Déjà Vu: Reliving the Presidential Election as an American in France

After a night of tossing and turning, anticipation shook me out of sleep. It was only five in the morning in France, but I wanted to feel a part of the election excitement back home—wanted to witness the results of this historical election in real time. I had even baked a celebration cake the night before to share with my French students and colleagues.

I clicked open a live-stream. At first, I thought my early-morning brain fog must have been playing tricks on me. America was spattered red—in all the right places. My heart dropped when I saw Ohio. Then once again when I laid eyes on Florida. In desperation, I looked to the commentators for comfort, but it seemed that even they were in denial—trying to talk themselves out of what was clearly about to happen. Up until yesterday evening, I had spent the entire year reassuring my French friends that Donald Trump would never win. It was as if I had woken up in an alternate universe.

I hid under the covers as long as I could. Then, seeing I had just ten minutes to get to school, I threw on some clothes, tried my best to wash the look of shock off my face, and covered my tired eyes with globs of makeup and crooked eyeliner.

When I opened the door to the teacher’s room, everyone stopped in their tracks. They stared. They were waiting for me to say something, to speak for my country. I just stood there, holding out my cake. In desperation, I tried to pull one of my colleagues into a hug, but unfortunately it’s not a gesture that the French understand or appreciate. My colleague’s body stayed limp in my arms, waiting for the “hug” to end. Then, the jokes started to fire: “The first orange president!”. But I wasn’t laughing. This past year had been nothing but Donald Trump jokes, nothing but the constant mocking and questioning of Americans, nothing but trying our best to laugh off the fear. It wasn’t funny anymore, because now it was real.

Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, the bell rang. I made my way to my classroom, wading through the stares, whispers, and giggles of students. An understanding colleague, noticing my discomfort, put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, they won’t be laughing when Marine Le Pen wins the election in a few months.”

It is now a few months later, and I replay those words over and over in my head. I feel like I am reliving the same strange story. Recently, France voted to send Marine Le Pen through to the final round of the presidential election. Like Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again,” Marine Le Pen rose to the top with the motto “The French Come First.” Like Trump, Marine claims to be a protector of the people, as she snaps selfies with factory workers whose jobs will soon be outsourced to Poland. Like Trump, Marine harnesses the rise of unemployment and a fear of terrorism to turn the population against immigrants. Perhaps most importantly, a vote for Marine means pulling the thread that will unravel the European Union.

After graduating from Smith College, I came to France to teach English. It was a passion for my job and the French way of life that made me stay for what has now become five years. While I could rest assured that the majority of French people, whether on the left or the right, could agree on certain basic human rights—health care, free education, a woman’s right to choose, strict gun control—in America these were the issues that divided our nation. What’s more, French voter turnout for presidential elections has always remained at or above 80 percent, whereas our own turnout has recently hovered around 60 percent. For me, France is country that is much more united than the United States of America, and united on the issues that, frankly, just shouldn’t be issues at all. After last week’s election results, I trusted that France would turn fiercely against Le Pen’s candidacy.

To my surprise, my “déjà vu” is worsening as I hear from more and more people that they have decided that they will not vote next Sunday. Some, who were inspired by the Bernie Sanders-like movement led by far left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, are disappointed with the results. Labeled the “French Chavez” by the French newspaper “Le Figaro,” they feel the media favored centrist Emmanuel Macron, and that democracy is not functioning as it should. Others, who favored Republican candidate François Fillon, whose presidential chances were ruined by scandal, cannot imagine voting for Macron.

Naturally, I chided friends who announced to me that they wouldn’t vote. I couldn’t understand how after the lessons of Brexit and Trump, France could leave this election up to chance. Even my own place is threatened by Le Pen, who vows to freeze long-term visas and to increase taxes for companies who hire foreign workers. My friends, who have decided not to vote, all respond with different combinations of the same words: “Don’t worry, Kayla. You won’t have to leave. Marine won’t win, anyway. And look at Trump, has he been able to do anything? In any case, you’re American. Nothing will happen to you.”

Let’s take this apart, piece-by-piece. First of all, the assumption that Marine “won’t win” is one that I am all too familiar with. Yes, the polls say Macron will win. Yes, Marine Le Pen "lost" the presidential debates. We all felt the same about Trump, and Brexit.  But let's not be too sure that the election is already in the bag. Luckily, I'm not the only skeptic. One French friend cited the Holocaust as the ultimate lesson: “How can people vote for Le Pen, or abstain from voting, when our country lived through World War II? How can they be so irresponsible?”. While Marine has tried to reinvent the image of her party, the Front National is known for anti-Semitic statements and also for denying the holocaust. Isn’t that alone, reason enough to vote against her next Sunday?

Now, let us consider the problematic preference of Americans over “other” foreigners. What makes my nationality more “preferable” than another? What makes me “safer” than a Syrian? By acknowledging that I am “safer,” that I am not the one “they will be looking for,” you are admitting that in Le Pen’s France, there will be targets. Shouldn't we be doing everything we can to shield these people from harm? By not voting, you reveal your privilege. You are ignoring a passive racism that is running through France’s veins and racing for France’s heart. Your own life may not change if Marine comes to power, and maybe not even your American friend’s life, but the unfortunate will suffer. Xenophobia has been trying to rear its ugly head in France for decades. Now is the most important time to remain vigilant.

Finally: the idea that “Trump hasn’t been able to do anything.” The impending destruction of the planet aside, let’s think about the importance of words and images. Even if a head of a country is tied back by checks and balances, words and images are very powerful. After Brexit, hate crimes against people of certain religions, races, sexualities, and disabilities spiked to all-time highs. The same has followed Trump’s election. People feel validated by the words and images of their leaders, even if those words and images don’t lead to the passing of laws or breaks in the system. I recall one friend’s story of when Obama was first elected in 2008. As an exchange student in France, she said that attitudes towards her as an American immediately transformed the morning Obama’s presidency was announced. Vendors embraced her when she told them she was an American, a huge change from the days of Bush, when her accent triggered jokes and snickering.

