American Rhapsody

Things I've Done This Week — 2

Krazy Kitty — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:14:00 +0100

Music Gave three concerts with my orchestra, each one better than the previous one. Thankfully, as venues were steeply increasing in prestige. The last concert was pretty good, in spite of the conductor almost starting off with the wrong piece at some point my instrument being so out of tune that I feared it would never stayed tune during the concert (it more or less did). Could have been better, but it was tremendous fun and my friends were still bright-eyed afterwards, so whatever.

Travels More or less decided on dates for a trip to Roma with la mia mamma. I'm ridiculously excited, as always.

Beverages Had an insane conversation about beers with German colleagues. Unfortunately didn't understand half of it and forgot the other half, but man was that long and complex. I still picked a bottle of Augustiner at the end. Also had somewhere around my volume equivalent of tea, to fight off both the cold weather and my increasing frustration.

Cooking Carrot-ginger soup with bitter orange peel. Apple Jewish cake.

Fashion Got slightly offended at colleagues remarking on the elegance of my all-black concert attire. "Wait, are you wearing eye make-up? It's nice." wins sentence of the week. Embarked on a whole lot of layering (stockings + socks + leg warmers, undershirt + shirt + sweater). Despaired at the blackness of my warmest coat (in spite of the orange scarf and hat I'm pairing it with).

Work Got insanely pissed off at some people's way of sloppily approaching science and wasting my time at the same occasion. Got even more pissed off it took me so long to realize said people were wasting my time. Prepared for my first lecture ever, mostly by screaming insanities at the slides that were helpfully provided by the person I'm covering for. And by helpfully provided I mean that next time you want me to cover a lecture for you please just provide me with a list of objectives and keep your slides to yourself unless they're self-sufficient and easy on the retina.

Things I've Done This Week

Krazy Kitty — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:50:00 +0100

Fashion
Purchased a black dress shirt and a pair of black dress shoes to wear at ~~a funeral~~ our three upcoming orchestra concerts. Lost the will to live as I surveyed the racks of ill-cut, over-priced, or badly designed garments (quite often all at once), almost happy to notice that most of them didn't come in my size anyway. Subsequently cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed in said shoes to break them in~~to submission~~.

Music
Listened to Soulsaver's It's Not How Far You Fall, It's the Way You Land on repeat, having rediscovered how beautiful the sound is on a stereo system as compared to compressed music played through cheap headphones or portable speakers.

Practiced my viola a couple times on top of the weekly orchestra rehearsal.

Social Life
Went for drinks with a guy on a Wednesday night. It was not a date as I had mentioned several times beforehand that I would bring a friend and invited other people to join. Other people failed to join and according to one of them and to the friend who did come, the guy is hitting on me.

Went to see The Artist on Saturday evening and for drinks afterwards. It was definitely not a date — and I would never have wondered about it if not for the earlier confusion. Loved the movie, which I found cleverly done and very well acted out and was remembered I stopped drinking sex-on-the-beaches because they're too sweet. Ugh.

Failed to attend a Sunday lunch I was looking forward to because of fever and general head-and-throat-soreness.

Miscellaneous
Found out thanks to a bus strike that it takes me fifty minutes to walk to work from home (under moderate rain).

Readings
Some Jeffrey Deaver book I have already forgotten.

A few chapters of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

The first few pages of Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace.

Quite a few papers on Gaussian processes.

Work
Cleaned up some code. Implemented a bunch of comparison partners. Tried to make sense out of some simulations. Put together a project for students, which took forever because (a) some things just don't work on Macs (b) the simplified version of the algorithm that I thought appropriate for the course just doesn't work on that data. Worked on some grant proposal and resisted pulling out my hair at some people's use of the English language. Made sense out of some stuff "my" MS student has been doing. Silently screamed insanities at how power can be more important than good science — I was not at the receiving end of that particular piece of bullshit, but still, gets my goat. Tried not to cry thinking of my soon-to-be windowless office. ("But it has a window! Sure, half a meter away from the gray wall of another building. Think of all the pictures of palm trees and all you're going to put up on the walls!", says the guy who is never going to have to sit in any of those new basement offices because he's moving to freaking Los Angeles instead. Ass.)

