forum des metiers;orchestra

the french all have to choose their profession early in their life. the 9th graders, each have to pick an internship for the last week of school, in something they might like to do; meanwhile, the school organized a morning to present different types of work to them. the parents were asked to volunteer to come in and talk about their professions. i felt obliged to go in to talk about computer graphics and animation. i followed their formula and talked about how i got there, different jobs i held and then described the process and the different departments of animation and games. my favorite line: “and the job that almost every 14 year old american boy would die to have – game tester – which happens to be the lowest job in games, but entails sitting and playing the game all day and trying to break it”. afterwards, i showed some of “for the birds”. jj had been at a sleepover the night before and didn’t even want to tell me how many hours of sleep she had. she said she couldn’t even listen to the last of the 3 sessions she went to – which happened to be art, which i would’ve liked to hear myself. she took a nap to try to catch up on sleep, but i’m afraid the one hour of sleep is not going to bring her up to normal.

anyway, i just brought jj to her orchestra rehearsal and now i am sitting in the parc monceau waiting for her. it’s a gorgeous day – 70 degrees – all the trees are blooming. sitting here by the lake and the park is FULL. there are 2 black swans and a mama duck with 12 ducklings following her. i just looked up and there is a little boy of around 5 years old, that was just pulled out of the water by his dad, wet from the waist down. apparently, he was playing with his boat which is now floating away. meanwhile the dad, tried to wring his shirt dry and then was looking intently into the water, then put his hand back into the lake and after a moment, pulled out the remote control for the boat. it doesn’t work anymore. (jj said later: you’d think they’d make those things water-proof)

later:

after orchestra, jj wanted to go have dinner with her friends. one of them is going back to boston tomorrow, a week before vacation actually starts, to take a second look at boarding schools that she has been accepted into. so p and i went out to dinner. it was so beautiful out, so we went to a nice “american” style pizza restaurant which has outdoor seating. it was lovely.

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