Musings of a (Definitely-Not-From-Harlem, Since I Suck at Basketball) Globetrotter

"How does it feel? How does it feel
To be on your own? With no direction home,
Like a complete unknown? Like a rolling stone?

- Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"

So I've been wondering what I really am, at this moment. I am more than halfway home (literally, since we end in mid-May), and I have been doing my best to adapt to life in France. Yet every time I speak to a French person outside of the house (and sometimes in the house) I feel like I'm actually regressing rather than advancing in my French skills. All my friends say that I'm really good at it (and why shouldn't I be? I studied it for four years, and it has been seven years since I started) but those three years without French lessons really killed me and I I stutter every time I try to speak in French. I also noticed in my video blog that my vowels are impure and very American (it's okay, Josh Groban has the same problem. No, really. Listen to him sing. He'll be singing away in perfect Italian or French or Spanish and then he'll suddenly slip in an American dipthonged "oh" or "ay" sound rather than the pure "o" or "e" sound that Romance languages have... it's noticeable even on his recorded - i.e. not live - albums. Oh, Josh). However, my mom keeps saying that I'll be really Frenchy when I get home and my host mom says that I'm already really Frenchy. I constantly stun both her and her daughter with my sheer knowledge of France and French culture (remember, I grew up reading the encyclopaedia. I'm not even kidding. Ask my mom. And my knowledge keeps expanding, given the vastness of the Internet and the average human's usage of only 10% of the brain), especially in casual conversation. Once I said "mec" (translating to "guy" or, since I'm from California, "dude") in conversation and Marlene (host mom's daughter) cracked up because I said that. I suppose it's something like a Japanese person, who's only really learned English through schoolbooks and the occasional movie, saying "dude" in the presence of Californians, but every time I go outside I feel like more and more of an outsider as time goes by. Like when I'm absolutely starving and have no time to eat except on the metro (and French people are absolutely fanatical about eating properly) and get stared at. Or when I'm speaking in English on the metro and get stared at. Or even when I'm the only non-white person in a particular compartment on the metro and get stared at. Ordering things in restaurants or buying things in stores (especially with my American magnetic-strip credit card, and my California ID that has to be shown with it) makes me nervous because I DON'T want to be the Obviously Stupid American in the room.

I know I'm not French, and don't pretend to be, but I CAME TO FRANCE TO PRACTICE MY FREAKING FRENCH SO I DON'T BECOME THE STUPID AMERICAN ALL FRENCH PEOPLE MAKE FUN OF. I am obviously American, but I don't want people patronising me by speaking in English unless I ask first... they usually end up speaking to me in English anyway. I don't always understand right away, and have to have things repeated, but I WANT THEM REPEATED IN FRENCH SO I CAN BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND. I speak enough English - to my friends, to my professors (except Attal because he is the French professor and we are in an advanced French class anyway), to my family, even IN MY HEAD - so I need to practice French. I'd rather slog through the rapid French of a snobby salesperson rather than have them sneer at me in slow English. (There's only been one salesperson - at the ticket booth in the opera house - that has been rude to me so I've been lucky. But still, she didn't have to be such a B$%&# when I only asked where the bathrooms were. "Ce n'est pas publique" (It's not a public toilet), she snapped at me when, just ten minutes earlier, she had been all smiles and sunshine and lollipops when I had bought a ticket. I'M NOT THE PUBLIC. I AM A PAYING CUSTOMER. I PAID YOU, YES YOU, NOT EVEN TEN MINUTES BEFOREHAND AND BOTH MY BRAIN AND BLADDER ARE THISCLOSE TO EXPLODING because it's THAT TIME OF THE MONTH, SO STFU AND TELL ME WHERE I CAN PEE. (...now if only I could yell that fluently in French.)

And you know what else is weird? I speak more Filipino here than I do in America because there's quite a few Filipinos in Paris (we have our own fellowship at the American Church) and I see them work as domestics all the time in the 16th since that's where al the rich people live. I feel like I owe it to myself, Manila native that I am, to still remember Filipino in the jumble of languages I've spoken since I was here (stuttering French, mangled Czech, WTF German, gringa Spanish, fangirl/gaijin Japanese), and I am heading to Manila two days after returning to San Francisco ANYWAY. I want to be like Jose Rizal and speak twenty different languages, except (1) I don't know who I can inflict Sanskrit on and (2) Jose Rizal would probably make fun of me for how badly I speak Filipino. I mean, despite my natural love and knack for languages, and my best efforts to subsume my acquired American accent, Filipinos can still tell that I am American (and sometimes laugh at/make fun of me for it). NEVER MIND THAT I WAS BORN IN CARDINAL SANTOS, A HOSPITAL IN METRO MANILA NAMED AFTER A PRIEST FROM MY MOTHER'S HOME TOWN IN PAMPANGA, AND THAT I SPENT MY FORMATIVE YEARS IN SAMPALOC, THREE MINUTES AWAY FROM UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS, THE OLDEST UNIVERSITY IN MANILA. MA.NI.LA. AS IN, WITHIN THE CITY LIMITS OF THE ACTUAL CITY OF MANILA.

