Prom

In all of the high school traditions which have developed in North America over the course of the past century, Prom night is the most famous, both in America and in the world. As a French citizen, I have had the rare luck to experience life in high school in North America, and thus to participate in the highlight of the last 5 years of our education, Prom night. As I stepped into my last year of high school, I was quick to realize that Prom night was a sacred event which must be carefully prepared for messing those 4 hours up which be the equivalent of messing up the five years of high school. At least, that is the opinion of the vast majority of the high school female population. Boys on the other hand, see Prom as a tradition that is not to be missed, but are generally more impermeable to the stress that this event causes to girls, especially on the matter of dresses. For boys, almost any suit is acceptable for Prom whereas for girls countless hours are spent on finding the perfect dress and fierce battles have been witnessed when two girls went to Prom with the same dress (in order to avoid this tragedy, they lately came up with the strategy of making a private "prom dress" group on facebook where each girl posts a picture of her dress). As months, weeks and days erode away and the fatal date is approaching, the entire female community is biting its fingernails as it seems that every girl has forgotten a vital detail for prom (dress, shoes, make-up etc..). Once again, the male community watches over the cacophony with a certain apathy.
Since Prom is such an important day, it must be remembered with pictures, but pictures must be taken carefully as to capture all the happiness radiating from happy Prom couples who put on smiles that are ever so real and really reflect reality. Unfortunately, it seems that such pictures cannot be taken during prom, for that would cause too much trouble, and besides, parents need to enjoy the sight of their beautiful children as well. That is how I became accustomed to the concept of pre-prom. Pre-prom is a little ceremony organized before prom in small circles of friends who enjoy champagne or any other fancy drink in the company of their parents and dates, while the first ones take pictures of the later, in order to remember for ever such a glorious day. Once that is done, the circles of friends must go from the house that was hosting the pre-prom to the prom. However, that must be done in style and rituals must be followed. A limo or a party bus must pick up the young promers and take them on a quick ride around town before going to prom in order to make the day really unforgettable and, of course, take more pictures.
Once at prom, one would assume that the one thousand photos taken at pre-prom would be enough but apparently not because the first hour of prom is spent taking photos with other circle of friends who just arrived from their own pre-prom. Once that is done, dinner will be served, a dinner which is actually very good, not to mention the desert, but that is not the point. After 3 or 4 hours, everyone has to rush to another person's house in order to get ready for after-prom (I cannot however, describe in detail how one gets ready for pre-prom for the sake of my mark in creative writing). In case one was wondering where the dancing we see in many American movies such as Grease or Return to the Future, one must know that times have changed, and that now the equivalent of the dancing at an '80s prom is the after-prom. For after prom, which takes place from 10:30 to 2am, we all go to a club downtown and dance frenetically to the rhythm of the latest top 20, which is actually very fun once you get into it. After a little thinking however, I realized that Prom was not so special because it was like a fancy dinner which we will often have in our adult lives and after prom is like a regular night in a club which we will often experience in our college life. But it is an important part of high school and a tradition which should travel to the rest of the world.

Graduation

June 3rd, 2011. two hundred and eighty-eight kids are marching on the stage of the Chan Center in gowns in front of a sea of proud families and mothers shining with joy. A huge smile can be seen on every face of the 2011 graduates which reflects all the pride they are feeling to be the subject of so much attention and applause. This is it. The last official ceremony of our high school life. After this, we will be unleashed into the wild world where for the first time in our lives, we will be able to make our own decisions as to where our lives should be headed. Some of us are more than eager to finally leave high school and finally turn the page of childhood. Others, like me, look in nostalgia at the end of an era when we were not yet fully responsible for ourselves, and thus free to make mistakes. An era when things had been planned for us by adults and we simply had to follow the path laid out for us. Many of us will be attending a university or college of some sort, and because of that we still know part of the path we are heading for. However, we will eventually all come to a point when we will no longer know exactly where we will be within the next month. This may seem scary to some, but should be seen as the beginning of our new lives in the real world, where opportunities come and go and where we can choose which path to take. Whatever happens, we, the graduates of 2011, are now in control of the future and how we want to shape the world in which we live, for we are the future.

