Faking French

Things I Miss

2010-01-16T13:44:00.001-06:00

I am now a month in to the phase I have dubbed "The Aftermath." Thus far, The Aftermath involves me cataloging various nuisance problems around my apartment and blaming them on You Know Who. Among the atrocities: a horridly filthy shower curtain, a broken DVD player, brown candle wax dried on my moderately expensive mirror on the mantle, dirty coffee grinder, a large piece of unwrapped fish lying open in the freezer, a can of Pam in the refrigerator, what appears to be dog snot on my patio doors, and three flowerpots on a shelf in my storage closet with withered brown plant stalks intact.

Frankly, it's going to be a shame when enough time has passed that I can no longer reasonably blame everything on her. I have a feeling the current dust crop is as much my fault as hers. And I haven't gotten around to cleaning the dog snot; do I just enjoy that little flash of righteous indignation, the evidence that she's the bad guy?

I keep getting the same two questions at school: "How was France?" "Are you glad to be back?" I usually opt for "interesting" and "yes," because the actual answers are too complicated to get in to. When pressed for a longer response, my standard answer is that I don't regret my decision to come home, I just regret that it was necessary.

Are there things I miss? Absolutely. Here are a few:

I miss TS1. Sometimes you get a group that's just flat-out special, and TS1 was mine. I don't know that I'll never again have such an outstanding combination of intelligence and personality in one room.

I miss thinking about Cheez-Its in the shower:

I miss the beaver on my fridge:

I miss speaking French every day. (By this I mean Real French, as opposed to Classroom French. In class I'm pretty much talking myself, except for when I track down a beleaguered French V graduate who must humor me by enduring my desperate chatter.) Even when I speak French poorly, I love it.

I miss walking. I know, you're calling foul, right? "Please, that girl was always complaining about not having a car," you're thinking, and you're right. I hated the bus. I hated the necessity of walking; as in, it would be nice to take a car when it was raining, to run out for milk or toilet paper, or when I was late for school. But I'd like to have the option of walking to and from school when it suits me. I've got a logjam of "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" podcasts since the iPod doesn't get its usual two-hour workout.

But at the same time, I'm so happy to be home. Today, for example, Shells called and asked if I wanted to meet her for a drink. We sat in the restaurant for two hours lingering over drinks, fried cheese, and a massive venting session. And it struck me that I never got to do this kind of thing in Le Mans, and that my life was duller for it.

With my colleagues, it's been highly entertaining to see whose side people are on. I never asked them to take sides, mind you, but there are a number of folks who worked with Miss Cake who no longer speak to me. There are also those who glare at me and ask pointed questions like, "So, did she want to leave? Were you the one who quit?" A semester in France did great things for my diplomatic ability. I've gotten good at taking the high road.

My classes are great; the students are sweethearts and I enjoy feeling competent again. I can teach French. I'm good at it. The kids like me. We work together towards a common goal, and we all feel positive about it. Several told me they were planning to drop French until they heard I was coming back. I hate that they felt this way about it, but it's nice to have validation that yes, I really did make the right choice.

Of course, I'm already plotting my return to France...

Brief Catch-Up

2009-12-31T09:56:00.004-06:00

Due to tiresome complaints, I am posting this little nugget to tide you over until I have time to do it right:

1. It was snowing the day I left. The train ride was slightly scary, the plane was delayed three hours. We watched an entire movie before backing away from the gate.*

2. But glad to be home.

3. Went to Mobile to get my car and assess the fallout. Ask me about The Towel Drama next time you see me; it explains a lot.

4. Went to see "The Princess and the Frog" with world's greatest goddaughter.

5. Christmas-- good to see the family.

6. Goddaughter apparently lacks confidence in my fish caretaking skills.

7. Bought a Wii. (Oh yes, I did.)

8. Off for some New Year's frolics, more later.

*Four Christmases. Sadly, I couldn't get any sound in my earphones, but if someone asks if I've seen this movie, I suppose I can answer that yes, technically I have. I just haven't heard it.

Adieu à la France qui s'en va

2009-12-18T22:02:00.004-06:00

Possibly my most pretentious post title yet*, but it seemed sort of appropriate. (Sort of appropriate because technically it was me, and not France, which was s'en va-ing.)

After not sleeping most of the night, I got out of bed and had a cup of coffee. At eight, it occurred to me that it was still dark outside. Closer inspection revealed the unmistakable presence of snow. Hmm. Probably should watch the weather more often (by which I mean ever).

Heroic Annie (of Annie & Richard fame) drove me to the train station, a thrill ride involving uncleared streets, questionable breaking stalled trucks and u-turns. At the station, she abandoned cultural convention and gave me an honest-to-goodness hug. It felt fantastic. I have nothing against la bise, I rather like it in fact, but it occurs to me now that hugs are the corporal equivalent of comfort food.

More to follow on the adventures of La Rentrée aux USA, but for the moment I thought I'd share a few snow pictures:

*Adieu à la France qui s'en va is the title of a 2003 book by Jean-Marie Rouart, a member of the Académie Française. I know, totally pretentious, right? Particularly since I haven't actually read the book.

Joys of Mass Transit, Part 35

2009-12-13T13:32:00.004-06:00

Paris, je t'aime. No matter what. And after a fantastic weekend and a truly superb (if insanely cold-- 33 damn degrees) Sunday in which I walked along the Seine with a dear friend and went to a lovely Doisneau exhibit followed by a movie that made me cry buckets, I had reached the point of thinking that I am a fool for choosing to leave this country.

And then, dear Paris, you took one for the team by reminding me of everything that I hate about you. Here's how the rest of my day went:

4:15-- I take the Métro from Les Halles.

4:35-- Arrive at Gare Montparnasse. My train doesn't leave until 5:05, so I have time to grab a giant hot chocolate for the road!

4:45-- My train doesn't appear on the departure board. Why isn't my train on the board? Okay, usually it's on quai 1-9, so I'll just breeze by and see...

4:48-- DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT. "For reasons of a social movement in Rennes, risk of perturbation on the axis serving Rennes Brest Nantes Le Mans..." GAH!

4:49-- Oh, so that's why there's this huge long line at the information desk. Guess I'd better step to the end.

4:50-- Random woman stomps past yelling, "I am SICK TO DEATH of these DAMN CIVIL SERVANTS and their DAMN STRIKES."

4:55-- A girl with a nose ring is irritably correcting her father, "It's not a strike, it's a social movement."

5:00-- I'm next in line. The lady in front of me is venting all her frustration on the girl behind the desk, and the girl in response says, "Hey lady, I'm not on strike here. You think I'm enjoying this?"

5:02-- Yes indeedy, my train has been cancelled. I can take the 5:50 train to some city I've never heard of. I hang around the freezing cold station with my finger up my nose for the next half hour.

5:40-- The departure board flips and Quai 8 is revealed. A mad dash ensues, as half the passengers on this train don't have seats.

5:45-- By knocking down some kids and old ladies, I'm able to hurl myself into one of the jump seats at the end of a car.

5:50-- The train isn't leaving yet. People are packed in like sardines. The man next to me has his elbow in my temple.

5:55-- Why isn't the train leaving?

6:00-- Ladies and gentlemen, there's a problem with the... something something... and we have to... something. We're summoning a mechanic and should have the problem resolved soon.

6:08-- They're summoning this mechanic from Norway, or what?

6:12-- Ladies and gentlemen, the train will be leaving at 6:20.

6:22-- Make that 6:25.

6:28-- Train leaves. I still have an elbow in my temple.

7:23-- Train arrives in Le Mans. I sprint to the tramway but this is a wasted effort, as the next one doesn't arrive for nine minutes.

7:27-- I. Am. Freezing.

7:34-- In the tram.

7:40-- Off the tram. Dash across the square and a block down to my bus stop, hoping hoping hoping that the bus will come soon.

7:42-- The bus came at 7:35. The next bus is at 8:06.

7:45-- I. Am. Freezing.

7:50-- I'm going to walk up and down the street for a while, because I can't feel my legs anymore.

7:56-- Stupid cathedral projections. They really annoy me.

7:58-- I eat some M&Ms. One falls on the ground and it looks so sad and abandoned that I pick it up and throw it away. I toss in another M&M so the first one won't be lonely. I am officially delirious from cold.

8:00-- Christmas lights go off. Cathedral is dark. Man, this place sucks.

8:04-- The bus comes early! I get on the bus! It's WARM! There's only one other passenger.

8:05-- Next stop, the other passenger gets off and I laugh because I have a private bus now. Then the driver gets off and I stop laughing. This happens from time to time-- shift change-- but they never say anything or explain, they just get off the bus, which is still running, and leave the doors open.

8:06-- I am alone on the bus.

8:07-- What would they do if I just got behind the wheel and drove myself home?

8:08-- Bad idea. I'm leaving Thursday, I don't need that complicated by jail time.

8:09-- There's a man standing in the middle of the street. He gets on the bus and sits in the driver's seat. I hope this means that he's the bus driver and not, you know, a random nutjob.

8:10-- I am alone on the bus with a random driver who has cranked up the radio. The song's title translates as "Crazy crazy crazy." He's using the fingers of his right hand to tap out the rhythm on his change tray, and he's staring at me in the rearview mirror. Shouldn't he be watching the road? What about ten-o'clock-two-o'clock?

8:13-- It's really weird being the only person on the bus. What would I do if he just ignored me and kept driving? Could I bust out a window and escape?

8:14-- I am off the bus. Finally. I cross the road and it is literally empty-- not even a cat. You'd think it's was three in the morning. I am so cold that the motion sensors do not even recognize my presence, and even while jumping up and down in front of the door, the lights don't come on. I have to illuminate my iPod to find the keyhole.

8:16-- In the door. Home at last, a mere four hours after I started out. Ain't life grand?

Let's All Go To The Movies

2009-12-12T09:16:00.000-06:00

The local art house cinema always has large, brightly-colored posters advertising what's showing. I like this cinema best because they show movies in "verso," which means if it's an American movie I don't have to listen to weird French voices coming out of George Clooney's mouth. (Not that I've ever seen a George Clooney movie. But you know what I mean. I'm still recovering from the trauma of seeing "8 Mile," wherein the dialogue was all in French-- in one voice-- and the rapping was the original English. Freakish.)

Since I walk past the place every time I'm in town, you can imagine how startled I was by their poster advertising a new film, called "Masculine Domination." I just had to share with you.

And yes, there's a reason I've linked to it rather than just pasting it in here. Figure it out.

Christmas Shopping

2009-12-11T05:06:00.004-06:00

I'm off to Paris this weekend for a last hurrah before leaving on Thursday. (Wow. That happened fast.) Thus far I've only bought one thing at the various Christmas markets I've been to, and this is it:

It's jam. I purchased it solely for its name (you can look up translations here and here) and all things considered, it's surprisingly tasty. Fruity. Sweet. Peaches and apricots mostly. Go figure. There was also a flavor called Couilles de Pape, but I felt this was going too far.

Oh, wow.

2009-12-09T05:53:00.001-06:00

I just checked the 10-day forecast for Birmingham. Because I'll be home by then.

Good grief, I should probably start thinking about packing. Crap.

In Which Our Author Anticipates An Addiction

2009-12-08T10:54:00.005-06:00

I went to Lille last weekend to visit a dear friend, Aurore. We met when I lived in Tours seven (gasp!) years ago and we've kept loosely in touch ever since. I treasure her friendship, because from the beginning she took me on as a project and made a focused effort to integrate me into French culture; everyone needs a friend like this.

One of the things I love best about Rory is that she's fiercely protective. I can't count the number of times she snapped at her fiancé to "articulate" when he spoke to me. It makes me laugh. I mean, I take it as a compliment when French people speak at their normal speed, although at some point I do completely lose track of the conversation and just stare into space. She also reprimanded him several times to use smaller words, which also made me smile.

Anyway, Lille was fantastic. Rory met me at the train station and we walked around the gorgeous downtown and caught up over a delicious lunch of hot sandwiches and a very indulgent dessert. I had a speculoos cheesecake, speculoos being a cinnamon-flavored cookie indigenous to the area.* I scored a verbal invite to the August wedding, which I'm totally stoked about. My diet starts January.

After dessert and coffee, we roamed around town some more and did a little shopping. I fell madly in love with a line of jewelry called Skalli, which is odd since I don't consider myself a jewelry person. I wear one ring (which I got when I was 11), an occasional necklace and I lost my watch. Still, something about this line really appealed to me.

Then Aurore suggested we take a ride on the giant Ferris wheel, and who was I to object? The views were gorgeous, Lille is absolutely breathtaking, and I took lots of pictures. I also fell out of the teacup on my way out, which left a humdinger of a bruise on the same leg I'd previously damaged falling off the bus.

We explored the Christmas market, which was massive. I swear there were more English people than French there. Because Lille is so close, lots of Brits take a bus or ferry over for a day trip, especially this time of year. Aurore understands English really well, which I forget because we always speak French together, but it was cute to see her laugh every now and then at something stupid the tourists said. (Said one rather chav girl about the products at what was clearly a waffle stand, "They're sort of like little pancakes.")

We met up with Laurent, Rory's fiancé, and we had a juice and I entertained them with my ability to name all 50 states. (You'd be amazed at what amuses French people.) Then we went back to their house, which I hadn't seen yet, and I got to take the grand tour. They've done a lot of work to the place, and it looks great. It's what the French would call très design.

Then it happened: Aurore broke out the Wii. This was my first Wii experience. My friend Chrissie has one, but up until now I've managed to avoid it. I don't know much about video games; I had an Atari, and I used to play Nintendo at Amy Lee's house, but my last experience with "gaming" was Leo's Playstation, and honestly, it was just too friggin' complicated.

I got sucked in to Wii-dom so fast it's scary. First we did Wii Sports, where Rory handily whipped me at tennis, I redeemed myself in bowling only to lose-- to a French girl-- in baseball. This gravely wounded my national pride and I feel certain that the State Department will be revoking my passport any moment now. Then we played a game whose named translates loosely to "Bonehead Rabbits." I feel sure that it has a different name in the U.S. It's based on the idea that rabbits have taken over the television and you (a rabbit) must act out the various shows. Some of them I was incredibly bad at (anything involving music), but others I rocked out (dancing and this other program wherein a drill sergeant shouts commands at recruits and they try not to mangle themselves).

Oh my gosh, I loved it. I was sitting on Rory's couch watching her snowboard a wildebeest (yes, that's what I said) and I thought, I need one of these. And I knew immediately that one of two outcomes was inevitable: I would spend entirely too much money and never use the thing or, more alarmingly, I would become grossly addicted and never, ever leave my house again.

Still, since I'm feeling muscle fatigue two days later, I can't help but be tempted. I mean, that sucker kicked my tail, and we weren't even doing the Wii Fitness thing!

So, here I am, vacillating. On the one hand, I've got a massive crush on the Wii. On the other, I'm already a homebody as it is. So time will tell...

Tomorrow I'll post about the wildly fun dinner party we went to, and if I can get my hands on pictures, I'll introduce you to my new boyfriend, Quentin. The world isn't ready to accept us yet, but in 16 years and 10 months, we'll be able to declare our love officially.

*Yes, I realize the article says Belgium, but Lille is spitting distance from the border, so there's a bit of overlap.

Spotted in Paris

2009-12-08T00:17:00.003-06:00

It's either a soul food delivery unit* or a Leeds tour company:

*Kangaroo: them's good eatin'

Le Mans Does Christmas...

2009-12-06T12:25:00.003-06:00

... in its own humble way.

Click here to see photos of the gigantic slide show they inflict on our otherwise quite lovely cathedral. I happened across it while waiting on the bus tonight and spent most of the time squinting and wondering what the crap I was looking at. I mean, I guess it's fine and all, if you're, you know, interested in cartoon drawings of trees and aquariums and whatnot projected onto a large stone surface.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures from my weekend in Lille, which just put Le Mans to (further) shame.

Um, so...

2009-12-04T09:54:00.003-06:00

No, I haven't stopped writing this blog. I just don't have anything to talk about at the moment. Today I did laundry. I watched "Fringe" online. I bought groceries. In the rain. I spent a long time trying to figure out where the terrible smell in my kitchen is coming from. (Possibly goat cheese.) I bruised my ankle when I simultaneously dropped my iPod, bent down to pick it up and missed the step off the bus. See? This is why the daily updates have slowed down a bit.

But I'm off to Lille in the morning, so fingers crossed that I come back with some interesting stories or photos.

In the meantime, think happy Christmas season thoughts and keep checking in until you see my final, patriotic God-bless-the-USA extravaganza post. Then you can go back to whatever you were doing before I started whining about life in France.

Project Time

2009-12-02T11:33:00.003-06:00

My STG class continues to torture me, so I opted to return the favor and assigned each of them a three-minute presentation for Monday. We've just finished reviewing all the life-stage verbs like grow up, get married, get divorced, retire, etc. So their three-minute speech is to present the entire life of the dead celebrity of their choice (or, if they really insist on doing someone who's still alive, they have to make up a cause of death and date).

I polled the class and had the kids commit early so I wouldn't have to listen to the same presentation about Zinedine Zidane 17 times, and they kept throwing out names that I'd never heard of and had no idea how to write down... then they'd spell them for me and I'd say, "Oh God, is that what you said??"

So, without further ado, I give you the list:

Sarah: Martin Luther King

Emmanuelle: I think she said Jacques Mesrine but I'm not positive

Anais: Marilyn Monroe

Walla: Malcolm X

Gaetan: Michael Jackson

Yamina: Tupac

Ghenima: Matoub

Melanie: Johnny Hallyday

Ingrid: Rosa Parks

Martine: Hitler (?!?!)

Yasser: Al Capone

Charly: "the man who plays Superman and is dead"

Andy: Notorious BIG

Mousmi: Aaliyah

Maria: Edith Piaf

Adrien: Bob Marley

I can hardly wait.

She Went to Paris*

2009-11-29T12:09:00.007-06:00

Saturday morning, my pie and I headed to Paris; well, technically we headed to La Défense, which is just outside of the city. Fellow exchange teacher Katie and her family had kindly invited everyone to share Thanksgiving with them. There were 11 adults and three children, and at least twice as many bottles of wine. The food was dee-vine. An actual turkey (fully cooked), mashed potatoes, stuffing, onion tart, something called "cornbread pudding," which was great, whatever it was, corn... and something else I can't quite remember at the moment. Dessert was pie, pie and more pie. And also a three-layer mousse cake. And wine. And coffee. And wine. I stole these picture's from Kim C's blog:

I stayed the night, which had been previously planned, me being an out-of-towner and all. Kim had driven in from about an hour away and decided to stay the night too, so she, Katie and I stayed up until about one in the morning solving all the world's problems.

The next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast of baguette, butter, clementines and gallons of coffee, then we swapped student papers so that I could prove that Katie's sixth graders write better than my seniors. (They do. No contest.)

Kim needed running shoes, so she decided she'd stop at the mall in La Défense before heading back. While I recovered from my shock (a mall? on Sunday??), I figured I'd catch a ride with her to see this place and also because, handily, I could pick up the Metro there.

What we found was not, in fact, a mall. It was two malls, two enormous malls, and the stores were open, and people were shopping. And between the two malls was an enormous open-air Christmas market, where we spent at least an hour wandering around, drinking hot chocolate and repeatedly declaring, "Oh my God, that smells so good." Compare this to a Le Mans Sunday, and you can understand why I was more than a little starstruck.

I left La Défense and took the Metro to the Champs-Elysées. I could have taken the Metro all the way to my train station, but I wanted to walk around some more. Because no matter how much time I spend in Paris, it's never enough. So I walked down the street and admired all the store windows, passed through yet another massive Christmas market then finished up at the Place de la Concorde. As I was standing outside the Hotel Crillon wondering where the entrance was to the Metro station, this frazzled-looking old couple stopped me and asked if I could help them find their destination. (Those of you who have experienced firsthand my abysmal Paris orienteering are already laughing.) But I studied my trusted map for several minutes and was finally able to confidently point them in what I sincerely believe was the proper direction. No clue if I was right, though I wish them the best of luck!

From there it was back to the station and on board the train to Tiny Town, which quickly filled up with obnoxious, vulgar young people making their commute back to school. (High school dorms are commonplace in France.) At one point there was a group of kids behind me so crass, so obnoxious, that I kept waiting for someone to stand up and scream at them, only no one did. Finally I packed all my stuff up determined to switch cars entirely... and wouldn't you know, they're both my students. Go figure.

