Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Ouiouihawhawhaw's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, June 29th, 2006
12:53 pm	It's a small world (after all) So the other day I went up to Dani's apartment.  Her roommate, Ibrahima, was on the phone.  He's from Senegal.  When he saw me, he said, "Hey, I'm talking to my friend on the phone.  He's from Senegal, but he's living in Kansas right now.  You should talk to him because you're from Kansas, so surely you'll know him."  So I took the phone.  I asked him where he was living in Kansas, and he said he was a student at KU.  "Rock Chalk Jayhawk," I said, and we immediately bonded.  (I wonder what K-Staters say.  "Grr, I'm a big purple cat"?)  We talked a bit more, and he mentioned that he had also lived in Ohio for a time.  "Oh, that's funny," I said, "whereabouts in Ohio?"  (Because where I come from, "whereabouts" is a word, just like "ain't".)  "In Kent," he replied.  "I did my Master's in translation at Kent State University." "Whoa, whoa, whoa, back the trolley up," I said, even though there was neigh a trolley in sight.  "That's what I'm doing!"  It turns out he was in the same program/department I was and had graduated just the semester before I got there.  WEIRD!  I had seen his name around, for instance on the school website, listed as an alum.  He had known Ibrahima since childhood; they had grown up together and were like brothers. So in Switzerland, I randomly sort of met a guy, who was friends with my friend in Switzerland who is from Senegal, and who went to my school.  *insert Twilight Zone music here* (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 26th, 2006
11:17 am	Poopy Finals are this week.  Grr.  Yuck. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 23rd, 2006
9:32 am	LA NEIGE - by Valéry Larbaud Un año más und iam eccoti mit uns again Pauvre et petit on the graves dos nossos amados édredon E pure piously tapándolos in their sleep Dal pallio glorios das virgens und infants. With the mind's eye ti seguo sobre levropa estesa, On the vast Northern pianure dormida, nítida nix, Oder on lone Karpathian slopes donde, zapada, Nigrorum brazilor albo di sposa velo bist du. Doch in loco nullo more te colunt els meus pensaments Quam in Esquilino Monte, ove della nostra Roma Corona de plata eres, Dum alta iaces on the fields so dass kein Weg se ve, Y el alma, d'ici détache, su camin finds no cêo. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, June 19th, 2006
3:30 pm	Fun weekend! (mostly) Friday: Went out to dinner with some Swiss-German friends.  It was kind of awkward at first, because it was me and five Swiss-German girls.  Of course, they all spoke Swiss-German between them, and I just kind of sat there.  They were nice and translated a lot of the time, but it was still kind of weird, because I actually only knew one of the girls.  The rest were just her friends.  They were all really nice, though.  We went for dinner because it was my friend's birthday.  Then we went out for ice cream (where I finally had the pineapple-basil ice cream, which was pretty good) and went for a walk out on a pier.  It was really cool.  Then we headed back for my friend's apartment.  She lives in a sort of sketchy part of town, like where all the prostitutes and stuff are.  Right as we were coming up to her apartment building, two guys started following us and saying stuff to us, just stuff like, "Hey girls, why don't you come home with us?" kind of stuff.  We went into the building, and they followed us.  We told them off and started going up the stairs.  They followed us, so we went faster, so they started going faster, chasing us.  They were calling out stuff like "Come on, we just want to talk!" and other crap that sketchy guys say.  Then they started getting mad that we were fleeing and they started saying stuff about "les meufs" ("women" in Verlan...not important).  They followed us all the way up to the 4th floor and they were making grabs at one of the girls.  She kept trying to tell them off and they just kept at it.  Finally they left, and we made it to the 7th floor where my friend's apartment was.  It shook me up a bit. ****** Saturday: We went to a friend's pool party around noon.  I got thrown into the pool with my clothes on, as did pretty much everyone else, except pretty much everyone else was wearing a swimsuit underneath.  I didn't have a towel or any other clothes to change into, so I had to sit around, drenched through to the underwear, for several hours until I dried off.  This was more difficult than normal because it rained for the first time in a couple of weeks, and of course it had to be the day we had a pool party.  At least I didn't have my cell phone in my pocket, like two of the guys did when they got thrown in.  We sat around and swam and ate and listened to music and played with dogs and played soccer and volleyball until 8 pm.  Then, we all went downtown to watch the USA vs. Italy World Cup game.  Dani and I were the only (semi-)Americans among a whole bunch of (rabid) Italians.  (Dani is technically English, but she's lived in the States for most of her life.)  I actually watched the first half of the game at a friend's house and then joined some other friends downtown for the rest of the game.  The game turned out to be a tie, which is really for the better from my point of view, because that way, neither side could make (very) nasty comments.  Besides, I was totally expecting the Americans to lose, so for me, a tied game was already pretty decent. After the game, we stayed out because this weekend was the Music Festival in Geneva.  Everywhere you turned, in all parts of town, anywhere you could fit a tent, there was a stage and a band.  They had all kinds of music, from metal to jazz to classical to tango to folk to Native American.  It was fun.  I was watching a group perform some latino music when some guy asked me to dance.  I said yes, which I think surprised him.  I danced a second song with him, and he got bolder and asked me out for a drink, but I said no.  He also asked me my age, and when I asked him his, he said "Twenty-six."  I'm convinced that was a total lie, because he looked way older.  I think he just didn't want to tell me his real age when he found out I was 24.  We ended up getting home about 3 am (me and my friends, not me and the guy). ****** Sunday: Lounged around most of the day, then went into work at 6 pm.  (Oh, by the way, I got a one-time localization job for a company here that needs its website translated.  Let me just say that Keiran did a pretty good job of teaching us things that we need to know for real-life projects.)  I got there, and my boss was like, "I don't feel like working.  I want to go to the Music Festival."  I said, "Yeah, you should totally go.  I went last night, and it was really cool."  And he replied, "Okay!  You convinced me!  Screw work, let's go to the music festival!"  So we went.  It was really fun.  We walked around together and he showed me little details about Geneva that I'd never seen.  He also kept buying me stuff to eat at the stands.  At first, he was like, "Are you hungry?" and I was like, "A little."  So we got a little piece of cake.  Then we each got a crêpe.  Then we walked by a stand that had fried bananas that he insisted I try.  Then there was a stand with sofas and stuff, and he was like, "Do you want a drink?"  At this point, I didn't want to take anything more from him, so I said no no no no, I didn't want anything to drink, I was fine.  So he went to order himself a beer, and when he came back, he was carrying a glass of champagne for me!  Now that's a cool boss! After the champagne, we continued walking around.  We heard some percussion playing, like African drums.  We found it, and it turned out to be just 5 guys sitting on a bench in a little sheltered area in the park.  It was made of stone, so the resonance was really cool (think: Lincoln memorial, kind of an area like that...there was even a statue).  We sat and listened, and eventually a big crowd gathered and people were dancing.  (Keep in mind this was just drums, no other instruments.)  The musicians looked like guys who, while they didn't necessarily actually live in the streets, they were sort of of that genre, if you know what I mean.  A bit "alternative," as my friend put it.  Some other people who probably really did live in the streets came up and sat at there feet, watching.  One of the drummers stopped drumming; I think he just got tired, so he stopped, set his drum aside, and started rolling a cigarette while the music was still going.  One of the street guys took the drum and started playing it.  Another guy appeared with his own drum and started drumming along.  Another guy from the street brought out some little plastic eggs filled with sand or something (kind of like maracas) and started shaking them along.  Another one started whistling along with the music, and another one started making up chants for the audience to repeat during the music.  Some other street guys were dancing like there was no tomorrow, and so were plenty of people in the audience.  By then, the crowd was probably 150 strong.  The music was a complete cacophony, but it was some of the best music I've ever heard, so real and spontaneous and just carnal.  THEN, the police showed up.  The group wasn't sanctioned by the music festival, and since it was getting late, they had to stop playing.  The crowd booed the police, so they let the guys play one more song.  After that, the audience booed again, and everyone kept chanting and singing and clapping and whistling and yelling, keeping the music going, even though the drums had stopped.  They kept this up for a good 20 minutes after the music had stopped.  The security and police seemed a bit embarrassed.  I think they didn't really want to stop the group, but of course it was their job to.  But even my boss, who is in his 60's, went up to try and talk the cops out of it.  It was really sad it had to end. The other group of musicians that really struck me was a bunch of gypsies, who were also making a beautiful cacophony.  It had the same spontaneous spirit as the drummers.  