I’m moving to Paris. Not toute suite, of course, but one day, oh yes, one day I’ll live in Paris for three months, or six months, or a year, perhaps. For now I’m practicing wearing my hair carelessly elegantly pinned up, a strand here, a strand there. I tell my neck it’s long enough to reach to the stars, and with a lipliner and a brand new totally un-Norwegian silk chemise I softly sing, tu fais tourner de ton nom tous les moulins de mon coeur

hair

I’m going to buy Le Monde every weekend and read French weblogs every day and I’ve already ordered books from Amazon.fr. And I solemnly promise that in the next year, I will go to a conference where they speak French. I won’t dare say a word, I expect, and if I do, I’ll sound unbelievably stupid, but I’ll understand a lot. I’ll learn.

Now: how do I find a French-language conference that has something to do with new media? And that isn’t too expensive. I’ve already used up all my travel funding…


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11 thoughts on “devenir parisienne

  1. jill/txt » fiction and blogging

    […] en I’d be moving to Paris to join my French boyfriend. Good grief. Must have been my I love Paris post set him off, don’t you think? Blogging has hazards I hadn’t even conside […]

  2. Francois Lachance

    Mais ma chere, you host your own. Online of course. Jan Rune Holmevik poura peut etre t’aider. Le monde et le MOO. Jill et la francophonie. Imagine des gens de Tahiti, du Canada et de la Martinique et bien sur la grande metropole — Paris.

    Hankering for sound? Telephony and video hook up? You might want to drop a line to Geoffrey Rockweel at McMaster University — they have some big project to test the application of streaming technologies to scholarly communication.

    Vas-y! Roughly translates as Just Do IT!

  3. Jill

    But what about the FOOD and the WINE and the CHALEUR and the SHOPPING? I need all that in order to be able to speak French…

    Still, I should definitely go visit a French MOO.

  4. fivecats

    “At the age of thirty-seven
    she realized she’d never ride
    through Paris in a sports car
    with the warm wind in her hair…”

    from “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan”

    Glad to know that won’t be you. 🙂

  5. Jill

    Oh dear, how sad. And no, it had better not be. That is, I haven’t actually done the sports car thing. I must make a note to try that.

  6. suileabh?°in

    That’s a beautiful photo, where is it from?

  7. Jill

    The photo’s from the back of my neck. Camera held behind head, and then the contrast and brightness are played with to, uh, emphasise the red 😉

  8. yenayer

    Since I am in France, but i’m not french, and a bit interested in new media, il I have any good news i will let you know … 🙂
    I’ll do some research on the subject for you 🙂

  9. Martin Dugage

    If you come to Paris, let me know. I’ll be glad to show you around.
    Bienvenue, bienvenue!
    Martin

  10. Jill

    Oh, thank you! 🙂

  11. Sylvie Noel

    Maybe not a propos, but ECSCW will be held in Paris next year – alas the conference will (probably) be in English. Or who knows, maybe it’ll be bilingual?

    And there’s IHM2004, not in Paris, though, but definitely in French, but that one starts in 5 days so you’d better hurry.

    Bonne chance 🙂

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