Hopeless

Krazy Kitty — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:35:00 +0100

— So, isn't he a bit young?

— Who?

— Garrett^[1].

— Young for what?

— For you.

— Well, it's not like if I was planning to date him.

— But you do have a date with him.

— I don't. What are you talking about?

— Guy stops by, chats a minute, puts up a bored face so as not to look too eager, asks whether you want to go for a beer sometime, you say yes and decide on a day and time, and you tell me you don't have a date. How clueless do you think I am?

— Oh. Maybe less than me?

(It's not a date. I think.)

Notes

[1] Not his real name, of course.

Notice of Public Interest

Krazy Kitty — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:37:00 +0100

Before giving in to the urge of writing an incendiary comment about irresponsible fuckers who deserve to die when you read an article online about a young motorcyclist who, changing lanes at high speed in an intersection, stroke a car that had the right of way, and passed away from his injuries at the scene, do take a minute to think about the fact that this young motorcyclist may have had redeeming qualities in the eyes of the family, friends, and acquaintances who will read what you write.

Even if you don't give a flying fuck about the fact that he was kind, generous, stubborn about things that really mattered, witty and personable ; a brilliant student, devoted to all sorts of humanitarian causes, who spent a good chunk of his free time teaching English to immigrants, helping poor people getting health care, or volunteering at the AIDS foundation.

Tommy, you're already sorely missed. Don't listen to the assholes on the Internet.

Resolutions, Schmesolutions

Krazy Kitty — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0100

In 2012 I resolve to...

turn 27;
remember that a pair of striped socks or a pretty hat can make my day better;
keep doing things I enjoy (hot science, traveling, seeing friends, taking gazillions of pictures I don't have time to sort through, all of those at the same time, baking pumpkin pies, reading poorly-written detective stories, playing my viola, swimming once in a blue moon);
not give a rat's ass about my weight, the amount of exercise I'm getting, whether I should cuss less (you bet I fucking shouldn't), sparing more money, nor any of the traditional bullshit;
give the girl a break;
be awesome.

So, yup, pretty much the same I've been doing for a while (save the "turn 27" thing). Optionally, figuring out what I want to do when I grow up would be a great thing as well.

Happy 2012, y'all. Rock on! And have some more of the beautiful Granada here.

Conferencing

Krazy Kitty — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:16:00 +0100

Dear Padawan,

I know. It must have felt very lonely last week, with most of us gone. I know Chef and I have barely been answering your emails for the past two weeks, and that I was only able to meet up with you once in the previous week. I know it must have felt like neither of us was giving a shit about your project nor about the degree you are completing it for.

I am sorry it did. And in spite of the fact that I had warned you weeks before that this was going to happen (I have the email that proves it), let me explain you why.

I was in Spain. I was in Spain along with quite a few hundreds of other scientists from our field.

Yes, I visited the Alhambra. Twice. Including once along with an Important Professor who enjoyed listening to me telling him about my projects (including, yes, yours) as much as joking around with me.

Yes, I walked the streets of Granada and the Albaícin neighborhood a lot. I actually spent a few hours doing so with dear friends that I don't see nearly often enough (friends with whom, incidentally, I tend to enjoy writing papers). I also took a number of pictures that a lot of conference attendees want to see. Oh, and did I mention that most of this was done on a Sunday?

Yes, I stayed up very late at night, sleeping less than three or four hours at a time for six days in a row. This, incidentally, is why I moved our meeting from today to tomorrow, in the hope that my brain is more receptive to whatever ideas and ~~stupid~~ enlightened questions you want to bounce at me.

For three nights in a row, I wandered around scientific posters until 11pm, discussing their work with the authors or, in one case, presenting mine (past, and not officially accredited, but mine enough that very smart people enjoyed my explanations and insights) for four hours straight. The exchange was very stimulating, and I have quite a few ideas of how to improve my projects (including, yes, yours). I have also been invited to give talks at various institutions as a result of these conversations.

Yes, I did stay up after that, and had beers and dinner with people. Some of them friends, some of them pals, all of them colleagues to a degree. I clinked glasses with labmates; our bound as a lab has never been so strong, but moreover some difficulties in our relationships have been smoothed out, and this is quite a good thing for the general atmosphere around you. I clinked glasses with professors who later invited me to give talks at their institutions; I clinked glasses with researchers who alluded to setting up collaborations together; I clinked glasses with people from our department I had never talked to (or even met) before.

