That Girl In Switzerland

Update - It's Back To Cinci For Me!

2010-12-07T01:07:00.005+01:00

To whom it may concern:

I am moving back to Cincinnati in January. My stint in Wisconsin is nearly at an end. Nothing makes me happier than the realization that soon I might have friends again. :-D

The way it has all come about is this:

My entire life, I have had some sort of goal in the foreground of my thoughts. From finishing high school a year early to earning that B.A. to living in Europe for two years, I have always known what I wanted to accomplish. My goal in moving to Wisconsin last June was perhaps the most simple yet most complicated one I had had up to that point in my life: find out if things will work out with the boyfriend. Things didn't work out. And that's the end of that story.

So I'm still here in the Milwaukee area, but now I have no goal - a stark reality that has been eating away at me since October. I go to work. I go home. I go back to work. I go home again. I need a new goal.

I have decided to return to Cincinnati, the city of my heart. A goal might be easier to decide upon there. Not to mention, churches there are hardly as sparse or as cold as they are here in this bloody state. Being part of something again is something that really excites me.

Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the fact that I need to get that master's degree I've been talking about since fourth grade. Maybe that could be my new goal. Or maybe I could actually use that Education degree I spent five years obtaining. Whatever my new goal turns out to be, I'm really excited about the options that being back in my lovely city could give me.

I just wanted all my friends who read this to know that I'm coming home. I've been gone far too long.

Love to all,
H

Phantoms

2010-10-07T02:23:00.006+02:00

I closed my eyes a bit ago to pray yet one more time for my dear lost friend, and I found myself crying and thinking over all the changes in my life in the last two years. It's hard to believe that November 16th is nearly here again. It's even harder to believe that the date still matters to me. I don't know exactly why it still does. The reason only seems clear to me in those dark three-o'clock-in-the-morning times.

I've been reading my darling Lucy Maud again. The "Anne" books I can do without, but those three little novels about Emily of New Moon - those will always be on my heart. She waited years, and she got what she wanted in the end, even though it seemed like her dreams were dead forever. I've read those books a dozen times in the last fifteen years, and I always cry when she and Teddy finally come together at the end of the last book.

Isn't fiction a pretty thing? The heroine always gets her heart's desire, and the rest of the world goes on around them like it always had. It's too bad that real life is not as romantic. More often than not, dreams are unrealistic things that eventually die without ever having been realized. And the world does goes on, dead dreams or no.

Two years and countless prayers later, a single phantom continues to haunt my days and nights. But perhaps, after all, not everything that is gained from someone who is lost is lost as well. Perhaps each song, each scar, is a mark that tells a story forever. To banish a memory is to banish a part of who we were. At least this is what my phantom tells me.

H

Stuck in Amsterdam!

2010-05-17T16:20:00.002+02:00

So here's a fun little thing: I'm stuck in Amsterdam! Thanks to the nice little ash cloud in the sky, all flights out of Amsterdam today were CANCELED! So here I sit, in my little temporary home, the Shelter City Christian Hostel...Jande's foot is hurting, and she can't walk...so I'm checking my email and writing a blog. What are you doing?

My official Amsterdam verdict is: BEST TRIP EVER!! It's just a beautiful city!

Ok, I'm not going to gush...just wanted to blog about being stuck. It seemed like the thing to do.

Ciao!
That girl in Switzerland

Two More Reasons I Love Switzerland

2010-05-13T08:17:00.005+02:00

1. The Churro Man

There is a man in Geneva who sells churros and other awesome Spanish food substances. He loves me. Lupe, the au pair who had my job before I came here, introduced me to churros in my first week here, and I've been a faithful churro buyer ever since. Churros are basically just deep-fried dough dipped in sugar and cinammon. Well, I say churro buyer, but really it's more like churro eater; the man who owns the churro stand usually won't let me pay for anything. A few months ago, he told a lady standing by that I was his most charming customer. I always have the money in my hand, and I always try to hand it to him, but he nearly always takes my hand (but not the money) and tells me that I can pay the next time. He makes me feel happy every time I visit his churro stand. Yesterday, I introduced Brittany to the churro man, and of course he gave us each a free churro. He really is so nice.

OH, I FORGOT TO BLOG ABOUT BRITTANY! Brittany is my replacement, but I wish I could stay in the area so she could be my good friend. The boys already think she's awesome. Jules told her yesterday that he loves her. :-) It makes me so happy that my boys are going to have a loving au pair for the next year. I hope that she and the Grobets will get along really well for the next year. Anyway, she arrived on Sunday afternoon. By Monday night we were already going to Bible study and our little local pub, The Fish. :-D WHERE was her jet lag?? No, actually, she was jet lagged but working through it really well. Yesterday we went to Geneva for a little while, and I showed her a few things she needed to see - like the train station, some main bus stops, the shopping road, etc. It reminded me of seeing Geneva for the first time myself, only this time with all the knowledge of local geography and history that I needed. :-D It's fun to show people around.

Ok, so on to the second reason I love Switzerland...

2. Charlie, my sometimes bus driver

Charlie is an old man who sometimes drives the E bus route to Hermance. Hermance is the village just after mine on the border of France. Charlie drives the late buses. I usually see him on the 23h50 bus and sometimes as late as 00h30. Sometimes I wonder how he likes driving so late at night. Charlie only speaks French. Charlie loves me. The other day, I was walking through Geneva, nowhere near the E bus route, and I saw Charlie driving a different bus, the 8 bus, as a matter of fact. He saw me too and started honking the bus horn and blowing kisses, which had everyone in the surrounding streets looking and pointing. I started laughing, and blew some kisses back. :-D Charlie is cool. He has my stop memorized, but he always pretends that he's going to pass it so I have to ride the whole route with him. A few weeks ago, I got on the bus at a different spot (in Vezenaz rather than Geneva), and he told me that he had just been thinking about me and hoping that he would see me that night. Then he started singing, "Elle y est, la plus jolie..." (Translation: "There she is, the most beautiful..."). Charlie has been good practice for my French, considering he speaks not a word of English.

I will miss Charlie the Singing Bus Driver when I leave Geneva next week. I will also miss The Churro Man whose proper name I don't know.

A bit sad about leaving,
That girl in Switzerland

Paint-by-Number Christianity

2010-04-13T21:18:00.001+02:00

I grew up a paint-by-number Christian. I put all the right colors in the right places, and when I was finished, I still only had an imitation of something real. In the past few years, I've been discovering what it really means to serve God from my heart.

Here's what I think: I think that the most important thing in the whole world is to love and serve Jesus Christ. And you can't really serve him if you don't love him, and that love starts in the heart when Jesus changes you. Christianity is inward. A person can follow a list of rules and keep the "right" appearance all they want, but unless their heart is clean and longing for God, that's all they're doing - just following some rules made up or interpreted by people and church boards.

A Christian is supposed to be a beautiful person - one who just shines from the inside out and who can see something positive in every circumstance because they can see God in every circumstance. A real Christian is somebody who is always trying to see more of life from God's perspective, because that's what wisdom is - God's perspective on anything and everything. And a real Christian is somebody who overflows with gratitude because they understand their own spiritual poverty.

Christianity is not about pointing your finger in someone's face and telling them they're going to hell because one of their personal standards is different from yours. Jesus never once did something like that. Christianity is about being a "little Christ" and just shining Jesus to the rest of the world. I hope I never get stuck in legalism again. It all dark there. The focus is completely wrong. You're always terrified of doing the wrong thing or looking the wrong way. There's no Jesus in legalism.

But - Jesus said that He didn't come to make the law void, but that He came to fulfill it...to complete it...to show us what the law really means. God said that His people should be perfect and set apart (holy) as He is perfect and set apart, and He gave the law to set the standard for what that meant. But the problem was that the people thought the law was too hard...they started loosening up the commandments and making the prohibitions a bit more lax, all while paying the right tithes and making the right sacrifices and saying all the right prayers. And God told the prophets over and over that He would not accept the people's sacrifices because they came from hearts that were not pure. So why should we believe that He'll accept our sacrifices today if they come along with unclean thoughts and unrighteous anger and lives that refuse to accept Jesus' peace?? The Bible says that for hypocrites, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, remember?

One reason people were so attracted to Jesus was that He taught a different standard with such authority. Jesus didn't get rid of the law. Jesus taught that to obey the law wasn't enough...he taught that the heart was more important...obey the laws, but take it a step further. Not only shouldn't you murder, you shouldn't even have unrighteous anger toward someone. Not only shouldn't you commit adultery, you shouldn't even look lustfully at someone. Not only should you love your neighbor, you should also show love to the people who hate you. Read the Sermon on the Mount...it's full of this stuff. Live for God from your heart first, and what comes out will be natural and beautiful.

I fully believe that the demands of righteousness under grace are far more demanding than they were under the law. And why shouldn't they be? Not only do we have a new standard of holiness, we have the perfect example to follow. What I don't understand is why people think they're free from the law when they're really just throwing themselves back into the lifestyle of the Pharisees...doing all the "right" things to be seen of all the right people. I prefer to keep my heart clean with Jesus' help because I want God's face to shine on me.

I refuse to be a paint-by-number Christian. I'm one of God's originals. :-D

Love,
That girl in Switzerland

He Always Makes Me Laugh

2010-03-10T16:22:00.008+01:00

Mum sent me a delightful package for my birthday. Here is a conversation that I had with Félix about said box, in which he schooled me on how to handle a difficult situation:

Heather: "I might get a package today!!!!"

Félix: "From who?"

H: "From my mum!!"

F: "What's in the package, Heather?"

H: "Birthday presents for ME!!"

F: "But when is your birthday, Heather?"

H: "Next Monday."

F: "You know, Heather, that if you get a package today, and if it's for your birthday, you have to wait until your birthday to open it."

H: "But...Buuut..."

F: "NO, HEATHER, it's true!! If it's not your birthday, you can NOT open the package!"

H (with beguiling eyes): "But what if my mum sent you some American candy and it's in the package?? Then can I open it??"

Félix paused to consider the difficult question that had been posed. Should he choose the high ground and wait until Monday, or should he give in??

F: "Well, ok, if there's candy for me, you can open the box."

H: "But then I might see my birthday presents...and what if there is no candy for you?"

F: "So you look at the things in your box, and if there's nothing for me, you put all the things back until your birthday, ok?"

H: "What?? WHAT????"

My box did arrive. And Félix still insists that I can't open it. What he doesn't know is that I already did. :-D

Félix is just the best!

*Grin*
That girl in Switzerland

Now and Then

2010-02-25T00:15:00.004+01:00

My hair is longer than it used to be,
And my eyes greener.
My head doesn't ring with your sorrows now,
And my pillow is more welcoming with
Each passing night.
I listen to more music than I used to -
And I sing louder.
I cry harder now too,
Because the experience of you taught me
To allow my grief.
Yesterday, I danced in the wind
And told my heart to the rain.
Is it not better, I ask you,
To embrace your unknown destiny
Than to be given what you thought you wanted?
Strange -
Once, I would have given you everything.
But isn't it funny -
Now my eyes are greener than they used to be,
And my hair is longer.

With regard,
That girl in Switzerland

Two Monuments

2010-02-16T21:26:00.002+01:00

Upon Viewing Geneva's Cathedral from Across the Lake at the Brunswick Monument

Two memorials,
Both raised to men.
One man sleeps aloft,
Sepulcher held high
By pillars and gated walls -
No man dares enter there.
One Man does not sleep,
Yet He also is lifted up.
Beneath His towers and spires
The doors are thrown wide,
So that all may enter in.
Welcoming Cathedral,
How beautiful are your
Walls of stone,
Built by man, for Man.
Sepulcher lifted high,
Enjoy your earthly throne
While you may.
Other spires point
More Heavenward.

Cheers!
That girl in Switzerland

Leviticus and a Reminder to be Salty

2010-02-09T02:15:00.016+01:00

Lately God has been giving me many reminders of how I am supposed to be a living example of Jesus to the world. These reminders are in answer to my prayers that God will continue to purge blemishes from my life and show me what it means to be a genuine follower of Christ.

Monday afternoon, I was reading in Luke, preparing for a Bible study that evening. Luke 12:8-9 popped out at me:

"I say to you, whoever confesses me before men, him shall the Son of Man confess before the Angels of God, but whoever denies me before men shall be denied before the Angels of God."

I stopped to consider the verses, and wrote in the margin that this was a great inspiration to be more vocal about my faith, but moved on because I was trying to get through ten chapters.

Later that night after the Bible study, I climbed in bed and picked up my Bible again, this time to start reading Leviticus. Topic of the evening: sacrifices.

It's really easy to get bogged down in Leviticus, and I honestly wasn't reading with lot of inspiration, but I read something that made me stop.

Leviticus 2:13 - "Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt."

I wondered why God required salt.

Put as simply as possible, grain offerings were offerings of worship to God, made of fine flour and oil, either baked or fried into an unleaven bread. God said that these offerings would go up before Him with a sweet aroma. How interesting that God ordered the Israelites to offer their sacrifices of worship with salt.

Since I was reading in bed late at night, I didn't get up to use a commentary, but I did stop to mull over the idea. God required salt.

The thought took my mind back to the New Testament to Matthew 5, in which Jesus states that we believers are the salt of the earth.

As my mind was searching for a connection, I thought of Romans 12:1, where the writer states that we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable.

God wouldn't accept a grain offering that didn't include salt. Give yourself as a living sacrifice. You are the salt...

And then my mind went back to the verses from Luke that I had read earlier that day - if you confess Jesus before men, Jesus will confess you before the Angels of God, but if you don't confess Jesus, He won't acknowledge you either.

Four verses that seemed unrelated joined together to remind me that if I am not...salty...I won't be acceptable. How I long to be holy and acceptable to God.

I want my living sacrifice of praise to go up before my Lord with a sweet aroma.

So interesting the connections God will make if you just ask Him. I love Him, and I love His Word.

Be blessed,
That girl in Switzerland

A Bit about Dreams, and a Request for Prayer

2010-02-05T23:34:00.016+01:00

I wish it were safe to really bare my soul on this blog, but that's impossible. Blogspot just doesn't cut it for the deep stuff, you know?

But is it ok for me to admit that I'm having a hard time right now? I think I need prayer. Since November of 2008, I've been having horrible dreams several nights every week. Last night was the worst yet. There is no worse feeling than waking up in a cold sweat because you've just watched someone you love die a horrible death over and over, or you've stepped back in time and then awoken to find it was all a dream. Sometimes I dream about my family, but mostly I dream about this friend I used to have. I can't tell you how many times I've woken up shivering and crying with my hair matted to my sweaty head, and with horror in my heart. Last night this happened five times.

I used to cry for hours and beg God to take away my dreams. I would stumble through my days and then stay up until three or four in the morning so that I could have a few hours of uninterrupted sleep before doing it all over again the next day.

Then I started praying for the person I was dreaming about. I prayed for no other reason than to get my mind off of the negative feelings I always had when I woke up, and I thought maybe the dreams would start to go away. They didn't.

Then I started to wonder if God might think I was simply the right one to pray for this person. Maybe I was the one who knew him well enough to pray as specifically as he needed. But hasn't it been long enough? And is it ok to admit to God that I just don't want to have to pray for that person anymore? Is that utterly selfish of me? Is it alright to wish it would all just go away, or that that person would just fall off the earth, or that he had never existed in the first place so that I could actually go to bed without being terrified of what I'll see the second I close my eyes? Really, God?? I'm willing to pray if he needs it, but why does it have to be me? I'm tired to my core.

Or maybe I've been going through an attack from Satan for the last year and nearly two months. Maybe I'm being tested to see how I'll react, or to see what I'm made of. But God knows that I desperately want Him and His will more than anything or anyone else in life. If I'm being attacked, then God will help me fight, right? I want to have only Christ-like reactions to people and situations, but the feelings that strive within me just bring me to my knees some days.

This whole experience has gone beyond shallow emotions or pain, frustration or anxiety, and has turned into what feels like a desperate fight between the spiritual forces in the world, with me caught in between. And when I wake up in a panic in the dead of night, I always feel like I've lost the fight. I'm so tired of being exhausted.

Last night I dreamt about a hallway, and a suitcase, and a photograph. In the photo was a beautiful family - a man, a woman, and two golden-haired daughters. I knew without looking that the man was my old friend. The woman's face was blurry, but those two girls...oh, I can picture their chubby cheeks and curly hair and bright blue eyes even now so many hours later. Such beautiful little girls. And all I can do is pray with longing, "Father, help them be a successful, happy family. Help those two little girls to learn who You really are, and help all four of them to overflow with love for each other and for You."

It's so strange, but waking up from my dream about a hallway, a suitcase, and a photograph, I was absolutely convinced that I was in neither a bad dream nor the past, but that I was actually seeing the future. And who knows if that's true or not. I just desperately wish I could survive without sleeping tonight or ever again.

I'm so sorry if you don't think that blogspot is the place for a post like this. I just need to share it with someone. If you're reading, and if you care, would you mind sending up a prayer for me? It's easy for me to pray for people. It's quite hard for me to ask for prayer myself, you know? But I need it right now, I think, probably quite a lot.

Thanks for reading,
That girl in Switzerland

On that (SECOND) Bloody Movie Involving Shiny Vampires...

2010-02-04T13:00:00.000+01:00

I can't stay quiet about this new Twilight movie. Seriously, people, it's been two months. Give it a rest already. Do we still need to be talking about "Twilight 2: The Return of Skinny Emo Vamps" (this time with even more glitter, and SHIRTLESS!)?? I mean, really...I can sum up this movie for you in four words: bad story, bad acting. And that's all you really need to know...not that you should stop reading this rant, mind you...

First of all, let's sum up "Twilight 1: Enter Glittery Vampires." You have Bella, a self-absorbed emo-teen who speaks in mono-tone (or not at all) and doesn't smile for pretty much the whole movie. And you have Edward, a 100+ year-old, shiny vampire who can't make up his mind (though he seems to have no trouble making up his face) and who has serious communication problems. So take two "people" (but seriously, can we even label them this, since Ed is a blood-sucking monster, and B is about as zombie as an actual human can get, or at least you'll think so until you see DivaVampII...) and throw them into a weird, blood-scented, glitter-induced relationship, and what you get is two people who can't admit they even want to be friends with each other trying to be together yet avoid each other for about two hours of screen time. Such a thriller. I can't even tell you how it makes my heart pound.

So "Twilight: New Moon"...yeah, it pretty much picks right up where the first messy affair left off. Bella and Edward are still fighting their attraction while not saying much of anything.

The movie's plot is even worse than you might imagine. Summed up in basic dialogue, it goes something like this:

Bella: Since I apparently order people around on my birthday, kiss me while I do a cocky eyebrow raise.

Edward: I'm...leaving you...forever...because...(dramatic stare)...my...little brother...tried to...(traumatized pause)...eat you...after you got...[wait for it]...a paper cut.

Bella: I now have a death wish, but since I couldn't die while I was waddling on the ground for hours out in the forest where I know there is a horrific wild animal killing people, I'm just going to wallow in my misery for months on end, throw away every other relationship in my life, and become an obsessed adrenalin junkie who totally uses this hunk Jacob, even though I know he's head over heels in love with me...but do I care?? Heck, no, because all I can even think about is how to be stupid enough to get my vampire ex's dramatically-eyebrowed, ghostly visage to appear and tell me not to be stupid. Oh - and let's see if we can't just throw a random trip to Italy in the mix!!

SERIOUSLY, my dialogue is actually better than the dialogue in the movie. If someone had just thought to release a two and a half minute version (thirty seconds for Bella to say her stuff, and the other two minutes for darling Edward to stumble though his one soggy line), it would have saved movie-goers the trouble of yawning through all those lousy scenes that DRAG on for HOURS without effecting the plot AT ALL. Yeah, my dialogue just about sums up the whole movie, other than mentioning that all the main male characters go through wardrobes full of shirts because they keep ripping them off through the whole movie.

Actually, let's chat about the shirtless guys in this movie for a little bit...

I didn't COUNT the number of times the Twilight guys ripped their shirts off this time around, so I'm just going off the top of my head for this one...

First of all, you have Jacob, Mr. Werewolf himself, pulling off his shirt to wipe Bella's head. What I want to know is, what kind of guy just offs his shirt to sponge a girl's head?? It isn't like she's bleeding that much. You can't even SEE the blood until after you see that Jacob has just stripped off half his clothes in the middle of the road.

Here's a paraphrased dialogue from the movie:

Bella says, "I'm sorry."

And Jacobs replies, "Sorry? You don't have to apologize for bleeding, Bella. It's just blood."

OK, SO IT'S JUST BLOOD, SO LEAVE YOUR BLOODY SHIRT ON, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. I was more worried about that than the fact that Bella's head was bleeding. She would do a great Monty Python, though...only a flesh wound and all.

Not that most of the women watching the movie are going to complain about Jacob not wearing his shirt... He isn't so bad. There, that had to be said, unfortunately, to make this an honest rant.

But really, those werewolves...What I'm curious about is this...every time they change from humans to wolves, their shirts rip off, so then when they change back, they're shirtless. OK, so that seems to make sense, RIGHT?? But WHAT ABOUT THEIR SHORTS??? Not that I WANTED to see them naked, because that is NOT where I'm going with this, but seriously...just being logical, wouldn't the same thing happen to their shorts?? If a wolf is too big for a man's shirt, he's probably going to be too big for a man's shorts too. And yet here is this pack of werewolves wandering around in shorts the whole movie. Explanation???

Ok, so here's the one that's really painful to talk about: dear Ed and his glittery chest there at the end of the movie when he's going to reveal himself to the crowd in Italy...

Do any of us really want to see his pasty, chicken-fleshy chest??? NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO. Please, Edward, either work out or leave your shirt on in future movies. And lay off the glitter while you're at it. That stuff can't be good for your lungs. Or our eyes.

