Geology prof

I absolutely adore my geology professors. Well, actually, I really like almost all of my professors right now – but the geology professors are extra special in a wonderfully content, nerdy way.

When I first saw professor Dumont for our field study in the caves at the Bastille, he seemed a bit distant, his face strict and scrutinizing. He didn’t seem to smile much, nor to interact too enthusiastically with the students.

As the newness wore off and everyone became a little more comfortable with each other, this became very evidently the opposite reality.

He stopped to explain every crack and lump in the rock with equal enthusiasm for every student, endlessly patient with questions. And his grin revealed slightly but charmingly crooked teeth and a sparkle in his eye which betrayed any hope of hiding his passion for rocks, tectonic maps, and time on an evolutionary scale.

I had sought refuge in our classroom to get some work done before our discussion class started, and M. Dumont showed up 15 minutes early, stacks of papers and rolls of maps under his arms. He immediately started chatting with me (darn – so much for getting ahead on my grammar exercises), asking about some technicalities with the class, how the other sections seemed to be going…

He unrolled his maps, and with an affectionate flick of his wrist, placed them face down on the tables. After some unsuccessful rummaging through his bags, he went next door and came back with some tape. One piece carefully placed at each corner, and they were ready to be taped to the chalk board. Oh, but that won’t do. Too much chalk on that spot.

Finally he was satisfied with his placement, stood back to admire the lines and lines of seismic soundings, smoothed out the creases, and taped the bottom edges to the board.

Now, we’re ready to start.

Renaud

Mean Girls is one of my favorite movies. I know what some of you might say, but I love that movie. It’s funny, clever, and cute, and I love it.

I had a moment the other day that made me think of one of my favorite quotes from the movie.

Renaud (on par with George Brassens and Serge Gainsbourg), is an old-time French singer who has adapted his style with the times, rockified it enough that you still hear him on popular radio. He just came out with a cd from a spectacular show he did in Paris, which has been flying off the shelves, one of them sitting on my desk.

Denis and I were listening to the radio as we cleaned up after dinner, and one of his songs came on – one that I new already, and not because I had heard it on the radio. I looked at Denis and said, “Hey! I know this song!”

And something about that made me very proud. It was a culmination of several realizations, and in sum it hit me: Wow, I am in France, I live here right now. This is real.

This quote from Mean Girls is from a quick scene at the end of the movie when a song comes on at the Prom. Cady came from Africa where her parents were doing research, and she nearly destroyed her high school’s social scene in her difficulties adjusting from the Sahara to the suburb – but ended up figuring it all out and finding her real friends. The first two lines are from her two best friends, the last is from her.

- “I love this song!
- I hate this song!
- I know this song!”

I’m telling ya, it’s the small things in life.

wyka

Whenever I see a four letter word with a y in it, it grabs my attention. Usually, the word is my name, but every once in a while it’s something else like Myra, Kyra, lyric, lycra (okay so those last two have 5 letters)…

Denis and I had just finished cleaning up from dinner when I spotted a foreign object in our kitchen. A new cookbook! But, unfortunately, it was written in jibberish. I mean Russian.

I started to flip through it with the wonder and fascination of the equally goofy 5 year old I must have been. I opened up immediately to a page with something called “wyka.” (The w is actually a Russian letter that looks a little different and doesn’t exist in our alphabet). It’s a fish dish. I asked him how to pronounce it. “Shooka.”

I started laughing. And as laughing, like yawning, is highly contagious, Denis started to chuckle, but his raised eyebrows revealed his complete and utter confusion.

I started to explain: “Well, it’s kind of funny that the first page I open up to has a word that slightly resembles my name (enough that it would grab my eye), that it’s a fish dish (I like anything marine), and that the pronunciation was one of my first words: shooka is what I used to call music.”

We shared a “life is weird” eye squint, and went on talking about Russian and how they conjugate nouns.

leafblower

One of my favorite qualities about French people are their strong personalities, the mentality of “c’est pas grave” – no worries, it’s not that serious.

Despite any level of humiliation, the French person is unphased, rarely embarrassed. They will not allow themselves to be inconvenienced. They know themselves well, and they know how to take care of themselves, first and foremost. Something I hugely admire.

Now and again, however, it’s good for a great laugh.

I was biking home after class the other day, and a huge car-sized leafblower was rolling down the street in the opposite direction, blowing leaves out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Already kind of a funny concept. Well, leafblowers in general are kind of a funny concept. Lots of energy on part of the person and the machine just to move a few leaves – and if the wind picks up, it’s back to square one.

The moment I looked over, the guy driving the machine had a very subtle smirk on his face. Just on the other side of him, chatting peacefully on a bench, were two young women who now found themselves in the middle of a leafy cyclone.

The girls wrapped their arms around their hair, glanced behind them, squinted through the now-poor weather to view the culprit, and responded with an apparent chuckle, roll of the eyes, and turned away again to wait it out. They weren't inconvenienced nor embarassed. Whatever, it'll pass.

As soon as he passed, it was back to business as usual.

I laughed uncontrollably halfway home.