Yes, I ended on the dance floor three times, including one in the biggest disco in Granada (and I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was the biggest in the world, but admittedly I don't know much about discos). Whatever happened on that large dance floor is staying in Granada (even if you might see a few of us smirk when alluding to it, be reassured that I did nothing I'd be ashamed of), but whatever happens to me between 2 and 6 am certainly isn't any of your business. On other occasions I danced salsa with a Big Company researcher and a well-known lecturer, who then discussed my research with me on the following day.

Yes, I did speak much more French than usual. Some of it with a professor who invited me to join a research group she is trying to start, and in her own words she wanted to talk to me because I would be perfect for the job; some of it with a professor who invited me to apply for jobs at her research institution because "we need more people like you"; some of it, admittedly, with a famous guy who asked me the same question about my last name as the previous times we met (three and counting) and at some later point proceeded to wiggle his butt in front of my face (something absolutely not out of character for him). And I also spoke an unusual lot of German and quite a bit of Spanish (remember that my formal training in that language lasted the whole of three months, and you'll realize how straining this can be).

Yes, I went star gazing. First off, don't you think it would be a crime not to when the sky is clear and you're 2100 meters above sea level? Second, the director of our institute, who barely knows what it is that our group is doing, now gets out of his way to greet me.

Yes, I had tons of fun and "networked" like never before; but most of it by discussing great science with great scientists, including after 6pm and on weekend days, and that's also what my job is about. So please stop behaving like we'd all been on vacation on your personal tax payer dollar and check your attitude at the door tomorrow when we meet. Officemate cannot wait to see me verbally kick your ass and you don't want to give him that pleasure, do you?

And here, have a picture of the Alhambra and click to enlarge.

All the best, K².

The Last Thursday of November

Krazy Kitty — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:16:00 +0100

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday; Thanksgiving is quite certainly the day of the year I miss California the most.

This year again, Thanksgiving came around and I didn't get to do any of the Thanksgiving things I used to do on Thanksgiving. I didn't go to the pub in the afternoon yesterday. I didn't sleep in this morning. I didn't have any eggnog. I didn't spend the day cooking, didn't move furniture around to set up a dining area, didn't made any pomegranate sangria, didn't ate too much delicious food, didn't play cards and didn't sing and didn't pretend to watch American football.

Nevertheless.

Today I did not celebrate Thanksgiving, but last Saturday I had two friends over at my place. The three of us pushed the furniture against the walls and put together a delicious Moroccan-inspired dinner, which we shared with nine other guests. There was laughter and music and quality conversation.

Today I did not celebrate Thanksgiving, but I wrote messages to my American friends. I thoroughly enjoyed my day at the office, from the quiet morning to the hours of fruitful meetings to the musical recommendations of my office mate to the 6pm chats in the hallway. And this evening I had to refuse an invitation to hang out and play poker so that I could attend my weekly orchestra rehearsal, laugh with the other violists, and make Haydn happen.

So, following the purest of Thanksgiving traditions, I put aside the long November nights, the hand-wringing reflections on the shortcomings of my character, and the heartbreak I gave myself once again while leaving Paris, and I raise my cup of orange blossom tea to my new European life; to my excellent friends on the other side of the ocean, to those across the Rhine river, and to the ones I am making here; to the lab I am so pleased to have joined; to the orchestra that made me realized how much I missed playing in one; and to the six or ten of you, dear readers, who are still haunting these pages.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Putting Down My Suitcase

Krazy Kitty — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:40:00 +0200

After my two-week summer vacation, unevenly split between Portugal and the South of France, a conference in Bavaria and a brief appearance in lab, I am just back for a 10 days stay in Paris, triggered by my best friend's decision back in January to ask his girlfriend to marry him despite my having made my opinion of both marriage and weddings very clear to him (I still cannot believe that those two have the cheek to do whatever pleases them with their own lives), and filled with much more debugging than I ever care to do (I was working this week).