Alright, moving on...I can't take that subject anymore.

I don't get why everyone feels so sorry for Bella. Will someone explain this please?? Because from what I can see, she has two guys who desperately want her. She's pretty much best friends with one of them, and he happens to be a fairly good guy from the looks of it. He's got a sense of humor, great hair, a great body, and he cares about her more than about himself (or his shirt). The other guy, although he lacks charm, wit, good looks, or humor (and does not lack in age, pasty flesh, fangs or glitter), is so devoted to Bella's safety that he leaves her despite the fact that he is willing to die if she stops existing in his world. So what is she complaining about all the time??? The whole movie, not to mention the lives of both of these guys, revolves around her, for pete's sake...isn't that exactly what she wants??

So what are some reactions people are having, other than blowing way too much money, over this New Bloody Travesty?? It might be easy to write me off here and say that people aren't really taking the Twilight craze too far, and that it's easy to separate the fantasy from the reality, but I heard about a guy who posted on fmylife.com that his WIFE, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, PUT GLITTER ALL OVER HIM WHILE HE SLEPT SO THAT HE WOULD LOOK LIKE EDWARD IN THE SUNLIGHT. I mean, COME ON!??! If we go with the assumption that this actually happened, then we have to stop and say a quick prayer for this poor guy's marriage, because his wife obviously thinks there's room for dramatic aesthetic improvement...Or we could just go with the assumption that that didn't really happen, but even the guy writing it had to think up the idea, right?? And that might even be worse than it actually happening because then it's HIM WHO HAS BEEN DAY DREAMING ABOUT EDWARD, in which case we still need to pray for his marriage. I honestly can't decide which scenario is worse. At least we'll all know exactly what's going on when people start complaining about the rising price of glitter...

Oh...here's something else that bugged me...

Bella decides she wants Edward to change her into a vampire. He doesn't want to because he's worried about her losing her soul. And all Bella can say to that is a stuttered, "Well, I don't believe in that." My dear girl, you didn't believe in vampires either until the middle of the last movie. And all it took was a little book of old Indian stories and a few internet articles to convince you. Why don't you read the BIBLE and figure out the bit about your soul before you influence yet more people to decide the vampire religion is more interesting than worrying about where they'll be spending eternity??

A basic message of this movie: That it's ok to romanticize and flirt with suicide just because you don't have someone to complete you. I sadly wonder how many young girls actually will commit suicide because they've seen this movie and think it's ok to act like Bella does when she loses Edward, or like Edward does when he thinks Bella is dead.

I could go on and on forever about this movie, but my fingers are sore from all the typing. I could talk about the ridiculous slow motion romp in the woods, or bring up the way Edward still can't stop staring, but for now I'll just quote Bella...

Bella said that she felt like a hole had been punched through her chest. Watching this movie makes me feel like a hole has been punched through my head, and that is no exaggeration.

Ranting a bit too late to stop the craze,
That girl in Switzerland

From My Heart Tonight

2010-01-19T02:05:00.006+01:00

I'm sitting by the lake again,
Where I've sat so many times before -
Thinking, just thinking.
If everything I've thought here
Could become visible and hang 'round my head,
The lake might be covered
With musty blackness.
I haven't been here in a long time,
But tonight it's time to revisit.
It's one o'clock in the morning, and cold.
Frost covers everything in sight -
Benches, leaves, blades of grass -
And I'm shivering, not only from the cold,
But from the power of my thoughts tonight.
Surprisingly, this time I'm not
Obsessing over the past
Or dwelling on pain or betrayals.
I'm just wondering what will come next.
The lyrics that float through my head tonight
Don't come in the form of Carley Simon
Advising me to scream through the confusion,
Or even some sad melody that simply haunts.
Tonight the only song I hear is
"Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free."
And I like to think that -
If my thoughts were visible -
The peace tonight would flow from me,
Banishing the bitterness and hurt
That I've released here before.
Jesus' peace - He's in my heart -
And that's all that really matters.

That girl in Switzerland

A Quote, a Reading List, and a Confession

2010-01-16T10:50:00.002+01:00

"A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it." ~ The Economist

Thank you, Economist, for helping to validate my personal reading choices.

I'm not intending to write about the New York Times Bestseller List (note the self-important capital letters), although I definitely could if I wanted to. The problem with bestseller lists is that the character of the average American reader (to use the term lightly) is put on parade, and often what is paraded isn't so lovely. I'm afraid that the quality of the books which America has deemed "good" has now has grown rather sloppy - or passed by sloppy altogether and deeply face-planted into a dank vat of vampire dung. Yes, I'm referring to Twilight, and that's not the meanest thing I could say about it.

I have recently found myself ranting a lot about how poorly-written Twilight is (please see previous post "Emo-Vamp Sucks on the Big Screen" for my opinion on the matter), and about how the majority of the world seems to think that Stephanie Meyer has god-like writing skills - especially the pre-teen population who sadly hasn't been as exposed to some of the great writers as have previous generations - writers like George Eliot, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare, just to name a few of the more well-known...

One of the problems is that schools are no longer choosing to teach these authors to students, or teaching them in a way that doesn't interest the students. (And that's another rabbit trail I could take right here - force-feeding kids information rather than getting them involved and excited about the information...but seriously, don't get me started.) Another problem is that parents don't spend as much time (or any time) reading books to their children, and so the children aren't finding good books compelling anymore. In fact, most kids label the classics "boring," which actually reveals the boring state of their minds. They don't want to discover these books by themselves. Now I'll be fair - some kids love to read, and to read really good books, no matter (or perhaps in spite of) what they were exposed to as a child. I love this kind of kid!

I hate it when people say to me, "I don't care what my kids read, as long as they are reading!" Seriously??

But I'm way off topic...I hadn't intended to write any of that.

Here is a list of the books I've read (or reread) in the last few months:

1. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (fascinating little book, more so every time I read it)
2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo (not one of my favorites, but definitely worth reading)
3. Death in Venice - Thomas Mann (late 19th/early 20th century German writer - recommended, and partially read, to me by Josh, my well-read boyfriend)
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (will never be tired of this one)
5. Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers (Love, love, love, and that's all there really is to say)
6. Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? - John Powell (little common sense book about being who you were meant to be)
7. The Poetical Works of Cowper - William Cowper (Oxford Editions of Standard Authors. Cowper = longtime favorite poet)
8. Idylls of the King - Tennyson (fabulous, simply fabulous)
9. Heretics - G.K. Chesterton (sent to me last April by Josh, along with its companion book "Orthodoxy")
10. The Reason for God - Timothy Keller (very readable apologia of the Christian faith)
11. Just Walk Across the Room - Bill Hybels (compelling book about personal evangelism)

Oh - and I also read "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," by Jeff Kinney, also on the New York Times Bestseller List, and maybe rightfully so, at least in its age bracket. My thoughtful mother gave it to me for Christmas. Believe it or not, I'm not going to give it a bad rating. Jeff Kinney has insight into the mindset of the average middle schooler (a difficult thing indeed), and for that, I applaud him.

The books I'm planning to read next are:

1. The Island of the Day Before - Umberto Eco (Italian professor of semiotics. Looks totally fascinating. Recommended to me by...guess who...Josh)
2. Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton (a must after "Heretics")
3. Thank You, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse (long ago recommended to me by Aaron Profitt, and recently given to me by...you guessed it...Josh)

And a couple of my friends here and I are going to take on the "read the whole Bible in three months" challenge. I'll probably post more about that in February.

And from there on out I'm open to suggestions.

Now for my confession:

Two weeks ago, I finally read "The Lost Symbol," by Dan Brown. Did I like it? Well, yeah, it was entertaining. At least Dan Brown writes about more intelligent things than the high school vampire lovefest which has the world reveling in the ecstasy of glittery blood-suckers and shirtless teenage werewolves. At least he has gotten past simple he-said, she-said sentence structure.

To take my confession one step further, I will admit that I own at least one copy of every previous Dan Brown book, including illustrated editions of both "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons." But I digress...let's get back to his latest.

In a very tiny nutshell, "The Lost Symbol" is about a search for a "missing word," which, if found and properly understood, will reveal Ancient Mysteries and lead its finder into much knowledge and wisdom. At the end of the novel, the missing word is actually discovered to be the Word of God, the Bible itself, which does indeed reveal the wisdom that God loves to shower on those people who love, follow, and attempt to understand Him. A Treasure indeed.

Sounds good, right?

Dan Brown, however, goes on to state that "God" is merely a powerful energy found in each of us, that, if properly understood and harnessed, will lead to miraculous events that will stun the world of science. We humans have created ourselves in the image of this energy, and furthermore, we have the ability to become gods if we choose. Quite a message.

Starts out so right, and ends by sounding...well, by sounding good, to be honest, and very appealing to those people who haven't a solid foundation in the Word of God.

Do I need to say more? Isn't it obvious what the theology splashed across the bestseller lists has the potential of doing to the minds of unprepared individuals?

Should these books be read? Yes, absolutely. That's the only way to be aware and to have a ready defense. (And, quite honestly, some of them are thrilling and fascinating despite the theology.) But parents and Christian school teachers need to soak their children in the Scriptures, so that when kids read these books, as they surely will, they will be able to read them with the wisdom of God in their hearts.

Well, I got a bit carried away with my writing tonight. I had been going to post only my reading list. But thank you for reading. :-)

Cheers, Readers,
That girl in Switzerland

P.S. Stay tuned for my newest rant about New Moon, the latest installment in the mindless vampire craze!

New Year's Post a Few Days Late

2010-01-06T16:57:00.001+01:00

I would say that at the turning of the year, I've grown retrospective, but that wouldn't entirely be true. Not a day of 2009 has gone by without my engaging in some sort of melancholy reflection. Here's a short overview of my 2009, and a couple of wishes for 2010.

In 2009, I added these cities to the list of European places I've visited:

London - UK
Milan, Venice and Rome - Italy
Salzburg, Obertraun, and Hallstatt - Austria
Prague - Czech Republic
Munich and Füssen - Germany
Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Anzère, and the Jungfrau (Top of Europe) - Switzerland
Peillonnex and La Clusaz - France

In 2009, six people that I knew died, among them two of my uncles - a hard reality for me to face all alone in Switzerland.

In 2009, I lost my best friend, something that continues, and will continue, to haunt me. The prospect of 2010, in which we won't speak once, has become the saddest realization of my life.

In 2009, I lost nearly forty pounds, mostly from two extremes - months of (very literally) sleepless nights, and way too much stress.

In 2010, I hope nothing is quite the same as 2009. I want to be finished with the sadness, bitterness, pain and anxiety.

In 2010, I want to lose forty more pounds - this time the right way.

In 2010, I hope nobody I know dies.

In 2010, I wish to become even closer to God, and I want to continue to learn His plan for my life.

As you can see, I have high hopes for 2010. Lol...

Let the games begin!
That girl in Switzerland

A Swedish Playdate

2009-12-09T20:17:00.008+01:00

This morning, as luck would have it, Sanna and her small charge William were free for a playdate! Sanna is my Swedish friend from down the street, and William is one of Jules' little friends from school. They live very close to us. Thus, they quickly arrived at our house, and thus began our playdate - a playdate which started innocently enough, but which ended up becoming...well, actually, it stayed innocent, but turned out to be a whole lot more fun than we had originally planned...

First, whilst drinking English Breakfast tea with Sanna, I was suddenly prevailed upon by my spontaneity to make Christmas cookies, it being that time of the year in which baking Christmas cookies is generally accepted as an appropriate thing to do. This idea was met with much enthusiasm by all involved. I was, moreover, prevailed upon to add a great deal of food coloring to part of the cookie dough, managing (as you will see) to turn the dough brilliant shades of red and green, a procedure which made Félix very happy and caused his eyes to twinkle.

With much gusto, Félix, Jules and William, decorated the cookies with lots of colorful sprinkles.

The cookies went into the oven looking rather yummy...

...but came out of the oven looking rather pathetic; in fact, the red and green cookies were completely disturbing.

The boys loved the cookies anyway, although the red ones somewhat resembled the treats we give our dogs. When this was pointed out, Jules refused to eat any more red cookies.

So I said, "It could be that the green cookies taste better than the rest." This was said so that Sanna and I could eat the cookies which were not red and green. Félix declared that the cookies "didn't taste green at all." And although the flavor we were actually going for was not so much "not green" as "incredibly yummy," Sanna and I decided that our Christmas cookie endeavor was a success. As it is, tonight as I write this post, most of the cookies - red, green, or otherwise - remain uneaten.

After lunch, we broke a marmite with the boys. The marmite has an interesting story, as you shall hear...

Back in 1602, as I understand it, Geneva was being invaded by the Duke of Savoy. For those of you who never read anything more informative than blogspot, Savoy is an historical region located in what is now parts of France and Italy. Geneva was an extremely wealthy city-state, and the duke wanted to make it his northern capital.

But as the duke's soldiers climbed the walls of what is now "Old Town" (but was then just "Town"), one woman had a solution to the problem. Her name was Catherine Cheynel, and she was boiling a seriously huge pot of vegetable soup. The reason she was boiling so much vegetable soup was that she and her husband, Pierre Royaume, had fourteen children, and I'm guessing that meat for that many people wasn't cheap even back then.

So she took her pot of soup, right, and dumped it on the soldiers who were climbing the walls, thereby being heroic, but not really helping out that much. She did kill one man, and also helped cause a good commotion. Her kids also went hungry that night, which once again proves that it's hard to be a hero both inside and outside the home. Catherine Cheynel is now generally referred to as "Mère Royaume," or Mother Royaume.

But anyway, there's a song about the Escalade now, because "L'Escalade" is what the event is called, "escalader" being the French verb for "climb." The song has sixty-eight verses, and no, I can't sing it.

So back to the marmite to finish up this delightful story of soup and death...

The marmite is a small chocolate pot filled with marzipan shaped like vegetables and fruit, made to represent Mère Royaume's pot of soup. The youngest and oldest person in the room are supposed to hold hands and triumphantly exclaim, "Ainsi périrent les ennemis de la République!" ("Thus perish the enemies of the Republic!"). Then, still holding hands, they smash the chocolate marmite in one fell swoop - and then in the second fell swoop, all the children grab the candy and run. :-P Well, that last bit wasn't all that accurate, but the candy and chocolate are usually devoured fairly quickly, by children and parents alike.

Here is a picture of us devouring the marmite:

Adjö! Ciao! Bye!
That girl in Switzerland

P.S. Ok, so the only thing Swedish about the playdate was Sanna (and William is half Swedish too)...but my title got your attention, didn't it? Besides, when I named it that, I was actually in the process of failing to upload a video of Sanna teaching me some Swedish words. Quite funny, actually.

Happy Birthday, Jules!

2009-12-08T22:31:00.007+01:00

Firstly, a random mood update!! Today I am feeling sardonic. *Heather sneers at the computer screen.*

And now for the next several completely unrelated things...

Today was Jules' birthday. He turned five. He is very proud of himself, what with having reached an important age and all. Charlotte and I made cupcakes, completely from scratch. They were very fluffy. And Yummy! Here are pictures.

Tonight for Jules birthday, they had a Chinese fondue, which I love. They followed it up with chocolate cake and Armagnac (adults only...haha...can you imagine..."Mom, now that I'm five, I think I'm ready to drink hard liqueur"). Me? I was at French class while all this partying was taking place.

Also, Geneva has up CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!! *Heather sings at the top of her lungs, "It's the most WONDERFUL time of the year!!"* Here are two pictures I took tonight in the Jardin Anglais by the lake:

Cheerfully sardonic, and also paradoxically,
That girl in Switzerland

Some Fun :-D

2009-11-19T11:21:00.006+01:00

Here are some pictures of Jules. :-D

Hehehe
That girl in Switzerland

Perspective + Some Autumn Crafts

2009-11-18T11:02:00.008+01:00

This morning, whilst feeling musical, I turned on some Charlotte Church music on my ipod and began singing loudly. My Charlotte Church imitation is nothing to be sneezed at. Jules and I were doing some craft projects at the time. So after a few songs, I asked Jules if he liked my singing.

"Yes," he said, "but you know what? If you keep singing really high and a bird comes, he's going to get bigger and bigger and EXPLODE!"

I'm assuming he's seen "Shrek" recently, but his comment was no ego boost, let me tell ya.

Here are some pictures from today:

Jules's depiction of the neighborhood's animals...He's not much of a drawer, but he does try. There are our two dogs, Jenny (blue) and Teacake (large brown), and also two more dogs, Bo (larger black) and Filly (small brown), and also a cat, Raffy (very small black):

Our spiders ("art" for boys...hah):

Jules making designs with those little plastic pieces (no clue what they're called):

Jules with our scary spiders:

Being crazy:

Jules being...well...Jules:

Moi (photo courtesy of Jules):

Cheers!
That girl in Switzerland

Five Minute Rhyme

2009-11-10T23:10:00.002+01:00

Today was a big day -
Was a lot to be done.
I made a huge list
And accomplished a ton.
I wired some money
And went to the Poste,
I managed three children,
And cooked artichokes.
I studied for French class
Until my brain ached,
Then took a short break
Down by the lake.
I walked two big dogs
That needed to GO!
They walked quite quickly;
I walked quite slow.
I traveled three hours
To Nyon and back,
And studied my Bible
To pick up my slack.
Had coffee at leisure
(It's never a rush),
Said hi to a friendly
Old man on the bus.
Of things needing done,
I think I did most,
But writing a poem...
This project's burnt toast.
Tomorrow I might write
Something quite new,
Something inspired
That impresses you.
But now I'm so tired,
I'm going to bed
'Cause more of my brain cells
Are obviously dead.

(...must have been the coffee...)

Goodnight!
That girl in Switzerland

Just Me. And That's All.

2009-11-10T01:00:00.009+01:00

Dear Readers,

Last February, somebody asked me to define myself. "Who is Heather?" they asked. And after scratching my head and feeling bewildered and realizing that I had nearly no idea, I came up with a trite little answer, emailed it away, and thought nothing more about it until tonight.

Tonight I was thinking about God. And about me. And about who I am as God made me to be. And I was thinking about the unique path that God created for me even before I existed. And I was thinking about how I don't know exactly what that path looks like, and how it's scary to trust what you don't know. And I was thinking about how it's so easy to get distracted from following that path because I'm too busy trying to live up to somebody else's idea of who I should be.

Tonight I was asked the question, "What would it look like for you to completely trust Jesus when He says, 'You, follow me'?"

And I realized that the answer to this question lies in two places - who I am, and who Jesus is.

Jesus is love, loyalty, bravery, sacrifices, patience, hope, light and righteousness. I am the sum of my choices and experiences, and hopefully some of the characteristics of Jesus. Jesus takes all of my successes and failures and joyful times and broken dreams, and turns them around into lessons and growth and love and peace. He takes the best and worst parts of me, and turns them into something beautiful, something that reflects Him.

Jesus came to give life, and life more abundantly, life to the fullest. The only one getting in His way is me.

Jesus wants me to be who I am and to look a little more like Himself every day. He wants my heart to reflect His heart. He wants me to find my identity in Him. And that's all.

I might not know my path, and that might be scary, but I do know Jesus, and He takes all the fear away.

It's just a simple truth. So obvious.

So after taking a second look at my "trite" definition, I've decided it isn't so bad.

"What makes me, me? It's quite simple really: my failures, successes, fears and insecurities, confidence, family, friendships, opinions, beliefs...a passion for people, a couple of failed relationships, about one and a half severely broken hearts, a tendency to reflect on everything in words that never get spoken to anyone, and a strong love for God that actually does leave me speechless; essentially, I'm me because of my ability to embrace human experience and turn around a better person."

I'm just me. Me enhanced by Jesus Christ. And that's all.

Love,
That girl in Switzerland

To Those People Windsurfing on Lake Geneva in November

2009-11-08T21:48:00.005+01:00

I should have thought that
The now-perpetually snow-covered
Mountain peaks, or the
Glistening orange and red horizon
Below them, or even the
Very chill in the November air
Would have clued you in.
Shouldn't you be waiting for spring again -
Polishing your boards,
Buying new sails,
Storing away wet suits,
And then anticipating warmer winds?
Now it's time to exchange scenery -
To move to the brilliantly white slopes,
To the boards that need no sails,
To the glaring sunlight that bounces
Off of goggles and ski poles,
To the winter hats and scarves and gloves.
What drives you to the less-forgiving,
Shockingly cold, breath depriving
November water of Lake Geneva?
Is it merely the enticing wind and waves,
Or is it also the needing to know you're alive?

Pondering,
That girl in Switzerland

Trying to find a new style...

2009-10-28T00:33:00.008+01:00

Anniversaries

I wrote that email at eight thirty
On a cold January morning
After a sleepless night in which
The weight of a dark, wet dawn
Hung heavily over my tear-rimmed eyes.
(The footprints of those filthy memories
Which used to haunt my nights
Have now carved deep pathways through
My waking thoughts where
Every day they tread.)

It's nearing November again,
And I dread the death, the cold,
And the chill in my heart.
(Not forgetting the sixteen weary ways
Of reminding myself of how
I never quite measured up.)

I wish summer were beginning again,
But if it were, I would have
To relive Memorial Day.
(And then I would have to picture
A scraggly tree, and hear
My own nervous, breathy laughter,
And wonder why the familiar strains
Of that now-memorized song
Won't stop playing its
Endless soundtrack in my mind.)

But my waking nightmare is okay for now.
It reminds me to pray for you every day.
(It's comforting to think that
We might be friends again
Someday in Heaven,
Even though you don't believe
I'll make it there.)

I'm trying to enjoy this new autumn.
(But April thirtieth was last night,
Eight thirty on a January morning
Was just the other day,
And November sixteenth has wrapped itself
Around me like a badly-fashioned
Faux-fur winter coat.)

The bottom line is -
Some anniversaries just aren't worth celebrating,
But it hurts much worse to forget.

