I am figuring out my place in this French study abroad program How much do I wanna practice and with who? Mais voila!

There are a bunch of "anamtrices" or tutors or in this case camp counselors. They could totally help me practice my French, but I'm embarrassed about approaching them with my broken French and heavy American accent. It is kinda their job to endure such tortures, so they may be amenable. I'll find more language practice when I buy stuff in "centre ville" (center of town) and eat places other than the school cafeteria or my room.

There are a lot of scheduled activities, but with getting up at 7:30 everyday for class 6 days a week I skipped out on some this week. I just couldn't take it. Needed some downtime, by myself, and it was oh-so-nice. With weekly beach trips, I will undoubtedly have at least a slight tan when I come back to the states.

Unlike the beach in Cassis [where we spent a week on a family vacation], the shore is sand not rocks, which makes walking to the waves easier. Also unlike Cassis, the water was very choppy. I'm hopping that that was just because the wind was exceptionally strong that week.

As far as classes go, I've decided to do half and half. I'm doing the harder section (D) during the morning oral lesson, and the easier section (C) for the afternoon grammar section. It's the same professor for both, and I really like her, so at least I'm waking up for classes I appreciate. Marlow lauded me in opting to go one level up from where I was placed, and said don't worry if you fall on your face. Yesterday, during my harder oral section, I mispronounced "baisser" with a "z" sound instead of a soft "s" sound and instead of saying "I will turn the music down" I said "I will have sex with the music." Now comes the time for Batman's father's advice "You know the reason we fall down?... To pick ourselves up."

***

Most of the Americans and Foreigners love to speak English, so the speaking and listening practice is not just falling into my lap. Live in a dorm for foreigners and we go to the college for foreigners. We are quarantined. I am going to try to spend time with the tutors (who are really like peers), and ask them to coffee or to go on a walk. I also plan to skip out on the scheduled trips they have for us here. I don't dig the whole I'm a tourist on a tourist bus deal. Walking around in large groups and following schedules after 6 days of class and often scheduled activities within the week itself does not make sense to me. I do not want or need constant structure. I live on the outskirts of Montpellier, but it's only a short tram ride from centre ville. This is a city I want to explore more. Also I want to see a bunch of movies. I'm very excited because that is what I am doing today. My first French movie in France!

[Marlow shopped with a "friend of a friend"] I now know the lowest price to ask for for most of the basics I will be buying for presents. We went around the yuyuan bazaar and the fake market, stopped at a Starbucks so she could write down addresses of clubs and other shopping districts, and then went and had Mexican food with some of her classmates, most of whom are leaving this week. I'm glad our time overlapped even for a day.

Then today I had to get up early to go on a tour of Shanghai with a guy who is visiting the company I'm going to work for. I ended up acting as translator. And the guy was plenty interesting, has been coming to China for over a decade, imports beads and other small plastic things, and has a daughter about my age. I could switch back and forth between talking to him or to the three Chinese people, or I could be the bridge between them. And it struck me that this could potentially be the way in which I am most useful here this summer. I can't imagine I'll do better at filling orders for garments in Chinese than I will at schmoosing in English. Plus of course I get the perks of an air-conditioned car with driver to points of interest, and a big banquet style meal every time.

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narco-trafficking, people killing each other, fundamentalists killing each other in the name of God. These and more. Many more. As our analysts know, as our collectors of intelligence know - these are our enemies. To combat them we need more intelligence, not less. We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."

This film is a disappointment, even though there's nothing particularly bad about it. Perhaps it's that Batman Begins (and, to a lesser extent, the Spiderman series) have set the bar so high for comic-book- based film that a straight-forward adaptation like Fantastic Four comes off as silly and lightweight. Although I was a staunch Detective Comics fan growing up, my one crossover Marvel fave was Fantastic Four. I generally disliked the humor and vulnerability of Marvel characters, preferring the lofty perfection (or at least noble striving) of Superman and his DC cohorts. But this quartet of genetically-altered heroes was different for me, and I enjoyed their human bickering and competitiveness. In film, it is humanity and wit that saves a bit of the day for Fantastic Four. Michael Chiklis (from TV's The Shield) makes a wonderful, sympathetic Ben Grimm/The Thing, and relative newcomer Chris Evans is great fun as the brash young Johnny Storm/The Human Torch. But even these two notable performances aren't able to bring Fantastic Four above being merely adequate, mildly diverting, insubstantial summer fare.

--Neal Vitale