lost in translation

It's crazy windy today. Last night on the news they said that we could winds of up to 130 km/hr today. Luckily my little apartment can take a little wind.

I'm supposed to be in class right now, but it was cancelled. I guess that's a good thing because in both of my classes this morning I talked about the death penalty and that just about did me in. That's a pretty complicated issue, hard to explain in a country where it doesn't exist, and even harder to explain in a non-native language. Plus, I think my students still don't understand that while the US is a country, it's made up of lots of different states with their own governments that can make their own laws. Just that one bit of information makes a lot of difference, and I don't like talking about issues that have so many layers I can't really explain to them. On that topic, though, did you know that Michigan was the first English-speaking government in the world to ban the death penalty? This was over 158 years ago. According to one of my students, it was only banned here by de Gaulle after WWII. I haven't checked if that's accurate, but if so, give me a break kids-my government got rid of it long before yours, so don't try to make me feel guilty! Oh, and just one note about where miscommunication can really lead: when I was checking the news this morning, I saw an article saying that in the US this morning the 1000th prisoner was killed under the death penalty (that is a really difficult sentence to phrase-how would you say that in English?). This is since the death penalty was declared legal again in 1976. Well, my explanation wasn't quite clear because at first my students thought I was saying 1000 prisoners were killed today (and just today) under the death penalty. Luckily I caught it and set it straight-whewee would that be a bad impression of the States.

Tomorrow I'm getting on a train to Nancy, to visit my friend and fellow assistant Stephanie, also a fellow Michigander. Nancy is in the Northeast of France, about an hour from Germany, so I think that in a car it would only take about 3-4 hours to get there. Since the tracks only run certain routes, though, I have to go back through Paris and my journey will take a lovely 7 hours. It's okay, though, because it will be fun and different, and we're going to the Christmas market there this weekend. I'm really excited about this, since I've wanted to go to one ever since one of my favorite former roomies Emily told me about the ones she went to in Germany a few years ago. My expectations are pretty high, so hopefully it lives up to legend. :)

Time to finish-my brain's tired!