Trying to find a new style...
That girl in Switzerland

Month o' Sundays

2009-10-07T08:56:00.011+02:00

Over several Sundays in September, I was priviledged to go with my host family on several very cool family outings. I thought I would post some pictures here since everyone complains that I post too much poetry... :-D

The first Sunday in September, we went to a small town in France called La Clusaz. It is about an hour's drive from Anières, Switzerland, where we live. We were having company from Barcelona for the weekend, so it was basically just a fun day trip for all of us.

Here are some pictures from our day trip to La Clusaz:

My fabulous host family - Arnaud, Charlotte, Félix (7 years - Mr. Coolness), and Jules (4 years - my little monkey).

Charlotte and Jules riding the luge d'été (summer luge).

La Clusaz in the background with part of the summer luge track in the foreground.

Félix playing putt-putt - I kept score. :-P

The Sunday after we went to La Clusaz, the family and I went to Cirque Knie...the Swiss National Circus! Cirque Knie has been run by the Knie family for five generations now - they do all of the animal training, and hire on the other acts. It's great fun! This was the third circus the Grobet family had invited me to, and it's always so much fun! Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos, but here is a link to the acts from last year and this:

http://www.knie.ch/zirkus/fr/notre-tournee/artistes-2008.html

The very next Sunday, Félix had his caisse à savon - a soap box race! Although the traditional and fun thing to do is to build your own car, the Grobet family cheated a bit and bought one that had been made by somebody else for a race last year. Just to demonstrate how much things cost over here...they paid over six hundred Swiss francs for it.

The racing started very early Sunday morning, but I slept in and met the Grobets in Corsier after lunch. I only wanted to stay an hour or so and see Félix race once before I left for church. There were quite a few kids racing - I think sixty just in Félix's devision. Félix placed sixteenth, so he was quite proud. :-)I can't wait to do things like this with my own family someday.

Here are some pictures of the caisse à savon:

Félix and his awesome car and outfit. Doesn't he look cool?? :-)

A few of the other contestants' cars.

Part of the track down the hill.

Félix driving past on his way down the hill!! (He had a wreck just before this picture was taken.)

And finally, last Sunday...for lunch Charlotte made American pancakes complete with maple syrup! I definitely thought that it deserved a mention. Félix helped flip them, and he's still talking about how he made me American pancakes for lunch and how they were the best ever. (And they really were the best ever...Aunt Jemima mix from the American store. Charlotte is so thoughtful.)

So here are two final pictures: one of Félix feeling proud of himself, and one of my "second family" and their American pancakes.

I love my host family!

Happily,
That girl in Switzerland

Ten Apples Up On Top - or more like two, in this case

2009-10-02T17:10:00.010+02:00

Today Jules stayed home from school. He is sick, sort of. He has a weird malady that shows up in the form of "bug bites" all over his body, and especially on his hands. So he's been doing a lot of itching, scratching and crying. Poor Jules.

So...because I'm the fille au pair, I create instant fun...

Jules and I love the book "Ten Apples Up On Top," which is a simplified Dr. Seuss-y sort of book, though written by somebody else who's name I can't recall and can't be bothered to look up, although "Theo" rings a bell.

The characters in this book basically run around seeing who can balance the most apples on their heads. They get chased by angry bears and hungry birds who are all trying to take the apples. It's all very tense - Who will balance the most apples?? Will the bears get the apples with the deadly mop?? Will the birds eat the apples?? - at least until the end of the book when all of the animals conveniently crash into a huge apple cart, there is a huge apple explosion, and everybody (even the birds) ends up with ten apples on the head and a big smile on the face.

Jules and I read this book today and attempted to balance apples on our heads, which is a very hard thing to do. If you have never tried it, I suggest you do, so that you can appreciate the difficulty of what you're about to see.

Here is Jules' first attempt (note the red dot on his forehead):

Ok, so that was a fail...

Here is his second, successful attempt, minus one apple:

Here is my attempt (digitally captured by Jules the photographer):

Do you KNOW how hard it is to balance two apples on your head, hold a book, AND still manage to smile?? It's HARD!! Those animals in the book might have been able to balance ten, but we were doing well to get two!

Anyway, after we dropped the apples a hundred times, they weren't good for anything except HOMEMADE APPLE SAUCE!! Which turned out to be fabulous, and which, of course, Jules hated. Anyway, fun times, fun times.

I love that my world revolves around children.

It's all in a day's work, folks,
That girl in Switzerland

Haiku

2009-09-20T23:21:00.004+02:00

Late summer evening,
Tonight my thoughts speak in prose.
Haiku's close enough.

That iron man sits
Forlorn among the tourists.
He's seen too much rain.

Regards,
That girl in Switzerland

Child

2009-09-18T10:34:00.005+02:00

Child

My world is larger than yours, Reader.
I delight in unturned stones,
In toadstools and butterflies.
Strange words that rhyme
Make me giggle and chant.
I imagine hidden worlds,
Monsters and fairy rings.
Roses, to me, are redder
Because I see each one.
Toys and insects are all
Actors in fascinating stories,
But I cannot yet decipher letters
Or perhaps even write my name.
Singing loudly, for me,
Does not require a car,
Or a shower.
When I see a rainbow,
I shout to you in excitement,
And you, for my sake, deign to
Repeat my exclamation;
But you did not experience the wonder -
You, who have read of science
And of refracted light.
For now, my cage holds only
Colorful balls, wild abandon
And innocence.
How sad that I, the meek,
Who have only just
Inherited the earth,
Will learn from you
To trade it in for
Money, alcohol, sex,
And a handbag that
Matches my shoes.

Regards,
That girl in Switzerland

Ongoing UNESCO World Heritage Project

2009-09-08T22:37:00.008+02:00

I've decided to visit as many UNESCO World Heritage Sites as I can in my lifetime!

UNESCO, as you may or may not know, is a specialized branch of the United Nations that has been working since 1945 to preserve places of cultural or natural value worldwide.

I first became interested in these UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the summer of 2008 when my sister and I took a "sisters weekend" to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in North Carolina, specifically visiting Grandfather Mountain, Blowing Rock, and the surrounding miles of beautiful landscape. Since that trip, I have been keeping track of the Sites I've found on my travels.

Below I have listed the World Heritage Sites I've seen so far - nine countries, twenty-two sites! I'm really excited about seeing how they add up over time and about searching for new places to see! In fact, in just the next few months, I will have the opportunity to add quite a few more to my list, so stay tuned!

AUSTRIA:

1. Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg
2. Hallstatt-Dachstein/Salzkammergut Cultural Landscape

CZECH REPUBLIC:

3. Historic Centre of Prague

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:

4. Colonial City of Santo Domingo

FRANCE:

5. Palace and Park of Versailles
6. Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Former Abbey of Saint-Remi and Palace of Tau, Reims
7. Paris, Banks of the Seine
8. Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace, Episcopal Ensemble and Avignon Bridge
9. Historic Site of Lyons

ISRAEL:

10. Masada
11. White City of Tel-Aviv
12. Biblical Tels - Megiddo, Hazor, Beer Sheba
13. Bahá’i Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee
14. Old City of Jerusalem and Its Walls

ITALY:

15. Venice and Its Lagoon
16. City of Verona

SWITZERLAND:

17. Old City of Berne
18. Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch

UNITED KINGDOM:

19. Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church
20. Tower of London

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

21. Great Smokey Mountains National Park
22. Statue of Liberty

Please note that the previous is not a summary of the countries or places within those countries that I have visited, only a listing of those very specific sites officially recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre as places of enduring cultural or natural value.

I am really excited about my new goal! There are 890 sites on the World Heritage List, but as many are in Asia, Africa and South America, I haven't had a chance to visit those...yet.

For more information on the World Heritage Centre, visit http://whc.unesco.org.

And thanks for reading!
That girl in Switzerland

A German Tale

2009-08-01T18:23:00.035+02:00

This is a story about a girl, a boy, and a castle. Now before you go getting the idea that this is a romantic tale, let me set you straight on the matter. There is no romance in this story. There is a good deal of insanity, bravery, death, and pain involved, but no romance. The girl and the boy were sister and brother, you see, and they were touring Europe in the summer, as sometimes brothers and sisters like to do. If you haven't tried it yourself, you might think of doing so. Just pick a sibling and off you go, and I shouldn't wonder if you will find yourself having a fantastically good time.

This girl and her brother were having a fantastically good time. They had already seen a good bit of Europe by the time that this story takes place. In Venice, Italy, they had seen a great many boats and a great deal of water but not very much grass.

They had also seen the Piazza San Marco, which was over one thousand years old. The girl found that this piazza was a popular destination for both tourists and pigeons, and she wasn't sure which of the two she liked least.

In Salzburg, Austria, in the very room in which the famous composer Mozart had been born, the boy had been yelled at by a tour guide not to take pictures, although the girl had sneaked some pictures anyway.

High in the Austrian Alps near a tiny town called Obertraun, they had gone to the very top of a mountain and seen caves full of ice, and they had taken pictures with glaciers and mountain lakes and scenery almost too good to be true.

In the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic, they had, almost unbelievably, found the first Starbucks of their journey, and so had taken great delight in the overpriced coffee while waiting for the right sunlight in which to get good pictures of the Charles Bridge.

The girl's brother was a photographer, you see, and that point is crucial to this story. If you don't understand that, you might not understand the rest of this story, and then what is the point in reading it at all? You may as well stop reading right now if you skip over the fact that the thing this girl's brother liked most in the world was to stand very still in one spot with his camera perched neatly on its tripod and take pictures of huge landscapes or famous buildings or old bridges. Sometimes he would stand in the same spot for hours on end, doing nothing but stare into that end of the camera into which it is appropriate to stare, if you aren't the subject of the picture. And while he did this, the boy's sister would sit patiently, no matter how high the sun, or how drizzly the rain, or how badly she needed to find a restroom.

Sometimes the girl would find things she wanted to photograph as well. She had a smaller camera than her brother's, with not so many buttons on it, which was fine with her. Over time she had found that she loved taking pictures of the very small things of the world, things like flowers and bees and rocks.

But on the whole, the girl didn't love photography quite as much as her brother did, and so naturally she sometimes didn't quite share the same level of eagerness to climb mountains or to locate the very highest point of every city, or to wake up before the sun.

She sometimes thought that if she didn't count the exercise she was getting out of the deal, it would all be a bit pointless. But overall, she was very content to follow her brother through rain and shine, to carry his coffee, and to hold his camera lenses, because she knew that doing these things made her brother happy.

On the particular day that this story takes place, the brother and sister had gone to a small town in Germany named Füssen. Füssen was a beautiful town that had a monastery which was nearly twelve hundred years old, lot's of curvy roads that went either up or down hills, depending upon your perspective, and parks and scenery that would make you want to stand very still on the top of a hill, close your eyes and breathe it all in.

Very near Füssen stood two castles. One of these castles was called Hohenschwangau, which was where the German royal family sometimes spent weekends.

The other castle's name was Neuschwanstein. This castle was famous for two reasons: firstly, because it had been built in the 1800's by a king who was later declared insane; and secondly, because a very long time after it had been built, it's beautiful design had inspired a man named Walt Disney to make a castle just like it in another country. The girl thought that both of these things were fascinating, especially the bit about the insane king, and so she was very happy to be visiting the castle on the day that this story takes place. She and her brother were both excited to see the unbelievable view and to take some incredible photos.

But after a very long, hot walk up a hill that never seemed to stop, both the girl and her brother were disappointed to find that the best view of the castle wasn't much of a view at all. To be sure, it was a very pretty castle, at least what could be seen of it from below on the road, but even if you strained your eyes all day, you couldn't even hope to see all of the castle, and no matter how you turned your camera, it wouldn't all fit into the frame.

The girl and her brother took a tour of the castle. They hadn't come all this way to see only one wall of the castle, after all. It was a very interesting tour. The guide spoke an enchanting mixture of German and English, and she seemed to say "ja" quite often. The girl was entranced by the sheer loveliness of each room. The girl's brother, on the other hand, learned more than he had hoped to about the German composer Richard Wagner, to whom the castle had been dedicated. Each room was painted with ethereal scenes from different Wagner operas, and the girl had trouble sorting out which paintings she liked most.

Everything was going well until the brother looked out of one of the high castle windows. They had looked out of several windows of the same sort and the view was always spectacular! The girl often thought after it was all over that if she had been the insane king, she would have chosen to build a castle in exactly the same spot, just for the view.

But from this particular window, a high mountain ridge loomed up in front of the girl and the boy. All of a sudden, the boy exclaimed, "There's somebody there!"

"Where?" the girl inquired.

"Look!" said the brother, pointing. "Do you see that person in the red shirt high up on the ridge? We have to figure out how to get up there! That's where I'll get the best shots of this place!"

He was so excited that the girl merely nodded in agreement, although the idea of trekking up an obviously dangerous ridge didn't sound so appealing to her.

Soon the two siblings exited the castle and began their search for the trail up the ridge. They climbed up a road that led to steps, and those steps led to a bridge, and that bridge crossed a deep gorge through which a small river ran, and across that gorge, the ridge rose up, claiming the sky for its own on that sunny afternoon. Just across the bridge, the road turned into a narrow bumpy path which wound it's way up the hill.

The girl and her brother had just begun their walk down this path when the girl spotted a very tiny something on the edge of the trail. This very tiny something may or may not be called a trail itself, for it led directly up the incline. It was littered with slippery tree roots upon which to hold, precariously balanced rocks upon which to step, and very small bits of loose rock that looked like it might make the going very bad. A wooden sign posted on a tree at the bottom of the trail read "Danger! Do not leave marked path!"

And so of course, as fate would have it, the boy decided that this path, though clearly not the marked path mentioned on the sign, would be the one to take them and their cameras up to the very tip top of the ridge. He took off at a steady clip and the girl thoughtfully stared after him for a moment before setting off herself.

They climbed on for awhile in silence. It was hard to climb straight upwards, stepping onto shaky rocks and grabbing muddy roots, all the while trying to stay upright and safe. The view down wasn't helpful either, as it made the girl feel very anxious for her safety.

The girl began to imagine what it would be like to fall over the edge of the cliff. She wondered if she would land on rocks or if she would crash against a tree. She imagined her brother running for help. She finally made up her mind that if she fell over the edge, she would prefer death to the humiliation of being air lifted out of the trees while hundreds of spectators gaped from the castle walls.

It wasn't too long, or too far up the hill either, for that matter, before the girl tripped on a particularly slippery stone and began to fall. With a hard crack, her knee struck the very rock upon which she had just tripped, and she gasped as the pain shot both ways, up and down, her leg. Grabbing onto the closest tree root, the girl held on for dear life.

The pain was so distracting that she didn't even notice how her chin crashed into a tree root, and it wasn't until later that she realized she had acquired a good layer of dirt on her cheek. In fact, it wasn't until after she'd had a chance to wash off the dirt that she found a nice-sized gash just on the bottom of her chin, and even later in the evening before she discovered a lovely tennis-ball-shaped bruise darkening over an equally tennis-ball-shaped lump on her leg. More than a month later, this lump was still causing her problems, but for now we'll stick to the story.

"I wonder," thought the girl, "if anyone has died while climbing this ridge. I wonder if anyone has ever just...lost their footing and slipped right over the edge." She was thinking these things over as she climbed shakily and painfully upwards, and she soon found the answer to her question, for she came abruptly to the top of the incline. There in front of her the path made a sharp turn to the right, and straight ahead the hill dropped off a steep cliff. On the very edge of the cliff was planted a small metal cross with a name and date clearly engraved on a plaque, which was fixed to the center of the cross.

"Gudrun Böse, 27.8.1966," the girl read silently. She looked to where her brother was moving away up the path. "Look," she called, "someone died here. Maybe this path isn't safe."

The boy turned around and ambled back down the path to where the girl stood looking at the cross. He gazed at the cross for a moment himself.

"No, of course this path is safe," he said at last. "That person probably wasn't being careful. Just don't be stupid and you'll be fine."

After pausing momentarily to consider Gudrun's feelings over having his death labeled as "stupid," the girl turned to continue the climb, all the while praying the top of the ridge was near.

At this point what a poetic end it would make to this story if the girl lost her footing, just as apparently Gudrun Böse had forty-three years earlier, and as she fell she managed to catch hold of poor Gudrun's cross and pull herself back up, thereby both living and turning Gudrun's death into something a little more worthwhile than it had been. But that isn't how this story ends. In fact, it has such a non-eventful ending that maybe you will just want to stop reading here. The truth is that, despite the girl's fears, both girl and boy successfully made it to the top of the ridge. They were careful not to trip over the many tree roots which created small obstacles in their pathway. They were equally careful not to step where the mud was too slick or the rocks too shaky.

In time, the boy called over his shoulder, "I think we're close to the top!"

And it was true! Just as the girl, with her leg throbbing, had just about had enough, the steep climb ended. The small upwards trail joined with the larger path which all the time had been winding up the hill in a safer route, and the ground leveled out to an only-slightly inclined, easier walk. Now that she didn't need to use her hands for climbing, the girl stopped to take a few pictures and have a drink of water.

Very soon, the brother and sister arrived at a beautiful little clearing on the very edge of the ridge. They were high enough to see countless kilometers of landscape. The could see two lakes and both castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, not to mention a blue sky with puffy white clouds that the girl felt sure God designed just to take her breath away.

The boy immediately unpacked him photography equipment and began doing what he loved most.

The girl sat down to catch her breath, pulled down her ponytail and shook her hair out to blow in the wind.

Presently, she picked up her own camera and began taking pictures too, of very small things as usual, although she eventually asked her brother to take some pictures of her and the castle for which they had climbed all the way up the ridge.

The siblings took quite a few pictures before they made their way back down the mountain. On the decent, they took the longer, winding path, and the limping girl felt much safer for it.

The boy and the girl went on to have many other adventures on their European summer vacation, and the girl was very glad to get on with it now that she felt the scariest part of her summer was over.

They biked the lovely Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland.

They paid a visit to the highest train station in Europe and saw an incredible amount of ice and snow.

And they both eventually returned to America where they had a happy reunion with their family and friends. After some time, the girl wrote a blog post about the journey that she and her brother had taken. It was fun to look at the pictures and imagine she was in all of those places again, but it made her happy to know that she was finished with the muddy, ridge-climbing day and all of the injuries that had come with it. And she was very glad that she hadn't died in Germany.

Happy Reading!
That girl in Switzerland

Juliet

2009-07-16T17:58:00.005+02:00

Where are your fears, my dear?
Where the shaky hand, the sweaty brow?
Where the idea that maybe - just maybe, perhaps -
All will not go smoothly?
Can you not look forward to view
The rapidly fading heartbeat and
The life snuffed out?

Were I you, dainty miss,
I would read the signs -
The foreshadowing, the hints -
I would know this plan could never work,
And (following my head, not my heart)
I would uncross the stars that
Entangle you and me
And chase the creamy darkness back
To my own side of the sky.

But then (were I you
And you simply me, an onlooker)
There could be no tragedy, no saga,
No epic tears and untimely deaths.
Were I you, my friend,
The poison would remain in the phial
And Shakespeare would be out of his job.

Cheers, Readers,
That girl in Switzerland

Coming Around Again

2009-06-21T22:27:00.004+02:00

It's the very picture of loneliness -
Me by the lake,
Pen and small moleskin journal in hand,
As the evening sun waves goodnight to the sky.
But I'm not really alone -
There are a million thoughts in my head,
Mostly in the form of Carly Simon lyrics.
And really, I think, who better
To keep me company on a night like this?
I hunch a little lower into my
Thick, warm scarf -
It's the one that I bought for five euro
From that little Romanian vendeur in Paris
Very near the Sacré Cœur -
And I'm transported to a time
When the sun was a little brighter,
The wind a little less biting,
The pain a bit fresher,
Yet a bit further away.
"You have to hurt to understand,"
Carly croons in her friendly voice
To a girl known only to her -
A girl convinced true love will be easy -
"We laugh and lose."
The itsy bitsy spider dutifully crawls
Up the water spout,
Verse after verse,
Though I'm sure his mood has deteriorated
By the end of the song,
He having been nearly drowned so many times now.
There must be something at
The top of that spout
Worth all his attention and persistence.
All of a sudden I don't mind falling apart -
There really is more room in a broken heart.
Then the sun is gone,
And with it the day,
And I'm left shivering in my green scarf.
Falling asleep tonight will be easy -
Maybe I'll visit the City of Love again
In my dreams, and maybe
The sun will come up over the Eiffel Tower,
And maybe -
Maybe tomorrow nothing will be like today,
But it will be new, and perfect.
As I sit by the lake in the dark,
I am the spider,
That sordid thing called Life
Is the water spout,
And it's raining.
And Carly whispers in my ear,
"Nothing stays the same,
Scream a lullaby,
It's all coming around again."

With Love,
That girl (still) in Switzerland

In Honor of the Recent Graduation at God's Bible School and College

2009-05-19T20:11:00.008+02:00

I've been thinking about the graduation at GBS...seeing pictures on Facebook...thinking back over my own memories...realizing that this is the first graduation I've missed in six years... So I decided to post my favorite bit of writing from my own five years there. Not very scholarly, but then, it was just a rather short personal essay. My essay, "On Clumsiness," was written in 2006 for Aaron Profitt's Advanced Composition class (personal favorite class and personal favorite professor ever). I tweaked it a tad because my writing style has evolved slightly in the last three years, but essentially, here is the single piece of writing from GBS of which I am most proud.

“Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity.”
Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope

I knocked over three perfume bottles this morning, one right after the other, in a sort of thoughtless process that hinted at my lack of skill in navigating a dresser top. My hand hit the first, and as it toppled, I just barely managed to catch it with all the ease and gracefulness of a three-toed sloth dancing the polka. Upon my retrieval of this bottle, the back of my hand brushed another, which managed to fling itself headlong from the dresser in an attempt to escape me. The third bottle was just caught by my elbow as I leaned down to pick up the suicidal one. As I placed the bottles back in their proper places the thought struck me that one may view my actions as clumsy.

