Boring

I've never been the fun, hot chick. I dated the best-looking boy in my high-school and people would come up to talk to me for the first time, eager to understand how I had pulled this off. How did she get the hot guy? was the unspoken question. She's bo-ring.
And to a high school crowd, I was. I am the nerdiest nerd you can imagine. I wear spectacles, when I remember, but most of the time I bump randomly into stuff. I read political science treatises like novels. I record shows on the history channel on "Pain in Medieval Times". I drink very little, since I cannot hold my liquor. I don't do drugs. I don't smoke. I don't go to bars or to clubs. I don't have one-night stands.

And for a long time I felt boring. These people were right, there was only one way to fit in and it was through alcohol or artificial paradise. When I was asked about my hobbies I would explain apologetically that I was a very boring person. No, I'm sorry, I don't want a drink. I'm boring.

Then I met my ex. He is quite possibly the least boring person I know. He occasionally smokes. He drinks a lot. He has one-night stands. He travels wildly accross the world and meets gloriously eccentric, unboring people. Living with him meant you never knew who he might bring back for dinner. He taught me how to camp, how to travel and how to enjoy adventure, especially all those times when everything goes wrong and you have to improvise. I felt cool by proxy. All the pressure went away. When X introduced me to his friends, they didn't try to discover what hidden gems of awesome my lackluster presentation would reveal. They took it for granted that I was game for anything.


Sara in the lovely town of Annecy. Looking nerdy. Hey, I was camping!

I don't want to apologize for who I am anymore. Maybe my life seems dull to some, that's fine. We don't all live the same way.
I have off days like everyone.

But I feel the opposite of boring these days. I feel free.

Good conversations

We know them when we have them, but how do we get them, exactly?
I always think about good conversation as a matter of rythm. Ping-Ping. Pingping-Ping. Like a tennis match. I can hear the ball cross the net and BAAM! Back at you. Yet it's more complex than that. I remember an amazing conversation with someone in Germany: we were constantly interrupting each other (with that greatest of gestures, the conciliatory hand patting the knee as you break someone's flow just to say sorry, nothing against you doll but I need to say this) yet it felt unrushed, perfect, exhilarating. Another interruption-ridden conversation I recall was just bad-we weren't listening to each other. It was forced. We both knew how bad the conversation was, I seem to remember that one of us just halted and said ruefully :"This is a terrible conversation." And so we stopped it.

As a bad-listener-trying-to-improve, I love hearing good conversations. I try to understand what makes them interesting, try to implement my findings in my own life. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Because conversation is a lot of good manners, a lot of passion and hopefully chemistry. We all know great people to talk to, as opposed to great people to talk at.

Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingping. You start the conversation and it works. You're communicating, arguing, laughing or staying serious, but the rythm is there, the sparkle is there. I'm ready for all these good conversations please.

Entrepreneurial classes and feminism

I am currently following graduate courses on green energy and sustainable development. Just for the fun of it, I've added a bizarro course on entrepreneurial skills to the mix. Yesterday was my first class and it did not disappoint. Imagine two hundred gung-ho young people dressed up to the nines banging on their computer while checking their Blackberries; I mean, these are students. They take themselves way too seriously. Adding to the ridiculousness of the situation was the "teacher", an entrepreneur who went to Harvard Business School (it was mentionned several times during his power point presentation) and peppered his pep talk with "Cash out when you can", "What's the deal?" and other Americanisms, all delivered in a terrible French accent. Regularly he would question us on "freedom", or "perfectionism", and one of the suits in the room would follow up with a hysterically earnest declaration on how "being your own boss is like being the president of the world". One of them said his entrepreneurial god was the creator of Virgin, then failed to remember his name. WELL PLAYED! And that would be Richard Branson, you Blackberried fool. Next time read The Economist instead of spending hours on the choice of your suit.

Equally hilarious to me was the dialogue between one of the women attending the class and the "teacher". In French every word is gendered and usually masculine: so if you were to say professor, or organizer, it would have to be followed by a precision that this also includes the ladieeeez. Unfortunately our Harvard Business alumnus did not really soak up any political correctness from his time in Boston, since he refused to do this (simple) task. Thankfully, one woman in the front row kept correcting him and he grew noticeably annoyed.

He introduced us at the end of the class to a remarkable young woman of African descent who without any help has started a beauty salon empire in Paris. I was happy to see that he was less macho that I had envisaged, until he introduced himself as "her guide" and "her mentor" in the "complicated area of entrepreneurial management". This would have not pissed me off if he hadn't shown me previously how narrow-minded he was-he is much older than she is and has more theoretical knowledge than she has, so it's not absurd to talk about mentoring her-but he did it in such a way that I left the class with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I sense great amusement and cringing in the future.

Eating disorders

I am a bulimic. I think of myself as a recovering bulimic, not as a cured one. Maybe, like alcoholics, we are never really cured, and bulimia is an addiction.

I've been in recovery for about a year, with several episodes of relapsing, but I try to envisage these episodes not as an indictment of my recovery, but simply as relapses that I get over. These usually occur in times of stress, such as during my breakup, or while preparing myself for my new school year. I'll eat a huge quantity of food and then purge.

Last year I started running to combat stress and embrace my body more. I thought that if I could appreciate my body for what it could do, I would stop abusing it-this is encouraged by therapists who practice cognitive therapy. I was following a hand book which uses cognitive therapy as guidance, and it helped me tremendously. This book would encourage me to compile reasons to enjoy my body outside of food. I decided to take up running because it is cheap and solitary. I loathe the idea of an exercice class.
A year later I am training for a half-marathon which will take place in a month. Running has become part of my daily life and has changed my way of coping with sadness and bulimia. It hasn't cured me, it hasn't made me into a perfect Sara, but it has relieved me and made me stronger. However, it has also changed my body in ways that I feel conflicted about: people compliment me on my fitter build, my parents applaud me not for enjoying it but because it has made me slimmer. I don't run to lose weight. I want to accept myself for who I am, without any reservation, and running doesn't change this goal. But when an eating-disordered girl is lauded for looking like she lost weight, it doesn't help her.

My goal this year is to stop listening to these voices. When someone compliments me on my body, I would like to be brave enough to correct them: I am stronger, not slimmer; I am happier and more relaxed, not more beautiful (whatever that means). I know people don't mean it negatively when they say such things to me, but it does contribute to an emphasis on my body as something that should be pleasing to others, not to myself.

Love

"I'm through with love
I'll never fall again
Said Adieu to love
Please never come again"

Thus sang Marylin in my favourite of her movies, Some like it hot. It's been a lot on my mind, that song, and I find myself whistling it in the street or belting it in the shower.
After my visit to my friend Am in Cambridge, I feel melancholy. I loved playing with her baby, taking her for a shopping spree or dancing in the park after a good run. But I can't help remembering that I met X at her wedding, and how intertwined everything is to me.
Tomorrow I won't feel so sad.