Moving sensor light

I understand that technology is a good thing. That technology improves our lives, etc.
But I hate the invention of the lights that switch on and off according to movements. Yes, they are great, they help in saving energy. But the point is that if you don't move, they switch off. It doesn't matter if you are there doing something. You don't move, so there is no need for a light.

This is generally annoying. But it gets even more annoying when it happens while you are in the bathroom to do something that generally does not require a lot of movement. So, I am there, doing my things and puff, the light goes off because I don't move and suddenly it is all dark.....I don't know who had the brilliant idea to put these things in toilet rooms, but I really find it very impractical!

Emotionally unavailable men

I am 36 and even if I do not have large experience when it comes to relationships and men, I can say that I have a bit of experience on this subject and that my experience is based on a sample size coming from many different parts of the world.
I had few very important relationships in my life. Two with someone from Italy, one with someone from Holland and one with someone from the USA. Plus, I base what I am about to write also on the experience of my girlfriends and sister.

Where are all the men/men gone? I am not talking about the dominant, bossy men, of course.
I am talking about men we could rely on and build something with, without them having a crisis and leaving us, without them not knowing what they really want, without them not being able to decide when it comes to important matters, without them not being able to distinguish between deep love and infatuation.

Of the four important relationship I mentioned before, three of them were with very good, incredible men. And I loved all of them very deeply, even if in a different way. I am someone for whom freedom is one very important value in life. I am someone who not easily gets into a relationship. I am someone who doesn't easily fall in love, and even less is willing to commit. I am complicated and I am very independent. I understand that I am not the ideal "couple" person. But when I am in a relationship, I am 100% in there. And I try, even if I don't always succeed, to work my issues with the other person.

What I am coming to realize lately is that most men I have met, my sister have met, my girlfriends have met are emotionally immature and when it comes to relationships they have no idea of what exactly that means......I think that "us", women, we are more aware of how we feel for someone and what we would like to have with this person. Them...I am not sure. They can love you very much and still not being aware of that or still feel that "it should be different" or still have many doubts on what being together means. I have met a lot of men who are afraid of feelings and strong feelings. And it didn't just happen to me.

I wonder what it is the right strategy to deal with these men. I am not the kind of person who would convince them to be with me or on how they feel for me. I can't be in their minds and know how they feel. And I have too much self-respect to be with someone who is not sure if he wants to be with me or what he wants. But I keep finding myself being asked to invest more than them, running the relationship not as a team but as a carrier, me being sure of what I want and them not being so sure about me/us (and they never know why that). This till the moment the relationship is over and then they suddenly realize that they can't live without me or they want me back. By that time, I am almost always saturated of their insecurities and I am never fully able to trust them that they got emotionally "more mature". I am also very very tired to feel the psychotherapist of every man I am with....because they all have issues......

I have issues too!!! a lot of them, believe me!!!!

But the thing is...if I have issues (or my sister or any of my girlfriends) is "us" being too demanding, irrational, putting pressure on them (men love this!!!!), & company. If they have issues, we have to understand. Or anyway we end up trying to understand because we love them. We have this sick spirit of saving the world.

I admit that I am very good in making relationships difficult and probably most of the women when they love someone feel very insecure (well, me for sure!) that the person they love may leave them. But the thing is. It is many many years that I am having distance relationships (which honestly suck!!!!) and for sure I wouldn't know from where to start if I would have again a "normal"/ in the same place relationship, but I often end up with the feeling of running away from a relationship and just think about myself in a very selfish way because I am sick of the situation and the fact that all the guys I have been with ended up not knowing what they wanted from me and with me.

So, what I got to wonder is: does it exist out there a man who is man enough to know what he wants from the person he is with and honest enough to admit it to himself and tell her? And how come most of my girlfriends, my sister and I keep meeting men who are sentimentally totally immature?

Thanks god there is Sex and the City

I just had an horrible day today.

Last night I worked till 2.30am on a presentation for this morning. The presentation is for a job interview. I expressively made it quite general, so that people could help me to address the points on which to focus more or less.