I encourage those friends who feel frustrated with their choices to think about what image they want to create for France. Friends, you have a chance to break this deadly wave of populism and send a message to the world: we will put an end to this. As a Bernie supporter, I know personally how disappointing it is to make a choice between two lesser candidates. But a vote for the lesser of two evils is just one step in an unending fight for liberty. After Macron is elected, fight from within. Build up a movement. Hold your representatives responsible for your interests. Push through better choices for the elections to come. Or, stay home and whine, if you choose. But France, don’t give up before Election Day. Otherwise, next Monday morning I will wake up with the strange feeling that I have already lived through this before.

Self-Trust

Things to celebrate:

x tutoring recently-turned-five/trilingual boy, Damien
x going up to Fourvière and walking the city around when I can, even if it's just for fifteen minutes
x going for a run(s) with Lizzi on Sunday(s)—(hopefully we'll keep this up!)
x going to the marché to get some fruits and vegetables with my adorable légume-lovin' roommate on Saturday morning
x ---my adorable roommates.
x not stressing too much about exams, learning to have "self-trust"in all areas
x studying Emerson—negates the stress of studying!
x Stéphane's phone calls to check in with me
x taking some time to cook things–making small things Philippe taught me to make :]
x drinking lots of green tea
x making strides to find future work opportunities
x my really nice apartment
x Ashley and her poems
x cards from my Nana

x I found a really nice doctor
x I found a really nice pharmacist

x getting a very good questionnaire/review from one of my students, who is a translator of French to English

x Today I learned the French expression"les doigts dans le nez," which apparently means "easy as pie/a piece of cake"—but, literally means "fingers in the nose."

Bonne Année

I'm sitting at the at table with Marie Jo and Philippe—we're eating macaroons for dinner since we had a huge new year's eve dinner last night and today we had the leftovers for new year's day lunch. While I write and each of them is working independently on a crossword puzzle. They even have a "crossword dictionary" that I discovered in the house today, where you can look up words according to the number of letters they have and the three letters they begin or end with. More importantly, today when Philippe was singing in the kitchen, Marie Jo told him to stop because "il va pleuvoir"—meaning, when someone sings off key in France, it's normal to tell them that they are going to make it rain if they don't stop. Can you imagine thinking it's natural to go around telling people "Stop, you're going to make it rain!" if they sing out of tune? For some reason this idea has me in stitches, or as the French say "plié en deux."

Each time I'm here I remember why I'm here, in France. I can't even begin to express how thankful I am to have these people in my life. Sometimes it's hard to reassure myself that it was the right decision to leave Orléans. But, as my midnight walk with Marie Jo and her daughter reminded me, there isn't any life in the streets of Orléans, even when the clock strikes 12 to bring in the new year. Even though Marie Jo and her husband, who are originally from Marseille, have settled into and officially retired to Orléans, they are still shocked by how silent Orléans is. "They should have something for young people!" Marie Jo went on and on as we turned each street corner. But despite their willingness to criticize the orléanais lifestyle at every opportunity, each day they fill their house with laughter, music, and good food, and they are beyond willing to share everything they have. I have a theory that it has something to do with the fact that they are adoptive parents. Stéphane adopted one of his children, too, and both his family and this family feel like true family. I never feel like I'm imposing on their lives or that they are just inviting me over or taking care of me out of politeness.  In Orléans, I was also blessed with my wonderful advising professor, Chantal. This week, we spent a day with her daughter making cookies and it felt so nice to be in a home with people who feel naturally like home.

I'm returning back to Lyon tomorrow morning, I have a bunch of exams coming in the next week and then the new semester. Unfortunately, I have sort of an overwhelming feeling of stress when I think about going back, but I think this has to do with the fact that I feel at home here in Orléans, and I'm on vacation/not responsible to do schoolwork or work work for the moment. And I'm in a place that I already feel I've conquered. Even if after conquering it I felt I need to move on to something bigger, it still feels so nice to come back to the tamed familiar.

I was able to realize between my five or so days in Bretagne with my wonderful host family in Brest and my five or so days here, that I'm starting to feel like myself in French. This is what I have always wanted, and what has felt so beyond my reach—this is what I have been craving for such a long time! Even though I still have a lot of work to do, I at least feel like I'm able to transmit an accurate image of myself to others. When I travel around France in covoiturage (the carpooling/organized hitchhiking system I use to get around France), for example, or when I'm introduced to new people, I'm able to plunge in. I no longer feel like a silent void, unable to fill spaces in the conversation. Now I'm able to pick up the phone or the thread of the conversation, ask the questions I want to ask, delve deeper into real conversations with others, and I'm not afraid to ask for help when I'm struggling to find the right words. And I want so badly to continue to get better. Above all, I am in France for this reason—to get better at French, to find myself in French. And I am so thankful for the people who are willing and have been willing to help me get there one baby step at a time.

Life in Lyon has improved exponentially since I moved into an apartment with three other French students. My roommates are absolutely perfect. They make me feel so at home. And my neighborhood, and the apartment is perfect.

