Yesterday, in the movie Body Heat, I heard
“I vicariously…”
– the proof that people really use this word in English. We have it (“vicariant”) in France, but it’s a very rare one, used by scientists or in pedagogy. I was fascinated by this range-difference for a word’s usage and I also wrote an article about it, because it’s a tool : “Vicarious” : How to learn by watching others
When your students feedback your teacherness, it’s an obsession to me, a good conversation subject, and a great pattern to use elsewhere. It’s also true in therapy, in many other fields. Students can “climb in metacommunication” and tell you about your Art. It’s a feedback, it teaches you! It’s a great structure to explore, and I will probably do it.
Does your style come from your work, or do you think about it “out of action”?
Parents are exhausting in a bookstore. They need books for their child, who is œuf corse absolutely the greatest, the best, and is – like all the other ones – “really in advance for his age”. Come on!…
On WordPress, Categories & Tags mustn’t exceed 15 in total, or else your article won’t be included in the reader. Beware!
What surprises me the most, in someone I know, is the clear “will to be nasty”. When someone speaks and wants to hurt me…
One antidote is to notice it. Instead of being hurt by this unkindness, meanness, your brain is building an instant shield with reason, an assessment : “This person is trying to hurt me with words”. Like a submarine, your heart goes underwater, for protection. In an awe.
One day I met a trash which… opened electrically alone when your hand was about to reach it. BZZZRT! It was absolutely a mess. Non opening when you needed it to. Surprising you and killing you with quirky heart-attacks in the middle of the night (when you had to trash this saving life orange-juice bottle). Staying opened for no reason (and resisting to close down). Closing the lid too fast when you were trying to debag it to add a new trashbag. Oh bloody cute thing! And, well, I liked it a little too…
« when in Rome, do as the Romans do »
What does it mean? You have to obey the laws and rules or the society you visit? You have to adapt? But also… should you live a little of other people’s lives? If one day I visit Portland or Kansas City, do I seek French food, or do I taste local meals? Do I watch French TV series in my hotel, or do I go watch a theater play? Do I read my French books, or do I visit museums? Do I move in the tourists cattle, or do I rent a car to go 20 miles out of the city to sit on a bench and watch how people walk?
This function of friendship : listen and question.
“Manifestement Friand : Manifestly Fond Of” : write 3 short stories on this seed.
My father’s father was a soldier in France in 1940. He’s been made a prisoner by the Germans, sent in Germany and had to work there in a factory… bombed by a British or an American attack. He died, and, well, my father didn’t know his father, his childhood was a sad mess. This made him the man he was, and of course I’m now a part of that. I found this part of an interview on the web, and I copy-paste it to tell the readers about the resonance…
You witnessed aerial bombings in Nantes…
The bombings were a very complex and perverted phenomenon. You can’t understand the French collaboration and resistance movements if you don’t understand the occupation period. Being occupied is being in a situation of absolute perversity. You live next to your enemy, and your allies kill you. I was ten years old in 1942. I had to understand that the people who lived close by were my enemies, and the ones bombing me were my friends.
Thanks for reading!
Some absences are impossible to accept.
a french toolbox 