Ah, France

So this is going to be a rather quick entry because I have to run out the door in a few minutes, but I did want to post two random pictures before tonight, because I'm expecting to have a whole lot more to say for myself tomorrow (more on that in a second) and I figured if I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to post these two pictures, they'd be too random to upload tomorrow, haha. I've been sitting on both of them for a few days now because they're totally unrelated to anything else.

Anyway, when it comes to Communist Party materials, France does a really fine job in coming up with stuff that amuses me. cf this poster:


The background is that they call swine flu "la grippe A" for that official code name it really has. Which makes sense in theory but is actually a really dumb idea because it's totally misleading because the bird flu from a few years ago was "la grippe aviaire." And of course that was a whole lot more serious, so people are freaking out thinking that swine flu is the same thing. In any case, I liked this sticker, which appeared on one of the entrance doors to my dorm the other day. I'm desperately searching to get my hands on some real copies of it, and I promise that if I do, I will be mailing a bunch of them to people, haha. Until then I had to settle for a picture.

The other picture is actually not funny at all, it's just rather ridiculous. It's a memorial in the main hallway to the ENS, dedicated to alums who died in WWII.

Which is all well and good, but take a closer look at the parenthetical notation after each name. Yes, you're reading it right, the memorial includes the discipline of each student AND THAT STUDENT'S RANK IN THE CLASS! So the first person was #22, the second was #25, etc. I mean seriously, now, there's even a slacker at #52 and another at #58! Isn't that insane? I mean, totally not surprising given how obsessed they are with rankings here, but we were rather shocked that this would extend all the way to a monument to the war dead.

Ok, that's about it for now, I'm running out the door to get organized for tonight's Grand Adventure, which is an all night contemporary art festival throughout the city! It's from 7 pm to 7 am, more details here: http://www.nuitblanche2009.com/ We're making a huge dinner together in the dorms (haha) then hitting the town. We plan on seeing it all, regardless of how long it takes!