Johanna Writes

Changes Coming

I've been such a bad bad blogger lately and I've decided that some major changes must be made. The details are currently being worked out but here's the general plan:

1. This page will become my "business page" where I will have links to published articles, a small bio, etc

2. I will start a new typepad blog which will become my personal blog. The new blog will be linked from the main one so if you so desire, you may still find it. The idea is for the personal blog to serve as more of a place to jot down stuff that's going on with Nico, life in Switzerland, etc. I know that one of the reasons I've been hesitant to post much in recent months is due to feeling badly about not having more time to compose the sorts of stories that I used to. Perhaps if I have a new place to write things, I'll be less self-conscious about posting mundane shit such as my grocery list or what Nico ate for lunch that day or the latest most adorably adorable thing that he's said. I really really do want to keep track of this stuff (not so much the grocery lists maybe) and I haven't been doing a very good job lately even though I've bought several notebooks that were supposed to be expressly for cute Nico utterings. Come to think of it, usually the grocery lists wind up in the notebooks so at least some thing's being documented...

3. The last thing is that I'm toying with the idea of not having comments on the new blog. This isn't because I haven't enjoyed all the comments immensely over the past few years. Rather, I just think it'll be easier for me to feel like it's a family/personal blog if they're not there. At the same time, I'd love to hear from anyone that would like to send an email.

Diorama Club!

I've got a new article published today in New York Magazine's Daily Intel! Here's the link.

It's about a diorama making club in Brooklyn!

Esoteric Needs

Guess which one of the following messages on the "Lausanne With Kids" yahoo group was posted by me this morning?

Messages In This Digest      (9               Messages)          

   

                    

1.

  Babysitter Pully 2 half days per week   From:   

             

2a.French Language Instructor

    From:   

             

3a.

  Mary Kay Cosmetics   From: 

3b.

  Night Train to Lourdes   From:   

             

4a.Re: Cleaning Lady

  From:   

             

5.

  Blue velvet Barbie or doll dress needed!!   From:

I'm also in the process of tracking down several dozen bottle caps. All will be revealed...

Obsessively Reading: Sisterhood, Interrupted by Deborah Siegel and The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.
Obsessively eating: baguettes with pickles and gruyere
Obsessively listening to: Nico "playing" the electric fan (he's convinced it's a musical instrument)
         

Up Up Alla!

We had just finished making puppets out of the vomit bags when the voice of the pilot came over the intercom. He announced that for unknown reasons, we had been "rejected" for take-off and that he would let us know as soon as he had more information. After two hours of waiting on the JFK airport runway with a two year old, this was not good news. The plane reverberated with groans and mutterings from unhappy passengers who proceeded to stand up and open the overhead bins in order to get their belongings. A few people started to head back to the toilets and others jogged towards the front of the airplane so as to be the first to be let back off again.

All of a sudden the plane lurched forward and starting zooming ahead at an alarming speed. The next thing we knew, we were no longer even on the ground and panic ensued as throngs of people lurched back to their seats, overhead bins hanging ajar and shopping bags falling into the aisles from above. This was literally 30 seconds after the first announcement which told us that we would not be taking off. 5 hours later we landed in Bogota with nary an explanation as to what had happened. Welcome to Colombia.

I think I'll start listing the books I've been reading within my blog entries since I can't get my Typepad reading list to work properly and I like to keep track. While on vacation I read- Grotesque, the second book by Japanese novelist Natsuo Kirino to be translated into English. The first one was "Out" which I totally loved. Very dark and so much more thought provoking than your typical mystery. Very culturally insightful as well. Grotesque was good but I liked "Out" better. I also read "Full Frontal Feminism" by Jessica Valenti of Feministing blog fame. If you already consider yourself to be a feminist, it's a bit basic but if you're not sure, definitely read it. Next I read Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins by Rupert Everett which was the best written shallow showbizzy autobiography that I've ever read. In fact, it was astoundingly well written. Right now I'm reading Finding Betty Crocker by Susan Marks and Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz. One is about the history of Betty Crocker and the other is about a girl's survival of a murderess ax attack. As you can see, my tastes are eclectic!

We're back in Switzerland now after a few weeks in Colombia and another week in NYC. Nico's speaking an odd mishmash of Spanish, French and English and I think he's pretty unintelligible to most people. "Up Up alla!" means "Airplane over there!" and "Tiene que share mio pousette" is "I need to share my baby stroller." People had told us that if each parent spoke in their native language that the child would just naturally separate them and not get confused. Doesn't seem to be working in our case but hopefully he'll figure it all out eventually.

Obsessively Listening to: Blond Redhead, Timbaland

Obsessively Watching: So You Think You Can Dance, S3, Big Love S2, Dora "L'Exploratrice" (not by choice this last one)

Obsessively Eating: Starbuck's double chocolate cookies and salads with Goddess dressing. Nico is  obsessively eating Gruyere cheese which he calls "Doggy cheese" since the dog in one of his favorite stories is named "Gruyere."

Bonjour Ne?

I have a new article in the latest addition of Craft magazine!! The article is about two male artists who both use embroidery in their artwork. The best part is that you can read it online at http://craftzine.com/magazine/

Just click on "Not Your Grandpa's Embroidery" and there you are!

