I Wanna Be Expatriated

Re-Entry

2008-06-11T18:54:00.002+02:00

In 12 hours, I will be waiting outside my apartment for a shuttle to pick me up at take me to Charles de Gaulle for the last time in the foreseeable future. This morning I packed up the kitty and we took the RER and then a bus to some remote freight area at CDG. When I walked up to the office, the agent poked his head out the window to welcome me. After the days I spent on the phone with this guy, I'm sure the only little girl holding a baby blue pet carrier would be me. After swiping my credit card (and holding my breath until it cleared) and filling out some paperwork, his assistant drove Puck and I over to a warehouse to pass him off. Something went wrong with his paperwork. I didn't even bother to ask what was happening, mostly because I was too busy trying not to vomit everywhere. My some miracle, they let him through and the assistant dropped me back at the RER station. I will be freaking out until I pick him up in San Francisco. Or I get the text message that he's been put in quarantine and hence held hostage in the UK. Fucking England and their ridiculous laws.

I came back today to my quiet, messy apartment and tried with all my might to take a nap. The hum of nerves has kicked in and I was only able sleep about 20 minutes. So instead I've been packing up all afternoon, and soon I will be cleaning. All of my stuff seems to fit in my bags, so that's a good sign. At 7:30 tomorrow, cross your fingers, the shuttle will pick me up and I'll be gone.

I don't even know what to expect, or how it's going to feel. The way I deal with things is to throw myself into the present and push out any longing for the past. So I've basically, totally forgotten what my life in San Francisco was like and totally thrown myself into this life in Paris. I know that 9 months is a drop in the bucket and that I'm no where near calling Paris my "home," but I'm so entrenched here that the thought of starting over -- again -- is terrifying. That's what I do, I make a life. I go to school, I work, I find a gym, I pin-point which supermarkets sell which stuff and the best place to buy beauty products (it's the Champion at the Italie 2 mall, so you know). I've triangulated which newsstands are open on Sundays so I can always picked up an Elle or Glamour on the way to the gym. I have my favorite restaurants, favorite crepe stand, favorite boutiques. I'm comfortable here.

I haven't romanticized Paris in the least. Before this year, I'd already spent two weeks doing the "ooh, ahh" touristy thing, and this time it was just about making a life here. I don't have endless pictures of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and all the other places. In fact I don't have many pictures of it at all. The past couple days, I thought about going to buy souvenirs and take pictures and visit my favorite places again. But instead of doing all of that right now, while I'm a nervous wreck, I'll save it for when I come back.

So this blog is more or less dunzo. I'll post about my re-indoctrination into American life, and I will definitely post the completely tales of Lauren and I's adventures in Greece. Until then. . .à plus.

Débrouillarde

2008-06-05T11:44:00.004+02:00

So the calm and comfort I was beginning to feel on Tuesday was unceremoniously smashed upon calling up British Airways to reserve a spot for Puck. Before booking I had checked to make sure they accept animals, but apparently even though he is accompanied, Puck cannot fly in the baggage hold during my flights. He has to fly unaccompanied as cargo, a whole mess of rules and regulations that I was not prepared for. Least of all was I prepared for the price -- about 500 euros. To get him here was supposed to cost $175 but by some miracle ended up being $70. Anyway, this 500 euro price includes two flights and an overnight stay in London, because the only plane going from Paris to London the day I leave isn't leaving until 5 pm.

Even so, this was way more than the about 300 euro I'd conserved to get him home and perhaps buy myself a new cell phone. So I called around to pretty much every airline with cargo. Air Canada told me to fuck off and use an American airline. The cunt at United said I'd have to call the Paris cargo office, but suggested I look up the number online or in the phone book. The dimwit at American Airlines gave me two numbers that don't exist. There was a brief glimmer of hope from Air France, who in fact had a direct flight from Paris to San Francisco that would be unloading around the time I got into SFO myself. Unforunately, they wanted about 700 euros. How could it be so expensive for the direct flight? Anyway, I gave up and I am waiting for the all-clear from British Airways. I'll put it on my credit card, I'll pay it off -- that is life and motherhood. I can't very well leave him in Paris. In fact this whole thing reminded me that he needed another health certificate. I flew Air Canada to get here in August, where he was baggage. But I did all the EU animal immigration footwork and got him: a health certificate (in French), a 15-digit European microchip, and a rabies vaccination. Naturally, no one asked a shred of evidence when I was leaving LAX or arriving at CDG. Although now since I won't be there, I'm sure it will be. So yesterday in my frenzy, I looked up English-speaking vets in the 6th arrondisement. The woman I thought I was calling apparently handed her practice over to someone who doesn't really speak English, but as per usual, it wasn't even necessary. Same thing happened when I opened my bank account at an English-speaking branch, or tried to speak English on the phone with the Air France people. One day, I will realize that I speak French.

So this morning, Puck and I took the bus about 10 minutes down to Saint-Placide and had a short, sweet (read: 20 minutes) appointment with Dr. Rodriguez. He didn't weigh him or take his temperature, but I now have a new international health certificate for Puck, all for 50 euros. In San Francisco I usually take him to the SPCA, where they charged me $45 for the appointment and another $50 for the USDA certificate. Sometimes France is actually civilized.

So this drama all got kicked-off a couple hours before I left for Nanterre to take a final. Luckily it was my BS American Civilization class and an essay on Common Sense, which was my summer book report for AP US history (remember those good times?). If it didn't go well, I'll tell MICEFA to burn the grade sheet and pretend I never took the class.

Anyway, while on the train to the final I decided I'm going to get "Breathe" tattooed on me, probably on my rib cage (though I've heard it hurts like a bitch). I emailed my mom about it and she offered to pay for it. What has the world come to? When I was little, my mom used to see tattooed and pierced people and snicker while I chided her for being judgmental. When I was 12, after years of begging, my mom FINALLY let me get my ears pierced for my Bat Mitzvah. Then it was "nothing else until you're out of the house." A couple years later I got my step dad to take me to get second holes when my mom was out of town, which she didn't like but didn't freak out about. Then when I was sixteen there were the third holes in my ears, followed two days later by the belly button ring piercing that she drove me to (but I used my own 65 bucks). Flash to last summer and the woman is getting an ohm tattooed on her back at Sole Patch on Haight while I take pictures for my photojournalism class. My, how things change. I've also decided that I want "Débrouillarde" tattooed on my hairline, just behind my ear. I think I've earned it.

Ratée, crevée, embêtée

2008-06-03T11:25:00.003+02:00

Save for a couple moments, I've spent the last couple of days just hibernating. The fog and fatigue of moving and disorientation is finally starting to wear off, though I'm not sure if that's because I'm comfortable or I'm just freaking out about finals and a paper so I'm forcing myself to deal.

On Sunday morning I got up at a normal time to hit up Champion. I'd already mapped out the grocery stores in my new neighborhood, but then I realized that I wouldn't be up for shopping on Saturday and that the chances of finding a grocery store on Sunday are slim. Luckily, this particular Champion is open until 1 pm on Sunday. Unluckily, the entire world was in on the secret and the place was totally packed. After I fought my way through and got back home, I ate lunch and went to the gym like a normal Sunday afternoon. Lauren got in that evening and we went out to the 11th to meet up with Mike, eat some kebabs, and wait for their friend Zac to show up. On the way to meet Mike we drank some canned prosecco that Lauren had bought on a plane from Prague, then followed it up with some limoncello in their hotel room and some South African wine on the Pont des Arts. I decided we should be very cheesy and drink wine on the Pont des Arts and watch the 1 am Eiffel Tower light show. Unfortunately Zac left the wine at my place so Lauren and I went to get it, and when we came back they had been cornered by two drunk/stoned jackasses. It was all well and good until Mike and Zac were really ready to leave. I ended up getting in a little French spat with one of them because he wouldn't give my wine glass back (and had already broken another of them). I finally realized I should give it up because the last thing I needed was to get stabbed by some banlieusard-mahgrebain in the middle of the night. So we moved our selves to the statue at Odeon and ended the night there.

On Monday morning, Lauren and I woke up after about 6 hours of sleep and hit up Starbucks before seeing the 10:25 am showing of Sex and the City at UGC Danton. It was a very American experience. And after we met up with the guys to get some crepes and so they could help Lauren get her to stuff to the bus station.

After they left, I listened to a voice message from my ex-property manager, telling me that the studio wasn't clean enough the way I left it. Of course I nearly vomited because the last thing I want to do is give up part of my security deposit for cleaning. When I moved out of the Villas they had a professional cleaning crew come in before they could turn the apartment over, and I feel like an hour or two with one person cleaning after a 9 month stay isn't totally ridiculous. But unfortunately I think I'm going to have to pay for it. The property manager said that she'd explain to the cleaning lady that (in French) "the current generation of young people has a different understanding of house-cleaning." How fucking insulting. I know she's trying to help me out but I don't think my age has anything to do with it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that even though I asked her to, the property manager never came before I moved out to tell me what needed to be done in the apartment. My lease is according to California law, therefore I am entitled to a scheduled inspection. Oh well. I'll probably end up paying for it because my landlady hates me and jumps at the chance to get hysterical over any perceived mistake.

So I tried to take a nap yesterday but it just wasn't happening. Instead I tried to soothe my nerves with sedentary eating and Queer as Folk. It sort of worked. However today I have a final that I need to at least brush up on before I take it. Although I also slept 11 1/2 hours last night, so I think I can handle it. And then on Thursday I'm making up the final I missed last week. I'm resenting this whole week a bit because it's just making me want to leave Paris, but I know that I don't actually want to get out of here. When I get back will be a whole new set of drama with apartment-finding and moving and summer school and work. It's just never-ending no matter what you do.

Movin' on up

2008-05-31T20:26:00.004+02:00

Today was the culmination of about three days of nerves and paralysis. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I turn into a sort of vegetable. In this guess, I blew off some schoolwork because I was too numbed to think about anything but packing and cleaning. This morning I called a cab to take me to my new apartment (at 23 rue Dauphine in the 6th, for those interested), dropped off my magnanimous bags and the kitty, then took the metro straight back to Mouffetard. Before heading back to the studio for the daunting task of cleaning, I got an egg, cheese, and chicken crepe and it was fucking incredible. I've only eaten a handful of crepes in the last 9 months and while that seems strange, I actually don't regret it.
Anyway, I returned to my almost-not-anymore home to eat my crepe and fire up the laptop for a Queer as Folk/heavy-duty cleaning marathon. After about 4 hours of scrubbing, sweeping, and lint-rolling, I was all done. At one point I sat in my foyer with my doormat and a roll of packing tape, practically waxing the thing to get all of the cat hair off of it. I had to do the same thing to the desk chair and the bedroll. Ironically, you wouldn't even know I had a cat right now, because he hid himself under the sink in the new studio this morning and I haven't seen him since. The only reason I know he's still down there is because I reached down and accidentally pulled his ear when I was looking for him. This is his way of punishing me for jostling him so much. Oh and making him ride in the car.
Anyway, I called myself cab #2 of the day around 4:30 and took the rest of my shit to my new place, stopping at my property manager's office on the way to shove my keys in the mail slot. She called me earlier and I just flat out refused to speak French in my frazzled state. I also called the English-speaking cab company. Sometimes you have to punk out. I did speak to the cab drivers in French though, so there.
Anyway, here I am in an even smaller apartment in a much chicer neighborhood. As much as I hate moving, I'm almost glad that I ended up having to sublet my last two weeks here. It would've been impossible to thoroughly clean my apartment with my stuff still in it, and I am determined to get all of my deposit back. This is feasible as long as the property manager doesn't notice the corner of the bed that my cat destroyed (whoops!). Also, moving is such an exorcism of any affection you once had for a place. Once you've spent days packing up all of your belongings, and then worked your ass off scrubbing and sweeping the place, you are just done with it. It's like being in a relationship and inciting a fight so that everyone will be angry instead of sad when you decide to break up. It's easier to let go of somewhere when the last feeling you had there was frustration and exhaustion.

Roma, pt. 3

2008-05-05T15:44:00.005+02:00

So I may or may not be doing this because I'm avoiding writing a résumé for my History of the French class. Actually I don't mind the résumé, it's the fact that I signed up to present it in front of the class tomorrow. Melissa peer pressured me. Gah.

