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.

Why is holding on to a car with a bike not a great idea

If you are a teenager or an adult who remembers his youth well enough (very rare), you might know that during that certain period of our lives, we devellop that typical teenager ability to believe we are invicible and above all sorts of comments from anybody because we are smarter than everybody. And because I develloped that mentality myself, I decided it would be fun and also quite a show in front of my friends to get pulled by a friend's car while on a bike. We had already done it before and in all sincerity, we had become quite good at it, and it was almost a habit for my friend to tow me to my house back from school. However, it is important to know that we had never gone any faster than 60 km/h, because I had felt that the bike was getting hard to control at this speed already. But as usual, and as a teenager, I decided that you did not know what your limits are until you reach them. Therefore, on a sunny friday afternoon, I let my friend push the pedal to 70km/h. Of course, when confronted to such a high speed, my bike got out of control so I yelled to my friend driving to stop but it was too late. He had started to slow down so I fell at 55km/h instead of 70, with no helmet on of course. I skid on the road's rough and hard concrete on 5 metres. Luckily, I had managed to push myself away from the car and my bagpack had taken the worst of my skidding. But I still got enormous bruises and scabs on my knees, arm, hip and back, not to mention the small ones. Those hurt a lot but I was very happy I was alive because I knew this type of accident could have ended in much more of a tragic manner. But in the end, I am able to look upon this accident as an experience because after all, only those who do nothing get nothing, and that includes scabs and experience. Therefore, I am able to say that I wont hold on to a car while on a bike anymore, or at least not for a while and not as fast. So we can say that I have gained not only experience but also a good story to tell my friends which will allow me to show off even more than if I had not fallen.

Quebecers

When I first came to Canada, I was just an ignorant French kid who thought Canada was just a gigantic country with snow and bears everywhere. Also, like most of my people, I believed that Quebecers spoke a ridiculous type of French and ought to be made fun of. During my first two years in Canada, I learnt that Canada was much more than just snow and bears but, being surrounded by anglophone Canadians, I stuck with my belief of the stupidity of the Quebec culture, like so many other French people who, althought are a great nation, have the ability to judge and think of themselves as better than cultures they know nothing about, which is quite stupid. On my third year in Canada on the other hand, I moved from Lord Byng Secondary school to l'Ecole Secondaire Jules Verne, in order to do the International Baccalaureate. That school was a French school, like so many others which are built all around Canada because of the pressure people who want the French language and culture to be preserved put on the government. In that school, I met Quebecers for the first time in my life and it turned out they were'nt bad at all. Sure, they spoke with a funny accent which was hard for me to understand at first, but most importantly, they are some of the friendliest people I have met in my life, and their funny accent gives them a predisposition to be people with a great sense of humour. In short, they are warm people in a cold country. Unfortunaly, I had to go back to leave Jules Verne and go back to Byng for my last year of high school because I thought the IB (International Baccalaureate, remember?) was too much work, but I still hang out with what I call, my francophone buddies and I will never forget that special year.

Using social networks to show off

In the past two or three decades, the world has witnessed the arrival of an invention entirely different to anything invented before: the Internet. The Internet was very special because it was not something physical which one could touch, and yet it soon became one of the biggest sources of money ever. In a few years, all the developed countries acquired it and it soon became the main source of communication, thus making quite a number of industries such as the press or the post old-fashioned and obsolete but who cared? The number of possibilities the computers' white and shiny screens offered seemed endless. Soon, men became unable to function properly without their precious internet. But the addiction was pushed to its peak when a few years ago, social networks were invented. Suddenly, everyone felt the need to talk to people they so every day and became curious about what those people had done in the past hour, and started uploading hundreds of photos of various things which, let's face it, are often rather pointless, because one photo of a dog is cute, but two hundred photos of the same dog in different shades or angles get boring. But of course there are some good sides to the fact that websites like Facebook or Twitter are now the center of any normally formed teenager. Of course there is the whole we-can-stay-in-contact-no-matter-where-you-go side of it but most importantly, we are now able to show off to all of friends without even talking to them. How? you might ask. Well for that, there are a few techniques, which I will graciously share with those who take the time to read this, so that they might not feel like they have wasted their time. Using Facebook, you can have a lot of friends (about 400 is the minimum, but it does not matter whether you know them or not) and thus show off your "social skills" to all those people and in fact it is now possible to see people argue about who has more virtual friends, an activity about which I choose not to comment. On the other hand, you can also go for the less popular choice of only adding a few people and then saying: " I don't want to be like all those lame people who add strangers for the vanity of having friends on facebook, I know all the people I add." If this works, you can kill two birds with one stone because not only do you prove that you are not conformist and therefore better than everyone, but you can still show off your social skills by having slightly less virtual friends than your acquaintances by implying that you truly know your "small" circle of friends (in this case, about 200 to 300 friends is recommended.) Lastly, a good way to show off using social networks is uploading photos of you and your friends doing something judged cool by the teenage society or just you doing something cool or being somewhere cool. Now of course, I would be a hypocrite if I said I never did any of the things I am judging right now because otherwise, how would I be able to talk about it. I use Facebook to show off like everybody as you can see in my next post and for that, I say: thank you Facebook for making us all addicted to you.