It was a whole family, ranging from a kid of probably 14 to a granddad playing a rusty old sax.  Half of them were playing dirty old accordions that were falling apart, two were playing saxes, one was tapping on a drum, and there was one tambourine that kept getting passed around.  There was a man and a woman that belonged to the group that was dancing, and sometimes one of the musicians would put his instrument down or give it to someone else to play and start dancing.  It was really cool, because you could tell they were just kind of playing, it wasn't any song that had ever been written down.  Everyone had his own part that was unique, and the parts seemed like they should have just been pure noise when you put them together, but somehow it just fit.  And what happened, but the police shut them down as well.  They were playing for money, but the drummers from before weren't.  They were playing just to play. So the two best groups I saw at the music festival weren't even part of the music festival. (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 15th, 2006
12:06 pm	Yes, yes they do need native English speakers... Should you be a qualified and motivated person with English being your mother tongue and helding a Swiss working permit, do no longer hesitate to send us your CV as we got a job for you. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 11th, 2006
3:26 pm	Yummy yummy in my tummy The other day I went to a film festival.  But before I went to the film festival, I had ice cream at a café right next to the place where they were having the film festival.  The flavors of ice cream they had were: passion fruit, rhubarb, strawberry, thyme, grapefruit, figs and 4 spices, and pineapple basil.  I had the thyme ice cream, and it turned out to be really good. ****** Interesting films at the film festival: THE GENIE IN THE CAN OF RAVIOLIS A claymation.  A guy works at a factory that makes cans of ravioli.  He comes home from work and is pondering what to eat.  We see that his entire cupboard is filled with, of course, 1-kg cans of ravioli from his workplace.  He chooses one and opens it, and a genie pops out.  The genie says, "You get two wishes!"  The guy says, "Isn't it usually three?"  The genie replies, "With me, it's two or none at all!"  So the guy wishes for an endless garden full of flowers.  POOF!  He gets his garden.  His second wish is to have a great meal with the genie.  POOF!  A table is set up, and chefs come running from over the hill (they're still in the endless garden, after all) carrying plates of food.  The guy and the genie have a great meal together.  Then, the genie says, "Well, I have to be getting home now.  Nice knowing you."  He tries to squeeze himself back into the ravioli can, but no matter how hard he tries (head-first, diving in, feet-first, nose-first) he can't fit back in.  He's sad because he doesn't know how he'll ever get home.  Then the guy says, "I know how to cheer you up.  I'll be your genie.  You get one wish."  The genie says, "Isn't it usually two?"  The guy says, "With me, it's one or none at all."  So the genie wishes he was sitting on the edge of a stream, dangling his feet in.  POOF!  The guy and the genie are sitting on the edge of a stream dangling their feet in.  Then they sing a happy song about how they're sitting on the edge of a stream dangling their feet in.  THE END.  It was cute. THE SLUG A little girl is on a playground and narrating her story.  She says, "Today is a special day.  I'm not going to play with anyone else today.  Today, I'm going to kiss a boy."  The show all the boys in her class, one by one, and she narrates, "No, not that one.  Nope, not him either.  Definitely not him.  No.  No.  No, no, no.  Him, he's........ugly."  Then they cut to a blond-haired boy.  She says, "That one."  She finds him alone poking a big fat slug with a stick.  She says to him, "Kiss me."  He says, "You have to kiss the slug first."  So, with some hesitation, she does.  He runs away screaming, "Disgusting!"  Disappointed and humiliated, she sets the slug down carefully and pets it gently with her finger.  Then she stomps on it violently.  Then it shows her, serene, surrounded by the boys from her class who are taunting her with yells of, "Disgusting slug!  Disgusting slug!"  (It sounds better in French.)  She says, "I don't care.  One year later, I made him drink a bottle of water with tadpoles in it." (1 Comment |Comment on this)
2:19 pm	Shrooming Shrooms So...I'm simply going to describe what I saw without trying to explain the whys of it all...because I can't. Okay, so there were two mimes...dressed up as giant mushrooms...with something buried under their costume that produced sound effects when they slapped their chests, anything from bleating sheep to strange growling noises...accosting people, squeezing some guy's biceps while he pretended that nothing was going on, feeding french fries to dogs, tickling a little boy's armpit, honking someone's van horn, and occasionally yelping, shrieking, and screaming wordlessly at each other. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 10th, 2006