So on Saturday morning, Lauren and I woke up around early afternoon. Clearly, she did not go to Pompeii. After some eggs and toast I felt much better, but still needed a nap to recharge for that night. It was the first day of Passover and Lauren was going with her roommate to a special seder that unfortunately I couldn't get a last-minute invite to. I was a little bummed, but it turned out well because during the seder Nicole and I wandered around the city center and ended up at the Vatican. Not bad. After watching a hockey game, Mike met us at Piazza Navona. Actually, he sort of snuck up on us and I clutched my purse and braced myself for one of the famed Roman attacks Lauren is always talking about. Anyway, we ran around to two restaurants hoping to get in, but sadly 9 pm on a Saturday night is a very popular time for dinner. We ended up at a great place anyway, and I ate some pasta alla heart-attack (okay, maybe it's called pasta alla carbonara, but that's boring), which is apparently very Roman. That and about four glasses of the house wine, one of which I was tricked into drinking by Mike and his slight-of-hand glass-switching abilities. Needless to say, after dinner, I was feeling pretty good (I believe I said I felt like a noodle). We went over to Frigidarium, the favorite gelato place, and I got cinnamon and some crazy chocolate thing. Cinnamon ice cream, so amazing. Anyway, we then trucked over to Trastevere to a bar/eatery called Bir and Fud, which was coincidentally mentioned in the NY Times the next day. Anyway, there some people showed-up post seder but moved on, except for Ethan, who stuck with us and ended up accompanying Mike on a mish to buy hash from the drum circle on the bridge. Oh Rome. Lauren, Nicole and I opted to get some tasty treats from the bakery while we waited. Then we stood in the street and watched the guys drunkenly roll a spliff for a good...40 minutes. The word spliff makes me want to vomit. Anyway, after that it was back to Stairs, where I drank a shitty melon ball that was about 70% orange juice. Oh and I managed to totally shatter Ethan's heart, but apparently I'm better off.
That night ended with a civilized taxi ride back to Lauren's, and another 5 am bed time for whatever reason. Oh there were Italian guys there when we got home! I remember.
Sunday was some major laziness, I have to say. Lauren cooked a fabulous pasta meal of garlicky, peppery chicken and pepper jack cheese. Perhaps, in theory, the weirdest idea ever, but it worked out. Afterward, I took pictures while Lauren completely devoured a cantaloupe. Out of respect, I've only posted one of them above, just to give you an idea of what I witnessed. The afternoon was another nap, and then some drama about where to eat dinner. We ended up at a nearby placed called La Allegra, a rather trendy pasta place full of young gays. And GayTV showing top 40 videos on the TV screens. Hilarious. Anyway, the pasta was AMAZING. We had some gnocchi with meat sauce and some vodka sauce pasta with salmon and bacon (weird idea, but awesome). Then we hit up this tiramisu place, also very popular, to get some tiramisu in fun flavors like strawberry and banana-chocolate. Aaaand because one dessert is never enough, before going home we went to some super clandestine bakery to buy hot, fresh cornetti filled with nutella.
The next day was sadly my last, and I spent the morning on a site visit with one of Lauren's classes. Afterward, she had a few hours before her next class, so I got to see some more of the city center. First we had lunch at a place where I ate the most amazing calzone of my life, filled with cheese and proscuitto. Delicious, fried goodness. And of course back to Frigidarium afterward, followed by a quick trip to the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain. I then somehow found my way back to Lauren's. We picked out a bus and figured out where I would change to the metro, but there were no signals in the bus to tell me which stop was next, and only very fleeting views of the signs above the bus stops as we passed them. So I took a good guess when I thought I was close, and I was right. I ended up having more time before I need to leave than I thought, so I just packed and chilled for a while, then got myself back to Termini. When I got there, some movie or photo shoot or something was taking place right in front of the shuttle office, and I freaked until I realized I could just buy my ticket from the driver. So I did, and it was a quick ride to the airport, an uneventful flight, a looooooong ride from Beauvais to Paris, and then a slightly sketchy RER C trip back home. And of course, the cat meowed about me for a good 3 hours straight as punishment for having left him alone for 5 days.

In search of Paolo, pt. 2

2008-05-01T14:06:00.003+02:00

OK, back to work. I had to take a short break and go to Austria for five days, but now it's Labor Day here in Froggieland and I'm pretty sure there's nothing out there for me to do (although obviously, I haven't left the apartment yet today).

Anyway. On Friday morning, Lauren and I woke up a little uncomfortably early in order to hit up the covered market. But first we went downstairs with Gilli to Cafe Asti so I could experience the cheap Italian breakfast. You see, in Italy, they have this thing called a "cornetto." The word is very similar to the French word for "cone," and so I assume that's what it means in Italian. So this thing is basically a weak ass croissant (sorry Italy, but it's inferior)...HOWEVER, they do an excellent job of redeeming themselves by filling it with Nutella or vanilla custard. Paired with a cheap ass cappuccino, it's delicious. Anyway, after that we went to the covered market to get some eggs and strawberries and such, then dropped the stuff off at home so that we could go buy some tights for Lauren. I've all but repressed my desire to shop, I think. It comes in waves a few times a year when I'm focused on other money ventures, such as now when I am diligently budgeting and saving money for vacations. Anyway, after a little shopping, we went back to Lauren's to wait for Nicole. We watched Juno and ate some leftover Chinese food, and when Nicole finally made it (after a couple hours of slight panic), we went out again to check out some stores and eat my first Italian gelato. We also got Lauren a bomb ass birthday dress. After all of that excitement, I was in major need of a nap.
After the snooze, we had a big getting-ready-slash-pre-gaming party. 7 girls, bad rap music, a shit-ton of make up and hairspray, plus some cheap sparkling wine with the label glued on upside down. I don't know what time we managed to finally leave, but we took the metro over to the Colosseum to get wasted in front of it. Love it.
With some surprisingly good 7 euro vodka and some blood orange Pellegrino, it was perhaps my best pre-gaming experience ever. After we were good and hammered, we headed over to dinner at a pizza place. We played some Jenga at the table, took some pictures...frankly I don't remember a whole lot vividly, especially my pizza. But I have no doubt that it was good.
After that we braved a few buses to get over to Trastevere, center of young, Roman debauchery. Somewhere along the way, Lauren's roommate stabbed a hole in the lid of a vodka bottle she couldn't get open. We ended up at Stairs, a great bar with a cavern-like downstairs area, and pretty much took it over.
Many cheap shots and delicious mixed drinks were had, including a grasshopper for myself. I made everyone try it and spent a good 10 minutes explaining why I wanted to marry it or something. At around 2:30 they finally kicked everyone out, so we waited in front of the steps and tried to strategize while drunk guys kicked broken glass down the stairs. I think I should've been more worried about this than I was -- thanks hard liquor! A few of the kiddies, including Lauren, had a site visit to Pompeii the next morning and so they called it a night. But Mike, Ethan, Nicole, Gilli and I went in search of I-don't-know-what. I think Gilli got a sandwich. Mike and I got some tasty things at a bakery. Then we braved the buses home again, where poor Lauren was really having a 21st birthday experience. So I sat on the bathroom floor with her and chugged a liter of water in moral support. Oh and I gave her Ethan's jacket to keep warm. At around 5 am, we finally got to sleep.

La Dolce Vita, pt.1

2008-04-23T12:17:00.005+02:00

So I am back and rested after my voyage to Rome. It was certainly a perfect way to launch my spring break, celebrate the end of work, and begin this next month and a half of very little work and mostly play. But let's start at the beginning.

On Thursday morning, I woke up dark and early (5:30 am) in order to get my shit together and leave on time. I organized my stuff, did some dishes, fed the cat. My landlady is selling the studio and I was told that some potential buyers would be coming by on Saturday (they didn't), so I tried to tidy up a bit. Not that I should ever do anything nice for my landlady. I had the intention to stop at the 24 hour internet cafe to print out the bingo cards I made for the kids, but I was too frenzied and so decided to try my luck printing them out at school.

The picture you see to the left is the view from the train as you get into Marly le roi, and it was the last time I'll ever see it. I got to school plenty early and set out to print. The computer worked (hallelujah), but for whatever reason, the printer was being retarded. No matter. I was only teaching one class that morning because Satan's class was going to the Louvre. Talk about a going-away present. So I me débrouilléd through my first class, who threw a little party for me at the end. I got cards, cake, and orange juice. Basically it was super nice and totally unexpected. I ended up getting ride over to St. Exupéry because the new English teacher was following me around all day to get acquainted. She's about 2 months away from retirement, French, and the kids were just not thrilled about her arrival. Anyway, we arrived at school number 2 and I tried to print out my bingo cards. But the fucking computer at the first school fucked up my jump drive. So I basically improvised the whole day. The kids got a piece of candy (I brought 6 bags) for winning bingo or answering a question correctly. Whatevs. Everyone was extra nice to me for my last day and it made me a little sad to leave. But just a little.

After work, I headed straight to the train station. Took the train to La Défense, then the metro to Porte Maillot, and I was on the Beauvais shuttle by 5:30. When I arrived at Beauvais, immediately someone called my name. And what do you know. It was Elvira, a friend from Nanterre, and we were taking the same flight to Rome (she was going home for spring break). Being very take-charge and Italian, she told me she had some cheese and we could go buy some bread and eat it together. But first we checked in, and I ended up shelling out 22 euros to check my bag. Assholes. We sat in the restaurant area and ate our dinner and chatted about whatever. I think that day was my best conversational French day ever. I was just on my game or something. The flight went well, my bag was the second off the carousel at Ciampino, and I quickly hopped on the Terravision shuttle to Termini station. It was too easy. Lauren met me and we got a taxi to her place. After some Nutella on toast and a little bit of Juno, we passed out around 2 am. An excellent start.

Weekend? What weekend?

2008-04-13T18:28:00.003+02:00

This weekend has been unusually eventful. I've gotten into the habit of doing absolutely nothing on the weekend. Three days of sedentary existence (except when I'm at the gym). This weekend was not that way.

After doing my laundry on Friday morning, I went down to the Camille Albane salon on Rue Monge. I spent a while looking up good salons nearby and I had printed out a picture of exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, they were all booked up until 6 pm. So I gave it up, but on my way back up Cardinal Lemoine I stopped at a small, independent salon whose prices were posted in the window. 50 euros for a cut. I was planning on paying 45 already at Camille Albane, plus there was no wait, so I went for it. The woman was very French, asking me several times exactly what I wanted done, since apparently the picture I printed out was the same hair cut I had at the time. So whatever, I worked it out. At the end my hair was about 2 inches shorter and poofed out from the hair dryer, but it eventually settled down. So far, so good I think.

On Saturday morning, the alarm went off at 6 am. At first I thought I'd gone completely crazy and that I had to get up for work. Then I realized, no, today I am getting up at 6 am for fun. The bus left around 7:45, and then it was a straight drive to Villandry. Okay, I lied, we stopped at a mega gas station on the way to pee and buy snacks. I've noticed on the few road trips I've taken in France that there is very little in the way of towns and general civilization once you leave Paris, so instead there are these giant gas stations with giant 7/11 convenience stores, and usually some sort of Denny's-style chain restaurant. Except here this restaurant is called "Flunch." This is how they get us back for "à la mode," I think. Anyway, Villandry was a cool little castle. It felt less castle-ish and more like a large country home. There were some cool rooms and all that, plus good gardens. There was a great maze, though. The bushes were a little see-through, but there was a tower in the middle. So what did we do? We played some hardcore tag/hide-and-go-seek. Melissa, Colin, Derek, Lou and I went about four rounds in this labyrinth, managing to freak out some French kids and their parents in the process. The tower was base, and we each had to run away from "it" in order to get to it. We all took off and coats and put down our shit and ran around in the sunshine like 8 year olds. And it was awesome.

After our geriatric lungs gave out, we head out front to eat lunch. Colin accidentally bought some "apple rosemary" gelato, which naturally displeased him, so we all took turns tasting it and describing which household cleaning products we through it resembled. I mooched the leftovers of Keisha's salted-caramel crepe -- Paris really need to get with the program there. It started raining just in time for us to get back on the bus and take a good nap on the way to Chenonceau. Way back in French I, when I was 14, we watched this video about Chambord and Chenonceau, and I'd always wanted to see it. Now this was a castle. Melissa read the program while we went into each room and discussed Henri IV-Catherine de Medici-Diane de Poitiers love triangle. Chenonceau also has a bomb ass kitchen, with about four different rooms. While we were in the gallery, which is a big hall that goes over the river, a full-on storm started outside. Thunder, rain, wind, hail. It was pretty cool. Outside we tried to find the winery but instead took pictures of tulips and stalked lizards. I really wish MICEFA had switched the itinerary so we could've spent more time at Chenonceau. We contemplated round 2 of tag in the maze, but we decided against it. On the drive home we entertained ourselves by trying to figure out why there were all these weird parts on the bus chairs, and also trying to figure out which way the Earth spins, and if flying with the direction of the Earth's rotation makes flights faster. Yeah, I dunno either.

Today I woke up around 8 am with a throbbing headache and finally gave up trying to get back to sleep around 9. I felt like I was hung over. Dehydration? Perhaps. Around 1 I headed over to an apartment appointment. The day I put up my ad last week, this American woman offered to let me sublet her daughter's studio for a couple weeks to get me through June 12. I went over to see it today, and it is excellent. Well, it's actually about as small as my current studio but with much less light. However, it's right on the border of the Latin Quarter and St. Germain des Prés, and it's cheaper than my place now. And it has a double bed so Lauren won't have to sleep on the floor. It will definitely get the job done, and for only 150 euros a week.

Right now, I should be working on my exposé. I signed up to do it on Tuesday so I would have it out of the way before break and May, when Lauren and I will be traveling or she'll be staying here most of the time. Now I'm thinking I should've put it off. Exposés are just dumb anyway and boring for everyone except the professor, who will rip you a new one in public if you fuck it up. Sigh. The rest of this week is busy as well, with tests in Histoire des Français and a vocab quiz in translation. I didn't time-manage all this work very well. I need to take some crack or something tomorrow so I can stay motivated during my lunch break and after work.

I can't wait for break. On Thursday I'm bringing my suitcase to work with me, then going straight to Porte Maillot to catch the bus to Beauvais. I'm excited to explain to everyone that I have my luggage because I'm finishing this job and then going directly to Rome. Peace out, bitches.

How do you say "blizzard" in French?

2008-04-11T09:35:00.003+02:00

Translation widget says: tempête de neige. Seriously? That's the half-assed answer I would've thrown out if a professor had asked me in class or something. The French just have no vocabulary.

Remember last week, when I was getting all sentimental about the arrival of Spring? Well, I take back everything I said. On Monday morning, any fantasies of Spring were promptly crushed (maybe literally) by about 3 inches of snow. Now lucky for Paris, there's plenty of pollution and body heat and warm pavement (thanks Métro!) that snow melts pretty quickly. But as I rode the train out to Marly le roi, bright and early on Monday, I was pretty sure we'd taken a detour to Russia or something because the entire "countryside"(if you can call it that) was buried in snow. The forest was covered, the fields were covered, everything. It was completely surreal, and all the rest of the exhausted people in the train looked around and wondered how this had happened well into April. Especially since it was about 60 degrees a few days earlier. I was wearing my big coat in anticipation of the cold, but I was definitely not wearing the right shoes. I slowly tip-toed across the train tracks so as not to slip and fall and inevitably knock myself out on a railroad track and get hit by the next train to Paris. On the way to school I smacked a couple bushes, just to get a feel for the snow. I thought by that time that it would've condensed into one of those hard, icy balls that snow turns into in places where it's not quick cold enough to snow a lot. But no, it was fresh and powdery and got stuck to my glove. Kids were throwing snow balls at each other on the playground. Surreal indeed. Sadly, by the time I left work at 4:30, there wasn't so much as a trace that it had snowed just that morning.

