At last, as the song goes, something in Paris works and is positive and enjoyable! My vacataire job (meaning secondary and not primary employer) went from great to mindbogglingly fabulously great. Really excited about what we'll do there next semester.
And a language school wants to hire me as responsable pédagogique, but they can't afford me. They are ready to negotiate about it, but I not sure I am. I can't take the kind of pay cut the salary they offered would force me to take and they already made it clear that they can't really increase the salary by that much. Rather then being depressed about being offered a crap salary and a CDD that could someday be a CDI (instead of just the CDI at a reasonable salary that I was hoping for), I think I should just enjoy being sought after and feeling like I have options in the future.
And I leave on Christmas vacation in about 4 hours. This will be my first paid vacation in 3 years and the first Christmas I'll spend with my family in about 4 years.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Inner Beauty?
Friend: You look great!
Me: Thanks. This is how I look when I'm happy. Take a good look, though, because it doesn't happen that often in Paris!
Even if happiness is fleeting, I'm always realistic.
Me: Thanks. This is how I look when I'm happy. Take a good look, though, because it doesn't happen that often in Paris!
Even if happiness is fleeting, I'm always realistic.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Waiting to Exhale
I hold my breath from Sunday night to Wed pm. In a work-related stress way, not a Stella Got Her Groove Back kind of way. Now it's Wed night and I can exhale and catch up on sleep and relaxation.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Sometimes cancelling everything is the right choice. Today was one of those days. Tomorrow, too, I think. I already have to give a makeup exam at the university where I work and this will be traumatic enough.
The things I cancelled today included skipping my usual yoga class but I was cheered to see an email from my yoga teacher saying she'd missed me that am and hoped everything was ok. It's also because I poured my little heart out to her over email since I'd asked her if she'd be willing to do some private lessons to help me manage depression and anxiety. She said it would bring her a lot of joy if she could help me with these issues. While I know she's sincere, it would also bring her a lot of money. I feel like I maybe revealed a little too much.
I'm celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow and this will be the highlight of my weekend. And will have to keep me going to help survive next week, which I'm dreading a little. Each day brings me closer to winter vacation in the US, though, and the end of what may very well be my last semester ever working in the French Public University system. Each day also brings me closer to hearing back about the promising job that I'm waiting on and this decision will help me make decisions of my own.
The things I cancelled today included skipping my usual yoga class but I was cheered to see an email from my yoga teacher saying she'd missed me that am and hoped everything was ok. It's also because I poured my little heart out to her over email since I'd asked her if she'd be willing to do some private lessons to help me manage depression and anxiety. She said it would bring her a lot of joy if she could help me with these issues. While I know she's sincere, it would also bring her a lot of money. I feel like I maybe revealed a little too much.
I'm celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow and this will be the highlight of my weekend. And will have to keep me going to help survive next week, which I'm dreading a little. Each day brings me closer to winter vacation in the US, though, and the end of what may very well be my last semester ever working in the French Public University system. Each day also brings me closer to hearing back about the promising job that I'm waiting on and this decision will help me make decisions of my own.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Screwing Up
Oops. Just left an extremely personal comment on someone's blog and realised I couldn't erase it. D'oh!
Asked blog owner to delete it for me, but in kind of a negative anxious place now and revealing personal comments floating around cyberspace is not helping the anxiety.
I don't really know if I'm doing anything right at the moment. Life is mainly about sleeping on the way to work and on the way home on the metro and telling bratty talkative kids in my classes to be quiet before I throw them out.
I'm also really negative and grumpy these days. No fun at a social event yesterday and I worried a little about being Debbie Downer in a group of optimistic Americans. This behavior ostricises me from my fellow countrymen, yet is highly admired by the French. Such cultural conflict.
This is ultimately why I mainly stay home and cry instead of attempting to socialise.
Asked blog owner to delete it for me, but in kind of a negative anxious place now and revealing personal comments floating around cyberspace is not helping the anxiety.
I don't really know if I'm doing anything right at the moment. Life is mainly about sleeping on the way to work and on the way home on the metro and telling bratty talkative kids in my classes to be quiet before I throw them out.
I'm also really negative and grumpy these days. No fun at a social event yesterday and I worried a little about being Debbie Downer in a group of optimistic Americans. This behavior ostricises me from my fellow countrymen, yet is highly admired by the French. Such cultural conflict.
This is ultimately why I mainly stay home and cry instead of attempting to socialise.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Parisian Moment of the Day
Crossing the street on my way to the bus stop at étoile (I have the right of way), a car comes out of nowhere and swerves to narrowly avoid hitting me. Bon, I say to myself in matter of fact Parisian deadpan, too bad it swerved.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Sliding Doors
I'm in suspense about my last job application and will be until mid December when I leave for Christmas vacation. The semester is hurtling towards a close and I can't wait for vacation and for the first term just to be finished. There may not be a second term for me.
I'm trying to define my own terms and conditions and there are some jobs in this country that I'm just no longer willing to do. Simply living in a foreign country is no longer my goal, I'd like a little more: a certain quality of life, the possibility of meeting a life partner and a semi-interesting job with reasonable working conditions in a field I'm interested in where I can use other communications skills besides just teaching.
I have not found these things in France despite investing 5 years of my life here. How much longer do you keep trying? 5 years seems like a good time to cut your losses and try something else if you still don't have what you want and haven't made any career or personal progress.
From talking to a friend struggling to accept the tragic loss of her boyfriend in a road accident 3 weeks ago, life is too short not to take opportunities (this was the logic by which I moved to France in the first place). But by that same token, it's also too short to spend long periods of it unhappy. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that things hadn't gone better for me here, but I also think that I tried my best and don't see what more I could have done.
I hope things will work out one way, but it's not up to me so I just have to wait for a hiring decision about a promising job I interviewed for which would probably make another year here worth it. If I don't get the job, it's a sign for me that it's time to leave rather than staying on in a bad situation. Nothing is good or bad, to paraphrase Shakespeare, it's just the way we interpret things to give our lives meaning.
As I wait for the job decision, I feel a little like I'm in the film Sliding Doors suspended between 2 alternate possibilie realities. If you remember, one was great and the other was terrible.
I'm trying to define my own terms and conditions and there are some jobs in this country that I'm just no longer willing to do. Simply living in a foreign country is no longer my goal, I'd like a little more: a certain quality of life, the possibility of meeting a life partner and a semi-interesting job with reasonable working conditions in a field I'm interested in where I can use other communications skills besides just teaching.
I have not found these things in France despite investing 5 years of my life here. How much longer do you keep trying? 5 years seems like a good time to cut your losses and try something else if you still don't have what you want and haven't made any career or personal progress.
From talking to a friend struggling to accept the tragic loss of her boyfriend in a road accident 3 weeks ago, life is too short not to take opportunities (this was the logic by which I moved to France in the first place). But by that same token, it's also too short to spend long periods of it unhappy. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that things hadn't gone better for me here, but I also think that I tried my best and don't see what more I could have done.
I hope things will work out one way, but it's not up to me so I just have to wait for a hiring decision about a promising job I interviewed for which would probably make another year here worth it. If I don't get the job, it's a sign for me that it's time to leave rather than staying on in a bad situation. Nothing is good or bad, to paraphrase Shakespeare, it's just the way we interpret things to give our lives meaning.
As I wait for the job decision, I feel a little like I'm in the film Sliding Doors suspended between 2 alternate possibilie realities. If you remember, one was great and the other was terrible.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Like a Tim Burton Film Combined with the Bitter Taste of Espresso and Disappointment
Ah, Paris, the city that inspired thousands of artists. It often also inpsires frustration (for me, anyway) but I like to try to Turn It Into Art, not to sound baguette-wavingly, stripey shirt and beret-wearingly pretentious in any way. Précieux? Moi? A Paris? Jamais.
I-- unpretentiously, of course, think of different Ideas for a Novel which I never actually develop or even write down. Since poser artists are too busy Thinking About Creating Art to ever actually create any. There's this joke that makes me think of Parisians a little. It goes, "how many hipsters does it take to change a lightbulb?" The answer: "it's a really obsure number, you've probably never heard of it." Here are some inspirations over the past years of intense existential suffering (it's really complicated, you probably wouldn't understand) in the City of Light:
Paris: The Video Game. The goal would be to walk on public streets, take the metro and go to a cafe and be as obnoxious as humanly possible and cause maximum inconvenience to everyone else you encounter. I swear this would be more satisfying than Grand Theft Auto where you just do mundane things like steal cars and murder women. Plenty of oppurtunites to be misogynist in this game, too. Like you'd get points for leering at women on the street, telling them that "c'est pas normal" not to give some creepy stranger their cell phone number and following them home at home at night, all behaviour considered relatively normal for Parisian men. You would also get points for everyone you managed to bump into or jostle on the sidewalk or in the metro, especially if you have to dart across the entire empty sidewalk just to bump into them. Extra points for sarcastic comments in the metro. And extra point bonus if you were a waiter (since there would be waiters, of course) who never brought the free water the clients ordered or who took like 45 minutes to make an instant coffee.
Another idea, inspired by my last job, was a corporate espionage thriller. I previously worked as a teacher who went to different fancy companies in the defence industry and taught English classes on the premises. I had a lot of access both physically to the different offices and was often left to wander unattended back to the reception area. Sometimes I also had talkative students who asked me not to repeat whatever corporate secret they'd inadvertantly divulged. I was kind of their therapist who also corrected their grammar. And as a foreigner in France, I'm frequently underestimated. Although it's annoying, I don't think anyone can help it, they hear that you speak with an accent (so cute!) and they assume that you're a little bit stupid. So my secret revenge fantasy was the idea of a corporate spy who worked as an English teacher to gain access to industry secrets, steal them, sell them to the competition and ruin the company. Although I never wrote a word of it, it was satisfying to imagine, especially since all my corportate students in their solipsistic vision of the universe assumed that I existed just to teach them English and probably wasn't smart enough to have an agenda of my own.
I then decided to write about teaching in France in general. Why invent things about corporate spies when I could just narrative what goes on in French higher education in all its mind blowingly dysfunctional splendor? To write about spies, I might also have to watch Julia Roberts movies as 'research' and that wasn't very appealing (didn't she have one called Spies?) I actually did write things down for this, but it kind of lost momentum, especially since I'm trying to be more matter-of-fact and less outraged and incredulous about being a teacher in France since I have to do it until the end of this year.
I had another idea today, though. This is inspired by recent exposure to a cult horror film which I had somehow never seen. I celebrated Halloween by watching the brilliantly suspenseful The Shining. It made me think that not only remote American towns with heavy snow fall could drive someone to madness. I started to imagine a horror film set in the neurotic depression urban capital that is Paris, with chase scenes through the endless corridors of Chatelet, or creepy shots in the Louvre or murder on a bateau mouche. After a partucularly gruesome scene, you could cut away to the Eiffel Tower sparkling. Kind of a Dexter-like contrast between horrible serial killer but so likeable and charismatic. Such a great smile. I think Paris has a quality of cold beauty and indifference that could work well in a horror film.
This city has a mental illness named for it, after all. (Google "Paris Syndrome" sometime). The museums and cemetaries of Paris would be perfect for a horror film. And the metro would have a starring role in inciting people to become aggressive. Which they already are under non-horror film circumstances. It would be hard to tell when evil took over.
I love the humor of TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer which puns on high school horror comedy, or this kind of silly but highly enjoyable horror film called Jennifer's Body which featured lines like:
"I don't know how to tell you this, but Jennifer's evil."
"I know that."
"No, not just high school evil. Really evil."
I'm sure you could easily write a similar scene about Parisians. Like:
"Jean-François is cold and unfeeling."
"Yes, he's Parisian."
"No, in fact, he's been dead for centuries."
Lately, I find Paris a "muse maléfique," really. Kind of dark inspiration in a lonely bleak sunless winter where the only color is several nuanced shades of gray. It makes you feel complex in your own particular brand of suffering and therefore interesting and clever. It has a kind of dark complicated beauty like a Tim Burton film combined with the bitter taste of espresso and disappointment.
I-- unpretentiously, of course, think of different Ideas for a Novel which I never actually develop or even write down. Since poser artists are too busy Thinking About Creating Art to ever actually create any. There's this joke that makes me think of Parisians a little. It goes, "how many hipsters does it take to change a lightbulb?" The answer: "it's a really obsure number, you've probably never heard of it." Here are some inspirations over the past years of intense existential suffering (it's really complicated, you probably wouldn't understand) in the City of Light:
Paris: The Video Game. The goal would be to walk on public streets, take the metro and go to a cafe and be as obnoxious as humanly possible and cause maximum inconvenience to everyone else you encounter. I swear this would be more satisfying than Grand Theft Auto where you just do mundane things like steal cars and murder women. Plenty of oppurtunites to be misogynist in this game, too. Like you'd get points for leering at women on the street, telling them that "c'est pas normal" not to give some creepy stranger their cell phone number and following them home at home at night, all behaviour considered relatively normal for Parisian men. You would also get points for everyone you managed to bump into or jostle on the sidewalk or in the metro, especially if you have to dart across the entire empty sidewalk just to bump into them. Extra points for sarcastic comments in the metro. And extra point bonus if you were a waiter (since there would be waiters, of course) who never brought the free water the clients ordered or who took like 45 minutes to make an instant coffee.
Another idea, inspired by my last job, was a corporate espionage thriller. I previously worked as a teacher who went to different fancy companies in the defence industry and taught English classes on the premises. I had a lot of access both physically to the different offices and was often left to wander unattended back to the reception area. Sometimes I also had talkative students who asked me not to repeat whatever corporate secret they'd inadvertantly divulged. I was kind of their therapist who also corrected their grammar. And as a foreigner in France, I'm frequently underestimated. Although it's annoying, I don't think anyone can help it, they hear that you speak with an accent (so cute!) and they assume that you're a little bit stupid. So my secret revenge fantasy was the idea of a corporate spy who worked as an English teacher to gain access to industry secrets, steal them, sell them to the competition and ruin the company. Although I never wrote a word of it, it was satisfying to imagine, especially since all my corportate students in their solipsistic vision of the universe assumed that I existed just to teach them English and probably wasn't smart enough to have an agenda of my own.
I then decided to write about teaching in France in general. Why invent things about corporate spies when I could just narrative what goes on in French higher education in all its mind blowingly dysfunctional splendor? To write about spies, I might also have to watch Julia Roberts movies as 'research' and that wasn't very appealing (didn't she have one called Spies?) I actually did write things down for this, but it kind of lost momentum, especially since I'm trying to be more matter-of-fact and less outraged and incredulous about being a teacher in France since I have to do it until the end of this year.
I had another idea today, though. This is inspired by recent exposure to a cult horror film which I had somehow never seen. I celebrated Halloween by watching the brilliantly suspenseful The Shining. It made me think that not only remote American towns with heavy snow fall could drive someone to madness. I started to imagine a horror film set in the neurotic depression urban capital that is Paris, with chase scenes through the endless corridors of Chatelet, or creepy shots in the Louvre or murder on a bateau mouche. After a partucularly gruesome scene, you could cut away to the Eiffel Tower sparkling. Kind of a Dexter-like contrast between horrible serial killer but so likeable and charismatic. Such a great smile. I think Paris has a quality of cold beauty and indifference that could work well in a horror film.
