The Grand Palais

It's a pity that my research does not focus on language acquisition, because this year would make a great case study. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is incredible how quickly Ella and Jonah are learning French, even though they seem mostly unaware of how quickly they are progressing. This evening, I put on a DVD of Huguette la Guepe (a cartoon of a quirky, but lovable wasp) which the kids had never seen before. The show started with the narrator introducing the episode in rapid-fire French. I got that the wasp was unhappy, but my mind was still racing to understand why, when Ella responds, "well, if she's so hungry, she should just get some nectar from that flower." Yes, she's very hungry and can't find anything to eat. That's what the narrator had said. "Wow, you understood that!" I said to Ella, surprised. Her eyes got wide and she looked back just as surprised, "I guess I did."

A few days ago we had a rare sightseeing treat. For the past 8 years the Grand Palais has been closed for renovations. The Grand Palais was built in 1900 for a universal Exhibition. It is a grand building with a glass roof near the center of Paris. Before being closed for renovation, it housed temporary exhibits, and now that the work is nearly done, it will go back to doing that. When the temporary exhibits are set up, however, they always built a space within the space to better exhibit whatever it is - a dropped ceiling, partition walls, etc. For 2 weeks, the city has openned the space to the public to see it in it's natural form. We arrived a few minutes before noon (it is open from noon to midnight) about half way through the two week interval, and were stunned to see a line of people that reached far, far down the block - maybe a thousand people in all, waiting to see the Grand Palais. The line moved quickly though, because it is such a big space. The photo Abe took can't do justice to how impressive the room is. To add to the uniqueness of the opportunity, they are currently exhibiting the Corelli globes, which have only been exhibited once or twice in recent history. The huge globes (which I gather have mostly been kept in storage at Versailles) were commissioned to be made for Louis XIV. One globe shows the earth, as they knew it in the 18th century (notably California is depicted as an island off the coast of North America). The other depicts the heavens, with the stars in the positions they occupied on the day of Louis XIV's birth.

Abe is back safe and sound from his trip. Abe came home with a suitcase full of sandwich bags and peanut butter and other delicacies that are hard to come by in Paris. The trip was successful (other than Abe losing his voice), and he's glad to be home. He started his French class this evening, which much to his dismay kicked off with a long essay exam (to place the students into ability levels). Hopefully, it will become more interactive and fun from here on out.

School continues well. Today as Abe approached Jonah's school to pick him up, the teacher felt moved to call out the window to Abe what a great day Jonah had had. According to Jonah, a guest teacher came in to do music and dancing with the kids. He loved it. Ella is on the no-pork list at school, so when they serve pork (which is pretty rare), they will serve her a chicken alternative. She doesn't quite trust this, though, so she came home the other day and reported, "I think we had pork for lunch today." (It was actually chicken sausage). "But Mom, even though it was pork... I LOVED it." Happily, she also has another friend, Alice.

As for me, my work is really rolling along. At INSERM, we have enlisted several preschools who are willing to participate in the French replication of my preschool eating habits study. Tomorrow we will interview someone who might do the testing of the kids in the schools. So, hopefully data collection will start soon. Meanwhile, I'm working on analyzing some of their existing data on kids' developing eating habits, with some interesting results. With my colleague at the Robert Debre Hospital, we are putting the final touches on the protocol we are planning to use.