The rest of this week is sort of a pleasant blur. I basically just trucked right through it. I had done all my work that was due, I was prepared. I was stressed, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. On Tuesday I got up at 8:30, worked out, went to three classes, ate some ice cream when I got home around 8:30 and then went to bed. On Wednesday I was in an unusually good mood. It was tempered by the wicked midterm I had in my translation class, though luckily it doesn't count toward our grade. Come to think of it, nothing really counts in that class. Each week we translate something together in class after taking a vocab quiz (that doesn't count). I assume the final counts, but that's kind of terrifying since we don't really get to learn anything except for the vocab. I still can't figure out why the Anglo-American studies department is allowed to conduct their classes in French. I mean, in my American civilization class, she lectures in English, but then gives the homework in French, lets kids talk to her in French, gives instructions for tests in French. I can't imagine any of my French professors speaking English to us at this level. And my translation class is completely in French except for the words in the texts we're translating. There's even this one professor, I assume it's an American civilization class, and not five minutes goes by where he doesn't translate something he just said into French. I sit outside his room and listen while I wait for my translation class to start, and every week, without fail, I hear him say something in English and then immediately repeat it in French. What is the point?

Hmm, what else is on my mind right now. I have one more week of work, I can't even believe it. Yesterday one of my students gave me a gift from "au nom de la rose" -- a candle, scented pebble things (I assume to put in your dresser or something) and perfume oil. I'm having some mixed feelings about leaving the job. When I think about waking up at 6 am, the hour plus commute, screaming at kids to stop talking...I want to leave and never look back. But there are some kids there that I genuinely adore (like Léa, the gift-giver) and will bad sad to leave. For the most part, I like the kids. I even like most of the teachers, even though I know they've had some not-nice things to say about me (according to my cunt bag inspector, who knows). This week two of them asked me to give grades to the kids. I'm not supposed to give grades, tests, or anything of the like, but I obliged the one teacher because we've got a pretty good system going (I grade them mostly on participation and pronunciation), but the other teacher who asked me yesterday was the idiot with the class that makes me want to throw myself out a window. Honestly, every time I yell at the top of my lungs to quiet her class down, out of the corner of my eye I see her looking at my like I'm insane. This is not your average noisy class. These kids are talking, parroting whatever I say, smacking each other, throwing shit, getting up and walking around -- just completely out of control. And all she does is the occasional "sshhhh" and maybe once in a while she'll tell one of them to sit down. I'm at the point where I don't care about it anymore. Yesterday I was having the kids recite "Hickory Dickory Dock" to work on their accents. Since they can't entertain themselves quietly while their classmates talk, I ended up going around to each kid and squatting down next to their desks so I could hear them. There are some great kids in that class, but it doesn't make up for the fact that most of them need to be on medication. And I'm not exaggerating there. One or two of them are actually smart and have actually learned something, but are just too agitated to sit still and pay attention. France has a 9380980495 and 1 programs for kids who are having difficulty in school --- I blame their incompetent salope of a teacher for not getting them help.

Aaaaanyway, that's enough of that. Today I'm going to do some laundry, then hopefully get a successful hair cut. I'm terrified. I don't even know what I'll do with myself when I get back to America and I don't have to formulate beforehand what I'm going to say to people every time I go to the drugstore or the hairdresser or the bank or whatever. And tomorrow is a big day trip to a couple castles, so I'll definitely bring my camera and actually take some pictures to show the little people at home. I am a horrible tourist, I think it's the photographic memory.

60 degrees? Could it be?

2008-04-04T11:29:00.002+02:00

I have to laugh because it seems like everyone else is noticing it all at once, but I think Spring has arrived. Yesterday I left work at 4:30, in full sunshine, and I could actually feel warmth. For the past -- I dunno -- FIVE MONTHS, every time the sun came out I braced myself for some 27 degree arctic freeze. On Wednesday I didn't wear a coat. I wore a zip-up hoodie and that was it. I brought a scarf just to be cautious, but I didn't need it. Incredible. Although now I've completely forgotten how to dress myself for warm weather. I imagine the first time I put on flip flops again, I'll have a small stroke. Anyway, this is very exciting news, although it does mean soon will come the time to break out the self-tanner and the nail polish. Last night I got home from work at the sun didn't set until about 9 pm. I can't even remember the last time that happened, but things really look like they did when I first got here. Circle of life and blah blah blah, but that's really how it feels. As exciting as it might be to point and watch the seasons change, the romance wears off really quickly.

Unfortunately, now I have not only a pang of sadness when I think about leaving, but a sharp digging of anxiety because my landlady has revealed herself as the insufferable cunt she really is. Long story short, I have to move out May 31. I am in the process of finding somewhere to stay for two weeks. Luckily, my mom is 100% behind me and whatever I end up finding, whatever combination of hotel/sublet/friend-crashing I have to come up with, she'll pay for it. What's absolutely balls is that after a week-long vacation in Greece, I almost immediately have to start packing up to move. I'm thinking about changing my flight to a week earlier so I can leave right after Lauren does, but I don't know if all of my finals will be over by then. Regardless, she will be go where I go and I'll pay for however many cabs it takes us to get there. And she can sit and laugh at me while I pack and clean my apartment. The lesson in all of this is pretty obvious -- if something seems too good to be true, it most certainly, definitely, unequivocally is.

So that is added onto my search for housing in San Francisco. I actually got an email from someone this morning for an apartment in the complex I lived in last summer. Seems fine except the email is too....structured. Isn't that ridiculous? I'm wary of her because she seems too organized. I just feel like she might be too rigid. And actually I don't really want my own room, and I want to live with more than one person. I miss the sleep-away camp aspect of being in college. I want to live in a cabin full of cool people. Also she said that the heater is running 24/7 in the apartment, which turns me off. That's pretty ridiculous too, but I just hate heaters. I see all of these ads saying that the PG&E bills are higher in the winter but honestly, you must be living in a log cabin if you need to jack up the heat for months on end in San Francisco. Put a sweatshirt on, we're in an energy crisis.

Hmm. What else happened this week. My classes were fairly unremarkable, which is excellent because I ditched them all last week and as of yet I've seen no repercussions. Well actually I had a midterm in my American civilization class, but apparently I am such a psychic genius that I read two articles haphazardly in the reader right before class, and then we had to write an essay about the exact ones. Brilliant. Granted I didn't recall as many details about the colonies as I could have, but such is life.

I had an interesting commute to work yesterday. First I ran into Elisabeth in the in the Place Monge metro station at 7 am. She's a German girl in my atelier class at Nanterre, and I'd honestly throw myself out the window if she wasn't there. In this class we have to work as a group to write this stupid novel, and the other three people in my group are just short of completely useless. Not only is their French horrific but their story ideas are juvenile. Sometimes I honestly wonder if some of the kids in that class are intellectually stunted, because it feels like I'm in junior high. Anyway, I ran into Elisabeth, who was heading home after a night of partying. Lucky bitch. Then when I was on line 14 heading to St. Lazare, I saw a married couple who couldn't have been more than 19. They caught my eye because the guy got out his wallet and handed the girl a 5 euro bill. I probably noticed because whenever I see men handing money over to women, it makes my stomach churn. Clearly it isn't only a gesture of dependence, but it feels that way. First I saw his wedding band, then hers. Why.

In other news, I am pretty much in dire need of a haircut. I thought I could put it off until I got back to San Francisco, but my split ends are just nauseating. Anyone know of a good hairdresser in Paris? I'm sure they're all fine, but every time I walk by one and I see pictures of models with angular bombs died cherry red, I flee. Hopefully as long as I print out a picture and make it very clear that "J'ai envie d'une coiffure comme ça," nothing will go too horribly awry. So add that to the list of things I'm in search of: a sublet in Paris, an apartment in San Francisco, an overnight ferry from Ios to Athens on May 25, Ugg Classic Cardy boots in grey, and a good hairdresser in the 5th.

Life is skittles and life is beer

2008-03-30T12:27:00.002+02:00

Okay maybe it's not, but this is the traditional song to sing when Spring has arrived. Although you really couldn't tell. It's a balmy 50 degrees outside, but it's rainy. I was really motivated to hit up the markets this morning, but I am officially over it.

Anyway, my week of distraction officially culminated on Friday with a birthday party for someone I've never met before, as is one of the great joys of having friends who go to different schools, and then them having friends all over the world as well. After a few shots of the worst whisky ever to come out of Scotland, we headed over to the birthday girl's apartment (Molly), who had decorated her door with a George Bush poster and declared it an America-only zone, so we could properly celebrate her 21st birthday in spite of the fact that here she's just another year older. But there were three French people there, all guys, and one of them sang us some songs on the guitar. And then Richard played "What I Got" and "American Pie" (we'll overlook the fact that Richard is, actually, Canadian). Ohhh the nostalgia. And at one point about five of us stood in a circle and shared a bottle of warm champagne while having a heated argument about whether marijuana actually ruins your life. At around 2 we headed back to Stephanie's because Matt and Joe had to catch a flight at 6, which meant they had to catch a bus to Orly around 3. But since everyone was of a varying degree of drunk/stoned/horny, it was more like 4 by the time we left. So they caught a cab to the airport, and I caught one home from Montparnasse. That's the second time I've taken a cab in two weeks, but I can't help it. To get home from Montparnasse takes wo night buses, or one bus and an unpleasant walk from Gobelins. It doesn't help that Parisian taxes are just so nice. Pretty much the only place I've ever taken taxis is Las Vegas, and it's always cheesy Ford Queen Victoria's with overly squishy tan seats. In Paris they're always shiny and clean with black leather interior, like a town car. And they line up at the taxi stands all nice and neat (as opposed to every other line-up situation in Europe) and it's just too easy. Anyway, it was very romantic, that cab, probably because I was drunk.

Sadly, all of those fun and games are over now and for the next three weeks I have to keep my head down and work my ass off. This is made more grim by my still as-yet-unsolved housing issues. My property manager never got back to me on Friday, and my landlady hasn't emailed me back (either she REALLY hates me more than I thought, or she died. Honestly this woman wouldn't stop checking her Blackberry if she was deep-sea diving). So I brainstormed a couple of options: one is to find a sublet for two weeks at the beginning of June. The other is to pray that two of my professors will give the finals the first week of June. Then I would move out on the 31st, stay somewhere for a few days, and then change my flight and go home a week early. Shit like this is always happening to me, man. The problem is that it's so up in the air right now that I can't do anything but wait. I need an absolution and then I'll go about fixing the problem, although for all I know there might not be a problem. Gah. I'm already shifting into full-swing for a San Francisco apartment, I don't need this crap as well.

On the other hand, all of this nervous energy is making me really motivated. Yesterday I emailed Madame LeMarchand to check up on my graduation credits so I can figure out if I need to a take a French class in the fall. My schedule is going to be packed. I don't know when/if I'm going to work. Or if I can get some sort of internship. Or if my mom would be willing give me more money so I could intern. Or if I could even get an internship since I don't have any clips right now. We need to have a phone conference. And I need to make an appointment with my journalism adviser this summer. And I need to find a good vet to clean my cat's teeth. A load of crap awaits me in San Francisco, but what doesn't await me is a well-paying job. For all the crap this assistant job has put me through, it's totally worth the 750 euros a month, no doubt.

Rater la vie

2008-03-28T13:29:00.002+01:00

Well this past week was pleasantly long. Saturday night I picked up the broseph at CDG and we immediately went for kebabs and beer on the Contrescarpe. The rest of the week (until Wednesday, okay) involved lots of walking, lots of sight-seeing, and two disappointing excursions (Catacombs are closed, Eiffel Tower was a nightmare). Anyway, it was still really good. Matt got in Sunday night so we did some lame college student things like sitting around at home smoking weed and looking at You Tube videos. Of course there were many culinary excursions as well, because let's be honest, that's my specialty. Many-a-crêpe was consumed, as well as some delicious bakery items, and even a 40 euro lunch at Les Deux Magots, funded by mother dearest. We also introduced Sean to tecktonik and chavvy French guys with gelled-down mohawks. It rained a lot that wasn't so pleasant, but such is life I suppose.
Yesterday morning we got up at 6 to get Sean on the RER to the airport. I had requested that my mom get him a flight around 10 so he could leave and I could go to work at the same time. It would just figure that my first two classes got canceled so I didn't have to be at work until 10:30. So after I dropped him off, I went home and slept for another 45 minutes, then got up and typed up a dialogue for the lesson. I made it to the train with plenty of time to spare, and hopped on a bus the second I walked out of the station in Marly le roi. Unfortunately I'm retarded or something and I got on the right bus, but I thought it was the wrong bus, so I got off. I completely disregarded the fact that in the middle of the day in the small towns, the buses come about once an hour. I had noticed we were going in a weird direction before I got off the bus, so I followed the church and apartment buildings near the school to make sure I could locate then when I got off the bus. I used my incredible sense of direction to walk toward where I thought the school was, and ended up only losing about 15 minutes. I couldn't believe it. I was definitely on the total opposite side of the town. And then of course my 10:30 class got canceled so I did nothing in the teacher's lounge until 1:30. So by then I decided to improvise my lesson plan cuz I didn't want to waste it on half a day of teaching.
I was exhausted when I got home, but Matt said we were going to a party so I showered, blew dry and straightened my hair, the whole shebang. The party ended up not happening so he and Joe and I just hung and did whatever, I don't even know. There's supposed to be a real party tonight.
Today I am consciously ditching History of France. The class was canceled on Tuesday and there is a make-up today, but I'm just over it. That and the fact that I need to stay by my phone in case my property manager calls back. Turns out my landlady rented my apartment out the first of June, even though she told me (and I agreed with the summer tenant) to split the month of June. Although apparently this summer tenant I've been talking with is in fact, not the summer tenant. So I emailed my mentally unstable landlady and hopefully this will get sorted out. Maybe I will get a sublet for the first two weeks of June? The most irritating part is that Lauren will be here until the 3rd and it not fair to her if she has to be there while I'm packing and cleaning and generally being a headcase, which always happens when I move. And that I will have to immediately start moving when we get back from Greece. And freaking out about moving will inevitably fuck up my mood in Greece. Cross your fingers for a miracle.