In the next car, I saw another of my students; she had kicked off her shoes and propped her sweaty feet on the fold-down tray of the seat next to her. I thought about how I'd recently eaten a sandwich off a similar tray and felt mildly ill.

But I finally made it back to Tiny Town, dark, oppressive place that it is, and Monday rewarded my blissful weekend by giving me six hours of absolutely unbearable students. It appears the pre-Christmas madness is already upon us.

Pictures of Paris are here.

*looking for answers to questions that bothered her so...

Okay, Now I'm Just Showing Off

2009-11-28T02:34:00.003-06:00

I am invincible! This morning I made a pecan pie:

It's going to sit on the counter for an hour, then I will place it in a gen-u-wine Walmart sack (thanks Ed!) and take it on the train to Paris, where I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with some of the other exchange teachers.

Glou glou! (This is what French turkeys say.)

Anatomy of a Dinner Party

2009-11-27T15:55:00.004-06:00

I invited Richard and Annie to dinner because I love them and I wanted to do something nice to thank them for how wonderful they've been to me while I'm here. I'm not sure that subjecting them to my generally unreliable cooking skills qualifies as "something nice," but it seemed like a good idea at the time. So here's how the day went:

8:30-- crawl out of bed, have coffee, make cornbread.

10:00-- grocery store. Various ingredients purchased, including auxiliary bottle of wine. (R&A don't drink too much, but better safe than sorry.) This took much longer than anticipated, because I forgot to look up "rosemary" in the French-English dictionary before I left. (I bought something that started with 'r' and hoped for the best. And I was right. Score!) Also, evidently green onions don't exist here, so I had to get a regular onion. And "soup in a can"... yeah, not so much.

Wait in line for cashier for about 5 minutes, at which point she turns her service light off. Turns out that unlike in the U.S., where the extinguishing of the light means "everyone in line but no one else," in France it means "get in the back of someone else's line, sucker." Under normal circumstances, this would infuriate me, but as I'm down to 20 days here and now consider myself a tourist, I didn't care. I just got in the back of the next line.

10:30-- walked home. Created something similar to chicken broth from bouillon cubes and turned cornbread into something resembling dressing. More or less. They're French, so it's not like they'll know. (Despite the bravado, I was also contemplating the best method of ritual suicide should the meal fall apart.)

12:00-- bowl of cereal, Xanax, and a three-hour nap. Ah, that's better. Can I just explain the enormity of this? I am giving a dinner party (and I never cook) in which I prepare food with French approximations of American ingredients in a kitchen that is not mine. I don't know what the crap kind of pots and pans, utensils and whatnot exist in this kitchen. And I've detailed my issues with the stove before. To say I was nervous is the understatement of the universe.

3:30-- another trip to the grocery store. Buy final supplies: cheese, baguette, chicken breasts. And a pie. Technically I made a banana pudding last night, but there was a slight problem with the meringue (due to my lack of experience with this kind of mixer) and this morning I spent way too much time cleaning dried egg white off numerous surfaces, including a kitchen chair, the microwave and my iPod. When I leave the grocery store, it is raining. Hard. The bus zips past me. I walk home with groceries in the rain, just a wee bit cranky.

4:00-- clean floors. Embarrassed to tell you how long it's been since I've done this. And anyway, laminate floors are gross; I prefer carpet where the nastiness is ground into the fibers and one remains blissfully unaware of its presence. Miss Cake's Soviet-era "vacuum" (I use the quotes because I truly doubt the veracity of this claim. For all that it sounds like a space shuttle at lift-off, newborns suck harder than this thing.)

5:00-- shower. I spend the entire time calculating and recalculating when to begin cooking each dish. I am losing my mind. I am freaking out.

5:30-- have a whiskey. Dry my hair. Take the garbage out. Feel better.

6:00-- start watching a Season 1 episode of "Fringe" online but can't concentrate because I'm thinking about cutting potatoes. So I finally give in and head into the kitchen.

6:15-- scrub and cut potatoes (white and sweet). Coat with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary and toss in oven to roast.

Butterfly chicken breasts. (Oh my gawd, I just butterflied chicken breasts all by myself. I am awesome!) Stuff chicken breasts with cornbread dressing. Coat tops of chicken with olive oil, rosemary and Parmesan cheese. Throw into oven with potatoes, which are roasting nicely.

Sauté onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Add bouillon-approximated broth and reconstituted-from-powder "cream of poultry" soup. Reduce over heat. Result = tasty sauce.

7:15-- open windows because it's hot as all getout. Set table. Place baguette on table. Open wine. Pour sauce into bowl, potatoes into serving dish.

7:30-- Richard & Annie arrive. This demonstrates their cultural sensitivity. Normally French people would never dream of arriving on time (it's rude!) but they know I'm American and so they accommodate me.

We sit down in the living room. They have orange juice, I have another whiskey. (It's medicinal.) I serve dinner and they like it! They like it a LOT! I think I might cry. I break all French conventions by repeatedly saying "Help yourself, help yourself, help yourself." (This is not a French concept.) Annie asks me how I made the stuffing and I all but glow while I tell her. She takes seconds! We laugh and chatter nonstop. Life is good.

I throw my grocery store pie in the oven while I serve the cheese course. (I remembered the cheese course! I'm a pro at this!) After the cheese, I serve pie and make tea for Annie and coffee for Richard and me. Richard becomes my slave for life when I introduce him to the wonders of Bailey's Irish Cream.

We sit at the table for a while longer and continue to tell stories and I laugh until I can hardly breathe. Finally they take their leave; they walked over and will walk back. Richard shows me the new headlight he bought (the forehead lamp that miners wear) and I crack up even more.

10:00-- My first-ever French People dinner party is over, and it was fantastic. I am queen of the universe.

Only now I have to wash every single dish in the apartment. By hand. It takes an hour. But it was so worth it.

Photos of the aftermath:

I See London, I See France

2009-11-25T11:22:00.005-06:00

I spent last weekend in London. It was fantastic. I've been there before, so I didn't feel the need to do the whole Big-Ben-Westminster-Buckingham thing. Nope, this weekend was about relaxing with friends, and we had a great time.

Yes, indeed, I did take the Chunnel, although that is the one and only time you'll hear me use that word, because it irritates me. I took the TGV from Le Mans to Paris. I arrived in the Montparnasse station and needed to take the Metro to the Gare du Nord, which is where the Eurostar leaves from. Only naturally the Metro line I needed was not stopping at that station for the weekend and so I had to do a quick re-route involving a different train and a transfer back onto the Metro. (A certain group of students will be shocked to hear that I took the RER in the right direction on the first try. I know, it was wacky; apparently I navigate much better when I'm not jetlagged.)

The Eurostar looked like every other train I've ever been on in France, and the underground bit was actually quite brief. The weird part was before we boarded: we had to clear customs (get passports stamped by French officials), step forward literally five feet and get cleared again (stamps by British officials). Then we had to do the luggage scan/metal detector thing, which you don't otherwise do on train trips. Interesting.

We arrived in London and I took the directions Frank had given me on how to get to the hotel. Step 1: Take the Picadilly line to Covent Garden. Immediate problem: the Picadilly line was not stopping at that station for the weekend. (Sound familiar?) I'm reasonably familiar with the Paris Metro but in London I got nothin', so much time was lost as I stared helplessly at the Tube maps. Finally I wandered down to the Northern line, only it turns out there's more than one of those, so I ended up having to ask a guy in an official-looking uniform how to get to Leicester Square. "You take the Northern line to Euston," he said, "and then you double back on the Northern line going in the opposite direction and it's just a few stops."

In what universe does this make sense? But I did it and I got to Leicester Square and from there stumbled quite by accident onto Covent Garden. From there it was only one wrong turn and I finally arrived at the truly lovely Strand Palace Hotel.

Frank and Ed arrived maybe half an hour later, and we settled into our rooms and went out for food. It was wonderful to catch up with them-- I've missed those two so much!

Sunday Frank and Ed's friend Linda took us to Greenwich. This was wonderful because I'd never been to Greenwich before, and also because Linda is a professional tour guide. I fell madly in love with the town as soon as I stepped foot off the boat (we took the ferry down the Thames). If I lived in London (which I could totally do, it's an awesome city), I'd definitely want to live in Greenwich. We went to the National Maritime Museum and then the open-air market before heading back to London and having Portuguese for dinner.

Monday morning we had a leisurely breakfast and Frank escorted me back to the train station, and I came home.

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Today's Adventure: Cyber-Stalking

2009-11-24T11:26:00.004-06:00

Me: Hey, Stéphane, what's the new password to logon to the computer?

S: New password? I don't know, I have my own login. You don't?

M: No, they keep forgetting I work here.

S: (pointing to computer screen) Here, I've just been looking at your high school.

M: My-- huh? You mean Baker?

S: Yes, Baker, that's right. Come here, I'll show you what I did.

M: Uh... okay.

S: See, I went to Google and I put your name in--

M: (laughing awkwardly) Well, there's more than one of me--

S: I know, but see, I also put "French teacher" and then I found-- see, here's your school.

M: Well, actually that's my university but--

S: No, see, here on the alumni page it says "French teacher, Montgomery County."

M: Well, that's old. I haven't--

S: I know, so then I put "French teacher Alabama" and-- here, you see? Baker High School. And there's your picture. And the photo album of your class and your students.

M: Um, so... this is what you've been doing all day?

S: Yes well, you know, I thought it was interesting to see what your school looked like. Would you like to see a picture of your replacement?

M: NO. I mean, uh, I know what she looks like. We've met. Hey listen, this is... great and all but... I've really gotta run now. Greattalkingtoyoubye.

Bus Stories

2009-11-21T05:40:00.002-06:00

The fates have noted my recent complaints about the inadequacies of public transportation; they have exacted their revenge by surrounding me with local nutjobs whose puzzling behavior leaves me more befuddled than usual.

Today:

A woman got off the #4 bus and ran across the street to catch her other bus... which was also the #4, but going in the other direction. She stayed on for several stops. What was she doing? Why would she take the #4 bus several stops just to cross the street and go back the way she came?

Another woman got on the bus and made a big production of taking the seat next to mine (which required wedging me into the window) and arranging her various bags around her. At the next stop, she picked up all her bags and went and stood by the door, holding on to the balance pole. I assumed she was getting off shortly. But at the next stop, she turned around and squished me against the window again! What gives? All I can figure is fart break, and if that's the case, then I'm truly grateful to her for moving. But couldn't she just have stayed there?

I got hit on. Again. This time the guy was in his 50s who first he suggested that I remove my headphones to hear him better, at which point I assured him I was hearing him as well as I needed to. He then talked about the wonders of technology, showing me his cell phone (which looked alarmingly similar to Bret's camera phone, only dirtier) and went on at length to explain how much he liked listening to mp3's on his phone but how he's never been able to figure out computers because when he was in school they used fountain pens and hand-chiseled pencils. No doubt I could understand this, since we were "of the same epoch." (Actually, a$$hat, I got my first computer when I was nine. But thanks for playing.)

The event that took the cake, though-- the moment I knew that God was doubled over laughing at me-- was on the way home, when this armless guy sat next to me. He had no arms, however he did have fully-formed hands... attached to his shoulders. I swear that I am not making this up. The first thought that came to mind was how Brooke makes fun of her husband's "T-Rex arms," and that was a bad thing because I wanted to laugh but you must absolutely, positively, under no circumstances laugh when you're sitting next to a man with shoulder hands.

So naturally I've spent the rest of the day contemplating his predicament and I've come to the conclusion that shoulder hands are the worst possible torture a person can endure. Yeah, he's got hands, but he can't do any of the things hands are good for-- putting keys in his pocket, scratching (other than his ear, maybe), drinking. I suppose if he's really flexible he can pick his nose, but still...

I swear I think I was being punked. (After all, when I got into town, city engineers were busily putting up banners for advertising an event which takes place in September. Okay, so are they really early or really late?) But it doesn't matter, at any moment my hamster-like attention span will kick in and I'll start thinking about other things. Like my previous reference to Flight of the Conchords. Which means I'll think about this. And then I'll think about kebabs. And then I'll think about how I should have eaten lunch a few hours ago. And then I'll go into the kitchen and find a warm Diet Coke that I opened and left on top of the refrigerator at some point. Could have been this morning, could have been a week ago, who knows.

Just another day in paradise.

For the Good Times

2009-11-20T01:57:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I had a great time with my class of fun seniors. This is the group I will actually miss when I leave. I love classes with lots of personality, and this group certainly qualifies. We were reading a text (one of those awful exam-prep texts that I hate) about a 60-year-old Indian man (dots not feathers) who's just found out that his son wants to move to America. So our vocabulary had lots of words in it like "crushed," "heartbroken," "unthinkable," "hurt," etc.

At the end of class, I gave them their assignment and announced that I would be absent on Monday and so we wouldn't have class. Without missing a beat, they went into full theatrics, saying, "We're crushed!" "It's unthinkable!" And so on and so forth. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. It was a really great feeling.

So yes, there will be good memories to take away from here. I'm truly glad that I've had this experience, and if I can end on a positive note, so much the better.

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

2009-11-19T03:23:00.002-06:00

Today I am finally ready to announce that after weeks of contemplation and discussion, I've decided to terminate the exchange at Christmas. When I leave December 17th, it's for good. This was not a decision that I made easily, and it was not the result of a bad day or even a bad week. If you've read this blog, you probably noticed that I began with cautious optimism, but over the course of several months that optimism eroded, and I ultimately concluded that termination is the best for everyone.

My colleagues here are struggling to understand. They are supportive but perplexed. They freely admit that this school is not great, that there are many problems, but they consider this to be normal. For me, as a teacher, the two most essential things are my feelings of competence and mastery in the classroom, and my relationship with my students.

I don't feel that I'm an effective teacher here. I speak English, yes, but I can't teach the kind of English they expect. As a native speaker, I find expressions like indeed, whereas and moreover unnatural and awkward, but honestly, it seems that the goal here is to sound like you just stepped out of a Dickens novel. I can't teach that. The type of English they must produce on their critical end-of-year exams is not my English, and I feel that they deserve a teacher who can prepare them for this exam. If they fail, I will feel partly responsible, and I don't want to bear that burden.

Most of all, I miss my students. Again, I've tried to explain this to my colleagues and they've tried very hard to understand, but the whole concept of student-teacher attachment is anathema here. I mentioned that a student had emailed me and my colleague burst out laughing. He thought I was joking. When I assured him it was true, he was puzzled-- "I can't even imagine a scenario where a student would send me an email or where I'd want them to."

And that's just sad. So I'm coming home. I'm sorry to disappoint Miss Cake, and I'm sorry for all the ensuing drama, but ultimately I had to make the best decision for me and my students-- on both sides of the ocean.

That said... let the countdown begin!

Surprises-- YAY!

2009-11-18T05:30:00.004-06:00

I have to admit, when one gets a large, unexpected envelope with a law firm's address on it, one is a bit alarmed, even if one considers the law firm in question a friendly establishment.

But here's what my friendly local law office sent:

The card says "I let Grace pick something out for you for a little Christmas spirit. The trash is from me."

Aww, Michelle, you know the way to my heart is through trashy magazines-- I love that about you. And Grace, as we all know, is totally my BFF.

This absolutely made my day! I am running out to the store to lay in a supply of wine and chocolate, and I am going to spend the rest of the day on the couch in my jammies reading about pathetic human beings from reality shows I've never watched. I can hardly wait!

The Joys of Mass Transit

2009-11-17T04:43:00.000-06:00

Today I was trapped on the bus as usual, and my iPod produced this song for my listening pleasure. It so encapsulated all my thoughts and feelings that I just had to share it with you. Take a couple of minutes to listen to the pre-emo existential rage of Gordon Gano as he preaches my sermon:

Reading Is Fun!

2009-11-16T02:11:00.004-06:00

Here's an actual excerpt from our book:

The Great Famine

In 1845, most Irish lands were in the hands of absentee Anglo-Irish Protestant landowners. A farm labourer usually rented a small plot of land annually from a landlord at a very high price. He paid the rent by growing potato crops. Out of a population of 8.5 million inhabitants, over 1.5 million landless labourers and their families had no other real source of food or income except the potato.

Unfortunately a blight devastated Ireland's potato crop in 1845 and famine started. Unlike their tenants, landowners were not dependent on the potato for their survival, and while potatoes rotted in the fields, they remained unaffected.

All together now: "Huh?"

Bear in mind, I'm supposed to be using this text with students who started studying English two years ago. After two years of French, my Baker students can say things like "I went camping last weekend and saw many snakes and birds." These French kids are expected to discuss absentee landowners and potato blight. (You know what their first question was? "What does 'great' mean?") Longest hour of my life? Yeah, you could say that.

Ah, Sundays...

2009-11-15T02:44:00.001-06:00

Edith Piaf famously sang "Je hais les dimanches." (I hate Sundays.) The reason? Because she lived in a country where everything is closed and otherwise vibrant city centers become ghost towns. The buses which normally run every 15 minutes run once an hour; it's easier to walk the two miles into town (and two miles back) than to wait. And Lord help you if you run out of toilet paper on a Saturday night; you'll be scrounging around for Kleenex, paper towels and possibly old socks until after work on Monday.

Sundays are very, very sad around here.

I Pity The Fool

2009-11-14T02:39:00.005-06:00

Here's a tip: if you're wandering the streets of Le Mans trying to remember where this place is, don't ask for "Mister Tee," because this is incomprehensible. Much like ordering a "hamburger" is incomprehensible at McDo. You want a burger? You ask for "un ahmburGUR." You want this shop? That's "Mee Stare Tee" to you.

Music Day: Reality TV Edition

2009-11-13T11:19:00.003-06:00

In France, one version of "American Idol" isn't enough, so they have two. The first is called "In Search of a New Star," and it's the one most similar to AI. There's also "Star Academy," which is a combination of AI and The Real World, in that the contestants all live together and are filmed fighting over use of the toaster and whatnot. I don't remember which show this particular singer came from, but he's wildly popular now. I give you the video for "Plus que tout," which, in music video terms, is sort of Robert Palmer on acid:

I realize that your brain is possibly exploding as your eyes and ears refuse to agree but yes, in fact, that voice belongs to that face. The singer is a man. I promise.

School Marathon

2009-11-12T13:26:00.005-06:00

Welcome to my 11-hour school day! I am in full recovery mode now, which involves an entire bottle of something fizzy (and it ain't Diet Coke).

I have class from 8-10 on Thursday morning, same group of kids for two hours. It was a nightmare. About halfway through, I melted down on them and started screaming: "Listen, you either say 'I don't understand the question' or 'I don't know the answer to the question,' but I can't stand any more of this staring into space! This two hours feels like two YEARS, this class is torture, and if you're going to sit there like lumps, I have better things to do with my time." Then I pulled out a stack of papers, started grading, and ignored them for the rest of the class.

At the end of class a girl came up to my desk to explain that she didn't have her assignment to turn in (a one-page journal entry on the person she most admires), because, as she said, she couldn't think of anything to say and anyhow, we just keep doing the same thing all the time. "That's interesting," I said. "What do you mean?" Then she said again, "I mean it's like a wheel that turns, we just repeat the same thing over and over." I asked her several times for clarification, but she couldn't explain it to me and finally changed the subject to her aunt who lives in Cape Cod. "So write about that," I said. "I don't care, just write something."

After this I have a three-hour break. If I had a car, I could go home, have lunch, relax, but with the buses being as fabulous as they are, I just sit at school. I made some copies, graded some papers, then went to the cafeteria. I sat by myself at lunch because none of the other teachers talk to me; I swear, it is like living high school all over again. I had turkey with some sort of gravy-ish stuff, peas, and two bites of quiche before I thought I'd throw up and left. I get disapproving looks for eating my lunch in twenty minutes, but it's pretty nasty, so I don't feel the need to linger.

I wandered back to the teachers' room and met our new English assistant. Yes, the new one. If you'll recall, the American assistant quit before she even got here (smart girl). Then they hired the 60-ish Scottish lady, who quit after two weeks. Now we have a forty-something lady from Chile as our English assistant. (I suppose this should surprise me, but these days it takes a lot. Remember, our Spanish assistant is from Israel.) The Chilean lady asked me how the kids' speaking level was, and I told her I had no idea since I can't get them to talk. Ever. She said, "Well, I have 13 years' experience, and there are special methods you can use to engage them." Her tone was so condescending that my first instinct was to bitch-slap her snotty Chilean self, but instead I just smiled and wished her the best of luck with that. I might have even meant it.

