T.S. Eliot et le reveillon du nouvel an

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.--T.S. Eliot (Little Gidding, 4 Quartets)

As you're all no doubt aware, today is the last day of 2008. Make it count and may you accomplish all you hope to and then some in 2009.

Que vous trouviez votre voix et votre voie en 2009.

New Year's Resolutions

I know it's kind of early-- I have a few more days to make the list definitive-- but it's never a bad thing to want to improve your life. Here are some fairly predictable new year's resolutions, in no particular order.

1. Exercise more-- start running again, do some races, like the Paris-Versailles one in September and hit the abdos-tailles (abs and waist) classes to lose belly roll which I can camoflauge, but I know that it's there. Mainly, after my hyper sporty California life, I know that only rigorous exercise (or an adoring boyfriend, but soyons realistes, ils ne tombent pas du ciel) can make me feel attractive and good about my body.

2. Eat well-- cooking fresh vegetables is worth the time it takes to stir fry-- and learn to make curry. Yum.

3. Be more positive and less cynical than I have been in the past-- create your own happiness, become the change you want to see, etc. Yes, we can!

4. Limit alcohol and caffine intake. Eat clementines instead.

5. Find new hobbies, like the ex-pat meet up group and the Attrape-Choeur singing group, as current hobbies can be summarized as wine-tasting (see resolution 4) and getting my legs waxed (these 2 activities are not practiced simultaneously).

6. Refuse to date anyone who informs me early on that he is unable to commit to a serious relationship. Not looking for a "cinq-a-sept," as they say, not taking any crap about it and men don't get to make the relationship rules. Be demanding and devastating.

7. Learn a foreign language-- either German or Spanish because I'd like to visit either or both of these countries this year. Tunisia and the Czech Republic are on the list, as well, but at the risk of sounding like a selfish traveller, not about to learn Czech and Arabic-- French should be fine in Tunisia, anyway.

8. Find the ideal teaching situation-- I've decided to make this my career, after all (France finds me qualified for it and I've got about 3 years of experience in it now). To that end, I will explore different classroom situations, like teaching business English to adults, continuing education students, private lessons, possibility of being a vacataire at a private university, etc.

9. Find a legal apartment rental when I have to move in May. This will be more expensive the the illegal sublets that everyone does, but it will be worth it not to have to move each year and to be in full control of my own space, like making my own decorating decisions and finally once again paying bills in my own name. At age 30, it's becoming important to put down my own roots here instead of temporarily taking over someone else's situation.

10. I'm not really sure what this one should be, I just wanted to have 10 instead of 9. Do some kind of volunteer work? As a former volunteer coordinator, this is an important value that I haven't been putting into practice lately-- lately referring to the past 3 years... In France, you sometimes need specific training to volunteer, so it should probably be something related to my various past and present careers, like education, translation (?) or-- I think I'm finally ready to let it back into my life-- animal welfare.

"I said what about Breakfast at Tiffany's"--Deep Blue Something

Remind me the next time I start to whine about my life, thankless job, hateful rudeness of the average person in this city, inability of any Frenchman to commit to anything even resembling a relationship, etc., that I have amazing friends in Paris.

As Bridget Jones once wrote (although probably not when she was sober), love the lovely friends with whom I had a fabulous holiday dinner on Friday at my favorite Indian restaurant.

And love the lovely impromptu and free winetastings. My last degustation was perhaps of the less elegant variety, since it was a plastic cup of the new beaujolais in the RER station. However, yesterday I wandered into 2 winetastings and a champagne tasting at the magical place that is Bon Marche. My beloved Jessica and I are of the opinion that Breakfast at Tiffany's should be remade in French and titled "Petit dej au Bon Marche" and Audrey Hepburn could taste champagne, go to the exhibit about Toyko and admire the light fixtures.

Inspiring Words From My Past Life Transmitted Via Facebook (What else, George Clooney?)

"Ha! That's awesome, I had no idea! Listen, whenever those dark, awful nights of endless grading are upon you just remember your old friend Clancy and these inspiring words: it's better to be an English professor slave in France than a Philosophy professor slave in Pittsburgh. Because? Really? Paris? Yes. Paris is good. Best of luck this end of semester!"

What Do Job Descriptions Look Like?