Poisoning pigeons in the park

2008-03-15T10:57:00.003+01:00

Spring is almost here, people. In the two weeks I was off of work and school, the time completely changed. On Thursday morning I went to work and by the time I was on the train between La Défense and St. Cloud, it was full-on daylight. I can still see the monuments obviously, plus the domes of the pantheon and Les Invalides. What doesn't make any sense to me is that if I remember correctly, when the time changes in the fall at home, it gets brighter in the morning and darker in the evenings. Right? We move the time back one hour, and then what it looked like at 8 am becomes what it looks like at 7? Here I think it gets darker and lighter in both directions -- during the winter the sun comes up at 8-ish and goes down at 6-ish, in the summer it comes up at 7-ish and goes down at 9-ish. Essentially, it makes no sense.

SFSU finally posted the summer school schedule, and let's just say I'm less than pleased. For one thing, this whole summer school venture was created by the head of the journalism department, who told me to take reporting last summer and then magazine writing this summer. Well, magazine writing isn't being offered this summer. There are only 3 journalism classes compared to last summer's 6. At least there's an advanced writing class, feature writing, which is the requirement I need to fill. I won't graduate with the magazine sequence, but whatever. Feature writing covers magazine writing (it's all long-form) and then I'll take contemporary magazines and get enough practice there. The other class I need to take is something about politics for GE. I wanted to take the women's studies class but the time doesn't work. I would have class every morning which is no good if I want to work. So instead I'm going to take the lame American politics class online and not even worry about going to campus.

I am really not ready to go back and buckle down. It's my senior year. I need to take these classes, I need to get some sort of internship. But I still need my job? Can I find a paid internship? I would feel really weird asking my mom to finance my clothes and entertaining so I could get an unpaid internship. Especially after three years of supporting myself there. I dunno. Second semester I want to take the news bureau class (in lieu of writing for the school paper) again, so I can do writing and fact-checking and stuff for real Bay Area papers and get some experience there. I've pretty much accepted that I'm going to stay in San Francisco for a little while after graduation. And actually, I'm okay with it. Unless some magical job opens in New York, I think it would be worth it to cultivate myself a little bit in a smaller market, then move to New York and hopefully be in a graduate program so I won't have to be full-on working in New York. I'm really going to try to visit Matt in New York this next year, if only so he can take me to NYU to talk to the journalism department. And stand in line to get into a taping of The Daily Show, of course. That's about all I want to do.

Other than that stuff, my first week back in grind went pretty well. Only five more weeks of work, four and a half if you count the day after Easter. In my American civilization class on Tuesday, this guy passed me a note (in English) with his email address(es), saying he wasn't sure if I spoke French or not but he wanted to "keep in touch." Before class, two girls standing about 10 feet away from me were whispering to each other and I thought I heard my name, but I always think I hear my name. Then this guy went up to them and whispered too, and I heard my name again. Woo look at the American girl! I feel like a zoo animal. Anyway, I think that's how he got my name. And you can never really tell whether people want to date you or practice their English, but I'm pretty sure this was the former. I showed the note to Keisha and told her it was from some gangsta in a fuzzy-hooded jacket, and immediately she goes, "Oh, honey, no." My thoughts exactly. I really like taking that class and my translation class, but I do get the feeling that the French students are a little territorial. Which is bullshit because Laetitia (French girl at SFSU) was always having these deep conversations with professors about whatever dumb poem we were reading and it wasn't fair to wonder what the hell she was doing there if she already knew French. Besides, I've learned stuff in American civilization that they would have never told us in America. Like we're full of religious nuts and think we're god's gift because we were founded by crazy Calvinists.

So there you go. I'm not a circus freak.

La rentrée

2008-03-11T10:19:00.003+01:00

I'm starting to think these long French vacations might not be such a good day. These kids have a week or two off for every six weeks of school. That means a week in November, two weeks for Christmas, two weeks in winter, then another two weeks for spring. After two weeks I'm usually adapted to my new vacation lifestyle and I have to drag myself back to the real world. However, I somehow got through yesterday relatively smoothly. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was extremely well rested after break, so even though I had about 5 intense dreams and woke up in between each of them, I was pretty energetic yesterday. It might've helped that I ran up about 6 flights of stairs to barely make my train on time. I really need to be in the metro at 6:50 in case, like yesterday, I miss the 6:52 train and another doesn't come for 6 minutes. You never realize how a few minutes can make a huge difference in your life until you have a 7:18 train to catch. Regardless, I made it. Next challenge of the day was the mother fucking hurricane going on outside. It was really picking up right at 10 am, when I was making the 10 minute walk in between schools. I was wearing a hat and coat and boots and brought my umbrella, but for whatever reason I decided my raincoat wasn't necessary. But of course you can't use the damn umbrella because it will turn inside out and impale you. So I just dealt with the pelting rain.
As far as classes, it wasn't that bad. A couple times I had to sip some water because the yelling was making my voice crack, but I think the kids got their energy out over break. I'm almost finished with the textbook thing I've used to teach them (which I'm not even sure is an ideal method, but it's just not French to tell me what they want me to use) and I'm glad because soon it's going to be all speaking, all the time. It's more work for me but it's better for the kids and keeps them more entertained. The little ones always want to sing songs, which is good for them but I can't help but feel like a giant dork. When I was in French classes I hated singing songs. Godfrey used to make us sing along to Notre Dame de Paris and I just couldn't control myself. The one hit was a Carla Bruni song, so maybe playing some popular music would work better. I could make them sing The Beatles or *NSYNC or something (haha). Or maybe a nice, resounding chorus of "Rehab," since they like it when I emphasize England (I don't think they realize that I didn't know what "pants" meant in England until recently, or that a bollock is an actual thing. I'm really not an expert). It's like asking them to teach me about Québec. Fuck if they know anything about those separatists, right? Same deal.
Anyway, I will solider on. When I got home, it looked like a tornado had ripped through my apartment. And actually, that's kind of what happened. Aside from leaving my raincoat at home, my #2 dumbass achievement of the day was not locking one of my windows (the one above my bed) before I left. When I walked in, the thing was wide open and there half the things on my nightstand had blown off, including about 200 flashcards. There was a puddle under the window, and my poor cat was freezing. In fact he spent the rest of the night spooning my leg under the covers. However this assuages my fear that he will jump out the window if given the chance -- it was probably open for 5 or 6 hours and he's still alive. I really can't wait for this hellish weather to pass. Clouds, rain, and cold are one thing -- but things like hail and hurricane winds are way over the top.

Relax, dammit

2008-03-01T12:12:00.005+01:00

I've been on break for a week now, and while I've thoroughly relaxed and I feel mostly normal again, I've got this knot in my stomach that won't go away. I don't know whether it's about work, school, money or whatever. All of those things pose a little stress right now, but nothing is so dire that it should be hanging over me like this. Especially because I have all the time in the world to sort everything out right now.

But onto other things. Last night I went to the gym and twice experienced something that I have always noticed but maybe notice more in Paris. Probably because in Paris you spend so much time in full public and people are just everywhere. But it's this: men have Tourette's. Obviously it's not all of them but it's enough that I notice it rather regularly. Men just feel they have the right to make comments about women whenever they feel like it. It's one thing to stare, but it's another thing to blurt something out and make yourself look like a total douche. I never wrote this down here, but a couple weeks ago when I was with Lauren, we stopped to get her a crepe close to Chatelet. This drunk/high/medicated dude with a surprising amount of cash on him (which he dropped all over the floor), stumbled up to the stand and started expounding the virtues of a Greek sandwich to me. Whatever, I humored him. He noticed us speaking English and tried to tell us about how good his English was. Things were all fine and dandy until, in French, he started to ask me what we were going to do after we screwed (okay, he said "faire amour" but whatever). At first I thought I'd understood wrong until he started making gestures. So I said, rather calmly, "You speak English? Okay, fuck off."

Clearly that is an extreme example, but just last night at the gym I got two comments from men between the gym and the metro. The first was from some chav (I wish I knew a word to describe them in French -- I think "beauf" applies) who was like "C'est le soir du sport ou quoi?" I didn't say anything, but usually when I get comments from teenage boys late at night in that mall, I blurt out "fuck you" and they are thoroughly embarrassed at having offended this American girl. Anyway, I was going down the stairs in the metro when one of the guys tiling the wall elbowed his partner and told him to look at me. I walked right by them and just as I made eye contact and gave him my meanest scowl, he blurted out "trop belle." Seriously, dude. And it's not just dragueurs, either. The other night in the grocery store, some guy walked by me and remarked, "Quels longs cheveux." (Such long hair). He was old and clearly not hitting on me, but it was like, shut up! You're evolved enough to have inner monologue for a reason. If I ever have a son I'm going to teach him that it's inappropriate to make unsolicited comments to women, and only a dumb slut would respond in kind.

On another (and happier) topic entirely, Lauren and I booked plane tickets and hostel beds to Greece yesterday. We will fly to Crete, stay for a night, next night onto Santorini for two nights, then Ios for a night, then the last day and night will be spent doing cultural and historic things in Athens because it's mandatory. Crete, too, will be spent exploring Minoan ruins. In Santorini we will sip cocktails at the pool and lay on some volcanic black sand beaches. No joke, this 14 euro/night (for a private room) hostel has a pool and a deck. And in Ios we will get rip-roaring drunk and spend the next day nursing hangovers on the beach (apparently Ios is the Cancun/Daytona Beach of Greece). Somewhere in there I want to rent a Vespa and drive around an island -- we'll see if I'm up to it. And then an overnight ferry (*fingers crossed*) will take us to Athens and our hostel two minutes away from the Acropolis. I'm so glad that it's all booked, I can't even express. I actually got an email from the Santorini hostel last night telling us to give them our ferry times so they can pick us up and drop us off at the port. All that's left to do is check the ferry schedules every day so I can book that overnight ferry.

In addition, Matt emailed me yesterday to tell me that he'll be coming to Paris for a week at the end of his spring break, and that Joe will be showing up the last couple days. I am overjoyed 1) because they were both supposed to come for all of March for internships but couldn't work out the housing, and 2) my brother will be here that week so it'll be a big party. This semester is going to be so full of visits and travel, I'm almost worried about schoolwork. So far I think the only "project" I have will be an exposé in my French civilization. And I'm actually missing the last class of French history for Greece, but I don't believe there's a final in that class either. If there's a quiz that day, well, I'll figure something out.

In the mean time, I'm going to try to quell this pit in the bottom of my stomach.

My iCal is like a Christmas Tree

2008-02-26T22:36:00.002+01:00

That's to say, it's covered in pretty-colored bubbles. Although not all of these bubbles are good things. Classes, work, registration dates. Blah. I'm trying to get shit together for summer school, but unfortunately SFSU is dragging their feet posting the schedule. The fee deadlines are up, but nothing about the class times. I'm taking magazine writing and what I hope will be a very easy GE class about women and politics. It's really awkward that I left some of these basic requirements until senior year -- being a senior in a 100 level class seems shameful for some reason. Whaaaaatever. I've also been playing around with my college Excel spreadsheet. I made this damn thing the summer of 2005, after getting home from orientation. It's changed from journalism classes, to journalism and French classes, two semesters of summer school. Now I'm trying to figure out the classes I'll take next year. I just can't live in the present, that's one of my biggest problems. I am always ten steps ahead of myself. I look for apartments in San Francisco, I write down class times for two semesters from now. In high school I used to spend Sundays looking at my future apartment in New York and looking up the salary for an entry-level magazine job. If I die tomorrow, at least I've lived most of my future in my head.

This morning I booked flights to Vienna. Well, I booked flights to Bratislava (50 euros woot woot) and looked up a bus time to take me to downtown Vienna. When I was little, my parents hired Austrian au pairs who took care of me and my brother during the day and took free English classes at night. There was a time in my life when I knew a bit of German. I wish my parents had made them speak German to me. Anyway, Edith was always my favorite. It's possible that she was totally exceptional or she just lived with us during a time I remember particularly well (she was preceded by Angela -- Ahn-gay-luh, love German -- and followed by Sieglinde and Maggie). Edith kept in contact with us my entire life and I actually ended up seeing her four years ago in Paris with my mom. Well now she's invited me to spend a week with her in Vienna (I'm only doing four days, though) during spring break. So I'll be four days in Rome with Lauren, then a couple days home, then four days in Vienna. So that makes up for the fact that I won't be going to Nice during spring break. I just keep reminding myself that come hell or high water I will make up for all of that beach tim e lying on some volcanic sand in Santorini.

The drama right now is that Lauren announced she'd like to peace out this weekend, probably to London. Flights are ridiculous (even though I refuse to fly to London for less than the lovely EasyJet price of 70 euro, not available last minute) so if I go it'll be Eurolines. Fucking long bus ride, but it's vacation, I got time and maybe I'll take a nap or something. We'll see if Lauren can get the flights together on her side.

Doomsday

2008-02-23T11:13:00.002+01:00

Well, I did survive my meeting yesterday. Unfortunately, I did not escape totally unscathed.