I have always been clumsy in some way, it seems. Even as a very small child the age of three, I managed to trip while attempting to carry my father’s briefcase up two flights of stairs. After landing at the bottom of the stairs at the feet of my astonished mother, I established that I was uninjured and laughed about my lack of coordination.

In other cases I was not so fortunate, like the time when I smashed my bicycle into a very large cactus, broke my arm, and had to live in misery for weeks until it had almost healed, at which point I somehow managed to injure it again while it was still in the cast and had to spend an extra time recovering.

I’ve been clumsy in other areas of my life, as well. Throughout grade school, before the time when most kids reach the age of extreme clumsiness, I had a tendency to trip over my shoelaces on a regular basis. I was also the one who accidentally stepped on the backs of people’s shoes as I followed them in the lunch line at school, or when I walked behind my mom at the grocery store. Usually these mishaps were followed by an aggravated, “Heather, stop!” or a, “Quit being so clumsy!”

I was clumsy. I’m still clumsy. When I was in high school, my clumsiness on the volleyball court landed me in the hospital, where I soaked up the leisure while wearing a backless hospital gown and thin footies. This particular bit of clumsiness had long-term effects. With three torn tendons and shredded cartilage, my wrist sometimes causes me to do interesting things. Often it gives way as I am holding a glass filled with liquid. The glass tumbles to the floor, spilling every drop, and my hand dangles uselessly for a moment before I can get it back under control. I have broken more than one glass this way. It is accidental clumsiness, and involuntary, to be sure, but still a sloppy way to handle glassware.

Recently I’ve been thinking about clumsiness as it applies to a life. Could there be other ways in which a person can be considered clumsy – other factors and character traits that could allow a person to fall under that categorization? I think there can.

What about a person who is lazy? A lazy person, by definition, is someone who enjoys slothfulness and inactivity more than work or physical exertion. Prone to idleness, this person enjoys doing nothing, or doing things that qualify as non-important. It seems to me that a lazy person lives in a clumsy way.

Let us examine a lazy life. Slothfulness is more than just staying comfortable and cozy in bed each morning. It is a way of life, a pattern of thinking, which a person has embedded into his existence. There may be more to it than not caring about living life to the fullest; he may actually think he is living life to the fullest by lying around and not working.

It may seem to this person that idleness is the stuff good living is made of, but I stop to wonder how his pursuit of immediate pleasure affects other people in his life. Surely the people closest to the lazy one, the people who sustain his way of living, cannot help but feel rather frustrated with life themselves, knowing that while they work hard to keep food on the table, this lazy (and shall we say “clumsy”?) person does not seem to care that his idleness and greed cause stress for the people he says he cares about.

I cannot help but think that the lazy person feels no true joy in his lifestyle. For where does one obtain joy other than by working with one’s hands to achieve self-reliance and by fulfilling the command of God to “go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise”? Gandhi said that “indolence is a delightful but distressing state. We must be doing something to be happy.” I agree with him.

True laziness is akin to failure, or at least stumbling, for the lazy can learn to “be wise” and to make amends for his slothful ways. Just like a child fails to tie his shoelaces and stumbles over them, so the lazy man fails to tie up the loose ends of his life, and ends up stumbling in and out of ventures into which he doesn’t care to put much effort. Such is the life of a lazy man.

Laziness stems from other bad character traits, I think, and a lack of self-control is not least among them. When I consider a person with no self-control, I see a person who is stumbling, just like the lazy man. Ben Franklin, a man of no little wisdom, said that to teach your children self-control is to abolish much misery from their futures and much crime from society.

Self-control, and more specifically a control over your attitudes and temperment, is a virtue all people need to cultivate when they are young in order to help them in their future relationships. II Peter 1:5-6 says to add self-control to your faith. The book of Proverbs says over and over that a person who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and that a soft answer turns away the wrath of others. I think that God cares about the relationships we have with other people, just like He cares about the relationships we have with Him. Could the person with no willpower and no self-restraint be living in a clumsy way when he refuses to curb the temper with which he angers and attempts to manipulate others?

What else can create a clumsy life? What about poor communication skills? When I was younger, my father always told me, “Communication is key! Always communicate effectively, and you will have a much smoother life.” During my teenage years when my mom and I argued, as we often did, somebody, usually my younger sister, would point out to me that perhaps Mom didn’t mean exactly what she said (or exactly what I thought she said). When I began to think about it, I would usually find that I was in the wrong. Because Mom and I did not say exactly what we meant, but only used angry words and bitter statements, we caused problems for ourselves. We did not communicate effectively.

But sometimes poor communication may be saying exactly what you mean. When I was twelve years old, a close family member angrily told me that I was “single-handedly ruining the entire family.” Crushed and feeling a burden no girl on the threshold of her teenage years should feel, I carried the weight of that comment for years. I found that I could trace every family problem back to myself. If my parents argued, I felt like it was my fault. I was shy; I didn't like revealing myself to people; I cried more than I can explain - but I never went to that person and told him how his lack of discernment had affected me.

That family member communicated poorly. Instead of saying that he was disappointed with my behavior or attitude, he made accusations that he probably did feel and think about me, but ones that shouldn’t have been stated. That statement has caused me no little grief, and that person still has no idea that what he said causes me to this day to question my relationships with other people, with God, and with myself. I came to realize that he was simply having a very human moment, and it reiterates to me that poor communication can result in years of heartache. Saying exactly what you think may not always be the best way of getting across the desired information! Saying hurtful things causes others to “stumble,” and will most certainly damage a person’s relationships with other people.

So now I’m wondering: have I been living in a clumsy way? Have I said unkind things? Have I caused others to work harder than they should simply because I failed to do my best and to work my hardest? Have I had the proper amount of willpower needed to “turn away the wrath” of others? How else could I be living clumsily? By not being dependable or by being dishonest? Through a lack of gratitude or by poor stewardship?

I wonder if, just like stepping on the heels of my classmates in the lunch line at school, I could be stepping on the heels of the characters and spirits of the people God has placed in my path. My thoughtful journey through clumsiness has been a hard one, to be sure. I now have more questions and loose ends than answers. But I want to make sure to live in a way that is not clumsy.

I have the distinct feeling that my perfume bottles are not the last I shall knock over. I feel with certainty that I shall drop at least one more glass in the future. And while I surely hope that I shall never again repeat the experience of falling down two flights of stairs while carrying a briefcase that is too large for me, I cannot absolutely know that. But if I can live in a way that is not hurtful to me or to others, I shall be content in knowing that physical clumsiness is only temporary. Spiritual, mental and emotional clumsiness are different things altogether!

Thanks for reading!!

xoxoo That girl in Switzerland

Freedom Meant To Be

2009-05-06T22:14:00.007+02:00

We should comfort our hearts with the belief -
Stop the disbelief for one moment in time -
That all this is not in vain,
These days upon days,
One after another,
Piled in stacks (our lives,
yet who can predict how tall our stacks of days,
each so different?)
Swaying to a soulful tune
(saxophone, perhaps)
That winds along - a slow dance.

We can believe (in truth -
never in despair)
That these myrrh-drenched
Days and thoughts and hours
Were not placed in disgust -
Nor were even mindlessly thrown -
Here into existence.
The Creator who thought it all -
Planned each note and sigh -
Loved each heart into lives,
Carefully stacked each day - mine, yours -
And, with precision, placed them
As He wished.

We can believe -
Not with anxious breath held tightly inside,
But freely -
That we are not colossal
Mistakes of a godless universe,
That the love placed in our hearts is good.
That we ourselves can be loved.
The daisy-flowers by the wayside -
They too were placed with care, each one,
And the wind that blows our wayward hair
Breathes sighs of relief for
Freedom meant to be.

I, too, love the daisy-flowers,
The life-dance, the unplanned sighs,
The soulful tune that sways 'round
My feet with the clover,
And the plump hyacinth
Which eventually fades
(as does all earthly life),
Turning grey with age.
Mystery fills my days,
And I breathe it in -
Breathe along with my Creator
Who planned it all, loved it all,
Gives me the breath,
And - as the wind fills the earth -
Fills my life with
Freedom meant to be.

Love,
That girl in Switzerland

Lego Play

2009-04-30T00:19:00.005+02:00

Today Jules and I played with Legos for what seemed like hours. I was commissioned to build two Star Wars spacecrafts. The first picture is the first one I made. It isn't really for Star Wars. It's actually for Indiana Jones and his sidekick, a very happy two-headed skeleton. Indiana is taking his dog and pet spider along for the ride too.

And here is the second one I made...This one looks more space-crafty. It was supposed to be Star Wars, until we put it to better use - carting around Indiana Jones' spare head (which is for holding his spare hat).

Here are the four spaceships that Jules made...

And finally - here is the payment I received for my hard work - you can see I was paid quite handsomely with several colorful gemstones, a pile of money, some priceless gold nuggets, and a fierce crocodile that sadly has no tail.

By tomorrow these will all be taken apart, and we'll be building new ones from the pieces. Thought you might like seeing the pictures!

Cheers!
That girl in Switzerland

Anzère Weekend with TNT!!

2009-04-26T23:24:00.015+02:00

Just thought I'd write a quick post about the recent TNT (twenties and thirties church group) weekend in Anzère. We've just arrived back tonight. Here's a picture of where we were (a picture which, btw, I think nicely captures God's obvious love of both the majestic and the detailed):

Absolutely beautiful weekend - took my breath away more than once. I think we were twenty-one people altogether staying in the chalet, with a few other people driving up to join in the hiking and fondue on Saturday.

Here's a huge shout out to BETHANY, who organized the entire weekend for us. *WAHOO!!* Bethany is awesome - very selfless with her time. As Matthias would say..."Bethany ROCKS!" *pumps fist in the air*

We really packed a lot into our weekend - a Bible study each morning (reading the book The Reason for God)...big hiking on Saturday...a few movies...card games (I beat Brad!! YAY!!)...lasagna, fondue, too many loaves of bread to count...pancake bakeoffs...a "farting machine" (I hate that word...and the dumb thing was absolutely sickening and immature, but ok, funny because of the men's jubilance at the girls' reaction - though not at all funny the time of night at which they chose to use it - one in the morning - which should tell you our reaction and why they thought it was funny...)...a lot of worshipping God in song...some special times of prayer...and basically the most laughing I've ever done in my life.

So here are a few "Best of" scenarios from our weekend in Anzère...Enjoy!!

Best laugh of the weekend: Saturday night as we were having the biggest fondue party ever (picture includes not even half the group), somebody decided that we should sing all the national anthems of the countries represented in our group. (I think it started with the three UK guys singing "God Save Our Noble Queen"...)

Let's see if I can name all the nationalities we had...American, British, Swiss, German, Portugese, Greek, South African, Swedish...aaaannd...I think that might be all...

Anyway, the majority of us were American, with the British following up a (not so) close second (they had three). So our little Sing-Along-In-Between-Bites-Of-Fondue ended up turning into an Epic-Battle-of-Patriotic-Songs between our two countries, with the UK'ers shouting that we Americans had stolen their tunes, and we Americans yelling out our songs until the roof almost collapsed (not really, but it was loud, which was the intended imagery). The climax of this impromptu contest took place when the Americans sang "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and the Brits sang "God Save the Queen" (same tune) - all at the same time at the top of our lungs. WHAT the people in the surrounding chalets MUST have thought!

The Americans won, BTW - Iain, Ben, and Richard finally gave in and admitted that Americans are more patriotic than the British...but they were also firm in their opinion that all our songs are the same words, just with different tunes ("God bless America" seems to be a frequent theme).

BUT - the part where I finally lost it and laughed until tears were literally dripping off my chin was when the Brits were being particularly loud, and Kevin (New Jersey) stood straight up, put his hand on his heart, and started loudly reciting, "I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA..." Our group is so much fun! It wouldn't half so great if we didn't have so many nationalities represented.

Also as we were singing out patriotic tunes - Brad (or Kevin??...hmm...I don't really remember) suggested the three Germans sing some WWII songs about Hitler...I couldn't help laughing when Matthias looked around sideways, lowered his voice, and said, "I actually know some of those..."

Best brownies: Ben's - a WHOLE POUND of sugar, baby, YEAH! I ate three...brownies, that is, not pounds of sugar.

Best long conversation: Laurent, Melody and I stayed up till about 3:30 Sat. night/Sun. morning debating several ideas involving God's wisdom/perspective versus Christian perspective/world's perspective. Well...Laurent and I were debating...Melody was mostly just laughing at how stubborn Laurent and I were both being. In the end, after nearly two hours of heated discussion, we realized we were basically agreeing, the problem was just in our definitions of a couple key words. (Or maybe he just came around to my point of view...haha...) All three of us were dead tired on Sunday morning.

Best time of connection: After our Sunday morning Bible study when our small groups got together to pray for each other...Devon, Katie, Jessica, Melody, Julie and I had a really open time talking about what has been on our minds lately and the areas in which we feel we need God's help. It's amazing to be able to pray for each other. It's what we as Christians should be doing daily.

Winner of the Pancake BakeOff: Brad, for his stellar achievements with buttermilk and cinnamon.

Best back massage of the weekend: Richard. THANK YOU! I OWE YOU! (or wait...no I don't...you owed me...and now you don't.)

Best Running Joke: Matthias and his speed dating - "I only have two questions for you...what are your hobbies and how many children do you want?" It was also Matthias' idea to do "speed dating" during our fondue Saturday night - so we were randomly changing seats every five minutes, taking plates, cutlery, and glasses with us...the "speed dating," along with the fondue confusion and the loud singing of national anthems, made for one very interesting evening.

Best movie of the weekend: Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina. (Brad refused to watch it. Apparently it isn't a manly movie. Here's to Ian B. for sticking it out. *raises glass*)

My personal favorite bit of the weekend: Saturday evening - Brad played the guitar for us and we just sang to God for about an hour. I started crying at one point because it was clear that every single person in the room was craving God's presence. It's been rare in my life to be with a group of young people who are only thinking about worshiping God, not being embarrassed of raising their voices to Him or thinking about other people - just closing their eyes and embracing the awe. God was with us, I know He was - He was right there in the room saying, "This is why you were created - to praise and glorify me without a thought to yourself."

It's so cool...that we all came together, from different countries to the same place, with the most important thing in our hearts a desire to focus our lives on God...I'm so blessed to have been given my time with TNT...I wouldn't trade it for anything. These are friends for a lifetime, and hopefully longer than that.

So I'm signing off now, dear Readers. I've got a smile on my face and a bigger one in my heart. I'm relaxed, refreshed, and rejoicing.

Love and Peace,
That girl in Switzerland

Heart of Darkness

2009-04-24T13:37:00.001+02:00

Reread Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness the other day. Fascinating little book - quite possibly the first great 20th-century novel - that tells of one man's journey into the heart of the African continent. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest you do. I love Conrad's style of writing. My four favorite Heart of Darkness quotes are:

1. Concerning sunset: "The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist of the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun."

2. Concerning life: "It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence - that which makes truth, its meaning - its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream - alone..."

3. Concerning cannibals: "Fine fellows - cannibals - in their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they did not eat each other before my face: they had brought along a provision of hippo-meat which went rotten, and made the mystery of the wilderness stink in my nostrils."

4. Concerning death: "I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary...I was within a hair's-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say."

Oh, to be able to write like Joseph Conrad!! One can only dream...

Cheers, Readers,
That girl in Switzerland

London (being part the late, and also the second, and the last)

2009-04-07T14:36:00.011+02:00

Well, this post is about a month overdue. The draft has been sitting on file for weeks now - I do apologize. My week in London was super interesting! Here are a few of the things I did while I was there, along with a few pictures:

Tower of London:
This is namely the place where 1) several queens lost their heads; and 2) you are absolutely not allowed to take pictures of the crown jewels. This is also the place where 1) I learned how to make four different types of arrow heads from a man who's pet topic is arrows (and though not an idea left previously unconsidered, I myself might now begin to channel Robin Hood) and who got distracted from the big weapons about which I was more interesting in learning (catapult demonstration, etc.); and 2) I took pictures of the crown jewels. (They were so preeeeety, I just couldn't help it...we're talking about the world's largest diamond...and you see that teeeny crown?? That is the one Queen Victoria wore for those famous portraits after she became a widow...how could I not sneak pictures??)

Westminster Abbey:
This is the place where you pay £14.50 to walk on and around the graves of hundreds of famous dead people - a lot of queens and kings, writers and rich people, mostly. This is also the place of the Coronation Chair that has been used in British coronations since that of William the Conquerer in 1066 (UK readers, don't be haters...I was very impressed...1066 is a good date in my book...this is when the French began to really influence the English language and started it on it's journey to what it is today). The Abbey is also where Edward the Confessor is enshrined and secluded away for private prayer services, and the place Livingstone (minus his heart), Tennyson!!, and Handel (among others) are buried. Westminster Abbey is also the place where I had a miniature breakdown, cried my eyes during the prayer at the top of the hour (for people who had recently lost loved ones, and my uncle Albert had just died the day before), and where a very busy, yet friendly, rector kindly asked me if I was alright as I bawled, "Yes, of course," and waved him on.

Southwark Cathedral:
The oldest gothic cathedral in town where Shakespeare probably attended services, though who knows how regularly. It is also the burial place of Shakespeare's brother Edmund. (Yeah, I know you didn't know he had a brother. Dummy. As a matter of fact, he had seven siblings, including two sisters named Joan. And dear William wasn't the oldest either, or even the youngest...which proves that even middle children can achieve things in life *said the middle child without a trace of bitterness...or sarcasm.*)

Kensington Gardens:
The place where I saw no fairies, even though it is the setting of the 1903 English opera A Princess of Kensington (which has fairies in it, as you might have guessed from the context of the sentence). There is, however, a delightful statue of Peter Pan, with which I did not manage to get a picture. I did manage to get a delightful phone call, though, so that was ok (if that person is reading this...you know who you are...). Kensington Garden is also the location of Kensington Palace (who would have figured?) and a very cool, terraced, sunken garden (which, on second thought, is where the fairies were probably in hibernation...and I would have been too, were I a fairy, which sadly, I am not).

The London Underground (Mind the Gap):
This is where you see way too many people waaaaay too closely, all of whom happen to be heading for exactly the same stop as you, and all of whom seem to be more than happy to give you a nice rough jostle whilst stepping on your toes in the mad rush out the door. I had to literally undergo a personality transformation, thereby becoming mean enough to step on other people's toes as well, or risk riding the tube for life. The London Underground is also where I saw, among others, a woman who dyes her hair too much (evidence: freshly-cut hair that had already begun to fray at the ends, though not yet to work its way up the hair shaft), a man who has a cat (evidence: four veeeery tiny scratches just out of eye-reach on the right shoulder of his sports jacket, along with a few hairs that his lint roller apparently missed), and a man with poor circulation (evidence: he had white white white hands that he kept rubbing together, even after he'd been on the fairly-warm metro at least seven stops). I felt that my personal space was invaded on numerous occassions, and I'll bet if the woman with bad hair had realized I was close enough to count split ends, she would have felt invaded as well.

FACT - I saw not one badly-dressed person playing ear-wrenching violin or accordian for money on the London tube. In Paris, it was impossible not to see them every last time you used the metro - the pleasures of mass transit, sickly cords of Carman wafting through the corridors, drifting from stop to stop like the smells emanating from the people manning the broken strings or shaking the paper cups.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre:
This just may be the biggest bloody disappointment in all of London. I was perfectly aware, as should be all decent, self-respecting readers of Shakespeare, that the original Globe Theatre burned down on 29 June of 1613 after a spark from a prop cannon caught the thatched roof on fire during a performance. I also knew that the second Globe was closed by the Puritans in 1642, along with every other theatre in London. What I didn't realise, or had completely overlooked, was the smallish fact that that second Globe had been pulled down - yes, to the ground - only two years after its closing, and that the current Globe - erroneously (I believe) called Shakespeare's Globe - was only just built twelve years ago. Not to mention - it isn't even built in the same spot as the previous one...it's a good two minutes walk from the original location. But of course they don't tell you these things before you pay for the tour...anyway, I went, I looked, I took the tour, but I shall never again return to this "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre." Darling William would be quite appalled. Not even in the same spot. Bah.

British Museum:
This is the very cool place where I spent a rainy afternoon looking at things like a manuscript of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and too many mummies to count, and peering over the heads of school children to get a glimpse of the Rosetta Stone. This is also where I fulfilled a very old wish to see artifacts from the Anglo-Saxon ship-burial at Sutton Hoo. Very, very awesome! I managed to feel a great deal of pride in myself for making it from NC to Switzerland to London to see these things I've been reading about for so long.

Leicester Square:
This is where I accidentily ended up at the world premier of the new movie "Young Victoria." It was also the place where I took pictures of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and her daughters (see below), along with various other royal people and actresses...and also the place where the batteries in my camera went dead just as the Princes William and Harry arrived. Bugger! Life-long regret, that.

Piccadilly Circus:
This is the apparently London's very own Times Square...flashing lights...huge billboards, etc...but for me it was basically the place where I renewed my long-term love affair with Cinnabon's massive, gooey cinnamon rolls.

Covent Garden:
This is the very neat market/series-of-stores/not-sure-exactly-how-to-describe-it where I saw a guy balance a full-size bicycle on his forehead. And that's pretty much the end of that story.

Whitechapel District:
This is where I took myself on a four-hour, meandering, walking tour of Jack the Ripper's home turf. I had the A-Z, I marked the trail, and I followed it in the order of the victims, down every last dark alley, past every dimly-lit pub, until I had a picture of myself at each place where Jack mutilated one of his victims. You might think I'm weird, but I don't care - I have a morbid fascination with the story of Jack the Ripper - have had for about fifteen years - and it was a free way to spend an afternoon. Not to mention I got some great exercise, discovered a couple of really cool old churches (another fascination - I go in every one that isn't locked), and explored a bit of London that otherwise I would have had no reason to see.