The only thing is that now I have to work my ass off to make enough money just to barely get by. (Warning: I'm going to get a little debbie downer on you for a paragraph or two). With a job where I am paid to teach by the hour, even the hours I'm assigned are guaranteed if someone cancels a lesson. I also have to spend a lot of time doing preparation, which I am not paid for. And I make much less than I did last year even though I work many total hours more. But I am at least happy to my job, even though I miss teaching at the middle school with groups of kids.  I do, however, give a lot of myself to my students (it takes a lot of energy to teach people to express themselves, and to try to fully understand what it is they want to express and then show them the right way to do it) they are all very kind and at the end of an hour and a half lesson I am never grumpy or bitter, but usually pleased, and feeling like, I, too, learned a lot from our interaction. That's what I love so much about teaching English in France. You get almost as much out of it as you put in. And I have the liberty to help them discover English in whatever way I think is best. There is grammar and logistics, of course, but I can also bring them articles, and cooking videos, and TV show clips, and poetry, and books. In two of my lessons before Christmas I read the chapter from "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" where Francie receives a doll from a Christmas pageant. In reading the last line of the chapter, both of my students let out a sigh of awe, meaning that they really made a journey through the story, despite the cryptics of reading it in another language. Nonetheless, it's a very special type of stress when even after working 15 hours at a job, and 3 extra hours giving private lessons on my own, to feel that you make barely enough money for just rent and food and nothing beyond that (books, my monthly transport card, an occasional drink out to be socially normal and thus emotionally normal, are things that sometimes feel scarily out of reach). I think when I get back what I need to do is add some more private lessons, even though I don't really have the time to give them. But I think having the money stress even lifted a little bit, will be worth the exchange of overworked-feeling stress. I know that coming back to France was my choice and now I have to live with the consequences, including the financial ones. I'll get there somehow. I need to find a moment here and there to walk around and breathe and listen to music. I hate feeling like I'm running from one thing to the next from 8 in the morning to 8 at night (not including course preparation and schoolwork). But that's the American Dream, right, even if that American Dream is being lived out in France?

When I'm feeling overwhelmed, I try to take the 20 minute trip up to the basilica on Fourvière. I take the furnicular up the hill, and go inside what I think is the most beautiful structure I have ever seen. I take a few minutes to say a small prayer, and I light a candle. I then go out of the basilica to admire the view over Lyon, and the surrounding mountains. And instead of taking the furnicular back down, I walk through the park on the hillside which spits me back out into old Lyon. Then, when I feel like I'm falling apart with stress, I look up at Fourvière from wherever I am in the city, and think about my candle burning there.

I must admit that I am not too happy with my studies. There are definitely moments that I gain a lot from—I chose to take a few courses in French in order to improve my French and challenge myself. But I am very frustrated with the French university system, which is very unorganized and impersonal.

In any case, what I've realized this past week, is that this year has been the best year of my life. And in prolonging my time in France, even if the beginning was a bumpy start, I needed it to get where I am in the French language. And that in itself is worth all of the bumps of disappointments and stress.

mots to self

Today is a familiar scene, a rainy day in Orléans. I actually enjoyed walking home to Mariejo and Philippe's in the rain today. I was surprised to find the rain comforting.


 list for transitiony-lyon-times

things that would probably make you feel better:

exercising more
walking around
eating healthy food/not eating sugary things
making more money (but still having time to live/do your schoolwork/go to class...)
assisting in a school in some way
reading more
being more efficient with studying
practicing french more
skyping with family/friends more
writing more
writing letters/postcards
joining a chorus (taking voice lessons) (need to be in the centre to do this)
joining a jazz band
finding someone to give me hugs
getting over people who are not worth your time

petit retour to orléans

I've been back in France for nearly two months. This is usually the critical point for me with a new start. Somewhere between two and three months, I've found my groove, I'm still feeling a little homesick but it's greatly overwhelmed by my enthusiasm for my new project/city/life.

The past three months, or really the past four or five, have been charged with change, and I don't think I had the time to register these changes until these past couple months in Lyon. In the Spring, I raced around looking for a job after my dream job had ended, when that didn't work out I filled out applications for English programs in French universities (so hopefully I could work on the side and come out with a degree that would make me more competitve for a job as an English teacher) I said goodbye to my assistant friends who left Orléans, was an animatrice at a camp in the south for a month, ran back up to Orléans, flew back out to the US to be with family for a month and to renew my visa, returned to Orléans to say goodbye and pick up some things, and moved to Lyon to start a new (poorer) life as a student.

There are a few sentences that have stuck with me. One of them was when I left Geneva, Jonathan Gosnell, the director of the program said to me:

 "Yeah, I've heard people say when they get back to the USA that their life here seems like a dream, they sink back into their old routine and it seems like their time abroad never even happened."

I didn't think anything of it when he said it, but when I got back to the US the summer after Geneva in 2011, I experienced exactly this. In the beginning I hung onto listening to French radio to comfort my return, but after a very short time, the memories became hazy and the life I had lived seemed like some sort of fiction I'd read once or twice and the main character wasn't even someone I related to.


This Summer, when I went back to the US for one zoom-through month, I felt a little different. I knew I was coming back to France, moreover to a different life in France than the one I had had before. I started to fall into my old routine but I knew I wouldn't be able to sink into it for long. Like before, I started to doubt whether my life in France really had ever been real, and further if going back was a good idea. But the self that was in France a week before was so incredibly passionate about saying I tried to leave my present self in the hands of my not-so-distant-past self. I didn't feel like my present self was capable of making informed decisions on it's own, or even of being involved in any decision making. So I tried to live outside of the present as best as I could and to continue on the path I had built for myself before, while still enjoying the time I had with my family. This proved to be very difficult. When I left my family in the airport I felt like I was making a horrible mistake. While I knew that on the other side of the ocean there were things that made me feel like I wanted to pursue the future unlike anything I could find in the US, being apart from my family and friends is never easy. And after living a year mostly in a language that was not my own, and feeling as though my personality would never come through in this other language and other culture in its entirety, time spent in the US felt both good and unfamiliar.

I really expected my time in the US to be a comfort—to know how to make jokes, how to express myself, how to get around, how to follow cultural rules. I think what surprised me was that perhaps my personality wasn't exactly the same anymore. After coming back from a year learning a foreign language, I was quieter, I listened more, I didn't always feel like talking or expressing myself.

