Versailles

As I stood at the gates of Versailles, I could just imagine what took place there two hundred and twenty years ago.  I close my eyes and try to visualize the chaos...

There is a sortie of varying people.  

There is a man.  He is full of choler and obviously not laconic, yelling at the top of his lungs with the other revolutionaries.  He will do whatever it takes to overcome Louis XVI; if he must usurp the king's money and wealth from the palace, that is exactly what he will do.  He seems to be one of the more salient members of the mob, leading the way with his fellow countrymen.

There is a woman holding her baby.  She is at the very back of the mob, and she is not exactly sure why she is there.  She is holding her precious baby against her chest and she is scared.  She is afraid that the government will detain her for perfidy, and she is scared of being part of a mob.  The woman gathers her confidence and refuses to cede to this side of her; she wants to change the country for her child and future generations to come.  This small inkling of uncertainty is overcome by her fervor for a democracy.

The mob is running to the gates of the ethereal palace, screaming in their argot.  It is ironic, really.  Most would think that the poor would be sycophants towards the king, the only one who would be able to exonerate them from their current state of poverty.  Instead they were envious of the king's luxurious lifestyle.  The palace looked strange and almost out of place being contrasted to such poverty.  King Louis XVI was a parvenu, constantly showing off his wealth and never letting the townspeople forget their low status.  How dare he live in such luxury while the rest of the country starves on the streets?  The answer was cryptic, no one was really sure what to believe anymore.  After all, the lifestyle that they had known for their entire lives was now suddenly changing in front of their eyes and in their hearts.

...I open my eyes and see the swarming tourists taking photos in the picturesque courtyard and lining up to get inside.  I am startled by the reality of my surroundings, for just a moment ago I was a living, breathing part of the French Revolution.  Perhaps this is a scene which a historian would find in a dossier of papers.  But for me, I would rather leave history up to the historians.

Wii Fit

     The Wii Fit is like the friend everyone has but no one wants.  You know, the friend who is constantly judging and excoriating everything you do?  The one who lives to see you fail and deprecates you every chance he/she gets?  This is the Wii Fit.

     Perhaps I should start from the beginning.  The Wii Fit was given as a holiday gift to my sister and me.  I myself, not particularly one for working out (or moving in general), was not ebullient about receiving the gift, but my sister was ecstatic.  We coalesced forces and set it up in our basement to start registering ourselves.  This process was very saturnine for me.  First, I was told to step onto the board so the Wii could measure my center of balance, my weight, check my BMI, and decide whether or not I was obese or healthy.  Although I was considered to be of a healthy weight, I am apparently unbalanced and according to my work-out skills I should be twenty-eight years old.  It even asked me if I fall down a lot while walking!!  

Anyway, after registering I was able to start playing some of the work-out games.  The Wii Fit features four main categories of games to choose from: Strength Training, Yoga, Aerobics, and Balance Games.  The Aerobics and Balance Games are especially fun, because you can actually simulate hula-hooping, skiing, playing soccer, and walking on a tight-rope.  I invited my friends over to play the Wii Fit with me.  My garrulous friend Jess was amazing at hula-hooping, while Sam was great at playing soccer.  While we were eating comestibles like chips and dip and having fun with the Wii Fit, I decided to play a skiing game for the first time.  The directions were amorphous, leaving me unclear as to the rules of the game.  Of course I played the game incorrectly and all of my friends laughed.  I wonder what the makers of the Wii Fit were thinking when they invented it.  Is the point to actually get healthy or is it just to insult the players?  The Wii Fit should come with a warning label: "Likely to be invidious to users."

Anticipation

And the applause stops.  It’s just her.  Alone.  She takes her position in center ice and waits for the longest seconds of her life to pass before the music begins.  A quick glance at the judges’ ridiculing eyes and she realizes that she is forgetting to breathe.  Implacable scruples fill her mind, and every possible thing that could go wrong runs through her head.  She glances down at her tawdry and baroque dress, the rhinestones glimmering on the ice like the sun on the ocean.  She knows that she needs this; she has to get a medal.  A glance at her father’s face says “Don’t let me down.”  Her father told her that if she did not perform well at this competition, he would impose a moratorium from figure skating.  She would love to have the cachet of her parents.  She knows she is capable.  What do the others have that she doesn’t?  An ounce of confidence surreptitiously seeps out.

But everyone else performed so well.  Every jump was clean, every spin perfectly centered.  What about her?  Well, she doesn’t land her jumps as consistently as she should, and she doesn’t have the grace of the ones who previously skated.  They all made it seem so easy.  She hears the familiar first notes of her routine.  There is no way to allay her nerves except to begin.