10:38

So recently I went to the prefecture as part of the process to renew my visa. The last time I had to do this was ten years ago so things had changed. 

First off everything was online.  The site wasn’t great but at least I was struggling in the comfort of my own home.  I sent my paperwork into cyberspace and waited with no news for 8 months.  

Then suddenly I got an email telling me to come to the prefecture at a particular date at a specific time:  10:38.

10:38?  I thought to myself, that is definitely very specific.  They also specified the room I had to be in (1) and the widow (5B).  They also listed all the documents I had to bring.  

Easy peasy!    

Alarms went off in my head.  

Because with the French administration, it’s never easy.  

Alas since I hadn’t dealt with this in ten years, I was rusty and no longer knew where my originals of all the documents I’d ever gotten since being in France were so I stuck to the list.  Looking professional in heels was out of the question should I have to stand outside waiting in the cold.  

I have to admit, I was nervous. 

I still gave myself plenty of time before my appointment because who knows what curve ball would be thrown at me.  None were, public transport worked just fine and there was no line.  I got there 45 minutes early.  

When I got into room 1, I looked for a ticket number machine.  None were to be found so I asked a guy and he said I was just to find my window and sit and wait till they called my name. 

Ok….

So I found window 5A, found a seat and got settled.  I had 45 minutes before 10:38 and I was in the right place at the right time. I could take out my book right?  Except I couldn't shake an uneasy feeling, kind of like, a false sense of security?

Sit and wait for them to call your name. 

I started to look around.  Indeed the people at the window would call people’s names and people would go up.  The thing is, I couldn’t make out the names being called.  The native French speakers were obviously having trouble pronouncing the non-French names.  

Right… so the system is:  People who probably don’t speak French very well have to listen as native French speakers pronounce their non-French names.  No visual cues, just listening.  Read: The system for non-French people is made for French people. 

I looked at the guy at window 5A and tried to assess if he looked like he was someone who could pronounce my name in a way that I would recognize it. 

I had my doubts.  

I also realized he said the names very fast and didn’t pause much between names.  I looked at the 80 year old woman next to me with a cane.  

Right.

I inquired around me as to what time everyone had and their window.  The young woman behind me had my window and 10:21.  This is stressful, she added while scrolling on her phone.  

Logically she would be called first?  And logically they wouldn’t call my name before my allotted time of 10:38 right?  RIGHT? 

Then all my experience in dealing with the French administration came back to me.  Anything can happen.  There is no logic.  They have all the power, you have none.  Think the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.  

Oh I wanted that soup.  

I put my book away and focused on listening.  At 10:15, I heard it, or at least, I heard what I thought was my name.   So I grabbed my stuff and went up. 

Except another guy went up because, like I said, the guy didn’t pause much between names so he was probably called first but by the time he got up there the window guy had called my name. 

I sat back down, lamenting this opaque system.  Where was my name now?  In this guy’s memory?  I looked at him to gauge his short term memory capabilities.  

I had my doubts. 

When the other guy left I went up.  

I’ll call your name madame, window guy said. 

Ok, I smiled realizing now that I might have angered the soup nazi window guy which in this kind of power dynamic is bad.  Very bad. 

I sat down but stayed in his line of vision. 

He eventually calls what I think is my name (it was) and I produce what I think are the right documents (they were). 

The system has improved but then again, maybe so have I. 

Shut it down, uh, uh, uh, uh

Indeed

How you bike that

So I rode my bike into Paris today for lunch.  I remember the first time I tried to cross the périphérique on my bike. I turned around simply because I didn’t have any id on me. If a car hit me, I reasoned, they wouldn’t be able to identify my body.  

Since then I have slowly ventured further and further away from home by bike.  It started by googling the rules of the road for bicycles.  In the end, it’s just one simple rule:  Make sure cars see you. Advice: Get a bell. I did. 

It’s not for the cars/vans/buses I share the road with (they’re not going to hear my bell - ding, ding!) it’s for the fellow bicyclists, electronic scooters, motorbikes, pedestrians, joggers, and the homeless that, in addition to cars/vans/buses, at any given time, come from any given direction.  

It’s madness, yet a testament to people’s faith in other people not to run them over.  That the priority is human life.  