Small things. Life. Small things.

doorbell

Climbing in Buis les Baronnies was fantastically fabulously magnificently wonderful. I found my Swiss friend Manuela again, which was fantastic. We climbed together all weekend, each of us pushing our limits just enough to have fun and feel quite accomplished and adequately exhausted by the end of the weekend. My favorite route was one that was described as “a beautiful slab climb with a bit of caving.” And indeed, slab, hole, climb in, pop out the other side. It was awesome.

I could write pages about the treasures I kept from this weekend, but many of them will unfold in the months to come, so I will let it do so. Cheap way of saying it was a fantastic weekend and so much happened that as soon as I start trying to describe all of them I’m going to get sidetracked by various philosophical tangents and fall asleep at my computer, and I want to go to bed.

So I will instead leave you with perhaps one of my favorite vignettes yet.

Having taken a side-route, we arrived first at the Buis les Baronnies parking lot. Groggy from the car ride and an obligatory lack of sleep the previous night, we loitered in the parking lot.

A darling little old lady pulled up across the street in her sleek new silver Ford Focus. She wasn’t quite pleased with her parking spot – it seemed to be a little too far from wherever she was going.

She walked up to a door, reached for a string that hung from a window on the 3rd floor, and pulled. To my surprise, it shook a little bell in the window above. We smiled at the sight. Doorbells a la France?

She waited a moment, and when she got no response walked back to her car to start carrying her goods from the car to the house.

A moment later, another darling little old lady appeared at the window above, looked down, confused to find no one there. She looked around, and finally the two women found each other. The woman on the street jogged over, and the woman in the door lowered a key on a string, leaving her just enough slack to unlock the door. Once open, she took up the key again, and the other woman resumed her lugging.

At this point we had started to get a little cold in the shade and moved across the street to profit from some sunshine. A few minutes later, a parking spot opened up, right next to us and directly in front of the door where we had watched those two women.

The woman in the Ford Focus pounced on the parking spot, backing in with the expertise and confidence (and sleek silvery style) of an Indy 500 racecar driver, maneuvering through a car on one side and a tree on the other with only inches, pardon, centimeters to spare.

That certainly warranted several raised eyebrows and a few situationally-appreciative smiles.

Again, it’s the small things in life.

strange neighbor

The benefit of living in a city where snow sports are the thing to do is that it’s really easy to find cheap used gear.

I found some awesome, literally good as new skis last week, and in my excitement, forgot that I was on my bike and somehow had to get back home.

I’m wondering now why I didn’t decide to go with ski de randonnee skis. They’re a lot lighter.

I set off with my boots slipped over the tips of the skis, thrown over one shoulder, poles in the other hand. That lasted about 30 seconds, and then clack on the ground. That’s okay, I still had to unlock my bike and somehow arrange myself with that.

I bag that idea, and walk across the street to where they’re going to do all the gear adjustments for me (i.e. fit the boots to the ski fixations). Leave them there, go back for my bike, and ask the gear shop for the biggest plastic bag they have.

Huge bag of ski boots on one handlebar, skis under the other arm, I set off. Op, wait, maybe I should lower the seat. Yup, good idea. Made it decently far, but when I had to stop and go a bunch to cross a busy street, all hell broke loose. The boots clanked against my spokes, making horrid noises that sounded as if they would surely snap. Finally I stopped, looked at my bike, my ski gear, and tried to wrap my brain around how on earth I was going to get the rest of the way home. I was barely 1/4 of the way there. Oy.

Finally, I had it. I rested the skis on my seat and across the handlebars, slung the dilapidated boot bag on the handlebar closest to me, and pushing just a little on that inside handlebar, I moseyed along.

It became increasingly and surprisingly exhausting to walk supporting all the weight in an awkward sideways mosey. When I was almost home, someone stopped to ask where I was coming from and where the ski sale was. I gave him directions and he gave me a half-amused, half-surprised look, saying, “Oh, I thought you came from somewhere closer – I already knew about that sale.” Tourist.

And it hit me when I got to my driveway – how on earth am I going to make it to campus to meet for club outings with all this stuff? Well, I guess I’ll figure that out when the time comes, but surely it will be another smile and a little chuckle for the neighbors if they see me from their windows.

Annecy

A French Venice. Perhaps.

Retour des Alpages. A festival celebrating the return of the farm animals from the alps, to spend the winter at lower, warmer elevations.

An excuse to exhibit fascinating alpine culture and some of its awesomely silly traditions. And to hang out with the Californians for a day.

Annecy sits on a beautiful lake, surrounded by impressive mountains, sheer cliffs. The sun shone flawlessly, as if every day were so beautiful. Everyone was out and about, running, rollerblading, cycling, walking, paddling, swimming, boating…

The energy grew and grew until finally we arrived at the city center where there were booths selling alpine apple juice, Mont Blanc beer (green and sweet), amazing vats of meaty regional specialties, cheeses, hand-carved clogs, carrier pigeons, California rabbits (which I have never seen before in my life), sheep, first-edition signed comic books, handmade jewelry, tea, wine, fruit, huge cow bells, an alpine choir/band (well, okay, so they weren’t selling the choir, but whatever)… All in the beautiful ambiance of a French lakeside village with canals and bridges, doors that open necessarily for boats or fresh air, lest someone wants to go for a swim, and complete with a chateau on top. Génial.