This city has a mental illness named for it, after all. (Google "Paris Syndrome" sometime). The museums and cemetaries of Paris would be perfect for a horror film. And the metro would have a starring role in inciting people to become aggressive. Which they already are under non-horror film circumstances. It would be hard to tell when evil took over.
I love the humor of TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer which puns on high school horror comedy, or this kind of silly but highly enjoyable horror film called Jennifer's Body which featured lines like:
"I don't know how to tell you this, but Jennifer's evil."
"I know that."
"No, not just high school evil. Really evil."
I'm sure you could easily write a similar scene about Parisians. Like:
"Jean-François is cold and unfeeling."
"Yes, he's Parisian."
"No, in fact, he's been dead for centuries."
Lately, I find Paris a "muse maléfique," really. Kind of dark inspiration in a lonely bleak sunless winter where the only color is several nuanced shades of gray. It makes you feel complex in your own particular brand of suffering and therefore interesting and clever. It has a kind of dark complicated beauty like a Tim Burton film combined with the bitter taste of espresso and disappointment.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Half Marathon Training
So I've started following a 12-week half marathon training plan for beginners. I have more than 12 weeks before my half and I'm not sure if I'm a beginner, but trying to set myself up for success. I've been running for awhile, but very off and on and I haven't done a half marathon in about 5 years. Back when I did do them, I usually averaged 2:40 or more for the 13.1 mile race, so I'm confident that I'll be much faster this year, since for the first time I can break 10-minute miles now.
I'm also struggling with stress, loneliness, etc., and I find I really HAVE to run every day from Thurs-Sun to feel ok. The trainng plan brings some welcome structure to the exercise routine.
I don't always manage to do all the runs each week and have to recalibrate, due to working crazy long hours Mon-Wed, and mainly running Thurs-Sun, but that should work. The goal is 5 runs a week, with 1 longer run. I'm in week 2, so it means that my long runs have only been 4 miles so far. I looked at lots of training plans online, some started with 7 mile long runs, which I can't do yet, I finally found one that seems reasonable.
Since I'm looking for ways to feel more connected to the city where I live, I might volunteer to help organise the half marathon training group. They do their long runs on Saturdays, and I can't really, since I work then. So might be a good opportunity to volunteer to host the same run Sun am. I could still meet new people and I'm very attracted to the idea of working in the health/fitness industry, so this might be good experience? I'm mainly just trying to figure out how I fit into life in Paris.
I'm also struggling with stress, loneliness, etc., and I find I really HAVE to run every day from Thurs-Sun to feel ok. The trainng plan brings some welcome structure to the exercise routine.
I don't always manage to do all the runs each week and have to recalibrate, due to working crazy long hours Mon-Wed, and mainly running Thurs-Sun, but that should work. The goal is 5 runs a week, with 1 longer run. I'm in week 2, so it means that my long runs have only been 4 miles so far. I looked at lots of training plans online, some started with 7 mile long runs, which I can't do yet, I finally found one that seems reasonable.
Since I'm looking for ways to feel more connected to the city where I live, I might volunteer to help organise the half marathon training group. They do their long runs on Saturdays, and I can't really, since I work then. So might be a good opportunity to volunteer to host the same run Sun am. I could still meet new people and I'm very attracted to the idea of working in the health/fitness industry, so this might be good experience? I'm mainly just trying to figure out how I fit into life in Paris.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Silver Lining?
In another effort to look on the bright side and see the silver lining in the Parisian clouds, (since I, of course, didn't even have time to go to that yoga thing that I posted about last week and that I thought would align my shakras and help me meet tons of fantastic people with common interests), I realised that I only work at my main job a total of 39 days per semester. That's 78 days total for the 2 semesters. 78 out of 365 days means that I only spend approx. 20% of my time teaching. Although this certainly doesn't reflect grading and prepping, this is still a very small pleasant ratio.
I teach 3 long intense days per week at one university and then have a day off when I should do some class prep, and I often do, but I also sleep late, relax and really just need a recovery day in general. My 3 days a week are LONG and I have an hour commute each way as well, adding 2 hours total. They used to be well balanced: 5-6 hours each day over 3 days, but now they're a little different: 7.5 hours 1 day, 4.5 the following day and 5 hours the 3rd day. This leaves me pretty tired by Thursday, the recovery day. Then Fridays and Saturdays I work half days and Sunday is a day off. I'm starting to appreciate this schedule a lot and I couldn't really imagine working 9-5 in an office Mon-Fri. I love my job on Fridays and I plan to ask them for extra hours this week.
So that's work. For life in general, I really have to get serious about half marathon training. The Paris half marathon training group has their first official training run next Sat (Nov. 5th). I'm looking forward to that and plan to train with them as much as I can (although I work most Saturdays when their long runs are).
I also have some fun things to look forward to in the next few days. I don't really do much of anything during my brief work week, but last night I had a drink with a friend which I enjoyed a lot and I'm looking forward to seeing some other friends (who I haven't seen since before summer vacation!) this Sat. and I'm going to the comédie française this Sunday. To see a tragedy (Bérénice), which I should read first. I don't really have time for French classes, so decided just to go to the theater and read the plays in advance.
I teach 3 long intense days per week at one university and then have a day off when I should do some class prep, and I often do, but I also sleep late, relax and really just need a recovery day in general. My 3 days a week are LONG and I have an hour commute each way as well, adding 2 hours total. They used to be well balanced: 5-6 hours each day over 3 days, but now they're a little different: 7.5 hours 1 day, 4.5 the following day and 5 hours the 3rd day. This leaves me pretty tired by Thursday, the recovery day. Then Fridays and Saturdays I work half days and Sunday is a day off. I'm starting to appreciate this schedule a lot and I couldn't really imagine working 9-5 in an office Mon-Fri. I love my job on Fridays and I plan to ask them for extra hours this week.
So that's work. For life in general, I really have to get serious about half marathon training. The Paris half marathon training group has their first official training run next Sat (Nov. 5th). I'm looking forward to that and plan to train with them as much as I can (although I work most Saturdays when their long runs are).
I also have some fun things to look forward to in the next few days. I don't really do much of anything during my brief work week, but last night I had a drink with a friend which I enjoyed a lot and I'm looking forward to seeing some other friends (who I haven't seen since before summer vacation!) this Sat. and I'm going to the comédie française this Sunday. To see a tragedy (Bérénice), which I should read first. I don't really have time for French classes, so decided just to go to the theater and read the plays in advance.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Bloga
Things haven't been going very well lately, so here's an attempt to relativize and boost morale. Call it an early Thanksgiving meditation. Kind of blog yoga. Bloga? If I repeat this enough, I'll believe it, right? It is all true, but it's always hard to focus on the positives in the midst of all the negatives...
I'm grateful for my job on Fridays, my favorite of my various teaching gigs, and that I have Thursdays off. I'm grateful for how good I feel after running 5K and how good it feels to stretch after a run. I'm grateful for my friends. I'm grateful for my discount gym membership and for the blogs and news websites I like to read each day and for nice hot showers. I'm grateful that I'm branching out and meeting a new group of people tomorrow (a half-marathon training group) and doing yoga (the real thing, not writing trite meditations on a blog) with them.
I'm grateful for my job on Fridays, my favorite of my various teaching gigs, and that I have Thursdays off. I'm grateful for how good I feel after running 5K and how good it feels to stretch after a run. I'm grateful for my friends. I'm grateful for my discount gym membership and for the blogs and news websites I like to read each day and for nice hot showers. I'm grateful that I'm branching out and meeting a new group of people tomorrow (a half-marathon training group) and doing yoga (the real thing, not writing trite meditations on a blog) with them.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Giganomics, Or Being an Indian Call Center
After hearing about the trend of "giganomics" (I heard about it in the way I hear of many global business trends: from textbooks I use with my students), meaning working freelance gig to gig, rather than having a traditional full-time job, I concur that this is definitely the case for anglophone ESL teachers in France. Non-anglophones, too. It's sometimes project based (exam prep, for example) and usually at universities, a semester or 2 is the longest term available to us or in my last job, I had contracts with my ESL school and a private company for blocks of 10, 20 or 30 hours of business English training. It somehow miraculously worked about to about 20 hours of teaching per week and I somehow miraculously was able to pay my rent each month.
We foreigners here usually don't have the French national teaching qualification and some of us (I'm speaking for myself here) are reluctant to invest in it, so we create our own combinations of part-time jobs which don't require these qualifications. Everyone's looking for the combination that's the best-paying with the best working conditions and the least amount of commuting/prep time/galere.
Piecing together part-time jobs to earn a living is easier to do in France than in the States because we have national health insurance. Health insurance is not dependent upon having a full-time job to get private coverage through an employer like in the States.
Talking about the trend of universities outsourcing positions by recruiting vacataires (temporary replacement teaching staff paid only every 6 months-- sometimes over the following year!) rather than full-time permanent positions, inspired me to announce to my teacher friends over cocktails last weekend, "I am an Indian call center. We all are."
Being an Indian call center can also help justify my twice a week Indian take out habit.
From my Indian call center over veggie samosas, I can tell you that I love some of my teaching jobs, some are just ok and some I do strictly for the paid summer vacation.
Here are the highlights of some of the ones I enjoy the most.
I started a new vacataire position last week where I proofread articles for the ESL newspaper and also do a first draft of them, too. It seems like a very big but very well-organised weekly project and I'm a good proofreader/writer, so feel like it's a good use of my skills (in a way that other teacher duties, such as making 5 million photocopies a week and telling my 50-student classes to stop talking and listen to me, are perhaps not...) After my first shift, they asked me if I'd be interested in doing more hours there per week, so I might be there 2 half-days, instead of just one.
I also tutor private students and they're really interested in English and I scored major points with one of the parents for one of the exercises we did today. I had the kids describe the plots of their favourite mangas to practice using the past tense. Today's French teenagers seem to live their Japanese mangas.
We'll see what kind of user problems the call center faces next week.
We foreigners here usually don't have the French national teaching qualification and some of us (I'm speaking for myself here) are reluctant to invest in it, so we create our own combinations of part-time jobs which don't require these qualifications. Everyone's looking for the combination that's the best-paying with the best working conditions and the least amount of commuting/prep time/galere.
Piecing together part-time jobs to earn a living is easier to do in France than in the States because we have national health insurance. Health insurance is not dependent upon having a full-time job to get private coverage through an employer like in the States.
Talking about the trend of universities outsourcing positions by recruiting vacataires (temporary replacement teaching staff paid only every 6 months-- sometimes over the following year!) rather than full-time permanent positions, inspired me to announce to my teacher friends over cocktails last weekend, "I am an Indian call center. We all are."
Being an Indian call center can also help justify my twice a week Indian take out habit.
From my Indian call center over veggie samosas, I can tell you that I love some of my teaching jobs, some are just ok and some I do strictly for the paid summer vacation.
Here are the highlights of some of the ones I enjoy the most.
I started a new vacataire position last week where I proofread articles for the ESL newspaper and also do a first draft of them, too. It seems like a very big but very well-organised weekly project and I'm a good proofreader/writer, so feel like it's a good use of my skills (in a way that other teacher duties, such as making 5 million photocopies a week and telling my 50-student classes to stop talking and listen to me, are perhaps not...) After my first shift, they asked me if I'd be interested in doing more hours there per week, so I might be there 2 half-days, instead of just one.
I also tutor private students and they're really interested in English and I scored major points with one of the parents for one of the exercises we did today. I had the kids describe the plots of their favourite mangas to practice using the past tense. Today's French teenagers seem to live their Japanese mangas.
We'll see what kind of user problems the call center faces next week.
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Une Autre Philosophie
The understatement of the year was when I was pouring my little heart out about life's professional frustrations (like not having any of the resources I need to teach despite being a teacher) to my Spanish teacher/friend and he commiserated and replied, "c'est une autre philosophie."
That's for sure. I don't even have the energy to discuss how French and American higher education systems are polar opposites. In the US, students have more resources than they need, like gluten-free stir fry night at the cafeteria, study abroad opportunities in places like Uganda (really?) or on planet neptune and like 5 macbook pro Ipads per student and they pay outrageously inflated tuition.
The biggest culture shock I ever had in France was when I started teaching in public universities outside of Paris, which I've done off and on for about 3-4 years, due to the lack of resources.
In France, students and teachers have virtually no resources whatsoever in public universities, and tuition is practically free. I appreciate how democratic this system is-- no application process, anyone who passes their bac gets a place in their local university. Yay, for easy access to higher education. But as a teacher, it's the most frustrating thing on earth to have zero resources. In a real school. In a developed country. Not on the JYA program in Uganda or on Neptune where having no resources would be part of some Authentic Cultural Experience. (I'm a little wary of sending university students to developing countries for study abroad-- seems a little voyeuristic/tourism of poverty to me...)
But anyway, the system needs more money, either from the state or in slightly increased tuition fees. For example, the tacit understanding in my department was that teachers should pay for their own photocopies, which is absurd. We're supposed to post documents online for the kiddies but the department doesn't have a scanner we can use to scan hard copy documents. In most of my classes on the first day (and even 2nd and 3rd days), we didn't have enough chairs for all the kiddies. My class sizes average from 30-45. Even for listening and speaking classes. I buy my own markers for the whiteboard. If I want to do listening comprehension exercises with my kids, I have to bring my own computer and speakers. To avoid using paper, I wanted to use powerpoint, but none of the projector/computer connections work in the rooms where I teach. A teacher friend of mine bought her OWN projector so that she could use powerpoint in class.
Great Books?
Instead of a great books curriculum, it's more like a great copy card curriculum. Students learn from photocopies (teachers cannot require them to buy textbooks because it would discriminate against lower income students who couldn't afford it. Really). Call me insensitive to socio-economic factors, but I don't understand how someone can be university educated without reading books.
While it's great to have affordable tuition fees for French public univesities, I think there should be some kind of selection process in advance. Like minimum language requirements to do a language program, for example. I have kids who can't even form proper verb tenses on the first day. Like "he going." Or "he's go."
Under the current system, the first year can be a big waste of time for freshmen and their teachers. It's a big weed out year, the teachers' mentality is that 65% of the kids enrolled "don't really belong here" and that teachers are doing their jobs by failing over half of the entering class. (There are also probably underlying economic reasons for this, too. It would be way to expensive for the state-- which already seems to have little money for education-- if everyone who started university actually finished).
Like in the US, there's a huge divide between the public and private. I tutor some kids who attend a private middle school where they study Greek and Latin and have 35 hours of classes a week (with maybe only 1-2 hour of homework total per week). The university degrees that are the most respected here are, of course, not from public universities, but private elite schools called Grandes ecoles which impress the hell out of the French.
I don't think I'll ever understand cette autre philosophie, the origin and evolution of public education in France. An emphasis on both democratic equality and individual academic merit doesn't necessarily seem as compatible as the French system would perhaps like. It's a challenging system for the kids. Like I once taught a phonetics class (I did not choose the curriculum) that seemed specifically designed to fail first years by giving them ridiculous words to transcribe like "unmarrigeable." Really? What purpose does that really serve?
To me, it's a very underfunded system, although I recently read an article which said that French education spending was considered high for Europe.
