Top 5 things that Rock about America

Ok, so I’ve covered the high and low points of France already, I figure it’s only fair that I evaluate the United States as my next two top five lists this week. Keeping with tradition, I will start with the positives, and move from there to more Gargamelian or Goldsberrian qualities. Let’s begin, shall we?

5) It is the birthplace of one Curtis Benjamin Plowgian.

On October 26th, 1983, at approximately 7pm, one of the greatest gifts America ever gave to the world was born in a hospital in Toledo, Ohio. From such meager beginnings he went on to travel the world, visiting dozens of countries, finishing first in his class, dining with senators, making music with Bobby McFerrin, winning Fulbright scholarships…..ok, this one was important to get out of the way first. I may possess top-5-caliber greatness, but there are things out there bigger than myself, and those things are more important to talk about, so I won’t waste any more time heaping well-deserved praise upon myself. I am pretty sweet, though.

4) Freedom

This may sound somewhat hackneyed or overdone, and its triteness is one of the reasons I couldn’t bring myself to place it any higher than number 4. However, there is something to be said about the freedoms we enjoy in the United States. True, there may be many things that are less than wonderful in the grand old US of A, but on the brightside, we are free to bitch and moan about those things as much as we want. I was talking to a Parisian girl during one of my many Paris-Chicago flights, and she was saying how shocked she was to see New Yorkers wearing anti-Bush t-shirts out in public. Being French, she naturally agreed with the anti-Bush sentiment, but she was surprised that people would advertise such political views on their clothing. I told her we have whole television shows dedicated to pointing out the ridiculousness of our political system (to be fair, they have one in France called les Guignols, but they use puppets. Imagine a cross between the Daily Show and Crank Yankers, and it’s still probably different than what you’re thinking of, but somewhat close). Anyway, I think that the ability of Americans to laugh at ourselves and our leaders is one of the best things we have going for us. It shows both our propensity to constantly question authority and an ability to be laid-back from time to time, an ability that is frequently overshadowed by our Puritan work ethic and obsessive productivity. But Americans have some pretty great freedoms, you have to admit. We have the freedom to waffle. We have the freedom to prohibit the use of alcohol, then decide that was a bad idea, put an amendment saying, “uh….just kidding!” in our Constitution and start over again. We have the freedom to consider replacing Darwinian Evolution with Creationism in public school science classes, and also the freedom to relentlessly mock and disparage anyone dumb enough to even consider a notion as idiotic as replacing Darwinian Evolution with Creationism in public school science classes. You just have to hope that the majority sides with you on issues that are really important to you, or otherwise you wait and hope they come around eventually to see things your way.

3) Sports

A hallmark of American tradition. One of the things I’ve missed most about the US during my stay here in Le Mans is American football. Of course, I still played fantasy football this season, and I checked scores and game reviews every week on espn.com, but it’s not the same as actually watching the games. I suppose if you’re a soccer or rugby fan, Europe is decent sport territory, and if you want to watch WNBA-caliber games played by men, you can watch basketball here too. (Nothing against the women, btw, I know that some people praise the WNBA as a “purer” form of the game; I was making reference to how European leagues, like the WNBA, are still in their developing stages, and lack the resources and glamor of the NBA. They also lack dunking, and athletic ability. That’s not fair, either. European men can dunk). But look at the Olympics. Every Olympic games, America is in the top 3 medal-winning countries (more often than not, we are the top medal-winning country). To further prove my basketball point, look at the history of our basketball dominance of the world. I mean, we invented the sport, but we’re better at basketball than Britain is at soccer, for example. Our basketball dominance is more akin to a world soccer powerhouse like Brazil. You might say, “But Curtis, team USA finished 3rd in the last world championships, and we haven’t actually finished 1st in a few years”. But the fact that we expect to come in first proves my point. Brazil doesn’t win the World Cup every year, but they’ve won more than any country, and it’s always considered an upset when they don’t win. Basketball is now a popular worldwide sport, and we are always at least favored to win, even when we don’t. I attribute our country’s sport greatness to high school sports. Living in France, and working for a French high school, I have witnessed firsthand the paucity of high school athletic competition that Europe has to offer. Our high school day finishes earlier, so that sports teams can use school facilities to practice. In France, sports are non-school affiliated; students get out of school at 5-6pm and basically have to find time to do sports on their own. They have gym class, but there is certainly no “Friday Night Lights” culture here. (Not that Texas-style high school football mania is always a good thing). But sports reflect in a metaphorical way what I perceive as the general American spirit or attitude. We want to be the best, so we dedicate great time and resources to being ultra-competitive, so that at the end of the day we can have the bragging rights to say, “Hey, we’re the United States of America, and if we just kicked your butt. We might not be the best, but we’re close, and you can’t fault us for lack of trying”. Some might argue that this attitude isn’t always healthy, especially when applied to matters like foreign policy or military affairs, but you’ve gotta hand it to us, we do kick some serious butt when it comes to sports.