We wandered the city, tasting the regional specialties, exploring all the little mysterious alleyways, until it was time for lunch.

Again the bus whisked us away, this time along the lake (a beautiful drive, bien sur!) until we reached a lovely little lakeside restaurant.

More regional specialties – roasted chicken, amazing potatoes, salads of all sorts, Savoie white wine, and lemon and raspberry sorbet. I love this program!

We returned to the city center for the parade – but alas, this is no ordinary parade. Appropriately, it is a parade of farm animals. We followed the sounds of cow bells and “maaaaw”ing, through hidden alleyways, past peoples front doors in these hidden alleyways, until we popped out among the spectators, cows, goats, sheep, and herders.

Hazard zone.

Cows don’t excuse themselves to go to the bathroom. They just go. And if you’re in the way, tant pis! (Oh well!)

Quite impressive the streams of liquid (and otherwise) that come from these animals. We hopped back, taking a spot with a less clear but much safer view. The Europeans didn’t seem to mind as much. This was clear, too, when the animals had passed and everyone walked in the path they had followed. Eeeeeewwwww. But the Europeans were unphased.

After the parade ended, we wandered around the city, turning various corners to be pleasantly surprised by beautiful vistas, sneak peaks at the real lives of Annecy – little gardens, well-used balconies, old buildings, well-groomed young French boys and girls unphased and unimpressed by the beauty that surrounds them. Where’s the mall?

But to our foreign eyes, everything was new and beautiful, every moment and each encounter a treasure. Don’t ever let it wear off.

mer des nuages

The sea of clouds.

It's hard to describe in words - perhaps the photos on my flickr site are better. Nico and I had planned to go climbing, but as always it depends on the weather... he arrived at my apartment in the morning, and we started planning out which route we would tackle at Dent de Crolles. I was still skeptical, but ready to climb - I asked him if he, being an experienced Grenoblois, thought the weather would improve or worsen. His response - "it's supposed to be sunny and nice once we get above the clouds."

Sorry, what?

Oh, right, have to think in terms of mountains. Man these things are weird. So, apparently it's fairly expected that a gray ugly day in Grenoble means a beautiful sunny day in the mountains. For me, a gray ugly day in any city I've ever lived in or near means a gray ugly day unless the fog burns off in the afternoon.

Nico and I started the walk under a dark menacing sky - I was still skeptical, but Nico insisted, sporting short sleeves, sunglasses on top of his head, that it would be sunny and warm soon. As for me, all I knew was that I was cold and my hair was wet, and that didn't invoque thoughts of imminent sunshine in my mind. What is this crazy alpine guy talking about?

A little bit above me on the hill, just barely visible through the fog/cloud, Nico stopped and said, "Regarde! Bleu!" - Look! Blue! I looked up, and sure enough there was a slight tinge of blue through the cloud. "Allez! Allez!" I started running up the hill, Nico's exclamations of wonder and amazement luring me.I finally arrived - and there is seriously no better way to describe the sight but as Heaven. Pure, white, fluffy soft clouds below me, and only the tip-tops of the mountains poking themselves through to bask in the sunshine. Incredible.

I looked behind me to see Nico on the edge of both cliff and cloud. The wind was carrying wisps of white into the cliff which bounced up towards the sky until it dissipated in the warmth of the sun, creating a dramatic updraft of vanishing cloud behind Nico. Wow, that's something new.

We basked in the sunshine all day on our climb - and I regretted not bringing my sunglasses. Tourist. Slowly the sea melted away, but not completely. We returned to a still gray Grenoble, and Nico and I shared a moment of appreciation for the mountains, for climbing, and today, sunshine.

strange student

It has not yet ceased to amuse me that here I am generically referred to as "une etudiante etrangere." That is to say, I am a college student from "l'etranger" - from another country.

Dangerously close to, in English - "strange student."

And while so far I have gotten by without too many mishaps, nor much out-of-the-ordinary confusion (which has so far been easy to blame on the poorly organized French university system), last Thursday I experienced my first genuine foreign exchange student oops.

The Thursday before we had a field trip to the Bastille where we hiked through the tunnels to measure the faultlines - their orientation, angle, and type ("normal" or "inverse"). Awesome day - our professor was fantastically helpful, fully and clearly answering any and all questions. As difficult as it was (and even more so because not in my language), it was quite stimulating, and I left with both a wonderful feeling about the subject, the professor, and my classmates.

Those students who had never used Canevas before were to sign up for a supplementary session this last Thursday to learn the method which will allow us to analyze the data we collected the week before. Needless to say, I signed up.

To give a little background - the online schedule for Universite Joseph Fourier, where I attend my geology classes, is one of the most convoluted and confusing scheduling styles I have ever encountered in my life. There are lines and colors and labels all over the place, and columns that change depending on what type of class it's describing but sometimes the corresponding label doesn't change to be consistent. And the there are frequently great scheduling changes from one week to the next. Ridiculous, in a word. And I have always had trouble figuring out where I need to be when...