11:39 am	The job hunt is over! I found the perfect job for me!  I was at the train station the other day and there were people asking if you had a dog or cat, and if you said yes, you got a free sample packet of pet food.  They also had dog dishes on the ground with the dog food, and one of the workers was petting and feeding bits of food to any dogs that went by (there are quite a few around here -- tons of people here have dogs and they're allowed most anywhere, including in cafés, stores, trains and buses).  Can you imagine getting to do that for a living?!?!  Playing with and petting dogs?  That's it, I'm through with translation! (Comment on this)
Friday, June 9th, 2006
2:07 pm	Wazoo So incredibly many things going on this weekend!  How can I ever attend them all? 1. The World Cup games are being broadcast on a big screen in one of the main squares downtown.  So for the next month, besides the games, there are all sorts of events going on there.  Last night was the opening night and they had a free concert by a Brazilian band.  I went for a while, and it was fun, but it turned out to be reggae, which I don't really care for, so I begged off early using the excuse that I had an early class the next morning (which I did). 2. Film festival in town, featuring films written/directed by Swiss-French people. 3. A play showing until the end of next week called "J'aime le théâtre mais je préfère la télévision" ("I like the theater but I prefer television").  Sounds interesting. 4. Some sort of art and decor exhibition at a castle in a nearby town. 5. "Fête de développement durable" ("Durable Development Festival"), geared towards educating people about environmental issues.  Sounds boring, but if it's a two-day affair, there must be something to it. 6. Free wine tasting at an expo hall not far from where I live. 7. Huge annual market in a town that's even nearer-by that runs from 8 am to 11 pm on Saturday. And then of course whatever other parties the people in my apartment building come up with.  And let me tell you that they can be counted on to come up with something, often involving someone eventually calling the police. ****** So yesterday I went to see my friend Nadia, who was in the hospital with meningitis.  Finding which building she was in was an ordeal in and of itself.  It reminded me of the time I went to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester for a job interview and I spent half an hour wandering around trying to find the interviewer guy's office.  The hospital is practically the size of a city block.  He had told me he was located on the third floor, in the radiology department.  I figured that with that much information, plus his name and room number of course, he would be easy to find.  Not so.  It turns out the hopsital was so extensive that when I got to the third floor and asked someone where the radiology department was, they were like, "We have a radiology department on the third floor?"  Aaaaaaaaanyways, back to Nadia.  I finally found her room, and she was like, "Hi!  Thanks for coming!  I'm leaving now!"  And sure enough, she was being discharged just as I left. ****** The other day I was sitting outside of school, minding my own business and eating a sandwich, when a guy sat down next to me and started talking to me.  After a few sentences,  we had exhausted his entire repertoire of French, so he asked if I spoke Spanish or Portugese, because he was from Brazil.  So he asked another one of his friends to come over and interpret.  Basically, the first guy was asking his friend to come hit on me FOR him.  Lame!  The interpreter guy was like, "My friend is looking for a pretty girl like you."  Then he said, "He says you look like his ex-wife."  Is that the worst pick-up line you've ever heard or what?!  I don't know if he meant ex-girlfriend or not, but he technically SAID ex-wife.  Then he asked for my number.  I told him straight out, "I don't think so."  Then I told him I had a boyfriend, to which he responded, "Oh, too bad."  And then they left.  At least I didn't get my hair stuck in his glasses. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006
9:18 am	Random thoughts Last Thursday - Went to Neuchâtel.  They had a castle.  It's currently being used as an office. ****** Dani's roommate, Nadia, has meningitis. ****** Yesterday I went to Luzern/Lucerne.  I got into a museum for free because I tagged along behind a bunch of students who were on a field trip, so the lady at the desk thought I was with them.  Good thing, too, because the museum wasn't worth 8 francs. ****** Switzerland has been invaded by tourists.  They're everywhere and I hate them, even though I am one of them. ****** You know you've been fully integrated into the Swiss lifestyle when: you don't flinch at paying 8.50 for a plate of fries. ****** Proof that there is a dire need for translators out there: a café I was at yesterday had their menu translated into English.  According to this menu, the café serves "mullet wine" (instead of "mulled wine").  I wonder what it's made out of? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 4th, 2006