Free project

Scout story

As incredible as it may seem, I was in the  boy-scouts for six years, and during those six years, my friends in the scouts and I have been through many adventures, and this one is one of my favourite.

            The summer camp which I had been part of every year had started like all the others, with the 35 scouts from Paris leaving in a packed bus while singing loudly until the driver, as every year, stopped the bus on the side of the highway and, while our scout supervisors watched with eyes that seemed to say “here we go again”, the driver went to the back of the bus and screamed:

-“ If you don’t immediately stop your barbaric singing, this bus is going right back to Paris and too bad for the summer camp.”

Once he had said this, we would be quiet for a little while, and we would start singing 5 kilometres later, as every year.

            After about 500 kilometres and 6 long hours in the uncomfortable bus, we arrived in the field which had been lent to us for the two weeks we were going to spend. As usual, our supervisors had chosen a field in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of France with one faucet 500 metres away for all our water. But as every year, we were all happy to be in the “wild”, from a Parisian point of view at least.

            As soon as we got off the bus, we set off to setting up the tents, making a fire pit, and of course a very elaborate washroom which consisted of a hole in the ground. As always, we had been divided into groups of 5 or 6 per tent called a  patrouille (translate patrol). Each patrouille was then assigned to a certain task for the camp life, for instance getting wood, preparing food or washing the dishes, and we rotated every day. It was also with our patrouille that we were always teamed up during the games we played every day, and thus a patrouille was sort of like a house in a school.

            One thing which was, at least for the kids my age and I, different that year was that we had just left the louveteaux and become scouts. At this point, a little clarification is probably needed for those who are not familiar with the scouting world. Since the scouts are a very large organization composed of children from 8 to 21, and even later if you consider the supervisors, the scouts are divided in four sections, depending on age. From 8 to 12 years old are the louveteaux (wolf cubs), then the scouts from 12 to 15, the pionniers (pioneers) from 15 to 18, and the compagnons (companions) from 18 to 21. The idea is that the older you are, the more independent and autonomous you are and in fact, in the compagnons, there no longer are any supervisors as you are your own supervisor.

            Thus my friends and I had were 12 and had just become scouts; and were proud to be part of the older group, where we knew we would be treated more like grown-ups. One day, our supervisors gathered us all after the Sunday mass (let us not forget that the scouts are also a catholic organisation, although no one of a different religion has ever been forbidden to join.) and told us that on the next day we would go on our exploration. The older boys who already knew what the exploration was chuckled and started telling each other stories of previous explorations but the younger ones, me included, started excitingly whispering to each other that the day had finally come and that the veil of mystery which enveloped the exploration would be lifted at last, for we had heard so much of the exploration. The supervisors slowly told us that the next day, each patrouille would be given 50 euros and a map with an itinerary to follow. We were supposed to use paths and roads to go to a house, but usually a basement owner by people who had previously agreed to lend part of their house to 6 young scouts for a night. We were supposed to buy food ourselves with the money, and walk back to the camp on the following day, and all this in an environment completely unknown to us, hence the name exploration. As we went back to our tents that night, none of us was able to fall asleep right away for we were all trying to imagine what would happen the next day and we were all making up scenarios in our heads as to what might happen.

