And the Cesar Goes To...

Paris, France can boast many titles-- city of light, centre of culture, home of great wine, cheese, museums, artists, some musicians.

Here's a new one: the highest concentration of unhappy people, possibly in the world. France has the highest rate of anti-depressant consumption in all of Europe and most of the French population lives in Paris.

It doesn't seem to be helping.

As Tolstoy once said (ha, try to work that into everyday conversation!), all happy families are boring. Unhappy ones are interesting, since there are so many ways to be unhappy. I don't agree that being depressed makes you especially deep or complex, let alone intriguing. It seems like it mainly just makes you rude in the metro.

The End of the Affair

A disillusioned ex-pat friend of mine told me that she sees Paris as a beautiful glamourous ice princess like Catherine Deneuve or Carole Lombard with a blond chignon, big dark sunglasses, expensive jewelery, a trenchcoat and heels, who you're initially fascinated and seduced by and then when you get to know her, you realise there's nothing inside.

A little extreme, maybe. I'm sometimes (ok, often) disappointed in my Paris experience, too, but I also think that there are some very positive points about Paris-- the shallow ice queen probably still goes to amazing museum exhibits and the comedie francaise, takes classes at the louvre and has become more or less bilingual-- even if just seems to serve to show her how she will never feel truly at home in French culture because it's too different from the Anglophone world, this is still an important realisation.

Living in 2 languages-- or more like one and a half, since I spend most of my time teaching English and much less time socialising in French, we all end up collecting lots of little vocab/cultural differences. For example, when my expat friend mentioned that Paris seduced her, it makes me think that in French, you can use the verb seduire in a very casual way to mean something you like or something that impresses you. Like an effective tv commercial can seduce you. Or a cute baby can seduce everyone (I know, it sounds weird and incestuous). Or a student can seduce the jury. One of my students once told me this in English and I told him, no if you say you have to seduce the jury, it sounds like you will compliment the jury, bring them flowers, invite them to dinner and then take them back to your place. We generally are less figurative about seduction in English.

Paris still impresses, I guess in that sense I'm seduced, but not completely convinced or conquored, as they say in French. I don't always like her, but I'm not at the point where I'm about to move away. However, at the same time, there are probably other cities that would suit me better.

Living abroad makes an ordinarily introspective person about 10 times more so. To some extent this is probably good for you. Taken to an extreme, it's probably a waste of energy. I'm still trying to find a balance.

I imagine a more down to earth and friendlier city like Montreal would wear a ratty old ski jacket because what's important is that it keeps her warm not how she looks in it and she'd laugh loudly and smile a lot and maybe have messy hair instead of a perfect platinum knot a la Catherine Deneuve. But then again, I also don't really know what seduire means in Canadian French. Life might not necessarily be easier to negotiate there.

"La prochaine fois, je prendrai le bus."-- Grand Corps Malade

Like everyone who lives here, I sometimes find this city spectacular and I sometimes find it unlivable (sp? I only created that word after saying "invivable" in French...) Lately, I've been oscillating between the 2 extremes, as usual, but ultimately this week, I ended up leaning more towards the unlivable side of the spectrum. I still have a hard time dealing with how inconsiderate most people are in public. There's an agressivity that you see here-- especially in the metro during rush hour-- that I sometimes find truly upsetting.

A recent torturous metro commute:

A man pushed his way onto the crowded metro during rush hour, we're talking human bulldozer. After he shoved me, I said, 'I'm sorry, monsieur, there isn't any room, please don't push us.' He replied, 'yes, there is room. If I push, it's so I can stand at the back of the car to leave room for other people. You should think of other people, madame, you're not the only one on the metro.'

Incredible, eh? I'm selfish because he pushed me. Perhaps he expects the nobel peace prize for pushing people on the metro for the greater good of humanity, for the hypothetical comfort of future passengers, a small sacrifice for the selfishly non-pushy passengers actually on the train.

Honestly, only in a Parisian's twisted and self-absorbed world view would this make *me* the rude one.

Semantics

I realised today that I'd completely misunderstood the lyrics to this one song I like (an electronica bossa nova rap called Dans La Merco Benz by Bemjamin Biolay). Instead of professing his love, the singer actually says he doesn't feel it anymore.

"Mon amour est lasse," not "mon amoureuse."

Funny how these can sound similar.

Blog posting?

Who has time for that?

I've been working a lot lately. Honestly looking forward to forced vacation over the holidays (which I thought I would dread). That would be when all my students take their vacations, thus forcing me to do the same, as I will have no one in Paris to teach English to. The week of Dec. 21 should be relatively quiet. But it's crazy busy until then.

Ultimately, I'm happier working more hours but with interested, motivated adult students in Paris then fewer hours with bratty, unmotivated ones in the suburbs. But it's tiring, allright. I often need a lot of quiet time in the evening since it's draining being dynamic for a living. Especially if you do it for 32 hours a week, like I will next week. Yikes. I recently moved to a new apartment which I love and this has been a great place to come home to and cocoon after a long day of being winsome, patient, interesting, engaged and capable of explaining English verb tenses.

Today I had some cancellations (free time during the week for the first time in ages) and how did I spend it? Doing errands and French administrative tasks, of course. Things like updating my carte vitale, laundry, updating my address at the bank, scheduling future classes with my students. I guess stuff that regular people do on weekends. I, however, work on Saturdays. While Sunday is my day of rest, nothing is open then and I am therefore always one step behind the French administration. Not that they really advance that much, though, so it's usually easy to catch up.

Boxes make me nauseous

I'm moving again. But this time I'm being an adult about it. Meaning that I hired a mover with a van. He calls it the Man Van, or the Camionnette de l'homme. Packing things in boxes to take in the van instead of suitcases to take in the metro. Which I guess shows that my station of life has slightly improved since my last metro/taxi moves. Although I did have an actual boyfriend who helped for one of the past moves. But then again, he had a bicycle, not a man van.

All that stands between my nice apartment with a balcony with a view of Sacre Coeur and me is: 6 flights of stairs, a giant suitcase, 12 boxes, 3 pieces of furniture and a cross town drive.

Ils twitent, donc ils sont

Doesn't Twitter sound like the most boring thing imaginable? I don't think I could ever really care about it. I think it's for the same people who feverishly update their facebook status from their cell phones. Because they just have to tell everyone when they're eating a bagel and are so caught up in the urgent nature of this breaking news that they can't wait for the old computer to crank up. I mean, that takes like 30 whole seconds and by then they might be done with their bagel and doing something else. Like drinking orange juice. Oops, time for a new update.

Even this post about Twitter is boring. And while Twitter is also boring, this post unfortunately is not, therefore a Twitter update. It somehow escapes this syllogismic logic because it's not appopriate Twitter length as it's over 140 characters, making it too long for our short attention span self-obsession. And uses complete sentences.

Twitter might, however, be useful for ESL lessons working on use of the present continuous, though. Perhaps this will change the way we teach English verb tenses abroad.

Although if Parisians twitted, they'd probably stay away from hyperactive Anglo-Saxon "I'm making coffee, and reading the paper, painting the house and investing in the stock market" twits and might find this a very foreign concept. They'd probably tend to write things more like, "I hate all of my fellow metro commuters." Or "bof" or if feeling more eloquent, their unique brand of incomprehensible philosophy like "modality is at once a concept and a theory." Ultimately, though, perhaps they'd try to put into words the most eloquent of French sentiments, "Pfft."

Getting the Message Across-- in Innovative and Delicious Ways!

What's the most effective way to send out a national message about breast cancer awareness? Advertising in the metro? Articles in the paper? TV spots? Organize fundraising events? Print up t-shirts?

Mais, non.

Ask all the bakeries to print it on their baguette wrappers.