I became suddenly aware of the different versions of myself. The different fictions of myself. There was the person who went to Smith, the person who wanted to be a choral conductor, the person who was from the island, the person who lived and taught in Orléans, the person who was going to enroll in a masters in Lyon—and it really hurt not to feel like all these experiences were linked. Like they were all dreamed up.

The first moment I began to feel things come together was when my friend from Geneva, Laurena, came to visit Lyon last weekend. She is one of the small number of people in this world that makes me feel "home." Talking to her makes me feel like I am one whole person, safe and loved and supported for all that I am. 

Coming back to Orléans for a week has also definitely jumpstarted the process. At Mariejo and Philippe's house, I feel so among family, so comfortable and happy and feeling as though I'm sucessfully using the language to communicate my true self that is constructed from all my experiences. With Chantal and Stéphane around, I feel even more supported and loved. I feel reminded of why I wanted to stay in France. For the first time, I'm able to think about all the experiences I've had and feel that they are all coming together onto the same pathway.

Sometimes I wonder if it was a mistake to move away from Orléans—it was so much harder than I expected to move away from my family at home and then immediately move away from this family—but I try to tell myself that it's true that in a way my time here had to come to an end. Orléans is a great city, but after my friends left things would have been hard. I wouldn't have liked commuting to the university in Paris. It would have been hard to go through another rainy winter. It would have been hard to get over the little stint of romantic heartbreak that I felt here with the cause of this heartbreak still around. It would have been hard, right? I'm not sure I can really know for sure, yet, but it's good to know that this place is always here, even if I'm not able to continue on here with the job I adored so much. There's something bigger waiting, right? Sometimes you just have to put your time in, right? I hope I'm right. I hope I made the right decision.


I'm so thankful for the support of all those people who are home to me during these times of transition. I'm so thankful to the universe for crossing my path with those of Mariejo, Philippe, Chantal, Stéphane, Ashley, Margaux and her family—the list goes on and on and on—people whose generosity is whole, who make me feel whole and at home. I need to remind myself that people who make me feel far from home are not the people with whom I need to pass my life. I need to spend this life finding more ways home.

Château de Cheverny, Chantal took me and the new assistant there yesterday!

Gone Life-ing

As usual, I abandoned this blog for life.

Now I'm at a new beginning, and needing to write to sort things out and push myself back into a new experience.

Last year, I struggled through some dense moments of deeply feeling alone, and then sprung out of them to realise that I was living a life that brought me back in touch with the person I see myself to be. My job re-inspired me to fight for the future I see for myself. And I was so lucky to meet a few incredible people reached out to me to make me feel at home and to encourage me to listen to myself.

Before college, I remember every time heard the phrases "this is going to be really hard," "most people will fail doing this," and even "no one will succeed in doing this,"—whether it had to do with courses, music, or anything, really—a brave inner voice spoke to me saying, "but you could be different, you will be different. don't let what other people say bother you. just give it a try and see how it goes." And I never worried (..at least about things falling into place—but I worried about plenty of other things). Things always turned out okay. Usually much better than I thought they would. People took care of me wherever I went. I got the good grades. I got into the good college. I got my foot in the door here, I took it out just in time there. I said my humble thanks to the little voice that helped me to float above all the pressure and the discouragement.

Then suddenly that inner voice went away and the voices of everyone else took its place, and things started to fall out of place.

At this point, it's necessary to briefly touch upon what it's like to be twenty something in the 2010 plus somethings. We went to college. We got our degrees. We did our internships. We made our contacts. But we were we're told, and we are retold, and we saw, and we resee, that the jobs we wanted do not exist. That there isn't room or money to change the world in this way or that way. There isn't time to experiment and get better at something that attracts us.

There's no time for mistakes, or someone else gets your dream.

There are two ways to react to this pressure. Either, you take up something "useful" and fit yourself into the societal puzzle wherever you can find a place, and risk not being happy with that place. Risk spending the time you have on earth just making a spot for yourself to exist. Or you think—hey, everything is out of whack right now. Not many people are getting anywhere. So why not accept that reality, and use this time to do the things I want to do, since I know no matter what I do it probably won't be good enough and I probably won't be happy in front of a computer or behind a desk just trying to make myself "useful." It kinda feels a little to me like how people in the middle ages began to step out of strongly built societal standards during the Plague. People all around you were dying, so you either took the life you had left to do some crazy, out of the line things while you had the chance to do it, or you lived the rest of your life hiding in fear from the ultimate fear, death.

So in a way, this is all a strange way to try to explain, to myself, and to you, why I'm doing what I'm doing. And it's also because that voice that helped to carry me through my childhood has come back and life makes more sense when I follow it. I know that sort of sounds crazy, but it's not like "hearing voices" in the traditional sense of the term. It's not even really a voice, that's just the only way I can explain it in language. But it's more a feeling that's saying things to me like, "yeah, you can learn French. It'll take time, but you will be able to do it," "yeah, you could learn French well enough to take a competitive teaching exam that's even hard for French native speakers," "yeah, you'll feel lonely for a while, but then you'll find friends that will make you feel at home," "yeah, you can find a way back to teaching French kids your language and feel incredibly fulfilled doing so."

So—yeah.

Kayla


PS—I just came home from class to these two beautiful demonstrations of love, a letter from Marie & a card from my Nana :] Thank yooou!

old post from Christmas

"Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings, Love Clarence."

This week I spent my first Christmas away from my family, but I spent it with the closest people I have to family on this side of the pond, and the people who are probably the reason why I am teaching in France in the first place.

