dans la lune

dans la lune: moonstruck, moony, dreamy; affected by or as if by the moon, as a) mentally unbalanced b) romantically sentimental c) lost in fantasy or reverie; with one's head in the clouds

I'm pretty sure my French teacher didn't expect her remark to have such an impact on me, that particular day in high school. I wasn't paying attention, you see. It's always been hard for me to pay attention to the things that strike me as boring, superfluent or ordinary, as I'm sure it is to anyone. Yet even when relaxing, I seek different impulses at the same time. I read magazines while I watch TV, I make a (long overdue) phone call while I catch up with my favorite blogs. Needless to say, 50 minutes of singlemindedly rehashing the same vocabulaire and grammaire over and over again, wasn't my idea of a fun afternoon.

So that is why that one day, during that one class, I was daydreaming and doodling in my notebook. And I still was after the third time someon called my name. Suddenly I became aware of an unusual silence in the classroom. No more droning teacher's voice, no more students' whispering. Everyone was looking at me. As I came to understand the situation, I braced myself for a dressing-down, but instead I got what everyone is looking for their entire lives. A goal, a definition, a life purpose.

All of a sudden I had an exotic label to cling to. Dans la lune, my teacher called me, before she turned to the blackboard and resumed her class on verbes irrégulières. And from then on, I had an explanation, an excuse, an inspiration, even, to dream at inappropriate times, to ignore comments only to react to the ones I choose to react to, to take an inexplicable liking to the song Hijo de la Luna. It seemed to me an elegant and romantic characteristic, and it could very well be that this idea has helped me form my self-image.

Or, you know, it could very well not be like that at all. In any case, it makes for a nice little anecdote to start this blog with, don't you think?