J’habite à 412km de Paris. De chez moi, ça veut dire 25 minutes de voiture pour aller prendre le car (il n’y en a pas entre 11h30 et 16h, et un seul entre 10h et 11h30), 1h20 de car pour aller à la gare, 3h de train (direct, ouf). Mais comme la région sabre les horaires des cars, et qu’au fil des ans la SNCF supprime certaines liaisons quotidiennes, il n’est pas rare que je doive partir de chez moi vers 9h du mat pour arriver gare d’Austerlitz à 20h. 11h pour faire 400 bornes.

(Et il n’y a pas de car qui me conduise à la préfecture. Rien.)

Moi, j’ai choisi d’habiter ici. Mais pas les mômes de mon village. Ni leurs parents, pris dans l’engrenage du manque d’instruction et de l’isolement.
On ne demande pas une desserte TGV dans chaque village. Mais on est en colère.

In my late forties and I couldn’t tell you what year I graduated. I know I fucked up so bad freshman year I had to switch from an Ivy League to an okay school with zero credit to my name, and lost a whole year, I know I got to 90% done with three different minors I ended up hating and dropping. I know I’m successful and happy in my career.
It doesn’t matter a bit.
Also, you’re struggling BUT doing it. That’s way more impressive than cruising through college.

French here: it works. Miam.

Honestly, when I remember it, I can hear the fabric of reality tearing.

I was 16, on a road-trip in the US with my dad and my sister. We’re French. First time in the US. Get to NYC after a month. That was before Internet existed: we had booked a room in the Central Park YMCA by mail. Reception goes: “Yes, you’re in the book. LastName, 2 people, today through next Saturday.”
“Err, no, sorry, the dates are right but there are 3 of us.”
“Oh, we must have written it down wrong, no problem, we’ll give you a bigger room.” We get to our room. 5 minutes later there’s a knock on the door. My sister opens it. My dad’s jaw clatters on the lino floor. It was his estranged dad and very much estranged step-mother. He hadn’t been in touch for 20 years; I had met them once when I was 3; my sister, never. They had booked a room under the same LastName (duh), for the same 6 nights, in the same hostel, for their first visit to the US.
We did spend some time with them in NYC, but it didn’t lead to any happily-ever-after, family-healing breakthrough, because they were jerks or, to be honest, monsters.

J’attends de voir le dawa dans mon village de 170 habitants, avec que des femmes de 80 ans et plus et des agriculteurs hommes de 40 à 70. (Non, je ne sais pas où est passé le reste de la pyramide des âges. En ville et au cimetière, j’imagine.)

Quand j’étais gamine les témoins de Jéhovah sonnaient chez nous, c’est vrai que ça n’arrive plus…
Ma mère, bourgeoise de gauche intello, m’avait appris à gueuler, si c’était moi qui leur ouvrais la porte : “Maman, c’est encore ces idiots, je leur dis d’aller se faire foutre ?”

Mon neveu a appris vers 16 ans que la mémoire n’est un muscle qu’au sens figuré.

Which country?.

C’est bon ça.

I see, thank you. Where I am school lunches are 3 -course hot meals, period, and I never questionned it. There’d be public outcries and newspapers articles if they gave kids a bologna sandwich.

Thank you.

Aren’t all meals hot? I’m confused.

Where I’m from, the hyperbole would go “You’ll get punched.”

Franchement, j’ai regardé pour faire plaisir à ma môme. Prête à tout critiquer. Et j’ai adoré.

J’ai surdosé vers 2008, je fais quoi ?

I had that exact same model 15 years ago. It got stolen and I’m still not over it. I got basic Kobo readers instead; they work fine with Calibre and any ebook you can get. I don’t touch Amazon with a ten-foot pole, and I never use the Kobo account you have to create when buying the device.

But I’d give somebody’s left arm to have the Sony back. It was perfect.