Anyway, yeah, it's weird how I feel like I'm regressing in French only after I've come to Paris. It's kind of like when you practice something so much that you begin to forget it (which is also happening with me right now, as I practice for my play which I don't even have a main part in, despite the fact that I've been one of the most faithful attendees of practices and a freaking good singer if I do say so myself, but WHATEVER).
Also, it's weird because I don't know what to call home (especially since "Like A Rolling Stone" is playing on the radio): my place of birth, my place of upbringing, my original ("home") university, or my current (temporary) domicile (which is in what has been my dream city since I began to wear glasses, and my home base in Europe - I actually got to tell people "I'm from Paris" when I was on spring break)? I call all of them home at the same time. My mom uses the same verb ("muli," meaning "to go home" in Kapampangan) to refer to me going to the Philippines and America, and my host mom sometimes reminds me that the apartment is (for now) my home too. When discussing study abroad, UCSB is referred to as my "home" university. However, none of them are really HOME at the moment.

Or maybe they are.

I suppose that one can argue that I'm trying to keep up with the exoticism of AUP students by asserting my transnationalism (lots of rich people, multinationals, expats, study abroad kids, and/or diplomats' kids go here), but one (I) can also argue that I am a transnationalist because I was born in one country, raised (with heavy, heavy links to the former) in another, and currently live - like, with a NON-TOURIST visa and everything, however temporarily - in another.

But I'll leave the entry about transnationalism for another day (sociology/Asian American Studies student that I am).

I suppose it'll get even more confusing once I go back to the Philippines. My mom actually told me once that I was not Kapampangan (never mind that she speaks to me in nothing else), and I never feel Just American, EVER, and I never feel Just Filipino, EVER, and I am Obviously Not French. So... what am I? And don't say Filipino-American, because that just brings up dreadful images of either

(1) suburban kids who spent their adolescence wishing, or trying to, be "normal" (read: WHITE) and then all of a sudden bursting into Rabid Filipino Pride upon attending college,

(2) suburban girls who dress in Abercrombie or Hollister, dye their hair a brassy blonde-brown, have white boyfriends and Volkswagen Jettas, join overwhelmingly blonde sororities (and thus are the darkest person in the sorority picture no matter how much they try to block UV Rays), and (if they have enough money) get surgery to sharpen their flat noses, or

(3) suburban kids dressed in Fubu and Sean John and Girbaud, braid cornrows in their straight Asian-but-insisting-they-are-Pacific-Islander hair, and American accents mangling words in Tagalog far worse than I could ever do.

Unless, of course, you're Don. He's cool. (And grew up in the Philippines until, like, age 16 so he still speaks with a slight Filipino accent even if he dresses like everyone else. And lives within SF city limits, which gives him automatic street cred.) I miss Don, insufferable dork that he is... Or Rianne, who is a mix of EVERYTHING (half Filipino, half black-white-possibly Hispanic, I never remember, but she went to school in the Mission for like eight years so that probably counts for something) but grew up with her resolutely Filipino grandparents. Or Casey, Sergio, or Noni - I think they are the perfect mix of Filipino and American. I always envied how they could mix well with Fil-Am kids in the way I never could, but without the ghetto-wannabe affectations or atrociously American-accented Tagalog of some other kids I know. And they still mano adults and say "po" at the end of every sentence and everything. Or even Andrea and Kyle, who moved to America when Eeyah was nine and Kyle was sixteen (I think), but they still are fluent in Tagalog (although Eeyah was born in Pampanga and sometimes I give her crap for not knowing Kapampangan since she grew up in Manila) and are obviously Filipino, BUT STILL ASSIMILATED WAY BETTER - AND COOLER - THAN I DID. (Even if Eeyah is a little too blunt towards her parents to be the perfect Filipina - hey, "pnaysoblunt" is/was her screenname - but then again, she inherited it from THEM. LOL.) Or Joan and Jordan, who are the "typical" Filipino American without being obnoxious about it (speaks predominantly English, but understands Filipino fluently; may or may not have been Philippine-born, but has been raised in America from an early age; leans toward hip-hop culture without going overboard with "ghetto" affectations; the life of every party; actually LOOKS LIKE A FILIPINO PERSON; digs in heartily at any Filipino dish on the table... you know, now that I think about it, kind of like the Antonio kids). Or Leonard and Gail, who actually DO use their Tagalog skillz in addition to ticking all the boxes of "typical Filipino American". Or Megan - or Ruth - or Janice - or Toby! - who are in their own categories altogether.

