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).
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