At one o'clock, classes resumed; I had my obnoxious junior science students who were... obnoxious. I managed (barely) to get through the lesson, then I had my senior science class, who mostly just ignored me. After that I had my class of four sophomores who speak more German than French. They copied some questions off the overhead, answered them, and we left.

Then I sat around the teachers' room for another hour until the Big Meeting for my senior misfits class. They're so bad that we had to get all of their teachers together-- and the principal-- and essentially go down the list and determine who would go before the "discipline council," who would get brief suspensions and who would get threatened with brief suspensions.

Now, the fun part was before the meeting started. The class's boss teacher organized the meeting, and at one point she was fretting because everyone was waiting and the principal was... walking in the opposite direction. So after a few minutes, the boss teacher left, then came back all flustered because the principal had told her, essentially, "I'll be there when I finish my cigarette." The boss teacher declared this "scandalous and indecent," at which point another teacher argued that the principal should be allowed to smoke if she wants to, and the boss teacher countered with, "I don't care if she's smoking. I care that we're waiting. If she were standing out there eating a croissant I'd still be pissed off."

Frankly, I think I'd be much happier here if I could spend all my time listening to faculty members complain about each other, rather than wasting my time with these water-carbon lumps known as students. The teachers here are bold, they absolutely crack me up.

When the principal came into the meeting, she immediately started mocking the assistant principal (who wasn't there) and did an impression of his address to the dorm students after one of them threw a bottle from his window and hit a construction worker in the head. (For the record, the kid did it on purpose.) She recited the entire speech and then, while the other teachers were gasping for breath between peels of laughter, she dismissed the man with, "It's like he thinks he works with four-year-olds!"

Other tasty tidbits from the principal: "So is there anyone in this class who does more than warm a chair?" "So why is she here? We're the only school who would take her, aren't we? I knew it." "Ah yes, Lycée Sud, where previously docile children learn to be insolent and disrespectful. Well, at least they learned something."

So we finally end the meeting at 6:23, and I sit in the cold and dark until my bus comes twenty minutes later. I got home at seven p.m., having left the house at seven a.m., and if I weren't off on Fridays, I would be suicidal.

And despite the fact that I had been asked twice to meet with this principal during the week, she didn't say anything to me at the meeting. It's quite possible she has no idea who I am. Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Educational Television

2009-11-11T04:13:00.000-06:00

Ever since Mike From Ohio introduced me to it seven years ago, I've had an unhealthy fascination with the children's show "C'est Pas Sorcier." (Roughly translated, "It's not rocket science.") It's sort of a cross between "Mr. Wizard's World," "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" and "Mythbusters."

This is from an episode about fighter jets. If you skip to about 2:40, they start demonstrating how jet engines work. How can you not watch this??

::Cough Cough::

2009-11-10T00:32:00.005-06:00

The high today is 44 degrees, there's a tropical storm in Mobile, and I'm supposed to meet with the principal this afternoon. Therefore, I have determined that I am sick and will not be going to school. In Mobile, if I am sick, I log on to the computer, report my absence, and go back to bed.

Here, I call the school and explain to the receptionist, who transfers me to the student life office. I explain to them, and they transfer me to administration. I explain to them, and they say they are going to transfer me to the principal's secretary but then I'm pretty sure they disconnected me. At this point, I should probably have called back, but what are they going to do, fire me? A girl can dream.

And now I'm going back to bed. Have a great day!

Why Teaching English Is Painful

2009-11-09T10:27:00.003-06:00

I'm required to teach pronunciation. The problem is, it turns out I don't speak English very well. For example, when I speak, this and then have the same sound, as do four and for. And math and half. Don't even get me started on the word dog. I mean, I know it's not dawg, I can do that much, but still... We had a big blow-up over the pronunciation of the word bus, which to me is in no way different from the sound in America but which in the Queen's English has a whole other sound which I am apparently not capable of making.

Theoretically, I'm allowed to teach American pronunciation. The problem is, all of their future teachers will penalize them for mispronouncing words that are perfectly correct in American. So I've got to at least try to teach them "proper" English.

Just for fun, go here, click on a few words (I highly recommend "for" and "vacate," and if you really want your brain to explode, "should") and see how good your English is.

McWorkout

2009-11-08T02:34:00.006-06:00

This was startling...

At first I thought it was funny, but then I realized that the "gym club" is actually a playground. Further exploration revealed a monitor in a tracksuit with a whistle around his neck. Wow. To me it's more evidence that kids are required to be entirely too serious here; there's no playing, only organized and regimented exercise time, even at the friggin' McDo. Can't they just, I don't know, slide without having to calculate calorie expenditures?

Self-Medicating

2009-11-07T01:33:00.000-06:00

Prozac? Xanax? Crack cocaine? No thanks, I've got... kir, a well-known French OTC remedy.

Works like this: take your favorite four-euro bottle of white wine:

Add sirop de cassis (currant juice):

Consume with pleasure:

Repeat as needed.

Cranky Teacher

2009-11-06T02:49:00.000-06:00

My students are getting on my nerves. They are incredibly critical of late, and living as the idiot-in-residence leaves me more sensitive than usual. Hmm, whiny students, prickly teacher: not the best combination going.

I have a class of seniors who are wonderful; they are bright, they are enthusiastic, they are good at English. (They're the only class that qualifies as such.) I think their textbook is atrocious, so I've made a conscious effort to avoid it; all the texts are gloomy and negative and frankly, I just don't think they'd be that much fun to study.

Only today I got ganged up on because, well, the best way I could translate what they were saying to me is "We haven't had class. We need more class." What I eventually managed to piece together from this is that they feel they don't have enough handouts pasted into their notebooks. All my efforts at cultivating their spoken English are irrelevant because what they want is lists of vocabulary, and a text with four or five comprehension questions following it.

Really, this is what they want.

So as of next week, that's what they're going to get. Gone are my plans for the "Big Fish" unit, the reality TV/faux celebrity unit, the songs. Instead I'm trying to decide if I should begin with the text about apartheid, the text about anti-semitism or the text about life on an Indian reservation. Or there's my personal favorite, the Paul Auster excerpt wherein a little girl in Alabama informs her new neighbor that she doesn't play with niggers. (What really infuriates me is that Paul Auster is from friggin' New Jersey and has probably never set foot in Alabama in his life, but this is how we're being represented in a textbook to an entire country of impressionable youth. GRRRR!)

Twenty-two school days until Christmas. Twenty-two. I can do this.

Fast Food

2009-11-05T04:54:00.000-06:00

How pizza is delivered in France...

French Game Shows: NSFW edition

2009-11-04T04:28:00.000-06:00

I love French game shows, even the American rip-offs like Qui Veut Gagner Des Millions. What's interesting is that, despite how useless I am on French pop culture questions, I own these people on history, grammar and anything related to religion. (Once, a contestant had to use a lifeline to arrive at the answer Adam and Eve.) However, this is even better:

Here, the host is reviewing the question (What orbits around the Earth?) and, as you can see, not only has the contestant felt obliged to ask the audience, but 56 percent of them have chosen the sun as the correct answer.

Another favorite is N'Oubliez Pas Les Paroles, which I enjoy but which I can't really participate in because I've never heard of any of these songs. Essentially, I'm just waiting for the inevitable French pop song which attempts to up its cool factor by including random English lyrics; I love when French people sing in English.

But without a doubt, my hands-down favorite French game show is Attention à la Marche ("Watch Your Step"), for the simple reason that I have absolutely no idea what's going on. At the beginning, there are four contestants, at least one of whom is certifiably insane. They answer a few questions, accompanied by these cartoon creatures who look like dancing purple popsicles:

After no more than two questions, the lowest-scoring player is no longer allowed to participate in the game, but he still stands around to take part in the chatting. And there is a lot of chatting. Think of the moment on "Jeopardy!" when Alex Trebek interviews the contestants and they say things like "I enjoy tennis and swimming... but not at the same time, haha!"* Now put that thought far, far from your mind, because nothing like that is happening here.

First, one of the guys tells a story about when he went to the zoo and felt he made a "special connection" with Ghislaine the Orangutan, that "something happened" when their gazes met. Right about now, we hear the first notes of "You Can Leave Your Hat On," thus announcing the arrival of, I kid you not, "The Naughty Question."

Today's question, after a clip of the purple popsicles dancing on a mattress: out of 100 women surveyed, how many said that all men have the same "mode d'emploi" in bed. (This doesn't translate precisely, but think along the lines of "methods of usage.")

Before revealing the answer, the host demands that each contestant do an impression. One guy impersonates Charles Aznavour, a dead singer; another impersonates a famous comedian; the crazy lady does an impression of (I swear, I am not making this up) "Me, climbing a rope."

Then the host goes back to the Naughty Question and invites the crazy lady to tell everyone about Her First Time. (Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.) To which she responds, "I had several, and they were all marvelous."

Then the guy with the braid gets his turn and proceeds to describe the four different kinds of orgasms women have:

I would just like to point out that this show comes on at noon on Sundays. I'm just saying...

After this, we cut to a commercial, and when we come back, a randomly-chosen audience member joins the other four contestants in answering questions on a staircase. Then there's a musical break, and everyone dances together. Then more questions. And finally the guy who told the orgasm story plugs his album, at which point I realize he's famous. Which means that the crazy chick in the tiger shirt is also possibly famous. Then it's revealed that the woman on the stairs has won 10,000 euros. (How? When??) And finally, the credits roll, while the in-house cartoonist (yes, the in-house cartoonist) shows pictures he's drawn of the other guy and the orangutan.

I have no idea what this show is about, but I deeply love it.

*My mother and I actually witnessed this on an episode of "Jeopardy!" and it so traumatized us that it has remained our standard of dorkiness ever since.

Ah, school...

2009-11-03T10:47:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I had lunch with a colleague and spent some time planning lessons for the next term. At one point she lamented the fact that I'd been sent to this particular school (!) and expressed the wish that someday I would be able to do another exchange in a better school.

So, just for laughs, I checked the school's ranking. According to the official Education Nationale web site, my high school ranks 12th in the city (out of 14), 103rd in the district (out of 108), and, my personal favorite, 1534th nationally, which means that only 381 schools are worse than mine. In the entire country. In contrast, the school I worked at in Tours is ranked in the top 500 nationally.

Good times.

Truth in Advertising

2009-11-03T04:49:00.000-06:00

I give you: packaging vs. actual product. Words cannot sufficiently convey my disappointment.

Heh heh

2009-11-02T04:59:00.000-06:00

From the series, Business Names Which Amuse Me:

Halloween (Only Not Really)

2009-10-31T14:51:00.004-05:00

Full report on my trip to Tours will follow, but for now, I thought you should all know that I am celebrating Halloween in the traditional French fashion; that is, oblivious to its very existence.

Here's an article (and a recipe) by Peter Mayle explaining things a bit.

Hope you're all out having fun!

See Ya, Suckers!

2009-10-28T02:45:00.002-05:00

I'm off to Tours until Saturday. Will report in later. Remember to behave yourselves while I'm gone-- no wild parties, got it? Leave that to me...

In Which I Am Neither Julie Nor Julia

2009-10-27T08:56:00.003-05:00

Okay, it wasn't epic cuisine or anything, but nobody was more surprised than I was when this turned out to be edible, particularly since I only guessed at the measurements. The cookbook had measurements in milliliters but my measuring instrument only had notches for centiliters and grams, and can I just say: WTF, metric system? I thought you were supposed to be "easier."

Anyway, this is my masterpiece. According to my "student cookbook," it's a flan, but while I'm not 100 percent sure what a flan is, I don't think it's this. Essentially this is a baked omelette; it's mostly goat cheese, milk, eggs and spinach. Pretty tasty, I have to admit.

But cereal is still way easier. And there's a lot less cleanup involved.

Chamber of Commerce

2009-10-26T04:56:00.000-05:00

The first in my new series: Business Names Which Amuse Me. First up: "Mutant Assurances."

Dinner Party: With Neighbors

2009-10-24T17:07:00.002-05:00

Mado (she of the cows-in-the-road adventure) called to say that her 12-year-old wanted to host a dinner party for the neighbors and me, so Saturday night all 11 of us crammed into the dining room. Food was eaten, games were played (there was miming involved, which was particularly entertaining when Lance Armstrong was confused with Neil Armstrong), the neighbor went home and got his saxophone and came back to play three very loud songs, which I found odd because, you know, no one asked him. He just did it.

So that's about it, then. Time changed overnight here (we're on a slightly different time-changing schedule here), and I woke up entirely too early. Yay for vacation!

More Laundry Adventures

2009-10-24T05:00:00.005-05:00

This is my washing machine, which I've talked about before. And yes, it is in fact located right next to the refrigerator.

As noted in the Great Kitchen Fire Incident, counter space is tight. It gets crowded. Mistakes are made. On taking out my last load of laundry, I found a small square white thing which might have been a used kleenex (eww) except for the perplexing presence of cardboard at the center. I puzzled over this for some time (what was this thing? how did it get in my laundry?) before finally unfolding it. Even then, it took a minute:

I washed a paper towel roll. Since I don't recall putting paper towels in my laundry hamper, I can only conclude that I knocked it off the kitchen counter while I was loading the washing machine.

So, let's see... the toilet and shower have to be in separate rooms, but it makes perfect sense to do laundry in the kitchen. Sigh. Will I ever understand this country?

Yogurt Shots

2009-10-23T09:41:00.000-05:00

I want to like yogurt. I swear, I have tried every single yogurt brand and flavor out there, but I have never been able to eat the stuff without shuddering.

The French have solved my problems: drinkable yogurt. It's still nasty but I can knock it back in one shot and get all the nutritional benefits without wanting to throw up afterwards. This is also how I learned to consume tequila, and that turned out pretty well. Actually, it's not much different: I stare at the bottle, brace myself, shoot it, gag a little, and then chase it.

Mmm, yogurt. (cough) Thanks, Danone!

Outrage at the Library

2009-10-22T04:54:00.002-05:00

Every time I arrive in France, I put my cultural game face on. Some things are just different here, and I can accept that. Did I not behave admirably during the Great Banking Crisis?

And then, in the midst of my "it's not wrong, it's just different" calm, something happens that is just plain wrong. I give you: the municipal library.

First of all, this allegedly "public" library requires a subscription; I got the high-end, 20-euro a year plan, and this "all-inclusive" plan means that I can have no more than 10 documents in my keeping, which includes a maximum of 5 books and 2 DVDs at a single time.

They have a respectable selection of English-language books, which is excellent, but not what you'd call new releases. Looks like I'll be reading lots of stuff I managed to weasel out of in high school and college: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner and the like. (Silver Lining: It turns out I really like Hemingway. Who knew?) For French titles, they have fantastic theme-based lists in cute little binders at the end of the stacks, only it turns out the library owns very few of the books listed there.

Despite all this, I was still down with the French library. I took my handful of books and went home, where I spent the next couple of weeks reading the English books and avoiding the French ones; then, since I was going into town, I figured I'd drop off my materials and get some more.

And then it happened: the Cultural Moment. I cannot speak for all of France, naturally, but at the main library in Le Mans, one is required to stand in line to return materials. Outrageous! Why, why why should I have to stand around with my finger up my nose while Captain Single Dad and each of his four offspring slowly unpack their book bags and the one lady at the check-in counter carefully inspects each book, CD and DVD for damage? ARE YOU FOR REAL??

Yes, they are indeed for real. I was feeling saucy enough to ask if waiting is really a requirement, which got me a Nasty Librarian Look (the one over the top of the glasses, you know what I'm talking about) and a sour suggestion that I be a little patient.

Thus I had to stand there, holding my two little books, while Child 3 whined at dad over whether or not she really had to return the Smurf book because Child 2 had stolen it and poor little 3 had never even had the chance to read it which is not fair!

I finally was able to advance to the front of the line, surrender my books, and soothe my agitated nerves in the CD room. This made me happy, especially once I realized they have listening posts where you can put on headphones and preview the CD before you check it out. Aww, library, you're so thoughtful. All was forgiven. We were friends again.

And then Captain Single Dad was in front of me in the checkout line.

Hello, Awkward.

2009-10-21T05:42:00.002-05:00

I have this odd habit in regards to the bus; most days, I walk the route. This is because I am impatient; if, for example, I am finished with classes but the bus doesn't arrive for 15 minutes, I have no intention of standing in the bus shelter with 800 rowdy teenagers blowing smoke in my face, so I start the walk home. Each time I pass a bus stop, I check the time and see if I can continue walking or if I should stop and wait for the bus to arrive. Most days I get about halfway home before the bus catches up with me.

Today it was raining, which means the bus shelter was even more painfully crowded than usual. So I started my walk. I got three stops down and noticed a blue car stopped in front of the bus shelter, which seemed weird, but I didn't think much about it and started hustling that way because I was cutting it pretty close on time. (I don't mind walking the whole way home, but the hill at the end sucks and I try to avoid it.)

I walked past the car and the driver rolled the window down; I think he said something to me, but that made me nervous, so I feigned ignorance (headphones! lala) and kept walking.

The car pulled forward. And this time I heard my name. Turns out it was Stéphane, my colleague. He'd seen me walking and had stopped to give me a ride to my bus stop.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was currently parked in front of my bus stop, so I got in the car and had to think fast on how to get out of the situation. Finally I told him that the stop was at the end of that road (which is kind of true, in that there is a stop at the end of that road). When we got to the intersection, he asked if I lived far, and I don't, so he ended up taking me almost the whole way home. (Hill avoided!)

It was such a gallant gesture that I couldn't bring myself to say a) it was unnecessary because I was walking voluntarily and b) it was futile because as soon as he was out of sight, I went right back out the door so I could go buy groceries. Oops!

In Which Our Author Charms a Local

2009-10-20T06:21:00.001-05:00

I got a phone number today. In the bus. From a guy who was about 45, wearing a Cosby sweater and blowing smoke in my face.

There were a couple of factors at work here, most notably, that he is apparently attracted to Ice Queens, because I said and did absolutely nothing to encourage him. I gave him a made-up name (and a second made-up name when he forgot that first one), and didn't say anything to him beyond "Oh, really?" in the blandest tone I could muster.

Here's the thing: it's sort of accepted practice that if someone isn't harassing you, you play nice until you can get rid of them. (One time I was in a wildly crowded metro train and everyone was smashed up against each other, and a random skeever with his hand in his pocket turned his fingers so he was basically feeling my crotch during the entire train ride. I didn't freak out, but when we got off the train I told my French friend what happened, and she said, I swear, "Yeah, that happens, but it doesn't hurt so it's no big deal.")

Anyway, back to Bus Guy. I put on the Ultra Freeze and refused to answer any of his questions, and let's just say he's not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, because at one point he commented that he'd never seen me around town before, and was I from the city? No, I said shortly, I was from very far away. And at first he thought "Very Far Away" was a town he wasn't familiar with, so finally I just said, "It's near Tours."

He finally got off the bus and I continued to my destination in peace. I relay this story for all of you who harbor fantasies about French men. You just keep that dream alive while I cope with the reality, how about that?

"Oh mais franchement..."

2009-10-18T05:09:00.001-05:00

There is this word, franc, which gets thrown around a lot; the most obvious synonym is frank, as in Frankly, my dear... To the French, there's an element of truth to the word; someone who is franc is sincere and honest in his speech. He does not prevaricate. To me, though, the better translation is blunt. And lemme tell you, that's something these folks have no problem with.

Earlier this week, in the teachers' room, a woman randomly starts this conversation with me: "So, are there more black people in Alabama than in other states?"

Me: "Uh, I don't know. I guess maybe."

Her: "You've never been to another state?"

Me: "No, of course I have. But--"

Her: "Well, when you went to other states, were there more or fewer black people?"

Me: "I don't know. I guess I didn't notice."

Her: "Ah, well then, if you didn't notice, then maybe it was the same?"

Me: "Listen, I don't know. When I go to visit other states, I don't take a census. If you want, we can go to the computer lab and look up the numbers, but I can't tell you because I don't know."

Her: "I read that there were more. Because of the slavery."

Sigh. Why me, God?

Political Films (Joy)

2009-10-17T15:32:00.004-05:00

The ever-adventurous Richard and Annie once again extended an invitation for me to join their weekend adventures. (I would be absolutely lost without these two; they have been beyond kind.) Annie got as far as, "Richard and I wanted to know if you want to join us Saturday in Tours--"

"Yes."

"--for the Festival Cinéma et Politique."