Dishonorable mention: Baseball. I know it’s America’s pastime and all, but could we have possibly come up with a more boring spectator sport to be our pastime? I mean, it’s a great sport for statisticians and trivia mongers, and the stadium culture definitely merits positive recognition. But to watch on television? Are you kidding me? Moreover, any entertainment value watching games in the stadiums has is negated by the resources our government wastes in investigating the whole steroid thing. Steroid use in baseball is like white-collar crime in the business world. Sure, it’s everywhere, but many of the perpetrators are industry heroes and besides, they’re so rich that they can buy practically airtight legal protection and will inevitably face no real consequences other than public disgrace. It’s been allowed to happen for so long that many people question whether it’s wrong or not (they at least find it unfair to start punishing people heavily for it now when so many others have gotten off scott-free). So boo to you, baseball. You may have served us well in your glory days, but I still probably would have found you boring to watch back then.

2) The Food

If you’ve been following my blog up to this point, this might give you a sense of deja vu. You might think, “Hey, wasn’t food also the ’second best thing of all time’ for France as well?” Well, you got me. Don’t read too much into it. I’m not putting “Food” as number 2 for both France and the US because I’m trying to start a debate about whether French or American food is better, or trying to settle the debate once and for all by asserting that they are equally good. They are different; some French food is better than American food, and vice versa. I just happen to think that food is one of my favorite things in both countries, and a very important part of what makes both countries great. I’m a big fan of food, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Some might argue that “American Food” as a genre doesn’t actually comprise very much. Things that come to mind are hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, apple pie, and other comfort foods without an overabundance of flavor or food value (I’m reminded of the scene in “Thank You for Smoking” where the gun lobbyist is eating apple pie with a slice of american cheese on it, and when Nick Naylor tells him it’s disgusting, he replies, “It’s American”.) But these people are forgetting that any food from any other country that we assimilate and Americanize becomes American. For example, pizza and other “Italian” food that you can eat in Chicago may have once found its roots in Italy, but now you would be hard pressed to find the same cuisine in Italy itself. The same goes for American “Chinese” food, “Mexican” food, etc. (In fact, another assistant recently informed me that the proper name for the Mexican food we get in the states is Tex-Mex, because it’s quite different from what they eat in Mexico). Speaking of Tex-Mex, America invented Chipotle, and Chipotle itself almost made it into my top three, until I realized I could just say “food”. Quick mini top 5: Five American restaurants that I miss dearly here in France, and whose food I’m Jonesin’ for right now:

5. Culver’s 4. Lovely Thai 3. Rosebud 2. Brio 1. Chipotle

On top of restaurants, there are lots of foods that I love in America that I just can’t find in France. Some of these could surely be found in Paris, which is by far France’s most international city, but in towns the size of Le Mans I have no chance. Such delicacies include cheddar cheese, jalapeno peppers, black beans, V-8, V-8 Splash, beef jerky, and others. I used to think one couldn’t find bacon here. I was wrong, but the bacon here is very thinly sliced and expensive. I realize a lot of the food that I miss from the US isn’t the healthiest food you can eat, but it sure is tasty. Maybe that’s why I lose weight every time I come to France.

