The Songs :: Les Chansons

The nice thing about being able to speak another language is that it opens you to another world of music.  Lyrics in French are so much prettier, one because it's a language made for rhyming (unlike English, our language is all kinds of mixed up), and two because being able to understand songs in another language is wonderful.

C'est un nouveau monde

I mean, that's what I assume it's like, since I really don't understand French songs at all.  At least, not until I look up the French lyrics, then go to Google Translate, then read back and forth between the terrible English translation and the original.  By that point, the person who wanted to show me the song is awkwardly waiting around while I stare at my iTouch screen.

It's even worse when the Internet here is not working (because of some regional project where the government is changing all of the electrical cables), and the waiting time drags itself out even longer.

That memory is useless without WiFi

When the songs aren't sentimental at all, it's totally fine.  My host brother showed me a...crass, I suppose, French song that totally mocks the idea of a "French lover."  So far, the songs he's shown me make way more fun of the idea of dating than any song I've heard in the USA.

Then again, I wouldn't take what I hear in France as a good generalization, considering how the people that are showing me French songs, my host family, have more American music than I do on their iTunes account.

My iTunes account is remarkably outdated.  I decided that it was pathetic that French people know more about American classics and hit songs than I do, so I finally hooked up my iTouch to the computer a few weeks ago.

When I plugged in my iTouch, I got the whole bar at the top of iTunes that said it was going to take four hours.  Now, I was considerably worried about that, considering the sketchy internet.  My host brothers told me to not worry about it, that the estimated time changed all the time.

They were right.  After about seven times where it got cut, ranging between two to five hours, I got lucky, and the estimated time became only 15 minutes.  I got so excited, maybe I could finally stop hunching over the computer and squinting at the time estimation, praying for it to diminish.

maybe if I stare at it harder, it'll go faster

Nope, no dice.  With a couple minutes left to go, the internet cut off again and BAM six hours became the new estimation time.

completely acceptable behavior

At that point I just gave up and read a book.  At least those don't blank out whenever there's a problem with the printing industry.