I was watching an older woman walk her small sweater-wearing dog this morning and as she, like every other dog owner in this city, ignored the little pile of goodness her well-dressed fashion poodle left on the trottoir, I joked to my friend Amanda that only in France was dog clothing mandatory while picking up dog shit was considered the optional and frivolous part of dog ownership. Yes, she agreed, it's not in their job description as French people. Don't get me wrong, if I lost my mind and ever owned a small dog, I'm sure dressing it up would be the highlight of my entire life and it would have tons of inexpensive yet stylish raincoats, and maybe even matching boots.

I liked her observation a lot about the French job description and hard work they must do to maintain cultural stereotypes, because as far as I can tell, no one in France really has a concrete job description-- my contract doesn't explain vital pieces of infomation like my salary or how many hours I really have to teach each semester (hence the reason I accepted all the hours I was scheduled for and did a ton of overtime without realizing it last year). Being in the throes of negotiating the right not to have to work any extra hours next semester and exceed my contract requirements, I'm definitely experiencing some fun surprise revelations regarding my job description, all of which were mysteriously not the case last year but are all, of course, highly convenient and all to my employer's advantage.

As I am fond of saying to other anglophones, it's no coincidence that Beckett wrote in French because everything is arbitrarily cloaked in mystery and the French administration only reveals little tidbits about your job, life, tax declaration, etc. one by one, much like a treasure hunt or a slow tantalizing striptease over the years and you, of course, never have all the information you need when you need it. The French bureaucratic universe really doesn't make any sense and seems mainly to be comprised of Rules That I Just Made Up. I once went to my bank 3 times within a 2 week period to make cash withdraws in person while I was waiting for a new ATM card and every single time, there was a different process to follow to make my withdraw. Psychotic, non?

On my way home today, I tried to imagine our linguistics professor's job. Who knows if she understands her contract or not, but when she takes the metro, she must always be on professional red alert. A large part of her class-- and I enjoy it a lot-- seems to be spotting metro ads with complicated linguistic puns that she can then make her students analyze and classify phonetically and phonemically. I like this because it is also about decoding a foreign system and often also includes new spelling rules that someone just made up. The ads are often way easier to understand than job contracts and French bureaucracy and at least the professor is there to explain them. Universities everywhere would probably have to stop teaching linguistics classes if advertising were suddenly banned from the metro. And there would probably be some convenient new line added to someone's job description to justify it.

Coffee Flavored Contradictions

I flipflop back in forth and lose myself in contradictions of the bittersweet espresso variety. Life in Paris is a coffee-flavored dream come true and I really have nothing to complain about-- only 12 hours of teaching at the university, which I must admit, is not the most demanding of jobs; I now no longer comprehend how people can stand to be away from home 8 hours a day, 5 days a week; I have the leisure time to take a linguistics class that I like, I have friends of all different nationalities and extracurricular activities like going to Picasso or Impressionist pastel exhibits and seeing any of 600 movies playing in town.

However, this semi-charmed kind of life takes its toll-- I miss an office and seeing coworkers regularly instead of students and having more of a raison d'etre than deciding who gets to pass my class and who doesn't. Despite only 12 hours of teaching per week, I'm constantly preparing my classes, constantly behind on grading and consistently unproductive 2 days out of the week and then trying to finish everything wednesdays before my Thursday-Friday "workweek" starts. I feel idle and embarassed that I don't have a job to go to every day yet, also stressed and rushed because my supposedly minimal workload is always more that I thought it would be, and always draining at the end of the day but also highly unrewarding for me. Despite being lucky enough to have a part-time job that I can support myself with, I don't appreciate it. I look forward to the end of my contract because it's one of the least satisfying jobs I've ever had and teaching will never be my vocation, like I once hoped it would be, although, unfortunately, it seems to be the only job that France has decided I am qualified to do.

I often feel like my life has evolved a lot over the years, and yet I also feel like nothing's changed. Just like when I was a 22-year old college grad 8 years ago, I'm still looking for the perfect job, the perfect apartment and the perfect boyfriend. Instead of these things, what I've found, with all its coffee and contradictions, is Paris.