This week, the bakeries in about half of the districts in Paris all wrapped their baguettes in paper containing a breast cancer awareness message informing women over the age of 50 that they needed breast exams every 2 years. Even more bakeries will participate in the older woman breast cancer awarness campaign next year.

France is serious not only about its baguette consumption, but also about the health and well-being of older women's breasts.

See the link below if you read French and don't believe me:

http://www.paris.fr/portail/accueil/Portal.lut?page_id=1&document_type_id=2&document_id=74545&portlet_id=21961

Attention, Ikea Shoppers

While there is always a feeling of otherness and being an outsider that clings to us foreigners like the odor of a camembert that you had in the fridge 5 days ago, today France was very literal about this figurative outsider status when parisian crowds prevented me from finding a parking place and thus entering the shrine to home nesting that is Ikea.

Perhaps I shouldn't read too much into it, but I'm sure the Montreal Ikea ALWAYS has available parking. I'm also slowly starting to realise that Paris may not be where I will ultimately nest. This is not a decision I made based on the Ikea parking situation, but it makes a neat parallel, doesn't it?

Not only was Ikea crowded, but people were out in droves today for a ridiculous little suburban yardsale (I occasionally visit suburbs, especially since the only people I know with cars tend to live in them, as this the only way to ensure available parking) and they parked in every apartment complex driveway, available patch of roadside space, along the side of the highway and even in some little used lanes. Since apparently we don't really need to use all of them. Not when there's a YARDSALE going on, for heaven's sake. Why not stationner le citroen on the autoroute? Maybe we'll find an inexpensive coffee table. Or some used power tools.

This shows the desperate lack of social activities in the suburbs, I think, that a yardsale had the whole place more parked up today than the city of Berkeley, CA during a Cal game.

All of Ile-de-France seemed bafflingly devoted to going to extreme lengths in the pursuit of home decoration this afternoon. True to my fighting can-do spirit, I gave up and went home.

Ah, well, another thread in life's rich tapestry. Which is probably for sale at the Troc et Puce Yardsale or Ikea as the perfect home accessory.

Being Indifferent

I guess most people are. [Shrug]. Bof.

Pros and Cons

Things that are hard in France:
Opening a bank account
Starting internet service with Free
Finding a well-paying job
Finding an apartment
Making friends
Meeting men
Getting paid for overtime hours
Feeling like you actually live in France when you speak English all day (inevitable when you're an English teacher!)

Things that are easy in France:
Doing money transfers
Filling out French tax forms
Starting internet service with Darty
Getting apartment insurance
Finding a low-paying job
Finding yourself lost in the crowd
Impressing people by complaining
Communicating through sighing and using humourous facial expressions
Feeling a bit like a cartoon character-- or like you're IN a cartoon. Or a surrealist painting. Or the theater of the absurd.

At the moment, Paris is:

Ancient civilizations at the Louvre, Marivaux plays and Tiffany exhibits. And photocopies. I am more or less a professional photocopier. Or would that be photocopiest?

My whole job hinges upon locating relevant material to photocopy, going over it with my students, and pretending in this way to teach them things. They seem pleased with my photocopy choices for the most part. Besides explaining photocopies, I'm also a professional conversationalist.

Paris is also apartment-hunting stess and shock at exorbitant rents mingled with simultaneous relief to be living under socialism despite the current rental market. The French government will now officially reimburse me 100% of costs related to my rare and expensive metabolic problem. Hoping they will also similarly help me pay my sure-to-be-expensive rent. As about 300% of my salary is deducted to pay for various welfare programs, feel no shame in applying for one.

So Much to Live For-- or Job Satisfaction Among English Teachers at French Universities

Wondering how the anglophones like teaching at public French universities? Here's an email I got recently from an ESL jobs in France listserve which gives quite the insight by sending a welcome note to newly recruited anglophones complete with a suicide hotline number. While I generally acknowledge that teaching at a public French University was for me hands down the least satisfying job of my entire life, I also think that the universities themselves should try to improve the experience of their anglophone colleagues-- rather than refering us to a call center! A well-placed orientation session at the beginning of the year to help us set our expectations properly would do wonders, as would having even mildly welcoming French co-workers and some semblance of team work... I've heard tell of such things at other universities in France, but they did not happen to exist in mine.

An ex-coworker of mine wanted to implement a mentor system for foreign professors in their first year of teaching at a French uni and I always thought this would be an excellent idea. But of course, the French did not. Being a university prof in this country often does not include collaborating with colleagues who teach different sections of the same class. It's largely everyone for themselves. They seem to see their jobs more as improvising brillant lectures, insulting their students and then going home or to the bourgeois country home for a 4-day weekend.

In all fairness, it's not only the attitudes of my coworkers that contributed to my previous French university misery. The French academic system is in some ways the inverse of the American one. The pros are that it's very democratic; everyone has a chance to study at the uni since it's virtually free and everyone who passes the Bac gets a place. Yay for socialism!

The cons are that there's no selection process in advance, so essentially the whole first year replaces the application process and wastes everyone's time enormously. Professors told me that our job was to weed out the bad students and that 65% of the students would and should fail out after their first year. A system that relies on a majority failing would be deemed broken in the US, in France it's the norm and generally what professors of first year students must uphold. The students themselves lack motivation-- sadly, paying a $25,000 tuition does way more for your motivation levels than paying 200 euros. I only skipped 1 undergrad class in my life because I calculated exactly how much I paid (despite grants and scholarships) per credit hour.

I could go on about how teaching 1st year students at a public university en banlieue was the biggest culture shock since I arrived in France, but you're starting to get the picture. All you need to know is that it's more like an extension of high school in terms of maturity levels and quality of teaching-- each professor does whatever they want, is often incredibly condescending to their students and colleagues alike and creates their own highly inconsistant syllabus-- all this under more or less direct orders to fail the majority of our students.

So bearing all this in mind, here is one professor's attempt to support foreign colleagues and introduce them to this alien system. I guess you have to give him points for trying and for recognizing that sometimes foreigners are unhappy in this system. But how best to prepare his foreign colleagues for the French academic system? Not by explaining it, working with them more closely or making any useful changes at home, at the uni itself, but by telling them en masse who to call if they're feeling like ending it all. The suicide hotline speaks English, after all, how comforting! Good work, French universities! And I thought you just didn't care. At least you outsource.

If you read French, you will see that this seems like an anti-marketing campaign for working in a public French university. The new recruits must be either highly entertained or horrified... Anyway, here's a warm welcome for anglophone professors to the world of French academia:

Chers collègues, Je me permets de diffuser à nouveau des informations que j'avais déjà communiquées il y a 4 ans, à l'intention notamment des collègues recrutés récemment. L'association SOS Help, branche anglophone de SOS Amitié, existe depuis 1974. Elle est gérée par des bénévoles sous le haut patronage de Lady Westmacott, épouse de l'ambassadeur de Grande-Bretagne à Paris. Comme SOS Amitié, il s'agit d'un service téléphonique à l'intention de gens qui se sentent seuls, déprimés, ou même suicidaires. Les écoutants, qui ont tous suivi une formation, sont originaires de différents pays anglophones. Je pense qu'il pourrait être utile de signaler l'existence de ce service aux lecteurs, maîtres de langue et étudiants anglophones qui exercent ou étudient dans nos établissements.