I find it a strange place to work but I'm trying to cheer myself up with the fact that there's something to be said for being a 'global citizen,' whatever that really means and learning about different educational systems besides the British and American ones. And that in a year I can go back to Anglophone universities if I so desire...
That's for sure. I don't even have the energy to discuss how French and American higher education systems are polar opposites. In the US, students have more resources than they need, like gluten-free stir fry night at the cafeteria, study abroad opportunities in places like Uganda (really?) or on planet neptune and like 5 macbook pro Ipads per student and they pay outrageously inflated tuition.
The biggest culture shock I ever had in France was when I started teaching in public universities outside of Paris, which I've done off and on for about 3-4 years, due to the lack of resources.
In France, students and teachers have virtually no resources whatsoever in public universities, and tuition is practically free. I appreciate how democratic this system is-- no application process, anyone who passes their bac gets a place in their local university. Yay, for easy access to higher education. But as a teacher, it's the most frustrating thing on earth to have zero resources. In a real school. In a developed country. Not on the JYA program in Uganda or on Neptune where having no resources would be part of some Authentic Cultural Experience. (I'm a little wary of sending university students to developing countries for study abroad-- seems a little voyeuristic/tourism of poverty to me...)
But anyway, the system needs more money, either from the state or in slightly increased tuition fees. For example, the tacit understanding in my department was that teachers should pay for their own photocopies, which is absurd. We're supposed to post documents online for the kiddies but the department doesn't have a scanner we can use to scan hard copy documents. In most of my classes on the first day (and even 2nd and 3rd days), we didn't have enough chairs for all the kiddies. My class sizes average from 30-45. Even for listening and speaking classes. I buy my own markers for the whiteboard. If I want to do listening comprehension exercises with my kids, I have to bring my own computer and speakers. To avoid using paper, I wanted to use powerpoint, but none of the projector/computer connections work in the rooms where I teach. A teacher friend of mine bought her OWN projector so that she could use powerpoint in class.
Great Books?
Instead of a great books curriculum, it's more like a great copy card curriculum. Students learn from photocopies (teachers cannot require them to buy textbooks because it would discriminate against lower income students who couldn't afford it. Really). Call me insensitive to socio-economic factors, but I don't understand how someone can be university educated without reading books.
While it's great to have affordable tuition fees for French public univesities, I think there should be some kind of selection process in advance. Like minimum language requirements to do a language program, for example. I have kids who can't even form proper verb tenses on the first day. Like "he going." Or "he's go."
Under the current system, the first year can be a big waste of time for freshmen and their teachers. It's a big weed out year, the teachers' mentality is that 65% of the kids enrolled "don't really belong here" and that teachers are doing their jobs by failing over half of the entering class. (There are also probably underlying economic reasons for this, too. It would be way to expensive for the state-- which already seems to have little money for education-- if everyone who started university actually finished).
Like in the US, there's a huge divide between the public and private. I tutor some kids who attend a private middle school where they study Greek and Latin and have 35 hours of classes a week (with maybe only 1-2 hour of homework total per week). The university degrees that are the most respected here are, of course, not from public universities, but private elite schools called Grandes ecoles which impress the hell out of the French.
I don't think I'll ever understand cette autre philosophie, the origin and evolution of public education in France. An emphasis on both democratic equality and individual academic merit doesn't necessarily seem as compatible as the French system would perhaps like. It's a challenging system for the kids. Like I once taught a phonetics class (I did not choose the curriculum) that seemed specifically designed to fail first years by giving them ridiculous words to transcribe like "unmarrigeable." Really? What purpose does that really serve?
To me, it's a very underfunded system, although I recently read an article which said that French education spending was considered high for Europe.
I find it a strange place to work but I'm trying to cheer myself up with the fact that there's something to be said for being a 'global citizen,' whatever that really means and learning about different educational systems besides the British and American ones. And that in a year I can go back to Anglophone universities if I so desire...
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Body Balance and Marivaux
I have a lot of work to do (class prep, nerve calming, and zen-like mental preparation for an insane day at the old workhouse, since every day there is long and insane) but taking a quick blog break.
I went to the gym this morning (for the open house day) for free and did my beloved Body Balance class, it was really nice to go back. I decided to rejoin but just for 3 months, instead of the year. Hated the idea of committing to a year, since I'm thinking about moving. Either to another apartment in the area or to an entirely different country... The ville lumiere has been difficult lately for both professional and personal reasons, especially after being surrounded by my adoring family for a month in the US in August.
The challeges at the moment are trying to piece together the info I need in a new job (believe me, it's always bit of a treasure hunt-- ask x who will tell you to ask Y or maybe you'll just get 4 different answers), trying to figure out my students' real level, how to manage 40-person classes, what 2nd year masters students actually learn in university classes and how to get by with minimal resources. Minimal as in none.
It all feels very energy-depleting and futile, to be honest.
To cheer up, I had a long talk with the family about future options, waking them up early in the American morning. I also decided to go running every day this week at the lovely nearby gym, made plans to meet a few friends on Wedensday (the end of my work week. At least it's short, even if it's painful) and buy a ticket to Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard at the comedie francaise. The theater used to cheer me up a lot. It's kind of a sustitute for social interaction, but with wittier dialogue and everyone is better dressed.
I went to the gym this morning (for the open house day) for free and did my beloved Body Balance class, it was really nice to go back. I decided to rejoin but just for 3 months, instead of the year. Hated the idea of committing to a year, since I'm thinking about moving. Either to another apartment in the area or to an entirely different country... The ville lumiere has been difficult lately for both professional and personal reasons, especially after being surrounded by my adoring family for a month in the US in August.
The challeges at the moment are trying to piece together the info I need in a new job (believe me, it's always bit of a treasure hunt-- ask x who will tell you to ask Y or maybe you'll just get 4 different answers), trying to figure out my students' real level, how to manage 40-person classes, what 2nd year masters students actually learn in university classes and how to get by with minimal resources. Minimal as in none.
It all feels very energy-depleting and futile, to be honest.
To cheer up, I had a long talk with the family about future options, waking them up early in the American morning. I also decided to go running every day this week at the lovely nearby gym, made plans to meet a few friends on Wedensday (the end of my work week. At least it's short, even if it's painful) and buy a ticket to Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard at the comedie francaise. The theater used to cheer me up a lot. It's kind of a sustitute for social interaction, but with wittier dialogue and everyone is better dressed.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Mars and Venus On a Date at FNAC
So on a friend's recommendation, and because it'll be funny and naff to discuss and because I'm curious if the advice in it will seem very culturally specific (i.e., American) or not, I picked up Mars and Venus On a Date. Yes, Venus and Mars of the the inter-planetary relationship counselling franchise. I counted no less than 8 Venus and Mars books on the shelves, some with vomit-inducing titles like, Venus and Mars in Harmony Forever, and Venus and Mars in Love 365 Days of the Year.
I clearly plan to read this book ironically. Ahem, obviously. Not that the state of my love life is such that advice wouldn't perhaps be useful... And to minimise the trash factor, I got it in French so I can try to convince myself that it's somewhat of an intellectual exercise during my non-French speaking vacation and not just the gender stereotyping fluff that it clearly would be in my native language (and the original language it was written in).
I might be the only person who enjoys reading anglophone books in translation because I think it's so interesting what translators decide they have to explain to a foreign audience. And do they keep to the original and explain it, or use a cultural equivalent? Like in the French version of the American TV show Veronica Mars set in Southern California, they made the poor kids from the Valley from St. Denis (a Paris suburb with a bad reputation). I love cultural footnotes in books, like in Bridget Jones' Diary, they footnoted Pride and Prejudice and explained that it was a famous Anglophone literary classic, that Jane Austin was a writer known for her social commentary, especially about the role of women in society and gave a brief plot summary. Isn't it intersting to imagine people reading that book who have NO idea who Mr. Darcy is? I mean, not that it's super deep or anything, but knowing who Mr. Darcy is does add a little layer to our girlfriend Bridget, don't you think?
I also figure if I ever apply any of the advice in the book, I'll probably do it in French, so might as well start with the French version, non? And when I handed in my attendance sheets for the last time ever at work, returned my key to the school and filed away all my course programmes and class notes, I happened to be near a bookstore.
A friend of mine swore by Men Are From Mars and I read bits of it, but as I'm not married, I didn't really relate. I think those kinds of books can be helpful because at best, they make you think about communication in a relationship and that different people have different ways of expressing what's important to them. At their worst, of course, those kinds of books become reductive gender stereotyping. So we'll see how Venus and Mars do on the Parisian dating scene.
When I went to pay for my relationship self-help book, I noticed that the guy in front of me was buying, of all things, Relationships For Dummies (Relations Amoureuses Pour Les Nuls). Seeing that this was clearly fate, or at least a pick up line made in heaven (and as a foreigner I have the priviliged positionof being able to start conversations with strangers and it's charming, rather than slutty or weird, as it probably would be for a French woman here), I hesitated and carefully evaluated how attractive this man was and if I wanted to use this golden opportunity or not.
I ultimately decided not to pursue this one, (would that seem really lonely and desperate? Just how good a pick up line is it really? "I see we're both single and looking for a relationship" is not exactly a huge thing to have in common, is it? Or is it? And what if he were in fact happily married and just buying the book as a present for someone else? That would be really embarassing...) and save my ace for a different card game. Although I'm waiting to see what Venus and Mars would have done...
I clearly plan to read this book ironically. Ahem, obviously. Not that the state of my love life is such that advice wouldn't perhaps be useful... And to minimise the trash factor, I got it in French so I can try to convince myself that it's somewhat of an intellectual exercise during my non-French speaking vacation and not just the gender stereotyping fluff that it clearly would be in my native language (and the original language it was written in).
I might be the only person who enjoys reading anglophone books in translation because I think it's so interesting what translators decide they have to explain to a foreign audience. And do they keep to the original and explain it, or use a cultural equivalent? Like in the French version of the American TV show Veronica Mars set in Southern California, they made the poor kids from the Valley from St. Denis (a Paris suburb with a bad reputation). I love cultural footnotes in books, like in Bridget Jones' Diary, they footnoted Pride and Prejudice and explained that it was a famous Anglophone literary classic, that Jane Austin was a writer known for her social commentary, especially about the role of women in society and gave a brief plot summary. Isn't it intersting to imagine people reading that book who have NO idea who Mr. Darcy is? I mean, not that it's super deep or anything, but knowing who Mr. Darcy is does add a little layer to our girlfriend Bridget, don't you think?
I also figure if I ever apply any of the advice in the book, I'll probably do it in French, so might as well start with the French version, non? And when I handed in my attendance sheets for the last time ever at work, returned my key to the school and filed away all my course programmes and class notes, I happened to be near a bookstore.
A friend of mine swore by Men Are From Mars and I read bits of it, but as I'm not married, I didn't really relate. I think those kinds of books can be helpful because at best, they make you think about communication in a relationship and that different people have different ways of expressing what's important to them. At their worst, of course, those kinds of books become reductive gender stereotyping. So we'll see how Venus and Mars do on the Parisian dating scene.
When I went to pay for my relationship self-help book, I noticed that the guy in front of me was buying, of all things, Relationships For Dummies (Relations Amoureuses Pour Les Nuls). Seeing that this was clearly fate, or at least a pick up line made in heaven (and as a foreigner I have the priviliged positionof being able to start conversations with strangers and it's charming, rather than slutty or weird, as it probably would be for a French woman here), I hesitated and carefully evaluated how attractive this man was and if I wanted to use this golden opportunity or not.
I ultimately decided not to pursue this one, (would that seem really lonely and desperate? Just how good a pick up line is it really? "I see we're both single and looking for a relationship" is not exactly a huge thing to have in common, is it? Or is it? And what if he were in fact happily married and just buying the book as a present for someone else? That would be really embarassing...) and save my ace for a different card game. Although I'm waiting to see what Venus and Mars would have done...
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Life, Love and Video Games
So I never play video games but I often think of them as metaphors. How pretentious, right?
Living abroad is like a video game (ok, I think of them as similes not metaphors, excuse me), an elegant intellectual one with good high-res graphics and many nuanced shades of grey (Paris is a very grey city) in that through trial and error you have to learn the right thing to do in different situations, the right words to use in a particular context or the right reaction to have and then this enables you to advance to the next level.
I have no idea how many levels there are total. Or what my all-time score is so far.
Welcome to the next level. Bienvenu au niveau suivant!
Self-Help Starts With... AAA? Or: Why Support Groups Are Inherently American
Student: "In America, you have AAA (pronouncing each A individually)?"
Me, fairly surprised: "Um, we call it triple A and it's a type of car insurance. Why?"
Student: "No, you know that group to help alcoholics. You always see it on TV. My name is... I lost my job and my house, ha ha ha!" (This was real laughter and mockery).
Me: It's called AA, it stands for Alcoholics Anonymous. You have it in France, too. There isn't a similar French group?"
Apparently, support groups are for whiny little girls. Or Americans, in the French mind.
Maybe I'm over-reacting to an arrogant corporate student, one who works in a oncology pharmaceutical, no less, but it made me think a little about national attitudes towards support (financial and emotional) and self-improvement, in general.
While the average French citizen/resident can count on government support financially through social programs like national healthcare (which I love) or unemployment (which I guess is generous but everyone I know who ever needed it had too many bureaucratic problems to get any actual money from the government ever), I don't think there's much public support for the old morale, no smiley "will that be all, is there anything else I can help you with today?" efficient bureaucracy or customer service. The French bureaucracy is generally acknowledged by the French and foreigners alike as heartless and as inconvenient as humanly possible. Prefecture officers are reguarly indifferent when they reduce my American friends to tears and no one I know has ever succeeded in talking their way out of a metro fine if caught without a ticket.
Systems aren't helpful, let alone user-friendly. The French fonctionnaire mentality, endorsed by civil servants everywhere, can often seem like "go sort it out yourself and stop bothering me." Outside of the realm of civil servants, it's still not always that easy to negotiate. Customer service, or what anglophones consider customer service, anyway, is non-existant here, unless you're a millionaire who shops at Prada. And you'd probably have to be a regular there to get good service. Anyway, these are some of the stereotypical run of the mill anglophone complaints about the hexagon and I must confess that even after living here 5 years, these particular issues do still get my goat, or chevre. But it's part of life as we know it and well, chevre is pretty good cheese, so that takes the edge off a little.
In terms of personal/emotional support, I recently noticed that in general people tend to pair off very early in France, like in their early 20s, which is a lot earlier than in the US or the UK. (The result this has on the 30-year old French man when, surprise, this relationship doesn't work out and the ensuing dating frustrations that this causes for women in their 30s is a blog post for another day). I'm convinced that this early coupledom has to do with how difficult the administration is, the 'sort it out yourself' attitude and how much you have to fight to get people to do things they should do anyway. Like what, you might be wondering? Recent struggles of mine include making my company pay my salary on time (yes, late pay checks are a regular occurance) and one still in progress: making my landlord fix the collapsed floor board in my apartment. This will easily take at least 4 months.
