Restoring a piece of France
■An insight into a student’s
summer full of plumbing,
biking, wining and dining
on the Mediterranean
By Inge Scheve
for the Emerald
Another school year is about to
start, meaning it’s time to take ac
count of this summer’s merits.
The phenomenon known as
summer break, for my part, had lit
tle to do with kicking back and re
• • * 9 9 "9 0f fhis sum.
Reporter’s mer in
lage located in southern France,
helping my slightly unorthodox
dad (we’ll get back to that) restore
my parents’ 400-year-old house.
The house is tiny, with only one
room on each of the three floors,
and it was in need of a makeover.
At 43, my dad, who holds an
MBA, gave up his business man
agement career. He had one of
those well-known midlife crises,
which for him meant sailing the
seas for a year in a 32-foot boat,
only to settle down in Laroque —
without a boat — after a huge
storm during his return to Eu
rope.
He is now a cabinet maker with
the foggy idea that he is going to
turn the house into a rustic,
French-style luxury den. Just look
ing at the place and connecting it
to that description should lead
anyone to question the sanity of
this person. But never mind.
One stormy night Dad woke up
and decided to turn the third-floor
walk-in closet into a bathroom.
He stocked the basement with a
sink, a flat-packed shower cabinet,
a bidet, tiles, silicone and other
bathroom accessories, only to dis
cover he could use some help get
ting this together; mainly, someone
laxing. I
spent most
beres, a me
dieval vil
to carry all of this equipment from
the basement to the third floor.
Enter me.
While the hauling proved labor
intensive, it required no brain
work. Then came the plumbing.
Most plumbers are trained to be
just that: plumbers.
After days of sweating and
swearing over pipes, tightening,
and applying silicone and the like
in temperatures hotter than 100
degrees C, we agreed that plumb
ing was one career we both could
do without.
However, France, was not all
about work. There was both food
and play, in that order. Food such
as snails (escargot) and wine, mus
sels and french fries and wine,
H We discovered some
where between the main
course and the cheese
platter that a family tradi
tion is the cheese game.
n
wild boar and wine.
Food in France is not merely
something to consume. It is cul
ture, science and a hot discussion
topic as well. I have never seen a
nation so obsessed with talking
about, preparing and savoring its
meals.
One Sunday, we were invited to
a friend’s house for a traditional
family lunch. It started at noon
with champagne and snacks on the
terrace, followed by five or six sit
down courses inside, and ended
about 6 p.m.
We discovered somewhere be
tween the main course of alouette
(forest sparrows) and the cheese
platter that a family tradition is the
cheese game.
At the table, each family mem
ber was asked to name a cheese to
add to a list that would be com
pared with other families’ lists at a
later time to see which family
could come up with the most
cheeses. We were talking types, so
Tillamook, for example, was not an
option, while cheddar would be an
acceptable entry, save the fact that
the protectionist French only con
sider French cheeses legal addi
tions. The particular family I dined
with had a list of over 200 French
cheeses — no wonder each meal
took awhile.
As for play, I preferred something
more physical, so we joined a local
tour group for a whole day of
mountain biking. We hiked from
the French border over to Spain
and back to France.
The trip started at 9 a.m. when
we headed out in a 4x4 truck to
scale a mountain. We were left at
the 3,900-foot peak behind the vil
lage. We then descended the seven
miles to sea level in Spain. After
several sweaty hours on dusty grav
el roads — and in my case a few
dives over the handlebars and into
the blackberry bushes — it was
time to enter France again. What
comes down must go back up.
In a scant two miles of biking, we
ascended almost 2,000 feet. Our re
ward was the final descent from the
border high point through French
vineyards and rural farms to the
beach in the French town of
Banyuls, six miles later.
When we left France — two
wooden ceilings, a bookcase, and
an almost-finished bathroom later
— the manager of the local dump
knew me well enough to remind
me that Aug. 15 and 16 he would
close the dump because of family
festivities.
The baker asked when we would
return — hard work makes anyone
hungry, and I bet she’ll be missing
our business! Not to mention that
we will miss her croissants and
breads.
And the bar two doors down has
one less customer to come daily
and fill 1 1/2-liter bottles with the
local wine on tap.
Summer senate ends without ado
■ Wrapping up their term
reviewing work study budget
considerations, senators
allocate special request funds
By Emily Gust
Oregon Daily Emerald
The last meeting of the ASUO
summer Student Senate went just
as summer seems to go: quickly.
In a meeting that lasted just
longer than
half an hour,
the 10-mem
ber summer
senate blasted
through four
special re
quests
Wednesday,
granting three
and placing
the fourth on
hold until the full senate begins
meeting next week.
Women’s Center Office Coordi
nator Lori Brown submitted a re
quest asking that $900 — the pay
for one of the center’s student em
ployees — be transferred from the
leadership account, which contains
the stipend money for student em
ployees, to the group’s work study
account.
Generally, when students are eli
gible for work study, their salaries
are budgeted into the work study
account.
In this case, however, the student
was hired during spring term,
Student
Senate
which was too late to budget for
mally.
“When money goes into work
study, the federal government es
sentially provides matching funds
[to the student],” Sen. Peter Watts
said.
But by moving the money from
one area to another, Watts said the
group would have to pay a three
percent kickback to the government
for the work study position. That’s
money that the Women’s Center
would have to take from other parts
of its budget.
He urged the senate to think care
fully about the decision. The
Women’s Center’s request*is the
first of its nature for the new school
year, and any decision made will
set a precedent for the rest of the
year, Watts said.
Claiming that the senate can ex
pect between 50 and 100 such re
quests throughout the. course of the
year, Watts explained the conse
quences of transferring money into
the work study fund that had not
been allotted during the normal
budget-setting process.
He said a person doing the same
amount of work and receiving the
same stipend as other positions
could potentially earn four times as
much money when figuring in the
government’s addition.
Brown suggested decreasing the
students’ stipend enough so that
the kickback had no effect; with
that, the issue became more com
plicated and the senators deter
mined this was a decision best left
for the full senate the following
Wednesday.
“I don’t think summer senators
should decide this because it is a
precedent,” Sen. Jennifer Gree
nough said.
On the other side of the coin, the
University forensics team, which
has not come forward with a spe
cial request in the last five years,
was granted $1,558 from the sur
plus for a speech and debate tour
nament at the University of Alaska.
The tournament pulls together
the top 10 teams in the nation, and
this- year the University’s is among
them. The money will go toward
registration, travel and lodging for
the team.
.Additionally, the Oregon Future
Lawyers Association garnered $70
from the surplus for refreshments at
two events, including Thursday’s
visit by Peter DeMuniz, a candidate
for the Oregon State Supreme
Court.
The ASUO Designated Driver
Shuttle was able to split up tl\e
$16,000 it received from its ballot
measure in the election last year
into specific segments of its pro
gram, including $10,000 for main
tenance.
This was the last meeting of the
summer senate, which handles
only special requests for money.
The first order of business for the
full senate will be to nominate and
elect both a president and vice
president for the 2000-01 year.
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Correction
The Student Health Center ad in the 9/18/00 edition of the
Oregon Daily Emerald contained an error. Free HIV
testing to university students is no longer available. For
more information or questions regarding HIV testing
please contact the Student Health Center at 346-2770 or
visit their web site: http://healthcenter.uoregon.edu
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Easy to the extreme.
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the adventure known as college.
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