J'ai moi-même été responsable du recrutement et de l'encadrement des lecteurs et maîtres de langue anglophones à Paris 3 pendant de nombreuses années et je sais qu'il arrive que certains de ces jeunes collègues passent par des moments de découragement, voire de dépression - parfois pour des motifs en apparence insignifiants. Certains peuvent même être amenés à abandonner leur poste ou leurs études en cours d'année. Le fait de pouvoir appeler un service d'écoute anonyme, en langue anglaise, situé en France, peut les aider à surmonter un moment difficile. Le numéro d'appel est le : 01 46 21 46 46 et la ligne est ouverte tous les jours de 15h à 23h. Vous trouverez des informations concernant l'association sur le site: <http://www.soshelpline.org/>www.soshelpline.org>

Falling Towers

Sitting out in the sunshine today in a near suburb of Paris before my afternoon class reminded me with a start of September 11th 8 years ago on a different continent. What struck so many people that day, including me, was that after seeing horrific unreal action film-like footage over and over on TV and learning of sudden tragedy upon arriving sleepily at work, the weather was beautiful. It just didn't match and seemed not just inappropriate, but like a deep yet surreal form of betrayal. When my office was evacuated and I walked home since the metro wasn't running, I remember that the sun was out and the sky, the same sky that the twin towers once scraped and that the planes exploded in, was blue and cloudless. A recent trip to Germany where I visited the Dachau concentration camp under sunshine and blue skies inspired a similar feeling of meteorologic betrayal.

I lived in Washington, DC September 11, 2001, and I remember the following:

Before evacuating the building where I worked, we all watched the news mutely, breathlessly, watching the crash, the people jumping-- the same scenes over and over that seemed like they'd come out of Hollywood's best action thrillers. An NPR story that I heard later and have since never been able to find mentioned a crowd watching the collapse of the 2nd tower and described people instinctively outstretching their hands as if to try to hold up the tower and prevent it from falling. It was literally a beautiful gesture.

We were in a communication vacuum-- all the TV news simply showed the same images, they didn't even know how to interpret or analyze them. I tried to phone my family after the Pentagon was hit to reassure them I was fine, but all circuits were busy and no one could get through. I tried to organize office carpools so that my suburban coworkers could get home despite the closure of the metro and then we were told that for our own safety, the building would be evacuated and that we should call in the next day to see if it would be open.

The papers the next day had full page photos of what looked like the apocalypse.

If the defining question for my parents' generation was 'where were you when Kennedy was assasinated,' it become 'where were you on September 11th'? For the rest of the year, at parties everyone took turns relating the events of their September 11th.

The cultural memory of this event was obscured and tainted, I think, after the way the Bush Administration invoked and exploited it as justification for undemocratic measures like the Patriot Act and a ludicrous premise for another war in Iraq. For this reason, it's hard to find any sort of memorial events for the victims on this day outside of NYC. 2 years ago, I looked in vain for candlelight vigils in Paris on September 11th. Not only to remember those who died in the towers and their bereft friends and families, but also rescue workers, firemen, and policemen who risked their lives, and might today still suffer from stress, trauma or debilitating health problems from exposure to the dust and toxins on the day when TriBeCa also became known by the name Ground Zero.


What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
-T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Anniversaires

In French 'birthday' and 'anniversary' are the same word. My birthday was yesterday and the anniversary of my arrival in France is Sept. 1, so I'm suspended between anniversaires at the moment. Which is so far a pleasant sensation-- although that could just be the effect of being on a sunny terrace by the canal.

Small Things That Make Me Marvel

-The couple next to me at a restuarant tonight gave my friend and me their full pitcher of water when we'd finished ours. "We wouldn't let you die of thirst, after all," they told us. In a city where strangers are rarely allowed to speak to each other, this was a miraculous gesture. I think the rules are suspended in August-- so few Parisians stay in town this month, those of us who do try to bond a little rather than hate each other and look grumpy, like we do the rest of the year.

-The waiter of the same restaurant ran down the street after me to give me their business card. I'd asked for one but they said they didn't have any more, but could print out the address for me. I said I hadn't wanted to bother them since they didn't have any more, the waiter assured me it was no problem and hoped it was ok that he'd only brought one for me.

-The UCG cinema at Les Halles (a crowded underground mall that is perhaps my very definiton of Hell) when it's TOTALLY EMPTY in August. It was actually pleasant. They always post how many seats are left for each film; there were something like 198 left for the Kristin Scott Thomas film I saw today. (KST fabulous as usual, film fairly disappointing, though).

-Unexpected professional opportunities, like translating a video game. They guy who hired me and I tutoie each other, even though we met for the first time yesterday. Although I'm sure it'll be a lot of hard work, this makes it seem friendly and laidback. Most anything involving digital media reminds me of the Bay Area, and makes me therefore feel irrationally comfortable with a field that I, in fact, know practically nothing about.

-Learning about my language teacher coworkers' hidden talents. Heard that one used to be a professional croupier in a Las Vegas casino and another one's a martial arts expert.

-New friends (who are practically housemates and who I've meant to spend time with for ages and am only getting around to it now. But better late than never.)

-Free outdoor films under the stars-- followed by nutella crepes and ice cream by the Eiffel Tower.

-Sunshine until 10 pm.

Burning Bridges-- But in a Good Way

Burning your bridges is usually a bad thing, but it's important to end relationships (personal or professional) when you need to. I've been burning some bridges lately and it's been very positive. Burning might be a bit too dramatic a term for it-- maybe more like warming on low heat under careful supervision and after a considered decision.

The first bridge I undid was professional. I'd tentatively accepted a part-time job on the side for next year that, upon closer reflection, I realised I had no desire at all to do. Rather than spending time and energy on commuting (the weekly commute would have been as long as my single class there), preparation, grading, stress, etc., I realize that my energy resources are limited and I'd really prefer to put them towards my current job and ultimately towards trying to find a non-teaching job in Paris. There MUST be other things bilingual folks can do here. This year, I'm determined to identify some, such as translation or editing, and ultimately change fields.

The second bridge I demolished (yes, this one gets a more dramatic verb) was personal. I ended a possible relationship that was more or less over but threatened to start up again. In French, ending all contact is called "couper les ponts" (cutting, not burning bridges). My bridge-cutting was met with understanding, if also some defensive complaining, but ultimately, the once troubled water under the pont coupé ran smoothly, quietly and undisturbed again. On both sides of the river, I think.

I live along a canal surrounded by bridges. I myself am often a bridge between cultures. The last French guy I met, for example, asked me about all kinds of American stereotypes. There's obviously a lot to be said for building relationships-- we more or less devote our lives to trying to create meaningful connections with others, but along with this noble endeavor is also the necessity of cutting and burning your bridges when you realise that you don't want to go that direction anymore.

Ce que j'ai fait pendant les vacances d'ete aux States

What I did on my summer vacation in the US:

-Went to a cat show. As an ex-animal welfare employee, I know cat people are crazy, but cat show breeders are a whole different brand of cult-like insanity. This one enormous sassy grandmother-type judge wore golden tennis shoes and kept taking about a show cat named Bonnie, the Happy Household Pet champion, who wasn't even there competing that day. Think Christopher Guest film Best in Show but with cats and perhaps bolder fashion decisions.

-Big family wedding. This is kind of the haiku description: radiant couple, weather held (ceremony outdoors). Everyone relieved afterwards.

-35th and 65th wedding anniversary lunch, 100 years of marriage celebrated simultaneously (in a cringingly American all-you-can-eat buffet in a Baltimore suburb). Will never really be a fan of all you can eat anything, but let me tell you, the bill was so cheap that I thought the restaurant had made a mistake and forgotten to charge us for 2 people. At least.


-Road-tripped (oh, so American) to North Carolina. Which is a vast wilderness state where man is losing the battle with nature, as evidenced by 7,000 new mosquito bites each time you go outdoors and neighbors complaining about roving deer who come and eat their gardens. One of my cousins once called her sister's backyard (and by extension, the entire the Raleigh-Durham surrounding area) the Ewok Forest. Saw Frannie's new house in said Forest, which will be beautiful when she fixes it up. It's definitely a long-term project (it needs floors, for example), but I know she'll do a great job.