I woke up at 9 (so I didn't even sleep 8 hours....and I am someone who needs to sleep a lot) and my day went: first work meeting at 1.30pm, second work meeting at 2pm (very intense meeting that ended at 3.40pm), my presentation's trial at 4pm.

The first comment was that my presentation was bad.
Just like that.
Nothing less, nothing more.

This is a bad presentation. Sweet!

Second comment. This presentation is too general, it doesn't say anything...and from there on, it didn't improve at all. Beside, as I have never worked in a French system till recently or studied here, I don't clearly fit in one of the categories in which you need to fit when you apply to a job. I tried to fit my experiences to these categories and it turned out that:

a) I didn't do a good job, as I clearly misinterpreted some of the categories and
b) consequence of the above is that it looks like I lied in my job application....which of course, it doesn't look so good....
c) obviously the jury will ask me why this discrepancy between my application documents and what I actually did
d)....I will need to explain how little I understood of the French University system....which of course, doesn't look good again.

The presentation ended up with one of the people there asking me if I really wanted the job and another one asking me why I applied to it when there are people out there who would really strongly wanted it.

I would say that it was a success!

I literally felt like shit. Nothing less.

I came back home, crawled on the couch, stayed motionless with a blank mind for I don't know how long, then cooked something, ate and finally decided to watch again for the billion time the first season of Sex and the City (while I look forward to the new movie), while doing some exercise....and I finally started to relax a bit.

Such a crappy day, saved at the end by Sex and the City and some good phone calls by people who love me no matter if I fit or not the French system (but I would need to find a permanent job soon or later).

PS. Top of the day...my famous tooth still hurts (and I think my dentist doesn't know anymore what to do with it)!

Like an old lady

France, evening

My dinner tonight has been boiled vegetables with some melted cheese. The vegetables were over-boiled so that I could smash them well. Still, it took me more than an hour to eat my dinner, having to stop every few minutes in pain and to put a small piece of cotton back in the right place.

I have no idea how many small pieces of cotton I ate in the last days.
It is not even biological cotton.

But let me go back to where all began.
Last week I started to have tooth pain. I didn't give any consideration to it, till after two days the pain was so strong that I couldn't eat without feeling a sharp pain. I saw a dentist who said that I had an infection in one tooth. The conversation went more or less like that:

-Him: This tooth has been devitalized.
-Me: Yes. In Germany, a few years ago. I had a long surgery to the nerve and the bone around the nerve because there was an infection.
- Him: ah, the Germans.....they never clean the infections!
- Me: I think they did. The surgery lasted quite longtime and I never had any problem after that.
- Him: until now.
- Me: until now, yes. But this happened in 2004, so almost 6 years ago. If the infection was still there, it would have bothered me earlier.
- Him: the Germans are the only ones who never think about cleaning the infection in the tooth too.
- Me: whatever. Can we do something for it?
- Him: sure. Let me make a hole in the tooth, till the bone, so that the anaerobic bacteria will die. If you get fever or your cheek starts to swell, then get an anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic. Otherwise, we meet in a week from now. If you eat, put some small piece of cotton to close the hole in the tooth and remove it after eating.

This is how it went. So, the Germans, who based on my experience are careful in anything they do, turned out according to my dentist to be much less careful than the French........OF COURSE!!! For a moment I forgot the French Dogma:

FRENCH ALWAYS DO IT BETTER!

Even when it comes to dentist, apparently.

Anyway. Have you ever tried to eat with a piece of cotton in one of your teeth? it keeps falling. And if you are like me, by the end of the meal you probably ingested at least two or three pieces of cotton. All this (putting the cotton in the hole in your tooth and putting the cotton back when after a few seconds after you started to eat it falls out of place) is especially unpleasant when you are eating with other people. Of course, my social life is generally flat, but exactly in this moment, I had plenty of invitations for dinners and lunches.
I have to admit that I felt quite embarrassed.
But no fever or swollen cheek.