2:49 pm	Long weekend This weekend is another long weekend, and we had grand plans, but unfortunately they didn't really work out.  On the bright side, we're great at improvising these types of things, and besides, we enjoy being spontaneous, so we're still having just as much fun. Since we have a four-day weekend, Dani and I had planned to go to Interlaken, St. Gallen, and Zurich.  Then she realized she had a paper that was due on Wednesday (the day after we would've gotten back), so she couldn't go anywhere.  I went to Zurich yesterday, intending to spend two days there.  Dani was going to join me on Monday, or whenever she finished her paper, and then we were going to go to St. Gallen, which is only an hour away from Zurich, and then see Interlaken on the way back.  So I went to Zurich alone yesterday, which was fine.  However, I spent the morning trying to mail Marty's birthday present (I know, I'm a bad girlfriend, sending it the day AFTER his birthday), and that was a whole ordeal.  I ended up taking the 12:15 train out of Geneva, and Zurich is three hours away.  So I got there at 3, and then spent an hour trying to find lodging.  I knew of two hostels in Zurich, and figured at least one of them would have a room, but neither of them did.  Not only that, but all the cheap hotels were booked as well.  So I ended up storing my luggage in a locker at the Zurich train station, walking around for a few hours, and then taking the 7:30 train home. It turned out well, because I would've had less fun traveling on my own anyways.  During the train ride to and from Zurich, I saw some GREAT scenery.  It was one of the few relatively clear days in Geneva, and I could see the snow-capped mountains across the lake.  Zurich is a beautiful city as well, with numerous churches with tall towers and spires sticking up above the city rooftops. Today all the museums in the area are free because it's the first Sunday of the month.  So I went to the Museum of Natural History (they calle it the "Muséum d'histoire naturelle" and not the "Musée d'histoire naturelle"....weird) here in Geneva (wow, I almost said "here in Kent").  It was really fun!  There's a LIVE TWO-HEADED TORTOISE on display!  It was really freaky.  One head seems more lively than the other.  I think both are functional, but I don't know to what extent.  Even the museum hasn't fully explored the turtle (they plan to take an X-ray of it someday), and they speculate that the less-lively head can't see the other head.  I guess it has two brains?  Does each know what the other is thinking?  What if one head tells the body to perform an action and the other head tells the body to do something else?  Do they both eat?  Can they hold conversations with each other?  So many questions. There was a video about piranhas that was also cool and disturbing.  It showed them attacking basically anything fell into the water, including a heron (or some sort of heron-like bird, anyways).  It fell out of a tree and into the water, and the piranhas had it laid wide open in SECONDS.  It was totally like you see on TV, in cartoons and stuff.  They even eat each other!  I think they should change the saying to "It's a piranha-eat-piranha world out there."  There was also a special insect exhibition going on.  I took great pains to find out EXACTLY where inside the museum the exhibition was being held, and then carefully avoided every inch of it. There was also a display on vampire bats that was really interesting.  They're fairly small, about 7-9 cm long, according to the description.  However, the first thing you see when approaching the display is the HUGE replica of a vampire bat, with a wingspan equal to the width of a car and a body the size of a large dog...and a face that even a mother would run screaming from.  I read the whole description about how they feed.  They come out at night and feed mostly on domesticated livestock.  They bite the skin open so that the victim starts bleeding, but they don't SUCK the blood out.  No, it's much creepier than that: they LAP UP the blood.  Doesn't that just make your skin crawl?  And they keep the blood from clotting with an anti-coagulant they have in their saliva.  Is that an animal created by Satan or what?  Apparently the bite doesn't hurt, so the victims don't wake up.  There was a story recounted by a guy who had been the victim of a vampire bat during the night (don't worry, they say the bats don't usually attack humans) and who said he woke up to a bed full of blood, as if he had suffered a serious injury.  All from a tiny bite in the neck and some anti-coagulant.  Interestingly, they said that they might be able to study vampire bat spit in order to make medicine to prevent heart attacks. ****** There's a girl who lives in my building who is a native Russian-speaker.  She speaks English very well, too, but not as well as I'd originally thought.  The other day, when we were at a party, she said, "I feel like shitting," meaning she had to go to the bathroom.  Dani and I just gave her really weird looks.  She said, "Is that not right?"  And suddenly I realized what my translation professors here must think of my work.  I repeated to her what one of them once said to me: "Yeees...the meaning is correct, but that's not the way a native would say it." There's a whole nother story that goes along with her.  Basically, I hate her.  We fight, in a very passive-aggressive, refined, 6th-grade way.  Freeser Burn, if you're reading this, it's essentially the exact same thing that passed between me and Bri The Giant Bitch From Hell (against whom I hold no hard feelings...really).  She even has a big nose.  But this time, she can't fire me... (Comment on this)