-Saw fireworks on the 4th. The live band played Oh, What a Night-- in English. Thought there was a mistake at first, as although I generally find that song insipid in any language, am now more accustomed to hearing it as Ces Soirees-La. The French incarnation of the BeeGees will make its American debut at a friend's Kentucky wedding this Friday in tribute to all the absent Frenchies or Anglophones those who reside there (Merci, Tiffi!)

-Ran a 5K. For the first time in about 4 years. Got back into running because there's a great paved trail near my parents' house. Determined to maintain the habit in Paris, which is a challenge because the only socially acceptable jogging areas are parks where you have a narrow jogging window, so have to plan ahead to run at that perfect moment in the day when they are neither too crowded nor too secluded.

-Went to Boston. Met up with my best friend from CA there, which was lovely. And saw my cousin, Sara, who is like a sister to me. Both are very happy and this was inspirational, considering that long periods of existential misery is more the norm in Paris... Parisians perhaps just don't show happiness in the same way, though, and I am being unfair. Maybe they express it through excessive complaining, smoking or heavy sighing.

-Went to Sara's graduation from massage school. If you're not sure what kind of ceremony to expect for this, neither were we. Lots of inspirational quotes, ranging from Gandhi to Dr. Seuss, both in speeches and in power point presentations, but got a good sense of the program-- and how close the students became to one another. They really are embarking on new careers, and that was exciting to see.

-Made many resolutions and identified some new goals. This is a little Oprah, so I'll spare you my various projects. After all, one can only devote so many hours a day to attempting self-improvement.

-Plans for next summer: meet the family in Montreal (truly fascinated by the bilingual city on the North American continent; naively imagine it'll be like France, but with customer service) and then drive down to Delaware ensemble. Definitely feeling in need of more travel (by rail, though; avoiding airports until Montreal next year), so indulging in an upcoming trip to Munich.

Fun with French Systems, or the All-Powerful Telecommande

While American remote controls just perform banal tasks like turning the tv on and off and changing the channel, apparently their French counterparts can pilot the space shuttle.

After borrowing a tv and carrying it home on the bus, I discovered that it gets one channel which seems to show nothing but military or prison dramas interspersed with Euroshopping (QVC with an EU flag), occasional blocks of Friends and a film starring Michael J. Fox in which he has the power to talk to ghosts.

Enlightening as this quality programming sounds, I long for news, the channel arte, un diner presque parfait and les guignols. When I complain to French people about my one crap channel, they all ask if I have a remote. By now, few instances of French surrealist logic suprise me, but this was a new entree on the menu, or should I say, carte.

When I say no, I don't have a remote, they sagely nod and say, ah, that's the problem. Apparently, French remote controls identify all the channels your tv gets and then automatically memorize them and allow you to access them easily.

You don't think it would help if I got an antenna, I ask, and then I'd get more channels? Mais non, they say bemusedly, that wouldn't help at all. Since the nuances of setting up the French television clearly escape me, they explain that if you have a cable plugged into the tv and the wall (which I do, but only after a French person came to my house and identified the right outlet for me), that's the antenna and possibly means you get cable.

I guess rabbit ears are a thing of the past and telecommandes are the way of the future. France is no technological slouch, you know. They did, after all, invent credit cards with microchips in them.

One of my favorite songs

This song captures the constant love-hate relationship that all parisians have with their city:

It's called J'aime Plus Paris by Thomas Dutroc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X3BWdOt8F0&feature=fvw

Of Squirrels and Men

I recently did an English lesson on giving your opinion and we started by reading a text from a Parisian blog about how Parisians not only have opinions about everything on earth but they elevate them to pretentious new heights. How do you take an opinion to the next level? It evolves into a Theory.

So I Have a Theory about squirrels and men with long beautiful curly hair.

The squirrel has a big beautiful tail, it seems fair to say that all this animal's evolutionary focus thus far has been on making its tail big and attractive and effective for keeping its balance when it leaps from tree to tree. The squirrel brain remains largely undeveloped, a sacrifice left on the altar of maximum tail volume . Perhaps they would gladly trade bushy tailed-ness for the ability to read or do the crossword, but as things stand now, squirrels have little going on upstairs. They regularly throw themselves in front of cars, hoard nuts and then forget where they put them (in their mouths) and sometimes even fall out of trees.

The squirrel principle also applies to men with long beautiful curly hair. It's like all their sex appeal is so firmly located in their hair, they haven't even remotely considered the possiblity of developing anything else or learning some rudimentary basics about other ways to please women besides deep conditioning their flowing tresses on a regular basis.

Such wasted potential in both species.

What parisians do best: complain about Paris

Being robbed in broad daylight at the ATM near my house has me in hyper critical mode at the moment about the city where I live and how parisians treat each other. I hate how how foreigners, especially single women, are vulnerable here. If I'd had a man with me this am, those 2 guys wouldn't have tried to take my money-- and considering the recent losers I've met, dated (once) and rejected, that pisses me off a lot. Believe me, these recent dates have absolutely NO positive qualities other than that fact that no one tried to rob me while I was in their company. And that wasn't much of a reflection on their personalities, mainly just their general existence.

Fete-ing the Cremaillere

My first of possibly multiple housewarming parties either in the current apartment (actually the way nicer bigger main apartment) or in a future studio was a blast. Maybe I'll warm the house once a month.

We successfully managed to avoid damaging anything in the landlord's apartment and the friends were all lovely, as was the cat and the weather and the wine and the snacks.

Later, Suckers

The last exam that I'll ever write for a certain university near Disney Land was just finished and emailed to the other TD professor for his comments (this being the French university system, I doubt he'll have any) and to be submitted Monday.

How I dreamed of being finished with that place all last year. How strangely indifferent I feel now that I am.

Email quote of the day

My mother on animal welfare, gender roles and French history, trying to encourage me to light a candle for Joan of Arc at Notre Dame as a feminist gesture and symbol of hope for the future:

"A culture that puts female cats on birth control really needs St. Joan of Arc as counterbalance!"

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

I've recently been feeling lacking in many different ways-- disappointment that my 2 years teaching at Marne weren't more satisfying and that I couldn't make it a more positive experience, frustration in not feeling like I ever meet anyone or that the planet's male species ever even notices that I'm alive. I've been comparing myself a lot to other people I know in Paris, who are all, of course, doing way better than I am, with better love lives and professional lives, but they're not me and ultimately, despite some current frustrations, there's still a lot even just when I walk down the street that makes me happy in Paris.

Here is the same idea, just in a more articulate, literary and rhyming form.

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

What Just Happened?

Will this never end? The eternal professional question in France after a job interview: what just happened? Do they want to offer me a job? Did they, in fact, just offer me one?

I had an interview today at a private university where I really wanted to teach and it sounded very non-commital. I answered questions, they asked what my interests were and what I'd like to teach. Interviewer and I seemed to bond about studying at Cambridge, etc. I told them 3 classes or so from their program that I was interested in and suggested a hollywood cinema class about the films of Stephen Speilberg and the reply was that "well, we already have a lot of cinema classes." Not much enthusiasm, eh? They also said that "it's all a bit of a chinese puzzle at the moment, we're still organizing the program" and the interview ended on the note "we'll let you know about openings," final handshake, goodbye. Definitely not a job offer, in my book. But then, I saw an email from the interviewer urging other people and me to sign up for training in September to use the new language lab at that school.

Does that mean I was I hired?

If so, I wonder what I'll teach and when.

Doctor's Note

I had to get a doctor's note today saying that there was nothing wrong with me that would prevent me from participating in a short charity race. My 400 year old doctor kindly agreed to see me today (since I need her authorization for the race tomorrow) and greeted me by shrieking about how she just shampooed the carpet and could I wipe me feet really well? Because she sees her patients in her house, as do most French doctors.