So assuming that this "Canveas" was some sort of computer program to be learned - logical in our technologically advanced data-analyzing world - I found the computer lab, and recognizing my classmate, grabbed an assignment sheet and sat down at a computer.

To log in, the computer asked me for my username and password. Hm. Well, do I sign in using my Universite Stendhal name and password since that's technically my "primary" university? Or do I use the Universite Joseph Fourier info? Probably the latter since I'm technically at UJF right now. Okay.

I start to type my username to find that it appears on the screen as jibberish. Huh? Oh yea, different keyboard here.

So after searching one-by-one for the right letters and numbers, I click the fateful button - OK.

Error.

Hm.

After several more failed attempts, the French girl sitting next to me tries her hand at it. Apparently if you want to capitalize something here you have to turn on the "caps lock" function and then turn it off again. Weird. Whatever.

So already I'm behind. I type in the function to try to get the graph we're supposed to be playing with. It takes me twice as long, of course, to find the stupid keys, and then I get more error messages.

The professor hadn't been helpful at all, and he was clearly not very sympathetic to my silly issues. He would walk by me struggling, hurriedly tell me to do something in a certain way, and then seemingly roll his eyes and walk away (you know that look that isn't quite as obvious but still stings?). Again, another technical difficulty. Must type a carat (^) instead of the 2-squared button to square the function. Whatever. Okay.

"You should note that so you don't make that mistake anymore," the professor said condescendingly to me as he walked by without stopping to check in with my progress.

By this point I had already made several attempts to explain my situation - that I wasn't in this class, I was sure of that, but that what I understood was that I was supposed to come today to learn how to analyze some of our data.

"Okay, okay," he said cutting me off and leaving me to my struggles.

Finally, in my last attempt to make sense of the situation, one of the girls I knew from the class explained to him that I was only taking the geodynamics course at UJF because I am a student of another discipline and university. I had already said to him several times that I was only taking the geodynamics class, but I guess he assumed I didn't know what I was saying. Somewhat understandable since I'm a bit of an anomaly in the geology department - all the students there take all the same classes, all geology classes, due to the nature of French universities and their specific-ness (i.e. you are a student of literature OR biology OR geology OR political science... and French students don't simultaneously study Biology and French literature like I do at home). Another girl I knew from the class then figured out what was going on and stood up to take me where I was supposed to be.

Oh thank you God. Get me away from these machines!

So I was, in fact, in the wrong classroom at the right time. She walked me down to Amphitheatre 2 where our class was being held. I expressed my concern and frustration that I was now an hour late to the right class, and she responded with the very classic French phrase, "C'est pas grave." It's not too serious, don't worry.

We opened the door to find the huge lecture hall full of a mere 15 or so people all working intently and conversing actively with the professor. It seems perhaps a little silly upon reflexion, but at this point I was on the verge of tears and just wanted to get as far away from the situation as possible. I was embarassed, ashamed, flustered, frustrated, felt mistreated and insulted by that other professor, and at this point had spent an hour in a state of complete and utter lost-ness where I understood nothing - from the debilitating keyboard to the over-my-head subject (computers!) to the professor (jerk!) to the assignment (what class is this?) to some of the language (which gets worse when I'm in a state of panic). It was awful.

So this was the state in which I entered the right room. And this was the state I was in when everyone glanced back to see what the disruption was about.

I just wanted to disappear, curl up in a corner somewhere and pretend I wasn't there.

But I was, and now everyone knew it. And finally, I knew at least that I was in the right place, just at the wrong time.

A few tangents:
A couple of weeks ago I sat down in our problem-solving class next to a girl who I decided looked a little nicer and more approachable than most French girls. Always a little shy to start speaking and betray any hope of fitting in (or as is more often the case, risk an encounter with a non-foreigner-friendly local) by revealing my accent, she asked me where I was from. Either it's that obvious, or everyone has figured it out by now (the latter more likely the case. News spreads fast with these kids - like how Aurelia, who wasn't even in the same section for the field trip as I, knew through the grapevine that I had biked up the hill to the Bastille for our field study - Gael laughed at me when we were at the climbing club soiree and she asked me if I was the one who had biked up the hill that day, because I had deliberately left a little early so as not to make a grand entrance on my bike in the middle of the class, after having biked up the fairly strenuous hill - that backfired!) So anyway, the girl I sat next to is Elise. I told her I was from California and got an enthousiastic "oh!" We chatted for a while before class started. Turns out she wants to be a teacher, and her friend Julien, just to her left, an environmental surveyor of sorts for something like Greenpeace or a similar organization. So I've been sitting with them in class, which has been really great, as they are both kind, patient, and helpful, as well as wonderfully interesting to talk to.

So back to Thursday: In my shaky state I scanned the room trying to comprehend the past hour of my life, snap out of it, and move on. I look to the right and see Elise looking at me with a huge smile as if to say, "there you are - we were hoping you'd be here!" But sometimes that kind of relief can only make you more emotional. So I rushed to my seat just behind Elise and Julien, still struggling to hold it all together, pulled out all my materials and started to set up the Canevas thingy. Much to my relief, it involved no computers whatsoever, and was a method of drawing the orientation of faultlines by hand - an awesome combination of art class and science class.