I went to a lot of other places I haven't mentioned...lots of museums, lots of parks, lots of little coffee shops...and overall had a really amazing time. Cannot WAIT to go back!!

In LOVE with London,
That girl in Switzerland

For Kerara - a Poem about Your Shopping Addiction

2009-03-22T22:31:00.011+01:00

For K -

I am haunted by the ghosts
Of clothes I didn't buy.
The image of that spectacular
Black dress from Zara
Floats above my bed at night,
Like a dark apparition
Here only to incite night terrors.
And those gray crochet boots from Globus -
Oh why didn't I buy them?
They could have provided so many cozy days -
Just me and my boots hanging 'round the house,
So comfortable in our togetherness.
It is as if my shopping addiction has finally
Gotten the better of me,
And I wholeheartedly embrace the sacrifices -
The canceled European weekends,
The periods of starvation,
The self-styled hair,
The lies told to parents -
"I only need a couple hundred," I tell them,
"to pay the bill for all those times I called you" -
But really I'm eyeing those black suede ankle boots -
Forty percent off at that store near the train station.
Those have been on my mind for awhile now.
But I can live with these spectres -
They remind me to make better choices next time -
Slap down the money for those styles I so desperately need.
And I am comforted by the fact that there are at least
One or two fashions I refuse to wear,
Simply out of slight abhorrence -
There are no ballet flats, for example,
Twirling on the edges of my memory,
Or thin belts that snake their stealthy way into my dreams.
And these are no horrific ghosts of my past
Come to claim my soul -
I gave it to them long ago -
And I will dance with them now
As they laugh and persuade me once more
Into the nearest store, where I might buy -
As credit allows -
That pair of washed-out jeans that has been beckoning -
Slyly calling out my name.

Ta, daahlings,
That girl in Switzerland

Happy Sunday!

2009-03-22T12:01:00.002+01:00

Today is Sunday. It's eleven in the morning, and I'm sitting here with wet hair getting ready to head toward Nyon for church, as is weekly tradition.

Mum sent me an email yesterday that contained the lyrics of a song I wrote earlyish in 2008. I had forgotten all about it, probably because I write stuff like this basically non-stop, but she found it in a little writing book that I accidently left behind me when I came to Europe.

It might not make so much sense to just read it, but don't worry - it fits the melody in my head. And it's not really tweaked - just a thought I jotted down before moving on to the next poem in my brain.

Anyway, minus the first verse, it exactly says what I feel today. Couldn't be bothered sticking the chorus in more than once, so if you feel like you must, just read it a few extra times until it feels like a song to you. :-)

When my heart is breaking

When I cannot fight alone

When all my dreams are shattered

And I’m far away from home

When my life is black and empty

When I cannot carry on

When I’ve fallen down and cannot stand

I know you’ll pick me up.

(chorus)

You’re my God, you’re my Father

You’re the One I lean upon

Who hears me when I call

You’re my God, you’re my Savior

I can kneel at your feet

And my life’s complete

Because you are my God.

You are my Provider

My Redeemer and my friend

You’re my anchor and my power

My beginning and my end.

I will never lack for mercy

There’s no ending to your love

You’re the only one who understands

You’re forever God above.

(chorus)

I won’t focus on my problems

They’re very, very small

I will let your face absorb me

And you will be my all.

(and again the chorus)

Anyway, so that's my song. I thought it might be worth saving, which is the main reason I put it here. lol...songwriting is quite obviously NOT my forté.

But today is Sunday, and today, as on all other days, I'm thankful to have a Father who is also my good friend. It's nice to know that my problems are so small in the face of eternity, and that I can keep focused on God no matter what tries to push Him out of the picture.

Blessings, Readers,
That girl in Switzerland

A Current (and Personal) Thought on Shoes

2009-03-20T17:29:00.000+01:00

I like shoes that have horrendously tall heels that click when you walk on hard floors.

I do not like shoes that leave your own heels a mangled mess, causing you to leave off wearing the previously-mentioned horrendously tall shoes while recuperating.

Still with sore feet four days after the fact,
That girl in Switzerland

My Boys and Laughter

2009-03-16T20:48:00.000+01:00

I've just realized that I've never properly introduced the two Grobet boys. Please allow me to rectify the situation.

This is Felix. Felix is six. He's awesome! He wears sunglasses a lot because he has sensitive eyes. I anticipate a funny tan line come summer. This picture was taken just down the way from our house, on the shore of Lake Geneva, just before we were attacked by angry swans that didn't realize we weren't made of bread.

This is Jules. Jules is four. He's fun! He's a punk. Can't you just see it in his eyes? The day this picture was taken, his hair was way too long and getting in his eyes, so I put it in eight little pigtails and just waited until Charlotte came home. Both boys got haircuts the next day.

Please also allow me to discuss a matter dear to my heart - laughing with children.

Laughing with children might very well be the most refreshing thing I know. There's something very magical about laughing until you can't breath because you understand a joke from a child's point of view. I love the things in which children find delight. Laughing with them is like partaking in innocence, and that is where I find my own delight.

Felix, Jules and I had some good laughs tonight. The first one came at dinner, which is always a good time for laughing.

First of all, you need to understand that Felix is fascinated with magic tricks and performs them almost every day. His favorite part of each trick is afterwards when he gets to tell his secrets to the crowd (me) and revel in all the praise (which invariably sounds something like, "BRAVO, FELIX!! That was veeeery sneaky!!").

So tonight Felix told us a story about a magician he saw at a birthday party. This magician pulled a trick where he had an "empty" glass that he was holding upside down, and he somehow managed to dump water on his head. So Felix decided to try this trick tonight at dinner - and he also managed to dump water on his head, though his cup wasn't even pretending to be empty. Jules and I laughed so hard! Felix was so shocked at himself - don't know exactly why...getting his head wet was what he was trying to do. But he just sat there blinking while Jules and I laughed, and finally he saw the humor too. It was a good dinner interruption. Here's what Felix had to say about the matter: "I just don't understand. You know why? Because it really worked when the magician used an empty one! It was really empty!"

Bedtime is a great time to laugh with children. I love to get the kids all stirred up before I tell them they have to be quiet (call it a little aupairing revenge). Tonight we played the this-little-piggy toe game, and the both Jules and Felix shrieked with laughter because I said concombre (cucumber) instead of piggy - in reference to the time that Felix told me concombre meant "pig" instead of the real word for a pig, cochon. It's been an outstanding joke ever since. (If you don't think it's funny, try picturing three cucumbers building houses out of straw, sticks, and bricks, saying things like, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," or getting eaten by a big bad wolf.)

The itsy bitsy spider also ate several knee caps and arm pits.

The kids laughed the hardest when I said it was time to sleep and asked for hugs and kisses. We have a bit of a game for this part of the evening. They refuse to give me hugs, and I pretend to pout and act really grumpy. After they refuse a few times, I always end up shouting, "JE VOUDRAIS UN CÂLIN ET UNE BISE TOUT DE SUITE! (I WOULD LIKE A CUDDLE AND A KISS RIGHT NOW!)" And the boys laugh and laugh because I'm acting angry while asking for cuddles. (I adore watching Felix laugh. He holds his stomach with both hands and really puts his heart into it.)

Of course after the lights actually went off and I was walking away, both boys wanted to attack me with hugs, and Jules even called me back a bit later to say, "I love you!" one more time. :-) They were a half hour late going to bed.

Saturday night I was delayed while on the train heading to Morges for a birthday party at my friend Brad's house (it was his birthday - people here throw their own parties). Someone in the next car was sick, so we had to wait for an ambulance before we could leave the station. In the seats across the aisle from me sat a little boy and his father, and as they spoke I noticed that they had American accents. I just sat there, however, and said nothing until I realized how late I was going to be to the party and decided to call my friend Camille, who was waiting for me at a different train station. When the two Americans heard me speak, they realized that I was American as well, and so a conversation began.

The father of this duo was very annoyed with his son, who I learned was eight years old. They had apparently been together all day at a huge car show near the Geneva Airport, and I deduced that this dad wasn't so used to keeping up with a kid for that many hours. So to kill time, and because I saw how antsy the dad was, I talked to the boy for about forty-five minutes so the dad wouldn't have to entertain him. We talked about everything - he showed me pictures of all his favorite cars, he told me about his mum's birthday, talked about all the trains he rides, the Bakugan he was playing with (he was totally impressed that I knew what it was), their home in Atlanta, and everything else we could think to chat about.

Toward the end of our wait, the boy said to me, "You really laugh a lot!" to which I replied, "Yeah! It's because I'm really happy a lot!" (And that earned a smile from the dad.) When they exited the train one stop before I did, the boy gave me a little pat on the shoulder. I sure hope that dad learns to appreciate laughter.

And our conversation was a nice revelation for me - just saying it and knowing that I'm happy. And having other people know it too, all because I "really laugh a lot." Whether or not I'm happy isn't something I've thought about in a good long while, but as soon as I said it I knew that it was true. It's a great feeling!

I love being an au pair. I really do. I'm so glad I decided to come to Europe this year. My life is better for it all 'round.

So Satisfied,
That girl in Switzerland

Julius Caesar, Orion, 25, and Concerts (Plus a Bit More)

2009-03-15T20:51:00.000+01:00

This is my Birthday Post.

Today is My Birthday (I thought maybe it deserved some capital letters). March 15. The Ides of March. The most prestigious day to have been born. Do you know why? (If you do, this is the part where you take a bathroom break or get a snack while I tell everyone who doesn't know.) It's all in the Ides of March hint...Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15. It's important stuff. I was born the day Julius Caesar died. Give or take 2,053ish years...

Anyway, enough of that...

Orion is moving lower in the sky...that must mean that winter is running out. Sad, really. Now everyone will be showing too much skin again.

So I had this thought about birthdays...

Why is it that we name our current year after all the ones we've already lived?

Someone says, "Happy Birthday!! How old are you?"
And I reply "Twenty-four. And thank you so much for the birthday wishes."
Short and sweet, eh?

But the reality is that I'm already living in my twenty-fifth year.

So although I'm not all about growing old before my time, I hereby nominate that we all start calling our years by the ones we're living. The new conversation might go something like this:

"Happy Birthday! How old are you??"
"Well, I've celebrated the anniversary of my birth twenty-four times, but I'm currently in my twenty-fifth year, actually. And thank you so much for the birthday wishes."

I might start saying this, just to confuse people. It makes sense, but I'll bet people wouldn't get it.

Also, since the next obvious question you'll all be asking is "What did she look like on her birthday?" allow me to answer that in advance:

Charlotte is getting me a ticket to the concert Tuesday night at Victoria Hall. I'm excited. An evening of piano music with the Orchestra National Bordeaux Aquitaine - Ravel, Gershwin, and Berstein...I'm so excited. This is my VERY FAVORITE kind of thing to do. And trust me...I'm gonna look gooooood.

Anyway, signing off...Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeeee!!

Singing off key,
That girl in Switzerland

I KNOW YOU'RE LURKING (POINTS FINGER)...

2009-03-13T09:54:00.000+01:00

JUST THOUGHT I WOULD SAY...

...I know you're out there...Mom and Kim (and Kimberly!), Cindy and Ashley, Julie, Danielle and Dwayne, Dee...

I just want to make you all aware that I know of your lurker status.

It'd be kind of nice to know what you're thinking when you read, even if you hate my posts!

It doen't take long to comment, and I really like hearing what people say! Comments are fun! And constructive cricism is something I really like too. It makes my writing a lot better...and that is important to me now more than ever because I'm actually choosing what to write about (as 0pposed to college, where I wrote what was required and only had bursts of love for random assignments - though in retrospect, if I had ever started writing anything before two in the morning the night before, I might have felt a bit more love...)

You can all even make fun of all my punctuation mistakes or berate me for going off on rabbit trails in the middle of sentences.

Plus, if you're a lurker I haven't named or that I haven't actually talked to in awhile, we could catch up! And I know Mom has told loads of people about my blog, and they read it too, but never comment. Come on, people...Pleeeeeeease......

I'd just really like to know who all reads my blog. Is that alright? It only takes a second or two to comment. :-)

Also - a heartfelt thanks to those of you who do comment - and that would be Melissa, Tiffany, Nichole, Leanna, Alanna, Varina, and sometimes Jess, Jaleesa, Beth, Shane, Emily, and Isaac...Here's some credit where credit is due...I appeciate you ALL and think your comments are beautiful things. And for those of you who actually added me to your follow list, that's awesome! So thank you.

Just sharing my heart,
That girl in Switzerland

P.S. And I promise to post more comments on all of your blogs too!

Internet Junkie

2009-03-11T23:42:00.000+01:00

I think the stage after internet withdrawals is lovely.

Here's how you get there...

Thanks to somebody who is thoroughly sweet and well-intentioned, but unfortunately rather, though not completely, ignorant (just as one example - the housecleaner who can't remember the house alarm code and completely screws it up, leaving multiple wiring problems in the house), your internet doesn't work and you have no way of fixing it...you must simply wait for the person in charge of your particular network to decide (i.e. realize it's important enough) to fix it himself.

However, in the meantime, you aren't completely lost, because only the downstairs bit of the house doesn't get the internet - it still works upstairs, so you can still check your email at least once a day (even though you can't blog much, talk to people on Skype or IM, check your favorite web comics, use Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, or dictionary.com, or just sit and rapidly click your Stumble button as your eyes glaze over - which, interestingly enough, falls fairly high on your list of favorite things to do).

So immediately after the appalling truth sets in - your internet days are essentially over - you go into dramatic withdrawals...

You break into a cold sweat whenever you think about it...

You repeatedly turn your computer off and back on using various methods including the restart option, the "turn off the computer" option, and even the power button on the computer tower, in a desperate but obviously-futile attempt to make the internet work again...

You unplug the computer and plug it back in (while it's off, of course...though obviously if it had been working before you turned it off...)...

You do the same with the network cord...

You pace the floor, returning to your computer often to see if it has found its connection yet...

You decide that life isn't worth blogging about if you have to do it upstairs in the dead of night and then wait until the next day to go back and tweak everything multiple times, as you are used to doing in the comfort of your own room...and you write down the things you mean to tweak, including the punctuation (over which you've been mulling), so that you won't forget it while you sleep...

You write down your blog posts on paper so that when the time comes, you can type quickly instead of using blogspot the way it was meant to be used...

You decide that reading books has never really been a good way to pass the time, an idea that goes against your very nature...and four days and three James Rollins novels later, you are still thinking the same - though, inexplicably, you also think that possibly a couple thousand thrill-seeking Clive Cussler pages might change your point of view, which you contemplate reading simultaneously with Gone with the Wind...

And you watch hours of back-to-back episodes of the fourth season of Desperate Housewives, but every bit you hit pause to go restart your computer all over again...

You sms friends during the day to ask if you can come over "for thirty seconds" to check your email because you "just know there are loads of important ones piling up"...and when you do check your email, it's mostly spam, but at least it's off of your mind for about half an hour...

But you do think about it all the time, even in town and on the bus...

Using non-bad - yet fairly adequate - explitives, you curse your telephone because the bill for calling your family in America is getting higher and higher, and you long for the days of Skype...

You find it terribly inconvienent to edit your thoughts before you speak, since you can no longer just hit the backspace button...

You try every possible way to repair your internet connection, but to no avail - you click the button over and over, hoping against hope that thirty seconds down the networking road won't again leave your computer screen saying things like, "Cannot connect to network," and "Could not renew your IP address..."

You go upstairs and reset all the network boxes you can find...

And after a few times of that not working, you decide that it's worth trying again...

...and again...

...and then one last time, at least until tomorrow...

And then you basically repeat the entire procedure, switching up the steps, all the while realizing that you're pathetic and that intensive therapy might help you cope.

But after the withdrawals are over, Freedom herself comes to claim you...

You leave the downstairs computer off for days a time, realizing now that your life-source is not somehow tied to your internet connection...

You read whole books and manage to imagine the literary person you will become because of embracing your new freedom...

You talk to your sister again for the first time in a month...

You realize that the friends you talked to on the computer didn't sustain you...and that (previously the unthinkable) you will make it if you go a whole day without discussing your life with people who live thousands of miles away...

You tell all your friends who had been letting you check your email that they were right - that your life is better now as a result of less internet, and that you appreciate them now more than ever...

You start volunteering in local soup kitchens...

You learn to think before you speak...

You sleep better (and more) at night, thereby becoming healthier overall...

Your love for life deepens with each passing day - and as the need for the interent releases its hold, you realize that life has never been so worth living.

Essentially, you begin to blossom...

Unfortunately though, this is not about you...

...it's about me, and that last bit is thoroughly hypothetical...

...I'm still in withdrawals...

...and also unfortunately, I gave up exaggeration for Lent...

Pathetically,
That girl in Switzerland

Albert Barr...How do I say Goodbye??

2009-03-04T22:23:00.001+01:00

The last time I saw Uncle Albert was IHC 2008. I didn't think I wouldn't see him again in this lifetime.

So many memories...how do I write them all down??

Albert knew all of my favorite books. He fostered my love of Dr. Seuss...he used to quote whole books by heart - I put some of them to memory myself because of Albert. He read me parts of The Chronicles of Narnia (complete with voices), and he let me watch the movies, thereby fostering my little-girl crush on Peter, and my literary crush on C.S. Lewis. He knew all about Madeleine L'Engle - knew all the names and plots of her books by heart - and we used to discuss which ones had Biblical themes. I thought, when I was young, that he must know everything there was to know about literature.

They were such a big part of my childhood, Albert and Olene. I remember just shivering with excitement as my family prepared to go to their house. We kids would pick blueberries until our fingers were blue and lovingly abuse (accidently, of course...we only meant the loving bit) the multitude of kittens until the adults told us to leave them alone.

Even though I didn't see him much after he left the South, his is one of the faces I see when I think of the good old days - his face and Olene's; all the family still together; him with grandkids, nephews and nieces on his knees, who were mostly poking his belly and giggling. Those were the days when I was dubbed "Heather Jean" - days I will always cherish as some of the most precious of my lifetime.

Years ago at Aunt Olene's funeral, Albert and I cried in each other's arms - it was the first time I remember allowing myself to cry in front of someone. We hurt together that day. A year later he cried again as he told me how much he missed her. He spent Christmas at our house that year - spent most of the day sitting on the couch looking sad - he gave me a sweet pea Bath and Body Works set.

I loved hearing Uncle Albert preach. I've heard him preach what must have been a hundred sermons in my lifetime, but the one I remember the clearest was at an evening camp service at Hobe Sound the year I was eleven. He was standing to the right of the pulpit talking about keeping your godly standards in a sinful world. He drew an imaginary line on the floor and said to imagine the line was the center of God's will. He said, "You know it's important to stay right in the center of God's will...but maybe you'll think, 'What's wrong with taking just one step away? I'm not changing very much.' The problem is, once you've taken that step, you just say the same thing again: 'What's wrong with taking just one step?'"

He repeated and repeated these lines and took little steps sideways until he was about five feet away from his original "God's-will" line, and by the time he got there he was shouting, "IF YOU KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THIS LOOK WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO END UP! YOU AREN'T ANYWHERE NEAR THE CENTER OF GOD'S WILL ANYMORE!"

Every time I've considered my standards since that message I've remembered what he said. If I am the only person alive who remembers that night over thirteen years ago, he was still God's voice to help keep one person on the right track.

Remembering Albert shout at a crowd like that makes me compare and contrast two of his best qualities. He was so humble - if you've ever once heard him speak, you've heard him give personal illustrations that the average speaker would never dream of revealing about himself...but Albert did just that so other people could learn from his mistakes. But in the midst of all that meekness, Albert could still yell and make the crowd jump in their seats as he said just one concise thing that somehow hit home for everybody listening. He was humble, and because he was humble, people listened and took note when he said the hard things. He wasn't just preaching at people; he loved people, and he wanted all to go to heaven, no matter the cost to himself.

When I was really little I would race to sit beside Albert in church because I liked to listen to him sing and watch him weep silently as he got blessed by the hymns. Sometimes I would shyly stick my hand in his and wait for him to squeeze my fingers. I loved it when he did that. It meant he noticed me. I thought Albert was just the greatest.

I still think Albert is just the greatest. One of the things that stands out the most when I let my mind wander over all my memories of him is how much laughing I've done with him over the years. He just adored embellishing his stories - like the one about the time he accidently sat by the wrong woman in church and putting his arm around her before realizing that the whole place had gone silent.

I can picture him laugh- his eyes all crinkled up, his hilarity getting the better of him - he did have the most distinctive laugh, didn't he? - as the adults shared stories of an apparently-rollicking nature. I think I learned real laughter at his house.

I can't wait to laugh with him again - see those faces once more. They're reunited now, Albert and Olene, and for some reason the world feels right again.

I wish I could be there for his funeral. I wish I could say "I love you so much" just one last time...give him one more hug and look into his watery eyes and hear him say, "I love you, girl. You be good now, you hear." But I'll always cherish my memories.

The Bible says, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance...Albert Barr had them all in abundance. I wish I could see the look on his face as he hears his Father say, "Well done! You have been faithful..."

I've learned so much from good ol' Uncle Albert - that Mother Hubbard's daughter and cupboard were both bare, the real reason Davy Crockett headed west (killed him a barr), that it takes a steadfast perseverance to remain holy in a sinful world, and the inadvertant lesson that cherishing family is so much more important than having your own way.

I'm really going to miss him. Having him go now, with no way for me to say goodbye, is really hard. But I know I'll see him again. And I know that he's eternally happy worshipping at the feet of Jesus. And that's what matters most. He's where he should be now.