Other support that you can count on here besides your 21-year old husband, is the rest of your family. As a foreigner whose family is far far away, it seems like the French are highly family-oriented, or in other words, obsessed with their families and physically cannot go more than like 2 weeks without seeing the clan gaulois. A regular French reaction I get when I say I'm an only child is, "how can you break your parents' hearts like this and live so far away from them?"
So even if the administration is a cauchemar and a half, the family and your underage partner can help you in times of crisis. Just about everyone I know in Paris has moments of severe depression. France has the highest rate of anti-depressant consumption in Europe, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're the most depressed, just that they like taking meds the most. Honestly, I had a cold once and my doctor wrote me like 5 prescriptions for it. But medication aside, the French mistrust happiness, I think, and complaining and being digusted and existentially miserable show you're a sensitive intellectual soul. Blame Sartre for that one. The weather in Paris in the summer and the winter is also terrible with constant cloud cover which doesn't help. I almost took a job in Norway awhile ago and I honestly thought that the arctic winter probably wouldn't be that different from the sun-less French winter. But I think if depression really becomes a problem, most people here just take pills or call their aunts (I probably would as well, to be honest), rather than join a support group. The only support groups I've ever seen advertised here were in the English language paper.
The main reason support groups would NEVER catch on here is that the French don't often publically admit that they have problems or don't know things or need self-improvement in any way. Lest you think I'm being too harsh, consider this: self-deprecating humor, typical of the US and the UK, doesn't exist in France. The French would NEVER poke fun at themselves and they find it highly weird that we do. They often take it quite seriously and don't realise that it's a joke. Honestly, some French person I once met told me that he was shocked when he went to the US because Americans didn't know basic geography. He said when he told someone he met there that he was from France they answered, "I couldn't even locate France on a map, ha ha!" I had to explain that this was called self-deprecating humor and that is really means "I don't think I'm very worldly and am exaggerating and making a joke about it" and not "I have no idea if France is really in Western Europe."
There are, of course, exceptions, I have a couple French friends who DO make fun of themselves, but they admit that it's not typical French humor at all. French humor usually mocks OTHER people and I find it quite cutting sometimes. And it's not just me. The number one word that my friends used to characterise French humor when I first moved here and asked them questions like that was absoutely cassant or cutting.
So, this really is not a country where the national mindset seems that conducive to support groups, or admitting in public that you have a problem that you can't solve and need help with. Americans (maybe I just speak for myself here...) are all about trying to improve themselves, I mean this is the land where self-help is an industry, and a lucrative one, at that. I too consider all the self-help rhetoric in the US a little too Oprah for my taste, but at the same time, while I wouldn't hire a life coach or buy self-help tapes, I do set personal goals for myself, like running the Paris half-marathon, doing 15 minutes of Spanish a day, etc. becuase I feel like these will ultimately make me better in some way, like more fit and proficient in the most useful foreign language in the US and I find this motivating.
Strangely enough, the one time that I ever got a French recommendation for a support group, or a phone support hotline, at least, was an extremely strange (and, I thought, very funny) situation. Before I started my second year of university teaching, a colleague sent out an email directed to new foreign staff. He told us that he realised that being far from home could be stressful and lead to disappointment, frustration and anxiety. And he wanted to remind us that we weren't alone. How did this caring man show his humanity? Did he mean that he would be there to help us delicate fragile etrangers? No, of course not. He showed he cared by passing on the number of an English language suicide hotline. Ok, maybe it wasn't technically a suicide hotline, but it was called SOS Depression or SOS Loneliness or something. (If I were a real blogger, I would link to a previous post from a few years ago that reproduced the text of this famous email). At the time, I thought it was pretty funny and that the university was more or less outsourcing support and compassion. I mean, this guy or the uni could have implemented a buddy system/systeme de parrainage or organised an event for the foreign staff to help us integrate better or a number of other things. Now I think it really was meant to be thoughtful and it was actually quite considerate to acknolwedge a problem that had occured in the past, that the university can be a tough place to work when you're starting out in a new land and provide a resource to help. Especially in the world of "demerde-toi" (kind of a crass way to say, sort it out yourself).
Interestingly, I've long been frustrated that there isn't a direct translation of the adjective supportive in French. You litterally can't describe someone this way in this language. (You have to use the verb 'instead, i.e, you can say, he supported me during a tough time', or the noun, 'he gave me a lot of support', but you can't say he was supportive). I guess philisophically, in French, support can't a personality attribute like it is in English. Not that this proves that the French or the English are any more or less supportive, but can probably make a case that different cultures probably envision help and support somewhat differently and public group support, for example, seems typically American. An example of a different kind of helpful: something that has happened to me a few times is that if I go to the grocery store when it's raining and put my umbrella down on the floor while I bag, pay, generally have my hands full of stuff, someone will often tell me that my umbrella's on the ground. This really irked me this first time it happened, I know where it is, I put it there, I only have 2 hands and it sounds a little like a criticism. But I think it's honestly meant to be helpful and to mean, don't forget your brolly, which is how an Anglophone would say it.
So all that to say demerdez-vous, French alcoholics. But you probably don't really have a problem. Unless you're a foreigner.
Me, fairly surprised: "Um, we call it triple A and it's a type of car insurance. Why?"
Student: "No, you know that group to help alcoholics. You always see it on TV. My name is... I lost my job and my house, ha ha ha!" (This was real laughter and mockery).
Me: It's called AA, it stands for Alcoholics Anonymous. You have it in France, too. There isn't a similar French group?"
Apparently, support groups are for whiny little girls. Or Americans, in the French mind.
Maybe I'm over-reacting to an arrogant corporate student, one who works in a oncology pharmaceutical, no less, but it made me think a little about national attitudes towards support (financial and emotional) and self-improvement, in general.
While the average French citizen/resident can count on government support financially through social programs like national healthcare (which I love) or unemployment (which I guess is generous but everyone I know who ever needed it had too many bureaucratic problems to get any actual money from the government ever), I don't think there's much public support for the old morale, no smiley "will that be all, is there anything else I can help you with today?" efficient bureaucracy or customer service. The French bureaucracy is generally acknowledged by the French and foreigners alike as heartless and as inconvenient as humanly possible. Prefecture officers are reguarly indifferent when they reduce my American friends to tears and no one I know has ever succeeded in talking their way out of a metro fine if caught without a ticket.
Systems aren't helpful, let alone user-friendly. The French fonctionnaire mentality, endorsed by civil servants everywhere, can often seem like "go sort it out yourself and stop bothering me." Outside of the realm of civil servants, it's still not always that easy to negotiate. Customer service, or what anglophones consider customer service, anyway, is non-existant here, unless you're a millionaire who shops at Prada. And you'd probably have to be a regular there to get good service. Anyway, these are some of the stereotypical run of the mill anglophone complaints about the hexagon and I must confess that even after living here 5 years, these particular issues do still get my goat, or chevre. But it's part of life as we know it and well, chevre is pretty good cheese, so that takes the edge off a little.
In terms of personal/emotional support, I recently noticed that in general people tend to pair off very early in France, like in their early 20s, which is a lot earlier than in the US or the UK. (The result this has on the 30-year old French man when, surprise, this relationship doesn't work out and the ensuing dating frustrations that this causes for women in their 30s is a blog post for another day). I'm convinced that this early coupledom has to do with how difficult the administration is, the 'sort it out yourself' attitude and how much you have to fight to get people to do things they should do anyway. Like what, you might be wondering? Recent struggles of mine include making my company pay my salary on time (yes, late pay checks are a regular occurance) and one still in progress: making my landlord fix the collapsed floor board in my apartment. This will easily take at least 4 months.
Other support that you can count on here besides your 21-year old husband, is the rest of your family. As a foreigner whose family is far far away, it seems like the French are highly family-oriented, or in other words, obsessed with their families and physically cannot go more than like 2 weeks without seeing the clan gaulois. A regular French reaction I get when I say I'm an only child is, "how can you break your parents' hearts like this and live so far away from them?"
So even if the administration is a cauchemar and a half, the family and your underage partner can help you in times of crisis. Just about everyone I know in Paris has moments of severe depression. France has the highest rate of anti-depressant consumption in Europe, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're the most depressed, just that they like taking meds the most. Honestly, I had a cold once and my doctor wrote me like 5 prescriptions for it. But medication aside, the French mistrust happiness, I think, and complaining and being digusted and existentially miserable show you're a sensitive intellectual soul. Blame Sartre for that one. The weather in Paris in the summer and the winter is also terrible with constant cloud cover which doesn't help. I almost took a job in Norway awhile ago and I honestly thought that the arctic winter probably wouldn't be that different from the sun-less French winter. But I think if depression really becomes a problem, most people here just take pills or call their aunts (I probably would as well, to be honest), rather than join a support group. The only support groups I've ever seen advertised here were in the English language paper.
The main reason support groups would NEVER catch on here is that the French don't often publically admit that they have problems or don't know things or need self-improvement in any way. Lest you think I'm being too harsh, consider this: self-deprecating humor, typical of the US and the UK, doesn't exist in France. The French would NEVER poke fun at themselves and they find it highly weird that we do. They often take it quite seriously and don't realise that it's a joke. Honestly, some French person I once met told me that he was shocked when he went to the US because Americans didn't know basic geography. He said when he told someone he met there that he was from France they answered, "I couldn't even locate France on a map, ha ha!" I had to explain that this was called self-deprecating humor and that is really means "I don't think I'm very worldly and am exaggerating and making a joke about it" and not "I have no idea if France is really in Western Europe."
There are, of course, exceptions, I have a couple French friends who DO make fun of themselves, but they admit that it's not typical French humor at all. French humor usually mocks OTHER people and I find it quite cutting sometimes. And it's not just me. The number one word that my friends used to characterise French humor when I first moved here and asked them questions like that was absoutely cassant or cutting.
So, this really is not a country where the national mindset seems that conducive to support groups, or admitting in public that you have a problem that you can't solve and need help with. Americans (maybe I just speak for myself here...) are all about trying to improve themselves, I mean this is the land where self-help is an industry, and a lucrative one, at that. I too consider all the self-help rhetoric in the US a little too Oprah for my taste, but at the same time, while I wouldn't hire a life coach or buy self-help tapes, I do set personal goals for myself, like running the Paris half-marathon, doing 15 minutes of Spanish a day, etc. becuase I feel like these will ultimately make me better in some way, like more fit and proficient in the most useful foreign language in the US and I find this motivating.
Strangely enough, the one time that I ever got a French recommendation for a support group, or a phone support hotline, at least, was an extremely strange (and, I thought, very funny) situation. Before I started my second year of university teaching, a colleague sent out an email directed to new foreign staff. He told us that he realised that being far from home could be stressful and lead to disappointment, frustration and anxiety. And he wanted to remind us that we weren't alone. How did this caring man show his humanity? Did he mean that he would be there to help us delicate fragile etrangers? No, of course not. He showed he cared by passing on the number of an English language suicide hotline. Ok, maybe it wasn't technically a suicide hotline, but it was called SOS Depression or SOS Loneliness or something. (If I were a real blogger, I would link to a previous post from a few years ago that reproduced the text of this famous email). At the time, I thought it was pretty funny and that the university was more or less outsourcing support and compassion. I mean, this guy or the uni could have implemented a buddy system/systeme de parrainage or organised an event for the foreign staff to help us integrate better or a number of other things. Now I think it really was meant to be thoughtful and it was actually quite considerate to acknolwedge a problem that had occured in the past, that the university can be a tough place to work when you're starting out in a new land and provide a resource to help. Especially in the world of "demerde-toi" (kind of a crass way to say, sort it out yourself).
Interestingly, I've long been frustrated that there isn't a direct translation of the adjective supportive in French. You litterally can't describe someone this way in this language. (You have to use the verb 'instead, i.e, you can say, he supported me during a tough time', or the noun, 'he gave me a lot of support', but you can't say he was supportive). I guess philisophically, in French, support can't a personality attribute like it is in English. Not that this proves that the French or the English are any more or less supportive, but can probably make a case that different cultures probably envision help and support somewhat differently and public group support, for example, seems typically American. An example of a different kind of helpful: something that has happened to me a few times is that if I go to the grocery store when it's raining and put my umbrella down on the floor while I bag, pay, generally have my hands full of stuff, someone will often tell me that my umbrella's on the ground. This really irked me this first time it happened, I know where it is, I put it there, I only have 2 hands and it sounds a little like a criticism. But I think it's honestly meant to be helpful and to mean, don't forget your brolly, which is how an Anglophone would say it.
So all that to say demerdez-vous, French alcoholics. But you probably don't really have a problem. Unless you're a foreigner.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Fame! I Wanna Teach Forever...
My professional goal is to be like the professors on Un, dos, tres (1990s Spanish version of Fame). They're all fantastically attractive, talented, dynamic, tough, devoted to their students and in turn beloved by them. They're all also unquestionably buenos profesores, without ever really bothering to show much of the content of their classes. Maybe that's the part that I like so much. Most of the classroom footage just involves the professor dismissing the class or if we catch a class in action, the prof is invaribly watching their students/stars of tomorrow dance.
Vague undefined course content and curriculums abound in public French universities, too. Although hopefully not in my classes.
My guilty pleasure (péché mignon, in French) is that I quite enjoy the 1990s Spanish version of Fame. I don't watch it very often but it's all over my free (and download/streaming-less) source of trash TV (M6replay) right now and I like the drama among the teachers, since I can relate to them more than to the students. I watched an episode yesterday and I found myself really sincerely thinking things like, I hope Adela ends up with Cristobel. They also have fun Spanish names like Adela and Cristobel, which helps.
In terms of actual pedagogy of the performing arts, though, I have to admit that classes on the show are not only vague on course content, they're really just excuses for professionally choreographed dance routines or inappropriate manifestations of personal conflict.
Vague undefined course content and curriculums abound in public French universities, too. Although hopefully not in my classes.
My guilty pleasure (péché mignon, in French) is that I quite enjoy the 1990s Spanish version of Fame. I don't watch it very often but it's all over my free (and download/streaming-less) source of trash TV (M6replay) right now and I like the drama among the teachers, since I can relate to them more than to the students. I watched an episode yesterday and I found myself really sincerely thinking things like, I hope Adela ends up with Cristobel. They also have fun Spanish names like Adela and Cristobel, which helps.
In terms of actual pedagogy of the performing arts, though, I have to admit that classes on the show are not only vague on course content, they're really just excuses for professionally choreographed dance routines or inappropriate manifestations of personal conflict.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Nice Day For A... YouTube Comment
I think this probably shows me to be the biggest loser, since quoting these is way worse than writing them in the first place, but various You Tube comments that I read tonight included:
"I love this so much, I'm licking the screen right now." About the REM Out of Time album, no less.
And:
"Bill Idol gets laid every day."
(For the latter: would you ever have imagined reading that sentence, even if a computer program existed just to create random subjet, verb, object, and adverbial time phrase combinations? Plenty of unusual musings come readily to mind, but I honestly never thought about how often Billy Idol, um, rebel yells... Especially in 2011).
"I love this so much, I'm licking the screen right now." About the REM Out of Time album, no less.
And:
"Bill Idol gets laid every day."
(For the latter: would you ever have imagined reading that sentence, even if a computer program existed just to create random subjet, verb, object, and adverbial time phrase combinations? Plenty of unusual musings come readily to mind, but I honestly never thought about how often Billy Idol, um, rebel yells... Especially in 2011).
Monday, July 04, 2011
Most Frequently Discussed Topics, A Field Study
In my job of being an English Teacher Slave to the French ruling classes (meaning I teach Business English to French Business Professionals on their company dollar. Or Euro, as the case may be), I feel I do a lot of ethnographic fieldwork about the Busy French Executive. To share some of their joys and sorrows, here are the most frequently discussed topics by my students in my classes during free conversation breaks.
1. Vacation (ha, no surprise there, right?) :
-My Next Holiday
-My Last Holiday
-My Next Long Weekend (because no, just one day doesn't count as a real vacation).
-Where I'm Thinking of Going On Vacation but I Haven't Decided Yet.
-Where Other People I Know Went On Vacation and Had Either a Very Good or a Very Bad Time.
2. Work
-My Boss is Crazy
-My Last Boss Was Crazy
-The Last Time I Had To Yell At My Boss/Coworker Because He/She Was Being Unreasonable
-I Hate My Officemate
-I Hate Open Plan Offices
-I Hate Talking On The Phone In English
-I Have SO Much Work
-I Don't Want To Talk About Work (Although This Is Business English Training That My Company Is Paying For)
-I Don't Have Time For This Class, Can We Postpone It Although It's Supposed To Start in 2 Minutes? (You're not trying to make a living or anything, are you?!)
3. Family
-My New Baby Is Cute
-Teenagers Are Hard to Raise
-My Next Big Family Gathering (usually a baptism. These are still a huge deal, even in ex- Catholic athiest France. Although no one goes to church, we still celebrate every Catholic holiday known to man. And God. No kidding, things like Assumption and Ascension are days off when even grocery stores close).
-What My Children Are Learning In English In School Now. (Sometimes they even bring me their kids' homework and ask for help!)
4. Hobbies
I Enjoy:
-Gardening
-Home Improvement (constant kitchen and bathroom remodeling)
-Aquagym
-Sailing
-Having Barbecues
-Impossibly Cheap Luxury Trips with the CE (comittee d'entreprise).
1. Vacation (ha, no surprise there, right?) :
-My Next Holiday
-My Last Holiday
-My Next Long Weekend (because no, just one day doesn't count as a real vacation).
-Where I'm Thinking of Going On Vacation but I Haven't Decided Yet.
-Where Other People I Know Went On Vacation and Had Either a Very Good or a Very Bad Time.
2. Work
-My Boss is Crazy
-My Last Boss Was Crazy
-The Last Time I Had To Yell At My Boss/Coworker Because He/She Was Being Unreasonable
-I Hate My Officemate
-I Hate Open Plan Offices
-I Hate Talking On The Phone In English
-I Have SO Much Work
-I Don't Want To Talk About Work (Although This Is Business English Training That My Company Is Paying For)
-I Don't Have Time For This Class, Can We Postpone It Although It's Supposed To Start in 2 Minutes? (You're not trying to make a living or anything, are you?!)
3. Family
-My New Baby Is Cute
-Teenagers Are Hard to Raise
-My Next Big Family Gathering (usually a baptism. These are still a huge deal, even in ex- Catholic athiest France. Although no one goes to church, we still celebrate every Catholic holiday known to man. And God. No kidding, things like Assumption and Ascension are days off when even grocery stores close).
-What My Children Are Learning In English In School Now. (Sometimes they even bring me their kids' homework and ask for help!)
4. Hobbies
I Enjoy:
-Gardening
-Home Improvement (constant kitchen and bathroom remodeling)
-Aquagym
-Sailing
-Having Barbecues
-Impossibly Cheap Luxury Trips with the CE (comittee d'entreprise).
Friday, July 01, 2011
Now That's Entertainment. Depending On How We Define Entertainment
So a French friend and I indulged in a typically French annual ritualistic passtime recently: looking up the questions that were on that year's bac (national exam to leave high school) and trying to answer them. I'm not kidding, the French love to do this and discuss these topics for fun and then look at the Official Answer (because there is, of course, one right answer). Every year, at least 1 French person has done this with me around national exam time and the questions are published in the newspaper. If I remember right, one year the philisophy exam question (this is generally regarded as the most intellectual question that requires the most cleverness to answer) was "why do people work?" This one made even more headlines than the bac philo question usually does.
The questions were (to me, anyway) typically French: abstract, general and philosophical. This gives you a little insight into how the French are taught to think in school, which is endlessly fascinating because it's really different from how Brits and Americans are taught to think. The French academic goal is analysis for analysis' sake: to demonstrate capacity for analysis by giving reasons in favor and in opposition to the question and maybe at the end suggest a possible compromise (general structure: "yes, no, maybe"). The anglophone academic goal is to persuade: choose a position, develop an argument and provide concrete examples supporting your position (for example, "yes, for these three reasons").
To be anglophone and example-driven, here are some concrete examples from this year's exam so you can see just how general, abstract and philisophical they are:
Can a theory be proven?
Does liberty threaten equality?
I think this explains a lot about why anglophone and francophone logic is so different. Put a question about that on next year's bac!
The questions were (to me, anyway) typically French: abstract, general and philosophical. This gives you a little insight into how the French are taught to think in school, which is endlessly fascinating because it's really different from how Brits and Americans are taught to think. The French academic goal is analysis for analysis' sake: to demonstrate capacity for analysis by giving reasons in favor and in opposition to the question and maybe at the end suggest a possible compromise (general structure: "yes, no, maybe"). The anglophone academic goal is to persuade: choose a position, develop an argument and provide concrete examples supporting your position (for example, "yes, for these three reasons").
To be anglophone and example-driven, here are some concrete examples from this year's exam so you can see just how general, abstract and philisophical they are:
Can a theory be proven?
Does liberty threaten equality?
I think this explains a lot about why anglophone and francophone logic is so different. Put a question about that on next year's bac!
Kiss My First Conditional
Student: If I get a raise, I'll make a case to HR.
Me: Make a case means to argue in favor of something. If you get a raise, you should thank HR, not argue with them!
Student (to general student hilarity, titters and giggles): No, make this, mwah on the lips.
Me: Ah, the verb is to kiss.
Student chain sentences with the first conditional then went like this:
If I get a raise, I'll kiss HR.
If I kiss HR, I'll get fired.
If I get fired, my girlfriend in HR will help me find a new job!
At least they learned the grammar point.
Me: Make a case means to argue in favor of something. If you get a raise, you should thank HR, not argue with them!
Student (to general student hilarity, titters and giggles): No, make this, mwah on the lips.
Me: Ah, the verb is to kiss.
Student chain sentences with the first conditional then went like this:
If I get a raise, I'll kiss HR.
If I kiss HR, I'll get fired.
If I get fired, my girlfriend in HR will help me find a new job!
At least they learned the grammar point.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Hey, Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone!
I cannot express how excited I am to go back to university teaching (as opposed to teaching adult professionals as I do now). Late nights of course prep and grading, paid vacations, students who delight you and also make you roll your eyes so hard you think you might hurt yourself. It's worth it, though, to have something semi-intellectual and creative to do with your time. So far, this latest university teaching experience, a new adventure for 2011-12, has been very positive.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
I'm Writing To Apply For the Position Of...
I'm pleased to report that Job Hunt 2011-12 is offically OVER and (even better!) that I have a good full-time (yay!!) university position in Paris starting this September! I'm 100% relieved to no longer have to attend job interviews, send out resumes and wait breathlessly for job decisions. The wait is really the worst and I had butterflies in my stomach every morning when I cranked up the old computer to check the old email to see if there were any decisions in my inbox. And I'm also so so grateful for practical details of my new job, like the fact that I'll have a fixed monthly salary and paid vacation next year! (With private language schools like the one where I currently work, these are NOT luxuries that they offer their woefully underpaid and exploited staff). I'm also delighted that I won't have to change the dates of my American vacation from mid-August to mid-September since the French academic year begins at the end of September.
Unfortunately, although next year should be great, I WILL have to go through the job hunting process again next spring, since my job is only a 1-year position, but I'll have another year of university experience, hopefully some new contacts and the place where I'll work is the largest uni in the Parisian region, so I naively hope that this means that they have lots of available jobs each year... I was also suprised by how many full-time jobs I saw advertised and how many interviews I was invited to, so I feel optimistic for next year. And next spring seems faraway now.
Now that this major life hurdle has been cleared, I can think about other goals for next year, besides repeating Must Find Better Job. Despite the obnoxiousness that is the metro, people in crowds, how neglected my apartment building is, etc., I'm so glad to be staying in Paris. That job I mentioned in Scandinavia? It was in Stavanger, Norway. (Google/wikipedia at will). What I can tell you about it: 3rd largest city in Norway and the oil capital of the country. And dark and cold in the winter.
I honestly thought that if it came down to another year in my current job or a better more stable position even if it were in Norway, I'd take Norway. But felt a little desperate about it, like it wasn't really much of a choice-- like when you have to decide between 2 presidential candadates, and it comes down to the worst and the not quite as bad. I'd still love to visit Norway, but I'm pleased that my final options didn't come down to these 2 possibilities only, as I'd feared.
This year in Paris should be a very different experience from last year, thanks to better pay and financial stability (i.e., the SAME salary every month!) I'm really excited about the possibility of traveling (since it's not something I can afford at the moment) and I already have a list of places I want to go! I took 1 trip all last year to Strasbourg for the weekend and it was ONLY possible because my lovely friends knew I couldn't swing both train fare and a hotel, so they paid for the hotel.
Anways, now that the job situation is taken care of and I should be able to afford both trains and hotels next year, I can move on to some other questions. Like what do I want out of next year in the city of light? Since I love list making and goal setting, (they make me feel so organised and in control), indulge me here.
Professional goals for next year, in no particular order:
-Prep excellent classes for next year!
-Work some extra vacataire hours on the side (at another university where I interviewed but didn't get the job of my dreams). This would be in online distance learning and I'd like to get some experience in this area since it's up and coming.
-Plan some career moves. I attended a TESOL workshop yesterday about career development and decided that what I'd ultimately like to do is be Ken Wilson. Which if you're not an English Language Teaching geek, means more specifically, write/edit ELT textbooks. I decided that I want to have a job in this field in 5 years (since I'm sure you need 10 years of teaching experience) so my deadline is June 18, 2016. Why not send CVs to the ELT companies next year when I'm job hunting, but I imagine that you'd need more than 5 years of teaching experience. I chose my 5 year goal b/c in 5 years, I'll have 10 years of teaching experience.
And some more fun goal setting...
Personal goals for next year:
-Little running goal: run a 5K on a Delaware beach the day of my 33rd (gulp) birthday. I think this would be a lovely way to spend that birthday.
-Big running goal: train for and run the Paris half marathon in March 2012! I plan to join a marathon training group in Sept/oct when their season starts and I'm already on their contact list.
-Continue to work on Spanish and take a class with the Mairie de Paris, as well as keep up my language exchange with a Spanish professor. Hope to place into the advanced beginner level and finish the year with an A2 level (elementary).
-Try to make this blog a little more focused and organised. With different tabs (um, however you do that!!) for running, health (like receipes and also management of a metabolic problem that I have) and funny stories about France and ELT teaching. Maybe these subjects are too varied, and I'll have to figure out the best way to organise them, but I think it's better to have 1 well-organised blog instead of devoting a different blog to each subtopic... I'd also like to get a digital camera so that I can post photos.
Let me just reiterate that it's really a pleasure to be able to move on and think about other things for next year, like blog organisation instead of job hunting!
What are your goals for next year?
Unfortunately, although next year should be great, I WILL have to go through the job hunting process again next spring, since my job is only a 1-year position, but I'll have another year of university experience, hopefully some new contacts and the place where I'll work is the largest uni in the Parisian region, so I naively hope that this means that they have lots of available jobs each year... I was also suprised by how many full-time jobs I saw advertised and how many interviews I was invited to, so I feel optimistic for next year. And next spring seems faraway now.
Now that this major life hurdle has been cleared, I can think about other goals for next year, besides repeating Must Find Better Job. Despite the obnoxiousness that is the metro, people in crowds, how neglected my apartment building is, etc., I'm so glad to be staying in Paris. That job I mentioned in Scandinavia? It was in Stavanger, Norway. (Google/wikipedia at will). What I can tell you about it: 3rd largest city in Norway and the oil capital of the country. And dark and cold in the winter.
I honestly thought that if it came down to another year in my current job or a better more stable position even if it were in Norway, I'd take Norway. But felt a little desperate about it, like it wasn't really much of a choice-- like when you have to decide between 2 presidential candadates, and it comes down to the worst and the not quite as bad. I'd still love to visit Norway, but I'm pleased that my final options didn't come down to these 2 possibilities only, as I'd feared.
This year in Paris should be a very different experience from last year, thanks to better pay and financial stability (i.e., the SAME salary every month!) I'm really excited about the possibility of traveling (since it's not something I can afford at the moment) and I already have a list of places I want to go! I took 1 trip all last year to Strasbourg for the weekend and it was ONLY possible because my lovely friends knew I couldn't swing both train fare and a hotel, so they paid for the hotel.
Anways, now that the job situation is taken care of and I should be able to afford both trains and hotels next year, I can move on to some other questions. Like what do I want out of next year in the city of light? Since I love list making and goal setting, (they make me feel so organised and in control), indulge me here.
Professional goals for next year, in no particular order:
-Prep excellent classes for next year!
-Work some extra vacataire hours on the side (at another university where I interviewed but didn't get the job of my dreams). This would be in online distance learning and I'd like to get some experience in this area since it's up and coming.
-Plan some career moves. I attended a TESOL workshop yesterday about career development and decided that what I'd ultimately like to do is be Ken Wilson. Which if you're not an English Language Teaching geek, means more specifically, write/edit ELT textbooks. I decided that I want to have a job in this field in 5 years (since I'm sure you need 10 years of teaching experience) so my deadline is June 18, 2016. Why not send CVs to the ELT companies next year when I'm job hunting, but I imagine that you'd need more than 5 years of teaching experience. I chose my 5 year goal b/c in 5 years, I'll have 10 years of teaching experience.
And some more fun goal setting...
Personal goals for next year:
-Little running goal: run a 5K on a Delaware beach the day of my 33rd (gulp) birthday. I think this would be a lovely way to spend that birthday.
-Big running goal: train for and run the Paris half marathon in March 2012! I plan to join a marathon training group in Sept/oct when their season starts and I'm already on their contact list.
-Continue to work on Spanish and take a class with the Mairie de Paris, as well as keep up my language exchange with a Spanish professor. Hope to place into the advanced beginner level and finish the year with an A2 level (elementary).
-Try to make this blog a little more focused and organised. With different tabs (um, however you do that!!) for running, health (like receipes and also management of a metabolic problem that I have) and funny stories about France and ELT teaching. Maybe these subjects are too varied, and I'll have to figure out the best way to organise them, but I think it's better to have 1 well-organised blog instead of devoting a different blog to each subtopic... I'd also like to get a digital camera so that I can post photos.
Let me just reiterate that it's really a pleasure to be able to move on and think about other things for next year, like blog organisation instead of job hunting!
What are your goals for next year?
