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March 25, 2003 : blowing my head apart
I went to Brussels today to meet with Steven, the director of the transmedia program, about my project ideas. I had written out a rather verbose 12 page paper detailing the concept and ideas, sent it to him, and today was a small day-of-reckoning. Would it work? Did he think it was a good idea? etc. Sure enough, as usual, I got to school and found no Steven. It's not that it's usually late, he's just always busy, and as my meeting with him was not the first one in his day, meetings run over/late most of the time. Instead of 1:30, it was 2:30, but he still managed to give me a whole hour. An hour and a half later, I came away from the talk with my head on fire and my mind racing. On the train I opened up my notebook and just lay it there in hopes that intermittently I would be overcome with a brilliant idea and pencil it down. I think I wrote about 5. None of them brilliant, per se, but at least they are ideas. Steven wants me to rethink the umbrella concept of the project. Is it going to be held in a house because the house is symbolic? Is the house simply a way to categorize? Is the project about me? Or simply me commenting on living here? These are just a few of his questions that he wants me to think over for the next week or so. Other than that, the smaller projects seem pretty strong. The bricks are fine, the concrete sucks. So it's not back to square one, it's back to mid-building. I came home and Eva was just finishing up the translation of the project papers into dutch. She said she'd meet me after my Dutch lesson and we'd both go over the papers with Lit, my teacher. I took the car to school again this evening, and gave myself just long enough to get there. At a particularly awkward intersection (3 tram lines, a bus-stop, and 4 streets colliding) the man sitting in front of me, not really paying attention, went forward when the green light for the people next to us (going straight) turned green. At this particular place we have a green left-turn arrow. Two trams were there and oncoming traffic for his turn. Once the tram was out of the way, and it was our turn to turn, there the guy sat over in a corner of the intersection with a nasty front dent on the corner of his hood. At least it wasn't me and our precious little Debbie. (I'm just not mad about the name. I can't help but think of Little Debbie snack cakes.) Tonight at school it was a madhouse. Seeing as how our class is now rather large (probably around 20) and the fact that only 4 of us are non-Arabic-speaking, sometimes it gets a bit out-of-control in the area of language. One girl in my class literally talks all the time in Arabic. She adds comments, she makes jokes, she comments on Dutch in general. It's annoying most times, but tonight it was terrible. Every Arabic-speaking student seemed willing to strike up an Arabic-conversation at any moment. It was a little out of control. It didn't help that our first lesson was a bit hard. What made it even more difficult is that my partner had only been to class one time the entire year. Later on we broke up into groups and I was the American with 5 Moroccan men. Our teacher had brought food and food-prep equipment, and so we were supposed to use the imperative tense to have people make food for us. (or follow a recipe) I made my guys tea. One of the guys made me some toast. Apparently none of them had actually understood that I was from the US, as I am ever so keen on using the words "de vrenigen staten" instead of "amerika" as a sort of cover. :) A couple of them were shocked, but most sympathized that my country was going to war, and how not everyone in my country agreed. Then I showed them were Missouri was on my quickly-drawn outline of the US. Missouri. They liked the name. It seems in any language people get the misery-Missouri joke. I also tell them that it's not really a miserable place, it's just a joke on the name. During the afwas (dishwashing) time everything came to a head. As the only girl, the men thought it was funny if, as the only woman, they pressured me into doing the wash. I wouldn't have it. We went back and forth on it. I told one guy, I'll dry if you wash, to which after the fact, we all admitted that women and men were het selfde. Somewhat equal. Then came the "heb je een man?" questions. No I don't have a boyfriend. No I don't have children. No I am not married. I figured it was the perfect time to just SPELL IT OUT to them; I have a girlfriend. I sort of have a wife, though it's not legal because I'm an American. A what? All 5 of them were shocked. One was completely bowled over. You are a woman with a woman? Dat is slecht! (That's bad!) Dat is neit normaal! (That's not normal!) And he kept shaking his head and the other guys egging him on in Arabic. I showed them a picture of Eva from my wallet, and tried to explain it more. The one guy could not believe it! He kept laughing about it the rest of the night. The other guys simply said, well that's fine, I guess, that's fine. Have a good life then. I made these two guys, in particular, laugh even harder when they said, "a man with a man, that is ok as well, but we like women." I said, "Ik hou van vrouwen ook!" It was shock and awe (borrowing it from the current war terminology) and humor too. After the class Eva turned up with the papers and we talked about my project with my teacher. She's going to talk to the headmaster about the shoe project and see if she can find me a space to have the show. What luck! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have a lot of thinking to do about the cohesion of the project, but other than that, I get excited every time I get to talk about it. In the car-ride home, Eva and I talked about why I would tell the guys that I was a lesbian. Nichole, Jennifer and I talked about it as well when they were here. It's not that I am flaunting it, I just want people, especially in situations such as this, that it's just a fact. One of those facts like the fact that I floss my teeth every other night or so. I wouldn't do it if it hurt someone, or it hurt someone indirctly, but if someone asks, I'll say yes. I'm a lesbian. And that's that. (I hope that makes sense.) Eva and I came home, parked the car, safety-locked the steering wheel (I have managed to find an additional way to lock it more securely when we park it in foreign countries) and I made pesto and veggie pasta. Eva goes back to work tomorrow after two days of unwind. (stress-related doctor prescribed work-absence) Tomorrow it's back to the real world. IN THE NEWS: |