I love you, Albert. I'm proud to be your niece. And I can't wait to see you again. So I won't say goodbye - I'll just say (as in childhood), "See ya later, alligator."

With sad fondness,
That girl in Switzerland

London (being part the first)

2009-02-28T20:53:00.000+01:00

Have decided to blog while in London. Here's the beginning of my story. You get to fill in the blanks.

11:48 a.m. Am now crossing the English Channel. Have made the personal decision never to swim it.

11:55 a.m. First glimpse of UK soil. Peeked out of the plane window for crop circles. Saw none.

12:45 p.m. Have managed to flirt with the man at customs. Was not on purpose. Accents get to me.

1:15 p.m. Have succesfully collected luggage and made the train to London Victoria. Already have the feeling that the London Underground will be more confusing than the wonderful Paris metro. *a brief, reflective pause*

1:16 p.m. Finds it rather cool that I am able to personally compare the two cities' tubes.

1:45 p.m. Have just made a man's mouth drop open as he said in disbelieving, British tones, "Ya mean ya dun't know where on earff ya've just come from?" Is slightly humiliated. Will recover.

2:05 p.m. Am delaying the tube frustration by eating an Italian turkey sub at Subway for the first time since last September in Lyon, France. (Ahhh...Subway...food for my soul...)

2:07 p.m. Have just decided that it's nice to hear people speaking English all 'round again.

3:00 p.m. Have just astonished the man at the hostel by showing him my American passport. According to him, he "was 100% positive" that I am Australian. Have decided accents are fun.

5:18 p.m. Have changed my mind and decided that the good ol' king's English sounds a bit like a foreign language here. Keep having to say, "Pardon?" when people speak. Might be nice to hear a bit of French. At least it would be understandable (something is wrong with this picture.)

8:16 p.m. Have now seen Kensington Gardens, dined on a chickpea salad, dutifully emailed mother, and blogged. Am going to bid farewell to readers until next time.

Farewell until next time, Readers,
That girl in Switzerland *currently in London*

Child Abuse Redefined

2009-02-12T13:48:00.000+01:00

Just to briefly redefine the term child abuse: "the physical or emotional abuse of a child-care provider by the child(ren) in question."

Now, it's a really good thing that since I watch Switzerland's two best boys, they would never ever dream of committing "child abuse."

Would they?

Jules, I love you...but for real...that cheek was still healing from the last time you scratched me...not to mention, my neck and chest could have survived without being such a delightful shade of pink.

And yes, you still have to take naps.

Currently in minor pain,
That girl in Switzerland

Smiles, Frowns, Happy, Sad

2009-02-10T00:21:00.000+01:00

There is a middle-aged woman with frizzy red hair who rides the bus quite often from Vésenez to Hermance. I see her at least once a week. But I have never seen her smile. She doesn't look so much sad as angry at the world. I always wonder what has happened to make her so sour. I have caught her eye and smiled a time or two, but she has always looked intensely uncomfortable, frowned, and looked away. She personifies the concept of lonely, stuck in a trap of her own making.

Often as I stare out the bus window into oblivion - squinting into the darkness, lost in reflection - I wake with a sudden jolt and realize that I am wearing this red-haired woman's expression - the same look of annoyance and pessimism that never used to shadow my face. When this happens, I wonder if I have lived out my genuine smiles, and will see the second half of my life appear like this woman - always something to make her sad and angry, always one more thing to make her doubt the validity of her own existence. Will I be the woman on the bus who makes eye contact with nobody, not comfortable in her own skin?

The thought makes me unhappy. But if I were to bet, I would say that the same thought would have made her unhappy twenty years ago. What happens to people to make them like this? What kind of choices do they make? What sort of god do they serve?

I wonder what that woman thinks about when she looks out the window.

Who am I again?
That girl in Switzerland

No Ranting or Poetry, I promise...Just this week and food...

2009-02-08T17:43:00.000+01:00

...just some random stuff about my week because it's really early and I feel like blogging and don't have a better subject.

The day woke up with a bang - or not so much, because I really hated to get out of bed. I was so tired. I've been having some trouble sleeping lately, so when I have to get up before eight o'clock (or get less than three hours of sleep, which isn't unusual for me), I usually don't count on my brain functioning properly until at least nine - or until after I've had a hot peppermint tea. My host mom, Charlotte, asks me almost every morning if I'm ok ( :-P ), and I think this has something to do with the fact that I usually look like a zombie when she sees me.

My alarm went of at 6:40, but I didn't get out of bed until almost seven (a bit later than I meant to), took a quick shower, fed and walked the dogs and waited for the boys to wake up, which they finally did around eight. Well, Jules did around eight. (Exactly right now, as I'm writing this sentence, Felix is still not awake. This is good, as it allows me to fudge on how long I can leave the tv on. Past 8:30, now, certainly, as they're both allowed a half an hour, and Jules won't leave it as long as it's on. So 9? I love being an au pair.)

Remember the old Pink Panther cartoons? Those are good cartoons. They have no words. This allows me to essentially watch the boys "french cartoons" (they think) and understand everything that happens. The boys believe my french to be so good because I understand what happens in these cartoons.

At least someone thinks my french is good. I placed an order at McD's the other night (in french), and the guy behind the counter replied, "Would you like that small or medium?"

8:14. Felix just woke up. So 8:45, the tv will go off. Ok. That's my plan. Well, maybe 9. That's not too late, is it? I'm so tired.

Friday night my host family and I went to this sushi place called the Sushi Train. I'd been there with them before, but this time I was reeeeally craving sushi. On the way there, Felix was whining about something and Charlotte told him, "If you don't stop, we'll go home. There won't be any sushi for you." So of course Felix stopped.

And then Charlotte and I had a good laugh. She said, "You can blog about how your family is so strict. We're such good disciplinarions. We say, 'Be good or you'll get no sushi.'"

The Sushi Train is really fun! Everyone sits around a high bar, and a great electric toy train runs around the top of the bar. The sides of the box cars all say "Pennsylvania," so I told Felix that the train is from America. He was completely thrilled.

The concept of the Sushi Train is really fun! On top of the train cars are small plates of sushi all stacked up. As it goes round the bar on its track, you just take off whatever looks good to you, and add up the prices at the end. I love sushi. I ate six plates. But that was nothing to what Arnaud ate. I think he had at least ten. Felix ate a lot too - at least as much as I did. He pulled up his shirt so I could poke his belly, which was, according to Felix, "completely full of sushi."

Last night my friend Kerara and I went to a fun place in Old Town called Brasserie-restaurant de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. It is just a thirty-second walk from St. Peter's Cathedral (where John Calvin used to preach), and just across from the oldest house in Genève. Very lovely part of town. My favorite part of town, actually. We had a fondue made with Gruyères cheese and white wine. Yummy.

I swear the woman at the next table was a paid escort. She was Swedish, I think - very blond, but with too much makeup and looking old before her time. The man she was with was rather disgusting - he had his shirt open halfway down his potbelly (which was very hairy) and kept his hands all over her the entire night. Kissing and groping. Yuck. She's either with him because it's her business and she's paid to be, or they're lovers because she's shallow and he's rich (and she did look shallow and he did look rich - but it was kind of a pimp rich, if you know what I mean - but I guess either scenerio involves shallowness, money, and vanity). I'm guessing paid escort because she didn't look into him at all. She always pulled away at first when he was leaning toward her, tried to talk instead of kiss, etc. She had a great fake smile, but she didn't look thrilled to be there. Anyway, paid escort or the lover of a rich dude, it all boils down to money. Because let's face it, the sex just can't be that good.

But our fondue was great!

Anyway, I need to go empty the dishwasher before I turn off the tv. Jules has already asked to play his DS. I'm sure Felix wouldn't resist that plan of action either. Should I let them? Nintendo is electronic...so technically not allowed without their parents' permission...but Charlotte and Arnaud are sleeping, and the temptation is running strong...

Contemplating the consequences of au pair insubordination,
That girl in Switzerland

P.S. There is a lot of snow today. Il y a beaucoup de neige aujourd'hui. I wonder what shoes I should wear for my hour and a half treck to church.

Pix'ish Play

2009-01-30T15:14:00.000+01:00

Here's a poem I wrote one day last summer when I was bored. I think that particular day, my best ten-year old friend Sophia and I had been seriously discussing what we would do if we ever saw the pixies that live in her backyard. Feel free to leave feedback, but please don't judge too harshly. This is, quite literally, the very first rough, untweaked version. :-D

Deep amid the twilight glowing
Tiny pixie eyes are showing
And between the darkest leaves
Slip and slide immortal thieves.
Yet never laid my mortal eyes
Upon these tiny, naked spies.

Hither as the wind blows free
Glinting pixies jump and flee
Where my larger eyes can't follow
To the magic pixie hollow,
And behind them, to and fro'
Grassy tendrils gently blow.

There, these pixies choose to dance -
They swirl in circles, leap and prance
Till black leaves are all awhirling
And dark blades of grass are swirling.
Then by evening's fading light
The hollow drifts to shades of night.

Then if pixies chance to doze
And if their eyes should ever close
If around the little hill
Every noise were very still
Could I, yes, against their will,
See them sleeping, sleeping still?

If in the stillness of the night
My lucky eyes should chance to light
Upon this dainty pixie sight
And widen in surprised delight -
Would they hasten from their slumber?
Would they quit their dreams, I wonder?

Or in the early purple dawn
Would they awake with careful yawn
And sing to morning's glist'ning dew
Until the sun's first rays peek through
To touch the world where pixies dwell
In hidden lands we love so well?

Will they begin a whole new day
To spend in pix'ish, idle play
In making mischief, morn till dusk,
Till daylight turns to evening's rust?
I wonder now if perchance you
Believe in pixies? I do too!

Lol...so yeah...the meter is somewhat bad, and it's kind of dorky, but kind of fun at the same time. :-P Let me know what you think.

Cheers!

That girl in Switzerland

Emo-Vamp Sucks on the Big Screen

2009-01-24T02:07:00.000+01:00

So Twilight. A modern-day teen flick about high school, love, and...vampires? It's not as bad as you might think. Actually, it's worse.

Excuse my pun, but this movie sucks big-time. Although I had sworn in a previous post that I would never be caught dead (undead, perhaps?) watching Twilight, the other day, in a moment of serious boredom, I actually did.

Let me set the stage...

I recently reread Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'm intrigued by that book, and have read it several times. Upon finishing it, I watched two different versions of the movie. Then, one random night about three weeks ago, I was looking for a good romantic comedy to watch - but instead, decided to scratch the romance and see Van Helsing, which I found to be quite interesting, though definitely a tad cliché. Yeah - I've been feeling blood-thirsty.

So was it really any wonder that, though I had sworn off this movie forever, when I found it the other night on watch-movies.net, I decided it might not actually be that bad? At any rate, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button wasn't working at that time, and there wasn't much else to see that my host dad doesn't already have in his movie collection.

But enough justification. I watched the movie. I hated the movie. Allow me to go into detail.

Twilight is more than a little blatantly directed at the pig-tailed, giggling, bubble-gum chewers of the world. In fact, had not the books, written by Stephanie Meyer, previously enthralled the pre-teen girl population - who wouldn't recognize a truly great book if it fell on their heads and knocked them all out, which wouldn't exactly be a tragedy - I doubt that this movie would have seen anything more than mediocre success, if even that.

To be fair, and to satiate all of you who will no doubt raise one eyebrow and say in judgemental tones, "But you haven't read the books," I will admit that while writing this post, I thought the same - I can't really write a decent review of this story without having read at least the first few chapters, now can I? Maybe the movie doesn't live up to the books. So I looked up the book online, read the first few chapters...and - wait for it - was not at all shocked to find that Stephanie Meyer made numerous grammatical errors as well as frequent punctuation mistakes, and was versatile in her methods of creating run-ons and fragmented sentences - though, contrarily, used little or no imagination when it came to varying her sentence structures.

I feel dreadful for the little fan girls who read these books. They'll all grow up with a terrible concept of the what it is to live within a really amazing novel, all the while thinking that a book is wonderful if the main male character has dreamy eyes or is considerate enough not to kill his girlfriend while he feasts on her blood. (Not to mention, none of them will be able to write a paragraph or have a decent vocabulary.) This is how the trash romance genre was started. And now begins the era of the glittering, trash vamp?

These are the kids that I'm going to teach. Yay, me.

Throughout my own pre-teen years, my favorite book was Howard Pyle's 1883 novel, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Fantasy? To be sure. Genius? Quite. Pyle pulled me into the world of those jolly, green-clad men, and made me wish I could live under the trees and learn to fight with a yew staff, and when evening came play a lyre in the moonlight and sing songs with the best of Robin Hood's men. I still have my copy from fourteen years ago - it's minus a cover, but it's just as loved now as then.

But not one of these Twilight teens will ever pick up a Pyle tome, because sadly, Pyle is more than just a notch above these fan girls' intellects. They could never master the intricate, archaic language that enthralled me at age ten, or fall in love with Pyle's poetry that flows straight from the page to the soul. This is the book that made me want to write. It literally influenced everything about who I am. Even now, at twenty-four years of age, I find this book fascinating.

These Twilight readers (though I hesitate to actually label them readers, as they are more like propagators of the junk novel genre, and the term "reader" really implies a bit of intellect) will never know who Pyle was, much less be able to name his works. It's a sad concept to grasp - that the decent literature of the past will be lost to this generation of emo, blood-sucking, pig-tailed, glamor-glossed idiots. Soon there will be no true intellect left in the world, and Pyle will remain on the library shelves gathering dust, to be at last pushed off by some new poorly-written series of teenage trash fiction.

And the saddest part is - instead of being changed and influenced for good as I was by Mr. Pyle, the only things these girls will take away from Meyer's unimaginative, high school vampire tales are a complete disregard for literature and the idea that two people will be compatible if they stare deeply enough into each others' eyes. Stephanie Meyer has just made laughable one of the most-loved monsters of all time, and she can now also claim to have had a direct hand in teaching a generation how to effectively have bad relationships.

People should stick to classics. Like Jane Austen. Or George Elliot. Or Alexandre Dumas. Or what I'm currently reading - Victor Hugo. And if they absolutely need a good dose of the sci-fi or fantastic genres, they should turn to the well-written books that have stood the test of generations - like Bram Stoker, for example, or the Dune novels (from which Star Wars was essentially stolen), Tolkien, or anything at all written by my long-standing, yet lesser-known favorite, Stephen Lawhead, from whom I learned the subtle art of a good tirade. I'll even admit to a slightly-misplaced, left-over-from-the-teen-years love of the world imagined by Terry Brooks.

However - since I always try to find something nice about everything, I will say this: You will never lose interest while reading Twilight.

Because Twilight doesn't have the ability to capture your interest in the first place.

Well, at least I tried to say something nice.

But I digress. I'm actually here to critique the movie. So here goes...

I didn't have to read the whole book to know that if the majority of the people it enthralls are the previously-mentioned, giggly, pink, pig-tailed, pre-teen fan girls, and the other people it enthralls also live up to those adjectives, then the movie would suck just as badly as the intelligence employed (or not) by its fans.

Shall I discuss Bella? I have never before seen such a glum, sour-faced heroine. She is instantly unlikable. Her dialogue, though obviously mimicking her dialogue from the books, creates the image of a self-absorbed brat who has been coddled too much at home. She is sarcastic, though not in an engaging way, and just the low, grating sound of her voice makes me cringe at times. Perhaps, in retrospect, that's the real reason they didn't let her talk much. She is so predictable - very dependent on Edward, very needy character - basically, the typical, shallow heroine of any romance, whether for teens or not.

And here's another thing - this chica is actually okay with Edward sneaking into her room every night to watch her sleep, following her around constantly, just "turning up" wherever she goes. So this teaches us what - that we should want to be stalked by the undead? Or that it's okay for men to be jerks if they're hot or if they "love" you? These are great life lessons. I'm so glad Stephanie Meyer has made it all so clear.

And Edward...ok, so yes, I admit to the fact that he has compelling eyes. It's the only nice thing about this movie. But - this self-loathing, indesicive, vegetarian vampire who has graduated from high school numerous times isn't great at pulling off a look that says anything other than serious egocentrism. His staring gives me the creeps. It's like he's saying, "I'm know I'm god-like. Worship me."

And he can't act worth a flying flip. He was obviously hired for the fact that he knows how to stare. However - in the books, Edward is supposed to be absolutely beautiful. In the movie...he has good eyes, but the rest of him could use some help. He's too skinny, too obviously stuck on his own looks, not to mention has pretty bad makeup in some of the scenes. He isn't vamp and beautiful. He's just vamp. And not even a scary one.

He is also controlling and manipulative. And he would never admit to being wrong. Sounds like a winner to me. My real dream man, right there. Self-righteous, snobby, undead villian. Right on.

Also, he needs to inform his eyebrows that he's undead. Maybe if they knew that they would die off a little too.

The plot of the movie might have been able to stand on its own two feet had it actually been revealed before the movie was three-forths finished. As it is, the majority of the movie can be summed up in the following basic dialogue:

Bella: "Why are you ignoring me?"

Ed (may I call him Ed?): "Because it's better if we aren't friends."

Bella: "But you basically stalk me."

Ed: "Well, yes, because I can't stay away from you."

Bella: "But now you're ignoring me again."

Ed: "I told you - it's better this way."

Bella: "But I want you. You have good eyes."

Ed: "Ok, but don't blame me if I end up drinking all your blood."

The impression I got from reading parts of the books was that they were actually written after the movie was made, just because it didn't seem like any thought went into it. No originality, whatsoever. It's as if a ghost-writer sat down, copied lines directly from the movie, threw in more than too much first person, and self-published without editing. When I write, even my rough drafts aren't as dull as the writing that placed Stephanie Meyer on the best-seller list.

(For your sake, Readers, I'll announce a rabbit trail...starting right now...) I think the real problem here is that there are no more Harry Potter novels to look forward to. J.K. Rowling's first HP book wasn't all that great, but the imagination was; the writing drastically improved over time. How do I know this?? Well, I've read them all, you see. I'm not dogging on the whole modern-teen-monster genre...just these Twilight books. So because Potter's ten years in the spotlight were finished, the teen population had to turn to what they see as the next best thing. Anyone notice that, though Twilight was first published in 2006, it wasn't nearly so popular until 2008?

But let's talk about the actual vampire-ishness involved in this movie, eh?

Aren't vampires supposed to be the ultimate villians? Aren't they supposed to personnify complete evil? Isn't it the idea in a nutshell that vampires must drink human blood to survive? That they are corrupt and that they corrupt others? And that they like it that way? Isn't that why we thrill at the idea of a vampire? And isn't that why we get chills when we read their stories?

But here we have vampires with consciences, vampires who are still playing god-like moral humans. Who don't drink human blood. Who are not corrupt, and who believe that they can still make the world a better place. Who save people instead of slaughter them.

Yes, it has all the makings of a really good thriller.

Here's something that irritated me - in the movie, when Edward and his siblings didn't show up at school on sunny days, I thought “Well, of course they can’t…because vampires combust in sunlight.” Imagine my disappointment when I found that these emo-vamps lack that feature. They just…sparkle. Was Stephanie Meyer herself thirteen when she wrote this crap? “Omg! I love vampires!!! I love glitter!!! OOOOO…..glittery vampires!!!!” Come on. For real. No research at all went into this movie, or apparently the books responsible.

If the punishment were suitable for this particular crime, I’d recommend driving a stake through Meyer's books, chopping them in pieces, and burning them in a large bonfire before they can resurrect and do yet more damage to the human race. But I'm not convinced that she, or her "readers," would catch the sarcasm in that.

My official Twilight rating - the dumbest vampire movie ever made - dumber even than Winona Ryder being in a vamp movie, and that's saying a lot. It's a movie that can only be fully enjoyed by revolting fan girls who are more interested in mooning over Edward's eyes than absorbing what plot there is - girls who will probably spend most of the movie texting girlfriends on their Hello Kitty cell phones, "OMG!!! HIS EYES ARE LIKE GORGEOUS!! I BET HE'S LIKE THE BEST KISSER EVER!!! OMG!!!!"

I have heard Twilight referred to as "a collection of feces on paper" and "Stephanie Meyer's brain abortion." And I'm not inclined to disagree.

Recommendation: a serious amount of espresso for this one. Or an alarm clock.

Yawning even now,
That girl in Switzerland

P.S. As an afterthought, here is a good link to Howard Pyle's novel, "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood." This one is worth reading. I promise.

Whether the glass is half empty or half full...

2009-01-23T05:01:00.000+01:00

...never place it within reach of a four year old who has a fork in his hand and is threatening to stab everything in sight. A mess will be easily avoided.

Making your life easier,
That girl in Switzerland

Conversational Play-Doh

2009-01-18T11:56:00.000+01:00

Transcript from a conversation with Felix this morning. We were playing with Play-Doh. The whole conversation was thoroughly serious. (Keep in mind that Felix's first language is French.)

F: Heather, you know my friend Arnaud?? He one time eat some play-doh and some more one time he eat some paper.

H: Did he get sick?

F: No. You know why, Heather?

H: Why, Felix?

F: Because he's a robot. He is mechanical.

H: Cool! How do you know he's a robot?

F: 'Cause he tell me.

H: Neato! But...he told you.

F: What?

H: He told you.

F: Yes, he tell me. You want me to make you a pizza?

H: Of course, but only if it's purple.

F: Ok! And you can make the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple pizza eater.

H: (laughter) Felix, he ate people!

F: What?

H: It was a purple people eater.

F: No, it eats pizza like the kung fu chickens.

H: ...ok.

Hence...our one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple pizza eater...his rock 'n' roll band...and a kung fu chicken (because apparently - little-known fact - they also like short shorts...and what chicken wouldn't, with legs like that?).