Things were starting to get better and I was already dreaming of being able to eat properly again and being able to bite things without needing a cotton replacement every few seconds, when today I felt a strong pain again in my tooth and in my head too. Fortunately, the super-French dentist received me at the end of the afternoon.
He did something to fix the problem and when I almost vomited for the disgusting thing that he put in my mouth he said:

-There is nothing better than injecting some bleach into the place where the infection is.

-Me: did you say bleach? In my mouth? so is this thing that I am swallowing now with my saliva a bleach.......????

-Him: Everyone cures infections like that. Of course, not the Germans.

Right....not the Germans......and maybe there is a reason for that.....Now I am going to have a very white throat, teeth (that would be nice), and stomach. Lovely!

Anyway, back to long lasting dinners with soft food and a lot of cotton pieces digested. Plus, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory. French, Germans.....I don't really care who is doing things better at this point....

CAN JUST THIS INFECTION GO AWAY SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO FEEL LIKE AN OLD LADY ALREADY?????

Fortunately, I love completely destroyed/wet cookies in my tea or coffee....that is perfect now (I can see the faces of at least two people who were going like "uhhhh, disgusting!" every time they would see me doing that :-))

PS. While looking for images of old ladies on google, I got on the blog from where I took the image that you can see with this post. Check out this blog. It has a lot of very nice sketches.

Hunting and being hunt

France, evening

Les Assassins, the killers, started last night at midnight. Two girls of my team have already been killed. None of the other team (men) has been killed...yet....

Well, I have been out hunting this evening. The plan was perfect. I was with a girl of my team. The location was perfect. We had a partner to help us knowing the movements of this guy of the other team....so, we sat in our hiding place and we waited. My hiding place was one of these small plastic houses for kids. I am small, so I could fit in there. My team-mate was hiding at the bottom of some stairs. It was freezing cold outside (and in the plastic house too) and very very humid....but it didn't matter so much, we were on a hunting territory, completely equipped with our water guns and ready to run if necessary to hunt down the enemy.

The truth is:
a) Being in a place without moving and without making noise is not in my DNA....I have to move...and when you are in a small kid house is not that easy....

b) I am just too clumsy and I shouldn't put myself in hiding place which would require a minimum of agility to get out quickly.

After an hour and half waiting in the cold, I got to think that maybe there was a secrete exit from where this guy escaped....but no, here he was.....I was ready. I was ready. I was ready....Adrenalin running....gun in my hand.....more than ready....I let him stepping a but further, so that I could get him from the back....3-2-1......GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

What happened? To get out of the small kid house, I hit with one of my foot the door of the house, I tried to not fall on my face, stepping a bit ahead and making a lot of noise, the guy heard me and escaped running, I tried not to fall, I lost my glasses and I got smashed on the floor....

This is the diary of my first hunting experience in this game...very successful....too bad nobody was there filming...I am sure that the whole scene would have been very funny to see....

PS. It could even be that after this very intense experience tomorrow my team-mate and me are going to be sick due to the hour and half spent in the cold without moving that much.....

Science and being an escort

France, evening

First, escort sounds much nicer than a prostitute....even if at the end the job is the same....
Second, everyone working in an academic environment knows how difficult is to find the money to keep doing research, especially if this research does not have or give an immediate profit to someone and does not have an economic value.
Third, I thought myself over this summer that if I wouldn't have found another contract, I would have looked for a job in a disco or pub or a dancing place....which of course it is very different than being an escort, but it also gives you much less money.....
So, I just read on the newscientist the story of a girl with a PhD who to keep working on what she liked and it was her passion (she reminds me of someone) decided to work as an escort...at the end you have to live out of something, pay the rent etc......
I admire her gut...I mean not every men you would meet as an escort would turn out to be Richard Gere, right?

The giant moth

France, night

I like animals. I love animals, actually. Well, of course, not all of them. But most of them.
A giant super-sized moth flu into my apartment tonight. I was on my couch, getting in the mood of going to bed when I started to hear this sound like if an electric plane was flying in my apartment.
It wasn't an electric plane, it was an undescribed object of unclear origin.