In France to be declared not even necessarily healthy, but without any "counter indications" that would prevent you from running a 1.5 mile loop, you have to have your heart listened to, and blood pressure taken. And then you have to do 30 squats and doctor repeats steps one and 2. I'm generally used to things I find slightly startling and ridiculous being the norm in France-- I have been here a while, after all, but when my doctor told me to start squatting, I thought she was kidding.

Since she was curious, I explained that to do a race in the US, the participant signs a liablilty form saying that they're aware that they could possibly injure themselves on the course, but that it's just up to the runner if they think they're in good enough shape to do the race and we don't need a doctor's note (or certificat medical-- so much more formal-- in French) to give us permission. She looked horrified, "but the participants could lie," she pointed out, "what if they're not healthy?"

My squat evaulation cost me 22 euros for which the French government will eventually reimburse me.

Run, Forest, Run

So, rather than cheering Forest Gump on, I'll be running around an actual forest on Sunday. It's to raise money for cancer research. Someone I was once very close to died of this illness and this event is more than partially responsible for my decision to follow a dream to Paris. Life is too short not to do these things, despite enormous student loan debt. That was 3 years ago, and I'm still in Paris, trying not to forget to seize the jour. This seems like a good reminder.

Cervical cancer (cancer du col de l'uterus) seems to have an enormous public awareness campaign in France at the moment and I'm always pleased to see any kind of focus whatsoever on women's health. (Even if some of it is clearly pharmaceutical marketing for the vaccination against this type of cancer, which is also enjoying a lot of publicity lately...)

The idea of this charity run is that there will be a short 1.5 mile course in the bois de vincennes (where I've never been but where I commute through) and you go around as many times as you can in 2 hours. For each loop, corporate sponsors make a donation to the charity 1,000 femmes, 1,000 vies which raises money for cervical cancer research/prevention/awareness.

At the university where I teach with an ongoing strike, one of the protests is called the "rond des obstines" where professors spend the weekends walking around in a circle to demonstrate how they're getting nowhere with the French government regarding the proposed education reforms. I feel like looping around the woods for my charity race is perhaps a better use of going round in circles.

Recent Work Emails (or MEN and Primordial Meetings)

Some recent highlights from my inbox:

-A 7-page venomous email about Valerie Pecresse (ministre de l'ensignement superieur) visiting UC Berkeley in what is probably a nefarious plan either to dominate the world or to destroy the French University (perhaps both simultaneously) from a French professor who teaches there and somehow has my email address.

-A similarly venomous email about some aspect of the strike or proposed education reforms (all my work related email these days is petitions and 7-page tretises about how the Public French University is Dead) titled "take a look at the website MEN." This was NOT anything related to porn or dating (then I probably would have looked at it). MEN apparently stands for Ministre de l'Education where something scandalous to my colleagues was posted about the role of an enseignant-chercheur as now imagined by the French Government.

-An email about a Big Important Faculty Meeting where we were supposed to decide whether or not to cancel the current (although nearly finished) semester saying that attendance was "primordial." I guess this is more intense than souhaité or obligatoire?

-An email flurry about what time the Primordial Meeting starts-- noon or 12:30? We perhaps had to verify with the mastadons and other primordial invités.

-An email from the director of the language department of our university apologizing for not attending last week's Primordial Meeting, and thus preventing any decision-making whatsoever from occuring (not that any often actually takes place in French meetings, though). She would like us to attend another meeting primordially next Thursday at either noon or 12:30.

Royaume Uni du Canal St. Martin

I now live in a strange enchanted castle-- not in Disneyland/ Marne-La-Vallee on the RER A (thank God), but in the 10th. Consider this: our house is a hidden canal-front fortress with a giant double deadbolt door and then, once you step into our narnia, there are no more locks. We are free to come and go into the Big House when The Owner is away and the first day I dared cross the threshold, there was a box of pastries waiting for us. This was effective positive reinforcement without the Pavlovian bell-- go into house, get treats. Now I always check the kitchen for stray religieuses.

The premises include: 2 studios, a small courtyard covered in an otherworldly jungle of houseplants, a rooftop garden above my apartment, and then the Big Apartment that belongs to The Owner. The Owner is a retired academic and being a retired academic is pretty much my dream and the closest thing I have to a life ambition... The Big House has about 47 strangely shaped octagonal rooms all with at least 3 doors, making each one exageratedly accessible and they're all lined floor to ceiling with books. The house also features an excessive number of well-trodden wooden staircases. It's kind of a French version of Vermont log cabin architecture combined with the Winchester Mystery House-- not that I ever went there because I wasn't a bay area tourist and couldn't be bothered to go to San Jose EVER, not even to see the famous haunted house with staircases to nowhere built by the guilt-ridden heiress to the Winchester gun fortune. Not that the Canalfront Empire feels tainted by spectral guilt. If anything, it is a small slice of Eden in this uncertain and indifferent world.

The Owner travels a lot-- being retired, this is his main occupation which he deserves after years of suffering the French public educational system (after 2 years and the current interminable strike, I'm also ready to retire), and when the cat's away, the mice will play. We, the tenants, of course, have no actual mice in our enchanted castle but take care of the actual cat and play with her. She is very sweet and chubby. In the Big House, we not only have access to our feline friend, but also those elusive luxuries like a washer/dryer, an oven, and a landline that only Real People have in their enchanted kingdoms in France.

I'm not the only tenant. There is a whole universe of inhabitants. There is, of course, the cat, my flatmate (who is, luckily, a friend and coworker), and a non English-speaking friend of The Owner's son who lives rent-free in the basement in exchange for remodeling the son's apartment. I joked to the flatmate that we're like individual nation states who all form the United Kingdom of 39 Canal-Front Lane. We decided I would be England, she could be Scotland, the Owner would be Northern Ireland, because he was frequently travelling off the main island and the basement carpenter could be Wales, since like Welsh street signs, we don't always understand him.

Geography is on my mind lately, since you have to reorient yourself completely when you change quartiers here. Each neighborhood, of course, has its own character. Everyone has their own image of Paris-- my Paris is different from even that of my best friend, and this Paris pretty much becomes the immediate 4-block radius around your house and your daily commute.

So far, here are my 4 blocks: there's the enchanted castle, the enchanted although sometimes pungent canal, and some lovely bars and restaurants, my current favorite of which is called the Goldfish. I've taken to running along the canal to la vilette in one direction and Oberkampf in the other, which is a great route.

For practical concerns, I also have the required constellation map of different grocery stores with varying prices and quality and some cheap takeout Indian restaurants identified. And a little shop where you can buy 3 euro belts.

On the gritty realist side, there's also the very unenchanted post office homeless tent city, but this is a reality in any big city-- not everyone can afford housing here. The flatmate and I are lucky to have the enchanted castle deal that we have.

The neighborhood reminds me a little of very different geography: the Mission in SF in a way, just with fewer Spanish speakers. We have different political demonstrations everyday at Place de la Republique, which is very San Francisco, and a young, artsy, and creative crowd. Hipsters and homeless people, however, live along the same street, which is also sadly very reminiscent of San Francisco. There's a cafe down the street that seems lifted straight off Valencia Street from San Francisco and plunked down in front of the Canal St. Martin which we now call the California Cafe. I sometimes feel like all my favorite places in Paris are ones that remind me of SF, but the French-speaking European version 2.0. You probably always superimpose your past cities on your current ones to some extent-- like when I moved from DC to SF there were lots of neighborhood equivlents to work out, like Dupont Circle was the DC equivalent of the Castro in SF, for example. Our French canal-front castle is maybe my version of 28 Barbury Lane, the equally eccentric and enchanted apartment building from cult San Francisco book Tales of the City.