As soon as I sat down, Elise turned to me to help me get onto the same page. And as soon as the professor had finished explaining the next segment to the class he came over to me and walked me through everything they had done so far.

It was almost too much for me to take. From one extreme to the other in so many regards. From a professor who couldn't care less whether I succeeded or floundered to one who was incredibly patient despite my having interrupted, and even seeming to understand and sympathize with my emotional state. I was still heavily embarassed, and now a little worried that the other students would resent my getting special attention after having screwed up - stories of such resentment from French students are common with foreign exchange students. But the professor, being a true professional, balanced his time very well so that I didn't feel too singled-out, and was still able to help me understand everything.

It has perhaps never felt so good to understand something. To go from being so lost, discouraged, feeling so hopeless, to finding something that I could comprehend, envision, grasp, and even enjoy. I was always much better at geometry than computers...

So, perhaps that was one of the more intense days I have had here so far. It's one of those days where just the right combination of things go wrong so that everything seems to come to a head. All your struggles become accentuated, all your confusions get confused into one mass of confusion and you think for a moment that you are so hopelessly lost - beyond repair, hope.

But then you find that one friendly face. And then another. And it all comes together again.

I'm oddly looking forward to seeing my geology friends next week. I have been determined to kick my habitude for feeling stupid and letting that get the better of my emotions. So in staying consistent with a certain goofiness that I am sure I must've picked up from working with 5th graders, high school students and college students - I will let it all be known; yes, I made a fool of myself - and I will laugh with them.

Bienvenue aux Alpes - la monte de Mont Aiguille

Welcome to the alps, in all their grandeur... or at least most of it.

Nico invited me to climb Mont Aiguille last weekend with Mathilde a group of their friends. The plan - hike up (2 hour approach) to the base of the mountain Saturday morning, climb an easy route up to the top that afternoone, sleep atop the mountain, rappel down Sunday morning, and do some more technical routes on Sunday. Sweeeeet.

I later found out that the group of friends was to total 12, several coming from Paris Friday night, and most of them "debutants" - beginners. Hence my role changed a bit. I would be leading (only four of us were "experienced" climbers and could lead climb) with two beginner climbers following. This changed the outlook of the trip a bit, but I was quite excited to take more of a leadership role, and was excited for the challenge of guiding two inexperienced climbers up a mountain I myself knew practically nothing about, and flexing my currently-in-some-respects-dormant "guide skills."

The beginning went interestingly, as I can't seem to kick the habit of backpacking like a kayaker and consistently forgte that the heavy things I put in my bag will in fact be on my back and I have to lug it up myself. No floating advantage here. For the weight of my bag I might as well have lugged a dutch oven up the mountain! Jeez! Last time I backpack with my slacklining materials and heavy foods!... I say that every time.

So after a strenuous hike, we arrived at the base of the climb. We partitioned into 4 groups, and Francois and Gaelle were to climb with me.

Eyes can tell a lot, as can spending a day on the rocks with someone. And in a more guide-like position, these sensory receptors become much more active. Francois was often a bit socially distant from the group, a real thinker. First year math student in Paris. Gaelle was very engaging, asked a lot of questions - curious and wide-eyed. These two were to be my teammates up the mountain.

I have yet to become wholly comfortable with the rusted pitons and random bars of metal from 1932 that stick out of the rocks here to serve as your fixed protection. But the French have no problems with it, so...? Nor have I become wholly accustomed to limestone and its crumbly tendancy to throw rocks at you. But it doesn't phase the French, so...?

My own psyche was approaching the "challenge zone," but having seen these things work before, I fought my way through it logically, trying my best to keep my fear at bay so 1) as to not propagate that fear in my teammates, and 2) so as to maintain control and good judgment during the climb. Whoo. Alright, here we go.

With four groups to get going, the going isn't gotten very quickly. Our group is third to leave, and Mathilde's is last. Nico and Thomas' groups are already long gone, with slightly more experienced teams and their convenient double 8.6mm ropes allowing the followers to climb at almost the same time. In a new area and with a slightly more complicated setup, I knew we would be a little slower - and for anyone who's ever climbed with me, we all know I'm no speed demon when it comes to climbing. I like to say I enjoy it so much that I get lost in the motion of climbing - a sort of slow, deliberate, meditative state. Sounds better that way (and I'd say there's some truth to it!).

So finally, we're off, chipping away at the "longuers" as the midday sun slowly moves its way across the sky, the crisp alpine breeze blowing lightly and encouraging us to keep moving. After several pitches, I look up and out to see the most glowingly beautiful blue sky, the sun reflecting off the limestone cliffs in a vibrant yellow-orange. Wow.

"Wait, is that a sunset I see? Oh, how pretty. Oh, crap! Keep moving! And by the way, does anyone have a headlamp, because I forgot mine. No? Okay good. Still moving."

Slowly the sun snuck away from us, and thinking of my poor night vision started to spook me a bit. So far so good, but were we at least almost there? Mathilde says it's just a few more pitches. Will I be able to see in this chimney we're to climb up?