D'oh! Political films. Crap. Well, what the heck, it's in Tours... I'm there. And can I tell you, after weeks and weeks of feeling like a blockhead all the time, it was awesome to be in a place I knew well enough to confidently direct them. "Rue de Bordeaux? Oh yes, it's right this way, follow me." I was even able to take Richard to the street with all the booksellers, and he was in hog heaven.

We saw three movies; the first was "Young Soul Rebels," which was about these two fellas in east London in 1977 who have a pirate radio station that plays funk and soul. One of them looks gay but isn't, while the one who looks straight is gay. One is black and one is mixed race, and there's something about some dude who gets killed by another dude in a park where all the gays hook up, and the mixed guy gets blamed for it and the gay guy doesn't care because he's out with his white anarchist boyfriend. Right, not really sure what was going on there, and I think if you want to make a political film, you should probably try to focus on one or possibly two issues at a time, rather than tackling homophobia, racism, police corruption, poverty, youth unemployment, murder and prejudice against soul music all in 93 minutes. But hey, what do I know?

After the movie, we had lunch and then went to our second film of the day, a 95-minute acid trip called "Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment." It's a black-and-white film starring a young and lovely Vanessa Redgrave, but beyond that I have nothing positive to say. This movie was absolutely insane. Vanessa Redgrave is divorcing her husband, Morgan, because he's nuts. He's obsessed with gorillas and his brain constantly superimposes National Geographic-type films over every day interactions. The guy taking his ticket in the train station becomes a yawning hippopotamus, his mother-in-law becomes a peacock, etc. I think it was supposed to be a love story but I had trouble feeling sorry for poor jilted Morgan because, and I really can't emphasize this enough, dude was nuckin' futs.

Of the three we saw, I was most looking forward to the last one, cryptically entitled "Who Killed Maggie?" I was told it was a documentary, and I was all excited because as you might know, I am ridiculously fond of true-crime type shows, "48 Hours" and whatnot. So I was all ready to hear poor Maggie's tale and examine the evidence and so on.

Only it turns out the Maggie in question is...

Okay, not what I was expecting. And as you might be aware, Margaret Thatcher is still alive, ergo the "killing" referred to her political career. This isn't to say the documentary wasn't interesting-- it was-- just that it was unexpected. Richard and Annie, diehard Anglophiles, were cracking me up; they were actually pointing at the screen and identifying background characters. At one point Annie leaned over and whispered, "Look, that's Lord Baker!" in the same tone one would say, "Look, that's Bono!"

After the third film, we stayed for a ~~mind-numbing~~ scintillating debate on... I don't know, something British, I wasn't really listening. The guy moderating the debate spoke French but with this atrocious accent I couldn't place. Finally I leaned over and asked what kind of accent he had, and I was told he was English. Nuh-uh. I have heard a lot a lot of Brits speaking French, and none of them sound like they're channeling Bela Lugosi. Then he mentioned his family in Liverpool and the lightbulb came on: he sounded like the Beatles. Craziness.

We went to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant and the service was so bad all we could do was laugh. The waiter was just plain rude, and made it clear that we really got on his nerves with completely unreasonable demands like, "Can we have coffee and dessert at the same time?" He yelled at us for stacking our plates on the corner of the table because we were supposed to keep them for the next course; when he plunked down a dish of what amounted to silver-dollar hamburger patties, Annie asked if there were any accompanying vegetables or sauces and he said, "This is what you ordered," and walked off. At that point we didn't even try to behave anymore; it was great fun.

We took a walk by the cathedral on our way back to the car, then headed home. A long day, but a good one. Only now I've got to really buckle down and work tomorrow. Argh.

Hello Winter! You Suck!

2009-10-16T11:58:00.003-05:00

Winter arrived yesterday, and I was not pleased. I am not a fan of cold weather, and the prospect of waiting at a bus stop when it's 40 degrees holds absolutely no appeal for me. But, brave soldier that I am, I put on my heavy winter coat (the one I usually only need during Mardi Gras), my gloves and the little wool cap I bought for a trip to Minnesota.

In short, I was ready. And I looked like a freak. I don't know if these people have lava for blood or what, but I was the only one in an actual coat. There were a couple of jackets, a metric ton of scarves, but not hats, no gloves, no coats. Just the crazy American girl. (In my defense, after three years of coastal living, I think Birmingham is unbearably cold.)

I spent most of the day studying the natives, and after dismissing the usual crop of idiot girls who wear denim shorts and black tights even if it snows, I decided that the purchase of a second coat was in order. Something shorter and a wee bit lighter, perhaps. The copy lady told me about an actual mall just south of the school, so today, off I went.

Now, this mall is precisely 2.5 miles from my front door, but because I must avail myself of public transportation, it took me forty minutes to get there. If it hadn't been so bloody cold, I'd probably have walked. And on the way, I had a French Parenting Experience, in that I was stuck next to a rather exhausting mother and child. You remember that old Bill Cosby bit about "Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey"? It was like that, only "Inès, Inès, Inès," a name which I previously liked but after today just makes me feel ill.

I walked all over the mall-- it's not bad, it's got an H&M and a Sephora-- but I couldn't find the coat I wanted. So I got on the tram and went all the way back downtown and found one in the first store I walked into. In my typically fashionista manner (cough), I tried the coat on and I thought, "I like this, it's shiny." Turns out it's shiny because, according to the saleslady, it's silk. They make silk coats? I had no idea. Anyway, it was on sale and a pretty good bargain if you don't think about the exchange rate. (And I make it a rule to never, ever think about the exchange rate.)

So bring it, winter. I am ready for you. (But don't bring it too much because, frankly, you suck and I hate you.)

Major Announcement

2009-10-15T09:26:00.003-05:00

I just thought I should tell you all, that after five full hours of classes today, I can say firmly and with the utmost conviction:

Today Was A Good Day.

As the locals say, ça s'arrose! Let's celebrate!

French Pop: Showtunes Style!

2009-10-14T07:24:00.003-05:00

While French musicals aren't as well-known as, say, Andrew Lloyd Weber shows, they're far more pervasive in pop culture. Whenever there's a particularly successful stage show, its soundtrack vaults right up the Top 40 and videos follow; the cast become pop stars and live happily ever after. Think about it; while well-known American actors sometimes take a turn on Broadway, it's rare that a performer starts on Broadway and then becomes a household name.

Not here. There's Garou, whose role as the terrifying Quasimodo in the musical version of Notre Dame de Paris launched him into super stardom; he and two other leads from the musical give Three-Tenors-style concerts. The two leads from Le Roi Soleil (Emmanuel Moire, who played Louis XIV, and Christophe Maé, who played his flamboyantly gay brother) now sell out arenas throughout the country. And now, the latest and greatest show: Mozart, the Rock Opera.

For your enjoyment (if you can manage to, I freely admit it's not my favorite), the Official Video:

So Have I Told You About-- hey, what's that smell?

2009-10-13T12:02:00.011-05:00

Today's blog post was interrupted by a small but exciting kitchen fire*. I was going to have cereal but then decided to stop being such a wuss and cook some pasta, for crying out loud. How hard is pasta?

Pretty hard, it turns out, when you have no cabinet space and therefore use your stove top for extra storage. And if you, for example, have a loaf of bread on the back of the stove, turn on the wrong burner, then go into the next room to update your blog...

Well.

To answer all your burning (hah!) questions:

No, that is not an actual photograph. Are you insane?
The fire is out.
The bread is in critical condition.
Burning plastic smells really really bad.
I have to leave the windows open, and it's 56 degrees outside.
Remembering that you should throw flour on a kitchen fire does no good if you have no flour.
I am having cereal for dinner.

Tomorrow I'll go back to whatever I was talking about before.

*Coincidentally, I just finished reading a book called The Burn Journals, about a guy who set himself on fire when he was 14 years old. Excellent book; those of you who are English teacher types should consider using it in class.

Adventures at the Pharmacy

2009-10-12T11:34:00.005-05:00

The first time I ever went to a pharmacy in France, I got yelled at by the cashier. She wanted my social security number, and not only was I not in possession of a social security number, I was also very confused as to why I needed one in order to purchase fingernail clippers. I was so traumatized that it was at least five years before I ever ventured into another French drug store.

This makes life more difficult than you realize. You see, "over the counter" has a literal interpretation here, in that everything is behind the pharmacist's counter and you are first subjected to an analysis of your symptoms. I hate this, namely because, as a professional hypochondriac, I am a connoisseur of all things pharmaceutical; I know what I want and I don't like anyone getting in my way. And, most importantly, my medical vocabulary is sparse and I always end up having to pantomime something.

I have had a nagging something-wrong for, oh, a month or so now. When I was in Paris a couple of weeks back, I cracked and went to the drug store in the train station where I discovered that France has finally-- finally!-- been introduced to the idea of "libre service" medications. I could walk right up to the shelf! Take the product I wanted! Not have to talk to anyone! It was BLISS.

So today, I trucked down to the pharmacy in my neighborhood, strode confidently inside and realized... "libre service" hasn't yet arrived in Le Mans. Horrors. Before I could run back out the door, I got cornered by an overly helpful girl who proceeded to ask me entirely too many questions. I got flustered and told her my eyes itched while pointing to my ears; she asked, I think, if my snot was thick or thin and I got the adjectives confused and told her the wrong one (which I only realized after I left). Then she picked some things out for me and rang them up before asking basic questions like, "Do you have any drug allergies?" God only knows what's in this stuff and also, could I just say, what is the aversion French people have to pills? Everything I ever get from French pharmacies has to be chewed or dissolved. I'd rather keep my taste buds out of the process, thank you.

I've already gagged down my first dose, but I think I'll revert to my old system of acquiring medication: have my mom go to Walgreen's and mail them to me. It's either that or taking a train to Paris every time I need a refill.

Hail, yeah!

2009-10-11T11:53:00.000-05:00

As I was washing dishes on Wednesday, I heard a sudden loud noise which I assumed was my roof caving in, but was in fact only a brief but impressive hail storm:

I got lots of calls and emails assuring me that this sort of thing is highly unusual, all delivered in censuring tones as if the weather were a recalcitrant child who was raised better but persists in misbehaving front of visitors.

The French Lady Always Rings Twice

2009-10-10T12:35:00.003-05:00

Those of you who know me well know that I am a slob. When I lived with roommates, I was a lot neater, but when there's just me in the house, I don't particularly care if the dishes stack up in the sink. When I walk in the door and strip off coat, scarf and shoes and let them pile up over the course of week, who's there to see it but me? Dust on the furniture? Dirty floors? Not my highest priority.

Yeah, that one came back to bite me. I'd gone out this morning but felt feverish and not quite well, so I came home, threw on my grubby clothes and took a two-hour nap. Under covers. I heard the phone ring, but I was comatose, so answering it was out of the question. (Side Note: My so-called "voicemail" tells me how many calls I missed and at what time; there are no messages, nor does it record the number of the caller. Very helpful.)

I finally dragged out of bed, thought about doing the dishes but instead proceeded to spread out all my school materials across three rooms to start getting ready for school next week.

The doorbell rang. My heart froze in my chest. I decided to ignore it. It rang again. I took a deep breath and answered (via phone), but no one was there. Whew! Close one! As I walked back across the filthy living room, I thought how mortified I'd be if someone had actually been there. What a nightmare. Then I sat down at the dining room table to get back to work, glanced out the window, and saw Cake's friend Mado staring back at me.

DANG IT!! Well, what could I do? I leaned out the window and asked if she wanted to come up, then scrambled to find a bra and shut doors while she made her way up the stairs. I felt like a total and complete jackass. I was wearing gym clothes, for crying out loud, I had major bedhead and-- this is particularly mortifying since I didn't realize it until after she'd gone-- I had some crusty white zit paste on my chin.

Sigh. Not my finest moment. I had to scramble to offer her something to drink, then bachelor wash a cup to serve it in. She's as nice as can be, but I can't say I ever really settled down and enjoyed the mercifully brief visit.

I hope people don't make a habit of this around here.

Dinner Party: Lively Now!

2009-10-09T01:53:00.004-05:00

Another week, another dinner party, this one light years better. It's not that I didn't enjoy the old folks, but here everyone other than the hostess was in their 30s. Aaah, that's better. There were two couples, the guys both teachers at school, one missus an English teacher and the other a librarian, and also two small children. This part was not fantastic, but I felt like their parents were more pained by their presence than I was. Particularly when they broke things, which they did. More than once.

Conversation flew around the table as always: difference between U.S. and American students, whether Obama deserved the Nobel, Didier & Karine's vacation in Scandanavia, Guillaume's imminent trip to Cambodia, the presence of the Klan in the southern states. (I got to answer this one three times, because there was a "special report" on TV last night about it. I just told them that I've lived my whole life in Alabama and never seen a real, live Klansman, but I suppose if you go looking for nutjobs, you can find them.) They agreed the French media has a tendency to exaggerate.

The teachers I work with were absolutely appalled to hear I'd been assigned the Devil's Class, that one particular group known school-wide for being the worst of the worst, absolutely intolerable, at least half of whom should be expelled immediately. This was mollifying; it's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks the school could have been a little more considerate in picking out my classes. Lord knows we took great pains to make Miss Cake's adjustment as easy as possible, so I get kind of bitter about the corresponding treatment I've received.

Anyway, I can't even tell you how much I enjoyed the evening. It was relaxed, it was fun, it was just plain super. Afterwards someone volunteered to drive me home, which is good because it was past midnight and I'd missed the last bus. There was one shaky moment about halfway through the drive when the missus said, "Did you drink too much? Are you okay to drive?" and he responded by giving her the universal hand signal for "kinda sorta." But hey, it was a short trip and we made it back in one piece, so good on him.

Side Note: French People Lurv Exams

2009-10-08T11:28:00.005-05:00

In France, when you want to be a teacher, you have to pass a concours, or series of exams. Now, when you take an exam like this in the U.S., we set a certain score as our arbiter of success: score above the mark, you win! Score below the mark, and your teachers will be blamed for your failure! In France it works a little differently; let's say you want to work in District X, and there are five available positions for history teachers based on growth or retirement. Among all the folks taking the history exam, the top five scorers pass; everyone else fails.

It doesn't matter how good you are in the classroom; it doesn't matter how well you interact with students; it doesn't really even matter how much you know about history: if five other people know more than you (or are just better test takers), you're screwed. The upside of this, I'm told, is that you can take this annual exam "as many times as you want." To which I say, I only one to take the exam once, thanks. I want to pass it the first time based on a fixed standard of achievement, and I want to then be offered a job based on my own merits.

The reason for the tough selection process is that if you pass, you don't just receive certification, but you're guaranteed a job. You go into the national education system and they will assign you to a post in your district. If you don't like the school, tough. You have to wait a few years and build up points in the system, because transfers are based on seniority.

There's also an argument that these exams are impossible for non-French people to pass. One woman wrote a whole book about how native English speakers are destined to fail in the French educational system, because... wait for it... our English isn't good enough. (Which is a whole other blog post. Trust me.) So even if I wanted to stay and teach forever in France, I'm pretty much SOL.

Silver lining: the upside is, there's a huge pool of subs to draw from. Because everyone who's still waiting to "pass" the exam can work as a long-term substitute for folks who go on maternity leave, break bones, or walk off the job in a fit of student-induced insanity. (There are no short-term subs here; if you're going to be out a few days, you just cancel class. Sweet.)

Blistering, Festering Wounds of Outrage

2009-10-07T10:10:00.004-05:00

My favorite third-word denizen (and soul sister-- we were both gypped in this exchange) sent me an email updating me on life on the island. I liked this phrase from her note so much that I'm considering making it the new title of this blog. "Blistering, Festering Wounds of Outrage: a Blog by Melissa." Poetic, non?

Fight!

2009-10-06T07:27:00.004-05:00

Today I attended that event dreaded by all teachers, the departmental meeting. I don't know why they wanted me there; there were two items on the agenda and neither concerned me. The first had to do with our new assistante. I'd been looking forward to the arrival of the assistant since the beginning of the school year. Typically, an assistant is a recent college grad who gives conversation classes in their native language. They work 12 hours a week and get paid enough to prevent starvation. This is the program I did in Tours seven years ago, and after a rocky few months, I loved it. (Let's hope that cycle repeats itself.) At my school in Tours, we had two American assistants as well as an Italian, a Costa Rican, a Brazilian and a Russian.

As further evidence of my school's general dysfunction, our Spanish assistant is from Israel (huh?) and our American assistant quit before she ever got here. That's all we've got. So I've been pretty disappointed about that. Then today Stéphane introduced me to our new assistant, who kind of appeared out of the blue. She's 60 years old and Scottish, so to say I was a mite surprised is an understatement. She's lived in France for at least 10 years, and she can only work at our school on Tuesday.

So, since I only have two classes on Tuesday, there's no way I can use her. A couple of lucky teachers have a full load on Tuesday, so they benefit enormously. (I'm trying hard not to be bitter, particularly since these teachers also have the post-grad classes who leave to start internships in a couple of weeks. So their teachers will just be free. And getting paid like they're still working.)

Anyway, the best part came at the end, when there was a huge fight about who should be the department chair. I've missed out on the backstory so I'm not really sure what's going on, but I know that voices were raised, doors were slammed, all while I sat in the corner drawing stick people and wondering how soon I could leave to catch the bus home.

Good times!

Becoming a French Teacher

2009-10-05T09:58:00.003-05:00

I finally understand my role as a teacher in the French classroom. It is this: ask questions, provide answers to questions, allow students time to copy down answers verbatim, give students a week or so to memorize everything, then wrap things up nicely with a test in which they recite all the answers I've given them.

That's it. Asking students to think for themselves? Not so much. Asking students to think at all? Nope. As far as I can tell, the routine (at my school at least) is, "Don't think, just memorize!" (One of my colleagues phrased it as, "They have to give back what you gave to them." It was all I could do not to vomit.)

I never thought of myself as a touchy-feely American teacher, but it turns out I am. (The things we learn about ourselves!) All of my cues are geared towards self-reflection and letting students figure out the answers themselves, as in:

S: What's the difference between X and Y?

M: You tell me.

This is appalling in the French system. It suggests that I am incompetent and don't actually know the answer. There's also an element of, "I am the teacher, how dare you attempt to give me information?"

The bottom line is, my students don't want to think, and I'm tired of fighting them. It's been a month, and it hasn't gotten any better. At all. So in an effort to salvage my tattered self-esteem, I am throwing in the towel. They win. As of tomorrow, I will revert to the read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions-at-the-end-take-a-test method of teaching.

Look at me, kids, I'm a coach!*

*This is teacher humor. Coaches stereotypically always a) teach social studies and b) use the read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions method.

Admiring Photos

2009-10-04T09:18:00.003-05:00

So, I'm at the home of some friends of Miss Cake and they wanted to show me some pictures she'd sent them. With great enthusiasm they took me through an entire slideshow of... my apartment. It was surreal; I don't think they ever really made the connection between my lack of comment and the fact that I've lived in the place for three years now. ("Isn't that a wonderful view?" she said at one point. Um, yeah, in fact it's one of the reasons I rented the place.) They also showed me pictures Cake had taken at school, which I didn't like at all because those are my kids and I don't like being reminded that someone else is taking care of them this year.

Then we went to the park where the younger daughter and I made a sad attempt at playing pingpong until she finally ran off with someone her own age then promptly hurled herself from the monkey bars and had to be taken to the ER*. The husband drove me home. I ate cookies. MLIA.

*Mado just called to ~~say I love you~~ tell me that baby girl is staying in the hospital overnight and will have surgery tomorrow. She's got a fracture and... something about two things (bones?) that slid one over the other. Not sure, but it sounds pretty awful.

Socially Acceptable Spying

2009-10-03T14:25:00.004-05:00

I meant to get a lot of work done today, I really did. But around two, my phone rang, and it was Annie. She'd just heard about a manifestation in town and wanted to see if I were interested in meeting her and Richard in front of city hall. (Side Note: Manifestation is the word used for demonstration, so I was a little confused about why they seemed so enthusiastic about checking out a protest. Later I remember that it can also more generally mean "an event," which made a lot more sense but was a lot less exciting.) I said sure, then scrambled to find matching shoes, a rubber band for my hair, my house keys and bus pass. And then I ran.

The event is called Entre Cours et Jardins, and it's yet another let-the-peasants-admire-our-bounty event. In the old city (which I visited in previous adventures), families open their normally well-shuttered courtyards and share their private gardens with the ticket-holding masses.

It was fascinating. Unlike the U.S., where everything is open (big front yards, picture windows, etc.), in France everything is insular. From the outside all you see is stone walls and imposing iron gates, none of which even hint at the sumptuous beauty of the houses and gardens inside. I can't tell you how many people said something along the lines of, "Who would've guessed all this was right here?"