L'affaire DSK

For the past month, the political world has been shaken by what seems to me one of the biggest set ups of the decade. About a month ago, to the surprise of the whole French political class, the French socialist deputy and head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn (aka DSK), was arrested as he was boarding a plane for France in the JFK airport in New York for the rape of the maid in the hotel where he was staying. For 3 days, France wondered what was happening to the most popular socialist who was probably going to be the socialist representative in the elections of 2012 while the American media was unleashing waves of articles against the one they called "le perv". What is scandalous is that a famous and respected figure as DSK had to go through the "prep walk" as if he was just any common thug. After two days, the police established the time of the rape to have been 1pm. The next day, DSK's lawyers proved that DSK had been in fact having lunch at 12:30, and therefore could not have raped the hotel maid at 1. Well then, the NYPD said, the rape actually happened at 12. Now, it seems to me like you can't just change the time of a crime like that, but it seems that the NYPD can. Moreover, it is a little suspicious that although everyone knew that Dominique Strauss-Kahn liked women and sex, he was suddenly accused of rape for the first time only a month before he was (in theory) going to announce publicly that he was a candidate to France's 2012 elections. This accusation now leaves the French socialist party deprived of its strongest leader who would have doubtlessly beaten the current French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is much more liked of the Americans. For now, we cannot know wether DSK is innocent or not for his actual trial will take place on June 3rd, but what we do know is that his political career is indeed over because of this scandal, and he has in fact quit his job as head of the IMF.

Did you know?

Did you know that it is possible to water ski with skis meant to be used for snow? I certainly did not until I went spring skiing in Whistler on a warm April day. On that day, since the temperature was above zero and the snow was quickly turning into slush, the Whistler administration, in co-operation with a certain brand of alcoholic beverages which I am not allowed to name on this blog or I might get in trouble with Mrs Hughes , had organized the Palm Bay Slush Cup (oops I guess I gave it away, what a rebel I am). On that day, the Whistler host had somehow created a pond at the bottom of a run and the objective was to go down the run and across the pond without falling. In theory, you were supposed to be 19 to participate but my little brother and I got our mother to sign a waiver which made us the youngest participants. After an awkward 15 minutes wait (awkward because some people had decided to go across the pond naked), our turn came. I had gone thinking I would fall in the water and regret it for the rest of the day and yet surprisingly, I made it across the pond without a single drop of water on me. For a few seconds, I skid full speed above the water like a modern Jesus. Unfortunately for him, my brother did fall and did regret it for the rest of the day.
proof below
http://www.epixome.tv/o/view?t=183bf6ff7fe021e

Why vote for the Green party?

Next year in France will be held the presidential elections and I will be voting for the first time of my life. I have decided to give my first vote ever to the Green party and there are many reasons for that. Firstly, I believe that, seeing the shape our planet is in, it is more than needed for the governments of the world to take action in trying to preserve our planet, its oceans, its mountains and its wildlife. I also decided to vote for the Green party in 2012 because the candidate next year will be Nicolas Hulot, who is genuinely more concerned with protecting our planet than with power, or so it seems at least. Of course, it would be foolishness to believe that the Green party stands a chance against other parties and yet it is vital to vote for them during the first round (in France, all parties compete in a first round and the two best compete during a second round). The reason for that is that although a president who represents the Green party might not be the best thing for a country, it is important to give the Green party as many votes as possible during the first round of the presidential elections so that they can have many seats that represent them at the National Assembly, for that will allow the Green deputies to have more power for passing laws which our planet really needs. For instance, more money could be spent on green energies and companies which support the planet could be supported by the government while taxes could be raised for companies which neglect being green. And that is why, if your electoral system is similar to France's, you should vote for the Green party. Lastly, as the French proverb goes: "If you don't vote left-wing before 20 you don't have a heart, but if you still do past 35 you don't have a head"