Holidays and modern art collages

If Madonna were French, she wouldn't have had to spend the 1980s longing for a holiday and singing about it. Nearly every Friday in May is a national holiday. Today is Labour Day (fete du travail) in France and it is celebrated by a day of vacation and a big parade/protest (?) by various labour unions declaring their commitment to workers' rights. People also sell snow drops, those little white flowers, and sometimes lilacs and there are somehow symbols of May 1st. If someone gives you snowdrops on this day, it means you'll have good luck and loads of people carry around their little white flowers. I was no exception-- I was kindly presented with a small bouquet this afternoon which are now on the table in front of me, no doubt changing my luck as I write.

My snowdrops, a friend and I all went to the Marche d'art contemporain at Bastille. This is a bi-annual art fair with hundreds of different stands, each belonging to a different contemporary French artist hoping to gain publicity and sell some work. For us, the public, we get to see a ton of great art and talk to the artists who are all there hosting small aperatif parties and ready to answer our questions in the hopes of selling us an 800 euro canvas. The friend of mine who came with my snowdrops and me knew a scultptor exhibiting there, so we chatted with him for awhile about the event and his work (animal sculptures in bronze)-- and thanked him profusely for our invitations to the event which saved us each 8 euros. The marche d'art was actually a lot like the Salon du Vin that I attended last year, just with paintings, sculptures and artists' statements at each booth, instead of wine and marketing materials about the superior grapes from that particular region of France.

There were artists' booths both inside and outside, on either side of the Seine and one of the bridges reserved as the path to more art that day. The weather was beautiful and the artists outside were all having picnics next to their booths. While we looked at art along the river, we could hear shouting and chanting from the workers' rights rally outside at Place de la Bastille and an accordian softly played La Vie en Rose from the other side of the river.

I thought to myself that the protest, the art and the accordian, all combined at that very moment, defined to an extent my image of Paris, its creativity, political engagement against a conservative future and nostalgia for the romanticism of the past all rolled into one on a particularly lazy holiday afternoon. A lot of the modern art on display showed Paris cityscapes-- it seemed like everyone was shaping their image of this city, through art or political protest, all at the same time. I tried to fix it in my mind like some kind of modern art collage, like some I'd seen that day, with snapshots of artists, musicians and protestors, newspaper clippings about all the many recent workers' strikes and protests, springtime sunshine, snowdrops to bring good luck and some fragments of sheet music to La vie en Rose.

2 burners and a microwave

Like that song that goes "2 turntables and a microphone," 2 burners and a microwave describes my new kitchen. How musical it will be remains to be seen. We also have no kitchen sink so it's back to doing dishes in the bathroom, as it was for my first 2 years in France. Oh, Paris, how I long for luxuries like kitchen sinks and mailboxes. I've never had a proper mailbox here.

I have almost sans exageration ZERO euros in the old checking account and breathlessly await my salaries for the month of May as well as the end of the interminable moving process which I've been casually indulging in for the past 2 weeks.

The university is ridiculous and makes no sense anymore. Everyone is just going through the motions and none of the professors do what they say they do and the students are all dropping out. I can't get excited about going there EVER and wish the semester were already over. I still prefer and enjoy my other job, but teaching 7 hours straight and consuming countless cups of coffee at all hours of the day are both taking their toll... I'm mainly just a compulsive coffee drinker there because it's free. Which is a big advantage considering my current penniless state.

To be more positive, the new apartment is on the canal and should be lovely. I will get paid-- it should be any minute now-- and it'll be a bigger salary than usual since I had a lot of hours in my second job this month and should be paid twice as much as usual. The semester is almost over at Disney Land U, so even though it's ridiculous, it can't continue its ridiculousness for that much longer. I also cancelled my afternoon classes with the twins tomorrow, so I'll be free after 11 am and should finally AT LAST finish moving. If I have the time, also hoping to run along the canal for the first time ever. Which makes you ask yourself who really needs a kitchen sink or a mailbox anyway.

Moving on

Moving, like breaking up or like meeting someone new, is hard to do. Especially when it's just to move again in 3 months. So I'm trying to go through my stuff, decide what's a necessity and what isn't, give some of it away and then pack some of it up, only to be unpacked months later if and when I manage to find a permanent and legal Paris studio.

I've always seen moving apartments as a metaphor for life-- at one point in my life when I was a recent college grad, I spent a whole year moving every 3 months to avoid a real apartment lease that would Tie Me Down. I didn't like living in Washington, DC enough to make anything permanent there. A decade later, I find Paris an easier city to commit to.

I'm quick to over-interpret life's banal details and make literal things symbolic, but deciding what you want to take with you and what you don't, what weighs you down and what doesn't, what baggage you want to leave behind, etc., well, it all sounds a bit like a U2 song.

As Clive Owen says in the film Croupier-- the best movie ever made about casino sleaze, writing and roulette-- when he sells his rolex for maybe $30, hang on tightly, let go lightly.

Zee Funniest Blog on Zee Internet

For your daily dose of satirical observations about Parisians-- and lord knows, there are many qui le méritent...

http://www.o-chateau.com/blog/

Vanya on rue des roquettes

I heart Chekov plays in English. Vanya on 42nd Street is my favorite Wallace Shawn-Andre Gregory collaboration (film version of Uncle Vanya). I like it even better than My Dinner with Andre. And it has an actual famous actress is in it-- Julianne Moore plays Yelena, the young seductress married to the old professor.

I also heart Chekov plays in French. After Oncle Vania last week at the theatre in the round at Theatre de la Bastille, Evelyn and I decided that Chekovian humour translates well into French-- quiet tragi-comic afternoons at the country estate when in the course of your banal existance, you suddenly realise that you have no more money, and you've wasted your life and you spend the next 2 hours complaining about it and blaming others. Very Parisian. With lots of understatement. Did I mention that they also complain a lot?

For anyone not already familair with this charming personality trait, complaining and criticizing are essentially the main hobbies of all Parisians. The greastest compliment in the French language is to say you have nothing to say (j'ai rien a dire). It's implied that if you had anything to say, it would, of course, be critical (what else could possibly be worth mentioning?) Someone has therefore done something so incredibly well that there is miraculously nothing to criticize or complain about.

I guess I should spend my time seeing French plays in French; they do have some good playwrights, after all, but it somehow seems appropriately contradictory and contrary to see only Russian plays in French.

Some fun dialogue from Anton C. : it's a beautiful day. A beautiful day to hang one's self. (Vanya)

And: I am in mourning for my life. (Cherry Orchard)

J'ai rien a dire.

La Princesse de Cleves fait greve

I really understand nothing about the current strike at one of my work places. In all fairness, some of the proposed reforms sound bad, like budget cuts (the public French university is already essentially bankrupt) and suppression of teaching positions. The main reason behind the current strike according to the professors is that the French governement wants to change teachers' status so that they're no longer state employees with lifetime job security. As a non-French person and non-functionnaire from a land where few human beings ever attain lifetime job security, I was never really convinced that all teachers should be state employees with lifetime job security no matter how mediocore a job they did (French job promotions are based more on national exam results than actual job performance), but if this is something you are currently lucky enough to have, you will obviously fight to protect it.

As one teacher pointed out, the strike is a "French cultural experience." I feel that the cultural experience of the education strike is similar to some other equally horizon-broadening cultural experiences, like waiting in line, being constantly required to give the French bureaucracy some new type of attestation, a RIB, ID photos and a birth certificate (French translation, of course-- how else would they know that you were indeed born somewhere on a specific date?) and being pushed on the metro. Here is what I've observed so far about the nature of education strikes.

If you are a professor organising a university strike at a certain university in the valley of Disneyland, you apparently do the following:

-Receive the entirety of your monthly salary despite not working for political reasons. Wish they'd mentioned that we'd be paid for doing nothing-- maybe then the foreigners would have signed up for caring about the future of French fonctionnaires...

-Hold a general assembly every day.

-Have a demonstration every Thursday.

-Grow tired of actually being on strike and start coming in to see your students during classtime to talk to them about your reasons for being on strike and do "alternative activites" which seem to comprise communication games and strike propaganda.

-Not worry that your dramatic stance to Save French Public Education is causing students to stop attending class and drop out of school. You're striking for their future, too.

-Send email to the students directly inciting them to revolution.

-Except that when they do revolt, the president closes the uni upon hearing of student threats to occupy university buildings and break things.

-Email homework to your students and tell them how concerned you are about how they will pass their final exams with good results and be sufficiently prepared for next year's classes.

-Have a 3-hour meeting every Monday morning that always comes to the same conclusion: continue the strike. It's also always unanimous. Like Tom Petty, the professors won't back down, gonna stand my ground.

-Organise a public reading of La princesse de Cleves in multiple languages. Naturally, this is the only next logical step. But where do we go from here? On to Flaubert?

Students, apartments and chateau-neuf des papes

Life is a bit of a blur of prepping classes and attempting to charm new students-- be they CG artists, children, corporate lawyers or arms dealers...

Today, for example, is Saturday, but I now spend half the weekend-- Sat 10-16h-- with students, so feel a bit of the decalage with the normal weekend schedule world that I used to feel when I worked Tues-Sat at the animal shelter in Oakland. This just started, and part of me already misses my Saturdays, but I need the money. The Saturday folks are all pretty adorable, though, so in an odd way, it is kind of relaxing-- although still work. One of my students has already mentioned possible future translation jobs and I'm opportunistically hoping that this sudden new network of English students might help me find an apartment.

All my beginner English students have inspired me to learn German, I have a textbook with a CD, but I need to find a native German speaker willing to do German/English language exchanges with me. Not only will I learn something new, but I also think it's extremely important for all language teachers at all times to be able to put themsleves in the place of their students, as the language learner who has no idea what the question was, instead of the professor who asks the questions.

I feel very uninvolved with the university, despite it still offically (meaning fiscally) being my primary job. It was closed on Thursday because a band of rogue students announced their intent to occupy university buildings, disrupt classes and break things, so the president sent out a ludicrous email about the bande d'etudiants sauvages. After being throughly surprised that the university could become even more surreal and beckettian than it is already, I found it hilarious and promptly forwarded the message du president to all my friends, especially the ex-Marne colleagues.

I'm apartment hunting in earnest now and I've so far looked at 1 and loved it, but the timing wasn't right. It's still a little early to look for an apartment for May 1, but good to familiarise myself with the market and see how far my limited money will go. Everything costs so much-- life is expensive, and I'm already stressing about paying rent, a deposit and buying furniture and trying to think of ways to save money after the move, like cancelling my gym membership and changing to a cheaper cell phone plan. Am also prepared to sleep on the floor for awhile and furnish a new apartment over several months.

Ideally, I'd like to live in the 19th arrondissement near metro Jaures, since rents still seem affordable there, it's a safe area, unlike the 20th and near the canal st. Martin, 2 canal-side cinemas and the lovely park Butte-Chaumont.

Next weekend, I'll be in London for a friend's wedding and I'm looking forward to a little change of scenary. For her wedding present, I got a bottle of what France does best-- a chateauneuf des papes red. Jill and I got to be friends in Avignon (where the papes-- the popes-- lived and where the wine is from) during a summer study abroad program 10 years ago and I thought this bottle would remind her of our summer in the sunny south of France. I'm going to write in the card that she should let the bottle age for a year and then open it up to continue the wedding festivities and celebrate her first wedding anniversary. Besides watching Jill walk down the aisle, I'll also see some British friends and my godfather and hopefully, Camden, Brick Lane and a play at the theatre.

Montre-moi l'argent

Due to the university where I teach in my primary job being completely bizarre because of an interminable strike (rant about that one coming soon), I've become more invested and interested in my other workplaces. I don't really have an individual other workplace-- instead of an office, I spend my days dutifully trotting across Paris to different peoples' houses or fancy corporate offices where I go to teach English. I hope to do the impossible with these motivated adult students and have them answering phones like a native English speaker, writing perfect emails, planning a wedding in English and landing new jobs that require English fluency. While these new challenges are good for me and I genuinely enjoy my new students, I also enjoy extra income. Like many Americans before me, I am also a cold, calculated capitalist-- just not one who works in sub-prime, but in sectors equally, if not more, morally dubious.

I will teach ANYONE English for money as evidenced by the fact that I had only faint moral qualms upon learning yesterday that my newest corporate clients are essentially arms dealers. When you live in expensive-beyond-belief-Paris, arms dealers' money is an good as anybody else's. In fact, they probably tend to have more of it than people who actually improve the world. Yes, I recognize that this probably means I no longer have a soul, but when you spend your entire salary each month, who can afford moral integrity? I would just like to not overdraw my bank account and afford a new apartment come May 1st. It's also a legitimate government business-- at least it's not illegal arms trafficking and they don't make landmines that maim and kill children and they probably use recylced paper.

Elaborate overjustification, perhaps, but sometimes it's hard to feel good about what I do in France. Arms dealer students aside, I know I wouldn't be qualified to teach in an American university; it's a total fluke that I can teach in a French one in a temporary position that only exists for native English speakers. Although teaching in a university might sound impressive to someone unfamiliar with the French public university system, it's essentially just 3 extra years of high school with surly, unmotivated teenagers, the majority of whom drop out. I never studied to be a teacher and have no ESL background and feel like a big fraud more often than I feel like a good teacher imparting important wisdom about vital issues like when to use the present perfect tense. In my private lessons, it sometimes feels extremely dishonest to take peoples' money for chatting with them for an hour in my native language.

As usual, guilt and self-doubt persist in my career choices-- or non-choices. It's more France who decided that I would be an English teacher, not me. I just couldn't complain because it meant I had a job. All this, of course, contributes to the on-going existential crisis and fuels the "what am I doing with my life?" fire. But at least I don't sell or manufacture weapons.

Desperately Seeking...

Apartment for May 1-- preferably legal and stable living situation without evil 400-year old non-French speaking concierge; charming, mature non-commitment phobic boyfriend for whenever, reliable healthcare, a local cafe where everybody knows my name (not that they'd be able to pronounce it...), a well-paying teaching job where I could maybe do all my hours in one conveniently-located place, instead of scampering around Ile-de-France giving English classes in every arrondisement, payment-- long overdue-- for overtime hours unknowingly worked last year when the university blatantly tried to take advantage of foreign teaching staff, the illusory feeling of being accepted in busy, crowded, waiting in line-oriented, indifferent to my plight Paris.

The unbearable lightness of being (incidently one of my favorite films EVER)

Lightness might not be the right term; it's actually more the unbearable instability and uncertainty of being in France...

Uncertainty at the workplace:
Everyone at my primary job is on strike. Last week, I had no idea if I would have any students. Very few came. Some classes happened, some didn't-- it was about 50/50 on Thursday and then I only had 1 student on Friday. It's equally uncertain if I'll have any students at all this week. And then next week is vacation. Vacation from what, you may very well ask. This teachers' strike is on top of a general strike 2 weeks ago-- I have 1 class that I haven't seen yet since the start of the second semester! Will I ever see my writing class again so that I can tell them that we're changing our Friday class to Monday and thus give me a fixed, accurate schedule at the university? I only have 2 other jobs to fit the university hours around...

