Oh Bev- An overview

As a teacher in the Paris area, I basically could either live in Paris proper or in one of the suburbs. Frankly, I had initially not wanted to come to Paris (for reasons I'll explain in the forthcoming general updates post), but that's where they offered me a job, and it's been proving me wrong to a point thus far. However, since apartments are absurdly expensive in Paris (potentially my entire salary for a smallish studio once phone and utilities are accounted for), I opted to widen my search to the banlieues. Thankfully, I found something pretty quickly and am renting a room from an older (early 50s) French lady. She lives with her 18 year old daughter who is prepping to take her bac, and the rent was cheaper than anything I'd find in Paris- potentially cheaper than anything I could get even if I received CAF money (which I can't because it's a sublet).

Anyway, I moved in, and discovered that while my landlady- let's call her Bev to protect the innocent- has some... interesting views on some things. She really does mean well, but she'll occasionally say some things that I find absolutely ridiculous, and not just because I put a bit more faith in science than she does. That's what Oh Bev is all about- venting about things my landlady says and does. This is really me just venting, so please don't be offended, but if you are offended, please remember that it's just a blog and not that important in the grand scheme of things. I'm happy to hear opinions- just keep it civil in the comments and I'll try to do the same (outside of venting about Bev, of course).

Let's go with some starter examples of some notable Oh Bev moments from the past few months:

- Bev believes that vaccines are among the worst things ever. She has gone so far as to say that they're the mistake of the century. She backs this up by mentioning some studies she's read and referring to other (probably more respected) studies as "propoganda." She prefers not to consider that the "propoganda" might be more respected because it's more scientifically sound, because there's a big pharmaco-medical mafia that controls all publications. This was an early discussion, wherein she also said that...

-She believes that AIDS is not caused by HIV. As evidence, she mentioned those who are seropositive for HIV but never develop AIDS. According to her, we are told that HIV causes AIDS (and that we should take vaccines) because the medical establishment is only in it for the money and doesn't really care about people. As a chemist and hopefully future doctor, I had a bit of righteous anger over this.

-Bev takes a looooong time to sit down for dinner. A fresh example of this is last night- I ended up making her dinner, pictures of which will be posted later tonight. (Part of our understanding as landlady/renter is that we'll make each other food every once in a while and share a meal. How Rockwellian.) When I was maybe... 2 or 3 minutes from being done cooking, she asked if I wanted some small thing before the meal. I made the mistake of accepting, and she proceeded to spend about 10 minutes preparing the darned thing, took about 10 minutes to get everything together, and another 10 minutes to FREAKING SIT DOWN. In retrospect, I should have kept the food on the stove a bit longer and just let her get situated first, but there were pots on the table to serve from, and she kept on going. THEN she started on the small thing she prepared, and when we got to the meal, she made a few comments about how it would have been better warmer. Yeah. Sorry about that wall of text. That one still grinds my gears a lot more because it happened so recently. It's also unfortunately what an Oh Bev post in the future might end up being like. This one's got more abbreviated ones because it's 3 months worth.

-Bev seems to believe in feng shui but keeps a remarkably cramped kitchen. Including two plants, which seems like it might negate all the cleanliness she tries for by having people wear slippers/house shoes when they come in.

-Bev is an anti-capitalist who believes that we should standardize labor costs across Europe. Seems to me like that might cause some problems with inflation, but I'm no economist- then, neither is she.

-Bev has expressed that she wishes the world was run by a group of (let's see if I can remember the exact quote) "people with great spirits," who would tell us how to run our lives and be happy.

-Bev thinks that "pensée cause." As context, I mentioned that, given my family's history of cancer and my rather extensive work with some carcinogens in the lab, I will quite possibly die of cancer. She said that thinking that would cause cancer just as well as the other factors.

The list on her... unconventional views on medicine and science goes on a bit. As I say, she really does mean well, and she really is a pretty solid landlady. I've just had to learn to nod and smile a bit rather than let myself get sucked into an hour long discussion where I don't get to say much (she's a bit of a chatter- I've tried the interruption technique that I've heard is necessary in France, but she'll have none of it and gets offended before she interrupts me again).

That ended up being a bit longer than I'd hoped. I'll try to tone down the ranting a bit, because no one wants to read that much negativity, and I'm in France! There are better things to hear about! Like the Regalia post that'll be coming out later. If Flickr will load my pictures.