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
4:41 pm	Languages, languages, everywhere...and I don't speak any of them...but I will soon! I think I just found my ticket to staying in Switzerland, that is, the perfect job for me.  There's an oriental massage parlor that's looking for a receptionist ("receptionist"?) who "likes working with people" and who speaks French and English.  I knew my French degree would come in handy someday...thanks, Uof R! ****** My Swiss-German lessons are going swimmingly.  It's a big slow-going, since we only meet once a week, and the lessons are kind of haphazard.  There's not really any structure or fixed curriculum, as there would be in a real class, so we just kind of decide what's important to learn.  German grammar is a bit all over the place, so that doesn't help.  It does help that I've studied Russian, so, although the fact that Germans decline their words (if you don't know what that means, be glad) scares me all the more because I DO know what that means (it means pain), the concept is at least familiar to me. And I might be getting another tandem (conversation hour), this time in...drum roll please...CZECH!  Why not? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006
11:51 am	Today's French Lesson The French word for today is: apopathodiaphulatophobie.  In Greek, "apo" means "far from," "pathos" means "suffering," "dia" means "through," "phulato" means "to keep," and "phobos" means "fear."  Put it all together, and you get : "fear of constipation." By simpling replacing phu with tu, you get apopathodiatulatophobie, which is the fear of diarrhea. ****** I had a midterm at 8 this morning for my Legal Translation class.  We had to translate a contract.  So I drank a lot of wine last night during dinner.  I don't know how that relates, but it made sense at the time.  Here is one (ONE!) of the sentences I had to translate: "Licensor hereby grants to Accrue a worldwide, non-exclusive, non-transferable, perpetual, non-sublicensable license to: (i) internally use, reproduce and create Derivative Works of the source code of the Software or portions thereof for internal business purposes only, and not on behalf of any third party or otherwise on a "service bureau" basis, (ii) internally integrate the Software, or portions thereof, to make bundled products, (iii) use, reproduce, display, perform, distribute (directly and indirectly, including through distributors, resellers, OEMs and VARS), license, host and market Object Code versions of the bundled products and (iv) use, reproduce, and distribute the documentation in connection with bundled products." It was pretty cool, because she wanted to make the situation as "real life" as possible.  So we were allowed to use whatever resources we wanted, including other people, on-line resources, books, dictionnaries, glossaries, etc.  She actually provided a bunch of books for us to use.  Since she was planning to distribute the source text by e-mail, we could even work at home if we wanted.  The catch was that, like in real life, we got points deducted for each minute that the translation was late.  I didn't think that sounded very real life, until she said that she'd worked for clients before who had done that (deducted from her payment for late work).  So I sent in my translation about 10 minutes before the deadline, just to make sure it got through.  Also, I'd gotten to a good stopping point.  I didn't end up finishing the text, but she said quality was more important than quantity, and that we should worry more about having a good translation than a finished translation.  I don't think my translation was any good at all, but I did almost finish the text.  Hmm...so in essence, I did the exact opposite of what she said to do.  Oh well.  If I had really gone all out for quality, I wouldn't have made it past the first few sentences. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006
1:51 pm	Oops Some really anal girl wrote a letter to the housing office complaining about our parties.  So we got a letter of reprimand, saying we violated the terms of our lease.  I don't think anything's going to happen, we just got in trouble.  So we've proudly posted this letter in the entryway of our apartment.  A tribute to the good times in our building! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 29th, 2006