1) The Entertainment Industry

This had to be my number 1 choice, because it includes things that I miss as much as the foods I’ve already mentioned, and it is an area where America dominates as much or even more than it does in sports. I don’t know what America’s number one export is, but entertainment has got to be up there. If you look at the numbers of cd’s that popular American artists sell worldwide, it’s simply mind-blowing. My students all know who and love American musical artists, even if they don’t understand what they’re saying. Even older artists, such as Michael Jackson, or even Frank Sinatra, are just as well known abroad as they are in the US. Sure, the Beatles might have been British, but you have to give a lot of credit for Beatlemania to America. If the Beatles had never broken in the US, they might have been a very popular band, but no way would they have been the ludicrously rich, world-changing kind of artists they turned out to be. Our domination of television and film is perhaps even more comprehensive. At any given point, one third to one half of all films in a French cinema will be of Hollywood origin. If you ask any given French person what their favorite television program is, odds are they will say either Prison Break, 24, or Desperate Housewives. I have met French university students who profess weakness for Scrubs and King of Queens. Some French people even watch American teenie-dramas, such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek. British girls love Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill. When even shows from the WB dominate abroad, it makes you think.

Unfortunately, many of my favorite shows, such as PTI, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, have not made such a leap. Almost all big budget films generally make it over here, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out too much in that regard. They’re a few months behind the US releases, but I can wait. Baseball is America’s national pastime; waiting is France’s national pastime. Both are pretty boring, all things considered.

Well, that rounds out the first top 5 of the week, even though I made no mention of Aram’s sister. Stay tuned for Friday, when I list the worst 5 things about America (we’ll see if Tucker Carlson or Anne Coulter make the list).

Denison Glossary

As an astute reader pointed out to me, it is perhaps unfair that I make so many references to Denison without explaining them, given the fact that some of my readers will almost certainly not be Denison students or alumni. Anyway, since I plan on continuing to make such references, I figure the considerate thing to do would be to provide a glossary of Denison-related terms, so that non-Denison types will know what the crap I’m talking about. Anyway, here goes:

Denison: A veritable utopia, on the crest of a sunny hill in Granville, OH. A place where young minds go to be developed and shaped into the leaders of tomorrow. A sun-kissed, arboreal paradise posing as a midwest liberal arts college. Think Walden Pond, only without the Pond, and significantly less Walden. A haven for college-aged young people to go and bask in the presence and intellectual warmth of some of the greatest minds of our time — minds like Ron Santoni, Nestor Matthews, Raymond Wise, Andy Carlson, Fred Porcheddu, etc. I realize that if you’ve never been to Denison, you don’t know who these people are, but trust me, they’re great. If I do a “Top 5 Denison Professors” List, you may get to meet some of these amazing people through the power of my written word. How fortunate you will be when that day comes.

Doane Administration: A hideous pockmarck on the otherwise pristine face that is the Denison campus. A truly evil place; the kind of building that terrified college students dare and coax each other to approach to retrieve a football or a frisbee that someone has accidentally thrown too close to its black gates. An enormous lidless eye, wreathed in flame, hovers over the spires of Doane administration, unblinking, ever ready to carry out the will of such insipid individuals as Becky Fletcher and Amy Franklin-Craft. (Okay, so these names probably mean as little to you as the aforementioned professors. For a little context, imagine the Jailer in “Cool Hand Luke”, or Big Nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. For British readers, imagine Mrs. Trunchbull from Matilda, or Lord Voldemort even). It is rumored that there was once good in this place, and that good people still work tirelessly there under the authority of the abominable tyrants who reside there, but all things considered, it is certainly a place to be avoided.

Red Scouts: A group of stalwart individuals, freedom fighters if you will, who struggle valiantly against the iron grip of Doane and its abhorrent manifestations, such as ResLife, the “meal plan”, or numerous unjustifiable parking tickets. Our group’s name was taken from the Communist Chinese equivalent of the Boy Scouts, a group to which our friend and lifetime-member Jack may or may not have belonged in his youth. We enjoy such noble pursuits as philosophical and religious discussion, Smash Bros., long road trips, beards, procrastination, roommate decathlons, most things random, and of course, Chipotle.

DRU:An abbreviation of “Denison Religious Understanding”. A group of open-minded individuals, led by the great and noble Denison Chaplain, Mark Orten, fostering candid discussions about philosophical, religious and spiritual matters in the context of varied or conflicting religious and cultural traditions. Also a great way to get a free meal on Mondays that doesn’t come from the dining hall. All in all, a wonderful part of the Denison experience.