OKAY, FINE. I MISS YOU ALL. AND YOU ARE ALL UNIQUE. I LOVE MY FRIENDS.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that among my friends there is no one set "Filipino-American" archetype - I mean, you see the caricatures at PCN (I played the fobalicious mother, w00t) and in movies like "Lumpia" and "The Debut" and "The Flip Side" - but growing up I always felt like I (and perhaps Adrian #1) was always the odd Filipino out. Too white to be Filipino, too Filipino to be white, and nowhere near the African-American/Latino hip-hop normative, ethnically, culturally or psychologically. And no one ever thought I looked Filipino. (At least Adrian had that... but at least I knew I wasn't the typical Filipino and never tried the ghetto immersion thing. Bwahahaha. Okay okay okay, cheap shot, sorry like I have anything to apologise about) Being Manila-born, I felt like I had to work THAT MUCH HARDER to prove to everyone and myself that I am Filipino. I relearned Tagalog and Kapampangan at ten, I did folk dance from the age of seven right up until I left for college, and it is telling that within my immediate circle of friends - save for Michelle and Rianne, but again, Rianne is an SF-born-and-raised mix of everything (I so envy people who grew up in the City) so she can do whatever the freak she wants and not have to worry about being Filipino enough - that I am the only one who had a debut. I think I still don't fit in anywhere - and will never fit in anywhere - because I was alone all the time when I was little, and so was left to my own devices ithout social references from anyone, except my parents, with whom I slogged through everything so I can never act like a typical Filipina - or a typical ANYTHING - towards them either. And then you throw France into everything, and the cultural melange of WTF increases.

I suppose I should follow the advice of the song playing on the radio - "Relax, Take It Easy."

Video Blogging!

Am dipping a toe into the exciting new world of video blogging. I was supposed to say "Hi, this is Joanne" at the beginning, but that part got cut while I was importing the video to the computer T_T Anyway, here are the results of my labours.

Addendum.

OH MY GOD I WANNA CRY.

As soon as I finished this post there sat a girl, who looks like she's barely out of the lycee (which is quite young, considering my own "looks way younger than she is" complex and the fact that she is ethnic French and White People Age Differently Than Asians and all that), in front of me. She is wearing a neon t-shirt and jeans, and on the seat next to her is -

A taupe pebble leather Hermes Birkin bag.

HERMES. BIRKIN.

Let me repeat that the girl barely looks lycee age. I don't even know if she goes to this school. And she is schlepping around a Birkin. The best I've got is my mother's beat-up Louis Vuitton Speedy - something so commonplace and counterfeited as to become borderline vulgar - that is as old as me (and which I left behind in America because I accidentally broke the handles when I was fifteen and we still haven't fixed it) and the even more beat-up Prada that my grandma got from a Goodwill for two dollars (which is awesome in itself, and is useful enough for me to bring to Paris, but seeing as my Gran doesn't know Prada from Primark that isn't saying much).

I can't even afford the 86-euro Benetton version of the Birkin.

Life is so unfair.

A wedding? I love weddings! Drinks all around!

"You got your passion you got your pride
But don't you know only fools are satisfied?
Dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true."
- Billy Joel, "Vienna"

So apparently my cousin Selang is getting married even though she has never told me about her fiance - I get all my news from my mother. This same mother told me that I have to change my flight ASAP because I'm the maid of honour... sweet Lord, I'm not even 21 yet and I am already serving as maid of honour as weddings. This only lends more credence to the stresses I've been having all weekend about my insanely busy schedule and life. I feel like there's never enough time and money, and I have to give up a whole bunch of things I wanted to do because of it. Here's a rundown of concerns I have right now:

1. Book a flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle to San Francisco, first of all (am waiting for STA Travel in Santa Barbara to open so I can get help from the travel agents there)
2. Book a flight to San Francisco to NAIA (my mother's job, but she is waiting on my schedule... it will come soon, mum. promise.)
3. 10-minute French presentation, including a 3-page dossier and the shooting of a 4-minute music video, due next Thursday
4. 10-page music term paper due next Friday
5. 10-page English term paper due the Friday after next
6. "A Chorus Line" from April 23 to 25
7. A bunch of Communications reading logs due throughout the semester
8. Finals on May 12, 13 and 16
9. London trip May 13-15, including Josh Groban in "Chess," May 13 (actually I'm really happy about this other than the freaky-deaky exchange rate)
10. Maid of Honour at Selang's wedding in June
11. Philippines trip for one month (another bright spot, but again, so much timing and budgeting to do on both Mum's and my part)
12. Ma's birthday (present?)
13. Summer School from June 24 to August sometime - CHOOSE CLASSES APRIL 1.
14. Senior Year beginning in late September, and graduation in June 2009... and grad school afterwards...
15. General ticking of my biological clock, which SHOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM BECAUSE I'M ONLY TWENTY YEARS OLD, AND HAVE BEEN TOLD SO REPEATEDLY, but if I want to have a kid by 27 I only have seven years to find the absolute love of my life and actually keep him in my clutches this time. Seven years seems like a long time, but time is going by faster and faster and faster and if I want to achieve everything I want to before I'm thirty it's going to take a lot of time and money, neither of which I have, or expect to have for a while. I'm afraid to end up alone and broke at thirty, not having achieved anything that I want to because life keeps passing me by. I am in my favourite city in the world and things are going by just SO QUICKLY that I don't have time to enjoy anymore. Sometimes I want to give it all up and just bum around Europe Hemingway-style, but since I do not share his talent or his bank account I know darn well I can't do that and must keep on slogging away at whatever I'm doing. I don't want to be disappointed by Paris, and I refuse to be disappointed by Paris, but even with my share of exhilarating, euphoric moments, I still feel the ennui setting in, like, "why am I here? Why am I at school? Why can't I do the things I want to? Why can't I have enough money as the rest of everyone?"

The last issue is particularly jarring to me, because of the declining dollar value (I KNEW I WAS BORN TEN YEARS TOO LATE) and impending recession, according to my mother. Even though I am the daughter of two accountants, and you all know how my mother sometimes finds my budgeting peculiar and over-the-top (I write down everything. EVERYTHING.) the money is never ever enough. I grew up hearing my mother's stories of how my grandma was too poor - and busy raising her own siblings, and then fighting World War II, and then raising her own children - to go to school, and how she herself was so poor in college that she couldn't even afford a slice of pizza or a snack out of a vending machine. I am so determined to make her proud, but somehow I always, always, ALWAYS screw up and my bank account is dwindling away. And here I am whinging about how I can't go to Italy (one of my other dreams) after crossing Europe because mommy won't let me (technically, she will, but then she holds the money thing over my head, which obviously means "no").

I hate how going to this school makes me feel so petulant and plebeian - I just talked to my friend Lindsay and she shared the same concerns. As her home university is NYU and she is from a middle-class Asian family like myself, she hates how she can't share in the same luxuries that our real AUP classmates can, like jetting off to Greece for a weekend or getting that new Chanel purse. At the same time, she feels guilty about spending so much of her and her parents' hard-earned money because of the infernal exchange rate. We barely (well, I barely) spend any money on anything but food and transportation, but it all adds up. It's like my mother's experience on a grander, yet still a pettier, scale: whereas she couldn't afford pizzas, vending machine snacks, or sometimes trips home on the jeepney like her classmates, I can't afford nights out, Chanel purses, or trips to Rome like my classmates. The exchange rate makes my experience a bajillion times worse, but the superficiality of the things I complain about makes my experience a bajillion times pettier in comparison. I have just enough to survive, but that's IT, and there's SO. MANY. THINGS. TO DO. IN EUROPE. and whereas my mother always came back to the Philippines (our current problem concern) I get the feeling I'm never ever coming back to Europe. I told my mom so in a fit of petulance this morning, but it feels truer and truer as time goes by. After AUP comes the Philippines (spending time and money), then summer school (time), then senior year (time and a bit of money), then GREs (time and money), then grad school (time and MONEY), then trying to find a job (MONEY MONEY MONEY), then finding a boyfriend and possible husband like five years down the line (time time TIME... I don't care what anyone says about being too young, every time I see someone making out in the metro my blood starts to boil because I know that I don't have anyone, not even for marriage or baby daddy purposes - GOD FORBID I SHOULD HAVE A KID AT MY AGE... Ana and Justine, I salute you - but for selfish purposes like love and snuggling and some sort of comfort), then having kids before my ovaries go kerflooey (time, MONEY), then worrying about the emotional, physical, and financial development of said kids (time, time, money, money, time, money), then worrying about spoiling grandchildren and other descendants (time and money), then death (money).

Who has time to eat, or sleep, or go to Europe, or LIVE, when there's all this crap to do?

At least I can eat.