Portugal already seems like it happened so long ago, most of the conference is better forgotten except for the few connections I've made and the growing mentoring relationship between my boss and me, and Paris was emotionally intense. I spent a great deal of time talking about academic research (mostly from a political point of view, and in one instance despite the consensus that one shouldn't talk shop nor politics at a wedding) and being jealous of the amazing view one of my assistant professor friends has over Paris from her office.

I caught up with as many people as possible, for what quite obviously felt like too little time with each one of them. Precious moments nevertheless. I had a great time showing a friend from California around. She's here for a few months, studying French and discovering Paris, and it is fascinating to match our mirroring expat experiences. Too bad I missed two other friends I made there and who left town a few hours before my train arrived, and my favorite mad hatter of a roommate who landed a whole day before I left and was so certain I'd be in Germanland she didn't bother letting me know before it was too late.

I even found the time to re-open some familial wounds, to try to help them heal better. Poking at scarring tissue is no fun, mentally or otherwise, but I have hopes that it's for the best in the long run. (What do you mean my medical metaphors aren't the finest literature you've read lately?) Let's just say that making plans to visit the Christmas market in Strasbourg, hearing how much people like my new haircut, and laughing to the point there are tears in my eyes was much more enjoyable that that.

"It's so great to see you like that," one of my friends said. "You look so happy and confident!"

I'm actually not so confident about the future, though, what with the German-French split I am experiencing (the Rhine is my new Atlantic Ocean). Unlike the US, Germany is a country where I can contemplate living (my best argument being that "the people are, like, normal?" I am still trying to get rid of "like" as a punctuation sign and failing, probably because I do need to find a filler word to replace it first). Soon I'll be trying to get an academic position, and that will mean deciding in which of the two countries to settle.

On the one hand I quite enjoy my life out here, in my small city with its laid-back lifestyle, and the fairly decent work prospectives Germanland has to offer for someone like me. On the other, my social life is still rather poor here, and Paris fills me with joy, with its dear friends, beautiful sights, language I master and utter lack of academic positions. Looking very far ahead, past a number of insignificant details such as overcoming a few trust issues and finding someone I'd consider falling in love with and reciprocally, I'd like to have a family at some point, which I'm foreseeing as being even more difficult in a country where working mothers are still mostly considered a disgrace.

In any case I still have a year and a half more of funding, and my plan for now is to apply in both countries. I'd be smart anyway not to sell the skin before catching the bear, and to focus most of my energy on the most important thing I can do to build up my resume: making my current projects work. This is not a given when the ones I'm the most busy with feel like they're stalling, but this should I hope solve itself once I'm back to my regular working schedule.

So, plan for now: deep breathe, and focus on what's taking place now rather than worrying about what might or might not happen years down the line.

Does This Body Make Me Look Fat?

Krazy Kitty — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:50:00 +0200

Alternative title: The "Women Who Are Never, Ever Again Going to Cry Over the Way They Look Because FUCK. THAT. SHIT." Kickass Club.

Alternative alternative title: Hey, Stranger, Wanna Hear Some Very Personal Shit About Me? I'm Told That's What the Internets Are For!

It all started again on a cold morning in March. My pair of dark gray jeans stopped fitting. I remembered the compliments I had gotten only four or five months before for losing the pounds I had packed on while writing my thesis. I started crying. I stood there, facing the mirror in my panties, mentally abusing myself for the convex curve of my belly, the cellulite on my thighs and the size of my ass. For the next two months or so, I hated myself. I thought myself worthless for being fat. I dragged myself around, felt utterly unhappy, and got entirely absorbed with myself and how fat I was.

I went on a diet, when I had sworn years before to never, ever go on a diet again. Of course I could not keep with the diet. The reason I could not keep with the diet, also the reason why I had sworn never to go on a diet again, and the reason I put on weight to start with when I moved back to Europe, to a new, exciting, but also uncertain and scary part of my life, is that I'm a binge eater. You don't need to know much about disordered eating to figure out that if you try to enforce restrictive food rules in someone who's prone to binging, rather than addressing the underlying causes and anxiety, the results aren't too exciting.

Erm, yes. I guess I should have started with "Hello, my name is Krazy Kitty (no not really it's not), and I've been binge eating since I'm 14, back when it was called non-purging bulimia." I sort of warned you up there? But although that's an important part of the story, today I'm more interested in the "Hello, my name is Krazy Kitty, and I am fat" angle.