And why isn't Francois climbing? Oh, he's waiting for Gaelle to climb up so the rope becomes taut again (technical note: to get three climbers up on one rope, I was at the front setting gear, Francois would belay me and then follow, unclip his rope from the gear and reclip the rest of the rope behind him into the gear for Gaelle to collect as she followed after him). Wisely done (to minimize the affect of a fall it's best to keep as much slack out of the rope between climbers or between belay/climber pairs as possible) - but wait, Gaelle isn't climbing either. Oh, she's waiting for Francois to climb and make the rope taut. Wait a minute..... Guys!!! Climb!!! Pull strong on the rope!!! Time is precious! Bad timing for brutal rope drag to slow them down...

Midway up the chimney Gaelle finds her headlamp. "Emprunter" is definitely a good word to know in French - "Hey Gaelle, can I borrow your headlamp?"

With my eyes back, at least I could feel less rushed and panicked. Now the biting wind and menacing fog were really the only adversary forces to contend with.

I grasped for an unknown hold I knew was lurking somewhere in the darkess, my legs stemming a moistened chimney below me. Finally I found it, and hauled my exhausted, obscene-weight-bearing body up and onto our last belay ledge.

A voice came from the dark canyon that stretched above me. "Hey congratulations - a real alpine experience! The cold, the wind, and the fog!"
"So that's welcome to the alps, is it Nico?"
"Yup, that's it!"

Mathilde and I had arrived at the last belay station. We set ourselves up to belay the others while Nico passed more headlamps down to the others. Finally we all reached the last stretch of canyon and scrambled up mountaineering-style, maintaining a safe distance and a taught rope.

And the sight of the summit is one I will never forget. For a climber who always proudly describes herself as more of a climber who "enjoys the climb," the journey, if you will - rather than a climber who sees a peak and decides she wants to get to the top no matter what it takes - I have never been so awestruck nor felt so accomplished upon reaching the top of a mountain as when I looked over the top of the fog from our summit, the full moon cheering us on.

At the top we found some other climbers and chatted with them into the night, drinking wine and Pastis, and eating a feast of cous-cous, cheese, and peanuts.

The morning was, again, crisp and windy. But the sun was shining strong - a beautiful day as promised. French weather forecasters rock, by the way.

After a strenuous and long descent, with some of the most ab-intensive rappels I've ever experienced (heavy pack + weight born by your harness = almost-head-first rappel... but not quite), we arrived once again at the base, and busted out the food we had stashed in a hole by the trees (life without bears is so simple!).

The Paris crew took off, and Nico and Thomas and I embarked on a more technical climb for the remainder of the day. Nice to be liberated from the heavy packs for a few hours... especially since we'd be going downhill to get back to the car. Ugh. Down hurts.

Car. Coma. Shoes off. - I love the ride home after a long, strenuous, and successful adventure.


Lessons for the weekend -
1) Sometimes I really like climbing with other girls. There's perhaps more of a mentality between girls to stick together when the goings get rough (at least in my experiences). Had I not had Mathilde there for moral support I would have been much deeper into my "freak-out zone." Additionally, our primary route-finder had flown up the mountain with his team of climbers - but Mathilde knew the route just as well, having done it several times before, thus easing my level of stress greatly.
2) When you need to keep a calm and confident composure for the sake of others, sometimes you succeed in convincing yourself of such. The mind is a powerful thing. As some of my friends used to say, climbing is 80% mental, 10% physical, 8% weather, and 2% miscellaneous. Or something like that.
3) Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

world views - Bush, burgers, and borders

Gael asked me last night if it would bother me if he watched TV while I was working in the same room. My response was "No, of course not!" figuring that I could tune out the white-noise of the French news channel, speaking French way to fast and with a vocabulary too complex for me.

This was perhaps the first time I was stoked to be distracted by the television.

I certainly didn't catch everything when I sat down to watch, but I followed so much more than I ever have before, and I was quite excited.

And then I was sad to discover that the news channels are really all the same depressing stories of misfortune and fluke incidents that make people scared to leave their houses.

But a bit came on about the debate over the new triple-fence on the border of Mexico, and this piqued my interest. Indeed, one of the first images was of our very own Tijuana Estuary.

I became obviously frustrated by the issue, which piqued Gael and Karine's interest, so at dinner I brought it up and explained what they're proposing, and why it's a terrible idea for the ecology of the Tijuana area (from what I understand/remember, it would involve levelling the hill and destroying the estuary, which houses some rare and valuable species), the irony that we don't even have ONE working fence (note holes all over the place) and they want to put in some extreme triple-mess, and furthermore how I feel about the allocation of so much money in the wrong area. Why can't we explore further why the issue of immigration is such a problem, why people so desperately want in sometimes, and take some steps to find our global/economic role in that to help the real problem? I also explained how interesting it is, and not as politically-correct, that our economy is incredibly dependent on the labor of illegal immigrants, and yet we are so unwelcoming to them.

[I've recently discovered www.pandora.com as a great resource for music, and I have it playing right now as I write... interesting timing: The Decemberists just came on with 16 Military Wives, singing, "Because America can and America can't say no. And America does if America says it's so. "]

I had been frustrated by our canyon guide Manu's comment to me about Americans being less-than-cool but that they'd let me stay on the trip because I was an okay American - among other less-than pc comments, such as the one about my goofy wetsuit hiding something he supposed to be nicer inside. (Mind you, the rest of the guide team was awesome, kind, helpful and very respectful).