These are probably the most four most important terms I can think of at this juncture. I will define further terms as the need arises, but I hope this helps all of my readers to be more or less on the same page for now. Tootles.

Announcement

I plan to do a top 5 list soon that will be entitled, “Top 5 Possible Harry Potter Endings”. I figured I should get this top 5 our of the way sooner rather than later, so that it gets done before the seventh book comes out. Anyway, I think I have a number 1, and maybe one or two others, but to create a good top 5 list, I’ll need a few more. The long and short of it is I need your help. Any suggestions that you have can be emailed to me at cplowgianni@gmail.com, or posted as comments about this announcement. Who knows, you could even bump my number 1, and then your ending would be crowned “Best Harry Potter ending of all time”!!! I would offer a prize for the best submitted idea, but as this is a non-profit organization I can only offer you my eternal love and gratitude. Anyway, I look forward to hearing your suggestions. Tootles.

Moral Question of the Day

I said I was going to intersperse non-top 5 posts here and there, so I figured no time like the present to kick them off. The fact that my tirade against French cheating engendered a comment within a day leads me to pose a question I had been considering for some time anyway, which is more or less directly related to cheating:

If someone acts in a way that they know would be hurtful to someone else (such as cheating), but the person in question whose feelings would be hurt never finds out, is the action somehow more excusable/justifiable?

 The question basically comes down to this: Is acting with the knowledge that you would hurt someone’s feelings bad in and of itself, or is it only the actual hurting of someone’s feelings that is morally reprehensible?

 In my experience, I feel guilt when I know my actions would hurt someone I care about, even if that person won’t find out. This guilt is certainly lessened when the person whose feelings I would hurt is a more of an abstraction, or someone I want to hurt, such as Doane Administration, although I still try to avoid being discovered in such cases simply to avoid getting in trouble.

But I wonder, when you act in a way that would hurt someone, is the action itself bad (I am reluctant to use the word “evil”), or is it only the actual hurting of the feelings that is bad? This reminds me of a conversation I had with the eternally wise Ron Santoni, and one of the few times that I thought he was clearly wrong about something. He claimed that nuclear weapons were evil in and of themselves, because they were created for an evil purpose/with evil intent. I argued that a nuclear weapon lying dormant in a silo couldn’t possibly be evil in and of itself, that is was rather just an inanimate object that existed with no real good or evil about it. The evil, I claimed, was in the actual use of such weapons to hurt and destroy other people. However, when it comes to the above mentioned issue of cheating, I find my thinking to be somewhat Santonian. The knowledge and intent to perform a hurtful action seems wrong to me, even if the actual hurting of the feeling never takes place (the hurting of the feelings in this case being analogous to the realization of the destructive potential of the nuclear weapon). I know that the cheating case is slightly different, because in order to avoid hurting someone’s feelings once the action has taken place, other morally questionable measures such as lying or covering the truth are generally called for, but it’s an interesting conundrum nonetheless.

Moral Question #2: Does my dismissal of the notion of a nuclear weapon as evil, paired with my conviction that cheating as an action is wrong, regardless of the consequences, make me a hypocrite?

I think since a nuclear weapon is an object, and cheating is an action, I’m okay here. I actually thought about this for quite a long time, though. Just some food for thought. I hope you enjoy it. Tootles.

 p.s. I hadn’t planned to answer every Moral Question of the Day that I post. Initially in my mind they were meant to be left open-ended for the reader, but sometimes I can’t resist. We’ll see in later posts if this bad habit continues.

Top 5 Things that Suck About France

Okay, we’ve covered what’s sweet about France thusfar, now let’s take a look at its more shameful (dare I say D’Zmurian?) qualities:

Honorable Mention: Two other teaching assistants told me that I shoud include “French Hobos” in my top 5 list of what sucks about France. I wasn’t sure said hobos merited being selected for my top 5, but they certainly merit being talked about, and they make a nice segue into my number five topic of Dog Poo (perhaps for comic effect I should have made Dog Poo my “number 2″ choice. Anyone? Ok, maybe it’s not that funny). Anyway, French hobos are quite obnoxious sometimes, especially in Le Mans. They tend to gather in clusters in front of supermarkets and places you need to go for everyday living purposes, and then create awkward situations for innocent passers-by when they ask them for money. They drink too much, they smell terrible, and they are probably one of the leading offenders when it comes to the French dog poo problem, because every French homeless person has at least one dog (some have two or three). Where French bums congregate, French dog poo is soon to follow. One such drunken French hobo once tried to sell my friends and me a cheap bottle of French wine, telling us that it was in fact “the blood of Christ”. The experience was simultaneously funny, awkward, and kind of pathetic. The one reason that I can’t put French hobos in my top 5 is that American hobos are so much worse. While French hobos may be drunk, obnoxious, and odiferous, in some ways they are kind of cute. They all have dogs, they seem to enjoy each other’s company, and they never seem to be seriously menacing toward the general public. In my experience, Chicago hobos are definitely more threatening and less pleasant. The first two times I visited Chicago as an unaccompanied suburban high school student, I was somewhat violently confronted by homeless streetwalkers on the prowl for other people’s money. One such man pushed me and my brother and made such violent threats that we paid him $10 apiece just to get him to leave us alone. Thinking back on it, rewarding his violent behavior with money was probably not the proper conditioning step to take, but we were afraid. I have never had an experience like that in France. French hobos may be bothersome, but at least they’re peacefully bothersome.

5) The Dog Poo

For those of you who have been to France, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For those of you who have never been, trust me. It’s everywhere. If you haven’t seen it yet, you probably just stepped in it. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how (well, actually, I’m pretty sure I know how), but people just let their dogs poop wherever and whenever they want to. It’s disgusting. I have not yet made it through a succesfully poo-free semester in France, even with constant vigilance. The majority of my friends who have lived in France have also at some time stepped in this wicked canine befoulment. French people seriously need to learn to clean up after their dogs. Notable exception: In Paris, I actually saw a man pick up after his dog, and I have not noticed the same copious abundance of excrement in the ritzier parts of Paris (they probably move it all to the vingtieme arrondissement or something).

4) The Cheating

Maybe this is just my Puritan/WASP/American side talking, but I can’t help but notice how prevalent cheating is in French society. Prime example: Bill Clinton. French people love that guy like a fat kid loves cake, or like the Polds loves to make up stupid shit. I think they actually love him more because he cheated on his wife. It makes him more like their politicians, who as a forgone conclusion all have numerous mistresses. My french ex-girlfriend told me repeatedly that she wouldn’t break up with me if I cheated on her, which led to me being somewhat disturbed/suspicious that she might cheat on me. An American friend recently told me about a French magazine article she read telling women how to handle their husbands cheating on them and save the relationship. My paraphrase of her paraprhasing of the article: “Love and Marriage are really separate entities. You don’t have to love someone to be married to them, you just need to be committed. Love, passion and excitement can be found elsewhere outside the relationship, but for purposes of financial and family stability, a husband and a wife must stay together, even if they don’t love each other”. A Parisian girl that I met on an airplane told me about a friend in her study abroad group whose girlfriend told him, “Do what you want in Greece, just don’t tell me about it”. He proceeded to do what he wanted with many, many girls. Still not convinced? Read French literature or watch French films. Ok, the family films they export to the States such as “Amelie” and “Les Choristes” don’t count. Trust me, though, it’s there. The Cheating…..so adulterous…..

3) French teenagers

Okay, maybe it’s not healthy for me to think that the age group of students that I teach for a living here in France is one of the three worst things the country has to offer. I can accept that. But they really do suck. Maybe I’m just biased because I’ve been removed from American teenagers for the last 4 years, but I really think that French teenagers in particular have bad attitudes. The situation isn’t helped by what I consider one of the most annoying inventions of all time: the cellphone mp3 player. French teenagers love to get on the bus at 8 in the morning and blast bad French rap music as loudly as their crappy, treble-laden cellphone speakers can play. Other French teenage offenses include god-complexes, disrespect for authority, and constant PDA, which was almost bad enough of a problem itself to make it into the top five (almost). The thing is, no one sets them straight. One day, while riding the bus, some teenagers were waiting at a stop where the bus proceeded to stop for a full 2 minutes. The teenagers made no attempt to board the bus, but as it pulled away, they yelled at the driver, pounded on the side of the bus, and even jumpkicked the door (that’s right, jumpkicked). The driver simply let them on without a stern word. The little bastards have free reign, I tell you.

2) It’s not Denison.

This is kind of a vague category, because it applies to everywhere that isn’t Denison, not just to France, so I was unsure at first where to put it. I think 2 is a fair ranking for it. Honestly, no Chipotle, no Smash Bros., no Jack, no American football on TV, no chili-cornbread parties, no roof of Fellows, no roof of the library, no Brownstones, no black beans, no cheddar cheese, no DRU, no bluegrass, no Raymond Wise, no Ron Santoni, no Nestor Matthews, no easily accessible network of friends who live at most a half-mile away. The list goes on and on. Admittedly, some of these things are found almost anywhere in America, but that makes it doubly unbearable that France wouldn’t have them. Honestly, how is one supposed to live? France doesn’t suck, per se, but it would suck a lot less if it were Denison. That’s all I have to say about that.

1) No one gives a crap about anything.

I know what you’re thinking. How can this be simultaneously one of the best and worst things about France? It’s really a double edged sword, or some other cliche thing that has an upside and a downside. Really, there’s a good and a bad side to everything, but in this case, the effects of no one caring about anything are so extreme that it makes both top five lists. Like I said before, if you’re lazy, or don’t want to be judged for your behavior, France is a great place to be. You can jaywalk, smoke in the presence of conspicuous NO SMOKING signs, pay your rent a month late, be late to work, late to meetings, late to pretty much anything you want (except maybe trains), and it’s okay. No one will yell at you, and you’ll rarely ever face serious consequences. However, people not caring has some pretty significant negative effects as well. My landlord has never asked for my security deposit, but nor has he ever fixed any of the problems that he said he would fix in my appartment when I moved in. There are currently two lights out of four in my hallway that have burned out, and neither have them has been replaced for over a month. Another adverse side effect of the non-caring is that everything takes forever in France. If you show up on time for a meeting, someone will inevitably be late, and you’ll be forced to wait for them. In line at the post office, train station, prefecture, etc., the people at the desks take their time; they don’t care if you’re going to miss your train while waiting to buy the ticket. They don’t care if you’ll won’t be able to leave the country without your carte de sejour. They just know that in France, slow and steady wins the race. The French are the tortoise personified. This brings to light another major problem in France — beaureaucracy. This could be listed as a separate issue, but I feel the two are inexorably linked. See, the major problem with beaureaucracy, be it in a French prefectorate, a US consulate, or even Doane administration, is that you have the feeling that the person sitting behind the desk giving you the run-around has little or no regard for your satisfaction or well-being. The French are masters of this. Their first reaction is always that they can’t help you. Sometimes they can easily help you, and if you persist and point this out to them they come around and will eventually give you what you want. However, two things are always certain when dealing with French beaureaucracy: 1)Whoever is helping you won’t actually be helpful (they will more likely be cold, stubborn, and impolite), and 2) Whatever you want done will definitely take forever. Prime example, my work permit, which will allow me to travel outside France and collect government aid for my housing, required a 15-minute meeting in which I filled out and turned in a few forms, ID photos, etc. This was completed the second week of November, and I am still waiting to receive any notification on the status of said work permit. I went to the front desk of the prefecture to ask what could be causing the delays (they had told me at my meeting I would receive the permit in January), and I was told that there was no possible way to check the status of my permit request without making an appointment, which would take place two and a half weeks later. Now I know who trained the people in Doane. Bastards.

I can’t really say that this rounds out this week’s top 5, due to the negative and inherently un-sweet nature of this week’s top 5, so I’ll suffice it to say that France doesn’t really suck, even though a lot of things here suck. Tootles.

Top 5 things that Rock about France

Thus commences my first top five list. For my first two lists, I have decided to address my favorite and least favorite things about France (which are thus, by virtue of my expertise, “the top 5 greatest and worst things of all time” about France). Let’s begin with the positive:

5) Mass transit

America could really take a lesson from France (and pretty much all of Europe) in this category. I have lived twice in France, once in Nantes, and once in Le Mans, and never have I felt like I needed a car the way I need a car in the States. It’s possible that this difference stems from the fact that I live in the suburbs in the US, while in France I have only lived in (somewhat) major cities. However, have you ever heard of someone backpacking/Eurailing across the United States? I don’t think so. (Admittedly, if you were in America, they would probably have to call Eurailing something else). To travel across the US, you need a car. It’s a fact of life. Not that our highway system doesn’t have its merits; I’m as big of a fan of road trips as anyone. However, in terms of environmental responsibilty, and the ability to get around without owning or renting a multi-thousand dollar piece of machiner, France (and Europe in general) really kick the crap out of America. Nuff said.

4) Being under 25

This is only for people who plan on staying in France for a long time (a few months at least), but it rocks nonetheless, and relates to numbers 1 and 5 on this list as well. Being under the age of 25 rocks in France because it makes everything cheaper for you. Train fare, busfare, library cards, movie fares (if you have a student ID), even rent is cheaper for those of us under this magical age limit. Rent is cheaper, by the way, because you can receive way more government aid for housing (I’ve heard twice as much) when you are younger than 25. Basically, the French government is willing to protect you until you reach the age that they believe you should become responsible, get a real job, etc. It’s pretty sweet.

3) No one gives a crap about anything.

This is another characteristic of France that is probably shared with a great deal of Europe (not so much perhaps in Britain and Germany, definitely in Spain and Italy), but it also just seems to complete the stereotypical image of a French person for me. Can’t you imagine a French man, reading Sartre in a smoky cafe on an overcast afternoon, wearing a beret, cigarette in his mouth, baguette in one hand, smelly cheese in the other hand, thinking slowly and carefully before he emphatically declares, “Au fait, je m’en fous!” Maybe that’s just me. But it is very relaxing to live in a country where no one cares about almost anything. I only work twelve hours a week, but if I show up late for one of those hours, or even unexpectedly need to miss one of those hours with less than a week’s notice, no one cares! I guess I could take that as an insult, that I’m not really that important to the system, etc., but it really is one of the lowest-pressure situations I’ve ever found myself in. Another example of why no one caring is great: In order to secure housing for myself, I had to pick up a great deal of forms for my landlord. These included forms that needed to be signed by someone willing to pay should I default on rent, which in this case was my parents (who live in the United States). I also needed to pay 2 months rent as a security deposit (640 euros that I wasn’t really looking forward to parting with given my poor assistant’s budget). I maybe filled out half of the forms (none of the ones that needed to be signed by my parents), and I never paid the security deposit. You know what happened. Absolutely nothing! I get along fine with my landlord, and I’ve never been asked once about any of the missing forms or the security deposit. I hope that my landlord doesn’t read this (although, given that it’s written in English, I doubt she would understand it anyway).

2) The Food

What can I say? French food is awesome. Even food that you wouldn’t expect to be good, like the cheapest generic brand stuff you can find in the grocery store, is surprisingly high quality. As you might already know, you can get great bread, cheese and wine, for very cheap. What you might not know is that you can also get things such as smoked salmon and other delicacies for not too expensive if you know where to look. Kebabs are also a godsend, but you can get those anywhere in Europe, and I’ll probably talk about them in another post, so I won’t rant too much here. Special mention must be made of all things chocolate that can be found in France (although the best chocolate one can find in France is undeniably Belgian and Swiss, French proximity to these two countries makes these imported chocolates infinitely cheaper than what one finds in the States). I particularly like Brioche with Nutella on it, and the chocolate breakfast cereals one can find here. There is one cereal here, called “Pepites Croustillantes aux 3 Chocolats”, which is essentially chocolate flavored granola garnished with flakes of white, milk, and dark chocolate. I once had a breakfast of hot chocolate, aforementioned delicious chocolate cereal, and toast smothered in Nutella. It was the most undeniably choclate-filled breakfast I’ve ever had in my life. Brilliant.

1) Socialism!

The main reason this is my number one thing that rocks about France is I am very impressed with how well people can live here on a very meager salary. As foreign language assistants, the french government pays us roughly 750 euros a month after taxes. However, all of the assistants that I know here eat pretty well, some travel rather frequently, and while my appartment is a hovel of sorts, I know a fair amount of assistants who have pretty nice places. We all manage to make it work on our meager salary (although some scrape at the end of the month more than others). How do we do this, you say? Well, most of us are under 25, which has the benefits listed above. Also, government aid for housing is amazing. I have not yet received it, but since it pays retroactively, I am looking forward to a pretty large check as soon as my carte de sejour processes. To give you proof of how much this housing aid rocks. The lady at the social security offices, having seen my salary and rent, gave me a quote of how much aid I was to receive. Guess how much it is. 230 euros out of 320 monthly rent! That means once I start receiving aid, I will only be paying 90 euros a month in rent, utilities included. You can’t beat that with a stick. Plus, even though assistants are all immigrants, we are all covered under French social security, which means our healthcare is provided by the government. I have not yet had to use this, but at least two of the assistants I know have been to the doctor here, and while they have copays, it’s kind of like having free health insurance provided by the government. France has gotta be one of the best places to be a poor person in the world. I love it.

Honorable Mention: Aram’s sister. I know she doesn’t live in France (it is for this reason that she did not make it into the official top five), but if she did live in France, that would rock. She would rock France’s world. Man, Aram’s sister is hot.

Ok, that pretty much rounds out my first top 5. There will hopefully be many more to come. Have a great day.

It Begins

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Curtis Plowgian. I am currently a foreign language assistant living in Le Mans, France. I work 12 hours a week, so I need something to help fill my time. This first post is to lay out plans for what this blog will hopefully become, to let you know the format, etc. Now, you may have noticed that the title of said blog is “Curtis’s Top Fives”. That being said, I would hope you can imagine what the general format of the blog is going to be, but to further clarify, here are some general predictions:

-The majority of posts will consist of me ranking things according to my own personal preference, and then justifying these rankings using my own expert opinion. It may seem like this idea is a blatant rip off of the playful banter between Jon Cusack and Jack Black in “High Fidelity”, but I was thinking more of a tribute to espn commentators, and their eternal propensity to place everything in the context of “greatest of all time”. For example, when the Colts beat the Patriots in the AFC championship this week, there was an article on espn.com calling the game the “2nd greatest playoff game of all time”, with an accompanying list of the top 10 greatest NFL playoff games in the Super Bowl era. So, for all intents and purposes, any of my top 5’s are ranking, for their respective categories, the “greatest of all time”. I will take what I like to call the “Jon Greene approach”, asserting expertise and authority in all subjects about which I speak, but of course all lists are chosen somewhat arbitrarily and are subject to change.

This leads me to another important point. I have no idea how many people are going to read this blog, and among the readers how many of them are actually going to care. That being said, I want everyone to feel free to post comments disputing my ranking systems. I like to think I have a somewhat open mind, and if someone were to right a convincing argument about why my rankings are mistaken, I will certainly be willing to make changes and concessions. For example, if I were to write that Ron Santoni is the best professor of all time, I would certainly be willing to entertain arguments that Nestor Matthews is in fact a superior professor, or Dave Hawkins (although I never had Dave Hawkins, so that would be a tough sell).

tentative top 5 lists to come:

-Things that rock/suck about France

-Things that rock/suck about the U.S.

- NFL Quarterbacks

- French Snack Foods

- Snack Foods (all countries)

- Cheeses

- Red Scout Running Gags

- NBA Players

- Dog Breeds

- Dogs (individual)

- Possible Harry Potter Endings

and so on. I have many more, but for space sake I will not write them here. If you have any suggestions for new topics or things you would like me to rank, feel free to send them my way. Please, do not take the liberty of ranking them yourself before you send me the ideas, that would be selfish, pompous and unnecessary.

- There will likely be other posts interspersed when I feel like it, which may or may not include: a) Moral Question of the Day, b) Rants about whatever I feel like talking about, and c) Observations about moving through space, and/or “feeling feelings”.

So here we go! I look forward to what appears to be a fabulous, scintillating experience for everyone involved. Tootles.