When I was a sophomore in high school, about 7 years ago, I was able to be part of a small exchange between the chorus of a high school in Brest, France, and the chorus from my high school. Our school's group went to Brest for a couple weeks of singing and touring the countryside, staying with host families of students from the choir, and, after we returned, the school in France came to stay with our families and sing for our families. It's incredible how less than 30 days steered so many more days in my life. Despite being a diehard Rhode Islander, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of "home" the first time I came to Bretagne. Because the coasts of Bretagne descend into the same ocean as my home, the "ocean state,"the traditions of my island and Bretagne come from the same waters, it was clear that the breton people shared the same spirit for life, even though they spoke a different language. And, to share music across that language boundary, made the experience especially meaningful. My host sister Margaux's family was always singing, so willing to share their life, their traditions, their language, and their home with me, and at first I tried to keep track of every moment we shared on paper, but after a day it was too hard to keep track. Margaux then came to stay with my family for about a month the summer of my junior year in high school.

Now I'm back in the same house where I left my 15-year-old self many years ago, and while a lot has changed, and there is a lot that has changed me since then, I feel like life is coming together a little bit more in France. Sometimes it's really hard for me to remember what got me here from there...

Rhapsody in Winter

I'm sitting in a café in which I'm becoming a frequenter, watching it become Christmas. I don't have my camera so unfortunately I can't take a picture, but there is a centrepiece on the ceiling in the middle of the café, and it's just a huge collection of branches, hanging spheres, hanging pillow hearts, white twinkly lights, and lights that look like icicles—complete with a dripping effect. The woman putting up the decorations is concerned that small children, on the shoulders of their parents, may hit their head.

Since my last update, I've started to feel a little bit homesick, what with the holidays happening and everything. But because I've been away from home a few times, I know how it feels and I know how to deal with it (although I've never been away from home for the winter holidays, but I think I'm doing a good job of keeping myself occupied).

As a student of literature, I think the most valuable understanding I gained is to see tragedy as the elaborate premier work of an artist and happiness as a later, more seemingly simple or modern project, but all the same perhaps more advanced, that you can only really understand without seeing the preceding work, first. And if you've experienced it out of order, it doesn't make sense until you've seen both. That is, in order to feel deeply,you have to feel deeply in all directions. And, once you have felt deeply in all directions, you can anticipate that the directions are moving on—a feeling is never permanent but only a moment on its way to becoming something else.

I guess what this is meaning for me right now in this moment, is the fact that being an ocean away from home is both so heartbreaking, and also the most heartfreeing. I don't know if it's just because my brain is working to hard on new things that it doesn't have time to give way to daily happenings but only to big successes and failures? As my friend here, Ashley, says, "we're supposed to fuck up"—with language, our first job, living as a foreigner. Maybe it's just the permission to fuck up that I find comforting.

More on this at a later date.

For Thanksgiving, I made myself a Thanksgiving-inspired sandwich and watched a little bit of "It's a Wonderful Life" after I came home from work, and then skyped with my family a little bit. I enjoyed watching my grandparents fascination with the videocam.

I also made a basic presentation for some of my students on Thanksgiving. I elaborated on it with other videos and links.

http://prezi.com/ukyhmelcgorf/thanksgiving/

When I first ask my students to describe what they know about Thanksgiving, they think Thanksgiving and Noël are the same. Well I sorted that one out! Now all my students know the truth—about how most of the pilgrims died the first winter they were here, how we had a brief period of peace with the native americans but then killed them all, and also a little bit about, erm, Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, the Macy's Day parade, and what a harvest feast is, which is more than most Americans know. 

The day after Thanksgiving I had a full day at the collège which was glorious as usual. My classes in the morning went well, and then in the afternoon, as usual, I worked with the students on the CabART project. We've already translated their scripts into English, and written a song in English inspired by the writing of Adele, so, this time, we started rehearsing the scene in English and I helped them with blocking, gesture, pronunciation, etc. This part of my day is so amazing because I feel like I really get to put to use all of my interests—music, language, translation, theatre, discussion, culture, etc. It's like the dream job I didn't think existed! One student asked if I would be returning next year and I almost got teary thinking about how I wouldn't be there.

(Quand même, sometimes I listen to things like Barber's Adagio for Strings and my heart says but why aren't you looking at scores and lying on your bed putting music into your head all day?)

Then, that night I had a Thanksgiving celebration with the other American assistants, some native Frenchies, and other assistants from England and various other countries. Everyone went around to talk about what they were thankful for which was really nice. I practiced a lot of French.

Then, Saturday night, I had another Thanksgiving with an ancien assistant who now lives in Orléans, Emily, and her French friends which was also wonderful. She did a wonderful job making many traditional dishes, including pumpkin pie!

At the end of the weekend, the music teacher at the collège, Stèphane, invited me over for tea and tarte with him and his wife, which was really nice. We talked for a long time in French and talked about traveling to different parts of France. I've also started writing a song with the kids, which he is is composing the melody to, so we looked at that and he's going to have me sing it for the kids in the next couple of weeks which is really neat.

As far as my language process, there's nothing like graduating from a prestigious liberal arts college with lots of ideas on subjects like music and literature and society, and then feeling like you can't express any of them. But, it's getting better. As I meet more people, I've been put in more and more situations to speak French more and more continuously.

Here are some pictures from the weekend before Thanksgiving:

Waiting for the trams to restart in the morning...ooops.

I went to choral rehearsal last night and that was also really good. There is a woman there who is really kind to me and always telling me about musical things I can participate in and driving me home. The only thing about chorus here, is, I still can't get used to when the conductor counts us in "trois, quatre" since I'm trained to jump after "three, four."

self un/re-covered

I often forget I'm a part writer until it starts to smell like winter and I'm drinking hot chocolate in the middle of the night—maybe it's only then that the shivering thoughts are made warm to wander?

I haven't updated in the past few weeks, and, as usual, that's not only because I've forgotten to or because I can't find the time to write. It's because my mind is working through some things. 