So with this in the back of my mind needing some resolution, I asked Gael and Karine about the perceptions of Americans in France. Interestingly, they expressed that the vision of our President is held separately from the American people in general. Bush is seen as a five-year-old (with language skills to match) who thinks he can just play with the world, and a sort of puppet for other politicians. Americans, however, are seen for what they export - McDonalds, big cars, and bad TV.

This was a lot of negatives about the states, which is something I've felt very sensitive about - simply because I don't want to propagate a negative view of my home (it's all too easy to be seduced and jump on the "America sucks" bandwagon - but I refuse). I know at this point that my roomates understand this, so I felt comfortable talking quite freely - and I have also emphasized to them many times how there are tons and tons of people who feel just like me, who are just like me, in the States, and they understand (especially having spent time in Canada and the States) that it is a very big place full of lots of very different people. Indeed, that is one thing that is so great about it. And I will continue to remind the people I talk to here, and myself, of just that fact.

It was fascinating and exciting to have my first real, long, and elaborate political discussion in French, but also a bit overwhelming. Clearly there are some things I can't do anything about. I can't keep out McDonald's, malls, bad TV. But what I can do is present and promote an America that is and wants to be better, and remind the few people around me that it exists. Just as there are French people such as our canyon guide, there are French people like my roomates and my incredible language professor Mme Bortot, and Benedicte our program director...

I find myself thinking back quite often to a conversation I had with Federico, an Italian graduate student at SIO, after I came back from Australia and had been accepted to the Grenoble program. I had walked with a good friend of mine in an embarassingly small peace rally (Cindy Sheehan actually spoke at the end!) at UCSD, and was still wearing a sticker reading "Regime change now." Federico was disappointed at first thinking that I was expending energy in the wrong area calling for impeachment. He expressed that it is a waste of energy, and that it is better to look forward to the next election and push for regime change then. The language barrier and a couple of beers fogged the issue a bit - I think we were more on the same page than he thought. Nevertheless, it was fascinating listening to what he had to say - essentially how lucky I am to be American and have so much of a say in my government. In Italy, it is nothing like that. In the States, if something goes terribly wrong (check!), if we don't like what a politician does (check!), we can change it (umm.. soon to be a "check," I hope!).

After my few months in Australia carefully correcting every person who asked if I was American that I am in fact Californian, I became a little embarrassed. Why was I so embarrassed to be American? It has certainly painted a hideous image of itself in the past few years, with the flag-waving justifying some real injustices - but I have just as much of a right to wave that flag (take it back, if you will), if not more - we were built on the right to criticize and disapprove of our government, and thus be able to change it, right? Check.

So I hope that in the few small encounters I will have here I can help even just a few people to see that America is a diverse and beautiful country filled with people to match. The bad will come whether I want it to or not - for my part, there is another America that I will strive to import.

world views - guiding

It struck me yesterday that I have yet to sign a single paper signing my life away. No liability waivers, no releases of responsibility. Nothing.

Do they not have lawsuit issues as we do in the states? After talking with my roomate Gael and his girlfriend Karine, who spent last year in Quebec, it seems it is just that. Though lawsuits are becoming more common, and Karine expects to see waivers and such as in the states in the years to come.

I realized the difference, too when I went to Espace Verticale, an incredible climbing gym here (biggest indoor wall in France, I believe), and no one asked for my lead certification card. I walked in, suited up, and started climbing, much as I would at any outdoor site. Weird. Karine and Gael had been equally stunned to have to pass a test at the gyms in Quebec, and even more shocked that they had to pay extra to take the test! That's pretty lame, for sure.

But it was particularly interesting to be on a trip where we could jump off rocks. I feel like a trip like that canyoneering trip would be quite unheard of in the states. Maybe some organisations would allow it, but probably not many.

It was quite fascinating to compare and contrast it to the world of guiding that I know at home. What are the costs and benefits - emotional and physical?

I was initially a little unimpressed, and thought the trip a little careless. I'll run through briefly from the beginning...

1) Here we take personal vehicles, not university vehicles, wherever we go. Liability. But it works for them here, and gives you a certain bond with your car-buddies.

2) Slippery rocks, wet ropes, and muddy climbing gear. Hm.

3) Jumping off rocks into pools of water. Too risky? Or calculated/perceived? It certainly provided an opportunity for challenge-by-choice, neither promoted nor discouraged, but with the guides appropriately interjecting, without any judgment, that you must trust yourself enough to make the jump safely foot-first, communicating the risk if you can't.

4) No organized get-to-know eachother/name games. Makes it more of a personal thing - gotta do it yourself. But the nature of the activity promotes getting to know each other, for sure.

5) Quickly rendered us fairly independent, only briefly checking our rappel setups on the second and third runs. This I found to be very empowering. I had no idea what to expect, and for me this was just a recreational activity. I had forgotten that there are some students who get credit for going on these excursions for the sport requirement (as part of the climbing club) and thus are expected to learn the ropes, literally. Thus, the trip is structured to tell us what we're doing, show us how to do it, and give us the chance to do it ourselves. Familiar concept, different style - but by this I was quite impressed.

Professionalism is not the first word that comes to mind to describe these trips - but learning adventures, they are for sure. I'm really enjoying being on the other side of the guiding thing, as a participant - but I'm becoming quite intrigued to know more about how their system really works here.

splish splash

For an American in the Alps, there are some strange things going on here.

My experiences climbing the Via Ferrata route and in the canyon yesterday have lead to some very interesting and amusing conversations with my roomates and friends - mostly starting with me giggling with glee and musing over the fact that most of this stuff is totally unheard of in the states.

I equate the canyoning, like the Via Ferrata, to playing a role in a Mission Impossible movie or the next 007 flick (our intense, not-too-American-friendly guide was quite amused and charmed when I expressed this to him). Tromping through water, descending down waterfalls, jumping, sliding, rappeling... all while dressed for the 1980s in funky old wetsuits and harnesses with diapers, er, I mean wetsuit butt-protectors. Which I managed to break by the end of the day. Guess I used it too much.

So what, you ask, is this strange activity? Well, after I got over the initial amusement of the ridiculosity of our outfits, I was thoroughly amused to find that, much as we would find a bolted climb with belay/rappel stations here or in the States, here, unlike in the States, there exist bolted canyon routes. It was a cock-your-head-to-the-side-squint-your-eyes-and-scratch-your-temple moment, for sure.

And so we slid into our first pool and started the descent. Using 8-plates and static lines, we rappeled down waterfalls of varying heights, the highest being probably around 20-25 meters (I'm a terrible gauge of height). At this one (Mom - skip the next few paragraphs) there was a ledge a few meters below the top where we could jump into the pool. I had jumped from a little ledge at the end of the rappel, maybe 5-7 meters, nothing much compared to the other, and that had been plenty exciting for me. But thinking of my unconquerable fear of falling in climbing, I grasped the muddy rope to pull myself up the path to the higher ledge, clipped into the static lines set up for the approach, and peeked around the corner to make sure the coast was clear for my jump.

Darn. Coast clear.

Hands shaking, I grasped the line and unclipped my safety lines. I don't think I can possibly describe the feeling of the jump, but I'll try... As I stepped off the ledge, an overwhelming physical sensation of "lettting-go" took over, which feels like fear wrapped in relaxation. I had succeeded in ignoring my fear to make that committment, but as I kept falling and falling, it crept back - and mid-air there was nothing I could do about it. I closed my eyes and prepared for impact, and as the seconds passed, the fear started to take over my physical state and I started shaking.

Splash.

Sink.

Float.

Neoprene cork.

It feels like a lease on life - mind you, mostly perceived as such, because the risk is very carefully calculated and managed (I will discuss in a later blog the interesting contrasts with our guides here and similar trips in the states). My first emotions were of relief and disappointment. The former logical, the latter surprising. I thought for a moment about what was causing my miss-matched emotions. I had closed my eyes and let the fear back. That's not why I jumped - I jumped to escape those emotions. After several minutes contemplating, I decided to jump again, and this time I was going to discover how to relax in that state - for real. But as I grasped that muddy rope again, Manu, our guide, intercepted me and said it was time to finish the descent; but that we'd be back and have another chance.

The last sequence of falls ran right under an old bridge. Click - mental photograph. The vibrant green of the trees, the soft light filtering through, the stillness, a time unknown and unknowing, strange black foam people with red plastic heads, blue butts and a strange assortment of footwear - wtf?

It was a moment where my vision stalked away from me and saw more than just the assortment of images assembled on my retina. I grinned at the thought of a farmer in the 1800s crossing this bridge on his horse and cart with us below him...

And so we reached the cars again, and busted out our lunches. I tell ya, walking down a canyon and splashing around in water can sure take it out of you!

We ran the canyon two more times - and I got two more jumps in. And as I had hoped, with each jump it got easier, and much more fun. Each jump made me want the next even more. Strange how adaptable the human state can be - something once practically paralyzingly frightening can become fun. It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose. And realizing the difference between real and perceived risks, the levels inbetween, and how to control them, scrutinize. I had felt apprehensive before the second run - relieved at the success of the first run, but nervous for the next. At this point I understood only a little of what we had done - much as it is when you first start climbing and still don't trust the gear or really have a grasp on how or why it all works. I wasn't sure the second run was worth it - at this point I thought only of what could go wrong, and having already done the run, having already seen it all, I would have preferred to go elsewhere and see something new.

But I recognized this as a form of fear, and decided to push past it. Much as I don't like to repeat difficult climbs (perhaps the fear grows knowing after one run the exact spots where you might fall, expecting or suspecting, and fearing), but knowing how valuable it can be to do just that, I knew it would be reallly good for me. And I had enough faith in my guides to let go a little.

And it was exactly that - a combination of fear and apprehension of something I didn't understand fully. After the second and third runs, I was so much more comfortable and having so much more fun. It's the same as that jump - you begin to adapt, understand, and enjoy.

There's something to be learned here, but I'm not going to push it.