Return of the image!

And I'm back in the game! I've been back in Paris for just about three weeks now, and enjoying all that life à la français has to offer, as usual. The big news about this semester is that I have an internship with Lobster Films (link at the right) as a sort of... translating peon, if you will. I'm the only native English speaker on staff (although most of the people who work there speak English with a great deal more ease and grace than I, at times, can summon up in my second language), so many of theFrench-to-English translation projects in the office go through me. I spend most of my time translating film descriptions for silent film serials from the 1900s-1920s (right now I'm working on one about a rivalry between two sailors over a beautiful café waitress), but I just finished working on a 40-page script for an original documentary about Robin Hood - both the "reality" of Robin and the evolution of the Robin Hood myth through the years, starting with French pastoral ballads in the Middle Ages and ending with cinematic adaptations in more recent years. It was an interesting project, and really gratifying to work on something that is actually going to get made.

In other news, classes have started again, and they're a thrill, as always... Well, no. Completely without sarcasm, my classes this semester do seem a lot better than those I took last semester. My History of Sound Film professor is maybe 35 and used to make movies himself, and has a lot of really wonderful things to say about, for instance, Walt Disney (who he holds almost singularly responsible for ruining children's education), and an interesting experience-based perspective to bring to the material. The class is small, maybe 15 kids, and the teacher encourages student participation, which is really kind of wonderful. I'm taking a literature class in the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Louis Aragon which, despite being at 8AM on Monday mornings, is well-taught and even includes some structure! Like a syllabus! I'm also taking two classes with the program, "Paris au cinéma" and the same grammar/language class I took last semester (the more advanced version, of course). All in all, this looks to be a more academically rewarding semester than the last one -- although you'll have to check in with me again when examen time rolls around.

Other time has been spent hanging out with the new kids - five of whom are from Haverford - which has been fun, a day trip to Chartres to see the cathedral and stroll around for a bit, babysitting, learning to knit, planning further outrageous vacations (the hypothetical crown jewel being Spring Break: Croatia), exploring some new areas of the city, and playing hostess to Uncle Tim and Aunt Margaret, who are here visiting two nieces - Julia, on Aunt Margaret's side, has also been studying in Paris for the year. With all that packed in, I've had to re-learn, a bit, how to be busy - while I only had two days a week that started before noon last semester, I have to be up by 8:30 almost every day, and usually don't get home until an hour before dinner. I'm not sure that my host family quite knows what to do with this new Liz incarnation, but it feels pretty all right to have things to do again.

Winter was here for about four days - we even got some flurries! - but that ship seems to have sailed, and the temperatures are back up in the 50s during the day, which I'm learning to accept. I do miss tramping around in the snow, however. Anyhow, I should get off to bed soon, since I'm ushering Tim and Margaret around the Musée d'Orsay tomorrow morning, but I'll leave you with this lovely image of the heights of French hygiene in parting: as I was walking my young charges to English School last Wednesday, the butcher's shop down the street was getting a meat delivery, but they didn't really seem to worried about efficiency of delivery, so the truck was just kind of parked in the middle of a fairly busy intersection, meat dangling off hooks at the back of the truck. Just look.