The morning started out with a 7 am wake up call, which I was none too pleased out to begin with. I made my coffee, left at 7:45, and quickly realized that a 9 am call time also means that I'll have to compete with the rest of humanity to be on time, who are also all trying to be somewhere by 9 am. The night before I had mapped out my route and found the bus stops and lines I could take to get to the office. When I arrived at 8:40, none of those options were there. I did find one bus that would have taken me straight there, but the last one left at 8:42 (when I was frantically searching for other buses), and another one wouldn't arrive until noonish. So I ran around in circles for a while, then spotted an ATM and a taxi line. So I did. I took a 7 euro cab ride. I ended up being 10 minutes late, but obviously at this point, anything less than five minutes early was unacceptable. They said I should have, "anticipated," which is dumb, because clearly I did. And then they said there was a walking path to get there, but how could I have known that?
Anyway, the meeting started off with some random paperwork she claimed she had received a month ago and it shouldn't have taken this long for me to sign it. Except she just asked me to come in last week. Whatever. Next she asked for my "justicatif" for having missed work when I was sick. I had twice sent in letters explaining but apparently I had the wrong address or something. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because apparently I need a doctor's note. Is that a joke? I've seen a doctor twice for illness. Once for a raging ear infection and the other when I all but stopped breathing twice in one day. I wouldn't waste my time for a cold or even the flu. So I filled out some paperwork and apparently that was done.
Next came the crap. Apparently some of the teachers for principals from my school have mentioned something about me to the inspection. They didn't really elaborate on whether it was my teaching style, my personality, my lesson planning -- I don't know. But I was totally crushed. Apparently there is some sort of problem and no one has told me until now. The inspector said that it's not really the principal's place to give me constructive criticism, and it's even less acceptable for the teachers to do so. Well fuck you and your bureaucracy. Nothing is ever anyone's job here, it's always someone else's problem. If you don't understand the system, no one will explain it to you or be sensitive to the fact that there's no way you could have known. I understand that the French culture is very high context and everyone just knows what is expected of them and what to do, but there is no contingency for someone who doesn't fit that mold. I mean it's not like I'm a retard -- but if you're going to hire native speakers of a language, you have to recognize that they also have a native culture that isn't as hush-hush and undiscussed as yours.
Needless to say, I spent a good part of the meeting in tears. I really hope they don't think I was trying for sympathy, because I really wasn't. I'd been on the verge of tears since my outburst at work on Thursday. So I sat there, I cried, I apologized, I told them that I had no idea there was a problem and that there was no way I could have known. Somewhere along the line we ended up drinking tea and talking about roller coasters and places in France I should visit. So I don't know. They offered to come observe me again in class and give suggestions, but last time not a whole lot happened either. It's like, you can say, "do this, do that," but there are no tools for me to do it. Plus I've only got six weeks left and I feel totally betrayed, so I barely want to put forth the effort. We'll see how it goes. I have two weeks off to regroup, re-evaluate how I feel about all of this. Regardless I'm writing a letter to the inspection, in English, which I will send after my contract ends. I just want them to know that so much of this can be avoided if they just get organized and come up with a real system for assistants, instead of just throwing them into these schools and saying "teach." They say over and over again that they realize I'm not a teacher, but even teachers get teaching materials.
Anyway, afterwards I hiked up the hill to the RER station. When I got home there was a note on my mailbox from my neighbor, saying I needed to go to the post office immediately. How they even managed to contact her and not me, I don't know. Anyway, I showed up with the note and went to the guichet. The bitch there said I needed to be more specific, to tell her whether it was concerning something with the bank or a package or whatever. I told her I had been waiting for a package, and I could give her my name and address so she could search. Instead she dropped me off in the financial services office and made that woman go search for my package, which isn't her job. Luckily she did it anyway. I just kept saying, "here's my name, here's my address, does that tell you anything?" Ugh. Bureaucracy. Nothing is their job. If I had been at home, they would have immediately asked for my name and address, at the front desk, and searched for the package. I understand you have to ask three times for EVERYTHING in France, but quite frankly I'm getting a little exasperated. There used to be a feeling of triumph after having système D'd it like a champ, but now I just feel frustrated from wasting time and energy. In any case, I have my boots now.
Unfortunately, I still have this overwhelming feeling of dread. School is under control, I don't have to work for two weeks, I am a free bird until Tuesday afternoon. But still, I feel like shit. So in an attempt to regain my confidence, I'm going to be productive. I'm going to clean my apartment, do my homework, finish reading a couple books. I'm going to take maximum advantage of this break so I can put my head down and get through the last six weeks of work.

Craquer

2008-02-21T20:02:00.004+01:00

I snapped today. I mentioned previously that the kids have been becoming rowdier lately. It's only been about 6 weeks since they got back from vacation and luckily they're about to start a new one, cuz they are going insane.
Most of my classes went well today. The one morning class that gives me trouble each time without fail was more or less manageable. The first class after lunch, however, did me in. They're a group of 10/11 year olds and on Thursdays we split them in half (they're 31 all together, which is just insane) and one group stays with me while the other does some crap with their teacher in the computer lab. She coerced me, basically, into this system so that the kids would be more manageable and we could get more done. In fact, I think less gets one. First because I have to adapt my lesson plan to accommodate the fact that each student only attends 3/4 class periods. Next because even with just a door separating them their from their teacher, they are absolutely incorrigible. I don't know if they're just disrepectful or if I should have been meaner from the start (that strategy seems to work for their teacher, whom I really disliked in the beginning of the year), but I get the impression that they physically can't shut up. Each time I would tell them to be quiet, their would be this student with some comment, these two students carrying on their conversation. It is a strange phenomenon with these French kids, but they cannot whisper for the life of them. Honestly. Or maybe they don't have any desire to. Either way, there is a constant rumbling of low voices underscoring every word I say. It is unnerving. Anyway, after screaming at the top of my lungs, in French about three times, for them to shut up...still, the comments. No matter how many times I said, in French, "you have no reason to say a single word right now, be quiet," they just couldn't. What's worse is that the exercises we were doing were all listening, and of course they weren't, and then they'd freak out and talk more when they realized they weren't following the exercise. By the time I'd got through one single exercise, which was four questions and took half an hour, I was so frustrated that I didn't even want to try to continue. The teacher had already come in a few times to shut them up, all unsuccessful. I thought about giving them something to write, or doling out punishments (which the kids always tell me to do). But I can't really punish them aside from sending them out or telling the teacher. So I did one better -- I said, "let's go," and took them all back to their teacher. I told them I was done and they couldn't shut up and we didn't nothing, so I was leaving. I'm sure they were shocked, so good. They'll get new assholes ripped for them and I'll finally be an authority figure.
I'm kind of smug about the whole thing now, but at the time...I immediately went downstairs, dropped my shit, and went into the bathroom to cry. When I get pissed off, I yell. And then when yelling doesn't work, I turn into myself at 7 years old, when kids could look at me wrong and I'd burst into tears. So I crouched against the wall, paper towel in hand to keep the make up stains at bay, and I let it out. On top of being menstrual, school, the impending doom of a meeting tomorrow morning, getting over the flu, exhaustion, all of it -- on top of that, these kids just infuriatingly refusing to shut the fuck up was the proverbial straw. After a couple minutes, I checked myself in the mirror, drank some water, and went back to the trenches to kick of class 5 out of 6. Unfortunately the office helper guy heard me crying in the bathroom and wanted to make sure I was okay. He kept saying, "It's okay?" in English, which was very nice. Unfortunately I may never be able to look him in the eye again. Class #5 went well, but then class #6 was a problem. Half the class was on a trip to the Louvre, so really I only had about 12 students and they are the smartest, most well-behaved 8 year olds on the planet. Truly, they remembered everything they learned last time and immediately picked up what I taught them this time. Unfortunately one little girl, Laurène (haha), was having a little attitude problem. She seems a little ADHD to me but I think she has angst against her parents or something. She told me she wasn't excited for vacation cuz she has to spend the whole time in the school daycare. Man, I feel her. That's where I spent all of my school vacations, too. Anyway, for whatever reason the girls sitting behind her pissed her off so much that she got up and walked out. I found her sitting on the hallway floor crying and I just felt so bad cuz she was me. So I told her to breathe and that if she could just make it through 10 minutes more of class, the day would be over. So she got up and went back. Job well done. I might be a shitty authority figure, but I am an excellent babysitter, and I know how to make kids happy.
Naturally I stewed the whole train ride home, partially because of the kids and partially because I'm practicing my defenses in the case the meeting tomorrow morning gets hostile. For one thing, the job offer I was given said that I would be the assistant English teacher. That's to say I would consult and assist a real teacher. This has not and will never happen. I have ZERO teacher training and I am on my fucking won. I barely have teaching methods to follow. I create all of my lesson plans and make up all of the conversation activities. The job offer also said I'd be teaching a CONVERSATION class, but surprise!, 8 year olds aren't conversational in English. And there were only supposed to be 12 of them at a time. I have anywhere from 24 - 31. Plus I have to commute an hour each direction to get there. These people have FUCKED me so many times over that for them to complain about one thing I've done incorrectly is completely unjustified. And that's what I will say if they try to scold me tomorrow. Stay tuned for that update.

Fuck all

2008-02-20T20:26:00.002+01:00

So I've been avoiding my boss for, oh, about a month now. Since I got back from winter break and missed two days of work, she's been hounding me to send in a letter justifying my absence. So I did, but apparently it didn't arrive and instead of telling me that, they kept calling and leaving messages asking for me to call back. There are few things in life that bug me more than voice mails saying, "Call me back." Tell me why the fuck you're calling me, especially if you don't call everyday just to say hi. So anyway, last week she started calling and asking that I come in for a meeting. So I emailed her about it, and she called again to set something up. First of all, until this point, she had always just emailed me. So I honestly tried to call this morning, but after all of the chats with Italian phones last week, I am out of minutes. And what's even better, I can't use my new debit card to recharge my phone because I used my old one to do it. I'm not sure why that matters but okay. So I was forced to email her. She did email me back, asking me to come to her office 9 am Friday morning. What a bitch. First of all, I have to wake my ass up at like 7:30 on my day off. Second, she's not going to pick me up at the train station, I have to take the damn bus. Yes, I know that this is partly my fault for avoiding her phone calls, but fuck. I haven't technically done anything wrong.

So that was my morning. Then it was off to class, where I made new Italian, Mexican, and Chinese friends. Of course the Mexican guy speaks better English than French, so it should be interesting trying not to speak English with him. I've felt plenty of privileged guilt in my life, from being white, being upper-middle class, whatever. But the fact that I was lucky enough to be born an English-speaker is now bothering me. I'm taking a translation class and so far we've done mostly French to English translation, so of course I have all of the vocabulary and expressions and such necessary to translate well. And the teacher figured out today that I'm an "anglophone," so the class became sort of an A and B conversation between the two of us. I felt terrible and I tried to keep my mouth shut. I could feel the French kids wondering what the hell I was doing there if I already spoke English. We'll see how it goes when we're doing English to French translation. I will suck. In the meantime, I'll be the three-headed alien that everyone stares at.

Du coque à l'âne

2008-02-19T22:00:00.002+01:00

Today was one of those days that started out just horribly and ended up, well, not half bad. But of course the wicked mood I was in earlier was totally of my own design. Being sick and stress with classes and work and all that have combined to put me in a real funk, one of very few I've had since I've been here. I've gone so far as to wish I was home, but really, what does that even mean? Every time that Paris has gotten hard, and I've thought, "What if I was in San Francisco? What if I was in San Diego?", I've always realized right away that no surroundings or even people would make me feel better. It's just a state of mind. So as the French would say, "Ben, enfin bon." This too shall pass.
So anyway, today I woke up at 8:30 (don't freak out, I went to bed at 10:30), with the intention to hit the gym before class at noon. Well, this will be my official itinerary starting next week, because this morning I did my homework instead. Good excuse, at least. And I used the extra time to economize and straighten my hair. So productive. Anyway, class was fine. It was followed by a brisk walk home where I packed a snack and a sandwich for dinner, because I won't be getting home until about 8:15 on Tuesday nights from now on. I left right away to get to campus, where I crashed an American civilization class and the professor added me, no questions asked. It's kind of redundant (and in English), but I am able to sacrifice the 2 credits and anyway I need them to have a full course load for the semester. Plus, why not learn about the founding of America from a French woman speaking in a very heavy British accent. But also making very French facial expressions. I nearly laughed out loud. What will be hard is not looking like a giant brown-noser because I already know the subject and the language is my first. Ohhh well. After tha class I pretty much ran across campus to get to my French civilization class. Of course. American, then French civilization. It was kind of boring in that the professor gave us a document then read and explained it a bit for 2 hours, but oh well. I love her anyway.
Tomorrow my earliest class is 1, and I'm not going to work out beforehand, but I think I'm going to get up early anyway to do my homework. Ugh, getting up before 10 am is just not for me.

A week in review

2008-02-17T10:26:00.003+01:00

I don't even know where this last week went. I guess it got away from me about 10 am Saturday morning, when I went to Porte Maillot to pick up Lauren and company from the Beauvais shuttle. After a dramatic greeting involving slow motion running across a parking lot, dropping all belongings and flinging ourselves into each other's arms, we gathered everyone together and went down into the metro. First order of business, tickets. Well in front of us was this family who were not counting on the coins-only ticket machine and were getting frustrated. The mother turned and asked me if I could help, so I gladly stepped up. She asked me where I was from, and of course I said I was American (this exchange was all in English). There is still some debate as to whether she replied "Oh, Americans are scary," or "Oh, Americans are skilled." Anyway, I dialed in the right ticket type and number for her, but all she had was bills. I asked if she had a debit card and she pulled one out, but it didn't have the microchip. I know they have them in England and I just assumed all European countries do, but maybe they don't? Anyway, after I told her that without change or a debit card I couldn't help her, she unceremoniously said, "American's are very helpful." I was livid. Keeping my composure the best I could, I said, "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do to help you." At this point her husband had gone up to get change in the mall. So fuck you, you inept bitch. It's not anyone else's job to save you.

After that exciting start to the week, I navigated them to their hotel in the 11th, checked in, and immediately found some kebaps. Cuz what's Paris without a kebap, really? Then we went over to Mouffetard so they could see my miniscule living space and then get some pastries at Le Rétrodor, a very pretty bakery downstairs that is too expensive and actually has bitchy staff, I don't know why I go there. We sat down in a cafe to have some coffee but immediately got up because the Romans were horrified by the prices. Apparently in Rome you can go into a bar and get a cappucino and a pain au chocolat for like 1 euro. They were not feeling the 4.50 cafe creme. Can't blame them, though. After taking them (and getting a tiny bit lost) to FNAC to pick up concert tickets, I sent them on their way. On Sunday we were to Disneyland, which was fabulous of course. We had some hamburgers in Frontierland for lunch, rode the bomb ass and highly superior Space Mountain, looked for princess crowns but to no avail. What Disneyland Paris really needs though are Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, an Indiana Jones that isn't just a roller coaster, and some mother-fucking DOLE WHIP.

Monday I worked like usually, then went up the Eiffel Tower with Mike at Lauren at about 10 pm. Let me tell you, the light show is NOT impressive when you are standing on the tower. And after we went to St. Andre des Arts to get some crepes, followed by a whack ass encounter with the night buses. After getting them on their bus, I was faced with the choice of a 25 minute walk home or waiting for a bus for 20 minutes and then about a 5 minute ride home. I waited, even though I felt like a dumbass. Anyway, Tuesday morning I got up and had my meeting with Rosalie, which went well as always. My grand total of grades last semester comes to two A's, an A-, and a B+. Hollerrrrr. The bad news is that I still need to add a class this semester, because for some reason every class I'm taking is 2 credits. After the meeting I speed-walked to Censier and was only 5 minutes late for History of the French. I was a little worried about it because Keisha hated it so much, but I like the professor and aside from the marked increase in work compared to the MICEFA classes I took last week, I'm optimistic. That afternoon Lauren and I went up to Sacre Coeur, where we broke rules cuz we're bad asses. We also hit up Pigalle, then went back to my place to wait for Mike. We wanted to go somewhere to get fancy dessert (something much easier done in America), but I took a chance on Cafe Delmas and we ended up eating the most amazing chocolate lava cake in, perhaps, all of existence. It was so good we didn't mind the mouse running around the floor.

Wednesday was when I started to feel sick. I spent the morning on the Champs-Elysées and Rue de Rivoli with Lauren, then went to my translation class in the afternoon. I'm a little intimidated because everyone is French, but the professor is pretty nice and I was able to pick up everything she said. Apparently my French professors really are slowing it down for the non-native speakers. Anyway, it's like figuring out a puzzle. We translated an English newspaper article into French which was tough for me, but she said we'll mostly be translating French into English, which seems much easier. What struck me is that this is a fourth semester Anglo-American studies class, and it's taught completely in French. And the other classes I've seen on the planning boards all have French titles. Could they really be teaching American civilization classes in French? That seems very counterintuitive.

Thursday, man Thursday sucked. The cold-like symptoms had taken hold, and then the immense fatigue set in. I was like a zombie the whole day, with droopy eyelids in the teacher's lounge. The teachers kept saying that I was too crazy and going to bed too late. I somehow managed to crawl home and just went to bed that night, which was lame because I wanted to go out with Lauren one last time before she left. In any case, they all came over Friday morning to dump their luggage after check out. We went out for one last kebap, then hit up a creperie and a bakery. All the important elements of Paris. Everyone bought macaron-ish things. I got this BOMB ass thing that was a heart-shaped coffee macaron, with coffee creme, some coffee foam thing, and a crunchy biscuit thing that tasted like nutella, all sandwiched in there with a heart-shaped chocolate on top. It was 4.20 but I don't even care, it was that good. And Lauren, Mike, and their friends bought me a box of coffee macarons to thank me for showing them around. Lovely. What's not lovely is that after they left, I just laid around feeling yucky.

I thought Friday was bad, but when I woke up on Saturday, I thought I was dying. Ironically, my stuffy nose and chest were almost gone, but my whole body just felt like a tank was laying on top of me or something. I barely managed to brush my teeth, drink some tea, and eat some cereal before taking a 7 hour nap. Then I woke up at had some soup and watched Queer as Folk. By about 8 pm last night, I was feeling much better, and this morning I am about 80% better. I'm even going to hit the gym, since nothing will make me feel better. I guess it's good that I had one day of absolute misery instead of spreading it out over this week. But man, I can't even believe how terrible I felt. I kept thinking about at what point I would call a doctor, the fact that I couldn't find my cell phone, and that I haven't ordered a new health insurance card since getting my wallet jacked in London. And I was wondering if I had a fever, how high it was, and why I'm an idiot and I don't own a thermometer. It was also the first time since I've been here that I really, really wished I was at home. Even though I don't really have a home anymore, but I just wanted my mom to bring me cherry 7-up and rent movies at Blockbuster for me.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better so I'm trying to get some stuff done. I have some translation homework to do, and some History of France stuff as well but I don't think I can buy a newspaper today. I finally emailed my boss to apologize for ignoring her phone calls, I found my cell phone, and I'm going to sort through some other business today. What I really want is for freaking SFSU to post the summer school schedule so I can figure it out, tell my mom when the fee deadline is, and let my boss at home know when I'll be available this summer. In a little less than four months I'll be back in San Francisco and essentially I'll be starting over again. Mom has a new house, I'll need a new apartment, I'll have to re-integrate myself into the journalism track and really knuckle down in order to find internships and have some sort of job prospect when I graduate. Ugh now I'm nauseated.

Ride the wave

2008-02-07T18:42:00.000+01:00

Well, yesterday was only mildly successful in terms of class registration. The French university system is just a joke. I think I'm going to write a letter to Sarko, congratulate him on his wedding, commend him for telling the metro drivers that no, 35 is a ridiculous age to retire -- and then ask him to issue some kind of executive order mandating that the universities make course catalogues and put them online, then instate online registration. I don't want to say the French are lazy, but they kind of are. Ok, maybe lazy is not the write word. Grossly inefficient. Yeah that's it.
Anyway, first I went to the international student office to ask for a new ID. It's been over a month since it was stolen but I too am lazy and honestly I don't have much use for the thing. Anyway, naturally it was a completely different process than before. Keisha lost her wallet a while back and when she went in, she asked for a new one and got it in 15 minutes. This time, the douche bag made a request for me, then told me to bring 10 euros to the bursar's office to pick it up. What the fuck, man. Then I went over to the FETE building to find a class schedule. Nothing was posted outside the office, oooooooobviously, but I did see my grades. I got a fucking 17 in oral. Nanterre can suck it, I knew they placed me too low. And a 13.5 in written, which isn't outstanding, but rather good considering the highest grade in the class was a 14.5 and only two people got that even. So I'm definitely satisfied. Then next I went back downstairs to look at all of the bulletin boards and finally found the FETE schedule, which of course has like no classes I can take. All the level 3 classes are on Monday and Thursday, so I think I might just forgo oral altogether this semester. This is a level two written at 8:30 on Wednesday morning (fuuuuuuck) but I need the credit and probably the practice too. And I'm taking history of France and the French with MICEFA. So that leaves me 6 more credits to scrounge up. I might take a lit class on Friday (fuuuuuuck again) and after some effort at the English department I found a translation class. We'll see. I emailed MICEFA with my woes and they said to ask the international office where to find classes. I need to email the French department head at home as well. If all else fails, I will take a frickin' American civilization class just for the credit, even if it doesn't count toward any degree. Sad. Maybe I can get GE credit for it? I do need to take some sort of American government/politics class.
Today was a looooong ass day. The kids are killing me right now, I think they're getting spring fever. It feels like spring. This morning the ground was frozen in Marly and it was cold as a mother fucker, but when I was going home at 4:30 it was 16 degrees outside. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of screaming in class lately. This morning I had some sort of psychic revelation and I decided to take a later train cuz I didn't have any work to do before class. I got to St. Lazare at 7:30 and the 7:18 train that I usually take hadn't even left yet. So I hopped on and patted myself on the back for being clairvoyant. But then, since there were two trains nose to ass in the same direction, they made us get off at Garches and wait for the 7:33 train. So I frooooooze for like 10 minutes. So after a long day I was overjoyed that for the first time in mooooonths, I didn't have to go to class on Thursday night. Glory hallelujah. And even better, when I got home there was a package slip (Ugg boots or flat iron -- the suspense is killing me) and a letter from the family I worked for in San Francisco. I sent them a card and some chocolate Santas for Christmas, partially because I adore them, and partially as a shrewd business move because I really want my job back in June. Anyway, the letter was great. All about how the boys are good and they say that they miss me after their new babysitter leaves (haaaaahahaha). And the dad was offered a spot on the SF planning commission but he turned it down and he's waiting until the boys get older to run for public office again. And the mom (she's a CBS reporter) is trying to get out of journalism and into production. And she told me she's voting for Obama. For some reason, her telling me that just felt really intimate and familiar. Plus I'm not surprised cuz her husband is like Barack's doppelganger. Anyway, I'll definitely be sending them birthday presents and hanging up their pictures on my wall.

Who needs school?

2008-02-05T12:03:00.000+01:00

It's Super Tuesday, kids. All of these hours I've wasted watching debates (even Republican ones, because sometimes, you just want to yell at the computer screen and freak out your neighbors) are coming down to right now. I don't know exactly how this works, but apparently there is a "global primary" and I can go vote at the American Church with my passport. I was all set to send in my absentee ballot, and I might still, but this sounds interesting. Anyway, you heard it here first -- I'm voting for Hillary. Honestly, there is no bad choice, I'll be happy with either, but I have to go with my gut.

Anyway, vacation is a little too fun, I think. Work on Monday, two free days, work on Thursday, three free days. This is the life. Unfortunately it will all come to screeching halt when I sign up for classes on Friday and then start MICEFA class on Tuesday. I signed up for this class because it was supposed to be at Censier, but apparently it has moved to some other Paris 3 campus far, far away. Well fucking balls, good thing it doesn't start until 12:30 in the afternoon. Also exciting this weekend is one Miss Lauren Kunin arriving on Saturday. And Disneyland on Sunday, I think it was. Working on Mondays is such a buzzkill, really.

Not a whole lot else to report, really. I feel like this semester is going to be very full of excitement. Lauren will be here next week, then a couple more weeks and Matt and Joe will *hopefully* be here. The apartment search continues and I'm sending new Craig's list postings pretty much every day. But having them here for a month would just exceed immense (harhar). And then while they're here, my brother comes for 5 days, then a couple more weeks and I'm in Rome for four days at Lauren's. I'm extra excited for Rome because between the 50 euro flights and the free accommodation, that trip is shaping up nicely. Speaking of nice, the weekend after Rome is tentatively Nice, then a couple weeks after that, after some schedule tweaking, GREECE. Honestly, Greece is the one place I've been dying to visit for the past couple years. After Paris, it was number two on a very short list of places I must see before I die. Naturally my travel lust has gotten away from me a bit and I've got all these links bookmarked with ferries and hostels and different islands and such. We'll see how it all gets pulled together. And then I think Lauren is going to come live at chez moi for a couple weeks. And work will be over and school will be winding down. I suppose it's best to keep things at a fever pitch until the very end.

Little victories

2008-02-01T12:27:00.000+01:00

You know what's frustrating? It's frustrating when you have money, the whole world is on sale, and still you can't find anything you really like. Well, that's a lie, and did find two pairs of boots that I like, but at 95 and 132 euros, I just can't bring myself to buy them. And then there's the existential dilemma of buying essentially the same pair of knee-high leather boots that everyone in Paris has. I like them, it's true, I really do. And I'm really not someone who cares about using clothes to be unique, but at some point the saturation starts getting a little annoying. And there's the fact that I have a pair of knee-high suede boots and tall Uggs. Oh well. That mall trip was brightened by a trip to Champion, though. Oh, Champion, my heart. Every time I go there, I feel like I'm at home again. And every time I go, I find something so completely genial (har) that I love it more. For instance, last Saturday I found turkey sausage and turkey burgers. At home I am obsessed with Trader Joe's basil and garlic sausage and Jennie-O turkey burgers. And there they were at Champion (more or less). And I love to buy cheap pre-bagged baking mixes and make cupcakes or cookies or something. Well the other day at Champion I found pre-made, pre-mixed, full-on batter. Literally all I have to do is dump the bag into the pan and put it in the oven. Awesome.

Yesterday morning I saw the sunrise for the first time. On the train, around 7:30 am. I was watching the Eiffel Tower and usual and amazingly enough, there was some red and yellow on the horizon and I could see the whole tower. Weee the time is changing finally. Northern winters are balls and I can't wait for longer days.

Yesterday evening I had my very last Franco-American relations class, and we got all of our essays and homework back. I got an A on my final, and the comments at the top said: "Très bien. Un devoir très nuancé et précis." Three and a half pages of brilliance. Honestly, I can't take credit for all of it. Essay-writing is some sort of genetic talent I have, apparently in any language. So all in all, I think I'm looking at some good grades this semester. All A's in Franco-American, all A's in history of Paris, a 16 in oral expression, and I would think no less than a B in written (no idea how I did on my final). Aaaaand on the school front, my history of France class just got changed to Tuesday afternoons instead of Friday mornings. Glory hallelujah. Hopefully I can figure out the other three classes I need to take so that I can A. sleep, B. go to the gym, and C. not have class on Friday.