3:53 pm	Some differences The difference between Swiss and Americans: Americans: "If you don't hand in your homework, you'll fail out of school and never get a good job and end up begging for change in the streets as befits a lazy bum like you." Swiss (this happened to me today): "I need some volunteers to turn in the homework next week.  No, not you Andie, you've already done like TEN assignments this semester." Americans: "We're all underaged drinkers here at this party, so if the cops come, DROP YOUR CUPS and pretend you haven't been drinking, even though you've had so much alcohol you can no longer remember your own gender." Swiss (this happened to me last week): "We applied for a permit to be able to sell alcohol at the party here tonight, but we never got it, so if anyone asks we're giving the alcohol away for free, okay?" What a funny little country... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
11:24 am	Random I am a literal redneck.  I went for a looong walk yesterday and the sun was beating down.  I came back with red cheeks and a mildly sunburnt neck.  But I discovered lots of beautiful scenery right around my neighborhood.  I went for a walk around the usual area behind my apartment building, but then I turned off onto another path that led through some woods, past a vineyard, and then past a river.  And since it was a clear day for once, I could see not only the mountains nearby, but mountains in the distance, which are still covered in snow. The other night I dreamt in Swiss-German.  It was only one word, but still!  I'm excited. Very busy today, gotta run. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 27th, 2006
2:03 pm	Crazy times Thursday Thursday was a holiday, so no school.  So people from the Translation department went on a picnic on a nearby mountain called Salève.  We took the bus to the French border, and then walked across.  (The mountain is located in France and I can actually see it from where I live.)  We took the télephérique (cable car - or as Dani and I call it, the tele-freak) up to the top, although some people chose to hike up.  I had considered hiking up, but I was told that the hike takes about two hours and that the best shoes I had (regular sneakers) weren't good enough.  So I took the lazy, 5-minute ride up the mountain.  The scenery was very nice on the way up and included a little castle perched on a ledge on the side of the mountain.  After we got to the top, we admired the view of Geneva/France for a while, then hiked up about another 20 min to the very top of the mountain.  There, we stopped and had our picnic.  When I left my house, it was really warm and sunny outside, so I wore long, but light, pants, a T-shirt and a hoodie.  But when we got to the top of Salève, it was overcast and chilly.  By the time we finished eating, we were really cold, so we went to a nearby café (yes, on the top of the mountain) and warmed up over coffee.  We hung out there for quite a while, until we were ready to go back down the mountain.  We all decided to hike back down.  It turned out to be really fun, but fairly taxing.  It was a long hike, and while hiking up was probably more tiring, hiking down was harder.  Some of the parts of the path were steep and covered with mud, slippery rocks, or gravel that shifted underfoot.  At one point I slipped on a set of mud-covered stone stairs and landed on my butt.  So now my new pants from H&M are stained with mud, my right butt cheek has a sore spot, and I have a big scratch on my back. When Dani and I got home, we were exhausted and happy.  We both went to our apartments to lie down before dinner, but then my roommate came into my room and announced that the boys were playing their weekly soccer game.  So Dani and I went to that, and we're so glad we did.  It turned out to be tons of fun.  Neither of us played the first half, but then I got roped into the second half.  I actually scored a couple of goals this time, although they were all due to luck and to the boys toning down their game so the girls could play more comfortably.  It was really fun and a lot of the girls played and we all had a good time.  But between the hiking and falling and soccer, I am in a lot of pain right now! Friday Last night I had intended to spend a quiet night at home, cleaning the house, studying, and maybe going for a walk in my neighborhood.  We ended up going to a couple parties and coming home at 4 in the morning.  I had originally been invited to a party by a guy named Thiago, but I declined because I didn't feel like going.  Then, around 7:30, we found out that a bunch of people from our building were going to some party.  No one really seemed to know who was hosting it and who had actually officially been invited, but we all decided to crash it anyways.  When we got there, Thiago was there!  It turns out it was the same party!  Small world.  It was really funny because all the people from Vernier (the village where I live) kind of segregated ourselves from everyone else and started cranking the music and dancing.  Everyone else just kind of stared at us and wondered what planet we came from.  