30 November, 2007 | 5 Comments

my desk (with my favorite pig mug)

I’ve had a long week. Last night I got very little sleep because…[content edited by Anglofille 2/01/08]…
It’s almost the end of term. As a teacher, this means essay marking and exam prep. As a student, it means working towards completing all that I can before the Christmas break. The past couple weeks I hit a rough patch with my novel. Like most writers, I vacillate between thinking I’m a genius and thinking I’m a talentless hack who will never amount to anything. That’s the writing life.

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29 November, 2007 | Comments

The Paris suburbs may be alight and the country paralyzed by strikes, but my lawsuit lives on in the French courts! Today my lawyer emailed me to let me know my case has been postponed until January. Then she sent me the evidence my landlady’s lawyer has submitted, which includes a charge that I threw away her electricity bill. Gasp! Oh dear, I hope they don’t have capital punishment in France. For the love of God and all that is holy, you’d think we were prepping for a murder trial!!!

I wonder — on a French death certificate, is “death by paperwork” an option? It must be — right under “suicide.”

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27 November, 2007 | Enter your password to view comments

25 November, 2007 | 3 Comments

News of his drunken New York strip club visit and this video of him eating his own ear wax in parliament boosted his campaign, apparently.

25 November, 2007 | 2 Comments

Violence against women and girls is a universal problem of epidemic proportions. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development. - UN report

Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This is a UN-sponsored event and their website contains a wealth of links and information on this topic.

Violence against women is indeed a universal epidemic, from the lenient rape laws in Britain, where according to Tory leader David Cameron, “at least 75 per cent of all rapes are never reported to the police, which…is partly due to a lack of support for female victims during the legal process,” to a country like Saudi Arabia, where a young woman who was recently gang-raped was sentenced to suffer 200 lashes, prompting even the United States government to criticize their great pals the Saudis. And then of course there’s the ultimate example of violence against women, the “honour killing” of Du’a Khalil Aswad, which I wrote about so much earlier this year.

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22 November, 2007 | 4 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving! I spent a few hours today traipsing all over the snooty expat enclaves of Kensington and Belgravia trying to locate a bakery selling pumpkin pie. As you can see from the photos, I was successful in the end. Do not even ask me how much this pie cost. [And before someone asks the next obvious question, here's the answer: Because I don't have an oven, that's why.] I went to Whole Foods Market in Kensington first — apparently, they sold 300 pumpkin pies before noon and had nothing left for little ol’ me. I was determined to find a pie, which will be the extent of my Thanksgiving — there will be no turkey or yams with marshmallows for me, though I’m sure I can convince my mom to make this for me at Christmas. [Did I mention I got my ticket to go home? Yes, I'll be spending Christmas in...North Carolina, by way of Philadelphia, New York and Washington DC. Every time I go home it's a multi-state extravaganza.]

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21 November, 2007 | Comments

I was just up at King’s Cross and while I was there I spotted a member of the English faculty from my university. I approached him with the intent of saying hello, but as I got closer I realized it was a homeless person. Not a difficult mistake to make, I can assure you.

19 November, 2007 | 5 Comments

For the novel I’m writing, I need to do some research into terrorism. I want to learn about the psychological make-up of a terrorist, tactics terrorists use and how they recruit people. Thus far, I’ve been reluctant to type “terrorist tactics” or “terrorist recruiting” into an internet search engine. I use a university network for my internet service. I wonder if my account will be flagged if I search the internet for such things? I know they monitor our internet use, though to what extent I don’t know. If I search repeatedly for web pages related to terrorism, I wonder what the university would do with this information? Question me? Give it to the police? Does the Home Office keep files on those of us with visas? I don’t know.

What if I buy books on terrorism from Amazon? What if I get books on terrorism from the library? To Big Brother (be it the university, the library, Google, the government), would it seem as if I am plotting a terrorist act myself? Given that I am not a citizen of this country, I feel I have to be even more careful. I do not have the same rights as everyone else.

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16 November, 2007 | 11 Comments

I have been roundly attacked for my Hillary Clinton post. Well, at least James Wolcott at Vanity Fair magazine thinks that I’ve made a good strong point.

16 November, 2007 | 5 Comments

i miss the light so very much. here is today’s sunset, 3:30 p.m. (!!)

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15 November, 2007 | 23 Comments

I have not really been following the 2008 presidential race. The election seems like such a long way off, though I guess the primaries are looming. Even though I haven’t been following the coverage closely, if I had to pick the person I’d choose to represent the Democrats, I’d choose Hillary Clinton. Why? Because she’s a woman.

Gasp!

Yes, I know that’s not the “correct” thing to say. Most women I know trip all over themselves to declare that they would never (never!) vote for a woman because she’s a woman, that a candidate’s gender does not influence them at all.

My question is, why the hell not?

I will [most likely] vote for a Democrat for president. Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president — she’s a senator and has a long history in politics. So I prefer her over the other candidates because she is a woman. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m sure people will ask me why I just don’t vote for the most qualified person. This question annoys me in many ways. Implicit in this question is the idea that female candidates are less likely to be qualified than men. Secondly, I am not an idiot. I would not vote for someone who is not qualified and who does not believe in values that are important to me. What I am saying is that gender is a factor that I will consider. In a circumstance such as this Democratic primary, it can sway my vote.

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12 November, 2007 | 11 Comments

Just a follow-up to my recent post on bias in the British media. I had to laugh when I saw this headline. The papers just can’t help themselves. How is the fact that Amanda Knox is American even relevant to this story? I can understand that her national identity will come up in the coverage of the case, but why is it the persistent focus? It seems like a childish reaction on the part of the press. It’s as if all of Britain has been wronged by this American — and by extension, all Americans somehow had a hand in creating this monster before she was unleashed on the innocent people of Europe.