And I'll get plenty of rest when I'm dead.

Okay, it's a month late, but...

Paris Fashion Week!

Chanel, February 29, 2008

Claudia Schiffer. I saw her at Valentino in January. She's still stunning close up.




But wait - who is that in the distance?




It's the editrix of American Vogue (and inspiration for a certain eponymous Prada-clad devil) Anna Wintour!




Kanye West and his "black Kate Moss," Alexis. Say what you will about his arrogance, but I love love LOVE his beats.




The plebes (aka Shanna and me).





An awesome action shot of Anna (taken by Shanna) - I still have no idea how or why Shanna got that close. I was so afraid to come near Anna that I shot her with my zoom. LOLLLLLL.




Some models coming out. Not really feeling the gold eye makeup mask thing, but hey, it's Chanel. I'm sure the clothes look awesome with more wearable makeup.










Gaspard Ulliel, the French actor who played the young Hannibal Lecter in "Hannibal Rising," prequel to "Silence of the Lambs." Sexiest psychopath ever? SEXIEST PSYCHOPATH EVER. (But there is actually a really, really sad story behind how Dr. Lecter came to be criminally insane.) Here he is with some of my new fashion buddies.






Marc Lavoine, a famous French singer.




The awesome Irina Lazareanu, who was kind enough to pose with my friends.





Ashley Olsen (or is it Mary-Kate? Now that they're both blonde again I can never tell behind those freaking sunglasses.)




Some celebrity exits: Claudia, Kanye and Alexis, and Rihanna. (And no, I respected Miss Rihanna's personal space - I just forgot to un-zoom the camera.)






Okay, back to school. (The book in my hand is "Wuthering Heights" - I was slated to give a presentation immediately after the fashion show.)

there is NO way I could post all of my Eurotrip pictures in one post or one sitting (hello, eight cities in fifteen days); I simply do not have the time and sanity for it. So here are a few snaps from the journey, with accompanying blurbs. More to come later.




Guru Bar, Barcelona. I bought the drink because it was called San Francisco. :D



Las Ramblas, Barcelona - New friends I've made along the way. Left to right is: Johannes, from Innsbruck (Austria), Melanie from Austin (Texas), me, Sandra, also from Innsbruck, and Alexis, from Houston (Texas).




Cerbere, France (on the border of France and Spain, on the train from Barcelona to Avignon) - Nick enjoying a snack and some comics.




Columbus statue, Barcelona - Apparently Christopher Columbus is pointing to America. By this point of the trip my sense of direction was shot to hell so I couldn't tell you if he was right.





More descriptions to come later, but for now, enjoy the pics. And try to guess where I am - it could be fun!

Slow down, you crazy child.

"You're so ambitious for a juvenile...
You got so much to do and only
so many hours in a day."
- Billy Joel, "Vienna"

So I'm in Vienna right now, after spending the last day-and-a-half in Prague. I'm staying in the Hutteldorf hostel, which is like 30 minutes away from the centre of Vienna. The walk here was kind of creepy, as it was SO quiet on the way, and kind of bucolic for a major city - I think I'm in suburban Vienna, actually. The hostel reminds me of CI all over again - a bunch of bungalow-like things that I have to trek in the (very cold) dark to enter, wooden bunkbeds, scheduled times for everything, lots of trees, hella far from anything, etc. The only differences are the people smoking and drinking behind me (I still hate cigarette smoke, and I live in Paris), no bible study, and no piano. Oh, and also the fact that I'M IN AUSTRIA LOL.

The past few days have been fun, but hectic (WELL DUH) and more than a little stressful because I keep getting lost. Ordinarily getting lost in a big city is fun for me, but ordinarily that city is San Francisco or Paris, both of which I have known and loved (if not inhabited) for many years and I have a map (paper or mental) of where I am. It's not as fun when you don't speak the language and it's 11:00 at night because your train came in late or you took the wrong tram/bus/metro line and time is running out and you're hungry and out of cell phone minutes and carrying a huge-ass bag of stuff that includes your ten-pound Oxford Anthology of English literature because your English professor got the brilliant idea of giving you a take-home midterm over spring break when you're visiting eight cities in fifteen days and already have a major French project to do.

I've got some interesting travelling stories already and I'm just a little worse for the wear - I'm still able to walk, I've got all my essential accoutrements (KNOCK ON WOOD) and I wrote down a bunch of German phrases in my Moleskine before arriving so I think I'll be fine.

There's so many things to do in Vienna and I'm only here for a day and a half so I'm going to look those things up now. And go to sleep, because I am EXHAUSTED. Vienna waits for me, but my own circadian rhythms do not.