The reason it was funny was because 1) it was just as if we took our Vernier parties (we've had three in the last two weeks) and moved them across town to someone else's house, and 2) no one at the party seemed to know whose party it was.  One of the neighbors eventually came around and threatened to call the cops if we didn't turn off the music completely.  Chalk one more up for the Vernier crowd! So we decided to leave.  But someone had heard there was another party going on near the United Nations, so we went to check that one out, too.  By the time we got there, I was exhausted (I had gotten up at 6 am that morning and by that time it was midnight), so I didn't party or dance much.  But everyone else sure did.  We had originally intended to just swing by the party to see if it was any good and then go home, but we didn't end up leaving until 3:30 in the morning or so. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
1:46 pm	You know it's a good party when... You know it's a good party when a) you finish off half a bottle of vodka yourself, and b) the police come to your door. Twice. A grand success all around. I went to bed at 3:30 am. I woke up at 6:30 am. I said, "Noooooooo!!!" and went back to sleep. I woke up at 10 am. I showered, discovered I was still drunk, and ate breakfast. I had a horrid headache, so I took two ibuprofen and went back to sleep. I got up at 12:30 pm and was finally (mostly) fine. Today is World Turtle Day!!!! WHY OH WHY DIDN'T I GET UP EARLIER?! I've wasted so much of World Turtle Day being asleep and hungover! The other night, as Dani and I were waiting for the bus, there was a crazy guy and a crazy woman, apparently not together, being crazy. The man kept wandering out into the middle of traffic and just standing there or walking around the cars. As could only happen in Switzerland, the cars did NOT honk at him or try to run him over. They merely waited patiently until he got out of the way or simply drove around him. He also threw his shoe at a passing car, and then hurled his tote bag into the street. As he did so, liquid splashed out of it (I have no idea what was in his bag), and then the bag was promptly run over by a car. There was a distinct crunching sound. The woman, dressed in white spandex pants, also kept venturing out into the street where she would do the splits or throw karate kicks at the crazy guy. Everyone at the bus stop was laughing at them. Eventually someone called the police. At the party, I discovered that I wasn't the only one intrigued by my soccer toilet paper. One of the guys was very excited by it and asked where I got it. When I told him I just bought it across the street at the grocery store, he announced that he was going to go get some as soon as he could. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 22nd, 2006
12:53 pm	Weekend I had a couple of parties at some clubs planned for Friday, but ended up only going to one of them. It was okay. I didn't stay long. End of story. Saturday, Dani and I went to Basel. It was also just okay, not terrific. Glad I went to see what was there, but don't ever intend to go back. Sunday night I went to a museum in Lausanne. It was also just okay. Sunday night, there was a birthday party for a friend. Immensely crazy, possibly irreparable things happened there that I am not at liberty to divulge. Tonight is a party at my place. We'll see how that goes. When we were in Locarno, in the Italian part of Switzerland, over Easter break, Dani and I we were walking along and saw a beautiful, stylish Italian girl and a boy together. She was gorgeous, as glamourous as Gabriella Mazza, wearing large sunglasses and a miniskirt. The boy went and hid himself behind a tree and the girl stuck out her thumb to hitchhike. She had to wait LITERALLY no more than five seconds. The first car that came by screeched to a halt for her, whereupon she called her boyfriend over, and they both got in the car. Man, if only I were beautiful enough to stop traffic... The Swiss-German lessons are going well. Hoi! Ich ha Durchfall! ("Hi! I have diarrhea!") (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 18th, 2006
1:54 pm	Accosted A few days ago I was studying in the library (because I'm studious like that). I was sharing a table with an older guy who kept staring at me. At first I thought it was because my cell phone kept going off and I thought maybe he was getting annoyed that I was making noise in the library. Then, as I was packing up to leave and meet a friend, he said, "No, stay!" which was freaky. I said I had to go to a meeting. He said, "But it's raining!" as if that had anything to do with my meeting. Then we waved me over, so I went and bent down to hear what he was saying -- he told me I was pretty (I was dressed up in a skirt and heels -- I know, Andie in skirt and heels, what has Switzerland done to me?!) and asked me out for coffee, whereupon I said I had a boyfriend -- and in the process, my hair got caught in his glasses! Very traumatizing, as we sat there and untangled my head from his face. (3 Comments |Comment on this)