Teaching a class at La Sorbonne (16 February)

I just noticed I skipped something rather important: my class at La Sorbonne! After all the talk about my prep work and Madrid vacation reward, I failed to mention how the teaching actually went!

Well, I shocked and astounded those students, but in the end, I think they'd agree that they learned something. That's what was so surprising. My American methods were so strange at first that they just sat there with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Now, perhaps it was warranted. I did open with: "What is math?" They didn't answer. I asked again. Still crickets. One student actually looked back at the professor, who just shrugged. So, I treated them like American middle school students. I wrote the word "math" on the board and asked them what words came to mind if I said "math." They started giving me some terms: "numbers, theorem (they didn't know what this was, but knew it had something to do with math), infinity, etc."

It turns out the students responded very well to the "brainstorming" and from that point on, were more likely to answer my questions. So, I asked them fun questions. For example, when discussing a book called Exercices de style (which every French person has essentially read), I asked if they had skipped the mathematical variations. Then we tried to figure out why. When discussing a theorem, I asked what their last math class was, and why they stopped. I think they were surprised to realize that they don't know what math is, and that the math you do in high school is not real math at all. The longer I talked, the more they answered, and the more intelligent their answers became. In the end, they clapped and a few asked me if everyone in America teaches like that, if they can study in America, and thanked me for what they said was their "best class ever." The professor told me my research is original and asked me where I learned to teach like that. When I told her it was from teaching languages (that's clearly where the brainstorming web idea came from), she didn't really know how to respond.

Anyway, at 25 I taught a class at La Sorbonne. Not too bad at all! Next up, the Séminaire ALGORITM and the Séminaire Perec!

Also, this is where I taught. Right? I know!

Madrid

Once again, I have fallen drastically behind in my blogging. And apparently I have a second reader, so I really should get back into the zone (yes, I'm talking about you M. George Orrimbe, whose name comes from George Orwell and Rimbaud and is also serendipitously the verlan or backwards French slang language for Rimbaud). So, here I go!

After my 16 February presentation at La Sorbonne, I woke up at 3am to get in the cab share I reserved to make it to Charles De Gaulle airport in time for my drastically early flight. I barely got any sleep at all, but was very happy to be woken up by a phone call from my friend Melissa back in Princeton! Since it was only 9pm in Princeton, she figured it was the least that she could do. And I really appreciated it! Then, after a lovely conversation with the cab driver, I arrived at my terminal with plenty of time. In a few short hours, I was finally getting off the plane in Madrid, something I should have done YEARS ago.

Short backstory—five years ago when studying abroad in Paris, I was supposed to go to Madrid, then meet my friend Emma, travel to Granada with her (she was living there for the year), then the two of us were going to go back to Paris. Thanks to a poorly timed volcanic eruption in Iceland, I was stranded in Paris, got to tour Emma around (whose flight wasn't cancelled), but never went to Spain. As you know, I even made it to Iceland before I finally set foot on Spanish soil!

I spent just under a week in Madrid and got to know this lovely city on foot (my friend Glenn lived in city center, which was all walkable). Glenn and his roommate Sam were very welcoming and I got to have tons of stimulating conversations about language learning, math, and traveling. It's great being in good company! There were a few problems—the bed was broken and Glenn's father was a chain smoker, but never opened the window—but it was a nice reward in any case for having taught an hour and a half long lesson at La Sorbonne! I even saw The Lion King in Spanish (El rey león) and learned that I have a strangely passive understanding of Spanish. Guess that's the next language on the list! And Hebrew, of course.

Here are some pictures of my trip. While I didn't like Spanish food (at least what I had in Madrid), thought that Madrid was the most boring European capital I've ever seen, and will perhaps one day trace the lung cancer I'm bound to contract to being locked in an apartment filled with Panamanian cigarettes, Madrid was still a place to see. And now I can no longer say I've never been to Spain!

Chocolate con churros! And a good read!

Where I saw Picasso's Guernica! 

Awesome modern art that they actually LET you take a picture of!

