Bikes are spiritual things

I haven't been on a bike ride in like 3 weeks, and my roommate finally bought one the other day. This means, of course, that I am going to steal it every once in a while to ride until the Motobecane is back in action. Ah, the Motobecane... Here's a picture in case you have forgotten that it is the embodiment of beauty and form.



I'll get that in a couple of weeks. Until then it is department store bike-riding, which isn't so much fun if the bike sucks ass and drops the chain when you try to go up stairs. Ok, so they were small stairs. And, yeah, perhaps I shouldn't be taking my roommate's bike up sets of stairs, but someone had to break it in a little and stretch out the cables/rims/frame, right? I'm glad he doesn't read this.

I got to see a live production of Waiting for Godot the other night. It was difficult to understand because it was in French, and they were basically screaming and jumping around all of the time; however, it was absolutely amazing. The actors were phenomenal, and they changed a few things from the original that actually improved greatly on some of the scenes. For example, there is a part where Didi is talking to the small boy that visits them. In the original, both he and Estragon see and speak with the boy, rough him up for answers, etc. In this play, it is only Didi, and the boy rode an old 3-speed bicycle around the stage, so it was as if he was sort of ethereal and dreamlike, his voice changing places the dark of the night. I'm re-reading the play (in English, sadly), and realize how difficult the language is, so don't feel so bad.

With the language, really, it's a roller-coaster. I talked to a friend over the phone the other night, and had a hard time understanding (being on the phone in a foreign language is always über-difficult). Then, last night I went to a talk on supernovae by a professor at the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris, and basically understood every single word that he said. This was fun, because I just started a story on work by some other researchers from the same institute, so got to get a flavor for what is coming out of there.

My students are still pretty fun. I've gotten to meet all of them finally, and am happy with what I'm going to be doing with them.

Another assistant is coming over to Morlaix to rock the house tomorrow night, so the weekend looks good. There's also another talk on sustainable development on Sunday, and the possibility of a jazz show. Where see if those are as interesting as learning about nuclear processes inside stars...