After visualizing myself sleeping with that object falling on me during my deep sleep, I decided to declare a war to it. Uncaring of the freezing cold, I opened all the windows and the door hoping that it would flu away. Of course, it didn't. It was warm inside the apartment, cozy, with some light and a nice atmosphere. I truly strongly hoped that a super-sized gecko would walk into my apartment too and eat that. But it is definitively too cold for geckos now.

So, it was just me and the monster. A quite beautiful monster to be honest. But a beautiful giant monster that I didn't want to have flying around my head while sleeping. I got the broom and started to run around following the animal....without success, except making it flying much faster and in a much more in a crazy random way, and making myself having some healthy gymnastic.

It got also very close to hit my cup of tea in the crazy ran. I couldn't tolerate the possible vision of the beautiful giant swimming in my tea. So, I got a couple of neurons in my brain to work and I switched on the lights closer to one the window. And then, like if I was playing baseball and getting warm with my bat, I directed the monster toward the window. Instead of flying, the tired animal decided to just sit on the broom....which worked out anyway for me, as I deposited it outside my apartment.

Now, I changed my cup of tea (you never know what it dropped in it). I will sip a bit of that and hopefully have a restful night of good sleep!

Did you forget your t-shirt?

France, morning

I am glad that it is getting a bit colder now. Not because I don't like the summer and the sun. On the contrary. But French men have this disturbing habit of going around without any t-shirt or shirt, as soon as the temperature increases a bit. They even prefer to have a bit of goose bumps because it is not yet that warm, than wearing something.

I would understand if these same men would not wear the shirt to do some hard work, but not. They just walk around, drive the car, etc. without it. I am not a nun, but still, I don't like it. Is it that much hotter with a thin t-shirt on? how can then men in other countries, where it is even warmer than here, survive with a t-shirt on? or is it just that these men like to show their bodies...and the thing being that not only the ones with a nice body and the six-pack abdominals are going around without t-shirt.....because, it may sound a bit racist, but at least, even if I still wouldn't like it, it would not that of an horrible thing to give a look at. No, just every man who feels like op! takes the t-shirt off and goes around without it. The ones with the big bellies, the ones with a lot of hairs everywhere, the good looking ones, the ones with tattoos everywhere. Just anyone who feels like.

So, now I guess that you can understand a bit better why I am glad that it is getting a bit colder.
I had more than enough of seeing men upper bodies walking around the streets for this summer.

I love gadgets

France, morning

I am going to work with my new skate. I love it. I got it for my birthday. Don't say, don't even think that these kind of things are for kids, that I am too old for that, etc. etc. I am never too old for these kind of gadgets. They just make me happy.

It is super-cool and even if I am not that good yet to be able to jump and do a lot of different tricks, I enjoy very much just to ride it here and there. Of course, I don't use the helmet. I can't tolerate the helmet. You think that I should have learned something from all the times I badly fall from the bike and hit my head against the ground (and twice I got a head concussion too). You may think that for someone like me, for whom the brain is extremely important for my work, I should be more protective toward it....but not....I feel too cool to drive my skate around with my hair flying in the wind (well, I am not going that fast, but anyway, the image looks good), all smiley.

The only small problem so far is that I didn't consider 1) how much energy you have to use with this gadget and 2) how out of shape I am.....so, after a bit I have to stop, catch some breath and start again. It also happened that it was so much work, that one day I got to work so sweaty that it looked like I just ran some marathon.....very charming.....

But it doesn't matter, riding this gadget makes my day....

What can I say? I am just an old kid! I love toys. A few Christmas ago I also got as a present a balance board....for me it is another perfect therapy for when I have my down moments. Get there, try to balance without falling and I have no time to think about anything else than that!!! it works perfectly for me....

Now, I have to run to work with my skate. Bye. Swooooooooooooooooooosh (this is the noise of me running away with the skate :-) )

The best excuses for not needing to shower

France, night

A lot of people seem to arrive on my blog typing "why French don't shower" and then they end up on my post.

Because we are now in the best season to fully appreciate the mixture of natural body odors of whom doesn't shower since days, I decided to list here the best excuses I heard for not showering (and not only from the French):

1) (Currently very common) It is hot outside, so if I shower and go out I will sweat again. I may just not shower till I don't need to go out.