In summary, I've learned:

At the core, I am a nonjudgemental, spiritual, hard-working person—an embracer of chance, an inhabiter the current, full moment, and a listener to people, to music, to the universe for instructions. I love automatically and can find many reasons why I'm meant to meet this person or the next. 

I think most importantly, I'm a happy, thankful person. 

It's easy to lose track of all of this and believe you're someone else.
But, for some reason, I'm really able to affirm the truth of this version of myself when I'm here. Even though I'm homesick, and I miss my friends and family, my living situation and noisy upstairs neighbors are not idyllic, and I'm still confused about what steps to take next, and my brain is aching to learn the language and not always knowing how or feeling encouraged to, and I still want to find life, the universe, love, and everything...who I am is still instinctual and it's not being buried under changes in time and of the times.

Maybe it's as simple as being relocated and not being able to take anything else with you?

I love teaching. I come away from each Friday at the collège unbelievably ecstatic, giggly, and glowing, despite any challenges the week may have presented. 

The past two weeks I've been on vacation. Spent a weekend in Paris with the other assistants, and got to see my friend in Paris, Arzhel, which was really great, and he's coming here next weekend! :] It's nice to conceptualize geography in terms of which friends live where, but also sad to feel like you can't be a part of everywhere at once. Paris also made me miss city life and i'm thinking of my friends in NYC and hoping the city is on the recovery.

 This past week I've been really sick and am finally starting to feel better. Nonetheless, back to school tomorrow!

here are some pictures from paris:

Soundbites

I'm starting to think about learning a language as storing soundbites. You beginning collecting soundbites when you study language, but they aren't complete—it's like the neurons are halfway fired, and the sound is really faint when you try to recall it. It isn't until they are all around you, all the time, coming from real french mouths, that you can real store a complete and accurate sound.

I'm always rehearsing things in my head that I hear in passing..."et après," "pas de soucis," "tu as envie de..." "comment ça s'est passé," and the list is becoming longer and longer and the collection of soundbites more and more connectable as my brain loosens up to the language. As far as the brain-mouth connection, usually I find what I rehearse in my brain is perfectly pronounced and makes grammatical sense—getting it to come out that way isn't always an easy task. If I'm nervous about who I'm talking to, or what I'm talking about, it becomes difficult. Or, if I think about it too much.

I finished last weekend by going to a get together at Emily's, the assistant who had my job in France last year and is still in Orléans, apartment. It was really nice. Good to be in a more french-ified situation, and to get to know Emily!

This week, I've had classes at the lycée. I've mostly still been introducing myself and running the same activities. The class I had today, I substituted for the teacher who was absent for the whole class—it went pretty well, although it was mostly boys who were a little hard to keep under control, and they said a few inappropriate remarks in both French and English, so I had to play bad cop. But even though they sometimes fool around, I can still tell that they are good kids (for the most part), so it doesn't bother me very much. I really like having the variety of ages, the high school kids at the lycée, and the middle school students (who are the equivalents of 5th to 8th grade) all day on Friday. I look forward to different things about both groups. 

Last night, I went to a local pub with a bunch of assistants to watch the Spain-France soccer game. France was struggling up until the end, when they scored the tying goal at the very last second. Everyone in the bar began to scream and holler and jump. It was a pretty amazing thing to witness. Also, on the tram on the way to the pub, we met a woman who showed us pictures of her cat on her phone, in response to our sadness to seeing a dead pigeon outside the window: "don't worry–there are still beautiful things in the world!" she said. It was pretty precious.

Yesterday, the sun came out for the first time in a long while, which was really nice. Here are some pictures of the river, la loire:

Oohh, and also, on Monday night, I went to my first rehearsal with a chorus! I spoke more French there than my whole time here! The people were really nice, and one woman even drove me home. I'm going to have to be a soprano, but ça va.

Weekend Update

The rain in Spain may stay mainly in the plain, but the rain in France mainly stays in Orléans.

After my update last week, I went with some other assistants to La Nuit Blanche in Paris, a night where there are art installations all over the city and all the museums are ouvert nearly the whole night long. Because we are poor-in-salary- but-rich-in-experience-teaching-assistants, we did not pay for a place to stay overnight and stayed out in Paris from when we arrived at 9 PM until the first train back to Orléans, at 7 30 in the morning.

Train times!

We walked for nearly ten hours, with a couple stops for coffee, omelettes, and kebab. I think my favorite thing was being able to walk around Notre Dame at midnight, wandering around through the cathedral with only candlelight.

Here's some spontaneous music and dancing by the Seine!

We also went to the Georges Pompidou museum, where we got a glimpse at a lot of beautiful modern art. 

From about 5 to 7 AM, things that were supposed to be open, like the Louvre, started being closed due to "technical difficulties"—or, because Paris is French. We started to get tired and grabbed some kebabs:

We did hang out on the Louvre's lawn and watched a short film called "Logorama" a few times. I was scared because Ronald McDonald was a crazy killer and I'm, errm, not a fan of clowns.

It was a long night, but I'm really glad that I had the opportunity in my life to go .

The next week, I began teaching again. This week, I started to take half of the class on my own for about a half hour at a time. At the Lycée, my first class was a little rocky because I underplanned the period and got a little attitude from the students. But, I figured it out the next period and changed activities quickly. I used a game I brought from the US called "Headbanz," where you put on a headband that holds a card with a picture and a vocabulary word, and have to ask questions of others to figure out what you are. I simplified the game and only had one student come to the front of the class at a time, and it seemed to work really well. I continued to do this activity for the rest of the week. I also had to kick a student out of one of my classes because she wouldn't listen to me and refused to sit in the front of the room, and even though I was patient with her, would not try to participate. I felt badly, but I really need to establish authority right now We'll try again with her next week.