Christmas morning

So I went for a walk yesterday.  The news was depressing but the weather gorgeous, sunny and 80 degrees.  It was an occasion to wear an outfit I had found in a cute boutique in Paris, 50% off.  

It was the pants that first caught my eye.  The green, red, white checkered motif and the two embroidered suns felt like Christmas morning. I inspected them, taking in the soft tissue between my fingers but moved on. I could tell they were too big. 

Then came the shirt, white with a loud positive message in big red letters. Also too big.  

But what if, I thought to myself.  Could this work with those pants?  

I ended up buying the outfit.  I thought it would sit in my closet till next spring but yesterday the unseasonable warmth gifted me the chance.  

Influenced

So a couple of summers ago we had gotten back from the States and the kids were up at night and totally wired due to the jet-lagg.  My husband thought it would be a good idea to have a war-like pillow fight to tire them out.  Seemed like a good idea until we got a text from our downstairs neighbor complaining about the noise.  

Then she started complaining about them on Sunday mornings.  “I work every day except Sundays so I need the rest.” she informed us.  

Oh, I thought.  She must be a nurse or something. 

Then I was having coffee with someone and they casually mentioned there was an influencer in my building.  Turns out it’s her.  

My first thought was: I have been calming down my children for an influencer?  

Followed by: They work that much? 

And finally: Wait, that’s a job? 

I thought it was just something you call people, like “gamer”.  But apparently yes, it is. 

I thought about all this when I saw an article about Pope Leo canonizing the Saint Carlo Acutis, “God’s Influencer. ”  

P.S. Gamer is also a job.

Ms. Moon

So in order to be an ecologically responsible Blink, I tried to download Your Green Step but I couldn’t find it. 

Luckily the YG sustainability report gives me what I need to calculate it manually:



It even provided an example!

So along with Ms. Sun's numbers here are Ms. Moon's numbers:

1. Paris suburb to Gare du Nord:  By bus (40 mins, 8.3 km) = 8.3 * 68 = 564.4 g GHG
2. Gare du Nord to St Pancras: By Eurostar (2 hours 17 mins, 346 km) = 364 * 14 = 4,844 g GHG
3. Getting to accommodation:  Walk (7 mins, .5 km) = 0 (Yessssss, take that, Ms. Sun!)
St Pancras to Wembley:  Metro (underground, YG didn’t give me the metro calculation so I used this.) (42 minutes, 16.9 km) = 16.9 * 40.5 = 684.45

Ms.  Moon, who lives in Paris(ish) used four modes of transportation to travel approximately 371.7 km to attend the concert.  Her journey resulted in total emissions of 0,0060924tCO2eq.

Ok, this calculation is all well and good but, as an ecologically responsible Blink what, YG, can I do about my carbon footprint?  

They don't say so I thought to myself, what would Blackpink members, the Advocates for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, do?

For some reason their travel is not included in the calculation despite the fact that they were sponsored by Korea Air for the Born Pink tour and apparently traveled by Private Jet.  

YG substainability report itself admits "substantial emissions typically associated with air travel" after stating that the "segment contributing most significantly to GHG emissions was identified as "audience travel".

 

 

So what do I, identfied as part of the "segment contributing most significally to GHG emissions", to do?

I guess I could walk and swim.  This would put me in par with reaching carbon neutrality along with YG by 2040.

In the meantime to offset my significant contribution of GHG to the concert I'll see about buying a $45 P-REC.  According to my calculations, this buys me 71,400 concerts. 

Sweet.

La réntree

So yesterday was the first day of school.  This year the class list was posted day of.  When the kids saw who their teacher was, my daughter off-handedly mentioned that her teacher was nice but wasn’t around a lot. 

Then I ran into her best friend’s mom who informed me that the teacher was in fact absent that day. 

Guess she’s sick, I thought.

At noon I got an email from the principal confirming this and using the word congé (leave) when describing the teacher’s absence.  

Very sick. 

Later I got another email informing us that they were able to find a substitute teacher until the end of the week.  

Oh that’s good.

When I went to pick them up another parent who’s part of the PTA informed me that the teacher was in fact coming back in March. 

 

Happy back to school!