            The next day, around 9 am, one supervisor came to wake my tent up and told us it was time to go. My tent and patrouille was composed of two boys my age whom I also knew from school, Hadrien and Bruno, two boys two years older, Matthieu and Henri, and Cyprien, who was the oldest and thus the head of the patrouille. We quickly went around the camp fire, ate and breakfast and waited for our supervisor to tell us what to do. Our supervisor gave us a map and showed us where we were going to spend the night and how to get there. Unfortunately, that year the exploration had been rushed and quickly organised by our supervisors and all they had found for us was a house in construction with no roof that had been lent to us by the city hall of the village in which the house was. Nonetheless, we were all so overcome by our happiness of being granted so much freedom that the idea of sleeping à la belle étoile did not least bother us. We could hardly restrain ourselves from jumping with joy, especially when we were given the bill of 50 euros, which was of course a huge amount of money for boys our age. Thus, after saying good bye and taking with us two baguettes, cheese and ham for the trip, we left the camp and entered the wild world alone, three boys of 12, two boys of 14 and one of 15.

            My patrouille had been bravely walking for five hours, and, conscious of all the liberty we had, we had enjoyed every minute of it. We had stopped in a supermarket earlier to buy as much junk food as possible for our dinner and breakfast, because yes, it is possible to buy food for 5 people with 50 euros, for 2 days. As we were walking on a very small road in the countryside, we took a quick break next to a house in construction by the road. The house was empty and there was a large truck next to it. As we were about to start walking again, I felt the need to annoy Cyprien, as I always did, by snatching his hat and running away with it. I obtained the effect I was looking for when he immediately stood up to chase me. As I was running away from Cyprien, I turned my head around to see how far he was, and ran head first into the back corner of the stationary truck I have mentioned earlier which, of course, was as sharp as a knife. The shock I had just received had thrown me on the ground and at first, my friends started laughing which I cannot condemn for the scene must have been quite funny. I started laughing a bit while touching my head with my hand but I stopped laughing when I realized that my hand was covered in blood. It is usually in such moments that one realizes how soft the human skull really is, and as funny as my running into the truck might have been, the story became slightly less funny when Cyprien told me that I have a cut 5 centimetres long on my head. Without losing his calm, he told me to lay down while he called our supervisors. The problem was that we only had one cellphone which had of course no money, and we could not call a regular number. My friends then called the firemen because their number is free of charges, and started telling them what had happened. The other problem was that we did not know precisely where we were because the road on which we were was in the middle of nowhere, and as my friends were trying to tell the firemen our location, the phone shut down. That is when we realized that the phone was out of battery. Thus here we were, 6 young boys in the country, one of them with a huge cut in the skull and unsure wether the fireman knew where we were or not. After fifteen minutes, we heard the sirens of the ambulance in the distance, but it did not come near us, instead we heard it driving around us without being able to find us. Luckily, at this point, a local farmer went by in his car and stopped when he saw us by the side of the road. In his peasant accent, he asked us what was wrong and we told him of our misfortune. Since he happened to know the fireman who was on duty when we called, he pulled out a cell phone which seemed to us like quite a contrast for a man who looked so rural, and he called his friend, saying that he had found “them” as though he was talking about an object the entire world had been looking for.

            The man decided to stay with us until the ambulance arrived and while we were all waiting, two old ladies and then another peasant came by, and as they all knew each other, they started talking about the “pauvres garcons” who were so unlucky. Before I knew it, about half the rural community was around me and talking about what was best to do, and the scene became rather unusual:

-“Back in my days, being in the scouts was not so dangerous” said an elderly lady.

_”Yes but they are good boys nonetheless Madame Joubert, one can see it right away.” Answered another

-“And by the way, how is your elder son, the one who was himself in the scouts?” said a third one, who had just appeared out of nowhere.

-“Oh well he told me he is doing very well in his engineering school, he is the nicest boy.”