At the collège my youngest students loved spending time apart with me, their faces were all aglow and shining. I just want to hug all of them all the time. We practiced questions like "how old are you? what is your nationality? where do you live? do you have any brother's and sisters?"and then I drew pictures on the board and had the students create their own character (with a chosen number of pets which usually came in ridiculous quantities, a nationality, etc). I then had students come up and pretend to be the character and the class asked him/her questions. They loved it.

Walking around the school, the children stop and say "hello!" very enthusiastically, and grin when I wave to them. One student even said "rehello!" to me on Friday—in french you can usually add "re" to a verb to indicate that it is happening again. Hahahahaha.

In the afternoon, I work on a project with the other teachers where students are designing a 'cabaret' piece that combines the themes of art, music, language, and literature. I had to work with some students this week on translating their script into English. Because this is a part of the day taught in French, I had to speak some French to the boys I was working with. We had a fun time when I did understand the French that needed to be translated—the boys explained a different way in French, the made hand motions, acted things out—it was really good for both me and the students. Also, one boy named Pierre is very small, and they started to call him "little stone" (pierre means stone in English, but is also a popular name). That had me cracking up.

My ride with Stèphane and Sylvain was great as usual. This week, Stèphane talked to me about how he loves watching CNN because he thinks the women are beautiful and how he hates communists. He also talked to me about the French view of Americans. He said that for his mother, who was born in a concentration camp, the image of the Americans that freed them were these smiling, laughing people that brought love and safety. In time, as his parents became very strong leftists, it became necessary to talk poorly of Americans. He said that he is sad that this paradox exists. Then Sylvain, the art teacher, talked a lot about art and colors on the way home. I hope someday soon I'll start to feel comfortable jumping into conversations  It can be easy when people ask me questions and talk to me one on one, but in a big group it's very hard for me to follow and feel like I can interject my opinion.

The other night, my neighbor Benjmain also came over again. I made him a CD, and he liked the Tim Eriksen tracks best. :] My American friend Rhiannon was also over so that ended up being good because when I didn't understand his French, she did, and vice versa. Benjamin is so fun! I love listening to his music. We also sang the cranberries song "Zombie" together because he heard me listening to it the other day. He loves to talk and talk and talk though, so I have to remind him to slow down. We also played the headbanz game that I played with my students in French, which was fun. ANnnnnd, he told me to be careful when I say "habiter" a verb that means "live"—because "bite" means dick. Ooooops. Gotta pronounce that one correctly! He's going on vacation this week (he works at a hospital) but next week we're going to have a dinner of both French and American items. Rhiannon and I are going to make some pie. 

I also had a night with the other English teachers form the Lycée where we had crêpes to celebrate Andrea's birthday. It's so nice to be included in their community. Although I can't always keep up with what they are saying, I'm getting better at understanding and feeling like I can respond. Also, crêpes are a beautiful gift in life. 

Last night I went to the night market in the center of town and then out for some drinks with the other assistants was good.

Right now I'm here on a rainy Saturday in the Bibliothèque—actually, it's called the Mediathèque. I really want to spend more time studying the language so that I can be a better communicator. I never thought I'd be this motivated to integrate into the culture, but for some reason, this year I really am. 

I love you all and I love my life—and this year is going to be so good for me. My usual anxieties are eaten up by the fact that I so badly want to communicate and integrate and learn how to live day to day in a new place.

K-la

PS also really getting obsessed with hot chocolat...

Tomber amoureuse avec quelque chose

I love my job. I feel like I have been in Orléans for months, and there is so much to update!

Last Monday I had a long day of orientation, here are some pictures from our walking tour:

On Tuesday I started working at the Lycée Jean Lurçat (a high school). The first day I felt a little overwhelmed by all the French around me in the halls and the teacher's room, but the day after I quickly adjusted. I'm still shy to speak, but getting better at at least initiating conversation. The English teachers at JL are wonderful, and so are the students. There are definitely some with some attitude, but I think I'll be able to handle it. In a class of students preparing to be secretaries, which happened to be all young women (there are other classes that are all guys...), they seemed to love the idea of an American assistant the best. All of the classes had lots of questions for me, including "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Have you met 50 cent (rhianna, obama...etc)." Others recommended some French music for me to listen to. Some wanted to know if I was doing okay after moving so far from home! I really enjoy helping them learn how to interact and practice making cross-cultural connections.

On Friday I went to Neuville Aux Bois, to the collège that I am teaching in (middle school). I was picked up at 7 30 in the morning by the music teacher Stephane, and the art teacher Sylvain. Let me tell you, I love the Stephane-SylvainMobile. Stephane, the music teacher,  is this middle-aged, bald man with a long wiry beard and lots of hippy ideas and he loves things like Steve Reich. He also likes to try to speak to me in English, and we take turns talking in English and French to help each other. He calls me "teacher" when we are speaking in English "Thank you teacher!" I love it. The art teacher is a younger guy who maybe I can be friends with after I'm less of an awkward foreigner. But I'm looking forward to more rides in the Stephane-SylvainMobile.

The school is full of students who are the equivalent of our grades 5th to 8th grade. They are all so adorable. Even though some of them are harder to calm down, I love them all. Throughout the day, I was given candy, told I was pretty, and shocked one child into saying "je ne le crois pas"—"I don't believe it!" over and over again when he was told I was an American.

Ugggh some man in the mall (i'm using free wifi because my wifi at the foyer hasn't been working) just bothered me and I think tried to pick me up—introduction being 'how old are you?' Never a good start sir. Uuughkckk.

Anyway back to nicer things. The children were adorbs, and I absolutely love my job! It's so nice to present your life and your person to people as a job and actually feel like just being yourself is useful to someone.