2) (following the previous one) I stay at home, I don't need to shower.

3) (for the winter) It is cold outside, I don't sweat, so I don't need to shower.

4) (the ecologist) Water is a resource to not be wasted. I like to think that if I don't shower, I will help the planet. (this excuse was particularly disappointing as I heard it from a very cute German guy....who unfortunately stank like a goat!)

5) (the self-convinced) I don't sweat. Taking one shower a week is enough for me. The rest of the days I just use deodorant/perfume.

6) (the scientist) Body odors are part of us. They are natural. Humans are the only ones in the animal kingdom who try to cover body odors with artificial things.

7) (for the night people) I like to shower in the morning, it helps me to wake up. Unfortunately, I am always running late, so I don't have enough time to shower most of the days.

8) (for the morning people) I like to shower before bed, so I go to bed clean. Unfortunately, often it is so late by the time that I go to bed, that I just don't shower.

9) (reason for not loving to shower suggested by Nicole in the comment to this post) Not being a big shower-fan because after we have to do the hair.

These are the best excuses for not showering that came up to my mind just now. I will update this post if I will hear or remember new excuses. If you know any good one, please let me know!

I thought of this topic for my night post, as today in France it is the "fete de la musique" day. Basically a day of the music. Very cool. But also an occasion to come very close to a lot of very smelly people.

symptoms

France, night

The most frequent question I heard since friday is: are you pregnant?

I am not pregnant and I didn't gain weight enough to have something like the belly of a pregnant woman. It just seems that whatever person or doctor I talk to, as soon as I say that I have a nausea as soon as I put something in my mouth, the first thing they got to think is that I am pregnant.
Compared to a possible pregnancy, the possibility of having an arsenic intoxication is not interesting enough, so since friday I am begging the doctors I saw to prescribe me the test to confirm or not the intoxication. After the pregnancy, the question I got at the toxicology lab here has been: - did you by any chance eat or drink arsenic?
- No, I didn't.
- Ok, so no reason to get a test.

Except the fact that I have been exposed for a month to arsenic, for at least 5 hours a day. The fact that I developed some symptoms that could be a lot of things, including arsenic poisoning and the fact that I still don't feel well.

I have a bad relationship with physicians. The thing is, I am not going to take medications if I don't need them. If I have something that goes on since quite some time and it is not clear what I have, before bombarding me with random general medicaments, I still believe that it would be better to just run some test and see what I may or may not have. In these days I got prescribed any kind of medicament for stomach problem (which didn't improve anything anyway), some homeopathic stuff to "clean" my organism (which I didn't take it because I don't believe that anything homeopathic is anything different than a placebo), sulfur (which seems to help in case of arsenic intoxication), and nothing more just because I was firmly opposed to get anything else.

At the end, this morning I got the blood test and I brought it to the toxicology lab (at the lab they don't take any sample...you have to get the blood or urine sample somewhere else and then bring those to them)...A normal question for me was to ask when they think the results will be ready. The answer has been: - we don't know.
- you don't know?!? are we talking about a few days or a week?
- it may be longer than a week, this friday is holidays, then we have to mail the results to you and you know, next friday is holidays too.
I should have taken a picture of my face, as I stared at him with my mouth wide open before to ask him: - so, it could be that I don't get any result before 10-15 days, right? can I call or come here to get the results without having to wait to get them in my mail box?
Him: - We will mail them to you. I am not the person in charge of this, he is on a meeting. This is his phone number. Try to call him later.
Me: - How later?
Him: -30 minutes, 1 hour.

I called multiple times during the entire day. None answered. I called the person with whom I spoke this morning
Him: - ah yeah, he is still in a meeting. Call him between 5.30-7.00 pm today.
I did. None answered of course. Not only I don't know when to expect the results, but I was not even able to know how sensitive are the tests that they run.

This is the problem. I don't have anything evidently extremely urgent. I am not pregnant. So, I am a totally non-interesting medical case. Thus, none pays any attention to me. I called my general doctor back this evening. She was not there. I left a message. Basically, the general strategy of whatever physicien, wherever you are (except in Holland I have to say), it is to fill you with any kind of possible multifunction medicaments to just hope that the symptoms will disappear, as most of the time they have no clue of what it is going on.......
Isn't this nice?