Idle Hands

2008-01-29T13:05:00.001+01:00

I hate the phone. I really do. Not because of some anarchist, anti-consumer philosophy. I just hate talking on the phone, for the most part. I will email until my fingers fall off to avoid a phone conversation with someone I don't really feel like talking to. This aversion is multiplied by about 1000 in French. Which is just silly because every time I've had to have phone conversations in French (with Ikea, the bank, my inspectrice) it's really no big deal. I much prefer to talk to someone face-to-face in French, if only so they can see my face when I stumble and realize that French isn't my first language and I'm flustered, not a moron. Sigh.
Anyway, I called MICEFA today to make an appointment with the resident director to get all my classes approved, and while I was on the phone with Barbara, I asked her about Nanterre registration. She gave me the office hours of M. Louys, the crazy man who lets you take level 4 classes if you test into 2. I also got the new location and tentative start date for my MICEFA class. One easy phone call, maybe 5 minutes, and I am almost totally at ease with the transition to second semester. Why do I avoid phone calls?
Anyway, this week started out lamely because as I was walking to the metro yesterday morning, I realized that the 100 songs I downloaded onto my ipod the night before hadn't updated. I am usually not about the ipod while commuting, if only because I'm paranoid about disabling one of my senses in public. But after my winter break travels and the hours spent in airports and on buses, I've rediscovered the practicality of the ipod. If only because it gives me a boost when I'm on the train at 6:45 in the morning, drinking coffee from my theromos (much to the disgust of the French people around me -- why can't this bitch drink a tiny cup of coffee at home like the rest of us?). Speaking of my commute. I've been meaning to write something about this but I always forget (maybe because I'm exhausted at the end of every work day).
So after about a month of this bullshit 7:18 train, in the pitch black, twice a week, one day I realized that between La Defense and St. Cloud, about, when the train goes parallel to the west side of Paris, I can see the Eiffel Tower. Okay, I can see the band of lights on the second floor that they leave on after they turn off the main lights sometime during the night. So I started sitting on the left side of the train (or right side on the way home, though it's usually foggy in the evening and I can't see it anymore) every morning so I could see the little band of lights and slight outline of the tower and remember that I'm in Paris. Well a couple weeks ago I was watching the tower and my eyes drifted northwest. What do you know, there was the Arc de Triomphe! I had no idea how tall it was, or that it stayed lit up all night, but it's there and it gives me a little boost every morning now. The real treat of the commute is some evenings when I'm coming home and it's clear enough to see Sacre Coeur way in the distance. Paris is really small, the monuments are really tall, and the buildings are really short. Between sleeping in my tiny studio and commuting out to this little town, or to Nanterre, I forget that I live in the tourism capital of the world.

On a totally different note, my paycheck just cleared in my bank account, so today I'm going to head to the lovely lavender store to buy some dresses, maybe a hat and a scarf (although the scarf I liked once upon a time hasn't been restocked). I am totally OCD about clothes and if I only have one of something, I can never deem it a special enough day to wear it. So I find something I like, then buy it in several colors and styles. Then it becomes normal and I can wear it to class or work. There is also a gorgeous store down the street (Nina Kendosa, for the neighborhood peeps) and I will probably stop by there to check if anything is still on sale. The signs at the mall have gone from 2nd markdown to last markdown, so now's the time to strike, if there's anything good left.

Born freeeeeeee

2008-01-25T11:55:00.000+01:00

Well I took my last final last night. 3 and a half pages of bullshitty glory. Frankly, I can't take all of the blame for that because we just did not get very in-depth in that class. We just kind of took notes, read a boring textbook, watched some awful exposés. Anyway, at least it's over. And my final on Wednesday was biiiizarre. We sat down, the professor read this article to us three times, we answered 5 multiple choice questions, and BAM. Dunzo. Under 20 minutes. I think I did really well but even if I didn't, I have a 16 (out of 20, but a 12 is a B -- it's a whole thing, this fucked up French grading) in that class. Soooo school is officially out for a couple weeks, but next task is to figure out where and when to sign up for my classes. I'm not sure I want to take FETE (French as a foreign language) classes again, but that means I have to run around to every department to find the class listings and then sign up for them. Although I've heard being in MICEFA helps and I can just cry ignorance or something. Good insurance policy? We'll find out.

Yesterday was a little weird. I did the usual commute in the morning, did my regular two classes in the morning, then luckily got into the second school. No one was in the teacher's lounge to buzz me in, so I had to bang on the front door and yell at one of my students so he'd get his teacher to let me in. I made some photocopies, drank a cup of tea, and taught an extremely rowdy class. But for whatever reason, it doesn't really bug me when they're hard to control. But now they are all certain of the meaning of "shut up," I'm sure. Afterward I went home on the RER (fuckin' hate that crap) and took a quasi-nap. I say quasi because one of my neighbors was running up and down the stairs, then stomping around in his apartment upstairs. I nearly threw open my door and yelled "DOUCEMENT!" into the stairwell, but I couldn't be bothered (Hi Matt, if you're reading this).

My trip to Rome is starting to take shape as well. I was planning to take EasyJet and the flights were gonna be like 130 euro, but RyanAir is doing fun fun penny flights right now, so I could get there for about 50 euro. The only problem is that I have to go to Beauvais (26 euros in shuttle fees, not SUCH a big deal), and the flight into Rome lands at 11:40 pm. Hey Laurennnnnn. If you meet me at the airport, I'll pay for the cab to get us baaaack. Ha. Then there's the issue of accommodation. Lauren can't have guests for some silly Italian rule, Mike offered but he was drunk and jet-lagged at the time, and the hostels in the area all have lockout for cleaning, which is just the silliest fucking concept ever. I'm really supposed to get up and out before 11 am so you can sweep the floor? Fuck off. Plus they all require check in before 6 pm or they'll give up my invitation. Maybe I can crash somewhere the first night and check in the next morning? That's an idea I suppose. Anyway, it's balls. I think these hostels are all owned by the same douche bags.

This week. . .

2008-01-23T12:11:00.000+01:00

Is not a great one.

Monday was decent. I could not sleep at all Sunday night. For whatever reason, the nights before I work, I just can't sleep. I've been at this for almost four months now, I've never overslept, I try to go to bed early-ish and get 8 hours of sleep. But still, I toss and turn and I wake up twenty minutes early. At least it's only two days a week? I dunno. Tuesday was not a lot of fun. I woke up early and did my laundry while re-reading a book for French class. And I took a final on the book in the afternoon, which was pretty intense. A big grammar section, then pages of commentary on the book, then a mini-essay using subjonctif. And I am proud to say that after three years (since French III, the first time I saw it), I have finally comprehended subjonctif. Next step will be to master when to use it. Last night, not so hot. I don't really want to talk about it. Today I went to Histoire de Paris and only three of us showed up. Whoops. And after Keisha and I hit up Franprix, then I browsed some shops on Mouffetard. It was a weird feeling because there was lots of stuff I liked, but I couldn't figure out whether I wanted to shop because of sales, because I love shopping, to self-medicate...and then I didn't want to buy anything. Maybe because I didn't need it, I need to save money for plane tickets and hotels, or because I'm depressed. This afternoon is another final, and then I will finish my Franco-American assignments.

Tomorrow there is a teacher's strike, but unfortunately 3 out of my 6 teachers aren't striking, so I will go to work at the same time and leave at lunch time. Fine. Actually it works out nicely because the classes I will teach tomorrow are all behind in some way or another, whether it's because we couldn't meet a couple times, or in the case of my class from hell, because they are a bunch of little assholes and I can't teach them. Ha. And then my Franco-American final. Finals finals finals. And then the mentally debilitating task of signing up for classes. And this time I have to go to several different departments to find schedules. Crap. It's not just a good time right now.

Vacation, all I ever wanted (pt. 2)

2008-01-19T22:36:00.000+01:00

Okay so I'm finally getting off my ass and finishing my travel blogs.

So where did I leave off? The flight to London, yes. I love EasyJet, just let me say. I could do without all of the fucking orange, but overall it's a lovely experience. After a quick flight to London which I honestly don't remember at all, Matt and I landed in Stansted and made our way over to the Easy Bus kiosk-thinger. I pulled out our confirmation sheet to ask the woman where we were supposed to catch the bus, and she was just like, "next bus leaves at such and such a time." So I was like....okay. Fine. Matt and I got some breakfast at Costa and then went back to the kiosk. The time had changed on the board. So I was like, "does it just keep getting delayed? I was supposed to be on the 10:50 bus." And the woman goes, "whaaaaat? You had a reservation? Well the bus is gone. You had a seat reserved, you can't go on another bus." And I was like, "waaaaait a minute lady, I handed you my reservation and you didn't even look at it, you just told me the next but was leaving at 11:20." And I was pissed. So Matt tried to be diplomatic, and we went out to the coach station anyway and got a bus and it was fine. But man, what a dumb bitch.
Anyway, we got in contact with Matt Williams, our host, and took the tube from our drop-off at Baker Street out to Matt's lovely townhouse in Swiss Cottage. Almost immediately after meeting him and PJ, we went (in a car! Yayyy cars!) out to Hampstead Heath to take a cold, winter's walk in the park. And then we went to a friggin crepe stand, which was just so hilarious, but delicious of course. Matt and I took a nap while Matt took PJ to meet his grandparents. That evening Matt W. made us some pasta, which we ate with his fabulous brother Tom (who reminds me of someone but I can't figure out who), before we went on a big gay bar crawl in Soho. Me and like 6 gay guys, all in a day's work. After a few bars and a few skinny bitches (vodka and diet coke), we went to Heaven, a big fat club. We had some fun metal detecting and purse searching. Matt had to put his Tylenol PM (little blue pills with moons...ecstasy?) and sudafed in the "Drug Amnesty Box." Hardy har har. There was lots of techno at first, but luckily the club had a few levels and there was better music upstairs. We left around 2 am, sadly, because we had to do the fun night bus trek back home. So we sat on the top, in the front, like big fat Americans and had one of many linguistic discussions that characterize every trip to England. Yes, we speak the same language, but nottttt really. For instance, do you know what it means to "take the piss out" of someone? Ask me how!
So we went to bed around 4, and then Matt W. brought in the wake-up call at 8. We showered and jumped in the car for a fun times road trip to the Isle of Wight. M Dub (as he will be referred to from now on) has a friend from high school whose family just moved there, and Matt has a friend from Oxford, so we went to visit our respective friends. Two hours in the car and a ferry ride later, Aisha picked us up at the port and drove us to her house. We set our stuff down and then went for a giant ride around the whole island while Aisha tried to find some place that I still can't identify. We went out to the beach though and saw some intense cliffs and lots of cows that apparently fling themselves into the sea from time to time. After all this running around Matt and I just wanted to veg, so we went back to casa Aisha and had a classic English snack -- fried eggs and cheesy toast. They have no right to call Americans fat asses -- all they eat is fried, buttery, sausagey crap. Anyway, we then ate about a pound of left over Christmas chocolate and walked Shrek 3, which was surprisingly a lot better than I would have guessed. And that night we did some face masks and watched The Notebook. It made me miss Chelsea. Luckily Matt is in a mushy relationship right now so he appreciated it.
That night we slept until about noon which was fan-bloody-tastic as it had been way too long since that had happened. Aisha drove us back to the port and we met up with M Dub and PJ to drive back to London town. That night was New Year's so we split up throughout the house to get ready. I was straightening my hair when Joe showed up so he sat and told me about the 4 hour train ride from Edinburgh while I burned myself repeatedly. Let me tell you about Joe. He's awesome. The end. Just keep in mind that he is brilliant. In the English sense, probably the American one too. Anyway, we did a little internet research for some events that Tom had suggested. M Dub and PJ finagled their way in to a party at Westminster Abbey (M Dub knows the daughter of the dean and so it was like her house party) so we were left to our own devices. The parties were either booked up or chavvy (this is English slang that means something close to white trash, but clearly not the American version of it. I imagine kids with those fucked up mullet-hawks and indecipherable accents. The term "chav" was invoked quite often by these posh prep-school types I was hanging out with). Anyway, we decided to wing it. First we went to Miriam's apartment (READ: DORM ROOM) in King's Cross, where we'd be spending the next two nights. If I had only known what was in store, I would've never left that lovely bed in M Dub's lovely house. Anyway, we then met up with Hannah and Jimmy at Leicester Square (but not before stopping to get some alcohol) and ended up eating a huge dinner at this great Indian restaurant. Hannah is a big foodie so she order these giant tasting menus and we all shared. And she picked the wine. And there were crackers! Not food, not white people. They are basically big party poppers with toys inside. Matt got a lock that he is keeping on his belt (for chastity?). I got a green measuring tape. Haha. Anyway, we ate and I had perhaps a little too much wine because I spent half the night telling Joe how much Americans suck. Whoooops.
Afterwards we made our best efforts to get to Parliament Square as it was dangerously close to midnight. Well, we didn't make it there. We stood on a median on some big street while all of humanity walked by. We counted down, we saw the glow of fireworks in the clouds. And we drank. I don't even know when I got so drunk but suddenly it was like BOOM. So Miriam and I fiercely defended Matt and Joe's right to grope and play tonsil hockey in public, i.e. every chav who walked by and made comments got an ear full of our "FUCK YOU!!!!!"s. One guy stole Joe's almost empty bottle of JD right out his hand. And one guy tried to steal Jimmy's hat. It was warfare. But it was awesome. At one point a group of Hari Krishnas marched by, so we joined them and chanted for about half a block before returning to our spot. We didn't really "do" anything but somehow it was one of the best New Year's I'll probably ever have. After the mayhem died down, we found a good bar to spend the rest of the night in. I was already pretty hammered, but Joe can't help buying drinks for people apparently. So two vodka-cranberries later I was about to pummel this guy and girl who were making faces and snickering at Joe and Matt. There are such haters in the world, man. I don't quite recall the trek home, but I know the tube was open and free all night. We got to Miriam's and I remember attempting to sleep on her bookshelf. But then I settled for the floor under three coats. It is a good thing I was so drunk because I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was.
Soooo the next morning we woke up whenever, showered, and tried to find some breakfast. Joe insisted that we have a proper English breakfast. We found a couple places where they serve just that, but both were totally full. And anyway, do you have any idea what an English breakfast is? Cheese on toast, fries, baked beans, bacon, sausage, fried eggs, half a tomato (why?). The second restaurant we found had a board with pictures of all of their meals. I don't know if looking at something has ever made me so nauseated. Anyway, after walking for blocks and blocks and finding nothing but Subway, McDonald's and Starbucks open (thanks America!), we settled on Starbucks. A muffin and a coffee later and I was feeling much better. Afterward we went back to Miriam's for some naps, and thankfully I got to borrow a sleeping bag for the floor. That evening we got up, straightened ourselves out, and headed back to Chez M Dub for a New Year's kick-back (it's been a long time since I used that term). Anyway, we drank some mulled wine, ate some mince pies, the usual. Fun fact: mince meant -- not meat. Spicy, chopped up fruit paste. It's worth a try but I wouldn't eat it every day. We made it a pretty early night, but for me it sucked some major ass because this time I was on the floor, scarf under my head, two coats covering me, and 100% sober. Needless to say, I did not sleep real fabulously and I was thrilled when everyone woke up so we could get the hell out of there. That morning we did have a real English breakfast (for 2 quid!), albeit a mini-version because, well, we're not eating world champions.
We left that day around 2:30 to catch the Stansted Express to the airport. And here's where my troubles began. Matt and I got to King's Cross tube and he realized he had forgotten his passport at Miriam's. No big. So while he went back, I bought my tube ticket. I dug around in my purse a bit before realizing I had a 5 pound note I had taken out and put in my pocket before we left, so I wouldn't have to get out my wallet. So I bought my ticket and waited for Matt. For whatever reason I looked through my purse for my wallet, and oh shit -- it was gone. I called Matt and told him it must be at Miriam's and to go look for it. Apparently it wasn't there. So somewhere between Miriam's and the tube ticket machine, my wallet disappeared. Whether I dropped it, someone pick-pocketed it...I don't know. As far as I know, it was in my purse under a book and a scarf, but apparently not. I freaked out a little on the phone and attracted a bit of attention to myself, so a tube agent guy chatted with me for a while. He offered to get my a ticket to Heathrow (except I wasn't going to Heathrow and I already had my tube ticket) and then wrote his phone number on my hand so I could call when him when I "found the wallet in my luggage." I'm glad he was so sure, cuz I was just as sure that it wasn't in there. Then he asked me if I studied psychology because I was so calm. No use crying over spilled milk. All I had in there was a student ID, credit cards, and cash. Biggest deal was that I really like that little wallet. But we had a flight to make, so I brushed it off and waited for Matt to get back.
We got to the Stansted Express, and lovely, it wasn't running. So we took some random trains with a bazillion other people and finally got there. Checked in, on time, no big deal. Then came the security. Hannah's bag beaped, so did mine. So I stood there while the woman took everything out and looked at it. She found my pepper spray. Whoops. Although I don't think that's what set off the machine, or it would have done the same thing in Amsterdam. Whatever, I said, take it away. But no. She holds it up and goes, "I'm really sorry, but this is illegal in the UK. It's considered a firearm." So naturally, I did what anyone would do -- I put my head down on the table and tooooootally lost my shit. Then she was bitchy and told me to pull it together so the cops could talk to me. I'm sorry, lady, my wallet was just stolen and now I'm going to miss my flight. And not just me, but the two friends I have with me right now. Anyway, I took a deep breath and went over to the little police stand thinger. They took my info, no problem. Then they were like, we need to interview you. What?! Fiiiiine. So I went in the little room with the two very nice and goofy policemen and they wrote down my answers to questions like "what is this? why do you have it? do you know that it's illegal?" Blah blah blah. Then a mugshot, a DNA swab, and some fingerprinting later (typing this right now makes me nauseous), I was done. Hannah had waited for me outside while she texted Matt to find out about our flight (which was delayed half an hour, GLORY HALLELUJAH), so we ran to the gate and boarding was just starting. I collapsed on the ground.