Children are wonderful.
That girl in Switzerland

"If you have found that you can change the past...

2009-01-14T13:07:00.000+01:00

"If you have found that you can change the past by dwelling on it, then continue to do so until you meet your desired goal. Otherwise, I encourage you to learn from it and let it go." Ray Basile

Monday evening when I arrived home from Bible study, I turned on my computer screen and was greeted by a potent image of what it looks like to live in the past. I am not going to say what that image was, only that it turned my stomach. And I've been thinking about it ever since. This concept of living in the past has been on my heart and mind, and so I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.

Philippeans 3:14 says, "One thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Trust me, I've had my years of being stuck in the past. I more than understand people who find it difficult to move on - I've been there myself, and it wasn't an easy or peaceful place to be. There was so much pain, emotional turmoil, jealousy which admitting even now makes me blush, years of hiding myself from people, and what seemed like gallons of tears. It took me a long time and many painful experiences to learn that moving on hurts far less than living in a time to which you can't return. No matter what sort of pain it seems you just can't put behind you, you'll never have a fulfilled life unless you actually start living - and that means moving forward and not looking back.

Romans 12:1-2 commands us as Christians to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God as an act of spiritual service and worship, and not to conform to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

And so I pose this question - how will we present ourselves as living sacrifices to God if we are clinging to what is dead? The past is dead, you see - we can't do anything about it, we can't change it, and we certainly can't go back and relive it.

God is not the God of the dead - He is God of the living, as Jesus said in Matthew 22:32. This was said within the context of a conversation about resurrection that Jesus had with the Sadducees, in which he told them that they did not know the Scriptures or the Power of God. The Sadducees were well known for their opposition to the idea of resurrection. Contrarily, a popular Jewish belief was that God showed His power most visibly through resurrection. So what Jesus actually said was that when the Sadducees dismissed resurrection, they dismissed the power of God. Now, who knows if Jesus was simply referring to physical resurrection in this case - but surely if the God who made the body can resurrect the body, the same God who also made the mind can resurrect that as well. We also reject the power of God when we live as though we reject His resurrection of our minds.

Shortly after this experience with the Sadducees (literally five verses later in the same chapter - see Matthew 22:37), Jesus told the Pharisees that the first and greatest commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." With all your mind. It is so, so important to love God with all of your mind. In fact, we must love God with our minds to love Him properly at all.

In a famous sermon, John Wesley asked his listeners, "Now what is to love God, but to delight in Him, to rejoice in His will, to desire continually to please Him, to seek and find our happiness in Him, and to thirst day and night for a fuller enjoyment of Him?" And I ask you, how can we delight in Him, unless we understand what delights Him too? How can we rejoice in His will, unless our minds have studied the scriptures and know what His will is? How can we please Him, if our minds don't know what He desires? It is only through our growing understanding of God that we can grow into a deeper and deeper enjoyment of Him.

This concept is shown clearly in other relationships as well. Dating, for example, does not begin with a deeply-founded love. Oh no - it begins simply by two people being attracted to each other - seeing something they like in each other. The deeply-founded love that I mentioned only happens as those two people get to know each other, learn each other's likes and dislikes, find out what makes each other tick, and grow attracted not just to what they can see physically, but to each others' minds as well.

Am I making my point yet? To love God, we must know God. To know God, we must know His mind. And to know His mind, we must use ours. We must get to know what makes God "tick." But we cannot do this if our minds and hearts are looking into the past, dwelling on memories, and thinking about how things used to be, instead of allowing God to renew our minds so that we may love Him more deeply.

The first and greatest commandment is to love God.

I think I already adequately stated that the first two verses of Romans 12 make a clear command for us to let God renew our minds. But here's the encouraging part - God really, really wants to do this for us, just because He loves us. Zephaniah 3:17 - The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. It is a litany of joy! I just love the thought of God singing over me. For me, there is hardly a more beautiful image of God's love than the one of Him singing a love song - for me.

And I wonder - what would happen if we brought our own songs into harmony with the Great Song, the song the Creator sings for us? How our lives of dissonance would change into lives of resonance and peace. If you have ears to hear...please hear God's music and join along.

I'm not writing off pain and making it trivial. Pain is real - of course it is. Everyone experiences it. But letting that pain rule you is where you go wrong.

And I'm certainly not writing off the lessons learned or the experiences themselves that taught us who we are and what we need from life. The past, with our experiences, is our basic foundation for who we are now and all the things we know. Don't divorce yourself from the past - just from the chaos that is created from holding onto sins or other pain. God said to remember the former things, yes, it's true - remember His works and His power and His ability to be the Yahweh of your life - a position that can be held by nobody else. God Himself is not limited by time. But we are, you see, and there's no going backwards.

I'm not even writing a rant or a sermon here. This is for me too. I myself refuse to become bitter at the world by looking backwards and keeping painful memories fresh. I myself choose to allow God to renew and transform me every single day. All I want is to press forward, and by doing so, glorify God and win that heavenly prize. I love God. I want to know His heart - and I want Him to know that my own heart belongs entirely to him. I myself refuse to dwell on the past.

What you do is always up to you. But life can only get worse if you cause your own strain by living in memories and not allowing God to fulfill you. So make your choices, dear Readers, but do so with the full knowledge that God wants you to choose Him - His love, His mind.

Blessings,
That girl in Switzerland

Life Needs Its Outer Horrors

2009-01-12T00:46:00.000+01:00

For H.D.

Life needs its outer horrors.
You are right, my new friend, with all of your wisdom -
There must be a Hideousness
To stamp upon our hearts the marks of Beauty.
We are as children, all -
Running in our own already-trodden footprints,
Hanging our hats or letting them fall
Carelessly to the floor;
We search for things of Beauty
That we threw away - retracing our steps -
Looking for the fallen pearl,
The soft feather lost, the
Memory of a leaf-shadow or
The contrast to laughter
Mixed with the hyacinth or
Sprinkled along paths we have walked before.
Life needs its outer horrors -
Its scavenger's pits where we find black violets
And blood-red treasures
Among the bones and harrowed gore of all the days.
Life needs its outer horrors -
So bring them - bring all the hideous elements -
And let me brand my heart
So that it never forgets.
I love the Beauty.
I embrace it.
Life needs its outer horrors.
You are right, my friend.

That girl in Switzerland

Fanny Ribbon, in Duplicate.

2009-01-11T13:02:00.000+01:00

Since my stock downstairs had been recently depleted, I found it necessary to raid Charlotte's toilet paper stash this morning. To my delight, she had bought a new kind...one that I had never seen before but that I found quite amusing when I also...er...found a reason...to use it. (I am not normally delighted by toilet paper...it's mostly one of those overlooked blessings...but do read on...)

Rolling the first bit off, I noticed its apparent strength and durability. My goodness, I thought to myself, just how thick is this stuff? (You can see that my thoughts are often not as impressive as my words.) So, being of the curious nature that I am, I proceeded to take the square of toilet paper apart. SIX LAYERS. Six beautiful layers of glorious soft whiteness. And each layer as thick as a normal bit of the stuff should be. I looked at the edge of the roll - every layer was perfectly visible, as we all know is not the normal status of layers of toilet paper. Is it not natural that one should wonder which will be the last square of toilet paper? This is why we begin to conserve as the roll shrinks - because we never know when our bounty will run out. It has always been a natural mystery of the known universe. But not anymore.

What was my first thought?? I've gotta blog this! I told you I think about blogging way too much.

Nobody needs six layers. It gives a whole new meaning to the term "quilted toilet paper." One square, and you're totally finished. You could diaper a baby with it, or even an adult. Do they sell this stuff in the States?

Six layers. When I was growing up (and even after I started buying it for my own place), I was doing good to get two or three. Who cares about layers...buy the cheap stuff. I thank God we don't still use various foliage. And six layers can't really be good for the pipes, now can it?

But six layers. Ahhhh...

Seriously Amused,
That girl in Switzerland

Ok, Nicole - Here You Go...!

2009-01-11T00:42:00.000+01:00

It was a birthday for the history books - or at least for facebook, though Mathias might lose a few of the memories, if that is the case...Spirits were high, extra chairs were in demand, and pants were sparse (Nicole, LOL) as we partied into the night.

Well, ok, to be a little more precise, the rest of them partied into the night. I hopped a train back toward Geneva and my two hour journey home. I find it strange that I would never have considered traveling two hours in the States (so four hours altogether) just to go to dinner with friends, but here I think nothing of jumping up to Nyon or Lausanne on random evenings. Nyon isn't quite as far...just an hour and a bit, but I still end up there three nights a week or so...

But back to our evening. So Nicole is turning twenty-three on Tuesday (here's a shout out to her) and since the thing to do in Switzerland is to throw your own parties, she invited a bunch of people to Lausanne for dinner, dessert and dancing. I only made it to the dinner part of the evening, but it was FUN. The restaurant we went to was a hole-in-the-wall German place called Le Bavaria where the tables were close together and the atmosphere was loud. It was hard to hear myself think, but that wasn't a problem since I was doing more laughing than thinking anyway. lol...good memories, good memories.

Nicole, who is from Rhode Island, followed the current European trend of wearing leggings instead of pants and ended up freezing the entire night. She did look adorable, though. :-) She also wore the tiniest bit of blush on her nose, which made for a lot of laughs as she rubbed and rubbed to get it off when she realized that it was showing up too much in pictures - and all the rubbing just made her nose more and more pink! We took loads of pictures! And all of them amazingly happy. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera in my haste to get out the door, so I'll have to rip pics off of friends' facebooks at a later point in time. But there were a few I really hope don't end up on facebook...(please, Nicole, if you read this, as I'm sure you will...please, please don't put up that ugly one of me...please, I beg you...just put up that last cute one...please.)

My personal biggest laugh of the evening (which won't seem nearly as funny now, but I'll blog it anyway for the memory's sake) happened as we were wrapping up our dinner. I had told Mathias earlier in the evening that there was a picture of him on my facebook (TNT evening album, pic of three guys and a girl holding up their pinkies, man to the right), but he said that he isn't a member of facebook because he "is a member of various other internet portals." (Mathias, btw, is from Germany, and he is cool.)

So when the subject came up later and Nicole asked me why Mathias wasn't on facebook, I said, "Because he is a member of various other internet portals," thinking that since I was just quoting, it would make perfect sense.

Instead, about six people started laughing as I heard Mathias say over my shoulder, "Heather, that sounds weird."

So then I couldn't stop laughing as I told him that I was just quoting him, and then he got confused because he didn't remember saying it, and so we all just laughed and laughed for a long time. But I think I laughed the hardest. And the others were really just laughing at me. But it was funny!

Maybe stuff like that sounds better when it isn't said by an American. But who could really know until after the fact??

The most insulting comment of the evening happened when the waiter got really aggravated as he was cleaning up our plates. Tension was already high with our waiters because instead of the nine people who were supposed to be there, thirteen showed up, and there weren't any extra seats to be had...They had to ask some other customers to move to different tables, and tell even others to come back later...it was kind of a big mess for a bit there, and just when we thought people would stop showing up, another one of us would walk through the door. So the waiters were aggravated. So later as they were cleaning up, we girls were still taking pictures, and Nicole and I heard the guy closest to us mumble, "...you girls are really stupid!"

Nicole and I were just shocked. We thought about complaining to the manager, but since Nicole's boss owns the place, we didn't want to cause a scene. And they guy would just have said that he didn't say it...But still...thirteen people show up to eat their food and instead of saying "thanks for coming!" they have to call us stupid?? Come on??! We were just having fun. And I have to say, if I had been that waiter, I could have found a less adolescent word than "stupid." Just a thought.

So once again this has turned into a much longer blog than I meant it to be. This is how you can tell the difference between a writer at heart, and those who blog just to keep up with friends or share jokes or pictures.

Nicole, have a really happy birthday, and I'll see you at church tomorrow!

Ta, daahlings,
That girl in Switzerland

Influenzadorable!

2009-01-09T15:06:00.000+01:00

LOL! I've been following this online comic strip for years...I check it almost every day...today's just made me laugh and laugh! Check it out! (And yes, I have looked up the word "chalant" and it doesn't exist. How do people think up these things?)

Still laughing,
That girl in Switzerland

Bored Blogging

2009-01-09T03:50:00.000+01:00

Well, it's four in the morning, and since I'm not sleeping, I might as well blog, yes? Yes.

I left my gloves and the Hilda Doolittle book at Jules' school today - we were dashing to get the bus and I realized halfway home that I'd left them. Was really bummed. Will get them tomorrow, though. I missed the book more than the gloves today, though it was quite cold out tonight.

Went to the au pair club in Nyon tonight. Can't wait to get paid again so I can renew my train passes. I was spoiled by those train passes. I loved only paying 4 CHF for the trip to Nyon, rather than the 16 I've payed twice this week for church and the club. Hopefully by next Sunday, I'll have renewed them. That would be good.

So the au pair club. Went with a new girl from down the street - Erin - she's fun. It's always nice to make new friends. The subject at the club tonight was "What Dreams May Come." I found it very hard to describe my dreams, so I just didn't. I haven't spent a lot of time just sitting and thinking about what exactly I want for my future, other than more education. That has always been a given. But the rest is all unknown. But Canadian Culture Night is in two weeks, so that should be fun.

I'm tired. Am heading off to bed again.

Ta daahlings. Sleep well.
That girl in Switzerland

Longer than I meant it to be...

2009-01-07T21:35:00.000+01:00

So I feel like blogging, and I had a somewhat interesting day...but don't worry, I won't blog about my whole day because you, darling Readers, would be bored if I did; instead I'll just say a few random things that apply to my day, and you can fill in the blanks yourself. Hopefully, this strategy will leave you more scope for the imagination. Some of these thoughts apply to all of my days, but I leave it to you to infer which ones.

1. This morning when I greeted Arnaud, he said, "No, it's 2009. From now on, it's French only." This is really scary. My French is still limited to extremely simple sentence structures, and when people speak quickly (so - normal speed for them) I don't understand. But Arnaud is right - the more I speak French, the faster I will learn it. This, of course, is obvious. So from now on, whenever I can say something in French, I will - no matter who is around to laugh.

2. Song stuck in my mind today - "Furious Angels" by Rob Dougan - a great song that equates love to an invisible bullet, a dirty needle, a blow to the head, a cold piece of steel between the ribs, a knife in the back, and a death sentence. A blow to the head, btw, sometimes results in dizziness (i.e. the whole world spinning around), severe nausea, and vomiting (much like the symptoms of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo). I'd say this song has it just about right. I've never experienced a blow to the head, but I've got love and Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo down pat, along with the various symptoms shared by both. This song, ironically, is included on my ipod in a playlist that I will have had for three years in February, and that I both loathe and love. Mostly loathe. I should just delete it. But then I might miss it. It's a conundrum. But if you think I'm equating love to being sick...well, wait...yeah, I actually am.

3. Speaking of three years, I hate the number three...bad things happen in my life in random spurts of three days, three weeks, three months, or three years. It is my personalized unlucky number. We'll see how it all looks in thirty years, huh?

4. It costs 60 CHF to replace train passes. My customer number was 454 as I stood in line to learn this. Unfortunately, this is one replacement that will have to wait until at least next week. Oops, Nicole, I can't go to Lausanne with you Saturday night. Happy Birthday, though!

5. You know those girls we all hate who primly twist the chapstick all the way back down the tube before primly replacing the cap?? I HAVE BECOME one of those girls. And I didn't even realize it until today. Help!

6. Allow me to vent for just one minute, ok? Where does the blasted bank get off charging me 60 CHF to block my cards? It took the man less than two minutes to go onto the computer and do whatever was necessary to stop access to my accounts. And they're already charging me 40 CHF to get the new cards. And another 14 just to withdraw cash without a card. "Excuse me, sir, I'd like to report a possible future fraud." "Ok, miss, thank you. That will be 100 CHF, s.v.p." GRRR...I miss 5/3 Bank. Over the years, they've replaced my cards four times, with no charges at all. And I didn't even have a good reason to lose those ones - I found more than one of them afterwards in various coat pockets, which, in retrospect, weren't good holding places for bank cards. It's not my fault my bloody cards got stolen - they were in a bag inside another bag which was zipped and hung tightly over my shoulder. How did those gypsies do it?? And it isn't as if the Swiss banking system isn't among the world's richest and most stable. Do they need my 114 CHF, I ask you?? NO! 100% NO! Do I?? YES! Money-hungry blighters...And outside the Poste there are people begging for signatures on a petition to raise the wages of women who work for under 3000 CHF per month. Petition, bah - they should petition to get rid of the bloody banking fees. A pox on Swiss banks.

7. It only cost 5 CHF to replace my LIBRARY CARD! Life is worth it after all! This is why I live!

8. I spent time with some best friends today - books, at the library. And what books did I finally check out??
A. Emily Dickinson (poetry, in French and English) - because imitating her makes me want to read her.
B. Hilda Doolittle (same as above, and by the same publisher) - just because it looked cool.
C. Gone With the Wind - frankly, my dear, because I can personally relate (note the last bit of the story), and because it's time to read it again.

9. And since my mind is on literature right now, today my favorite poet is Elizabeth Bishop. Her poem "One Art" is very lovely. Tomorrow, or even tonight, my preference might change, but for just now, this is it.

10. A man on the bus today huffed and smacked his lips whenever we got stuck in traffic. He also grunted and shook his head loudly (causing his sagging cheeks to shift about somewhat) as he read the newspaper.

11. The front page of the newspaper on the bus had a story about the new Twilight movie. I have decided against watching this movie, or even reading the books. They look completely adolescent, exactly like the people who read and love them. If that was what the man on the bus was huffing about, then I thoroughly agree (though I don't smack my lips).

12. It'd be nice to see my mom. I miss her.

13. Felix loves teaching me the incorrect genders for French words. His eyes twinkle when he does this. He's charming. I love him!

14. IT'S OFFICIAL! I'VE LOST 30 POUNDS SINCE COMING TO SWITZERLAND!

15. I need new clothes.

16. Today I made a list of things I needed to do in town, and as I did extra things, I added them to the list - just so I could check them off. I waste lead and ink doing this fairly often.

17. My mind has become a running monologue. All day long I blog things internally. Curse you, blogspot!

18. The man at the Churreria always makes me feel happy. He knows the trick to getting repeat customers (of the female variety) - smile a lot, and flirt just a little. He is old, and Wise.

19. Churros make me feel happy too - but (as with the flirting) not a lot of churros...just one or two.

20. Topic studied in French class tonight - past tense verbs. Yay! My life has finally learned its past! But when will it ever learn its future?

21. Today I wondered - When does "Bonjour" technically stop and let "Bonsoir" take over?

22. Today I decided that were I more punk and less unbalanced (please note my subtle, yet correct usage of double negatives), I would learn to ride a skateboard. It could be a handy skill.

23. All day long, I have known I am blessed.

And there you have it - my day - in a delicate but tough little nutshell - so probably a pecan shell, when I think about it. It's supposed to snow tonight. Maybe it will be good for happy snowmen!

La lumière frappe, tombe sur moi.
Je sursaute -
une feuille, fendillée, craque sur le dallage -
angoisse - déroute.

Anticipating, yet with mixed emotions (or, as always),
That girl in Switzerland

In Quiet Imitation of Dickinson:

2009-01-04T21:27:00.000+01:00

By way of explanation, I began writing a response to a Tennyson poem I was reading on the bus on my way back from church tonight (yes, yes, I know...who reads Tennyson on the bus? Even reading Tennyson on the train would be more sophisticated. Please feel free to leave mocking remarks). A few lines in, I realized that with little or no effort, I could make it look like a passable Emily Dickinson poem - so I revised and five minutes later, had three decent verses in front of me. To be fair, a more successful imitation of Emily Dickinson's poetry might have more dashes and better metaphors :-) ...but I work with whatever pops into my head at the time, so take it or leave it.

What sadness, oh my lonely Sweet,
Hath filled this blighted breast,
And how this heart hath yearned in vain
For quiet, more gentle rest.

But only hurt, and deeper hurt,
Can Empathy portray;
And only Time - with outstretched arms -
Can ice-cold pain allay.

But what a silent agony
And what a silent part -
Is there - the quiet misery
That quells the human heart.

How do you use your time on the bus?
That girl in Switzerland

"Time Goes, You Say? Ah, no! Alas, Time Stays...We Go..."

2009-01-01T18:11:00.000+01:00

See, in what traversed ways,
What backward Fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires?--
Ah, where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say?--ah no!

How far, how far, O Sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands, and pray;
Alas, Time stays,--we go!

Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

Is it just me or is it really strange that it's already 2009? I mean, I just started college, like, yesterday, and now I'm finished and so moved on that I can't imagine actually being back. Well, ok, that isn't exactly true - I can imagine...but not going back, just moving forward.

And that's what this New Year is all about for me - moving forward. I've always been too retrospective...it's always been too hard to put the past behind me. In 2009 I want to make plans, fulfill those plans, and become the owner of a life of which I can be thoroughly proud.

So, in light of the New Year, and because it is generally expected, here are a few resolutions that this year, I actually intend to keep:

1. Love God every second of every day.
2. Live life to the fullest, because every moment should be treasured.
3. Get in shape (this resolution has obviously made such a difference in the past...)
4. Break that annoying habit of biting my bottom lip when I get frustrated.
5. Take better care of my passport.
6. Take life's little lessons to heart.
7. Smile more often, because it blesses other people, and me!
8. Regain my old optimism for living.
9. Take every advantage that I can to laugh, laugh, laugh.

I was thinking about something today that I thought might be worth sharing...

Life moves so quickly. Yesterday I was a child. Tomorrow I will be old. But life just keeps moving on. Years pass, faces obtain new wrinkles, hair turns gray (and at only 23, even I have found one or two gray hairs). No matter what we want or how we wish the years would slow down, this age still moves on. But I don't have to worry about my life ending. In 2009, my life won't get older...it will only get better, because it is eternal. Not just after I die, but now, as well. It's a beauty of God and His amazing plan of redemption. I don't fear Death. I fear not living. Not living my eternal life, right now.