PS. I am pretty sure I don't have a swine flu. I don't have any flu-like symptoms.

communication problems

France, afternoon

I just got a phone call, in French. This is how it went. I have to say that even if I can understand and speak French, doing that on the phone, especially when my mind is somewhere else, can create some problems.....

Phone ringing (I will report here the translation of the conversation):
- Woman: Hi, is it Madame XXX?
- Me: Yes
- Woman: I am calling you because you left your number to XXXXX (noise, so I didn't hear why they got my number, but as I was waiting for a phone call from my general doctor, I thought that it was her speaking)
- Me: Ah, yes, yes. I called you to know if you could give me the name of a specialist in this and that speaking English
- Woman: I am sorry, can you repeat please? I am not sure I understood well.
- Me: I would like to know if you could give me the name of a specialist who speaks English
- Woman: sorry, we don't do this service.
- Me: You don't? I thought that as a general doctor you may have some contacts and could suggest me a specialist.
- Woman: No, but maybe you can find this info on internet.
- Me: Ok, thanks. I will try.
- Woman: In any case, I am calling you because we got your order XXXX tattoo (noise before the word tattoo).
- Me: my what?
- Woman: xxxx tattoo (noise again)
- Me: I don't have tattoo...I am sure I didn't order one.
- Woman: Are you Madame XXXX?
- Me: Yes
- Woman: You ordered the Larsson book. The first book of the Millennium Trilogy in English. Do you remember? you ordered a week ago.
- Me: Sorry, with whom exactly am I speaking?
- Women: English book store.
- Me: so, I guess you are not my doctor......
- Woman: No.
- Me: I am so sorry...I was waiting for a call from my doctor to get the name of a specialist and I was not thinking about the book, so I got really confused.
- Woman (clearly embarrassed, as I told her a couple of things about my medical history during the conversation and for sure she was thinking that yes, I would need to see a specialist, for sure a psychologist and a good one!!!): No worries (but she sounded clearly worried)....so do you still want the book?
- Me: of course, of course. Till what time are you open today?
- Woman: 7pm.
- Me: Ok, thank you, thank you and sorry for the confusion.

I am sure that now she is laughing about this with her colleagues..I am feeling so ashamed.... :-( such a ridicolos conversation.....
But I got the book.

underwear at the gym

France, evening

There is one thing that I don't get of the gyms here...and I write gyms because I visited two different ones and both had this thing. The showers and the bathroom are in common between men and women. The gym where I go is kind of fancy, but still has this little peculiar thing. So, you see someone taking a shower naked, no matter if there are people of the other sex showering next to him/her and you see the majority of the others taking a shower in swimming suite. Is that normal? I have been to gyms in a lot of places around the world, but I never saw this.

The changing rooms are separated, but at the end people leave the door always open, because who cares if someone see the other, the shower are together anyway.....fortunately I live close by, so I take the shower at home.....but it is weird.
Beside this, today I experienced another weirdness. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I walked there and I saw a man underwear on the sink. So, my thought was ok, someone forgot it and he will come and get it, so I wait before to get in the bathroom. 1, 2, 3....5 minutes, none. So, I needed to use the bathroom and as the others were occupied, I used that one. I have to admit that I felt a bit uncomfortable. I peed in a rush thinking of the poor man who forgot his underwear maybe standing outside. Nope. Nothing. 45 minutes later, when I came back after finishing my exercises, no man and still the same underwear on the sink.

....so, I wonder, did the man go home without his underwear? didn't he realize that something was missing???....

The French shower

Till few weeks ago I had no idea of what a French shower is and my only experience on French shower is that the showers here are really small. And that's about it. Once Scott told me that he thought that in Europe people don't shower enough and they are on average dirtier than Americans. Of course, being European and not being able to start my day without a shower, I took that as an offense. Beside, I have been living in a lot of different European countries, I have a lot of European friends, my ex boyfriends are both European and so I thought that his judge was highly biased by the few Europeans he knows.