Some good old Salvador Dali 

Cervantes, the father of Spanish literature, represented in his hometown (just outside of Madrid)

The glass palace

Cocido, a Madrid specialty

It's just chick pea stew with lots of meat 

The Lion King. Where I saw the same dumb show for the 11th time in a language I don't even know. It was also a surprisingly white cast. Seemed a bit racist. I'll write an entry about it on my other blog eventually. 

Villers-Pol

The day before my Sorbonne presentation (because of course I was well prepared and not writing the entire last part the day before...um...right), I went to Villers-Pol with Mélanie to celebrate her birthday and her sister's birthday with her family in the north! Mélanie is from a tiny town next to the Belgian border. The French impression of people from the north is generally that they are their "rednecks." There's even a popular movie about how dumb northerners are. But, I had a lovely day with Mélanie's family. Her sister's name is Nathalie, so it got a bit confusing at times. Lunch consisted of raclette (my favorite!) and a raspberry cake for dessert. And best of all, I got to see a part of France that no one ever sees! In fact, I was the first person from another continent that Mélanie's father has ever met! Here are some pictures of the north of France:

My champagne and fancy French cake

The old church in the town

Very, very old

A farm! 

The lake at sunset 

My French phone takes such good pictures, doesn't it? 

The Moulin (mill). So cute!

The Paris Sewers (28 January)

I went into the sewers with my adviser! He is writing a book on Les Misérables and asked me if I wanted to do a "miserable" tour of Paris with him. I caught him on his last European stop, after Guernsey and Jersey (where Hugo lived while in exile) and before his return to Princeton. Here are some great pictures that fortunately do not convey the smell of the experience. In the end, the sewers smell just slightly worse than Louise's bedroom.

The entrance. Looks creepy, huh? 

This is a clever giant ball they use to "filter" the contents of the water. It is just slightly smaller than the sewer pipes themselves, which create enough pressure to separate the water from the waste. What an incredible feat of engineering!

Street signs, like in the city. But for the passages in the tour. 

This is Jean Valjean from Les Misérables carrying Marius through the sewers on his back. Could the tour get any cornier? 

This is what the sewer looked like. Bellos was disappointed that we weren't actually in a boat going through the sewage. We were assured by one of the guides that while that used to be allowed, most tourists would contract horrible diseases that way and die. 

My Dissertation Completion Plan

Here is my AMAZING dissertation completion plan. I'm not adhering to it perfectly, but it seems to be going well for the moment. I have designed it so that I should be able to finish a (very) rough draft of all five chapters of my dissertation by 31 December, which would give me an entire semester to edit and do any more research that might be necessary, allowing me the possibility of finishing in five years like you're supposed to. I'm hoping to get a sixth year as I would like more teaching experience before being on the job market, but either way, this plan sounds crazy but actually seems like it will work.

16 February:

This was the date of my presentation at La Sorbonne. I was invited to give a lecture for a class on the Oulipo, taught by Christelle Reggiani (a Perec expert whose new book I just reviewed a few months ago). I will write more about this in a different post, but the point is, I treated this talk as a "deadline" to finish a draft of my first chapter of my dissertation. The talk was on set theory as it pertains to the Oulipo, namely my first chapter. So, rather than spending months working on a presentation, I spent the time working on the chapter and then translated my work into a French presentation for the class. I then scheduled a vacation in Madrid to reward myself.

I didn't quite finish the chapter draft before leaving for Spain, but the presentation was a success and I don't have much left to write. It is a very rough draft, as I said, but at least I know that my ideas are there. What's more, forcing yourself to write makes you acutely aware of where your research is lacking. After having written these 50 pages, I now know exactly where I need to expand and what new books to read.

1 April:

This is an arbitrary deadline. I picked this date because I'd like to have my fourth chapter on algorithms drafted, and a reduced version in article form sent out to a journal that was interested in it. The article is half written as is, so the chapter writing should be quick and painless. The second half of the article will also be the topic I will discuss at the Séminaire Perec on 30 May. Reggiani invited me to present at that, and I figured it would, like the other presentations, force me to get a substantial part of my dissertation written.

28 May:

This is the date of my presentation on geometry, literature, and the table of contents at the Séminaire ALGORITM. I will be speaking about my fifth chapter, specifically Italo Calvino and Michèle Audin. To add to the pressure, Audin will be there and speaking as well. So, I'll get to see if she agrees with my interpretations of her work! This should allow me to have a draft of my fifth chapter and a productive conversation at this conference all at the same time.