So let me add one more resolution to my list:
10. Live every day knowing that I'm actually living for eternity, not just for myself. I just want to be a better person.

Time stays, we go...but some of us know that we only go to a better place. And we also know that while we go, we can help others go with us.

Peace and Love, Readers,
That girl in Switzerland

Paris in Love

2009-01-01T01:01:00.001+01:00

So Paris is the city of lovers, and I could have had a few romps in the sack myself had I chosen to do so. First there was the keychain vendeur beneath the Eiffel Tower:

"Buy one, buy one, only one euro!" (And really, who doesn't buy one of those cheap things?) But after I bought one, the conversation went downhill rapidly.

"Look! Buy this watch! Only 45 Euro!"
"No."
"How much you give me for it?"
"Nothing."
"You're so beautiful. Where you from?"
"America. Look, I've bought a keychain. Those women over there need some too." I randomly pointed at a group of women.
"America?! Barak Obama!!?"
"Mm hmm." I would have left the area myself, but I was staked out under a blue Eiffel Tower eating a ham and cheese crepe. This man would have to go. Not me.
"Where is your hotel?"
"You don't need to know."
"You have a lover?"
"YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS ASKING ME THAT. GO SELL YOUR BLOODY CHEAP KEYCHAINS."
"Come on - you have a lover?"
"I SAID GO!"
He went.
(Don't worry, Mom...I never go anywhere that there aren't hundreds of people.)

And then the man at the metro:
"You have stolen my heart. You grabbed it out of my chest. My heart, it is yours. Let me spend the day with you. You are truly beautiful. Your eyes, they are beautiful."
Unfortunately for him: "No."
"You don't like me, mademoiselle?"
"No."
He went also.

There was also the forced-redundancy man in line at the Eiffel Tower:
"Parlez-vous francais?"
"No." (I do, a bit, but there was no reason for me to tell him that.)
"Italiano?"
"No."
"Allamand?" (German)
"No."
"Anglais?"
"Oui." My answering in French threw him off a bit.
"Francais?!"
"No."
"English?"
"Yes."
"Ah, it's too bad. I only speak few words in English - hello, what is your name, goodbye."
"Ok, then, goodbye."
"Oh, mademoiselle, you from America??"
I nod. I am in a line of hundreds to go up the Eiffel Tower. There isn't much I can do about this guy right now.
"California??"
"No."
"New York?"
"No."
"DC?"
"No."
"Miami??"
"No."
"Ok, where you from?"
"North Carolina."
"Where?"
"North Carolina."
"Where?"
"Caroline Nord."
"AH! CAROLINE NORD! J'adore Caroline Nord!!"
Yeah right. Like he even knows where it is.
Anyway, once he realized that I wasn't about to provide a stimulating conversation, he left too. They all leave when they find out their latest muse is cold-hearted.

The only conversation that really made me laugh was the one with the guy at a little shop on the Ave de Suffren. I had bought a Paris bag there two days earlier. After the man had found out I was American, he had asked me if I liked American chili (and yes, I do...I love it, actually). This day, as I walked by, he recognized me, and called out, "American chili! ça va?" I laughed at him and said, "Oui, ça va. You remember me?" He said, "Your eyes, they sparkle. I could never forget your eyes!" And then he asked me to go out with him that night - a request that I turned down, but told him that I was sure he would find a different girl.

His response: " Ah, I only want you. I have passed up six hundred girls before you. Please go with me. You are the only one I can think of."

Now it is true that I was impressed that this guy remembered me. But...I have heard words like these before, and not just from strangers. So with the knowledge and experience that all men who say these words are liars, I once again turned down his invitation and continued on my way.

As a side note, while I jest about romps in the sack, these men were most likely just looking to steal money from me.

Unfortunately for them, they got none of my lovin'. Unfortunately for me, I was alone in a city full of lovers. They were everywhere - at every monument, every museum, every metro. My trip was thoroughly wonderful, except for the fact that I found myself terribly lonely at the most random moments each day (and also except for my stuff getting stolen...there was that). My thoughts drifted to my parents, my brother and sister, and to one other significant person who has recently made the choice to become nameless in my world. How sad that among all the kissing couples in Paris at Christmas, I was completely alone and unsure of my ability to ever find a real and lasting love. I too (per recently ruined dreams) should have had someone with me in Paris.

To be continued,
That girl in Switzerland

gParis, gWhat?

2008-12-31T19:33:00.000+01:00

My Paris stories are lengthy, mostly because all my stories are lengthy...so I'm going to put them into several posts, according to topic...and although you might not think that my topics seem to relate, they actually do somewhat, so read on...

On my way to Paris, the train passed an apartment building where I saw the most random something hanging over the edge of a third-floor balcony - a rather large, colorful garden gnome, trussed up like a return to Texas and the Old West, or even Mississippi in the '50s. Someone had clearly taken matters into their own hands with the poor little guy. I wonder which was the last straw for his owners - the fact that he had grown too large to properly fulfill his gnomish duties (however those might be defined), or the idea that Santa might not visit a place with other gnomes in residence. (Someone clearly made compare between their statures and now this poor gnome is dead, dead as a doornail. *That line is for Mel...she should laugh quite hard...I just managed to skew bits of Dickens and Shakespeare, all in one fell swoop.*) I'm thinking, however, that lynching someone of the same species as Santa might not have been the most clever way to extend a welcome. The only other possible scenerio here is that the children of the household didn't recieve what they wished for this year and promptly exacted bits of revenge. But if that is the case, then these are clearly bad children anyway, and Santa made the right choice...and if those kids think that was a good way to get on Santa's list for next year...hmm... Still, a gnome had to suffer, and for that reason alone, I grieve.

Paris has a lot of gypsies. I know...some of them consistently told me I was beautiful, and others of them robbed me at the metro on what should have been my last day in the city. Contemptible little buggers, they are. Still, I have to admit that the ones in the shop next to my hostel cooked a mean breakfast...

Getting a new passport after I had my old one stolen was a long process. I didn't even know anything was missing until I got off the metro at the Gare de Lyon and went searching in my bag for my train ticket back to Geneva. After the tears subsided (of which there weren't many because I'm not a girl who cries much unless it's really the end of my known world, and then the tears just won't stop), I made my way to the police office in the train station to file a report. I then spoke to the duty officer at the American Embassy and found out how to go about once again becoming an identifiable US citizen. The American Aid Society was wonderful - they paid for my hostel that night and also gave me twenty euro for food. As long as you're patient, the passport process in Europe is actually easier than the passport process in America. It took me almost six hours the next day to obtain my new passport, but other than taking an extra day from my life, it was a completely survivable experience. (Although it would have been a lot less survivable had I not had a novel in my bag - Black Order by James Rollins. But when do I not have a novel in my bag?)

The only thing that was at all difficult was trying to talk my way into the Embassy gate house after hours the night my passport was stolen. Of course none of the military men there spoke a single word of English, so I was left finding out how good my French actually was by trying to explain that I was robbed and that the duty officer had told me to go straight to the Embassy. These were words I hadn't learned in French class. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Je dois aller à l'Ambassade. (I must go to the Embassy.)

Police: Désolé, l'Ambassade est fermée. (Sorry. The Embassy is closed.)

Me: Je sais, mais je suis américaine. Et regardez...(I know, but I am American. And look...)

I hand him my police report, because I have no idea how to say words like "stolen" or "robbed"...and he could read the bloody thing...I couldn't even do that. There is a brief pause while he reads.

Police: Oui, oui, mais l'Ambassade est fermée. Vous revenez demain, d'accord? (Yes, yes, but the Embassy is closed. You come back tomorrow, alright?)

Clearly this man is not very sympathetic.

Me: Non, J'ai appelé l'Ambassade déjà from the Gare de Lyon, and the duty officer says....oops...Désolé, parlez-vous anglais? (No, I have called the Embassy already - here I lapse into English - ....sorry, do you speak English?)

Police: Non.

Me: Ah, mon francais n'est pas bon. (Ah, my French is not good.)

Police: Mais oui! Je vous compends! (But yes! I understand you!)

Me: D'accord, merci. J'ai appelé l'Ambassade déjà et l'homme dit venir ici ce soir. (Alright, thank you. I have called the Embassy already and the man says to come here tonight.)

At this point I'm getting really frustrated and my verb tenses begin to go bad.

Police: Un moment. (One moment.)

The police officer goes to get a superior. I repeat my request to the new officer - I must go to the Embassy. The man in the gate house is waiting for me.

New Police: Désolé, Mlle, l'Ambassade est fermée ce soir. (I'm sorry, Miss, the Embassy is closed tonight.)

Me: JE SAIS L'AMBASSADE EST FERMéE!!! MAIS L'HOMME DIT POUR MOI VENIR ICI CE SOIR. PAS DEMAIN! CE SOIR! (I KNOW THE EMABSSY IS CLOSED!!! BUT THE MAN SAYS FOR ME TO COME HERE TONIGHT. NOT TOMORROW! TONIGHT!)

And again, I'm so frustrated that my French is beginning not to make sense. But hey, I understand ESL speakers when they screw up sentences. And apparently these guys understood me too.

This was when two other officers decided they needed to come on over. Now there were four of them and one of me. They all read my police report and I ended up repeating myself about four more times before they decided to ask the guy in the gate house...the guy who was actually waiting for me...if I was legit. And I was, so they let me in. The whole process took about twenty minutes. But at least now I know that I can explain myself well enough to get into an Embassy after hours if I need to. But I hope my passport never gets stolen in Spain.

None the worse for wear (unlike that gnome),
That girl in Switzerland

A Few Christmas Thoughts (this is a good one...)

2008-12-26T01:01:00.000+01:00

First of all, a shout out to my first follower, practically published! I now feel as though I might be of some importance to someone...*Heather stops just short of begging people to read her blog.*

I also feel it important enough to mention that I'm headed to Paris in the morning. Anyone who cares to do so is welcome to pray for me this weekend while I navigate a huge city all on my own...to all those asking, yes, I'm going by myself, and yes, it will be serious amounts of fun. Will write a lengthy update upon my return to Geneva.

Next noteworthy thing...on the subject of Christmas music...I need to say a few things (because this is what blogging is all about). Who originally decided that Christmas needed dreary music to go along with the festive stuff?? I can imagine some guy in a bar one night, just dumped by his favorite girl, writing a sad song about being all alone on Christmas. He was probably drunk along with being sad. And he probably got over her and moved on, and his next Christmas was perfectly jolly. Also, he was probably very happy with the money he made by dumping his depressing lyrics onto the music-crazed masses. But why CD producers decided they needed to surprise their consumers by randomly inserting these melancholy songs into their otherwise perfectly festive lineup is completely beyond me. Those sad people who actually want to listen to these songs probably don't want to hear the joyful ones, and those of us that only wish to hear the joyful ones are stuck jumping out of our skin every time a bad (yes, bad) song starts playing. Today I managed to bruise my knee quite badly with the underside of a table as I jumped up to skip "2000 Miles" (by KT Tunstall), which was hidden between "Mistletoe and Holly" and "Winter Wonderland" on the latest Starbucks Christmas album. What's next? A broken toe? Bruised shins? All of these stupid, sad Christmas songs should be placed in one compilation for all the stupid, sad people to buy at Christmastime so they can have a good soundtrack to accompany the tears they no doubt shed into their whiskey. All of the fun, jingly Christmas songs should be sold as just what they are - fun, jingly Christmas songs - and not as mere sandwiches for songs written by people who should consider intensive therapy. These thoughts have led me to produce the following carefully-pondered list:

1. Most Lovely Christmas Hymn of All Time: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly
2. Most Fun Christmas Song: Ding Dong Merrily On High
3. Worst Christmas Song Ever Written in the History of Mankind: 2000 Miles (KT Tunstall)
4. Most Loved Christmas Song for Children: toss-up between Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman
5. Best Version of "Do You Hear What I Hear?": Pink Martini
6. Song that Makes Me the Most Wistful This Year: I'll Be Home for Christmas
7. Christmas Song with the Most Attitude: Last Christmas (I Gave You My Heart)
8. Easiest Christmas Song to Play on the Piano: Joy to the World
9. My Sister's Most Hated Christmas Song: Little Drummer Boy
10 Song I Most Like to Play When My Sister is Around: Little Drummer Boy
11. Freakiest Christmas Song: The Man with All the Toys (The Beach Boys)
12. Longest, Most Annoying Christmas Song: 12 Days of Christmas
13. Christmas Song I Liked Best as a Child: Snoopy Christmas (Snoopy vs. the Red Baron)
14. Artist that Plays the Most on My Ipod at Christmastime: toss-up between the Carpenters and Robert Shaw (Handel's Messiah)
15. Artist Most Appropriate for Any Mood At Christmastime: Ella Fitzgerald
16. Song that Most Fits My Mood this Christmas: River, by Joni Mitchell (because the truth of the matter is that I understand, from a thoroughly painful point of view, the people who wrote those sad songs and every emotion they were trying to express...I just hate being reminded of it.)

Dad and I played games online for two hours tonight. We have a Christmas tradition of playing Scrabble and drinking eggnog. (Following up my previous post - no, I did not drink eggnog this Christmas; yes, I survived that tragedy.) But we two un-geeky folk couldn't figure out how to play Scrabble online, so we contented ourselves with Checkers, Battleship, and Dominoes. It was the highlight of my Christmas Day! I also got to talk extensively to everyone else in my family, as well as my best friend, Dee, so not being at home for Christmas wasn't a complete loss. And I really did have a fabulous time with my host family today (we had a good laugh at Jules, who had a good cry at us laughing at him...confusing, but that's how it happened). I am so blessed this Christmas to have so many people who genuinely care about me.

Lastly...this morning when I woke up, I read the second chapter of Luke aloud, as is my family's pre-gift Christmas tradition. I never fail to be utterly amazed at what God did for us when He gave us Jesus. "For unto you is born this day...a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord...Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!" Merry Christmas, dear readers, and may the peace of God reside in all of your hearts this Christmastime!

With Love,
That girl in Switzerland

Fabulous Christmas Eve

2008-12-25T01:28:00.001+01:00

:-) Had a fab Christmas Eve, except for the fact that I'm not home. Talked to all the family except Kim. That was the tragic part of the day. :-( The fab part of the day was the time I spent with the boys this morning and with my whole host family this evening. The dinner was fabulous, the dessert was fabulous (yeah, I ate two pieces of chocolate cake), the gifts were fabulous, the boys waiting to open the gifts were fabulous (and also hilarious in their attention to the time ticking away)...the whole evening was great! It really felt like I was right at home the whole evening.

Daddy and I are going to play our Scrabble game online tomorrow. I hope it isn't confusing. We have a tendency to get competitive sometimes, and that's difficult enough in person...but of course I'll win...I always win...hahah...(except, to be fair, that losing streak of two games back in '06).

Felix, Jules and I made up a rhyme today while we were eating yogurt. It goes like this:

I like yogurt
Yogurt is yummy
When I eat yogurt
It goes in my tummy.

I like yogurt
Yogurt is runny
And I like rhyming
'Cause it's really funny.

LOL...not so bad for a four year old and a six year old, eh? They giggled the entire time we were making it up. (yeah, the rhyming is pretty obvious, but hey, everyone has to learn sometime, right?)

Also went to the midnight service at St. Peter's Cathedral. That was pretty cool. The choir sang beautifully. I saw someone there that I absolutely never expected to see - my friend, Leanne, from Israel. I asked her, "What on earth is a Jewish girl doing at St. Peter's Cathedral on Christmas Eve???" She laughed at me and said that her rabbi told her she wasn't allowed to come, but she did anyway just because she was curious. She also said she felt a little guilty for not obeying her rabbi. I told her, "Don't worry. It's totally ok that you came." :-P I did tell her Happy Hannakuh, though, and she was quite impressed that I knew that today was the fourth day of that particular holiday. But what can I say?? I know my stuff.

Merry Christmas to my many readers (ha),
That girl in Switzerland

Tea, etc.

2008-12-22T21:04:00.001+01:00

J'aime beaucoup le petit café en face de la gare. The tea there is two francs cheaper than across the street at Starbucks. I treated myself tonight after finishing my long-overdue Christmas shopping. Black tea and a green chocolate tart. Yummy.

The woman next to me on the bus tonight had one of those shiny knuckle-ring things on every one of her sausage fingers. And also a bushy gray substance sprouting out of her head that closely resembled the Alpaca wool one might use to make a fuzzy wall hanging (only longer and without the little pictures of llamas). She kept glancing sideways at me like she just knew I was thinking about her...I wasn't really...I was just trying to find the right words to describe her...

In other news, I seem to have gotten Jules' virus. This is not unexpected as his favorite place to cough is into my face, and his favorite place to wipe his snotty hands is my shirt. I don't recall collecting this much mucus on my clothing even when I myself was a sick child. But what to do?? Shall I cancel my weekend in Paris? And how will I properly enjoy my day trip to Versailles if I have a 40 degree fever?? (No clue what that is in Fahrenheit, but at 42 in Celsius, you die.)

The Salvation Army has to work harder here (it seems) than in America. They had a whole brass ensemble in front of the toy store on the Rue de la Croix d'Or tonight but nobody was giving much. I literally watched hundreds of people walk by and look the other way. (Ignoring one guy with an accordion, ok, but an entire brass band??) Come on, Genève, where is your Christmas spirit?? Ok, a few people did donate. That was heartwarming. And the music was lovely. I listened until they left. I'm glad I didn't miss my chance to give to the Salvation Army this Christmas!

But returning momentarily to the subjects of tea and bad hair...last time I was at this particular café a freaky woman with frizzy, gray hair grabbed my arm and asked me in panicked tones if I had heard the strange voice in the air. I assured her that though I had not, the next time I was in I would listen more closely. I heard nothing tonight louder than the Britney Spears song on the radio. But maybe that's why they play the music so loudly. Who knows?

Signing off with a smile,
That girl in Switzerland

2008-12-22T16:37:00.000+01:00

So the boys have this trick they like to play where they say someone's name, and then after that person responds they triumphantly announce, "Nothing!" Today I had this conversation with Jules:

"Heather?"
"Yes, Jules?"
"Nuffing!!" (Jules looks very pleased with himself.)

(short pause)

"Jules?"
"What, Heather?"
"Nothing!"

(a slightly longer, slightly confused pause. Jules didn't realize that Heather knew this joke.)

"Heather?"
"No."
"HeaTHEEEER?!?"
"JUUULES?!?"
"What?"
"Nothing!!"

(Jules is seriously confused. How did this joke get so turned around??)

"HEATHER?! You are NOT GOOD, Heather!"

(much laughter from Heather)

"Heather, why you laughing?"
"Because you're so funny, Jules! You make me laugh my head off!"
(Jules looks around frantically.)
"WHERE IS your head??"

Hahahahahahah...we au pairs take our small pleasures where we find them. Kids are awesome!

Intro to Me

2008-12-21T18:06:00.000+01:00

So I'm not really much of a blogger, but I have extra time on my hands...why not give it a try?? Besides, everyone asks me questions about my life here in Switzerland, and it's rather droll repeating myself so much, so here are some glimpses into myself, my life in Europe, and the family I live with and work for. :-) Enjoy!

I am saddened by the possibility that I might not be having eggnog this Christmas. I haven't looked in a great many stores for it, but my host mom, Charlotte, says that people in Switzerland don't really drink it. What they do drink a lot is hot, spiced wine (vin chaud)...apparently Arnaud, my host dad, is a huge fan, so there might be some of that around the day of. But I'll be missing my eggnog and scrabble games with Daddy.

Jules is sick this week. Poor kid just turned four years old and was so excited...but now he has a virus that has him begging to go to the doctor. I've been breaking the number one au pair rule and letting him watch lots of TV...otherwise he'll be crawling all over me all day and I'll get the virus too...although I'm not altogether sure I haven't already. But I feel so sorry for him...he's a classic sick boy begging to be babied.

In other news, we got two golden labs a couple weeks ago. Their names are Jenny and Teacake (a boy...but apparently "cake" is masculine in French, so it works. Felix explained it to me like this: "Teacake! You know like you drink tea and eat cake??? Just put them together!! Tea...Cake...get it?? Teacake!??) and they are just as adorable as they can be. They're brother and sister - a little over seven months old, and they speak both French and English...lol...at least according to Felix...but I'm not so sure...they don't really respond to my English so I have to yell at them in French and hope I get the pronunciations correct. It's great fun!

My kids are great! Felix is six and he knows everything. He spent a bit of his time today teaching me how to make a cappacino...lol...and it was really good! (Only thing was...he's already taught me this skill a number of times.) The detail he puts into his tutorials is amazing! He might grow up to write how-to-do it books...but right now he's stuck on wanting to be the guy who picks up the trash (cool trucks, etc). He's a really focused little boy - today we spent over two hours playing with a set of magnets. Every time I said, "Felix, are you sure you don't want to play an actual game?" he would say, "No, of course not. This is fun!" He's a super fabulous, super polite child and I love him so much already!

Jules, on the other hand, is about as hyper a kid as you can imagine. He has this habit...if someone accidentally (or on purpose) bumps him or hits him, Jules will scratch that person on the face. It hurts like crazy!!! Jules likes to refer to himself as Indiana Jules because he's an Indiana Jones fanatic. Sometimes I'll listen for him during the day, just to know where he is, and often I can hear him humming away the Indiana Jones theme song...hmm hm hum hmmmm, hmm hum hmmmm...Jules is amazing. The other day he said he wanted to tell me a secret, and when I bent down to let him whisper in my ear, he said in his broken English, "Heather, you're good. I love you."

My boys make my day everyday.

Will post more soon. Am off to help Charlotte cook supper.