Side Note: French People Lurv Exams

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.)

Side Note: French Pop

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.

Side Note: French Commercials

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.

Side Note: French Men

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."