In the meantime, we're off for a 3 week vacation. First 10 days in Bogota, Colombia and then another 10 in New York City. Can't wait to visit all my friends and favorite crafty spots in NYC! By the way, Nico's been mixing his French and Japanese up in some interesting ways lately. The other day I snuck up to his nursery school so that I could watch him in action without his noticing. What I saw was him repeatedly rapping on the back of his teacher's leg with his stuffed doggy while demanding "Dozo! Dozo! Dozo!" ("Here you go! Take it!" in Japanese). Naturally she didn't have a clue what he was saying. We don't say too much in Japanese anymore but one thing I have held onto is to occasionally end words or sentences with the expression "ne" which sort of means "Is that right?" or "Isn't it?" and is often said in a sort questioning manner. Lately Nico has noticed that a lot of people say "Bon Journee" (Good day) to us on the street in French. He's started to say it in return but in his version it's "Bonjour... NE?"

Quilt

Yay!!! My first quilt ever is FINISHED! This is a quilt I made using a Denyse Schmidt pattern from this book. I changed it a bit by making the stripes go horizontally- mainly because I wanted to give it a road-like feel since the theme of the quilt was traffic. All of the fabric for the quilt was bought in Japan including my favorites- the fabulous Nani Iro black and white striped pieces. All the little vehicles were hand embroidered and the quilt was machine quilted. The fabric on the reverse side is some New York City themed fabric that I found at the City Quilter in Manhattan.

I love it because I've really been wanting to make a quilt for Nico that he'd really like but that at the same time, wouldn't make me want to vomit up Disney characters everytime I look at it. I think this is a good compromise. You can see more pictures of the quilt on my flickr.

Thanks to Everyone

Hi there everyone! I know I haven't been much of a blogger lately and I do apologize.  The thing is, that in recent months I've made a decision to start doing some freelance writing. Ever since I finished grad school several years ago and realized that I didn't want to continue with psychology, I've been struggling to find something that I could pursue career wise. Living in foreign countries where I don't speak the language well has made this even more of a challenge. It's only been within the last year that I've decided that perhaps writing could be an option and although I have no idea if it will ever become even minimally financially lucrative, I've decided that it's worth a shot. I want to thank my friends Deanne and Claire because although they may not know it, it was conversations that I had with them that really gave me the initial courage and inspiration to try.

I've been spending a lot of time this summer researching article ideas, writing drafts and submitting ideas to editors. Happily, the work is beginning to pay off and I've gotten a few commissions for articles which I'm really excited about! The only drawback is that I've found it virtually impossible to find the time to both blog and write articles. At first I thought about stopping the blog altogether but now I've decided that I'll keep it going and perhaps start posting more again about craft projects (cause I have been crafting up a storm!), as well as just general info about what we're up to.

In the meantime, I really want to thank the people who have faithfully kept up with this site. In particular, there are several people who have always left truly encouraging and insightful comments despite the fact that I am absolutely horrible about commenting in return (I think I've left a total of about 5 comments on other people's blogs in the past 3 years). These amazing people include Myra, Gleek, Tania,  Sigsy in Tokyo, Angelynn, Veronique, Christina, Suzy, Diane, Isa, Long Story Longer, Cora,  Kimblahg, Brittanie, Lulu, Catherine, Ola, Thrusher, Jessica, Leta, Denise, Anne in New Jersey, Kristin, Debora, Susanna, Stephanie, Heinzdelcl, Mimi, L, Helen, Kaitlyn, Nicole, Viking Zen, Emily, Jen, Mari,  Heather, Karen Rani, and of course my dear Jenn. I'm sorry if I missed anyone.

Anyway, I just finished a Denyse Schmidt quilt for Nico and I've also got a bunch of knitting projects in the works. Pictures coming soon!

New Flickr Photos

Despite what everyone may think, I have actually been taking lots of pictures over the past 6 months. Yesterday I finally sat down and uploaded a whole bunch of them onto Flickr. There are pictures of our new apartment, pictures of our trips to Barcelona, Prague and Southeast Asia and LOTS of pictures of Nico of course! Take a look!

Language Barriers

Part of the challenge of living in any foreign country are the misunderstandings that inevitably arise when one doesn't speak and understand the native language well. In Japan this was a daily issue for me and you can read about it here, here, here, here, here, and here.

French is definitely an easier language to get a handle on than Japanese but this doesn't mean we don't suffer from the occasional misunderstanding. This morning a sobbing Nico was told several times by nursery school personnel that his stuffed doggy (who I had forgotten to leave with him) had taken the car and gone off to work. This was an unfortunate result of a communication breakdown which occurred when his non-English speaking teachers misunderstood his cries for his "doggy" to be cries for his "daddy." Sadly Nico isn't the only one in the family who has suffered from an inability to speak and understand French correctly. In my French class last week our teacher asked us to come up with some examples of "Vaudois" (the region of Switzerland where we live) French. Misunderstanding, I thought she was asking us to give examples of "Boudoir"  (bedroom) French. Although I was confused about how a discussion on regional dialects had verged into one on talking dirty, I gamely chipped in with a new bit of slang I'd recently picked up on how to express the action of making love. The response was a roomful of confused stares and several requests for me to repeat myself. Sadly, by the time I realized my faux pas, the conversation had awkwardly stumbled off in another direction- Haitian cooking terminology I believe it was.

Nico will undoubtedly be the first in our family to get a real grip on the language and I'm sure that he'll be translating for us at the city office before his 4th birthday. Just the other night when we put him to bed he gave a cheerful little wave and shouted out "Merci! Au revoir!" from his crib as I closed the door. "Um, your welcome..." I responded. I think that this, along with his hardcore addiction to Nutella, definitely means that he's fast on his way to being culturally adjusted.

Deeppresso

Just what you need to perk you up in the morning! Gosh I miss Japan!