Anyway, I couldn't stick to the diet, and started asking the Internet what to do about it. Because I'm smart, or something. Anyway, the Internet, being made of equal parts of porn, diets, and cute kittens, had a lot to offer. One of the motivation techniques I came across while on my diet, devised to help you stick with the celery sticks instead of buying an entire chocolate cake and eating the whole of it in a single seating, was to imagine yourself at your goal weight.

Imagine all the things you'll do when you're thin! Imagine how you'll look and feel and how great you life with be! Imagine all the things you'll do when thin that you don't do now!

I flipped.

Wait, I thought. Can't my life be great now? Can't I have fun now? Do the fatties need to be miserable? What if I never get thinner? Will I never be happy?

Thank you so much, whoever you are, for putting that piece of advice out there. Thank you so much for helping me pulling my head out of my arse and going back to thinking about various things I had already come across and quite forgotten. Health at Every Size. Intuitive Eating. The time my mother told me it took me struggling with my weight and still being to her eyes the most beautiful and fantastic of people on the planet for her to realize that it was okay to be fat. And that I wasn't really that fat anyway.

So I went back to the Internet, but this time looking for reads about body image, self acceptance, and the such. I bought and read Susie Orbach's Bodies. I read "The time to love your body is now. Not tomorrow, not Tuesday, now.". I read "This is me. The cellulite on my thighs, the stretchmarks on my hips.. I re-watched Killing Us Softly, parts 1 through 4. I sat down with my journal like when I was a special snowflake of a teenager and wrote page after page of mostly self-conceited crap. I cried. I screamed. I went on long, furious walks with Biffy Clyro in my ears, shouting along: We're on a hellslide help us help us we're on a hellslide.

And I started sorting myself through.

I have a big ass, y'all. I have cellulite and stretch marks and a belly. Like many people, and unlike the airbrushed people in the magazines, who have no blemishes, no lines, and no goddamn pores. I am fat, and I'm fabulous, and sort of fuck you if you disagree?

So here are a few thoughts.

(1) Bodies. They're amazing. Even when they're fucked up (and I mean fucked up as in full of weird pains and incapacities, not as in fat), they're your interface with the world. They take you to places and allow you to talk and hear and see and dance and smell and touch and cry and laugh and hug the people you love. Bodies are the shit, and they deserve respect and care. Whatever their shape, they certainly don't deserve that you spend every waking hour of your day agonizing over how they look.

(2) Fat kills! Oh wait no not really. Despite the war against obesity and other fat shaming shenanigans, thin doesn't necessarily mean healthy any more than fat necessarily means unhealthy. See The Year My Body Shrank. See Dances with Fat, for instance This Fit and Fat Thing. Health can be improved through healthy behaviors (such as: moving your body, eating a diverse diet, being at peace with yourself), not through thinness. Otherwise we'd all be doing heroin. Also, where's the hateful backlash against people who drink, smoke, don't get enough sleep or don't eat vegetables?

(3) But, but, but, fat! It's icky! Look at these disgusting slobs! How can they eat so much? (You'd be surprised, hon, you'd be surprised.) The reason you think fat is ugly is about 96.7% that it's a cultural norm. See other cultures, see our culture in the past, see photoshopped super models, see a flourishing diet industry, see a good slice of the feminist literature (e.g. The Beauty Myth).

(4) Beauty, shmeautiful. Think about the people you enjoy hanging out with. Think about the people you love. How important to you is the shape of their bodies? Even think about the people you wouldn't mind having hot steamy sex with. I'm not saying the curve of their shoulder or the shape of their butt isn't sending you over the edge, but... I might be overly intellectualizing these things... isn't it only a fraction of the whole attraction? Doesn't a cute guy stop being so cute when he turns out to be a pompous prick? Doesn't a plain girl become lovelier when she's got the quickest wit in the room?

(5) How I Feel About Being Fat is another great read, thanks Sarah.

(6) I am also fed up with the real women have curves saying. That's the same insidious shit, except reversed. No. Some real women have curves. Some real women don't. Deal with it.

The reason I wrote this post was as an answer to Amy's recent thought about her own struggle with her apperance^[1] "There’s a whole lot wrong with how woman see themselves. I have no idea how to go about fixing it," she writes. Well, I'm not sure either, but ladies, and gentlemen, and whoever followed up to that point: fuck. that. shit.

