Who am I? I am a Francophile.

Do you ever catch yourself singing the national anthem of France?

No?

(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K1q9Ntcr5g if you're unfamiliar with it)

Well, I do...not that I know the words as yet, no, but the tune?  Stuck in my head.  All the time.

Why?

You might think it's because my musical brain just catches things in its trap to release into song at a later date, and you wouldn't be far off.

But the fact that it's the anthem of France, and not some place like Argentina or the UK, should tell you something.

That something?

I am obsessed with anything and everything French.

It started out as an excuse to take something other than math or science or even English in high school.  Why take those boring gen eds when you can take a foreign language?

(I took French, German, and Spanish, because I could)

It didn't take long for me to realize that French was the language for me.  It flowed off the tongue like water from a pitcher, it involved creative (and therefore difficult, making it more impressive that I accomplished it) spelling, and it turned out that most of my favorite fairy tales came from the French lore.

(think Sleeping Beauty, Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella...)

I quickly cast aside my other languages and delved into the beauty that is French.  I learned songs, I read books, I started writing my diary in French...

(though I laugh at all I wrote, but I digress)

I found my first love in a high school French class, which only solidified my love for the language (though I'll always have a better accent than him, haha), and the romanticism never died.

When I was about twenty, I had the opportunity to travel to Haïti (before the earthquake), and within ten days, I was speaking like a native, and life was damn near perfect.  Why wasn't I born a Frenchman? I thought.

Six years later, French still holds a fascination for me.  I often find myself watching Disney movies in French (thanks to that first French class, and Madame Jennifer, who let us watch La Belle et la Bête), I have several shelves of French books in my library, and when I'm having a really bad day, I just tell myself, someday, Em, you're going to run off to Paris.

And life will be great.

Because I am a Francophile.

Who am I? I am an Artist.

I am an Artist.

That word can have many different connotations, apply to many different fields, from music to science to philosophy to actual paint-and-brush art.  I would like to speak on the latter this evening.

Not necessarily with paint and brushes, no, but with pencil and paper.

Though most of my creative bents involve music or writing, I've always had a soft spot for drawing.  I can admit to still having a few clumsy things I drew in primary school (though they rarely leave their box), though my first real interest in drawing started in the fourth grade when I transferred schools.

It was a small, faith-based private school, and to be honest, they didn't have much for faculty.  With few (very few) exceptions, the homeroom teacher taught every single class.  And while Mr Johnson was a heck of a choir teacher, he really was not much of an artist.  One week, though, I can't recall if he was out sick or if the administration just wanted a change in pace, we had a substitute come in and teach art (and maybe another class, English, I think).  She was young, bright, just married, and very creative.  She drew these quirky little characters reminiscent of a cartoon alien, and she used bright colors and though I'm sure, considering the environment we were in, she was very conservative, but she just seemed so magical and light, and I remember all that week struggling to emulate her style, to draw something so beautiful that she would praise me in front of the class, and I could gain a reputation as a cool artist chick instead of just that weird transfer girl.

Praise was inevitable, of course; I mean, come on, we were in fourth grade, what was she going to do, tell me I sucked?

Because I really did.

But I had so much fun, and whenever I can now, I try to take a little time to draw something, and maybe to improve upon my skills a little.

That picture above?  I drew that my senior year of high school.  A little simple, perhaps, but a big step up from where I started, and though I feel I can do better now, it's still one of my favorite pieces.

And who knows, maybe if I keep getting better, my publishers will let me design my own cover for my books...

Since I am an Artist, after all.

Who am I? I am Smart.

I am Smart.

You might think that's a pretty egotistical thing to say, and I won't say you're wrong if you do.

But it's also the truth.

I get things.  My mind is full of information that I may never actually use, but it's stuck there, regardless.  I can recite lines from plays, tell you the definition of fifty-cent words you'll probably never use in daily life, mix chemicals in a lab without blowing up, give you the first thirty digits of phi () --also known as the Golden Ratio-- and a plethora of other things...  I make references to history, psychology, sociology, mathematics, without breaking a sweat because it's all right there in my mind.

If you teach me something once, it's unlikely you'll have to teach it to me a second time unless you're just a terrible (read: boring, not inadequate) teacher.  Stuff stays in my head, flowing on a constant cycle of 'Do I need this information right now?' or 'Why did I think this was important?' among other questions that often keep me awake long into the night just trying to calm my brain down.

As you might expect, though, there are downsides to this brand of intelligence.

I am bored, very easily, because I just get things too fast and then it seems pointless to give the subject any more attention.  Sometimes I over-think, over-analyze, what to the average masses might seem simple problems.  Sometimes I turn into that most hated of all people --the 'Know-It-All,' and though perhaps in that instance I really do know it all, I come off as just obnoxious instead.  Or mean.  Or condescending.

(I might have a superiority complex when it comes to my brain and others'.)

Combine brains with a highly hormonal physique, and we can go the complete opposite and say that I'm stupid.

I will devote hours upon hours to memorizing sheet music (though it doesn't actually take that long to memorize, just to play it correctly) because it makes me happy.  On the other hand, I will spend five minutes studying for a test that probably needed a few hours itself because it upsets me.  I will read thousands of books that I discovered in the corner of a bookshop or the back room of a library.  I will not read a single page of a book you told me to read for class.

It's a strange dichotomy, balancing emotions and logic, and I guess I haven't managed it yet.

But you can challenge me all you want; I'm still gonna say the same thing:

I am Smart.

(And for the record, I probably think I'm smarter than you.  Just sayin'.)

Cheers.