The weather was beautiful and the gardens were lovely. You can see them here. When we finished we stopped in a gorgeous little bar and had some liquid restoration. Since this is one of the few places in town that specializes in cocktails, I splurged and had a margarita. (Neat, since "frozen" and "on the rocks" are not concepts here.) Richard had a Manhattan. Annie had tea. (Party pooper.) We talked shop and they both gave me great ideas and advice on how to handle my monster class.

It was a lovely day (though chilly, I don't think it broke 60), and well worth every hour it set me back in lesson planning. I'll get around to that one of these days.

In Which Our Author Has An Epiphany

2009-09-30T11:33:00.003-05:00

I've been getting bent out of shape about my students making fun of my accent all the time. It happens a lot: I say something in English and they repeat it in a dreadfully exaggerated American accent. Then they laugh. It makes me want to scream.

Today my 10th graders were at it again; I kept hearing echoes of my voice all over the place. I was about to lose it when I happened to eye some of them and realized they weren't looking at me at all. They were completely focused inward, working hard to recreate the sound, oblivious to my reaction.

That's when I realized it: they're not making fun of me. In fact, what they're doing is trying very, very hard to sound American. Because sounding like an American is cool.

It was just about the cutest thing ever, and I had a big stupid grin for the rest of the day. Good times.

Dinner Party: Do These Pants Make Me Look Grim?

2009-09-29T09:47:00.006-05:00

I was invited to dinner at the home of a retired French teacher from my school. We were joined by a retired math teacher, a retired history teacher, and a retired-something-else teacher. It was a regular ol' teacher fest. I'd been told beforehand that everyone wanted to spend the evening practicing their English. Only when I got there, someone said, "Perhaps we could speak French just a little at the beginning, and then start speaking English in a few minutes?"

We spoke French all night. Well, I should say they spoke French all night. I mostly listened and made grocery lists in my head. Ostensibly everyone had gotten together to meet me, The Visiting American, but it didn't take me long to blend in to the upholstery, apparently. It's not that I didn't want to participate, it's more that they talked about hip replacements and osteopaths (like chiropractors who crack all your bones), carpal tunnel surgeries and the various classes they take in their ample leisure time. (Art! Music! Stretching!) There was a quick inventory of who had parents still living, then their care and ailments were discussed at great length. Turns out my parents are pretty healthy, so again, not much to add.

Don't get me wrong, it was interesting. They wanted to talk about Roman Polanski, and you might be surprised by their response. The consensus was that they didn't understand why the European elite rally around him; if he committed a crime (and in their minds, a grown man and a 13-year-old girl does, in fact, constitute a crime), then he should be required to atone for it.

Also interesting: they all lost at least one grandfather in "The War of 1914," and one or both of their parents grew up with no male presence in the home. Americans make a lot of noise about France's resistance to our military endeavors, but you've got to see things from their side. We think of wars in terms of our brave boys heading overseas to defend freedom, and that's true, but for the French it wasn't a distant thing. These wars were fought in their backyards. The Battle of Verdun (in northern France) lasted nine months and killed a quarter of a million people. France had 1.6 million casualties overall. (To compare, the U.S. had 117,000.) They also had more casualties than the U.S. during World War II, and with a fraction of the population. Is it any wonder they're so reticent to go to war? Any wonder they'd rather exhaust diplomatic option when it comes to dealing with Iran and Iraq?

Do me a favor. Please stop perpetuating that whole "we saved your asses" thing. They know. They remember. And they're eternally, sincerely grateful. It's just that this gratitude doesn't extend to following the U.S. blindly into yet another war that could kill off a substantial chunk of their population.

I'm off my soapbox now. Dinner was lamb with apricots and prunes. (Yeah, prunes. I accidentally took one too many from the bowl and wow. I'm pretty sure my ears are clean, too.) For dessert we had ice cream and stewed pears from somebody's father's orchard. Wine was consumed. French was spoken. Somebody drove me home at 11:30 (which makes it an early night, in terms of French dinner parties). I managed to get a couple of hours sleep before school the next morning.

And oh yeah, I've got another invitation to dinner. And this time they swear they're going to speak English. We'll see.

Black Day

2009-09-28T12:13:00.004-05:00

They changed my schedule while I was gone. I had no warning. All of the sudden, I'm up to six hours of classes on Monday, with two hours at once in my very worst class (the angry-at-the-world kids). I was in no way prepared for this; just getting through one hour with them is torture. Two hours is inconceivable. Not only that, but The Man has decided to divide one of my other classes in to two "modules," which increases my overall teaching load.

My 10th graders showed up first thing and started whining about their quiz; one kid kept (literally) screeching at me that he was absent all last week until finally I just told him to sit down and shut up before I smashed his face in. (I said it in English, which makes it easier to get away with.)

After this I went to my 11th grade class, but no one was there, and the next thing I know, some guy from the office is running down the hall telling everyone to evacuate the building. I asked another teacher what was going on, but she didn't know. I went outside and got knocked to the ground by a mob of kids running off campus... to watch a fight. Seriously? We evacuated the building because there was a fight going on outside? In what universe does that make sense??

Eventually I herded my students back inside, but at this point they were wild. Now, in the U.S., this sort of thing happens all the time and I don't really have a problem reestablishing order. Here, I'm at an utter loss: I don't have enough command of my subject to take control of the lesson, and I'm not adept enough at French to intimidate them properly. In other words, they can walk all over me and they know it. This has never, ever happened to me before in my teaching career, even in the the depths of the Mississippi ghetto. I have always been able to keep my kids in line. Not here.

I've made jokes before about locking myself in the bathroom to cry, but today I actually did it. Twice. In the same hour. My colleague Stéphane told me I looked "quite tired," which is a euphemism, I suppose, for "like you've been bawling your eyes out for twenty minutes." I agreed that I was, indeed, quite tired and also I was having some allergy problems (which we both knew was a lie but allowed me to salvage my dignity). He was trying very hard to be helpful and gave me a copy of the lesson he's using with the class we have in common. I looked at it (a text on the history of the Internet) and thanked him profusely then locked myself into the bathroom to cry some more because this is part of my problem. This is the kind of lesson they give-- the history of the Internet, people-- and I'm supposed to find a way to engage academically-challenged students whose grasp of English is extremely poor with a two-hour lesson involving expressions like network, Internet gateway and linked via telephone wires.

When the two-hour group showed up, they were fighting mad, assuming I'd requested the schedule change. I was exhausted and defeated and finally just said, listen, I don't particularly want to spend two hours with you either, but we're stuck with each other so let's figure out a way to make it tolerable. I asked them to write an anonymous note describing what they want the course to be: we could spend all our time preparing their end-of-year exam, which is dry, thankless work involving analyzing texts and images; or we could start from zero and relearn English all over again. (Most of them have a shaky grasp of the language at best.) I said I'm more accustomed to working with beginners and would probably want to do ridiculous interactive games and skits which would seem childish and beneath their dignity, but in the end might actually allow them to speak English.

I guess this went a ways towards restoring good will (how, I don't really know), because they were fairly cooperative for the godawful Internet article. We got through the day and I finally got home, and my mother used her psychic mom powers and called so that I could cry some more and get snot all over the phone.

I've decided that today is my Black Day, the point that I look back on and say, "Yeah, that was it. That was the worst day. Everything got easier after that."

So, there it is. My Black Day is over. Everything will be easier after this.

Weekend In Paris

2009-09-27T10:03:00.000-05:00

Last day of meetings, this time at the lycée hotelier where we'd had dinner the night before. By that time I was on information overload, so I'm not sure I really processed anything that was said that day. Annie brought her niece so that we could role play the conseils de classe, which are meetings held each trimester with an administrator, the teaching team, two student representatives and two parent representatives to discuss the progress of each individual student in the class. Yeah. Totally looking forward to that.

We said our somewhat emotional goodbyes, even though Mr. Moto brought us the good news that we'll meet again at the end of January (except for Maureen, whose third world location makes travel costs prohibitive).

I took the metro to my friend Caroline's office, then sat quietly while she finished working on a project. We got to the train station with about two minutes to spare and Caroline asked if I really wanted to take the time to buy a ticket because nobody ever checks and it's no big deal. I told her I'd already been controlled twice, so we got a ticket. And no one checked it.

Her new place is in a town 3 miles outside Paris, and it's adorable. It's on the fourth floor, which is a painful climb, but it's bright and airy and spacious and absolutely beautiful. We had a delicious dinner of ham-and-cheese crepes, with pastries for dessert and a respectable amount of wine.

Saturday we went to the market in town and it was awesome. They sold everything there from fruits to fish to rastafarian caps. The guy selling melons offered to let us sample one, and his sales pitch went like this: "You've probably had better, but you've probably had worse, too." He was right, so we bought three. And happily they were even tastier than the sample melon.

Caroline's mom came by and we went into the city. The artists' neighborhood in the 20th was having an "Open House" day, so you could go in to the artists' workshops and look at all their stuff. It was pretty cool. After that we checked out an exhibit called "Frigos sur le Pont des Arts," which was kind of hilarious-- refrigerators on a bridge.

There was a disastrous episode wherein I complained about my jeans not fitting any more and Caroline decided she would help me find some new ones. Only we haven't shopped together too much, so she didn't realize what would happen: I'd try on two pairs and become unreasonably frustrated when they didn't fit, would refuse to ask anyone for help and rashly declare that nothing would fit, no matter where we went, and I would just want to go home and feel sorry for myself.

Frankly, I don't know if it was mental exhaustion from meetings or emotional exhaustion from this first month of school, but I was in total shut-down mode. In short, I was a terrible house guest, no fun at all, and poor Caro just had to put up with me. So we went back to her place and had dinner; we'd intended to watch a movie but ended up watching about two hours of Les Simpson instead. Somehow it's funnier in French.

Sunday we headed back in to town; only when we got to train station, both ticket machines were broken and there was no one at the window, so it was impossible to buy a ticket. Argh. At any rate, off we went to the Mémoriale de la Déportation, the Holocaust Memorial. It is stark and striking and moving. I was taking pictures like crazy and Caroline was standing very far away from me looking perturbed. Finally she came up and whispered that she didn't think pictures were allowed, so I stopped. (I never did see a sign, but I guess I believe her.) Anyway, profit from my contraband photos now:

We had a fantastic lunch at a Lebanese place near Boulevard St. Michel, then it was back to Caro's place to pack up my stuff. She walked me to the train station, but I guess we were a little behind schedule, because the train was pulling away and I had to literally run to get on it.

And yeah, I got controlled. Obviously. Without a ticket. I tried telling the guy that the two machines were broken and there was no one at the window (which was true enough, in the morning), but he whipped out a cell phone and called the station to verify, so I was SOL. I had a few seconds to recall a book I read about French people and what the author calls Persistent Personal Operating, where you essentially have to make them care about you personally, generally by giving them a sob story and throwing yourself at their mercy.

And so... I cried. Isn't that such a wretched girl thing to do? But French men... well. Anyway, it wasn't my intention to cry, but I was just so tired and fed up and sick of everything that I got all choked up and went the Noble Martyr route and said of course I'd pay the fine immediately but could we please hurry because I was going to miss my train to Le Mans. He asked to see my ticket, then fussed at me for only booking a ticket Paris- Le Mans rather than a Caro's Town-Le Mans ticket. I told him how sorry I was (not particularly true) but that I didn't know that was possible (which was true) and got a brief lecture on How To Buy Train Tickets. I choked up again and said I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm just a poor little foreigner, etc. He asked my nationality, I told him, he said, "That's a beautiful country. I don't know Alabama, but I like the U.S." Then he said that since I was an American he would let me go this time. "But go quickly or you'll miss your train. Take the 13 line for Chatillon and that'll take you directly to the Montparnasse station. Now hurry!"

French people. I will never understand.

Paris Day Two

2009-09-24T07:20:00.002-05:00

On my way to the metro in the morning, I ran into Mark, another exchange teacher, in a café and we both took the train together. And both got controlled. (Sorry for the franglais, but the English word escapes me. The contrôleur is the guy who comes through and checks that you have a valid ticket, ergo we call it being controlled.) This was new; I mean, I knew contrôleurs existed, but in all the time I've spent in Paris, I'd never actually seen one. Neither had Mark. It was no big deal-- I had a ticket, and I don't jump turnstiles or anything-- but it was odd.

Mark and I got to our meeting location (a high school in the 14th, right next to Montparnasse Cemetery) but we were early so we went down to the corner and had (another) coffee. When it was time for our meeting, we went to cross the street and a guy on a motorcycle pulled up and looked intently at us and said something which sounded friendly but you never know with French people and anyway, why was a random guy on a motorcycle talking to us?

Our meeting was being held in the Chinese Pavilion, which was neither Chinese nor a pavilion. (Discuss.) It was, in fact, a large square room on the edge of a basketball court. But okay, fine. Our friends from the Commission arrived, among them the leader himself, the guy with the long aristo name, and Mark leaned over to me and whispered, "Oh man, that was the guy on the motorcycle!" And he was right; we just hadn't recognized him because he had his helmet on and we didn't expect him to scoot his way around the city.

We heard from the principal of the school; the guy whose job is roughly vice-principal in charge of discipline; and someone who's sort of the head counselor (I think). The training session was run by the Inspecteur Général, a very friendly and helpful woman named Annie. In the U.S., teachers are observed and reviewed by their school administrators; in France there is a team of professional reviewers in charge of evaluating teachers in each district. Annie is the boss of all the foreign language inspecteurs in France.

She's worked with exchange teachers for several years now and I appreciated how frank she was. She had a Q&A session, where I stirred the pot by asking, "How can we possibly engage and inspire student learning when the texts and documents they give us to work with just plain suck?" Suddenly everyone in the room was sucking in air; you'd think I'd asked her cup size or something. But she just shrugged and said that for the most part she agreed with me. She claimed cultural differences; American teacher editions are full of tips, ideas, plans and suggestions on how to present the material. A French teacher would be appalled by this sort of setup as it suggests they are incapable of preparing a lesson without help.

Yeah, I get that, but still. I'm perfectly capable of planning, executing and evaluating a lesson, but if the textbook writers want to do the lion's share of the work for me, I'm down with that.

Annmarie and I were paired together to observe classes; we saw an English class that made me want to gouge my eyes out. (Two words, people: James Joyce.) And then we observed a Spanish class, which was excellent for a couple of reasons: first, having no knowledge of the language allowed us to really take a step back and just watch the interaction without getting caught up in the content. And second, this was a seasoned teacher who ran a tight ship but gave a high-energy, interactive lesson which seemed to appeal to her students. And also it was fun to try to pick out the Spanish words that looked like French words and guess what the text was about.

Between observations, Annmarie and I went to stretch our legs and ended up on Boulevard Raspail, which I always think of as Hemingway country. We had a drink in one of his old haunts (at the current rate of conversion, I paid $8.75 for a glass of orange juice), then headed back to wrap up meetings.

Dinner that night was an experience; first off, I got controlled in the metro again, which is insane. Everyone agreed that I had terrible train mojo. (Hint: this is also foreshadowing.) We arrived at a lycée hotelier, a high school which specializes in service industry studies, where our dinner was prepared and served by students. They were all dressed in fine dining suits, very earnestly presenting the menus and suggesting wines. They brought our fish out and dressed them in front of us, they did a tableside presentation at dessert which involved setting liqueur on fire. And all the while their teachers were running around offering help and yelling, as the case required. It was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. The food was excellent!

Dinner conversation was fascinating, as it always is when French people are in charge. I sat next to Mr. Moto, who talked about his diplomatic adventures around the world. We discussed the situation with my STG class, and he was refreshingly blunt about how poorly they've been treated by the educational system. (Roughly, STG kids are perceived to be not very bright; they're given little encouragement or help and are basically being babysat until they either pass their exams or drop out. Most are minorities, many are first-generation citizens, and most are understandably angry at the world.) Those of you who know my history of teaching in the hood know these are the kids I like best, even if they don't like me. And they don't like me. See that whole "angry at the world" thing.

There were lighter moments, to be sure. I found out that Mr. Moto was born in, of all places, Chattanooga. I know, right? After dinner, Annmarie was bold enough to ask Mr. Moto for a ride back to the hotel. As RFK said, only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly:

Annmarie, whose gutsiness I admire beyond description, went a step farther. When they got to the hotel, she said, "You mean we're done already?" and was rewarded with a nighttime drive through Paris, including circling the base of the Eiffel Tower. I was so jealous I could spit.

To work off the painfully large meal, most of the girls decided to walk back to the hotel, and I have to tell you, wandering the streets of Paris at night is just heartbreakingly wonderful. For me, Paris is a city that never gets old; no matter how many times I go there, it's never enough. And while it was good to be there, it was also tinged with bitterness that I can't be there all the time. I'd move there in a heartbeat.

Not quite ready to tell Paris goodnight (particularly Maureen, my favorite third world denizen, who knew her days in civilization were few), we stopped at the café on the corner and had one more round, sitting on the terrasse and watching the world go by. I slept really, really well.

Paris Day One

2009-09-23T23:14:00.001-05:00

Three days of freedom from classes and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I got to the train station way early because I was just ready. I ran into another exchange teacher, Annmarie, at the hotel, and we roamed the neighborhood and had lunch together. Then we headed down to our rendezvous point to get ready for our official immigration medical visit.

I'd forgotten what a delight these were. The good parts: reuniting with all the other exchange teachers. I feel about these folks the way veterans feel about their platoon mates: we've Been Through Stuff that no one else will ever understand. We were all positively giddy to see each other.

The doctors took us in pairs-- I was with Joanna, and let me tell you, these docs have the system down. They shuffled Joanna and me around the room like magic; we never once ran into each other, and somehow we both managed to be weighed, measured and given an eye exam within about two minutes. The doctors were cracking jokes-- at one point, Joanna made a big production over the doctor asking her if she were pregnant, which he thought was just hilarious. Seriously, he almost fell down laughing, then he opened various doors to tell everyone what she'd just said.

After the doctors were finished with us, they hustled us into a hallway with three doors, told us to each pick a room, strip down to the waist, and wait for someone to come get us. Ah yes, the chest x-ray. I'd forgotten about this little delight. What's that you say? Drapes or paper shirts to protect one's modesty? Surely you jest. What are you, some sort of prudish American who's so ashamed of your own body you're not comfortable parading around naked in front of a bunch of lab techs? Some people have the craziest hangups.

I tried to brazen my way through it, but it's just a godawful experience. Someone comes to get you and walk you in to the xray room. This is the standup variety, so a helpful lab tech will walk up behind you and smash your boobs against a cold metal wall. At this point, the lab tech decided to pull my hair into a clip of some sort, and that kicked my discomfort level through the roof. After all, scientists have identified hand-to-head as pretty frigging high up on the human intimacy scale, and I felt like Nurse Ratched was rushing me a bit.

After we got our handy souvenir chest xrays, we were called individually to another doctor for a medical history. This is where I lie a lot, because it's so much easier to just answer "no" than to deal with follow-up questions. However, I was so proud to actually know the French word for "arthroscopy" that I eagerly volunteered that bit of information. He then asked what the doctors found and I had to feel stupid once again. It wasn't even a vocabulary deficiency; I remember I asked my knee doctor three times what they did to me, and he told me, but it all went over my head.

Finally we worked our way back out to the main office, where we were given our official visas:

Here we are in the Place des Vosges admiring our lungs:

That night we had a cocktail party with the Agency in charge of our exchange, and we shared the time (and wine, and food) with a group of college students who are spending a semester in France. They're newly arrived and a little petrified, and it was so nice to talk to them about living in France. Honestly, my confidence has been absolutely decimated since school started, so I was thrilled to be able to feel knowledgeable and capable again.

We also got to meet several high-level bureaucrats, including the director of the Commission, a Frenchman with a longish aristocratic name* who was quite friendly and knew me immediately because he'd spent so much time looking at our files. Which have photographs. And my hair makes me easy to identify. Go figure. I also met a very nice lady from the Embassy who travels the world with her daughter and lived four years in New Orleans, so that was fun to talk about.

Maureen (my favorite third world denizen) and I had dinner and a glass of wine, then we went back to the hotel to prepare for our first day of meetings.

*This is foreshadowing. This man will appear in tomorrow's post.

French Music: Paris Edition

2009-09-23T13:04:00.002-05:00

By the time this video posts, I will be in PARIS! To celebrate, I am indulging myself: today's selection is the incomparable Edith Piaf. Bonus Points to anyone who sees her biopic, La Vie en Rose. (Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for her spot-on performance. Excellent film.)

Another Day, Another Crisis

2009-09-22T06:04:00.005-05:00

Classes were fine today. Oddly, I'm the only one among the exchange teachers who isn't ranting and raving about her secondes (students in their first year of high school). Mine get a little loud sometimes, and there are a couple of worthless specimens, but they behave pretty well and they do what I ask. Today then even politely corrected my French (I used a word that doesn't exist).

Anyway, I got home and the mailman had brought his:

Which means I have two weeks to figure out what, exactly, one wears to a reception at the Senate House in the presence of a former prime minister.

Good grief.

Sigh.

2009-09-21T11:59:00.006-05:00

"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."

"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.

"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."

Maybe excellent weekends are a poor idea. I woke up this morning in the throes of a full-on anxiety attack, and that was the best part of the day. The low point was the mini-breakdown I had at lunch. Beyond that, it's really not worth talking about. Thank goodness tomorrow is my last day for the week-- I've got to get away from school for a while and regroup.

Argh.

(Not Much of a) SURPRISE: More Castles!

2009-09-20T12:39:00.002-05:00

Annie and Richard arrived bright and early this morning for another road trip adventure. This time, instead of staying in Sarthe, we ventured out towards Tours. Our first stop was the Chateau de Montsoreau. It appears Alexandre Dumas wrote a novel about the Lady of Monsoreau (who marries one bloke and falls in love with another one, blah blah), and has been turned into a made-for-TV movie a couple of times.

I've realized that when one is restoring a chateau, there are two options available to draw visitors: you can carefully refurbish and refurnish the place with correct period pieces, though this is a major money pit in terms of upkeep; or, you can not keep a stick of furniture in the place and turn it into a quasi-scientific exhibit. At Montsoreau, they opted for the latter.

This isn't meant as a criticism; it was pretty interesting stuff. During the Renaissance, the Loire River was Where It Was At, and this castle is literally spitting distance from the river. So there was a lot of information about commerce and how goods were transported down the river by boat, stuff about the wines that are stored in the soft-rock caves all along the river, and the ever-popular mushroom farms.

Along with Annie and Richard's dear friends Claude and Christiane, we turned the castle inside out, then went to lunch at a mushroom farm. Our first course was mushroom soup; the main dish was a plate of three large mushrooms: one stuffed with goat cheese, one with rillettes (think pulled pork), and one with... mushrooms. A mushroom-stuffed mushroom. We had a quick dessert (no mushrooms, thank goodness) and jumped in the car to head off to a little tiny church a few towns over.

The village is noteworthy because of its famous castle, Ussé, which is best known as being Charles Perrault's inspiration for Sleeping Beauty. The church, Notre Dame de Rigny, is truly off the beaten path; it's in the middle of nowhere, the exterior is completely uninspiring, but the interior is breathtaking. The church was constructed in the 11th century, and was believed to be a favorite of King Louis XI. Though they don't know for sure, they think it was Louis who commissioned the murals inside, and his royal painter who executed them. Unfortunately, during the period of the counter-Reformation, they were painted over, and have been a bit difficult to salvage.

Claude and Christiane's daughter is a musician, and she and three others performed an impromptu concert in the church. The acoustics were astonishing and the music was gorgeous. The church is a treasure, really beautiful, and there's an association who bought it and have sunk wild amounts of their personal money into saving it. (Their leader is an 85-year-old guy who shocked the crap out of me by telling me he'd been to Birmingham twice.)

When the concert was over, we drove to a nearby village situated prettily on the river. As soon as we got out of the car, I looked down at the boats on the river and realized, holy crap, I've been here before! This past spring, when I was in France with the kids, my hostess Odile took my joyriding through the area and we'd stopped there to walk along the river and admire the boats.

We had chocolate in a little café then took the long way home; I got to see a nuclear power plant! Did you know they make smoke? I didn't. I also couldn't stop the big stupid grin on my face as I kept imagining Smithers and Mr. Burns making nefarious plans inside. I mean really, how can anyone take themselves seriously working at a nuclear power plant? They are all Homer Simpson, one way or another.

Pictures are here. Good times had by all. Don't want to go back to work tomorrow.

Journées du Patrimoine

2009-09-19T14:04:00.003-05:00

This weekend is one of the most-anticipated in France. "Heritage Days" are exciting because throughout the country, many normally private buildings throw their doors wide and welcome the unwashed masses. In Paris, you can stand in line for hours to take a tour of the Elysée Palace, where President Sarkozy lives with his hot wife; elsewhere, many private chateaux give guided tours; churches hold concerts, city halls throw parties, and good times are had by all.

(Lest you feel yourselves tearing up over this demonstration of patriotic spirit, it's worth noting that most of these castle owners receive government funds to subsidize their upkeep, and they're actually required to open their doors to the public one day a year so that taxpayers can see how their money is being spent. Still, most folks are down with it, because they've put a lot of work into their homes, and they like showing them off. Sort of HGTV goes live.)

Two of Miss Cake's friends, Annie and Richard, invited me to join them for the fun. When Annie called, she kept saying that if I got any better offers for the weekend, I should feel free to bail on them, because they're not young and obviously I would rather spend my time with hot French guys. (Okay, I added that last part.) So I was pretty much expecting a geriatric couple with walkers-- I even watched for them at my window so they wouldn't have to climb the stairs.

Um, they're not old. They're quite spry and adorable, and absolutely too much fun. Richard kept me laughing all day, and Annie took good care of me.

Our first stop was the church in the village of Pirmil. For a rinky-dink church in a rinky-dink village, the interior was quite impressive, well-maintained and full of little surprises. After the church, we drove just outside the village to visit the Chateau de la Balluère, where our visit was lead by a man who identified himself as "the young mayor of Pirmil."

Interesting character. He was indeed young, and rather handsome too; originally from Paris, a few years ago his mother died of a heart attack and he decided he needed to slow his life down substantially. So he and his partner bought the chateau and he ran for mayor; he lost, spent some time ingratiating himself to the population, and won the second time. He told us all kinds of stories about his constituents, and when we seemed shocked that he should know such intimate details of their lives, he just leveled a look at us and said, "Mayors know everything." I swear, this guy needs his own reality show.

After the chateau, we went to the little village of Asnières-sur-Vègres, because Richard read their was a restaurant there run by English people. (He and Annie are both retired English teachers, and though French by birth, they are Brits at heart.) Off we went to Le Pavillon, where a very harried English guy whose entire staff was on vacation single-handedly ran the only restaurant in the village. We spent a typical 90 minutes on our typically massive French meal, and I was typically useless afterward.

Lunch was followed by a guided tour of the village, which included a church whose bland exterior didn't even hint at the gorgeous frescoes inside. Also, there was a newspaper guy there who was taking so many pictures I began to understand why Britney did the umbrella job on the paparazzi. Dude, seriously, trying to admire some art here...

And then we went to another private castle, this one the Chateau Dobert. It was straight out of a fairy tale. It's been in the same family (their name is de Bastard, heh heh) for a ridiculous amount of time, something like 600 years. Can you even imagine?

Our tour was led by Philippe, grandson of the current owner. He was so cute, charming, and very excited about leading the tour but a little shy, too-- he kept looking at his grandmother for backup. I'm not even going to lie: it took me about 30 seconds to fall madly in love with him. He's probably all of 20 years old, and that doesn't bother me nearly as much as it should.

As he was showing us pictures of de Bastard ancestors, he turned his head to answer a question, completely unaware that this put his face at the same angle as the painting, and I swear to goodness I was looking at the exact same nose on him as on the guy in the Revolution-era wig. Mind-blowing. I mean, we're standing in the guy's castle, surrounded by an honest-to-goodness moat, looking at paintings of his identical (if bewigged) twin and admiring the dining room table (set with china which had an emblem reserved for a count, which they never mentioned but I recognized), and he could not have been more normal and down-to-earth. He had a grand time telling us about his plans to become a military pilot, all the while showing us the 200-year-old bidet in one of the upstairs rooms.

I would have taken tons of pictures, but I was in someone's house, and it felt a bit like I was casing the joint, you know? But I took plenty of the exterior. After we wandered the grounds a bit, Richard lobbied for a detour in Annie's carefully planned itinerary, because it had become essential that I be taken to Solesmes, which is famous for its Benedictine monastery where Gregorian chant was revived and restored in the 19th century. (I have a soft spot for Benedictines, based on my brief but profound experience with Father Joel and the rest of the gang at St. Bernard's.) We walked in to the chapel on the tail end of a mass, and the singing was truly magnificent. Equally impressive were the "saints de Solesmes," some of the most beautiful and affecting sculptures I've ever seen (and that would include my little jaunt to the Vatican). I opted not to play Asian tourist during mass, though, so no pictures for you there.

Side Note: the prime minister of France, François Fillon, is from Le Mans and went to the university here, and now keeps a home in Solesmes. I can see why-- it's a lovely, charming little village, straight out of Central Casting. We had a drink in a little café on the main road and it was everything that is good about France.

Tomorrow we are going to meet some friends of theirs outside Tours, at a place which I gather is something like a mushroom farm, and we will eat in the dining establishment of said farm and have a three-course meal consisting of all mushroom-based foods. (I am concerned about dessert, but otherwise game.)

See all the pretty pictures of today's adventures here.

Pastry of the Week: Merveilleux

2009-09-18T13:44:00.000-05:00

Another Friday has come and gone, and as usual, I made a side trip to the bakery downstairs to get a baguette and a Friday treat. The merveilleux caught my eye last week, and I've been looking forward to it for days. I mean, look at this thing: it's round, it's covered in chocolate sprinkles and for crying out loud, it's called a marvelous; how could I go wrong?

Only it turns out I jumped the gun and what I assumed was a mound of chocolatey goodness was actually a dry, hollow cookie-type substance.

Not only that, but it was ridiculously sweet, so much so that I threw it out without finishing it. Those of you familiar with my sweet tooth will be suitably shocked; yes, I'll say it again: it was too sweet. And I eat Fun Dip, people. Sigh. What a waste.

I Am In Love... with this bread thing

2009-09-17T11:15:00.004-05:00

Today one of my colleagues, Anne-Marie, hosted an snack-and-drink thing in the English planning station. There were maybe 20 people there, a table full of yummies and... wait for it... champagne. Yes, kids, drinking on campus is perfectly acceptable behavior for grown-ups. I was just bummed that I had three hours of classes afterwards, otherwise, let's be honest, I'd have gotten loaded. Mmm... champagne.

If you look between the champagne bottles, you'll see what appears to be a large brown muffin with a red ribbon around it. Imagine my surprise when someone lifted the lid and the inside was filled with little sandwiches. I think this is beyond awesome. So I sidled up to someone who's familiar with my ignorance and asked what it was: pain surprise, surprise bread. So I googled it, and let me tell you, this stuff is too fun!

Maybe it was the champagne and pastries, maybe it was just dumb luck, but today went pretty well. My students still talk too much, but have now caught on to the fact that I disapprove of this and will make occasional efforts to be quiet. There were a couple of fun moments, namely when I referred to something (I forget what) as terrific, which they understood to mean terrifying. And also we were discussing American icons, and one boy popped his hand in the air and said, without hesitation, "When I think of United States, I think of David Beckham." Good times.

Tomorrow I have my One Class From Hell, and then I have to run home and make my way through a massive to-do list which includes visiting the tailor and miming my way through my alteration needs; the bank; the post office; ironing (sigh); and cleaning in preparation for my Saturday morning visitors.

French Pop, Part Deux

2009-09-16T12:19:00.003-05:00

Since last week I shared with you some truly bad French music, I thought I'd take a moment to share with you a song that never fails to make me smile. This guy's name is Bénabar, and he's famous for his clever lyrics as well as his "traditional" instrumentation, that is, piano, accordion and the occasional brass band.

I love this song because it makes me laugh; in it, he earnestly lists the clues-- clothing that is ironed, the sudden disappearance of his porn collection, the presence of fruits in his fridge-- which lead him to suspect that there is a girl living in his apartment.

After a crappy day at school, I need this tongue-in-cheek silliness to restore my good humor. So enjoy, I'm off to prepare for Terrible Thursday.

Open Letter to My Teacher

2009-09-15T13:11:00.004-05:00

Dear Becky,

I have grave fears that you have ruined me for all other yoga instructors. No other class measures up to yours. It has been three years since I left Montgomery, and in that time I have made at least five attempts to resume my practice, and I have met nothing but disappointment.

There was, for example, the lady at the YMCA who pulled me out of my perfectly correct Chair Pose and pushed me into a form that wrenched my lower back and made me hate her guts. Then there was the guy who insisted I keep one hand on the wall during Tree Pose. And the woman who didn't believe me when I told her that yes, indeed, that was as far as I could bend.

And tonight was quite the worst of all. I brought my mat, but we didn't use them. Instead, we sat on carpet squares; I was the only one without socks on, because that was one of your holy rules, but apparently it hasn't made it to this side of the ocean. We went an hour and a half during which the most strenuous thing we did was Tree Pose. No salutations, no downward-facing dog, not even a child pose. I tried to keep an open mind, Becky, really I did, because I remember how you said we always come to the mat with a spirit of humility, but around the time he suggested I think of my breath as an old friend I was showing around the house, I had pretty much checked out.

Oh, the bliss of your class, Becky. I remember how within five minutes, I'd have my tail in the air, sweat pouring down my face, feeling strong and limber and healthy, like the human body was the most fantastic creation in the universe. Once, you had me demonstrate Bridge Pose for the rest of the class, and you all gathered around and admired the curve of my back, and frankly that might have been the greatest moment of my life. I am not an athlete, but you found something that I could feel proud of. For the next week, it was all I could do to stay upright; I wanted to approach complete strangers and say, "Would you like to see my Bridge Pose? It's really good."

You always seemed to know exactly what reminders I needed: don't clench your jaw; drop your shoulders; remember to breathe. You're the only instructor I've had who took requests; I lived for that: you know the commercial where the dog is thinking baconbaconBACON? That was me, only it was more pigeonpigeonPIGEON!!! Nothing fazed you: one time you were adjusting a guy's leg and he totally farted; you never missed a beat, just quietly assured him that this was a natural reaction to relaxing muscles, and moved on.

Everyone has a gift; the lucky ones are those who find their gift and pursue it. You were born to do what you do, Becky, and I wish you nothing but continued peace and prosperity. Thank you for everything you taught me.

Namaste,

Melissa

I Am The Weakest Link

2009-09-14T11:22:00.005-05:00

The three classes I had this morning went better than last week; a few students are starting to open up a bit, which helps. And just when I was starting to feel an eensy bit of confidence... I went to a teacher workshop.

My colleague Cécile proposed this as a field trip: we would cancel our afternoon classes, have lunch downtown and then go to some sort of lecture at the art museum. So at noon, we hopped in the Deux Chevaux, picked up Guillaume, a history teacher (and the only other teacher at school who also owns a Deux Chevaux) and headed to town where we met Valérie, who used to work at our school but just this year transfered to the snotty uber-rich high school downtown. (I'd pretty much give up a kidney to work there, but I kept this to myself.)

Lunch was delicious but too much-- I am constantly amazed at how these tiny French people can wolf down food like nobody's business. We each had the special, a plate of lettuce, sliced tomato salad, beef, chicken, turkey and cheese. And of course, bread. And of course, dessert. And of course, coffee. I thought I'd puke about halfway through and I was the only one who failed to make a happy plate. How do they do it??

After lunch we walked a few blocks to the museum, where the woman in charge started rattling ninety to nothing about... something. After a while it became apparent that there was dissent about our course of action; the workshop leader wanted us to "choose" our piece of art and start "working" (I'd missed the bit about what we were supposed to do). There was a brief skirmish over the lack of labels on the paintings (the museum lady said they were irrelevant because the kids never remembered the information anyway, and some of the teachers got their feathers ruffled), then we stood around while two people argued over whether we should start working or take a brief tour first; the museum lady objected to this as a waste of time, though by this point we'd been standing and arguing for 20 minutes and wasted time was a moo point.

After the museum lady explained her reasons for not wanting to start with a brief guided tour, she started with a brief guided tour. (Honestly, sometimes I wonder if it's a language barrier or a sanity barrier.) We were shown various paintings she felt would be well adapted to the... thing we were supposed to be doing. Cécile selected a series of paintings related to Paul Scarron's Le Roman Comique, which I had once pretended to read in a 17th century lit class. (Evidently it's set in Le Mans, which I have no memory of, although it does explain why one of the cafés downtown is named for him.)

What happened next was a painful lesson in French education: we proceeded to stare at the paintings and describe them in great detail. This is exactly what happens in class, too. "There is a man. He has a long gun. Perhaps he is hunting for birds or rabbits to feed his friends. In the bottom right corner, there are two men. They appear angry. Perhaps they are quarreling. There are two cows, and a donkey. The donkey is eating hay." And on. And on. And on. Is it any wonder these kids hate school? We skipped the best part-- we did the first three paintings in the series, but in the fourth there was a huge, knock-down drag-out fight in which theatre spectators wielded chairs like they were on Jerry Springer, and at least one person appeared to be getting spanked on his naked bum. And yet, the other teachers remained convinced that the first three were enough. But... but... we skipped the good stuff.

After that, all the groups got together in one of the exhibit rooms and sat in a circle on the floor to discuss our projects. They were all talking too fast for me, so I zoned out. You know that kid in class who's always staring out the window? That was me. Everyone else is scribbling notes, nodding, applauding each other's creativity, and I'm sitting on the floor picking at a scab and wondering where I might find a piece of gum.

The philosophy teachers were the worst; I had no idea what they were talking about. Something about still life and the symbolism of vanity, blah blah. (In the meantime, I was admiring the clear plastic zip-top bag said philosophy teacher keeps her pens in and wondering where she bought it, and whether I could ask her where she bought it, and how precisely to formulate that question, and what her response might be so I could rehearse answers.)

And yes, I did say philosophy teacher. It's a required subject for all seniors and comprises part of their graduation exam. Every year after the exam, the questions are published in the newspaper so the general public can complain about how much harder the questions were when they were in school and kids today just don't know how easy they have it. Examples of last year's questions:

Does objectivity in history suppose impartiality in the historian?

Does language betray thought?

Is it absurd to desire the impossible?

Are there questions science cannot answer?

Again I say, no wonder these kids hate school. And no wonder I feel like an idiot all the time.

First Dinner Invitation

2009-09-13T02:00:00.007-05:00

I had my first dinner out last night, and as predicted, I fretted about it for days, changed clothes multiple times and flipped out over the hostess gift. (I bought two. And ended up giving her neither one.)

Mado arrived at four and immediately insisted I change shoes. (We were going to take a walk in the country, and despite the fact that I walk in these shoes all the time, she didn't think they were sturdy enough. So I changed.) Then I figured that since it was sunny and warm and I was going to be leaving my bag in the car for a couple of hours, my carefully-selected hostess gift (chocolates) might not fare too well. I'll double up next time. It'll be fine. Right. Right?!?

Off we drove to the country, to walk through the woods. The landscape itself wasn't that different from my dad's plantation* in the wilds of Blount County. As usual, I managed to unintentionally hurt feelings; she asked if I take walks like this at home, and I answered honestly that no, I don't, because I live in the city, and she understood this to mean that I was miserable and wanted to go home and never, ever set foot in the great outdoors again. I figured this out because she kept looking at her watch and saying, "It won't be much longer and we'll be back to the car." Finally I had to drag the topic out in the open and explain that I was enjoying our walk in the country, it's just not something I often have the opportunity to do. She might have believed me, it's tough to say.

And I wish to high heaven I had brought my camera, because at one point we looked up and there were animals in the middle of the trail. She said "calves," but that makes me think of this, when what we were dealing with was more like this. You know, the things professional rodeo guys get paid large amounts of money to wrestle? Yeah, those. Four of them. Staring at us. And then we looked up (the trail was really worn, so the "ground" was about four feet above us) and saw, I swear, the most enormous, gigantic, terrifying bull I have ever seen. Watching us. Thank the Lord there was a fence between us; if not, I'd have wet my pants and started crying.

The "calves," it turned out, were terrified of us. They'd gotten out of their field and were quite obviously trying to find their way back in. They'd run ahead of us, turn around, run ahead, turn around. Finally, two of them found their way back in, but two were still lost and so upset that they decided to run through the barbed wire to get away from us. Sadly, this is not the first time males of any species have had this reaction to me.

After we finished our walk, we headed into the suburbs to Mado's lovely house, where her husband and the next door neighbor were having a beer. I joined them. I met both daughters, who were precious, and after our drink, Mado and I went into the kitchen so we could continue to chat while I watched her prepare dinner. The neighbor's wife and son came by; the son was eager to show off his English (and did quite well!) though at one point his mom looked at me intently and said in French, "Maybe... I'm speaking... too... quickly." This made me feel a bit stupid; I'd thought I was following pretty well, but evidently I missed a cue somewhere.

Dinner was casual and delicious; we chatted for a long time, the girls showed me their "Tiger Beat" style magazines and we discussed (sigh) "High School Musical" and (bigger sigh, with eye roll) "Twilight." Mado loves it, of course, because everyone on this stinking planet loves Twilight except for me. Dessert was a crumble prepared by the 12-year-old daughter with pears from the garden and Kinder Eggs. Rock on.

After dinner came the movie. We chose Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, which I was really happy about because it was enormously, insanely popular in France last year, and I haven't been able to see it until now. I can say whole-heartedly that the buzz was accurate: it truly is funny.

The premise is this: a postal worker in the south of France fakes a handicap to get a promotion to Saint-Tropez but gets busted. As his punishment, he is... suspended? "Worse," says his supervisor. Fired? "Still worse." He is being sent... to the north. For two years. A fate worse than death!! His wife refuses to go-- she can't possibly leave the south!-- so he will come home every other weekend.

The portrayal of the dismal, wet north is hilarious, and the accent/dialect of the locals is incomprehensible. (Really. Mado's husband had to keep asking me if I understood what was going on and explaining.) Naturally, the punished postal worker eventually finds that the locals are quite friendly and good-hearted, and he's enjoying himself. When he calls home, his wife is convinced he's just trying to make her feel better and insists he tell her the truth, so he makes up stories about how terrible it is. After a few weeks, the wife decides to come visit... and more hilarity ensues.

My favorite part is when Philippe gets fed up that one of his letter carriers is always coming back drunk from his route, so he decides to join him. At every stop in this small town, the residents insist that the mailman come inside to visit, and naturally they're all obliged to offer him "a little something," and he's obliged by courtesy to accept. So Philippe, the boss, gets royally hammered about three stops in, and before long he's knocking on people's doors, his tie around his head, announcing that they have no mail but what have they got to drink?

I've read online that Will Smith bought the international rights to the movie and is going to make an American version called "Welcome to the Sticks," but I really hope that's not the case. Why screw up something that's so charming and funny by trying to translate it? Just go see the original.

Okay, gotta run. French smurfs are on.

*No, my father does not really own a plantation. Come on, people!

Pastry of the Week: Religieuse

2009-09-11T02:55:00.007-05:00

Pastry consumption has been reduced to one day per week. (Mousse consumption continues to hold steady, and oddly enough, orange juice is moving up in the rankings.) I have designated Friday as Pastry Day, in order to celebrate having successfully arrived at the weekend. Today I stopped at the bakery downstairs and got a religieuse.

They wrap them in this pretty paper pyramid, just like a present:

It's called a religieuse because, allegedly, it looks like a nun:

Poor girl never stood a chance...

Mmmm, Fridays. So much tastier than Thursdays.

The thing about Thursdays...

2009-09-10T09:38:00.007-05:00

Last year, when my friend Kim was on exchange, I remember she said she really, really liked Thursdays because she had class all day and it felt like the most "normal" (American) of her work days. I work all day Thursday and I hate it. I have a class in the morning that's two hours long, and they sit in utter silence and refuse to speak. Today we listened to an interview of a girl who went to high school in Paris and then in Boston, and she talked about the American style of teaching, how it's discussion-based, and the teacher guides the conversation but most of the learning and talking comes from the students. This is a sharp contrast to the French system, which is mostly lecture-based, where the teacher provides all the answers and the students copy them down and memorize them.

Here's the core of the problem: I can't teach in the French style, and they can't handle the American style. They get nervous when I walk around the room; they refuse to admit when they don't understand something I've said; if they ask a question like "What is the reason for uniforms in American schools?" and I do the American teacher thing of saying, "Well, what do you think some reasons are?" they stare at me in shame and horror like they've done something wrong. As far as I can tell, "thinking for oneself" is not a concept that's arrived in the French educational system.

I honestly don't know how to deal with this. At the end of two hours, I thought I might lock myself in a bathroom and cry for a while. Instead I went down to the teachers' room, and when some of my colleagues asked how things were going, I made the mistake of telling them: not very well. They want to be sympathetic, I think, but it's clear they don't quite understand what's bothering me. I'm used to knowing my students, to seeing their personalities, to interacting with them, cracking jokes with them. That doesn't happen here. The kids want nothing to do with me beyond my services as a living French-English dictionary (and God forbid I should fail them in this capacity).

I had three more classes this afternoon; the first was painful (I tried a French-style lesson and was bored to tears), the second was okay (I tried an American-style lesson and it was mostly lost on them), and the third I knew in advance would be blah and I was not disappointed. At the end of the day, I am exhausted, defeated and wondering how many days are left in the school year*. I know things will get better, I know they will, but in the meantime I'm not gonna lie: it's rough out here.

*165.

Urban Legend: French People Are Rude

2009-09-08T14:00:00.002-05:00

A more accurate statement is, Parisians are rude. People in Le Mans, my coworkers specifically, could not possibly be nicer. They are warm, they are friendly, they love to strike up conversation with my about the U.S., Alabama ("Forrest Gump!") and how I am finding Le Mans. (I can be diplomatic when needed.)

The problem is that these folks all seem to know me, while I have no idea who they are. So, as it happens, I have given out my phone number at least three times with only the vaguest idea of who the person is.

Today, for example, I left class and got snagged in the hallway. "Ah, la nouvelle collègue!" (My name is, according to all evidence, "the new colleague." Similarly, my name at home is "the new neighbor." Only the couple across the hall just bought a new place, which means I'm ridiculously excited about someone else moving in so that I can say, "Tiens, c'est le nouveau voisin!")

Anyway, this woman in the hall insisted that I come to her office to have a coffee and see where it is "in case I ever need her help." (For what? Who is she? Not the principal, I know that much.) While she fed me coffee and madeleines, she told me all about her past two vacations to the U.S. (National parks; East Coast; she's a trip to California away from the French Travel Trifecta!) and took my number so she could invite me to dinner.

Dinner invitations. They're funny things. People tell me all the time that they're planning to have me over for dinner (it's a big deal here). In fact, they all seem rather panicky and apologetic about not being able to invite me over immediately. (The wife is out of town, I'm so, so sorry, it's horrible that we can't have you over sooner, but we will very very soon, I promise.) A woman that I swear I've never seen before rushed up to me in the teachers' lounge to explain that her son just started school and so "it's all very complicated right now" but she wants to invite me over as soon as she can.

I find this all quite entertaining. Frankly, I'm not in a hurry to fill up my calendar with dinner dates, as this would entail days of fretting about what to wear, paranoia that I am secretly someone's pony in a Diner de Cons, and a last-minute crisis related to the selection of an appropriate hostess gift. All of this culminates, of course, in a minimum of 4 hours of small talk at one stretch, the very thought of which makes me faint.

Full reports as they happen, naturally. But for now, kids, start speaking the truth! French people are friendly!

Side Note: French Pop

2009-09-07T02:18:00.002-05:00

This note should really only contain one word: craptastic. There are certainly exceptions (I'd put Raphael or Corneille up against any American act), but sadly, these guys don't get played nearly as much as the other wincingly abysmal acts. It's so bad that the public's preference for English-language music is understandable, and oh my, but they do loves them some Amurican music; truly, you haven't fully lived until you've heard an entire bar full of French folks confidently declaring that Beeelly Jeeen ees nawt mai lawver. In fact, the preference for English-language music is so strong that in 1994 the government passed a law that 40 percent of every station's playlist much be in French.

Quotas. That's always a good system, right? The result, inevitably, is garbage like this:

His name is Tom Frager, and he's a surfer who owns a guitar, a dog and, I suppose, a video camera. (Seriously, if he spent more than $50 making this video, he got ripped off. Also, if he spent more than 5 minutes writing the song, he needs another hobby.) The song is called "Lady Melody" (which is French, right?) and the lyrics are so painful that by the time he gets to the verse about, and I swear, I am not making this up, "je fly away," it's all I can do not to smash the TV to pieces.

The Natives Speak

2009-09-05T12:50:00.003-05:00

During the first, strange, I-dont'-know-what-I'm-doing-but-need-to-fake-it week, my colleague Cécile gave me a fantastic ~~time-killer~~ educational activity that I've put to good use in all my classes: I ask them to write for five minutes in English, open subject; I don't care what they write about, I don't care how good it is, I just want them to write. Then I ask them to write in French and answer this question: "Do you like English? Why or why not?"

The results have been eye-opening. Not only does it give me a clear idea of their strengths and weaknesses in English, but I have to be honest and say that I'm appalled at some of their French, too. Heck, my second-year students at Baker know better than to write j'ai choisit. But most of all, it's given me an insight into their personalities; ironically, the ones who tell me in French that they like English because it's easy and they're good at it have generally written crappy English compositions with painful beginner mistakes like "My name is Dubois Pierre and I have 16." And the ones who have written in shamed tones that they have great difficulty and many problems with English are generally the ones whose compositions are best. Go figure. They also all expressed an awareness that English has become a universal language, one of the most widely spoken in the world (after Hindi and Mandarin, one boy primly informs me) and essential to their future careers.

And, sometimes, they're just flat-out funny. I offer you samples:

I have two brothers, I'm seventeen, I'll want after the lycée a school of photographie at Paris. I ~~was~~ am passionate of gym. I have a dream, it's the decouvert of the world and civilization the travels. I'll want a better English.

I was born the 19th March 1992 in Nantes. My favourite sport is Basketball. My last holidays was amazing! I've visited NYC, Washington and Piladelphia. And the accent was complicate to understand. Your accent seems more easier than east coast accent. In my opinion.

~~My vacation~~My summer 2009 was so banal. I wanna go to Norway but my mother don't wanted to go. The life is so unfair. In july, I was going to swimming with my friend. It was so magic. My friends has to do a big party in the night. ~~I was~~ We We telling all night mare. It was so terrible. I was scared.

Methinks this class will keep me on my toes. It's gonna be a long year.

Adventures in Banking, Part 3

2009-09-05T04:29:00.004-05:00

I took the bus downtown to pick up my checkbook and debit card. (Yes, the bank is open on Saturday mornings. It's also closed all day on Mondays.) I guess I'm going native, because I wasn't even upset-- or particularly surprised-- to find that neither my checkbook nor my card have turned up yet. This is the M.O. around here: nothing is ready when it's supposed to be, no one can explain why, and you'll always have to make at least one more trip than you anticipate. It's not personal, it's just the way of things: I'm learning to shrug it off like the locals do.

Naturally, the lady who opened my account is now on vacation, and her replacement doesn't work on Saturday. But the nice woman at the welcome desk said she would ask about my checkbook on Tuesday. She suspected the problem might be that there is no money in my account. No problem, I said, I can make a cash deposit. She said this would be a great idea, then we stared at each other for a minute, at which point I had to ask how one goes about making a cash deposit.

Ah well, you see, the problem is that the tellers don't work on Saturdays either (I'm a little perplexed about who does work on Saturday, other than the reception ladies), so normally I would make a cash deposit via the ATM, only this is a bit tricky when one is not yet in possession of a bank card. Solution? The reception lady takes her special bank card and walks with me to the ATM, where we make the deposit together. Assisted banking! Ain't it grand?

In Which Our Intrepid Author Attempts Sport

2009-09-04T14:37:00.008-05:00

Tonight I went to a beginners' class on Nordic Walking, which is basically hiking with poles. (Not to be confused with hiking with Poles, which is completely different.)

Getting to the place was a bit of an adventure; the bus deposited me here:

and my first thought was well, what the crap do I do now? And I felt really stupid when a couple of minutes later, the bus came back around and drove past me again. So I grabbed by cell phone and held it to my ear so that all four people on the bus would think, "Oh look, there's someone taking a phone call before heading confidently to her destination" instead of, "Oh wow, that chick has no idea where she is."

Worse than that was when I looked at the bus schedule and saw that the last one of the day came by in about an hour. Okay. So after my hike through the woods, I'd have to hike back home. (It's moments like these that I have to force myself not to dwell on The Car Situation but instead remind myself of the suffering of others: victims of genocide, puppy mills, how my poor mother can't see her driveway from the window. It could always be worse.)

I eventually found the meeting point and the group of 20 or so complete strangers who were going to learn how to walk with sticks alongside me. And I soon as I got there, I remembered one tiny, inconsequential detail: I am incapable of small talk in French.

Here is my problem: people think my French is a lot better than it is. I can't count the number of people who rave about how well I speak. I'm not bragging here, because it makes me want to claw my face off when they say it, as all I can think is if my French is so freaking good then why do I only understand half of what you're saying?!?! Ultimately it boils down to two different understandings of the phrase. When I say "You speak well," I mean "with an ample vocabulary formulated into structured sentences." When French people say "You speak well," they mean "without a horrendous accent."

There's the rub: apparently I am going to have to start speaking with a profoundly obnoxious American accent just to get people to friggin' slow down when they talk to me. As we were walking around with our sticks, people would walk up alongside me and say... something. If their intonation indicated a question, I muttered an agreement; if their intonation indicated a statement, I would use my fallback phrase, "Ah, bon?" Which means, roughly, "Oh, really?" And that was it.

So I met a very nice lady whose name may or may not be Nadia, and who does some kind of roller skating activity that might be roller derby, I'm not really sure. And I also met a guy who just moved from Paris a week ago and is here to coach... something. He liked the park because, you see, they have woods in Paris, but you can still smell all the pollution from the city, and so this park is much nicer. I also met a girl who does karate and is going to email me about this group who meet once a month to practice speaking English. Because, of course, that's going to improve my French. But who cares, I'll go.

The hiking bit was nice enough I guess; I didn't realize we'd be walking quite so long, and after a while all I could think was okay, it's trees, I get it already. (This is not entirely my fault. I was raised by city folks who failed to instill in me a great appreciation of nature. In the same vein, it's also their fault that poor Miss Cake's ficus nearly died, because I honestly thought "ficus" was a generic term for "fake plastic tree," and didn't realize I had to water the thing.)

Well, at any rate, it was fine, and afterwards everyone got in their cars and drove away while I started walking slowly down the dirt path back towards the city. I felt very stupid walking alone while all the cars went past, but what could I do? Then a car pulled up and it was Nadia-- she went out of her way to give me a ride home (and to talk more about this roller skating thing she does), which I thought was terribly nice. Even if I only understood half of what she was saying.

Day 2: Well, that was quick.

2009-09-04T09:39:00.006-05:00

Friday is my big day: one whole class. There was an eensy bit of chaos at the beginning, because the class (in the French sense, a classe is a group of students who follow the same program of study) was split between my colleague and me. The problem was, no one knew which group belonged to which teacher or which of the two classrooms they should report to. Since I only had five girls turn up, we all walked to the next building to Stéphane's group, where he and I arbitrarily divided them (he took the top half of the alphabet, I took the bottom) and that was that.

They were nice kids, but I'd been warned that they were not very motivated and would be quick to take advantage, so I was watching them pretty closely. At the end of class, they have five minutes to copy down notes from the board, and after that they're free to chat. Some teachers dismiss a few minutes early; most wait for the bell. One boy copied no notes, waited a few minutes, then stood up and walked towards the door. I put the smackdown on that, then capped it with the American teacher trick of making him wait until everyone else left class first before finally dismissing him. I love power.

Thus, at 8:55 my day was officially over, but I stuck around to discuss my progress with Cécile, do some planning, make some copies, that kind of thing. Then I jumped online to look at the bus schedule; there was a bus in eight minutes and nothing else for an hour, so my options were to dash towards the bus stop or get comfortable. I wanted a nap, so I went to get my coat but I ran into Stéphane. At this point, I had to make a judgment call: excuse myself and get the bus, or make an attempt at socializing.

A or B? Make your guess now. I'll wait.

All right, are you ready? The truth is... that I sacrificed my nap in order to stay and chat. Shocking, I know. You all know how I feel about naps. This should be a clear indication of my need for human company. (It might also have to do with the fact that Stéphane is young, male, and not unattractive.) It turned out to be a good/bad decision; a few minutes into our conversation, a band of English teachers from the vocational school came in and the next thing I knew French was flying all over the place, everybody was talking at once and I had no idea what the crap was going on. There was something about a nature show on TV, something about the cost of plasma televisions and their consumption of electricity, and something about the vocational kids listening to too much rap music and convincing themselves they are victims of society. And when I say "something about," I do not mean that I'm summarizing things for you; I mean this is a full transcript of everything I was able to grasp.

Then I walked home (because there was no bus for another 40 minutes) and took a nap. A long one. And it was fantastic.

As for tonight's agenda... well, I'll tell you about it later. Let's just say fingers crossed that I don't make a total fool of myself (or, fingers crossed that I do, because it makes for a more interesting story).

First Day Kicks A$$ (specifically, mine)

2009-09-03T10:44:00.004-05:00

You know where you are? You're in the jungle, baby!

RAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!

That's pretty much how it went. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, it was just... wild. The day started off well enough; I must have looked pretty good, because I got whistled at by not one but two garbagemen on my way to the bus stop. Hot for teacher!

My first class was at eight, and they were the group of juniors who come to my class in addition to their "regular" English class. I didn't open very well because I had to go over all the housekeeping first-day stuff, and I wanted to do it in English, but they just weren't following, so I had to switch to French, which made me nervous and awkward (and also the dry-erase marker bled red ink all over my hands), but they didn't burst out laughing or anything, so I got through it. At first they were stone silent, which had me sweating buckets, but sometime during the second hour they loosened up and started participating more enthusiastically. I think it's a class that will grow well, if that makes sense; they might be my favorite by the end.

After that I had a break, where I was relieved to note that another English teacher had sweat rings even worse than mine; then I took the opportunity to observe my colleague Cécile with her group of seniors. She spent most of the class talking to them about their big exam at the end of the year, and I was surprised at how frank but sympathetic she was. Essentially she was preparing them to deal with failure; she spoke at length about the "ratrappage," or the possibility of retaking a portion of the exam in order to pass. And she told them that she herself had flunked the first time and had to repeat her senior year. I think the most vivid moment for me was when she said, "En terminale, on vit dans la stresse permanente." (In your senior year, you live under constant stress.) This contrasted sharply to last year's senior class president at Baker, whose opening day speech went something like, "Oh my gosh, we're seniors!! We've got so much planned-- we're gonna have a bonfire at Homecoming, and we're gonna go bowling, and we're gonna have, like, so much fun this year!!!"

Chicken sandwich for lunch, another half of a Xanax (I'm just tellin' it like it is, folks) and then it was off for three hour-long classes. The first was a group of juniors, and I guess they were fine though at this moment I can't recall a blessed thing about them. They were followed by a group of seniors who shocked the crap out of me in the best way possible-- they were outstanding. Bright, enthusiastic, eager to participate and to speak out loud; it was by far the best hour of my entire day.

Unfortunately, I ended on a sour note with a class of five (FIVE!) 10th graders who take German as their primary foreign language. They've only had two years of English, and it was without doubt the most painful class I've ever sat through. Ever. Ever ever. And it was conducted about 90 percent in French. My original plan was to have them interview each other and introduce their partners to the class. After I explained this (in French), they sat and stared at me. So I went to the board and made a list of information they should ask for (name, age, likes/dislikes, brothers/sisters, etc.) and asked them again to interview one another. And they stared at me. So then I wrote the questions on the board ("What is your name?" "Where do you live?") and they stared at me. Finally, after we translated the questions into French and I gave them examples of answers in English, they still sat silently when I asked them to interview each other, and so the only thing left was for me to ask each of them the questions, and four of them attempted to answer. (The fifth answered everything with a muttered je m'en foue, a not terribly nice way of telling me to buzz off.)

I honest to God have no idea what I'm going to do with this group. I was so exhausted at the end of the day that I came home and required not only wine and chocolate but also the restorative powers of Patsy Cline. Thank the Lord, there's only one class between me and the weekend, because I'm wiped out!

(Occasionally) Working Girl

2009-09-02T10:53:00.006-05:00

Okay, this is my schedule. Right. Unlike American school schedules, which you can process at a glance, this one requires study. Even by veterans. As soon as these came out, you saw the entire faculty sit down, in silence, and stare at them for a few minutes. Then the squawking began.

To explain what's going on here: the color-coordination is mine. Each color is the same "classe" (which in this case means "group of students") which meet at different times throughout the week. Secondary school in France has three levels; the youngest ones are seconde, followed by première, and finally the ominous-sounding terminale. I have two classes from each level. Some meet two hours a week, some meet three.

At the outset, I dread the seconde, because they're fresh out of middle school and are universally understood to be sub-human fartknockers who require lots of conditioning to be tolerable. At least, that's the vibe I've picked up on. I'm most nervous about the terminales, on the other hand, because they have to take their big exam at the end of the year, and if they don't pass it, they have to repeat the entire grade. But no pressure! And I'm most excited about one group of première who have opted to take my class in addition to their regular English class for extra practice. This means (allegedly) that they're more motivated and want to work hard at improving their English; it also means I have complete liberty in terms of what we study, when we study it, and how we study it. I can do whatever I want. Bring it!

You can see clearly that there are gaps in this schedule; this is all free time. I have 15 hours of classes a week. Normally teachers have 18, but Miss Cake was kind enough to pass an exam that gave her the highest teaching qualification just before she left. In an utterly French move that defies comprehension, the best-educated, most effective teachers spend less time in the classroom. Not that I'm complaining.

I have to whine for a moment and say I'm pretty disappointed that I have an eight o'clock class every day. I was really hoping to have at least one full day off (it's pretty commonplace for French teachers to work four days a week), or, at the very least, have one day that I could sleep in. Not gonna happen. Still, I can't really complain because a) my weekend starts at nine o'clock on Friday and b) one of the exchange teachers in Paris has three hours of classes on Saturday morning. Ouch!

Today I met with Anne-Marie at school and she helped me prepare the first few lessons for the seconde, which I can do in modified form for my other classes tomorrow. Another teacher, Karine, joined us, and we agreed to plan the secondes together, doing roughly the same lessons at the same time. There's no real need to do this, it's just easier for me to rely heavily on an experienced teacher and steal all her ideas. :)

So tomorrow morning I catch the bus at 7:30 and get to school about three minutes before class starts. Unfortunately, the bus I need to get to school only runs once or twice an hour, so my other option is to catch the earlier bus and get to school 15 minutes before the buildings open. Right. Looks like I'll be jogging up the stairs every day. That's cool, my legs will be ripped the next time you see me. (Which reminds me, I bought a new pair of Teaching Shoes, as mine had too high a heel. Those who are familiar with my shoe habits should rest assured that the new shoes also have a heel, but it's far more modest.)

Gotta run now. "Don't Forget the Lyrics" and it is highly educational. Did you know there's a French version of "That's How I Got to Memphis"? Exactly.

This Blog Post Sponsored By: WINE

2009-09-01T10:44:00.005-05:00

So today was the first day of school for teachers, and I'd just like to say: Oh. My. God. We ain't playin' anymore, kids! This shiznit is fo' real.

I took the bus to school and I was walking into the parking lot, I saw my colleague Cécile parking her very recognizable car. (A 1977 Citroen Deux Chevaux-- she took me riding in it yesterday.) I was able to go inside the building with her, which reduced my new-girl-awkwardness substantially. I met the rest of the English teachers-- there are nine in all-- and they are all delightful. Eager to help, which is good because I am friggin' gonna need it.

The principal's meeting started out really well; she spoke slowly, clearly, and in highfalutin' academic language, which was fabulous because that kind of French I understand-- it's how my professors spoke all through college! I was tickled to see that some things are universal about teachers' meetings, namely that the faculty don't listen, nobody can explain the "new procedures" without causing mass confusion and panic, and the technology WILL fail. (Favorite part: when the principal was going over her PowerPoint presentation; she had her back to the screen and thought everyone was murmuring about her presentation, when in fact they were all distracted watching the screen slowly retract up the wall.)

This school is what's called a lycée polyvalent, which means they have more than one division. There's the "regular," college-preparatory school, and there's also a post-bac program that's kind of like community college. There's also a vocational school, which teaches everything from mechanics (auto and moto, in separate programs) to secretary school. (Mom, it's your people!)

Around lunch time, I hit the wall in terms of language saturation; my brain refused to process any more French. The result was a bigtime tune-out of the goings-on; in fact, at one point I was thinking about this thing I saw online and realized people were looking at me funny because I was grinning like a dummy during a discussion about last year's disappointing exam results.

It's tough to sit through all these meetings when you don't have the faintest idea what you're doing and only understand about 40 percent of what's being said. Imagine spending all day getting ready for, not only a job you've never done before, but one you've had no training for, and that's where I'm livin' these days. Granted, it's just my vanity that objects to this (I like feeling like a competent professional, so sue me.) and these days it's easy to feel sorry for myself. I know nothing-- I don't know where to get keys, I don't know where to get markers for the board, I don't know how one acquires textbooks or takes attendance. I don't know what kind of homework to give, or how often, or how to grade it. (They grade on a scale of 20 here, and 11 is respectable. That's the equivalent of a 55 on our scale, which is FAILING.)

Still, it's not like world peace hangs in the balance; when I say super-dumbass things (which I do, regularly), the world continues to turn. Maybe I should just think of myself as the local comic relief. (Here I'm remembering an old colleague, Doug, whose philosophy on work was, "Let everyone think you're stupid; then their expectations are lower and then when you screw up, no one cares.") And anyway, it's just all this "business" stuff that's getting me down. The next time I'll go back to school, it'll be to teach, and heck, I'm pretty dang good at that!

I'd like to take this moment to say that my colleagues could not possibly be nicer; we're talking extreme Olympic-caliber hand-holding, here. Not only did Cécile come by yesterday to get me started, but she spent pretty much all afternoon helping me get ready, and Anne-Marie is picking me up tomorrow so that we can work on classes together.

Also, I just have to tell you that all the students have a particular program of study, noted by a letter. "S" is sciences, "ES" is social studies/economics, etc. As I was looking over the classes, I saw that there's one program whose abbreviation is ASS, and this makes me very happy every time I think about it. "What's your program of study?" "ASS."

Hey, it's the little things that count.

Me & My Pedometer

2009-08-31T05:13:00.000-05:00

Although I don't have plans to run off with a French man, I do seem to be involved in a very intense relationship with my pedometer. I knew that I'd be walking a lot, and I was a little curious about how much I'd actually be doing. So I dug out my old pedometer (which I got free with two Special K proofs-of-purchase, woot) and brought it with me.

Based on some crap I read online, I set a goal of 10,000 steps per day, which is allegedly five miles, give or take. My reward system is simple and effective: me + 10,000 steps = pastry. Now, I'm not going to kid you; frequently that 10,000th step is taken on the way home from the bakery, and once I even had to circle the parking lot, but a deal's a deal.

What surprises me most is how easy it is to get to 10,000. This morning, for example, all I did was take the bus into town, wander around looking for a photomaton and the bus office and poof, I was already at 5,000. I walked part of the way home, until I got to the uphill bit, then took the bus the rest of the way. After lunch I went to the grocery store and the patisserie and walked home and here I am, éclair in hand, already past my goal.

Side Note: French Commercials

2009-08-30T05:47:00.003-05:00

French commercials are awesome; no inhibitions, no shame. My current favorite is for a detergent called Bonux; in this ad, a mom accosts her adult son and his girlfriend in a café; she starts by handing the son a bra and says something to the effect of, "If you're going to bring hussies over to spend the night, can't you at least choose someone who doesn't leave her dirty laundry?"

She then extolls the many virtues of Bonux, holds the bra up to her blouse and declares, "See how my shirt is white; this is not white." Then she hands the bra to the girlfriend, who looks at it and declares... wait for it... "This isn't my bra." Cut to the son, who looks like what he is-- busted-- and to the café waitress, who looks equally guilty and, it turns out, braless.

I'm just saying... can you imagine this sort of thing on American television? Exactly.

Yup, It's Old

2009-08-29T12:59:00.004-05:00

This afternoon I took a guided tour of "the old city," the theme of which seemed to be, "Check it, this place is old." At first I assumed the tour would be guided by some boring old fart who wants to drone on and on about construction materials, but then I saw this sassy old broad looking at everyone's tickets. She was wearing a fedora and a fanny pack and smoking a cigarette; I was beyond excited.

I figured we were waiting on her to finish her ciggy before getting started, but right about the time she stubbed it out with her shoe, another dame showed up and proceeded to drone on and on about construction materials. (I tried to pay attention at the beginning, but I confess to having major vocabulary deficiencies when it comes to masonry, so before long I'd tuned her out.)

We started out at the cathedral, where there was quite obviously a wedding taking place, but the guide just took us on in anyway. I'm sorry to say that I was unable to get photos of the groomsmen, whose suits were grey and, I am not exaggerating, shiny. It looked like they were wearing aluminum foil-- I've never seen anything like it.

A note about Le Mans: they are very, very proud of their old city. They love the fact that it has been used in numerous films, most notably the Rappeneau version of Cyrano de Bergerac. (Great movie-- see it if you haven't.) Anyway, they mention this constantly, the way people in Tours mention that theirs is the purest form of French, or people in Mobile mention that they had Mardi Gras first.

As we were about to leave the cathedral, a handsome young man walked in, and the hat lady snagged his arm and asked him a question. I couldn't hear what it was, but I didn't think much about it. The group left the cathedral and walked down to admire some really old walls, and when I looked up again, Hat Lady and Cute Guy were getting in his car and leaving together. What the heck just happened there?!? I have no idea, but whatever it is, it's awesome.

You can see lots of pictures of old buildings here.

I Want My $2

2009-08-28T10:44:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I got online to check my bank balance and realized that someone has been doing a little shopping on my dime. This is particularly uncool because, as you can imagine, this sort of thing isn't easy to manage from a continent away. I had to call my mother to get a landline for the bank (calling an 800-number from here is wildly expensive) and then explain the unauthorized charges. At which point I realized I'd have to kill my debit card, at which point I realized I only had 20 euros in cash, at which point I realized I was what's known in financial circles as screwed.

The bank is mailing the fraud documents and my new debit card to Mobile, where it must then be relayed up to Birmingham so that my mom can deal with it, at which point it will then be relayed over the ocean to me. I figure two weeks is an optimistic estimate.

Then this morning I remembered that I have a debit card tied to my savings account that I had the foresight to bring "because you never know." Yeah, okay, well now I know. The only problem being, I couldn't find this card. Instead of panicking, I took a walk to the post office (just over a mile) and picked up the package of books I shipped before I left. This joker weighs 20 pounds. Having no intention of being a hero, I decided to take the bus back home. Only the next bus wasn't for 45 minutes, so I decided to walk down to the next stop to kill time. And then the next stop. And then one more, but that was it because no way was I carrying that box all the way up the hill! So I waited twenty minutes and the bus never came.

I waited another ten minutes, then finally gave up and hauled the stupid 20-pound box the rest of the way home. Which meant I was in a fine mood when it came time to look for my bank card again. I turned the whole apartment upside down multiple times, went through pages of books, took the lining out of my suitcases. Then I called my mother and burst into tears because I was just tired of everything being so difficult.

After that, I had a glass of orange juice (and a chocolate mousse, I won't lie) and thought for a long time and finally, finally found the stupid card. Just in time to head downtown for my Very First Social Outing in Le Mans!

I met Patricia and Nathalie, two English teachers, for a coffee. We had a fantastic time, by which I mean they chattered happily for an hour and a half and I mostly listened. Honestly, I understood half of what they were saying, but I laughed when they did and even managed to make my own extremely lame joke at one point.

After coffee, I walked across the square to my bank, where a very nice young lady helped me open an account. She also wanted to see my pay stub, but she was so nice about it that I handed it over and let her convert the dollars to euros and plug it in her computer. I don't know why. I didn't ask. Let's all say prayers I didn't make a huge mistake with that.

She went through a lot of options on debit cards which were so confusing that I finally asked what kind she had and said I'd take the same. She had to draw diagrams to make me understand "overdraft protection," and the checkbook options required charades. I chose one at random and she nodded and said quite seriously, "Yes, women prefer that kind of checkbook." (I don't know what that means, but it's comforting that I went instinctively for the feminine choice.)

She never asked me for any money, which seems odd; I suppose she assumes that I'll be automatically depositing my paycheck. I probably should have asked about that, too, but by then I was so exhausted and overwhelmed (there are four different kinds of checkbooks, people) that I just nodded at everything she said and brought home a fat stack of papers that I'll read through later.

I also took a comfort trip to the FNAC, where I bought a book on cuisine d'étudiante (cooking for college students) and another called Sacrés Français, which is mostly about why French people are weird. I love that it was written by an American, and that he wrote it in French. (Sort of a big "screw you, frenchies!")

Then I got a brioche (with chocolate chips!) and walked home. So that's it, then. Another day in the bag. Not the best one I've had thus far, but not the worst either. I feel that there is wine in my immediate future. And then tomorrow is the weekend, the last one before school starts. Wish me luck!

Today's Adventure: French Banking

2009-08-26T07:30:00.004-05:00

I had a list of things to do today and decided to tackle the worst one right off the bat, before I chickened out. Do I need a French bank account? Not really. What I need is a French debit card, which is the chip-and-PIN variety we don't use in the U.S. There are places here that don't take American-type cards, most notably the train station, where you have to have a chip-and-PIN to use the guichet automatique. So I need a card.

I knew this was going to be a pain, but I was determined to stay positive about it. I went to the Credit Agricole downtown, because all the other exchange teachers seem to have had an easy time of it at the CA. Not me, of course. First of all, French banks want you to have an appointment for everything; you can make appointments on the phone, but since I have an extreme aversion to phones, I always just have to go in person to make an appointment to come back later... in person. I recognize that it's inefficient, but it's not like I've got anything else to do right now.

We could have all saved ourselves a lot of time if the lady had simply said, "I'm sorry, but we don't need your business." Instead, she did an impressive re-enactment of my favorite How To Deliver Excellent French Customer Service video, part of which included a twenty-minute intermission wherein she ~~took a smoke break~~ went to ask the bank's director a bunch of questions about the crazy American girl in the lobby.

She came back armed with a list of "necessary documents," each more ridiculous than the last, starting with a statement from my American bank (why? Why does that matter??) and ending with some form that would require me to present myself at the ever-loving Treasury Office.

Then we had a fight about my pay stub. She needed a copy for tax purposes, she claimed, and I reminded her politely that I'm not drawing a French salary and therefore don't pay French taxes. (And anyway, this is a checking account, so why are my taxes any of her business?) She insisted that she needed my pay stub so that she could get my tax ID number, to which I countered that those aren't printed on our pay stubs and if that's all she needs, I can give her my American social security number. No, my tax ID, she says, and I tell her that in the U.S. they're the same thing, and she rolled her eyes at me. Like she knows more about the American tax system than I do. All of which is irrelevant, I remind her, because I DON'T PAY FRENCH TAXES.

At this point, I opted to take the very American approach of leaving and going to the bank next door. Thank you, capitalism!

So off I went to the Credit Lyonnais, which you probably know from here. And it was great. The lady I spoke to there was calm and friendly and made getting the "necessary documents" seem quite reasonable and easy. Some things are ridiculous and you just have to accept it-- for example, it's not enough that I have a written statement from Miss Cake that I'm living in her home, but I also have to present copies of her I.D. and her proof of residency. Fingers crossed on that one. I've got an appointment on Friday to go back and actually open the account. We'll see how it goes.

Today's Adventure: Laundry

2009-08-25T07:33:00.000-05:00

Listen, I know that France is not a third-world country, but living here always makes me feel like I've stepped back in time about sixty years. While they're quite fond of les gadgets (but also paranoid, as in the news story I saw last night about how sending text messages on iPhones causes them to explode), this technology doesn't extend to daily household living. In other words, my house phone has a freaking cord, there's no dishwasher, and washing clothes is a two-day procedure. (I begin to understand why they wear things a few times before doing laundry.)

My washing machine scares me: it loads through the top into a cylinder that looks like a cross between a gerbil wheel and a cheese grater. You have to fasten it closed, essentially double-locking it, then shut the lid on it, then turn the dials. The cycle itself took approximately six hours to complete (an exaggeration, but only slightly), and when it was done my clothes were still soaking wet. Being the intrepid laundress I am, I risked resealing the gerbil wheel and turning the dial back to the spin cycle, at which point water poured into the cylinder. This was not what I'd hoped for. So I was left to inch the dial forward several times to coax the gerbil into spinning just a little more water out of my clothes.

Afterwards I took the load of laundry in clumps into the drying space (a sort of attic on the back of the apartment) and proceeded to map out how best to get everything on the drying rack. It's science, pure and simple. I checked on the clothes a couple of hours later-- what can I say, I'm a hopeless optimist-- and realized I needed to put towels on the floor to absorb the small pond that was flowing across the linoleum.

If things work out well, it'll all be dry tomorrow and the second, more horrible phase, can commence: ironing. Sigh. Okay, here's the thing, I own an iron and I've even used it on occasion (that occasion being the selection of a new pope), but my preferred method of de-wrinkling a garment is to toss it in the dryer for 10 minutes and have a beer. So much for that. I might end up buying my entire wardrobe at the flea market's polyester palace after all.

Side Note: French Men

2009-08-24T10:47:00.006-05:00

I confess I'm always a little startled when people assume that one of my goals in coming to France is to snag a French man. Because while most Americans think of French men as what-- some variation on the theme of Latin lover?-- what I mostly think of is dudes wearing cropped pants while reading a copy of Hésitation. (Which I totally saw on the train.) And yes, these guys are straight, and no, there isn't strictly anything wrong with men wearing cropped pants, it's just that it's not what leaps to mind as a romantic ideal, non?

**And as a side story to this side story, I still crack up every time I think of my Parisian friend who complained that after seven or eight years of living in Alabama, "French men just seem so delicate."

Un Week-End à Tours

2009-08-24T09:38:00.007-05:00

I had a great weekend that went a long way towards restoring my enthusiasm for the year ahead. I lived in Tours in 2002-03 and fell madly in love with the city (though, to be fair, it took a good six months for me to warm up to it). One of the perks of being in Le Mans is that it's only an hour's train ride away, so off I went. (This is the short version of the story; the long one involves a bus, a tram and a guy who, given the option to sit anywhere he could in the train, opted to bypass three completely empty rows in order to sit next to me and fart violently every ten minutes.)

But Tours-- oh, so worth the suffering! I take the same picture every time I'm here, of the city hall, because it never gets any less gorgeous:

At the train station, I met my boy Bama Ross, who has hidden himself away in England for the past two years but could no longer evade me. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel (a very comfortable, cheap place run by someone Ross knows, naturally, because Ross knows everyone) and proceeded directly to The Pale, our home away from home.

There’s just something special about this place—no matter when you show up, there’ll be someone there you know. Ther’s also something immeasurably awesome about having the barmaid on duty make a phone call for you, and the following exchange takes place:

Phone: Ring.

Jodie: Hello?

Me: Roll damn tide!

Jodie: Oh! I’m just across the street, I’ll be right down.

Brilliant. Jodie, the darling of the Pale (and most of Tours, frankly), is returning home to Ireland after 10 years. And while on the one hand, I’d like to scold her for her bad timing, she’s been talking about this move for as long as I’ve known her, and I’m proud of her for finally making it happen. So good luck to you, Jodes—and give those students what-for!

One of the many reasons we love Jodie is that she always locates our mugs for us. The tradition at The Pale is, once you’ve consumed 100 pints of beer, they give you your own glass. And there are no repeat names—mine is the first and only Melissa, but Ross, seeing as how there was already a Ross somewhere, became Bama Ross. These days, they’re having to think of exotic and bizarre names to put on their mugs, so we old-school types feel a bit smug.

Sunday morning, Jodie and I went to Les Halles to buy oysters and shrimp, which was an adventure in itself. She was preparing an appéro that evening to thank everyone who’s helped her get ready for her move. And we shut the place down that night—not in a rowdy way, just fun. The girls were running around singing ABBA songs (myself excluded—I was outside with the boys pretending to know enough about Formula One racing to hold up my end of the conversation, when the truth is everything I know about Formula One I learned from a book narrated by a dog.)

The weather, it’s worth noting, continues to be spectacular. As I write this from my couch in Le Mans, I could almost say that it’s chilly except this is August and you would all swear I’m exaggerating. All I can say is low of 57 degrees. Beyond that, words fail me. Tomorrow I’ll explore the city some more and report back anything of interest (to me. Your interests are irrelevant.)