1 August:

Arbitrary deadline by which I'd like to have my second chapter written.

31 December:

As I'll be teaching the first semester and since the third chapter is central to my dissertation (both in position and importance), I will want to give myself much more time with it. I think it should be doable.

So, the plan might seem crazy. But, I'm confident it will work! It's working so far!

George Orrimbe

I believe I already wrote a post about my random (or was it? The OuLiPo is against randomness...) encounter with George Orrimbe at Versailles. He is a member of the OuPeinPo (the OuXPo group dedicated to Painting, or Peinture, rather than Littérature like the OuLiPo). Well, he invited me to his exposition twice: the first time to give me a private tour; the second to help him show the new member of the OuLiPo the exposition, a Spanish author named Pablo Martín Sanchez). Let me show you his portraits of the OuLiPo members so you have a better idea of what he does.

Here are some of the portraits. Rather than painting an author based on his looks, he designs these portraits based entirely on the author's published works.

The process is called "vococoloriste" and what it means is that Orrimbe has a system. He chooses a shape based on the number of vowels (voco) in a word and the color based on the first vowel. The color scheme comes from Rimbaud's famous poem "Voyelles" (A noir E blanc I rouge, etc.) Instead of E blanc or white E, he does yellow, so it looks more interesting. 

He picks ten titles of their works to fill in the facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, eyebrows, etc.)

For the entire face, he uses the author's name. 

It's fun to stand in front of a portrait and guess which Oulipian it is, a process that isn't too difficult once one has learned the system and assuming a good knowledge of the Oulipian authors and their works. 

Orrimbe, by the way, is a name he takes from Rimbaud (it is Rimbaud backwards, in the tradition of the French slang called the Verlan). George comes from George Orwell, one of his favorite authors. 

Ultimately, it was a small, but bold exposition. I feel very honored to have been given a private tour by the artist. 

My first full day back in Paris

My first full day back in Paris was the perfect conglomeration of everything I love about this city (well, that city. I'm writing from Madrid at the moment). I had:

1) Magret de canard, at one of Mélanie's and my favorite restaurants right by the Place Monge.

2) A delightful lunch and conversation with Mélanie, followed by a café gourmand for dessert (a coffee with a whole bunch of sweets and fruit on the side)

3) Berthillon ice cream (because one dessert wasn't enough, obviously!)

4) A private exposition of artwork by a member of the OuPeinPo (George Orrimbe) by the artist himself!

5) An OuLiPo jeudi.

Congrats Paris, it was an excellent day. It really made me excited to be back! This was January 15th, by the way. Sorry I'm more than a month behind on updates!!

Charlie Hebdo

I wanted to write a series of short blog posts about the sort of things I've been doing, but I should probably begin with the biggest event that happened while I was gone. First off, many apologies for taking so long to get to this. I have a new "plan" to increase my productivity, which has been working rather well. But I will get to that in another post.

This is painted onto the Institut du Monde Arabe (the Institute of the Arab World), which I'm sure has feared backlash attacks due to these terrorists. 

This is right near the Centre Georges Pompidou

For those of you reading this blog, I should begin by saying that I was on the other side of the planet when Charlie Hebdo was attacked by terrorists who killed several of their prominent cartoonists. I was in San Francisco with friends, and that trip was interesting, but for drastically different reasons. In any case, echoes of the Paris attacks could be felt even all the way in California, and when I returned to Paris a week later, the city was covered in "Je suis Charlie" banners (two of which are pictured above). 

First off, I am not Charlie. And since that statement needs qualification, I will explain. I don't like Charlie Hebdo. It had crossed my path a few times before the attack, but all I knew was that people considered it a French "South Park" (different medium, of course). From what I understood, it was a weekly magazine that aimed to insult everyone. It pictured Mohammed, sure, but also poked fun at the Pope, politicians, and everyone. When I read it, I found a few of the cartoons funny, but it was mostly fart jokes and other vulgar images. I never really "got" that "typical" French humor I suppose. 