Et caetera…

            Although having many people around was rather soothing at first, the constant blabbering of the old ladies and the peasants soon became annoying and I was quite happy when the ambulance finally arrived and took me away. Thus I left my friends and rode towards the hospital of the obscure town of Brive-la-Gaillarde, which I had never heard of before in my life. Once in the hospital, I patiently waited for my turn in the waiting room while everyone was watching the rather unusual sight of a 12 years old boy in a scouts uniform and with dried blood all over his face. After an hour, a doctor told me to come in his room and made me sit. He was huge and had hands that would have best suited a butcher than a doctor, and he too talked with a peasant accent. Seeing my cut, he pulled out a huge stapler and started stapling the two sides of my cut together. Now I do not know much about medicine, but it seems to me like he should maybe have cleaned my cut from the dried blood and shaved my hair before stapling my head, but I am a polite person and decided to let him do his work. As he started absently stapling my head, he starting talking to his nurse as though I was not here:

-“Ah those scouts! – Tchak! one staple- They’re so irresponsible! –Tchak! Two staples- To leave young boys –Tchak! Three staples- alone in the wild! –Tchak! Four staples- How irresponsible! –Tchack! Five staples- Never will you see my children with them –Tchak! Six staples- Never! –Tchak”

After seven staples, my head was on fire and had there been one more, the tear that I was restraining to the corner of my eye would have most likely dripped down my cheek. Once the good doctor had finished his job, I must that I looked much worse that before, sort of like a scout version of Frankeinstein. As I left the doctor’s room, a new problem arose: it was now around midnight, I was in an unknown town with no cell phone and I did not know my supervisors’ cell phone number. Therefore, I asked to use the hospital’s phone and called the only number I knew by heart, my father’s. So at midnight, my father received a call from his 12 years old son saying that he was in a hospital in Brive-la-Gaillarde, that I would explain everything later but that I needed my supervisors’ phone number. My father’s reaction was simple:

-”Is this a joke?”

La patrouille

-“No, no dad, I’ll explain everything later but right now I need you to give me my supervisors’ number.”

My father has many qualities, but one cannot say that my father is very organized. He was aware of the fact that I was in a scouts camp but he did not have my supervisors’ phone number. Therefore I told him to call my grandparents, because my mother had just gone to Vancouver and was not taking care of me that summer, and once he had the number he could call the hospital back and give me the number. I do not know how my grandparents reacted when he called them because before he called back, my supervisors had come to get me themselves after my patrouille had called them with one of the old ladies’ phone and informed them of the situation. They had ended up sleeping at the old ladies’ house who apparently offered them very comfortable beds and good food  when they heard that my friends didn’t have time to reach the house where they had to go before nightfall. In the end, my misfortune was good for them because the place in which they stayed was much better than a house in construction. As for me, I went back to the camp that night with my supervisors and waited the next day for all my friends to come back and tell them of my adventure.

Childhood memory

Scavenger Hunt Poem

Two down, a lot to go

        As I have aforementioned, Ben Ali of Tunisia and his family have all fled from Tunisia after rebellious Tunisians rose in anger against the high cost of living and the lack of democracy in Tunisia. It had also been said that Mubarak of Tunisia might follow soon enough. Well, on February 11th, after 31 years of reign, Mubarak and his clique have had to leave the power in the hands of the army. But after these two autocrats have stepped down, there still is plenty to do, and plenty that could go wrong. It has often been seen that once people get a taste of rebellion and revolution, they find it hard to go back to regular life, and such us the case in Tunisia where the protest have been going on even now that Ben Ali has left for the protesters now want the provisional government to leave. Even worse, extremist have been known to always take the opportunity to gain complete power over a country after a rebellion, and it is possible that in Egypt where the army is currently in power, islamist may try to gain power which would make the situation worse than before.

Bahrein, Pearl Square protests

         On the other hand, it seems that this jasmine revolution really has become a revolution of the arab world for in the past week, large protest have been organized in Morocco, Algeria and Yemen, though they did not lead to anything concrete. In Bahrein protest have been successfully answered by the prince who has agreed to start a dialogue with the protesters. In Libya unfortunately, the protest organized against the oppressing dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi have been violently put down by the army which shot the protesters and made several deads. In Iran protest have been organized as well but because of the country's usual no-reporters policy, not much is known of those protests. In short, most of the arab world is now prone to rebellions and protests but is leaders, especially the worst ones, do not seem to be ready to let go of the reins of power. Nonetheless, we wish the protesters of Libya and Iran good luck in their struggle, and we hope that Egypt and Tunisia will soon have stable, democratic governments.

