Some good times, some not so

I promised a while back to give a sense of the view from the terrasse and library of the Foyer--not a shabby place to mark journals or hold office hours, eh?  That's the Jardin Luxembourg just past the first buildings in the foreground.

On Tuesday we had the second of our group outings, and I was glad to have waited until the weather improved.  As in the past I tried to coordinate with the Grand Tour group, and the combination is always good for both classes: there's something about the effortlessness with which the city unrolls in front of you when you're floating on the water, as compared with the constant struggle with traffic, smoke, pedestrians, and so on, that makes an evening boat ride a tonic for tired tourists.

Taking a 9 PM boat means you get the last light on the buildings, though you don't have a big show at the Eiffel Tower yet.  I don't know--there's something truly magic about this place, even as one of my students aptly reminded me of how she can't look at Notre Dame without thinking of the hundreds of people who died building it.  That is actually on my mind quite a lot these days, having spent a good chunk of last weekend reading about various wars and sieges and occupations, and realizing that Paris is "special" in ways that are not always 100% honorable.  It's easy to forget how close it was to being destroyed at multiple points in history, and how what saved it was not necessarily honorable deal-making and deal-breaking.  Even the boulevards and cafes, when you dig deeper, owe their existence to brutal "urban renewal" projects that displaced hundreds of thousands.

Here's my colleague and ancien combattant Victor, trying to relax after another day leading the Grand Tour.  It is such a circus, that program, and I can hardly believe I've signed up to do next year's rendition.  There's always something, and he's got his hands full this year with logistical and personnel issues.  I was incredibly lucky last year, although I really did not relax completely at any time--one snatches little breaks and keeps planning, keeps foreseeing, yet no matter what you do, it can blow at any seam: a student can crack up, a tour arrangement can get lost in a bureaucratic shuffle, or an operator can lose his license (as happened to me last year, necessitating a quick charge-up of the corporate credit card).

Who knows what shot will become popular with the Summer Abroad publicity people?  Maybe something like this one.  The smiles are genuine, and life is (temporarily) good.

The rest of the week went fine as far as the teaching went tolerably well--felt a little like pulling teeth getting discussion going a few times, but there were also some good moments where unexpected participants made good contributions (instead of the Usual Suspects).  This is the time when students are starting to get tired, and punctuality suffers.  For some reason there's also a tendency for people to just get up and walk out instead of waiting for the breaks--I've never been one to issue hall passes, but is it true that an hour is too long to expect college students to maintain attention?  Damn, what an old fogey I am becoming!

Thursday night was the long-awaited match-up between France and Germany in the Euro Cup semifinals, and after marking some journals I watched with interest after the excellent conference call with Alex and Amelie and Jared.  Unfortunately, I was too lazy to cook something so I took a chance during halftime, and bought a plat a emporter from a kebab place around the corner. Mistake! Big mistake!  The next morning I had that unmistakeable what-crawled-up-me-and-died feeling, and I spent a good chunk of the morning in the bathroom.  Not good.

Also not good was this odd ironic comment that greeted me as I went down the stairs to collect a couple of late revisions at the Foyer in the early afternoon: I don't quite understand why these little gifts appeared on the doormats of my downstairs neighbors.  They are not in residence, since there's major construction happening (hence the floor protection), but maybe they pissed some other neighbor off and this is the payback.  The doors downstairs have been open more than usual, so maybe this is payback for that as well, but the little doggie-gifts were definitely not what I wanted or needed to see in my state of digestive unrest.  Yes, Paris is full of surprises, isn't it.

So I took a brief walk around this afternoon after a loongg sleep in (merciful) after eating only a bit of rice with tamari last night, an had that strange sense of envying everyone who was munching away on anything they wanted.  My right ear is again stuffed up in some bizarre way, so I am definitely in that whinging mode, I am afraid.  Luckily it's the weekend--I really want to be past this before the Normandy trip on Monday, because the last thing I want is to be leading a trip hoping for bathroom breaks.  Ooof.  Tonight I go to a movie with Martha, and old friend of Amelie's family, and dinner afterward, and we'll see how I do.  Fingers crossed.