As someone who barely read and didn't like Charlie Hebdo, I'm not going to say that I am Charlie. That would be silly! Do I agree with what these terrorists did? Of course not. I don't believe that anyone should be murdered for doing their job; I believe that people have the right to write whatever they want without fearing for their lives; I believe that if you aren't happy with something that has been published, there are other ways to make your concerns known, rather than murdering the people responsible. 

So, I'm for freedom of the press, or liberté d'expression as everyone defends here. But, I also find that the problem is deeply seeded in the way the French government treats its immigrant population—especially in Paris. The French system, no matter how much they claim it is a meritocracy, democratic, and secular, is still essentially an aristocracy. That's why there is no "diversity" at the ENS; it's why the majority of the people in government jobs are there because they went to the same school, passed the same tests, and are generally from the same socioeconomic background. It's also the reason why most of the Arab population seems to be confined to the suburbs. And while I wasn't thrilled when I was stuck in Aulnay-sous-Bois and someone stole my phone out of my hand, I realize that his situation was the result of a highly archaic and racist French system. Perhaps there was no way out. 

The French reaction to the attacks have been exactly wrong. I won't go into it, but here is one example. Apparently a child in an elementary school in the south, when discussing it in class, said that the terrorists were right to kill the cartoonists. They apparently let the police deal with it. How can a country be so hypocritical, proclaiming their right to free speech in Paris but stifling it from anyone who doesn't share the same beliefs as them? In the end, the attack raised a lot of questions that will probably not disappear anytime soon. If nothing else, it made the world largely aware of these political and racial issues that are very prevalent in France, and perhaps now people will be able to recognize it. Perhaps they will even take down the "Au nègre joyeux" sign from the Rue Mouffetard (since it is quite clearly racist). Or perhaps nothing will change and this will be forgotten. The modern day attention span is eerily short, after all. Only time will tell. 

Reasons I'm exhausted

I just got back to Paris! And so begins another chapter of my blog, for which I decided an appropriate topic would be: reasons I'm tired right now. I'll write another post later on my trip to Trier (which actually happened at the end of November) and what I did over the break.

1) I was sick before I left, sick in Iceland (where I swam in two outdoor thermal pools, which probably aggravated the cold), and sick when I got home to Buffalo. Then, with the jet lag, I was not getting enough sleep.

2) When I got back to Buffalo, I would wake up extremely early (around 5am, because of the time difference) and then work until noon, clocking in about 5 good hours or so!

3) My mother was making cookies—lots of them. So I helped quite a bit, as well as worked while she and her partner, Beth, were making them some nights. I would stay up much later than I should have, given the jet lag.

4) I got sick again, probably because of the weather and lack of sleep. I even had to miss Christmas Eve dinner, since we didn't want me to give my grandpa my cold. Thankfully, I discovered Afrin, the world's greatest miracle drug!!

5) I went to Baltimore, and DC (to see Lucie Arnaz in Pippin) and it was a lovely weekend, but I had to wake up at 5am to catch my flight back to Buffalo. My cousin Abby then promptly picked me up from the airport and took me back to my mom's house where we both made cookies for about 12 hours straight.

6) I did an insane amount of work on two applications, a conference presentation for April, an article that will result from that, my dissertation, and more.

7) I went to NYC for NYE, where I stayed up late doing Italian karaoke (and kicking butt at it, if I do say so myself!). Gotta defend my title: Karaoke Star of Urbino.

8) I went to San Francisco for 9 days, where I was waking up at sunrise every morning to get the most out of the trip. My friend Win and I completed the city pass and all its activities in two days flat! And had a 6 mile hike in the woods! We deserve some sort of award.

9) I was back in Princeton for two days, so not long enough to get over the CA jet lag.

10) I flew back to Paris, also through Iceland, and got no sleep.

11) Immediately upon returning, I went to a conference at the BnF. Today (my second day back), I went to an exposition at an art gallery and the jeudi de l'OuLiPo). Now it is 10:30 and I am feeling beat.

So, that's it. How I spent my last five weeks and why I am drained. But fear not, faithful readers (yes, I'm talking to you Uncle Jeffrey!), I will make sure to write more soon about my work, the Charlie Hebdo terrorist strike, a lovely medieval German town, my plan for my dissertation, and more.