Friday, June 10, 2011
Walking in an Alien World
"I feel like I'm walking in an alien world. But then again, that's how everyone describes themselves. We're all walking in an alien world. For our own reasons." -- From a Middlebury college recruitment video titled "How Did You Get Here?"
How indeed?
Sunday, June 05, 2011
City of Light and the Land of the Midnight Sun
I've been feeling conflicted lately. I suddenly have the possibility of a good, stable possibly well-paying job-- which continues to be the elusive holy grail that foreigners can never find abroad. Unless they are very lucky or know with/date/sleep with the right people.
Since I don't have a stable job with paid vacation and a fixed monthly salary (I'm paid depending on how many hours I work, which just depends on the demand for English classes that month), they've become the most important things that I'm looking for in a job. Especially in a place where the job market is really tough post financial crisis. In France, you have to have VERY specific training for each job; foreigners usually don't have the equivalent of the exact degree necessary, not that the equivalent would even necessarily be recognised abroad. Foreign degrees and professional experience don't seem to count for much. And your great qualifications (like a BA and a BS from prestigious American colleges that are really impressive in your home country) don't mean anything.
However, this job? Yes, it would provide stability, but temporarily (a 1 year contract and the possibility to renew it once). It would probably pay well. It would have a fixed monthly salary (which I don't have now...), housing would be included and there would be loads of paid vacation (which I also don't have now). But the ironic thing is that I don't really want it. Because although it's in a French school, the job isn't in France. It's in Scandinavia. And thinking about this possibility, a temporary year in a country that I have NO connection to, where I don't know the local language and where the culture holds no particular fascination for me, made me realise that there are things I like a lot about where I live now, like:
-picnics in the spring
-stand up comedy (I LOVE this)
-free outdoor movies
-my friends
-speaking French
-free jazz festivals
-running in Parc Monceau, and doing organised races, something I just started in May.
-although I don't always realise it, I do feel a connection to France. When compared to leaving for another completely unknown country, at least.
-my balcony with its lovely view
-my neighborhood
I mean, I could also do a whole list of things I don't like, too. Like the metro, being in a crowd, the HIGH cost of living and the LOW salaries. But these suddenly pale in comparison when faced with the unknown-- especially when I'm not necessarily dying to know about it...
I also realised that there are some things I'd like to do here next year, like:
-keep learning Spanish-- continue my language exchange and take an evening class at the Mairie.
-perfect my French some more. (In the absence of a French-speaking boyfriend at the moment, I think I'll have to take an advanced language class).
-run the Paris half marathon and train with a local marathon group
It also makes me think that if I left France to teach abroad temporarily, I'd like it to be next door in Spain for a year. That would be fun, close to France for easy visiting and it's still mediteranean culture which I'm kind of used to by now. If I left more permanently, I'd like it to be someplace more familiar, like Montreal (still North American, but with a francophone influence). Some possible ideas to try to line up for next year...
Overall, this possible working abroad opportunity has been a very healthy and much-needed reminder of reasons NOT to leave Paris in impoverished disgust, disappointment and not necessarily financial ruin but definite inability to save any money and get ahead. It makes you re-evaluate your current city and realise what the positives are instead of just focusing on the negatives, as we so often do. Especially in France.
A study in the Economist recently named the French as among the most pessimistic people in the world. A stand up comedian I saw recently said it best, the French are never impressed by what's good and don't enthuse about it. "Pas mal" (not bad) is a huge compliment. But they have the rare ability to get extremely animated and excited about negative things, like how bad traffic is, what a jerk their boss is or how rude other parisians are. Parisians are fun to hate sometimes-- and of course, after saying something like that, I have to mitigate it by adding that I have lovely French friends and people are individuals and not cultural stereotypes. At the risk of being reductive again, the French are also often the first to admit stereotypical French shortcomings (since French culture is very critical). Scandinavians might be less fun. Or less endearingly irritating.
Since I don't have a stable job with paid vacation and a fixed monthly salary (I'm paid depending on how many hours I work, which just depends on the demand for English classes that month), they've become the most important things that I'm looking for in a job. Especially in a place where the job market is really tough post financial crisis. In France, you have to have VERY specific training for each job; foreigners usually don't have the equivalent of the exact degree necessary, not that the equivalent would even necessarily be recognised abroad. Foreign degrees and professional experience don't seem to count for much. And your great qualifications (like a BA and a BS from prestigious American colleges that are really impressive in your home country) don't mean anything.
However, this job? Yes, it would provide stability, but temporarily (a 1 year contract and the possibility to renew it once). It would probably pay well. It would have a fixed monthly salary (which I don't have now...), housing would be included and there would be loads of paid vacation (which I also don't have now). But the ironic thing is that I don't really want it. Because although it's in a French school, the job isn't in France. It's in Scandinavia. And thinking about this possibility, a temporary year in a country that I have NO connection to, where I don't know the local language and where the culture holds no particular fascination for me, made me realise that there are things I like a lot about where I live now, like:
-picnics in the spring
-stand up comedy (I LOVE this)
-free outdoor movies
-my friends
-speaking French
-free jazz festivals
-running in Parc Monceau, and doing organised races, something I just started in May.
-although I don't always realise it, I do feel a connection to France. When compared to leaving for another completely unknown country, at least.
-my balcony with its lovely view
-my neighborhood
I mean, I could also do a whole list of things I don't like, too. Like the metro, being in a crowd, the HIGH cost of living and the LOW salaries. But these suddenly pale in comparison when faced with the unknown-- especially when I'm not necessarily dying to know about it...
I also realised that there are some things I'd like to do here next year, like:
-keep learning Spanish-- continue my language exchange and take an evening class at the Mairie.
-perfect my French some more. (In the absence of a French-speaking boyfriend at the moment, I think I'll have to take an advanced language class).
-run the Paris half marathon and train with a local marathon group
It also makes me think that if I left France to teach abroad temporarily, I'd like it to be next door in Spain for a year. That would be fun, close to France for easy visiting and it's still mediteranean culture which I'm kind of used to by now. If I left more permanently, I'd like it to be someplace more familiar, like Montreal (still North American, but with a francophone influence). Some possible ideas to try to line up for next year...
Overall, this possible working abroad opportunity has been a very healthy and much-needed reminder of reasons NOT to leave Paris in impoverished disgust, disappointment and not necessarily financial ruin but definite inability to save any money and get ahead. It makes you re-evaluate your current city and realise what the positives are instead of just focusing on the negatives, as we so often do. Especially in France.
A study in the Economist recently named the French as among the most pessimistic people in the world. A stand up comedian I saw recently said it best, the French are never impressed by what's good and don't enthuse about it. "Pas mal" (not bad) is a huge compliment. But they have the rare ability to get extremely animated and excited about negative things, like how bad traffic is, what a jerk their boss is or how rude other parisians are. Parisians are fun to hate sometimes-- and of course, after saying something like that, I have to mitigate it by adding that I have lovely French friends and people are individuals and not cultural stereotypes. At the risk of being reductive again, the French are also often the first to admit stereotypical French shortcomings (since French culture is very critical). Scandinavians might be less fun. Or less endearingly irritating.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Nous Le Valons Bien
I live far far away from the alterna-hippy-surfer paradise that is Santa Cruz, California but I always loved to visit it when I lived in the SF bay area. Local attractions included some nice coffee shops, the beach, the amusement park, surfer-watching and the surfing museum (open like 1 hour a day) I've actually been there. Not that I remember much about it now. Just that it was really small.
Surfing museum aside, the 80s teen vampire flick The Lost Boys was set here, I once saw Don McLean in concert there and one of my few ever romantic getaway weekends was spent there-- even though it involved some serious camping misadventures like forgetting tent poles and realising that as romantic as sharing a sleeping bag sounded, we really should have brought 2...
It's also the home of a 5 and 10K run called She Is Beautiful which recently popped up on my facebook (I'm a member of a French running group-- custom advertising, go figure) about a million time zones away. Ok, maybe it's eye roll-inducing Oprah Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants marketing to women (obviously), but fit is beautiful is a good message, especially in a world of supermodels and more specifically, my world of anorexically thin Parisian women (I think this is representative of a certain social class-- the richer and more bourgeois, the more starved she looks).
I also really loved that the km markers had little messages on them instead of just giving the numbers (featured in the facebook ad). What a fun idea. The one that I really liked and that I now repeat to myself sometimes, on a run or in tough moments in daily life:
Nobody ever told you it would be easy. They told you that it would be worth it.
Surfing museum aside, the 80s teen vampire flick The Lost Boys was set here, I once saw Don McLean in concert there and one of my few ever romantic getaway weekends was spent there-- even though it involved some serious camping misadventures like forgetting tent poles and realising that as romantic as sharing a sleeping bag sounded, we really should have brought 2...
It's also the home of a 5 and 10K run called She Is Beautiful which recently popped up on my facebook (I'm a member of a French running group-- custom advertising, go figure) about a million time zones away. Ok, maybe it's eye roll-inducing Oprah Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants marketing to women (obviously), but fit is beautiful is a good message, especially in a world of supermodels and more specifically, my world of anorexically thin Parisian women (I think this is representative of a certain social class-- the richer and more bourgeois, the more starved she looks).
I also really loved that the km markers had little messages on them instead of just giving the numbers (featured in the facebook ad). What a fun idea. The one that I really liked and that I now repeat to myself sometimes, on a run or in tough moments in daily life:
Nobody ever told you it would be easy. They told you that it would be worth it.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Pimp My... Run. If You Add Me As a Friend.
Determined to have a good group run this Saturday. Ok, a muy pequeno small group-- just a friend of mine and me!
Planned a nice route, thanks to modern technology. Can I say how great the website Map My Run is? I also like the 3 monosyllabic words in a row. For this reason, it makes me think of Pimp My Ride (not that I've ever even seen this MTV show about how to make your car look flamboyant and expensive). Although EVERYTHING is such a social networking site these days. To see other people's running routes, you have to add them as your friends. I swear, one day just to switch on your computer, you'll have to add it to your friend list.
I think a running partner is the way to go. Best to avoid unknown marathoners from Planet Jogging-- this is the name of the the sports store that sponsored my last race, but now I'm starting to think that maybe it's really some kind of home planet for unfriendly 8 minute milers...
Planned a nice route, thanks to modern technology. Can I say how great the website Map My Run is? I also like the 3 monosyllabic words in a row. For this reason, it makes me think of Pimp My Ride (not that I've ever even seen this MTV show about how to make your car look flamboyant and expensive). Although EVERYTHING is such a social networking site these days. To see other people's running routes, you have to add them as your friends. I swear, one day just to switch on your computer, you'll have to add it to your friend list.
I think a running partner is the way to go. Best to avoid unknown marathoners from Planet Jogging-- this is the name of the the sports store that sponsored my last race, but now I'm starting to think that maybe it's really some kind of home planet for unfriendly 8 minute milers...
Voyeurism at Work
You can take the title of the post fairly literally.
Pourquoi? (This is the most frequently asked French rhetorical question. With barely a pause, you continue with I'll explain).
This week's surreal experience (so far, anyway) was that as I was waiting to drop off my class attendance sheets yesterday (for some reason although this only happens once a month, it always without fail takes like 2 hours and like many things in the city of light, makes me want to kill myself. Lots of cross referencing computer data on computers with impossibly slow internet connections), I noticed... A man taking his clothes off in one of the windows across the way! Ever the classy and elegant professional, I subtly signaled this casual observation to my attendance-verifying coworker, "hey, did you know that you can see nekkid men from your office window?!!"
Turns out that we can see the changing room of the gay sauna from our school. And turns out that everyone at work had a tidbit of information about the gay sauna to contribute. Like that it was the subject of a recent documentary film. It's also connected via underground passage (or maybe a back door patio area) to the gay bar around the corner. It also boasts tous les plaisirs gays as well as excellent customer service because towels and condoms are given out for free.
The changing room is probably the tamest part of the sauna. The other windows are blacked out.
Upon sharing various window/changing room stories, a friend later mentioned that she'd known someone whose window had a view of the local firehouse changing room. This strategic view was optimised when the resident would invite her girlfriends over to check out the firemen and they would oblige by putting on a little show for the ladies.
I somehow doubt lady school teachers would inspire the gay sauna patrons in the same way...
Pourquoi? (This is the most frequently asked French rhetorical question. With barely a pause, you continue with I'll explain).
This week's surreal experience (so far, anyway) was that as I was waiting to drop off my class attendance sheets yesterday (for some reason although this only happens once a month, it always without fail takes like 2 hours and like many things in the city of light, makes me want to kill myself. Lots of cross referencing computer data on computers with impossibly slow internet connections), I noticed... A man taking his clothes off in one of the windows across the way! Ever the classy and elegant professional, I subtly signaled this casual observation to my attendance-verifying coworker, "hey, did you know that you can see nekkid men from your office window?!!"
Turns out that we can see the changing room of the gay sauna from our school. And turns out that everyone at work had a tidbit of information about the gay sauna to contribute. Like that it was the subject of a recent documentary film. It's also connected via underground passage (or maybe a back door patio area) to the gay bar around the corner. It also boasts tous les plaisirs gays as well as excellent customer service because towels and condoms are given out for free.
The changing room is probably the tamest part of the sauna. The other windows are blacked out.
Upon sharing various window/changing room stories, a friend later mentioned that she'd known someone whose window had a view of the local firehouse changing room. This strategic view was optimised when the resident would invite her girlfriends over to check out the firemen and they would oblige by putting on a little show for the ladies.
I somehow doubt lady school teachers would inspire the gay sauna patrons in the same way...
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Baby, we were born to run?
Runners in this new running group I just joined while we were waiting for the others to arrive:
Runner #1: ... I did the London marathon in 4 hours. But that was years ago, not very in shape now.
Runner #2: I could never do a marathon in 4 hours. My body just isn't made that way.
Me (relieved): Me, neither!
Runner #2: I did my last marathon in 5 hours.
I should have taken the metro back home then. Or turned around and run away. At my slowpoke pace. Although, of course, if they wanted to, they could have outrun me.
Not only were the other runners (with the exceptions of #1 and 2) none too friendly, but there was 1 pace group and it seemed like it was 8 minute miles. I was the very last, at least 1 city bock behind them. One other slower runner (although still faster than me) ran with me a little which was really nice of her. I only lasted half of the 9.5K planned. Everyone else already knew each other, had trained together all year and had just run the Paris marathon. Probably in impossibly fast times like 5 minutes, making the previously impressive 4 hour time seem as slow as I was.
A 5K-ish run is still good, right? Especially at around 10am on a Saturday.
Honestly, it's been a hard week, hard month, hard life, etc and running is the one time that I relax and DON'T feel stressed and inadequate (or worry about money-- that's another story). I don't need running to exacerbate these very things that it usually helps me escape. I wasn't enjoying that run. So I stopped.
Honestly, at the start when they ran farther and farther ahead of me, I was near tears and had no idea what I was doing there, in that group, on that run, in Paris, in the world. I haven't been feeling very good about life at the moment. I'm still waiting to hear back about a teaching/course development job that would change my life if I got it and I could have a normal life in Paris instead of living in marginal immigrant poverty like I currently do. And waiting for this decision is making me feel very very desperate.