Random Acts of Kindness

I've become somewhat cynical-- ok, extremely cynical-- about human nature after living in Paris for 2 years. I often joke that if I were to design a video game about living here, the object of the game would be to be as rude as possible to others in public places. For example, you'd get points for each time you bumped into someone on the sidewalk-- especially if there was plenty of room on either side of them and you could have easily avoided a gratuitous elbow jab. You'd get points each time you pushed someone on the metro, each time you sighed in frustration (there's a lot of melodramatic huffing and puffing to express general annoyance in Paris) and each time you said "pardon" in the rudest tone of voice possible and stalked past a group of confused elderly tourists stopped in the middle of the metro platform just to make sure they understood that you find them the most obnoxious creatures known to man, regardless of how much foreign money they pump into your local economy.

If you were a waiter, you'd get bonus points for each time you refused to bring clients the (free) carafe d'eau they ordered or refused to let them come in and just have a coffee between 12 and 1 pm at your restaurant because all the empty tables at that time are reserved only for imaginary hypothetical people who have not yet arrived, but there's a possibility that they might and they would order the whole overpriced brunch, which is often around 20 euros and you would therefore make more than 3 euros on these clients. It's kind of an all-or-nothing gamble of a business strategy and honestly, only Parisians would pay so much money for so little food. 20 euro brunch in Paris is essentially a glass of orange juice, coffee and yogurt and maybe a croissant, if you're lucky.

However, you'd get even more bonus points for random acts of kindness which are rare and miraculous in any capital city, but especially this one. I recently witnessed 2 and I now treasure these small considerate gestures in a city where the public sphere is often exasperating. On the RER last week-- and bare in mind that everyone is especially hateful towards others on public transit-- a foreign woman asked a French guy which stop Chatelet was. He said he thought it was in 2 stops, but then he got up and went downstairs to check the map and confirm. He then told her the names of all the stops before Chatelet and that he'd tell her when they were at Chatelet so that she knew when to get off.

I, of course, assumed that he would then ask for her phone number, or get off with her at Chatelet to follow and harass her and demand sexual favors in return. French men have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement when it comes to women and sex. For example, making eye contact or-- heaven help you-- smiling at a French guy will often result in extreme harassment and the assumption that after such provocative behavior, you clearly owe them some kind of sexual experience. However, RER Guy did not follow the tourist or ask which hotel she was staying at or even ask her phone number. Instead, he politely indicated which stop was Chatelet and wished her a good day when she got off. Wow, I thought, there's at least one decent guy on this train. Maybe there are even others, if he has brothers.

I was the direct recipient of the second recent random act of kindness, making it all the more extraordinary. I went to the Picasso exhibit at the Grand Palais Monday night with a friend and her coworker. Marion had a free pass that was good for 2 people, but since there were 3 of us, Marion and her friend were going to go in and buy her friend's ticket and then we would try to enter all together. However, the guy behind me in line has the same pass and no guest with him, so he offered to let me go in with him for free. He was really nice and he'd already seen the exhibit and told me which paintings were his favorites. He didn't hit on me, or imply that I owed him anything in return and after we entered together, we amicably went our seperate ways. After such rare and noble behaviour in a French man, I was actually somewhat disappointed that he hadn't asked for my phone number. I decided later that I should have offered to take him out for coffee to thank him.

I'd like to say to the stranger at the museum, thank you again and sorry I wasn't bold enough to offer you a coffee. I've resolved that if a stranger is ever nice to me again in Paris, I will not hesitate to propose a cafe de remerciement because positive reinforcement is the only way to encourage and reward desirable behavior, as any of the dog trainers from my last job would tell you. I also promptly decided that I wanted to get that same pass (a carte sesame, I think it's called) and that I like to think that I too would enable strangers to see world renowned exhibits for free when I didn't already have a guest with me. The ruder and more hostile your urban environment is, the more important it is to pay it forward. And that would be the only way to win my video game.

Goodbyes and bad love songs

I've been listening to this crooner James Blunt song called "Goodbye, my lover"-- I'm really not a fan, he's just somehow wildly popular in France-- but I suddenly find it achingly and heartbreakingly beautiful because of its use of the present perfect tense. It changes everything to say "you have been the one for me" instead of "you were". It implies that the singer is still in love with his ex because as any one of my students will tell you, we use the present perfect to describe experience and things that began in the past but continue into the present.

Unfortunately, the present is rarely perfect and sometimes you just have to change tenses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVyggTKDcOE