Chuck Norris, Ben-Hur, Disney -- make a movie out of that!

What’s the only thing better than a nice cheesy episode of Walker, Texas Ranger? That same episode in French! I was eating in the kitchen earlier with Sarah, who was flipping around channels, when suddenly: "Sarah! Go back! I thought I just saw… Oh my God, it is! It’s Walker, Texas Ranger in French!" I only saw the last few minutes, but it was just as horrible as I could have hoped. Walker found the bad guys (of course) and beat them up in a slow-motion karate fight, then rescued two kids from a burning building with the help of a Lassie-like yellow Labrador who was easily the best actor in the whole damn thing. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to think up a good Chuck Norris saying related to France, something like, "When Chuck Norris comes to France, French people lower their flags."

Last week I went by the médiathèque and checked out Ben-Hur, which I hadn’t seen since the sixth grade, when my history teacher at SJ Welsh (aka Hell on Earth and the worst school I’ve ever been to) decided to show it to our class. Looking back now, I don’t know why the hell she thought she could show such a religious movie in a public school, and I wish I had tried to get her fired over it. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did when I was 11 (I remember being blown away by it), and the whole thing was almost ruined by Haya Harareet’s truly horrible performance. I was reminded of a poem I love, "My Life Before I Knew It," by Lawrence Raab:

I hated to dance, I hated baseball,
and collected airplane cards instead.
I learned to laugh at jokes I didn’t get.
The death of Christ moved me,
but only at the end of Ben-Hur.

In the last few days I’ve bought two galettes des rois, but don’t worry, I didn’t eat them by myself, the other assistants helped. They’re French King Cakes, but the differences are 1) they’re eaten to celebrate the Epiphany, not Mardi Gras, 2) hidden inside is a beautiful little man carved out of porcelain and painted, not a pink plastic baby, and 3) they’re infinitely better than the King Cakes we eat in Louisiana, which I’ve always thought were dry and tasteless. These are big flaky pastries with this sweet filling made from sugar, eggs, and almonds. They probably won’t be selling them much longer, since the Epiphany was two weeks, but my goal is to eat as many as I can while they’re still in stores.

The English students and I got a nice treat on Friday when the English teachers decided to cancel classes and take all the students to see Enchanted at the local cinema, which had worked out some deal with the lycée to let us all watch it for free. I enjoyed it; it was a cute movie with some really catchy songs, and I was impressed with Disney’s ability to make fun of itself after all the wrongs it’s committed (don’t even get me started on what they did to Peter Pan).