Anyway, the only bright spots of this generally terrible experience were that runners #1 and 2 agreed that it wasn't normal to have a running group where all the leaders were fast and assured me that it would be worth coming back next Sat. Runner #1 even said that we could do slower Sunday runs together when I start working Sat am again.
Another successful Paris experience, n'est-ce pas?
Runner #1: ... I did the London marathon in 4 hours. But that was years ago, not very in shape now.
Runner #2: I could never do a marathon in 4 hours. My body just isn't made that way.
Me (relieved): Me, neither!
Runner #2: I did my last marathon in 5 hours.
I should have taken the metro back home then. Or turned around and run away. At my slowpoke pace. Although, of course, if they wanted to, they could have outrun me.
Not only were the other runners (with the exceptions of #1 and 2) none too friendly, but there was 1 pace group and it seemed like it was 8 minute miles. I was the very last, at least 1 city bock behind them. One other slower runner (although still faster than me) ran with me a little which was really nice of her. I only lasted half of the 9.5K planned. Everyone else already knew each other, had trained together all year and had just run the Paris marathon. Probably in impossibly fast times like 5 minutes, making the previously impressive 4 hour time seem as slow as I was.
A 5K-ish run is still good, right? Especially at around 10am on a Saturday.
Honestly, it's been a hard week, hard month, hard life, etc and running is the one time that I relax and DON'T feel stressed and inadequate (or worry about money-- that's another story). I don't need running to exacerbate these very things that it usually helps me escape. I wasn't enjoying that run. So I stopped.
Honestly, at the start when they ran farther and farther ahead of me, I was near tears and had no idea what I was doing there, in that group, on that run, in Paris, in the world. I haven't been feeling very good about life at the moment. I'm still waiting to hear back about a teaching/course development job that would change my life if I got it and I could have a normal life in Paris instead of living in marginal immigrant poverty like I currently do. And waiting for this decision is making me feel very very desperate.
Anyway, the only bright spots of this generally terrible experience were that runners #1 and 2 agreed that it wasn't normal to have a running group where all the leaders were fast and assured me that it would be worth coming back next Sat. Runner #1 even said that we could do slower Sunday runs together when I start working Sat am again.
Another successful Paris experience, n'est-ce pas?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Matrix Has You... All Wrong
You know you're living in a virtual world-- and that computers are devoid of standard and respected social norms-- when Facebook suggests you make friends with the person who interviewed you for your dream job last week, whose decision you're desperately awaiting and who hasn't contacted you yet.
Oh, the irony of social networking.
Oh, the irony of social networking.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Um, how did Hemingway pay for his moveable feast?
"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." - E. Hemingway
I'm sure he left because he ran out of money. Or maybe he just stuffed his pockets with as much Fine French Cuisine as possible and fled the restaurant without paying...
I'm sure he left because he ran out of money. Or maybe he just stuffed his pockets with as much Fine French Cuisine as possible and fled the restaurant without paying...
Sunday, May 08, 2011
My First French 10K!
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away-- back in a previous life in Northern California, anyway, I loved to run. I was never athletic as a kid, but I took up running in my late 20s in a half-hearted attempt to run a half marathon as a way to get over a bad breakup. I ended up alternately running and walking that race (the Nike Women's Half Marathon in San Francisco) and taking about 3+ hours to finish and a really long nap afterwards. The next day I thought, why not really, seriously run these things? I later successfully ran 2 half marathons.
When I lived in Berkeley, CA, I ran 4 miles every other day to deal with work stress and could comfortably run 10 miles. I was never fast (10-11 min miles), but I did a lot of races for fun, just as a way to be sure to get a nice run in that weekend in places where I didn't usually run. The longest distance I ever covered was 13.1 miles-- the 2 half marathons I did were the Avenue of Giants half in a beautiful redwood forest with my beloved cousin, who is like a sister to me (the only framed photo I have is of us after the race!), and the San Francisco half all by myself.
When I moved to Paris nearly 5 years ago, I found it impossible to keep up my running. Lots of adjustments to make. I was also a student again and after 6 years out of school, I really felt like I had no real free time and had to study so much, precisely because I'd been out of school so much longer than everyone else in my master's program. There were so many excuses. Here in the city of light:
1. The weather's really bad in the winter (it rains every day-- I find the winter really hard psychologically because we're deprived of sunlight for about 4 months).
2. If you don't live by a park, there's no place to run (streets are always too crowded-- unless you get up at 5 am to run).
3. Everyone stares at runners. Especially men. Especially at a woman in a sportsbra tank top. I could write an entire blog post on the regard parisien, or how women are stared at in Paris...
4. None of my friends run. In a huge change from life in San Francisco, I discovered that there wasn't a culture of fitness in Paris, more a culture of espresso, wine and restaurants. Or so I thought...
5. Finally, gyms are too expensive-- you pay upfront for the year rather than each month and it's a lot of money, even if you can pay in a couple of installments.
However, within the last few months I finally started running again. For real. And I wish I'd done it years ago. I had a gym membership and ran on the treadmill in February and March. Then my membership ran out and I couldn't afford to renew, but started running outside again, mainly from my house to park Monceau (about 3K each way) and each loop around the park is 1K. Running outside is good for the body and the soul. Running on the treadmill is phenomenally boring and I could never really force myself to do more than 5K on it.
So, to motivate myself, enjoy my newfound appreciation for my old hobby and spend time with a dear friend, one of my out of town besties and I signed up to do a 10K in the bois de boulogne last weekend. It was my first organised race in France. And like many things in France, there were several challenges involved-- these were the administrative equivalent of running 6 miles before actually doing it for real on race day!
Challenge 1: French websites. To sign up for the race, the computer refused to accept Tiffi's address b/c it was outside of France. After her non-French zipcode crashed with website 3 times, I just lied and made her my temporary flatmate in France c/o chez moi.
And besides reassuring elderly Geneviève the médecin that we weren' t trying to take on Kenyan olympians, what did we have to do to prove that there was nothing that would prevent us from running the race? To test our fitness, we had to do 30 squats and then have our pulses taken. I'm not kidding. She also listened to our hearts again, which she does with a stethescope (of course) and a travel alarm clock. I guess watches are too modern. You're also not allowed to talk to her during the Heart Listening/Alarm Clock Watching. She can only do so much at once.
Finally, Geneviève the Doctor signed off on her inability to find anything preventing us from running, gave us our notes and we were cleared to run 6 miles. Luckily, I can just keep showing photocopies of the same doctor's note for the next year, so no need to do squats for Geneviève again until next year.
Challenge 3: picking up race packets. This was actually easy, but we rushed there directly after getting the medical note, so we were a little worried. I expected the worst: terrible crowds, no record of our registration, refusal of our medical notes, etc. But it was fine. We had to go to a store called Planet Jogging (ridiculous name, huh? It must makes me thing of another Parisian establishment, a Japanese restaurant chain called Planet Sushi. Another shining star in the rich Parisian cosmos...) to get our race packets. Here, we were presented with our fabulous pink t-shirts which we fell in love with immediately. Best race shirt, hands down. Fancy dri-fit fabric, too. In our packets, we didn't have the usual American swag (like loads of power bars and sports drinks). Just one tiny granola bar about the size of a sugar packet and loads of brochures for other races ("Ooh, let's do this one! You run up a red carpet to a castle and the proceeds go to the Make a Wish Foundation for children with cancer!") I think that was when I realised that there was a running community in Paris afer all, and I was kind of part of it now. Ground control to Major Tom (I run to David Bowie an awful lot) on Planet Jogging!
Last challenge: pins! An épreuve the day of the race was that although we had our race bibs in the race packets, there were no safety pins with them (there usually are in the US). I asked some runners if they had extra pins, no one did and one woman showed me that she'd sewn her number onto her fantastic pink shirt, which struck me as exceptionally bizarre, but to each her own. Finally, we managed to track down some pins and I was proud of myself for dredging up the word épingle (French for safety pin). Thank my friend Odile for that one-- we once went to have her new coat altered and she and the seamstress had a lengthy conversation about how much to take it in and where to put the safety pins!
While the shirts were fantastic (as you'd expect from the world's fashion capital), I think most of the planning went into the shirts, as the logistics of the actual race were a little less impressive. It was a nice run in a forest and I really enjoyed it-- so much that I kind of sang along out loud with Blondie on my iPod, oops. Another really positive point was that near the starting line, they had the nicest portapotties I've ever seen. They had mirrors and running water.
However, the main logistical problems were that they ran out of medals and water at the end of the race! But, hey, we looked great in our pink shirts. Who needs water? Now we know: BYO water and safety pins...
Finally: my running buiddy kind of regretted not bringing her camera to the race, but obviously didn't want to carry it or check anything valuable (you could at least check a bag, which was nice. In retrospect, we should have checked on with some water bottles!)
But here are a few pictures, anyway. Here we are after about kilometer 8 each looking at a different photographer (and my glasses look really weird and heavily pixelated)! Although it looks like we're just standing around holding hands, I assure you we're running like the wind, ha! It's just that you can't see our feet. :)
Here I am, booking it to the finish line (booking it is a highly relative term...) In a philosophical, cultural difference, the finish line is called the arrival line (ligne d'arrivée) in French and the starting line is the ligne de départ. I was excited to see the finish line, since we had to run through a gate, onto the racetrack grounds, and past the clubhouse. I kept asking myself, are we done, is there no real finish line? Then finally, I saw the big inflated arch with the time clock. Ah, there you are, finish line!
All in all, great weather and great company! I'm really glad to have a friend who runs, too, and I'm delighted to be doing races again. It's so motivating and now that I'm running again regularly, I feel a lot less anxious about various ongoing existential crisis issues. And now, of course, I have a 10K time to beat!
So the next 10K? In late June in Paris!
When I lived in Berkeley, CA, I ran 4 miles every other day to deal with work stress and could comfortably run 10 miles. I was never fast (10-11 min miles), but I did a lot of races for fun, just as a way to be sure to get a nice run in that weekend in places where I didn't usually run. The longest distance I ever covered was 13.1 miles-- the 2 half marathons I did were the Avenue of Giants half in a beautiful redwood forest with my beloved cousin, who is like a sister to me (the only framed photo I have is of us after the race!), and the San Francisco half all by myself.
When I moved to Paris nearly 5 years ago, I found it impossible to keep up my running. Lots of adjustments to make. I was also a student again and after 6 years out of school, I really felt like I had no real free time and had to study so much, precisely because I'd been out of school so much longer than everyone else in my master's program. There were so many excuses. Here in the city of light:
1. The weather's really bad in the winter (it rains every day-- I find the winter really hard psychologically because we're deprived of sunlight for about 4 months).
2. If you don't live by a park, there's no place to run (streets are always too crowded-- unless you get up at 5 am to run).
3. Everyone stares at runners. Especially men. Especially at a woman in a sportsbra tank top. I could write an entire blog post on the regard parisien, or how women are stared at in Paris...
4. None of my friends run. In a huge change from life in San Francisco, I discovered that there wasn't a culture of fitness in Paris, more a culture of espresso, wine and restaurants. Or so I thought...
5. Finally, gyms are too expensive-- you pay upfront for the year rather than each month and it's a lot of money, even if you can pay in a couple of installments.
However, within the last few months I finally started running again. For real. And I wish I'd done it years ago. I had a gym membership and ran on the treadmill in February and March. Then my membership ran out and I couldn't afford to renew, but started running outside again, mainly from my house to park Monceau (about 3K each way) and each loop around the park is 1K. Running outside is good for the body and the soul. Running on the treadmill is phenomenally boring and I could never really force myself to do more than 5K on it.
So, to motivate myself, enjoy my newfound appreciation for my old hobby and spend time with a dear friend, one of my out of town besties and I signed up to do a 10K in the bois de boulogne last weekend. It was my first organised race in France. And like many things in France, there were several challenges involved-- these were the administrative equivalent of running 6 miles before actually doing it for real on race day!
Challenge 1: French websites. To sign up for the race, the computer refused to accept Tiffi's address b/c it was outside of France. After her non-French zipcode crashed with website 3 times, I just lied and made her my temporary flatmate in France c/o chez moi.
Challenge 2: The Certificat Medical. Then, we had to get our Doctor's notes. To run any organised race in France, you need a doctor's note "de non-contre indication." Seriously, this just means that they write a note saying that they didn't find anything that would prevent you from running the race safely. This was highly surreal, as my doctor is a sweetheart, but also easily 200 years old with a feeble little voice and fairly out of touch with the modern world of organised running. She asked, will you run all 10kms at once, or will you do half and then take a break? She also warned us not to push ourselves too hard or force ourselves and made the realistic prediction that "vous n'allez pas gagner cette course." (You're not going to win this race). We assured her that our goal was just to have fun and run the distance rather than trying to break records of any kind...
And besides reassuring elderly Geneviève the médecin that we weren' t trying to take on Kenyan olympians, what did we have to do to prove that there was nothing that would prevent us from running the race? To test our fitness, we had to do 30 squats and then have our pulses taken. I'm not kidding. She also listened to our hearts again, which she does with a stethescope (of course) and a travel alarm clock. I guess watches are too modern. You're also not allowed to talk to her during the Heart Listening/Alarm Clock Watching. She can only do so much at once.
Finally, Geneviève the Doctor signed off on her inability to find anything preventing us from running, gave us our notes and we were cleared to run 6 miles. Luckily, I can just keep showing photocopies of the same doctor's note for the next year, so no need to do squats for Geneviève again until next year.
Challenge 3: picking up race packets. This was actually easy, but we rushed there directly after getting the medical note, so we were a little worried. I expected the worst: terrible crowds, no record of our registration, refusal of our medical notes, etc. But it was fine. We had to go to a store called Planet Jogging (ridiculous name, huh? It must makes me thing of another Parisian establishment, a Japanese restaurant chain called Planet Sushi. Another shining star in the rich Parisian cosmos...) to get our race packets. Here, we were presented with our fabulous pink t-shirts which we fell in love with immediately. Best race shirt, hands down. Fancy dri-fit fabric, too. In our packets, we didn't have the usual American swag (like loads of power bars and sports drinks). Just one tiny granola bar about the size of a sugar packet and loads of brochures for other races ("Ooh, let's do this one! You run up a red carpet to a castle and the proceeds go to the Make a Wish Foundation for children with cancer!") I think that was when I realised that there was a running community in Paris afer all, and I was kind of part of it now. Ground control to Major Tom (I run to David Bowie an awful lot) on Planet Jogging!
Last challenge: pins! An épreuve the day of the race was that although we had our race bibs in the race packets, there were no safety pins with them (there usually are in the US). I asked some runners if they had extra pins, no one did and one woman showed me that she'd sewn her number onto her fantastic pink shirt, which struck me as exceptionally bizarre, but to each her own. Finally, we managed to track down some pins and I was proud of myself for dredging up the word épingle (French for safety pin). Thank my friend Odile for that one-- we once went to have her new coat altered and she and the seamstress had a lengthy conversation about how much to take it in and where to put the safety pins!
While the shirts were fantastic (as you'd expect from the world's fashion capital), I think most of the planning went into the shirts, as the logistics of the actual race were a little less impressive. It was a nice run in a forest and I really enjoyed it-- so much that I kind of sang along out loud with Blondie on my iPod, oops. Another really positive point was that near the starting line, they had the nicest portapotties I've ever seen. They had mirrors and running water.