Of course, you can always find the stinky European, but you can also find a stinky American, right? Then, I have been traveling around for conferences in the past two weeks and I met a lot of Europeans and I have to say, taking a shower was on average not the main priority of each day.

I guess I have been really lucky to live till now in countries where people normally shower every day and have friends and boyfriends who change their shirt every day, they shower regularly and they are clean. But honestly, after living in France I started to have some doubt about how many times in a week French shower. Of course, probably I am generalizing, but you know, I am not that politically correct and yes, I think that French, at least the majority of the ones I met, don't shower enough, don't change their clothing and they don't care if they smell a lot or not. They make up a lot, sure, but shower is another thing.

Someone could tell me that this is more natural, that in this way you can smell better each other pheromones (a bit of science here), so you can attract more possible partners and so on. Beside the fact that someone who stinks wouldn't attract me (but not everyone fortunately is like me), the reason why perfumes have been invented is exactly to attract others.
French are not alone anyway. I found out that also Italians (I know, it can't possibly be, but it is painfully true) are not among the cleanest European. I would like to make a statistics, but based on my observations I would guess that men change their t-shirt or shirt every two days (in winter even after 3 days?) and they shower every second day. Women in Italy are much better. Outside in any case everyone looks good and wears perfume.

A general opinion is that if you don't see or feel the sweat, you don't transpire and thus you don't sweat and thus you don't smell.

Swiss are bad too. You see all the Swiss really elegant, going in and out of banks, looking important and then you find out (well, you smell it) that beside the appearance, they don't shower that much either. Then welcome to Portugal, the winner! I guess that maybe there they sweat so much, that it was a common decision to save water and resources and then to not take a shower more than once a week, not do the laundry more than once a month and wear the same clothing for multiple days in a row till they can stand alone.

I have to admit that my sample' size is not that big, that no statistician would accept my results and that I am sure I forgot some country (where I haven't been or I haven't meet anyone from or they just didn't smell). I will be happy to read other people experience about that.
I have anyway a question, are seriously Americans on average, of all the big and large America, so clean to shower and change their clothing every day?

PS. The French shower for the ones who don't know yet, it is when you don't shower and just pretend to be clean wearing a lot of perfume.

The American dating

Il dating americano, ovvero l'appuntamento, l'uscita, e' una cosa su cui ancora dopo un anno in America mi ritrovo a parlare con le mie amiche italiane o europee. Da noi se uno ti invita fuori significa che e' interessato a te (ok, a meno che non rientri nella categoria bastardo, a cui purtroppo appartengono molti esseri di genere maschile), che vuole conoscerti meglio, che insomma se c'e' un po' di intesa a questa prima uscita ne seguiranno altre...Insomma, c'e' tutta una dinamica legata alla prima uscita, il cosa mettersi, il dove andare, insomma, tutto un mondo. Soprattutto se la persona in questione ti interessa. C'e' l'aspettativa, la tensione. E' bello, ti fa sentire nervosa e viva al tempo stesso e non importa che tu abbia 15, 30 o 50 anni. Vale lo stesso.
Chiaro, c'e' sempre quello che vuole divertirsi, ci sono sempre le eccezioni...ma qui in America, le eccezioni sono considerate quelle che per noi in Europa sono la normalita'. Da qui le cocenti delusioni ed i problemi relativi al dating in America. Secondo me quando vieni a lavorare in America, insieme a tutti i librettini con le istruzioni che vengono dati nelle varie Universita', dovrebbero allegare anche un manuale di istruzione per il dating.
Fondamentalmente il dating americano consiste in questo: esci con piu' persone possibili, cerca di conscerne il piu' possibile fra quelle che suscitano il tuo interesse (e conoscere intendo in tutti i sensi, dal piu' platonico al piu' carnale) e poi quando fra tutte quelle con cui esci realizzi che nel mucchio c'e' una per cui vale la pena fermarsi, le fai un discorsino e le dici che da allora in poi dal dating si passa alle cose serie, ovvero engagement (fidanzamento). Tutto questo con tempi piu' o meno lunghi. Tutto andrebbe bene se questa fosse la prassi e fosse chiara a tutti. Invece ogni 3 per 2 una delle mie amiche qui si sente cornificata ed a poco serve che il tizio di turno spieghi che questo e' il dating americano e che loro da mesi si stavano solo conoscendo, come lui stava facendo anche con altre 2 o 3 persone. Tutto sta nelle fatidiche paroline che da noi in Italia si dicevano fra i 12 ed i 16 anni (dipende a che eta' uno inziava) e suonavano come "ti metti con me?" o qualcosa del genere. Qui fino a che uno non ti dice chiaramente e senza mezzi termini che sta con te e ci sei solo te, tutto il resto non conta, neanche se ti parla di una casa insieme, di un futuro insieme, ecc. Lui sta solo studiando le tue reazioni, e questo e' legittimo, fa parte del dating. C'e' poco da piangerci dopo. Ma ce lo dovrebbero spiegare come mettiamo piede in questo paese come funzionano gli appuntamenti qui. Ma se dalle mie parti un tempo dicevano "moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi", probabilmente un motivo c'era no?