Also, another wonderful thing that happened, is the man who lives next door to me plays songs on guitar all the time and sings and it's so nice! So I left him a note telling him so in bad French. The next day he left me a note:

Today, he came and knocked on my door, and even though my French became even more horrible with nervousness, he was very patient and helped to correct my mistakes in French, and brought his guitar over and started singing and then had me playing guitar and showing me the chords and singing along with the things he had written. It was very sweet and it made me feel so happy to feel like I have a French friend. He told me that I could come over anytime and eat with him and his friends, as he has a nicer apartment with actual cooking abilities. 

Okay, tonight a German language assistant and two of my American English Assistant friends go to Paris—to "La Nuit Blanche." It's an all night long art gallery opening where you can go to all sorts of art installations alllll over the city. I'm going to have to stay up all night until our train back at 7 am, I'm afraid I'm not going to make it but I also think this is a really good once in a lifetime opportunity. Love you allll I must runn!

xxx

K-la

Bienvenue à Orléans

I don't know where to begin! Except maybe that it's easy to pronounce "gare" (train station) as "guerre" (war) and also  that I am beginning my first evening in Orléans in McDonald's! I haven't been to a McDonald's in at least 10 years, but on Sundays in Europe, especially France, nothing is open, and since I moved into my Foyer on the weekend, I have not yet met with the Foyer's supervisor to sign my internet contract...and McDonald's has free internet! I was so nervous about ordering food (and also, I only have 5 Euro on me at the moment, and all the meals here are upwards of 6 Euros...needless to say I broke into the Reeses I intended to give my students, but reasoned that there 'wouldn't be enough for all of them so it wouldn't be fair'). I ended up just sputtering out...."Je voudrais un jus d'orange." And, yes, mademoiselle, that is all. This is before I noticed that there is another completely different counter that is a McCafé, where I could have gotten something a little more appetising, and also, somehow for some reason a coffee would make me feel more entitled to hang out in a restaurant than an orange juice for some reason...but this is a McDonald's, so there are no rules?

My flight to Paris was very short and comfortable, and I found my friend Jordan who traveled from Basel to meet me, and who will also be an assistant, without a problem. I made the executive decision to splurge a little and take a taxi to our hotel, because taking the trail/metro with our our luggage seemed a little tricky. The girl at the desk of our hotel was very sweet and asked if we wanted to speak in French, which was very sweet as most Parisians usually switch to English automatically when they hear English accents or foreign hesitation.

We arrived at the hotel at about 8 PM, but decided to go out for a stroll anyway, because, when in Paris—one must roam?

First we grabbed some dinner in a crowded café (which we figured meant it was good)—I had an omlette which was vraiment magnifique, and then wandered to along the Seine and to Notre Dame.


The next morning we went to the train station (decided on splurging on taxi again, those metro stairs are toooo difficult with a year's worth of stuff, but otherwise parfait), and took the train to Orléans and Blois (some miracle man appeared and helped me lift my stuff onto the train)! I got off first, Jordan was a sweetie and helped me get my bags off.

My supervising teacher Isabelle and her ADORABLE (4 year old?) son Kylian were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Isabelle is SO MAGNIFIQUE. First, we went to the boulangerie to buy something like nine baguettes. Isabelle's son Kylian wanted 8 for himself, haha. She told me: "We usually get about 10 and eat one in the car!". She then brought me to her daughter Manon's (9 years old) football (soccer) tournament. It was so nice to be out in the open air, hearing French all around, and seeing children everywhere, and sitting with a bunch of families. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it just made me feel so at home right away! My brain started to do this thing called IMMERSING. Luckily, for some reason, I can understand nearly everything everyone says-—except if they mumble or speak in slang or really really really fast. But I can even understand most of what Isabelle's children say. The problem is producing speech. Even though I can rehearse and put together words naturally in my head, when I try to actually say something, I always stumble and hesitate. But this will get better with time. I'm glad that I'm giving myself this challenge this year. It's really waking up my brain and making it work again. And I think because I want so badly to communicate, because I'm not here with friends like I was in Geneva, I will find a way to communicate. I feel like everyone should feel how hard my brain is working, however, I feel like while I'm walking around or when I was sitting in the bleachers at the soccer tournament, people could hear my brain working really hard. In some ways, immersion is a very egocentrical process, hahaha. You're always working within your self and you can't understand why everyone else isn't as preoccupied with your process as you are! hahahaha.

After the tournament, we went into the forêt! Isabelle, her husband, and two children, wanted to bring me there to hear the songs of the "cerfs"...the stags. It's mating time in the forest and the cerfs make these echoing rumbles throughout the forest to attract the biches (the does).
On our way through the dirt roads in the car, Franck, Isabelle's husband, let the children sit on his lap and steer the car! It was adorable. I love their family. There is so much love among them and I was so glad I could be a part of it.

Sure enough, as we wandered down the forest paths, we heard the rumbling of cerfs. It's a sound I can't describe in words. After a bit of wandering, we sat down for a picnic, and I tried my first paté on baguette! Also some jambon.
When we started walking again, I had this funny thought "Here we are wandering around the forest, following the patriarch of the family, stopping and becoming silent whenever he signaled, and we've just feasted on pig." I felt like I'd gone back in time and was in touch with my inner hunter-gatherer. And then, moments after I thought this, Franck stopped us. Pointing through the trees he moved from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of something moving. It was a pack of sangliers—wild pigs!!! Which, can be dangerous. Isabelle asked me "are you a good runner?" Luckiliy, the pigs all ran off into the forest. When we were making our final forest loop back to the car, we saw another wild pig down the path. Franck stopped and called out to provoke it to run away. Manon grabbed onto her mom in fear, and I followed suit and grabbed her other arm.

As the call of the stags became louder and deeper as the sun went down, we made it safely out of the forest. I heard the stags, saw wild pigs, and saw a doe run across a clearing!

Here is a fun song we sang on the way home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfSJZtWNMTw