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