However, the main logistical problems were that they ran out of medals and water at the end of the race! But, hey, we looked great in our pink shirts. Who needs water? Now we know: BYO water and safety pins...
Finally: my running buiddy kind of regretted not bringing her camera to the race, but obviously didn't want to carry it or check anything valuable (you could at least check a bag, which was nice. In retrospect, we should have checked on with some water bottles!)
But here are a few pictures, anyway. Here we are after about kilometer 8 each looking at a different photographer (and my glasses look really weird and heavily pixelated)! Although it looks like we're just standing around holding hands, I assure you we're running like the wind, ha! It's just that you can't see our feet. :)
Here I am, booking it to the finish line (booking it is a highly relative term...) In a philosophical, cultural difference, the finish line is called the arrival line (ligne d'arrivée) in French and the starting line is the ligne de départ. I was excited to see the finish line, since we had to run through a gate, onto the racetrack grounds, and past the clubhouse. I kept asking myself, are we done, is there no real finish line? Then finally, I saw the big inflated arch with the time clock. Ah, there you are, finish line!
All in all, great weather and great company! I'm really glad to have a friend who runs, too, and I'm delighted to be doing races again. It's so motivating and now that I'm running again regularly, I feel a lot less anxious about various ongoing existential crisis issues. And now, of course, I have a 10K time to beat!
So the next 10K? In late June in Paris!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Parisian Dream Revisited
Awhile ago I posted about the Parisian dream which I suggested was to be a fonctionnaire, send your French children to a grande école (a top university) or to have a country house in Normandie. I was kidding. But not really.
Here's an update. The Parisian dream, what we want but what remains unattainable to all my friends (French and foreign alike) and me, all kidding aside, is this: a CDI or a permanent job.
This is the magical French sentence that means you have succeeded in French life as we know it: je suis passé en CDI.
Here's an update. The Parisian dream, what we want but what remains unattainable to all my friends (French and foreign alike) and me, all kidding aside, is this: a CDI or a permanent job.
This is the magical French sentence that means you have succeeded in French life as we know it: je suis passé en CDI.
Los Numeros: Week Recap
Desperately Seeking Stability...
Number of emotional breakdowns about how unstable my job is (hourly wage, no guaranteed number of hours per week or per month, etc.) brought on by only having half the teaching hours I need this week and feeling really financially precarious: 2.
1 of these breakdowns resulted in me bursting into tears in the metro and 2 women who were complete strangers to me were really conforting. I was amazed.
All immigrants want is some kind of stability in a foreign country. It seems like you have to be willing to invest 20 years in your adopted country, though, to achieve this. I, of course, am undecided about how much more time I want to spend in France, and, well, more or less everything at the moment. Undecided. C'est moi.
Money is my greatest source of stress in France and I'm so tired of worrying about it.
But on the bright side, number of possible job interviews this week for a more stable postion: 1. At a good international company.
Number of lengthy discussions (in French, English and very very broken Spanish) about new strategy for said possible job interview: 4.
Number of Spanish/English conversation exchanges: 2 (!) One was at my house and the other was at this big British Colonial Empire type cafe called Le fumoir. Fun to go to a new place!
Number of delicious Indian dinners: 1.
Number of workouts: 3. Ran 5 k twice this week (and I always stretch and do crunches for half an hour after) and did Body Pump (a weight training class that resulted in unbelievable back and arm soreness) and Body Balance (yoga) yesterday.
Fastest running pace: 9:05 minute miles.
Dismal total number of teaching hours this week: 9.5. I need double that per week to have a decent salary. Sigh.
Number of fun evenings with friends: 4. The good social life makes up for the unstable professional life a little, though.
Number of emotional breakdowns about how unstable my job is (hourly wage, no guaranteed number of hours per week or per month, etc.) brought on by only having half the teaching hours I need this week and feeling really financially precarious: 2.
1 of these breakdowns resulted in me bursting into tears in the metro and 2 women who were complete strangers to me were really conforting. I was amazed.
All immigrants want is some kind of stability in a foreign country. It seems like you have to be willing to invest 20 years in your adopted country, though, to achieve this. I, of course, am undecided about how much more time I want to spend in France, and, well, more or less everything at the moment. Undecided. C'est moi.
Money is my greatest source of stress in France and I'm so tired of worrying about it.
But on the bright side, number of possible job interviews this week for a more stable postion: 1. At a good international company.
Number of lengthy discussions (in French, English and very very broken Spanish) about new strategy for said possible job interview: 4.
Number of Spanish/English conversation exchanges: 2 (!) One was at my house and the other was at this big British Colonial Empire type cafe called Le fumoir. Fun to go to a new place!
Number of delicious Indian dinners: 1.
Number of workouts: 3. Ran 5 k twice this week (and I always stretch and do crunches for half an hour after) and did Body Pump (a weight training class that resulted in unbelievable back and arm soreness) and Body Balance (yoga) yesterday.
Fastest running pace: 9:05 minute miles.
Dismal total number of teaching hours this week: 9.5. I need double that per week to have a decent salary. Sigh.
Number of fun evenings with friends: 4. The good social life makes up for the unstable professional life a little, though.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Etoiles filantes dans le métro
Métro, ligne 4. Les passagers ne se regardent pas dans les yeux, personne ne parle ni sourit, et tout le monde a l'air impatient et énervé, comme d'hab. Puis, tout un coup:
Mec, vous ne cherchez pas un batteur par hasard?-- mec cool assis qui a l'air jazz/soul.
Si, on en cherche un!-- mec debout très mince indie rock avec une guitare et les cheveux en bataille.
Les groupes de rock cherchent toujours un batteur.
Je suis batteur de rock depuis 10 ans, je vous file mon numéro.-- mec jazz/soul.
D'accord, je le prends, cool. On s'appelle.-- mec indie rock.
J'ai souri en sortant, les gens qui échangent et créent même un lien, ca n'arrive presque jamais dans le métro. Chaque personne est normalement sur sa propre planète dans les transports, mais aujourd’hui il y avait un rare contact entre deux étoiles filantes qui faisaient tous les deux partie du même univers : celui de la musique.
Mec, vous ne cherchez pas un batteur par hasard?-- mec cool assis qui a l'air jazz/soul.
Si, on en cherche un!-- mec debout très mince indie rock avec une guitare et les cheveux en bataille.
Les groupes de rock cherchent toujours un batteur.
Je suis batteur de rock depuis 10 ans, je vous file mon numéro.-- mec jazz/soul.
D'accord, je le prends, cool. On s'appelle.-- mec indie rock.
J'ai souri en sortant, les gens qui échangent et créent même un lien, ca n'arrive presque jamais dans le métro. Chaque personne est normalement sur sa propre planète dans les transports, mais aujourd’hui il y avait un rare contact entre deux étoiles filantes qui faisaient tous les deux partie du même univers : celui de la musique.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
5K Family Fun!
So, like many people, after saying, oh, I have to get to the gym this week and I really have to go running and doing nothing all week and thus wasting yet another week of expensive gym membership, I'm serious about getting back into running shape. The benefits are endless. Your legs look fantastic, you feel little guilt if you eat chocolate and can always rationalise it by saying, I just ran 3 miles. However, most importantly, it's great for stress management. When I was in my best running shape of my life, it was also when I had the most stressful job in my life and I really think regular runs kept me sane despite finding myself in daily life-or-death situations (I worked in animal welfare).
The big motivation here is that my Dad just started running and recently ran a mile, his first since before I was born (and, er, I'm in my 30s!) Go, Dad! So we decided to do a 5K run together in the US when I'm there in August for my annual vacation, and we're both psyched about it. For the past 2 years, my mom and I have done an annual 5K together when I visit. She walks and I run. This summer, the whole family (it's just the 3 of us) will be out 5K-ing!
I'm feeling inspired. If my Dad can get back into running shape, I can certainly get back into doing regular 5ks or more-- I've only been running once every 2 weeks or so lately, which is terrible. 4 years ago when I lived in Healthly Lifestyle Land (San Francisco instead of Paris), I did regular 4 mile runs at least 3-4 times a week, a weekly 10-miler and 3 half marathons. Since I was in good running shape at one point in my life, I am still generally lucky enough to be able to manage 30 minutes on the treadmill, even if it's been months since my last run. But I'd like to retrouver la forme, as they say.
I also feel like there are lots of things in my life that I can't control at the moment, but deciding to run for 30 minutes and then doing it is one of the few things that I do control and that depends only on me and no one else.
Bonne course, alors!
The big motivation here is that my Dad just started running and recently ran a mile, his first since before I was born (and, er, I'm in my 30s!) Go, Dad! So we decided to do a 5K run together in the US when I'm there in August for my annual vacation, and we're both psyched about it. For the past 2 years, my mom and I have done an annual 5K together when I visit. She walks and I run. This summer, the whole family (it's just the 3 of us) will be out 5K-ing!
I'm feeling inspired. If my Dad can get back into running shape, I can certainly get back into doing regular 5ks or more-- I've only been running once every 2 weeks or so lately, which is terrible. 4 years ago when I lived in Healthly Lifestyle Land (San Francisco instead of Paris), I did regular 4 mile runs at least 3-4 times a week, a weekly 10-miler and 3 half marathons. Since I was in good running shape at one point in my life, I am still generally lucky enough to be able to manage 30 minutes on the treadmill, even if it's been months since my last run. But I'd like to retrouver la forme, as they say.
I also feel like there are lots of things in my life that I can't control at the moment, but deciding to run for 30 minutes and then doing it is one of the few things that I do control and that depends only on me and no one else.
Bonne course, alors!
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Psychosis and the City
I was thinking about how some cities have their own correpsonding psychological disorder. Like the Stockholm Syndrome, for example. Although as I understand it, this doesn't literally have much of anything to do with Stockholm itself or the Swedish urban experience. Which is probably for sale at Ikea, but you have to assemble it yourself with no real tools except a little metal turn-y thing.
Not to be outdone by Stockholm, Paris is also part of the proud and the few with their Own Unique Syndrome. And unlike Stockholm, this is really about the experience of Paris itself. The Paris Syndrome is a documented psychological disorder mainly found to affect Japanese people who come to Paris. It's more or less a nervous depression brought on by how little the real Paris lives up to romanticised Japanese notions of Paris, and probably exacerbated, I think, by larger cultural differences between the east and the west. In the 80s, a psychologist studied patients, treated them and most of them returned to Japan. If you don't believe me, you can google, wikipedia or whatever-other-website-names-have-now-become-English-verbs Paris Syndrome... It's even in that big red book of all the psychological disorders known to man.
Paris can sometimes seem to do its best to cause nervous depression, I know lots of people who probably suffer from this psychological disorder. The lack of sunlight all winter is fairly brutal and the skies, buildings, streets and people all start to take on the same shade of Hausemannian grey stone from the mid-19th century. But I think in a strange way, we do have a community and I'm grateful for the form that this takes. I am part of an international community for the first time in my life and I appreciate what a cosmopolitan a place I live in.
Within this cosmopolitan world, most people I know are looking for better jobs and better apartments. There's an element of being on a constant quest here that is by turns inspiring since we're all looking for something and striving towards this elusive goal and that's the human condition, really, but also by turns depressing in that it means that Paris has a high concentration of currently dissatisfied people.
Organised cultural events also help. Community building events in Paris are the annual fêtes when you can tour national monuments for free, the nights when the museums stay open for free and a day when musicians perform on the street all night for free. While most people appreciate these events and participate in them, we also simultaneously hate being in crowds in public...
In the film Crash, one of the characters said something about how we're all just reaching out to try to touch each other and interpreted car accidents as an attempt to find human contact. While car accidents are obviously caused by poor driving and not urban alienation, I do think that being part of a crowd in a city is simultaneously a lonely and violent experience. Just ride the metro during rush hour sometime.
Although everyone is very much in their own world of suffering in the metro during rush hour each morning, for example, I think a recent blogging trend shows how much people want to try to feel connected to those who share their urban experience. Blogs like L'inconnu dans le metro and others give short profiles of everyday people on the metro, or foreigners visiting Paris, or people who work in specific industries in Paris. My new blog also fits into this urban community outreach catagory, too. (It's a collection of profiles of different language teachers in Paris as a way to share and compare teaching experiences). We're curious about each other. We'd like to get to know each other. But maybe just not too up close and personal, despite-- or because of-- how we're always crowded into the same small public spaces. We'll still keep our digital distance over the internet. Where we can comfortably analyse our relationship with crowds and public urban spaces without being IN them and diagnose our own brand of the Paris Syndrome...
Not to be outdone by Stockholm, Paris is also part of the proud and the few with their Own Unique Syndrome. And unlike Stockholm, this is really about the experience of Paris itself. The Paris Syndrome is a documented psychological disorder mainly found to affect Japanese people who come to Paris. It's more or less a nervous depression brought on by how little the real Paris lives up to romanticised Japanese notions of Paris, and probably exacerbated, I think, by larger cultural differences between the east and the west. In the 80s, a psychologist studied patients, treated them and most of them returned to Japan. If you don't believe me, you can google, wikipedia or whatever-other-website-names-have-now-become-English-verbs Paris Syndrome... It's even in that big red book of all the psychological disorders known to man.
Paris can sometimes seem to do its best to cause nervous depression, I know lots of people who probably suffer from this psychological disorder. The lack of sunlight all winter is fairly brutal and the skies, buildings, streets and people all start to take on the same shade of Hausemannian grey stone from the mid-19th century. But I think in a strange way, we do have a community and I'm grateful for the form that this takes. I am part of an international community for the first time in my life and I appreciate what a cosmopolitan a place I live in.
Within this cosmopolitan world, most people I know are looking for better jobs and better apartments. There's an element of being on a constant quest here that is by turns inspiring since we're all looking for something and striving towards this elusive goal and that's the human condition, really, but also by turns depressing in that it means that Paris has a high concentration of currently dissatisfied people.
Organised cultural events also help. Community building events in Paris are the annual fêtes when you can tour national monuments for free, the nights when the museums stay open for free and a day when musicians perform on the street all night for free. While most people appreciate these events and participate in them, we also simultaneously hate being in crowds in public...
In the film Crash, one of the characters said something about how we're all just reaching out to try to touch each other and interpreted car accidents as an attempt to find human contact. While car accidents are obviously caused by poor driving and not urban alienation, I do think that being part of a crowd in a city is simultaneously a lonely and violent experience. Just ride the metro during rush hour sometime.
Although everyone is very much in their own world of suffering in the metro during rush hour each morning, for example, I think a recent blogging trend shows how much people want to try to feel connected to those who share their urban experience. Blogs like L'inconnu dans le metro and others give short profiles of everyday people on the metro, or foreigners visiting Paris, or people who work in specific industries in Paris. My new blog also fits into this urban community outreach catagory, too. (It's a collection of profiles of different language teachers in Paris as a way to share and compare teaching experiences). We're curious about each other. We'd like to get to know each other. But maybe just not too up close and personal, despite-- or because of-- how we're always crowded into the same small public spaces. We'll still keep our digital distance over the internet. Where we can comfortably analyse our relationship with crowds and public urban spaces without being IN them and diagnose our own brand of the Paris Syndrome...
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