Vive la France

Italy, mattina

Sono appena rientrata da Montpellier. Bellina, bellina. Una cittadina universitaria con tanto di classici caffe' francesi con i tavolini (e le sedie) fuori, piazze brulicanti di persone, sole, verde, croissants francesi buonissimi, baguettes portate sotto il braccio. Tutto veramente francese. Compresi i francesi, nel bene e nel male, razza a parte rispetto al resto d'Europa. Loro, i francesi, sono fieri di essere francesi. Per tutto. E non fanno niente per nasconderlo. Per questo ce l'hanno cosi' tanto con gli Americani e viceversa (direi di piu' il viceversa). Perche' sono uguali. Nazionalisti all'estremo. Tutto nei loro rispettivi paesi e' migliore.
A me in American hanno detto che la pizza Americana e' piu' buona di quella Italiana e che la pizza e' stata inventata a New Haven, nel Connecticut. Ora, se e' vero che la pizza a New Haven e' molto buona, e' vero anche che probabilmente non l'hanno inventata loro...anche se mi sembra che sulla pizza ci sia una disputa infinita, visto che un Messicano una volta mi disse che la pizza, la vera pizza originale, era messicana.....mah.....la famosa pizza messicana.....mai sentita....
Comunque....la Francia. A me sinceramente piace. Devo ancora provare a viverci e provare la convivenza diaria con i francesi, ma l'atmosfera mi piace. Devo ancora capire pero' una cosa. Perche' le ragazze francesi hanno quel je ne sais pas quoi......ce l'hanno, e' innegabile. Sara' perche' se la tirano, sara' perche' hanno la faccia sempre imbronciata, pero' e' vero...le ragazze francesi sono tipiche. Io le ho studiate, sul tram in questi giorni, all'Universita', per la strada...anche in questo le ragazze francesi sono francesi...mettono una cosina che pare qualsiasi, una cosina buttata li' e bum....hanno quel certo non so che. A me non riesce. Non che non ci abbia provato...ma proprio non mi viene....Provo a fare le facce davanti allo specchio, provo l'aria imbronciata, ma niente...risultato misero e quasi ridicolo. Provo a truccarmi ed a farmi gli occhi da cerbiatta alla francese, ma neanche quello viene come a loro. Mi butto due cosette addosso ed io sono sportiva, loro fashion....Ora mi chiedo, e' tutta una questione genetica? della serie, se non nasci francese ti puoi sforzare quanto vuoi che tanto non ti verra' mai bene come a loro? o e' solo questione di pratica? Aspetto di riuscire a vivere per un paio di anni in Francia per scoprirlo.
Intanto per fortuna in America la fashionist sono io (in America essere fashion non e' difficile, basta non avere jeans, felpa con il cappuccio e flip flop ed una e' subito fashion!), ma devo ammettere che l'essere italiana e toscana in particolare aiuta. Come dire, se lo fai lei, essendo italiana, deve essere fashion per forza :-)