It took me a while to feel comfortable with this last one. I remember someone telling me that the reason they didn't want to do the Peace Corps was because if you don't have specific skills you just end up giving English lessons to African villagers who will probably never use it, serving only to continue the spread of American cultural and economic hegemony. I always agreed with this point. I mean, after all, isn't it more helpful for people with agricultural backgrounds to help institute new farming techniques that yield more crops than teaching them to say "I'm meeting her tonight?" But the truth is, I didn't create American hegemony and by denying people the tools to compete in a world that has unfortunately become overly anglicized, I am not helping to relieve the pressure. There is a huge demand for English teachers all over the world, so why not spend my days feasting on language and helping others to be able to step up to the plate.

In any case, despite my idealistic musings, I guess the most important thing is that teaching thrills me and I can't say that I have ever felt that way about anything else. Even when I was convinced I was going to be a world-famous oboe player there was the panic of doubt that always haunted my efforts (after all, who has ever heard of a world-famous oboe player. The doubts are understandable.) Even when I was at NewMusicBox and I lived and breathed music and would check the site obsessively even on the weekends, and plunged into that world with determination and passion, there was a part of me that wasn't convinced it was right. But this time, I don't have those doubts. Of course, it has only been a week. I will report back after a month, a year, 5 years, and let you know if I feel the same way, but for now, I am overjoyed.

Oh, and did I mention that the language teacher's bookstore is a five-minute walk from my house? Coincidence or fate?

I dedicate this post to Brenda Kitt, Joan Brim, Eleanor Perry, Colette Waldron, Leland Glenna, Brian Earle, and all of the other terrific teachers I have had in my life. Oh and my mother. The best teacher of all.

A proud father sends photos of baby Chita to a proud step-mother-to-be.

And FYI, the interview with Chita went well as long as I was giving her her favorite treat. Otherwise she just ignored me. But I think I should be able to win her over in the end (and not just by feeding her until she explodes.) She comes to live with us permanently at the end of September, but may visit for a few days before then.

My brother proposed to his girlfriend last Sunday at Disney World (yeah, I know, but let them do their thing). I think they are planning to get married next September in Chicago. How exciting!

So, a scientist has written a book claiming that the lost civilization of Atlantis is actually Ireland. Maybe it wasn't the ocean that sunk the civilization, but the whiskey.

Find out more on CNN.com.

Today, Stephane and I celebrate 2 years of being together. On our first date, we met at the Angelika to see a truly mediocre Soderbergh film, I bought him a birthday beer at the Belgian Beer Bar(later to become "our" bar), and then we got wasted and danced with the belly dancers at Denizen. It was a Sunday night. Tonight, two years later, we are staying in, eating some of Mandounette's famous pasta surprise (whatever there is in the fridge + pasta), and watching a Stones concert on our newly-installed home cinema in our super apartment in Paris. So screw blogging, my Stephane and Sir Mick await!

I haven't been blogging in a while because my interview went well and I am taking an intensive English teaching course (9am to 8pm everyday plus homework) and I don't have time to shit, let alone wipe my ass, let alone blog to tell you about it. BUT it is an exhilirating experience. My students (10 adults between 32 and 55 years old) are fabulous, even though I don't know what the hell they are saying half the time. I will write a lot more about teaching when I have a moment to reflect, because it is a new direction that my life is taking and a very positive one (my anxiety has, poof!, disappeared.