There are at least two (possibly three) other people involved in this murder of a British student, one of them an African immigrant, but even the potential explosiveness of that cannot take the focus away from Amanda Knox, the media obsession. I’ve noticed many stories in the press here about young British women who have gone abroad and have ended up savagely murdered. Two women who went to Japan to teach English were killed in horrific fashion and there are other stories. I wonder if any British men who travel abroad are ever killed? I have no idea. Men being killed is not as interesting, since when a woman is killed, there’s often some kind of sexual component. We all the know the media gets off on that.

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10 November, 2007 | 1 Comment

Recently, I went to see Carmen performed at the London Coliseum, a production of the English National Opera. This is only the second time I’ve been to the opera in my life. The first time was in Sydney — I was there on holiday and couldn’t resist seeing something in the famous opera house, so I saw Cinderella. I enjoyed the performance, but for some reason I never returned to the opera, perhaps because, let’s face it, opera seems like something for stuffy rich people. After reading Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto, I bought a book on opera and vowed to learn more about it, but never did.

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9 November, 2007 | Comments

I will be a French lawyer.

The owner of the apartment rental agency finally sent an affidavit to my lawyer in which he explained all of his evidence. Did I tell you I was persuasive? In Hebrew, my name means “argumentative.” (Seriously.)

I’ve spent hours this week contacting people about submitting affidavits to the court for me. I did not realize before that Americans could submit affidavits for me and that their testimony can be translated into French. Some of my friends from home actually have evidence that can help me. I’ve also had to write to people I knew in Paris and to at least one of them I had to write a long letter in French, which is taxing. My French isn’t great; however, my legal French is getting good.

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8 November, 2007 | 8 Comments

Two recent news events (actually, three) have highlighted the staggering level of bias that exists in the British news media.

Last week, the British papers were filled with sheer and utter hysteria concerning medical studies stating that, essentially, anyone who is even a pound overweight is on the fast track to a horrific death. According to these reports, only by being extremely slim can a person avoid death and disease. The Salem Witch Trials seem low-key in comparison to the hysteria I saw in the media regarding these reports. It was, quite literally, sickening. [I will include just a handful of links in this post, but without the front page headlines and graphic images, you won't get the full sense of what it was like.]

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6 November, 2007 | 3 Comments

Just an update on the French legal drama. My case was supposed to be pleaded today before the Tribunal d’Instance in Paris. As expected, my landlady’s lawyer submitted her documents to the court at the close of business yesterday. Unbelievable. My lawyer got a postponement this morning.

My landlady’s lawyer wants the case moved to a different jurisdiction, which is apparently what a lawyer does when she has no evidence. My lawyer will not fight this because we have the law on our side and we want to speed this process up. They also claim I owe them money for all sorts of things. They say I didn’t give 30 days notice (I have proof that I did) and they claim I owe taxes on the apartment. Normally renters have to pay tax, but this was not part of my agreement with the landlady, as outlined in the contract. She left it out of the contract because, unbeknownst to me at the time, she is committing tax fraud against the French government. Of course, the only person with evidence of this is that slimeball who owns the rental agency. So now I must get the affidavit from him. I also need to get affidavits from French friends who can testify to the personal emotional distress I suffered because of my landlady’s actions. That shouldn’t be hard. While I’m at it, maybe I can get the therapist I had to see in Paris as a result of all this crap to write a sworn affidavit too.

My lawyer, meanwhile, suddenly seems quite excited about all of this. She wrote to me in an email: “After what [your landlady's lawyer] did yesterday, the fight has really begun and I am ready to face it.” Well, you go girl. I wish I were that fired up, but I really just wanted this to be over today. That was my heartfelt wish.

4 November, 2007 | 3 Comments

*****Thank God*****

2 November, 2007 | 8 Comments

I’m not a gal who is afraid to speak her mind. People irritate me quite often, but I handle it pretty well. I am not a screamer. I don’t like yelling. While I do get mad, I don’t often find myself in the midst of a blinding rage. It’s simply not my style.

However.

When it comes to certain peoples of the French nation, sometimes I just lose it. I shout. I become filled with rage. I make threats. I say nasty, vicious things. It’s scary, actually, to see this side of myself emerge. While living in France for just eight months, I got into heated arguments with at least three people I had business dealings with. In the whole five years I lived in NYC, this never happened. Getting upset like this is an ugly, almost repulsive feeling, but what can I say? I was provoked. Thank the Lord Jesus that when I was living in France, I never had access to a firearm.

I realize France is a Latin country and I am an Anglo-Saxon. Perhaps I shouldn’t let these encounters bother me, perhaps it’s just the way things are done, but I don’t handle this sort of thing very well. Anyway, I am telling you this little story for a reason. Today, once again, I felt the rage.

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1 November, 2007 | 2 Comments

Today was a writing day for me. I had the whole day set aside to work on my novel. And what did I produce after a whole day? Four paragraphs, two of which are good and two of which are on their way to potentially being good. That’s it.

Some days it’s a hard slog.

If you’re a writer or you engage in some other type of creative activity, then you know what it’s like when you’re on a roll, when you’re in the zone, when you produce work that’s brilliant, work that flows forth almost effortlessly as if from some otherworldly place. For me, this is usually accompanied by a feeling of complete euphoria. This feeling can last for a day, for a week, for many weeks. It’s what makes being a writer worth the struggle.

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