http://2012hulot.fr/bannieres/nh2012-300x250_2.swf

Olympic Misadventure

During the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I was volunteering as a host in all three Whistler venues, and my job changed every day depending on what was to be done. That is how after checking tickets or journalist passes, greeting spectators and answering questions for tourists, I was assigned to checking the passes of all the people who entered the doping center after the bobsleigh race. Unfortunately for me, I did not find my job as exciting as an expert in sports would have because I did not know any athletes and I asked the athlete who had won the gold medal that night without knowing who he was. The other problem was that it was nighttime and very cold in Whistler and I was not too keen on waiting outside for hours for the athletes to come and get checked for steroids. Things got worse when one of the doctors arrived but only had one of the two passes required, which I told him very calmly. Unfortunately for me, the doctors only needed one pass and I was not the first volunteer to make the mistake, which made the doctor unleash all of his built-up anger on me. When I heard an accent in his voice, which I mistook for a French accent, I told him in French that I spoke his language. The problem was that the doctor was actually German and thought that I was forcing him to speak in French because it is the official language of the Olympic Games.
"No, no, he said in an angry tone, you have to talk to me in English!"
It was 10pm, dark, cold and I had been standing in the same spot for 2 hours as a volunteer, and I seriously considered punching the German in the head. Luckily, someone came at that moment from inside the doping center and took the German maniac away.

California

During the remembrance day weekend, my mother decided that we should go to Los Angeles because it was also her birthday that day and she wanted to see some of her American friends. The trip started pretty well for me because I got to ride our car from Vancouver to Seattle where we were to take the airplane on the following day. These 300 kilometers probably were some of the best of my life. The reason for that is that up to now, I always had to sit and wait, bored. But this time, I got to take full control of the car on the Highway 405 South while my mother was worried to death, especially when I did any sudden move, which considerably increased my share of fun. Once in Seattle, we slept at some of my mother's friends' house and finally left the next morning towards our airplane to California. After a normal trip, we landed in L.A. where the heat struck us as soon as we left the plane, for we were still used to the Canadian weather. The first day we did a bit of tourism and went to the Universal Studios which, althought they are despicable because of their habit of pushing you to consumme more and more at every footstep, but I must admit it was an experience I enjoyed a lot, in particular the rides. I enjoyed the next day more as we were invited in Yvon Chouinard's ranch, yes I am indeed talking about the owner of Patagonia, whom my mother had become friends with when she worked there. Therefore, we were on our way to the Hollister ranch which I must admit, is awesome. The Hollister ranch is a huge property owned once by a family called the Hollisters but who could not afford to keep such a large piece of land and therefore divided it into 130 parcels of 1 acre each and sold them to rather rich people. But the beauty of it is that all the 130 acres are somehow private and no one except the owners and their friends can go in. It is so gigantic that there even is a private road inside which goes on for kilometers. Once we were there, we not only saw Yvon but also another former Patagonia employee and friend of my mother who offered me to go surfing with him. Since I rarely have the occasion to practice one of my favorite, if not m favorite sport, I jumped on the occasion and went surfing with this stranger. Well I did not regret it at all for the waves were huge that day and Yvon Chouinard had lent me some really good gear which his son's surfing equipement company made (outdoors must run in the blood of that family). Therefore, when I left the ranch, I was very satisfied of my trip to L.A. and decided I should come back to California as soon as possible. During the trip back, nothing particular occured except the fact that during the airplane ride, I had the misfortune to be stuck between two specimens of exceptionally large pachyderms, by which I mean of course two fat guys who made my ride quite uncomfortable, not to mention that one of them was constantly taking the liberty of letting go flatulences.