Notes

[1] For the record, I met her in person and of course I find her beautiful.

International Week

Krazy Kitty — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:47:00 +0200

Snapshot #1 — Monday afternoon. I am in Berlin and sit in a bus and chat for half an hour, in German, with a Russian philosopher (a Kant scholar, unfortunately).

Snapshot #2 — Monday afternoon. A glass of sparkling water in hand, I catch up with a Chinese anthropologist, in English.

Snapshot #3 — Monday evening. I am in Berlin, drinking wine with two Australians, one Canadian, one American and one extremely funny British lady, all scientists in various domains, laughing in the warm evening.

Snapshot #4 — Tuesday morning, too early. I sit in a bus and talk with a linguist from Malta, first in German then in French. We discuss manuscript dating, French texts from the Middle Age written in Hebrew, classical music from the nineteenth century, and European politics.

Snapshot #5 — Tuesday morning. I am in Berlin on a hot, sunny day. A glass of sparkling water in hand, I discuss scientific careers in French with a young Canadian physicist and a French professor who has been teaching microbiology in Germany for twenty years.

Snapshot #6 — Tuesday lunch. I sit with two Australians (a chemist and a geneticist) and a German linguist onboard a boat that cruises the Spree. We chat away in English, with a little bit of German here and there.

Snapshot #7 — Tuesday afternoon. I lay down in the grass by the Spree, beer in hand, with the two aforementioned Australians. We talk about science, feminism, and a lot of other topics. Later, we move to a "beach bar".

Snapshot #8 — Wednesday afternoon. I am on the phone, complaining about the suddenly cold weather and having spent hours and hours in a train making stupid slides about projects I do not know anything about^[1]. "Wait," I am cut off, "you spent the best of 12 hours yesterday chattering away on your favorite issues^[2] with two Australian guys in bloody Berlin." This is a valid point.

Snapshot #9 — Thursday, early afternoon. I am in the middle of nowhere, Swabian Alps, and check into my hotel room with my Georgian^[3] roommate. We speak German with the woman at the front desk and a mix of English and French together.

Snapshot #10 — Thursday evening. I am outside in the cold Swabian night, sitting crossed-legs between two German scientists. The one at my right speaks with a heavy Californian accent, the one at my left has an almost perfect British intonation. A dozen of other scientists, coming from China, Argentina, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Northern America, Australia, and, for a minority, Germany, complete the circle. We talk about science and academic careers and America.

Snapshot #11 — Friday afternoon. I am sitting in a bus, talking about French literature with the Georgian roommate, again in a mixture of English and French. Behind us, a colleague says a few words in Greek in his cellphone before leaning towards us and asking in German who it is we are talking about^[4].

Snapshot #12 — Monday morning. I am in Paris, boarding a train back to Germany, pestering against rude people made ruder by the abandoned-luggage alert that delayed us. My chest is tight as I remember the lovely weekend spent, somewhat oddly, speaking French with French people in France (well, mostly). If there's anywhere I belong, this could well be it; but I might have attained a state of permanent déracinement^[5].

Nevertheless, the above is about 29.7% of why I love my job.

Notes

[1] It indeed turned out that I managed to mix two models in one, and so artfully that only the person whose models it actually was noticed anything. "It is not a gross mistake, it is a new paper!'' I declared, actually mortified.

[2] We spent at least half an hour discussing cricket. Croquet. Cracker? Whichever it is that lasts forever and vaguely resemble baseball except that if you even think about saying that a cute wallaby dies, or something. Oh, and by the way I discovered it reading HHGTTG and actually didn't for a second imagine that it was a real thing. Actually I was also convinced for the longest time that croquet only existed in Alice in Wonderland. So, yeah, cricket. Not my topic of choice. But a fun conversation, still.

[3] The country, not the state. I am tired of repeating it and I've only known her for two years. I cannot imagine how tired she is of it.

[4] It is, of course, Duras, because I am unable to speak for any length of time of French books without mentioning her, my undying love for her, and how bad I find Un Barrage contre le Pacifique.

[5] Sorry, but there is no way "uprooting" is cutting it.