Uncertainty at the other potential workplaces:
I recently had 2 job interviews for part time teaching jobs, both went well and I was hired. Supposedly. No contract has materialized. One of the jobs hasn't yet answered my email accepting their offer and I have no idea if they've changed their minds or not and if there will be a contract to sign. I find it telling that in French "eventuel"/"eventuellement" doesn't mean that something will happen in the future, but that it might possibly happen... The other job seems a little more certain, although they don't know how many hours they can promise me because of my already planned vacation in the US in June and I just got a cryptic email about their schedule. I don't understand if this would be my proposed schedule or if it's just to give me an idea of the demand they have for English classes right now. Only in France would you wonder if you were really hired after someone said you were were...

Uncertainty about housing:
Will I be moving in May? Where would I live? It all depends on whether or not my landlord can renew her visa in Canada, which seems unlikely. She really wants to stay, but the Canadian government is under no obligation to make that happen for her...

Uncertainty about money:
When, O, when will the university pay me for the 100 extra hours I worked last year? An extra 3 grand would be welcome ANY TIME, especially considering the possible move.

Uncertainty about love:
Will I ever go on another date? Are intercultural relationships truly possible? How many successful intercultural relationships can I really think of? Does British/American count or are those already pretty close? It seems like all my college friends are getting married THIS year, the year we turned 30. While this sudden phenom is a little suspicious, it also makes me wonder, will I ever move in with someone? Marriage, I am not worrying about yet, I would content myself with moving in with someone eventually (ha, in the French sense, of course) and this seems like a rather necessary first step before considering marriage/pacs-ing or adopting cats together.

I heart la ligne 14

The only things that are certain in life: death, taxes and the line 14.

Questions du jour

Is there life on Mars? Is there life outside of Paris? Are there French cities with a lively cultural scene and friendly residents who don't make a hobby of criticizing, complaining and huffing and puffing in annoyance every 4 seconds and bumping into you in the metro? Does Paris think I'm a martian? Should I phone home or attempt to colonize the world? Are globalization and Americanization the same thing? Aside from dying your hair a different colour, is there any change you can believe in in Paris?

Small Daily Humiliations

Everytime someone asks if I live in Paris and if I have a job here.

That people I don't know well think it's ok to ask me how much money I make, or inform me of everything that they think is wrong with American politics-- after we'd just met. Um, are Parisians just somehow culturally immune to ever thinking that they sound arrogant?

Everytime someone informs me that I have an accent.

Everytime (which is more or less all the time) someone assumes that if you're a foreigner, you're a complete idiot and will believe whatever they tell you. Like that my last apartment rental wasn't illegal, I just couldn't ever put my name on the door or tell anyone I paid rent to live there.

Everytime someone patronisingly repeats the exact phrase I just said. What's up with that? I assume it's a passive aggressive way to correct my pronounciation or do they actually just want to verify that they heard it correctly?

Everytime someone stares the Parisian stare at me on the metro. Men undress you with their beady little eyes, while women mentally calculate the total value of your wardrobe and haircut. This is why I now find it normal to wear makeup to the gym.

At Planning Familial today when upon asking my age, they asked me if I weren't considering stopping the Pill to get pregnant.

When I asked the doctor there to recommend a lab (because it's not like you can get blood drawn by the actual doctor who wants you to have it done or like any single medical facility in France actually has all the medical equipment they need) and he replied, you don't know how to use the internet? Um, yes, the French health care system is ludicrously decentralised (I once left a doctor's office with my papsmear in a jar and I had to mail it to a lab myself) but I am not about to google a medical lab to draw my blood-- should I just diagnose myself and write my own prescriptions, too, while I'm researching medical info online? What if French crack dens or other disreputable entities whose livelihood involves needles have their own web sites and pose as legitimate medical labs?

When I requested coppery-red highlights and the hairdresser ignored this and gave me pale white-blond ones instead which obviously look like middleaged woman masking the gray with a side of Cruella DeVille thrown in (in other words, utter crap) and then informed me that she found them "jolies." I mean, after all, that's what counts, isn't it?

Thank you, Parisians, for annoying the hell out of me on a daily basis. I'm sure that to some small extent, I'd miss all your surreal conneries if I ever lived somewhere normal and judging from the Americans I know who no longer live here, apparently, if you ever leave Paris, you seem to become a brainwashed nostalgia zombie, and Paris becomes nothing but the expensive taxpayer-subsidized glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower, and la vie en rose and you even long for the rudeness of French waiters and the arrogance of French hair dressers.

"Welcome...

To the new America," was a quote I read in today's Washington Post online edition from someone who attended the inauguration today and braved the cold to see the new president and snatch a piece of history.

At the beginning of this decade, I lived in Washington, DC and throughout all the international press coverage of "l'investiture d'Obama" that I've followed recently from 3,000 miles and multiple time zones away, I've been thinking: that could have been me in the crowd, during the inauguration today and the U2/ Springsteen concert at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday.

You are the choices you make, and I don't regret no longer living in DC, Oakland or in the US, but, well, optimism, resilience and capacity for social change are all aspects of American culture that I miss immensely.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that creating change you can believe in is not exculsively reserved for your favorite polticians or those still living in America watching Obama in person today, but something you can also accomplish on a small and modest scale in your own life.

Surreal Moments of Late at the Workplace

-When my kids asked me what they had to do to pass their semester.
-You mean what skills and work habits do you need to succeed in my class next semester, I asked.
-No, how do we know if we passed this term? Do we have to pass all our classes each semester to have credit for the year? No one ever told us.

-When one group revealed that they thought that phonetics and multimedia were the same class because they had the same teacher for these 2 (obviously different) courses.

-The umpteenth time that a student came looking for me because they forgot when their exam was (yesterday) and wanted to make it up at a time that was more convenient for them. Here's a good time: the examens de rattrapage in the first 2 weeks of September.

-Each time a student walked into a classroom while I was giving an exam (a little busy there!)because they needed to ask an Urgent Question that they would already have the answer to if they ever attended class, like what will be on the final exam.

-When I discovered that the HR Rep and department head who explained my incomprehensible job contract to me in 2007 were misinformed about minor details like how many hours I actually need to work each year.

-When you realise that the entire administrative organisation (a term I use loosely) of your workplace relies exclusively on the use of post-it notes. In some ways, this is almost reassuring-- at least they try to follow some kind of principle of organisation, but post-its do, unfortunately, fall off.

-When you, as an American teacher, finish reading 35 compositions that argue that higher education should be free and accessible to everyone (ok, fine) and universities shouldn't "discriminate unfairly" by taking only the best students. Wow, no correlation to make at all between being a good student and going to uni, eh?

And sometimes, the kiddies just feel like chatting after class about Irish music or the decline of family values in modern society, or flattering you so that you'll write a recommendation for them (there can't be ANY connection between that and their sudden appreciation of your greats teachings skills, can there?), or sometimes they just impress you with an excellent composition about Egypt and then despite all the ridiculousness you suffer daily, for a brief second before reality sets in again, it's actually not so bad to be a teacher.

The Art of Losing

Maybe it's my age, or living far away from my family, but so far 2009 is making me think of all the people who I used to be close to who I now no longer speak to-- either because we fought, broke up or just drifted apart or now find that we live on different continents with a 9-hour time difference and never skype at the same time. If you're anything like me (for your sake, I hope not, though!), ex-best friends from college, people you've dated, former housemates in multiple cities, etc. have been floating through your head yesterday and today.

But before you worry too much about all the people you once knew who you've since lost, keep in mind that you'll (hopefully, most likely) acquire new friends this year and it's an endless cycle, some kind of social flux that we can't really entirely control.

Here's a funny poem that I've always liked to try to help exorcise all these missing, forgotten souls who we've lost over the years. Here is Elisabeth Bishop's attempt to master the art of losing and even if it's actually a fairly tragic poem, it's certainly an example of mastering the art of writing a villanelle, one of the hardest poetic forms out there.

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.