Stubbornella

Anyone that has lived abroad for more than a few years, understands fundamentally not fitting. When I moved to Paris, I expected it to be a culture shock, to really change my ideas. It’s natural, I had to learn the language, and more than that, figure out how to make my way in a culture with vastly different values and customs than my own. To my surprise then, the biggest not-fitting had nothing to do with my adopted culture, but rather the first time I returned home after truly becoming French somewhere deep in my core. It’s only then that you realize your instincts are off, you find odd those who share the culture you once considered as natural as water to a fish.

Perhaps you have always wondered, what is Hillary Clintons YSlow score? Who is the master of image optimization, and who has so much image-bloat that it weighed more than Mike Huckabees entire page? Check out the article I wrote on YDN.

Happy voting.

In fact it is in California, not so far from my house. En fait il se situe en Californie, pres de chez moi.

Somerville, pres de Boston, ou j’ai fait mes etudes est connu pour leurs fetes de lumiere de fin d’année. La maison avec les palmiers en lumiere est celle de mes amis Phi et Rachel.

En Californie ils ont tout a fait autant lumieres mais leurs maisons sont plus petite donc ca brille encore plus. You can visit the neighborhood using the Tour the Crazy Christmas Lights Map.

Today was my first day at Yahoo. I spent most of the day in orientation but I am already impressed with the culture. People seem genuinely happy and able to make working hard a part of living well. And damn they’re smart! Fabulous well-rounded geeks. I know, I know, it sounds like I’ve been drinking the kool-aide.

While filling out the forms and waiting for the doctor, an hour and ten minutes total, not one, two or three drug reps stopped by, but four. Four drug reps in an hour. These salesmen, essentially marketing experts (read prostitutes) for different drug companies deliver free medicines, pens, and clipboards in an attempt to influence which medicines a doctor prescribes for his patients. The secretary told me it is always like that, that they have a sign-in, visits every day, and never have to buy their own lunches.

And in honor of that I have added a new category “An American in California”, though I go back and forth about how much Parisian is in there after four years of proving Darwin was wrong about me. I leave there knowing how to speak French, push in the subway, dance salsa, build enormous [...]