Are we witnessing a general revolution of the arab world?

Meanwhile in Cairo..
On december 17th, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself by fire on the town square of Sidi Bouzid, a small Tunisian city 300km from Tunis. Earlier that day, policemen had confiscated all his fruits he sold to make a living which pushed him towards suicide. Later that week, a protest is organized in Sidi Bouzid against the high cost of living and the lack of jobs. On Chrismas Eve, protests are organized in a larger town of Tunisia, and then in the capital, Tunis, where the protest is violently shut down by the police. But the spark of the revolution has been ignited and by January 5th, protest are organized in all the country and are joined by thousands of Tunisian, who are now protesting for more democracy. A curfew is set up by the government and the army is called but the majority of the Tunisians stay in the streets and the soldiers fraternize with the protesters who are now asking for the demission of Ben Ali and his government. Meanwhile, protest have started in Algeria for the same reason after four or five Algerians commit suicide, but the revolt and riots are quickly shut down. In Egypt on the other hand, violent protests have been organized and the army has been called to put the rebellion down which reminds us of Tunisia. In fact, the  rebellions throughout the Maghreb has received the name of the jasmine revolution. On the 15th of January, Ben Ali resigns, but now Egyptians are asking their president Moubarak to leave, and protests have been organized in Jordania against the high cost of living. In the past month, one dictator has been kicked off his throne and another is about to fall. Are we witnessing a general revolution and democratization of the Arab world?

Revolutionary Irony

Once, not so long ago, in South America,
Lived a young man named Ernesto Guevara.
He was generous, believed in liberty,
And believed life should be lived in simplicity.

For he was against capitalism,

And thus despised materialism.

One day with a few friends he went to Cuba,

And in the name of freedom overthrew Baptista.

He was killed by agents of a certain nation

But for ever remained as a symbol of revolution.

And now, four decades later,

His face is available on a poster,

A tee-shirt, a mug or anything that can be sold for money.

And this I call, the Revolutionary Irony

If there were no more assholes

If there were no more assholes, wouldn't life suddenly be great?
If there were no more assholes, if they were erased from the planet,
All these men full of hate, corrupted politician and tyrannical dictator
Who every day force their people to endure their reign of terror

If there were no more assholes, in politics, in the streets or in our homes
If there were no more assholes, like the ones who started the pogroms
If words like honor, justice and equality became reality
And men and women of the world could live their lives freely

If there were no more assholes, our lives would be perfect
But frankly, let's face it,
If there were no more assholes, the world would have no defect,
And I like my life with spices in it.

But what is a foie mou after all?

Dear reader (or whatever we should call someone who reads a blog), if you have ever looked at the name of my blog and wondered what mysterious story these words in a foreign tongue might cover, your curiosity will be satisfied (or disappointed) for I need to write a few posts for the month of january and I am  lacking inspiration at the moment.
During the summer of 2010, I was staying at a friend of mine's house on the west coast of France, and going through the whole waking up, going to the beach, having dinner and going out routine which I am sure, most of you go through when on vacation. One night, as my friends and I were in a bar drinking water, we made friends with a group of people from Nantes, further north on the coast. After a while, we asked our new friends if they had any peculiar or funny expressions in their town, a question which would probably make one sound strange if asked anywhere else but the fact is that France was for a long time divided in many different people who spoke their own language and it is only after countless wars and years that France became whole and that most people abandoned their dialects or patois and started all speaking French. Therefore, even though those languages are now spoken only by a few old men, they have contributed to introducing hundreds, or probably thousands of expressions into the French language, depending on the region of France, and most of the time quite funny. So as we were exchanging expressions, our the Nantais as we called them told us that when someone couldn't hold alcohol or was afraid of doing something, they would call this person a foie mou, which translates as "soft liver". Henceforth, I have been calling someone a foie mou every time the opportunity has presented itself to me and told the story to whomever would listen.