So suck on that until I have the strength to write about Barcelona.

Back on planet Earth

2008-01-19T13:29:00.000+01:00

Coming back from vacations sucks. There's really no way around it. Especially because I extended my winter break by ditching work and spending the whole weekend in England. This past week was -- exhausting. I was basically jet-lagged after missing an entire night of sleep on the way home from Barcelona, and then this past weekend, which lacked sleep and was heavy on the hard liquor. Tee. Anyway, I tried to make up for it by sleeping 12 hours on Monday night, but it wasn't really enough. So I blew off oral on Wednesday and look a nap. Still not enough. Not to mention the fact that I stayed up until almost midnight on Wednesday doing that funking Charles De Gaulle paper, then woke up at 6, worked 8 hours, then went to class for another two. So Thursday night I went to bed at 11 and didn't wake up until about 12:30 yesterday. It. was. awesome. There's nothing like some good, old-fashioned sleep.
So yesterday I set out to finally pick up my new debit card. I received the letter saying it was ready last weekend, but this whole week I never had time or the inclination to go. So yesterday I walked in and handed the letter to the guy at the front desk, always the same guy. Who always asks me if I'm Irish (because of my name?). And always wants to talk about California. There are two kinds of French people: the kind who go "American? Hm." and the kind who ask what state, what city, and then tell me about the time they went there or their family members who live there. This time I learned that the agent has family in Murrietta. I thought better of telling him that Murrietta is a shithole.
Anyway, after my second full night of sleep, I'm being productive today. Mostly with travel plans (shhhh) but I also need to write my internship diary. As soon as Lauren makes an appearance on the webs, I'm booking my flights for Rome. And then we need to narrow down some dates and times for Nice and Greece. Since I'm no longer going to Oxford during my first spring-ish break, I wanted to do some kind of snow trip but I don't think it's going to work out. It's a little too soon and it might be better if I saved the money. I'm fucking amped, though. For warm weather and flip flops and the beach.

Spice up your life

2008-01-13T21:27:00.000+01:00

Here's to another immense weekend in England. I'm even sporting a few unexplainable bruises (one baseball-sized on my leg), so you know it was good.

I barely slept at all Thursday night. Perhaps it was anticipation or maybe the fact that I was up until 3 am looking at flights and hostels to this semester's travel plans. In any case, 11 am came way too quickly. I got ready, went downstairs to print boarding passes and ticket confirmations, and arrived at the RER at 11:55, where I caught a direct train to CDG. Perfection. I was early, I had already checked in -- EasyJet is the new Southwest. Anyway, the flight was a short 1 hour, or actually 15 minutes if you count the time difference. Was pillaged by fees for changing 100 euros into pounds (um yeah guys, don't let your debit cards get stolen -- cash in pointless). Took the EasyBus to the Marble Arch, then the tube to meet Matt and Notting Hill Gate. Basically I'm pro London skills now. We met with his friend Maddie who lives in London, ate some dinner, went to a pub. But we didn't stay long because we had to get back on the tube and head over the Spice Girls concert. Eeeee. It was everything you would expect and even a little more. And aside from a few moms and their little kids, everyone there wasn't any younger than 18 I would say. Which certainly makes me feel old, but ya know.
Afterward, we met up with Maddie again, plus Jimmy and his sister to do a little bar hopping. After walking in the rain and incredible wind, we made it to The Rocket, definitely one of the best bars I've ever been to. I drank to bottles of pear cider (haha) and we danced and yelled and all that good stuff. Plus this gorgeous Australian boy bummed some cigarettes off of Kat, so I was her drunken wingwoman later on when she wanted to give him her phone number. The bar closed at 2 (London is lame that way) so Matt and I headed back to Oxford. Apparently I was pretty drunk because I fell on some cobblestones at Exeter. I have a lovely bruise on my forearm to prove it. Most people were sleeping after finishing up their tests that day so it was a quiet night. But Matt stayed with Joe so I got a beddy bye all to myself.
Next morning we woke up perfectly late and were planning to go to hall (more on this later) for breakfast, but Matt's friends suggested we go for a "pub lunch," whatever the fuck that is. We were unsuccessful in any case. So instead we got some sandwiches and a few of us ate ours on a bench in some grassy area while Matt did impressions of the rector. Of course by this time it was about 4 pm (whoops!), so I read some Vanity Fair and napped while Matt did some stuff on the computer.
We ended up going to hall for dinner that night, and the teriyaki chicken and sheisty risotto was just so reminiscent of the days back in the DC. Dorm life really was awesome. Anyway, it was very Gilmore Girls, this dining hall. Except there were paintings of funny men in robes all over the walls.
So now to the real point of my sojourn to Oxford -- the bop. Which is like a party I guess? Anyway, it was Alice in Wonderland themed, so Matt and I went as the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat. We got some alcohol at Sainsbury's and I had my first real pre-gaming sesh in a while. Five shots of vodka (chased with Dr. Pepper, yayyyy!) in quick succession and I was good to go. Went to the bop, which was in the college bar, and rocked out like maniacs. Lovely little Joseph bought Matt and I some drinks (vodka for me, whiskey for Matt), but there was just no way I could drink more. Matt had the bartender put some Sprite in it for me, but even then I couldn't drink it. Nevermind the fact that I poured a bunch of it down my shirt exactly three times before I handed it off to someone. Anyway, there was lots of loud music and dancing some more, and of course I had to threaten another homophobe with bodily harm. It just wouldn't be a trip to England without it, I suppose. After the bop was over I did some mortifying drunk-Skyping, whoops. At some point during the night this guy threw my cat ears out the window and then locked me out of the room when I went down to get them. And then threw some bran flakes in my eyes when he finally opened the door. I'm still not clear on why all of that happened.
Anyway, suddenly everyone was gone except Matt, Joe, and Matt's roommate Seb. Naturally Matt and Joe were all over each other, so Seb played Jack's Mannequin and I danced around the room, simultaneously sipping water and throwing a rubber ball in the air. Man, who knows. But I definitely felt like a freshman again and it was lovely. Life was much less complicated in the dorms. No psycho roommates (only psycho neighbors), taking shots, and dancing our asses off.
Unfortunately, unlike in the dorms, there was no Sunday breakfast of custom egg white omelettes and Belgian waffles. Instead, I woke up at 10 and threw myself in the shower to fight off that terrible hangover feeling, like static in my veins. Matt took me to the bus stop and saw me off on the National Express, which took me to Luton Airport. I was excited to snooze on the comfy bus, but apparently I was really hungover because I was just nauseated the whole time. I've never scheduled anything big the day after heavy drinking, and now I know why. So I drank some water and ate some Tums, but then of course I had to pee like a mother. But we finally got there, I changed my pounds back into euros, and then sat in the lounge for funking ever because I was early. Slept on the plane, took the RER straight home, and here I am.
Dreading going to work. But only because it's been such a long time since I was there. But I've got my lesson planned out, and it should be fine. Of course what I'm really dreading -- and what put a dark cloud of my weekend -- is my stupid Franco-American relations paper.

Gluttony

2008-01-11T02:16:00.000+01:00

Wellll I didn't go to work again today. I dunno, I just felt like I needed more vacation. And I needed to hit up some sales today. Actually, on all of Mouffetard and Italie 2, I only bought two things -- a pair of shoes for 15 euros marked down from 45, and newsprint umbrella (that I am obsessed with now). In fact, I bought it at this cheapie souvenir store and the woman had her little assistant-guy show me how to use it so I could get my "permit de parapluie" (umbrella license). It was bizarre but funny at the same time. I saw some stuff I liked on Mouffetard but none of it was on sale, so it can wait. Basically I just want a hat, another scarf, and a short, semi-lightweight jacket for the Spring. I kept meaning to get one during the fall but I had no money and by the time I got around to it, it was winter. But this week has been like 50 degrees everyday. I can't believe I consider that warm now. Any time I can go outside with two layers on is a miracle.
In other indulgence news, I have extended my 24 jaunt to London for the Spice Girls...to the whole weekend. Tee. So instead of waking up early on Saturday to fly home, I changed my flight to Sunday afternoon so I can go back to Oxford with Matt. This also means I'll be missing some time to write my De Gaulle paper, but Matt has suggested doing research at the Exeter library on Saturday. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.
Anyway, it is beyond time to go to bed. A bientôt, Paris!

Intermission

2008-01-08T22:32:00.000+01:00

Yeah sorry, I know I'm supposed to writing my vacation memoirs, but I'm taking a small break.

Anyway, my first couple days back in the Republic have been pretty good. As much as I was planning to go to work yesterday, my mom called on Sunday night and I decided to fuck it and sleep in. After getting up around 1 pm and finally getting moving around 3, I went to the bank to withdraw some money. So now I have all of this cash on me and I'm trying not to blow it all. Especially because all of Paris is on sale right now. Yeesh.
I had my first class back today, which was pretty blah as usual. I'm not excited for finals. Or the 10 page paper I'm supposed to be writing about Charles de Gaulle. Which I'm sure I won't start until Sunday. Oy. I'm too focused on getting back to normal here and too excited about THE SPICE GIRLS this weekend to work. That's right, I'm jet-setting back to London for about 24 hours. I'm psyched.
Aside from the work, I really am happy to be back in Paris. I actually missed French when I was traveling. Especially in Spain because my Spanish is limited to things like "cayate puta" and "no tango dinero," but even in England. I was actually kind of exhilarated when I was running on two hours sleep, tromping down Mouffetard to pick Puck up from Keisha's. I will not be excited to leave in June, I'm pretty sure. But, what I didn't miss about Paris...the smells. Piss, dog poop, BO. I never realized how many unpleasant odors abound here.

Vacation, all I ever wanted (pt. 1)

2008-01-07T14:00:00.000+01:00

Well. I gotta say, this vacation was completely insane. Sometimes, you just can't write the shit that happens to me.

First day, December 27. After getting all of my affairs in order the previous day, I woke up around 7 and met Matt at the metro at 8. We were heading over to Gallieni bus terminal to catch a lovely 8 hour bus to Amsterdam (37 euro, can't beat it). Except that somehow, I got some TOTALLY WRONG directions to the bus stop. We couldn't find this street name so we looked on a community map and found it. Except that it was a DIFFERENT Jules Ferry (I later confirmed this). So we were lost. And not close to the bus station. And we missed it. There was lots of screaming and panic, which I'm sure the locals found very amusing. In the end, we made it to Gallieni, albeit over an hour late. I explained to the ticket agent that we missed our bus. He said the next available bus was leaving at 11 pm, which would deliver us to Amstel station at 7 am the next morning. I may have said "Fuck that," out loud. So I asked about stand by. Naturally, he put me on the list. How French -- it's all there as long as you can see through your stress-induced fog and be a little more pushy. We couldn't get on the next bus because only one ticket was left over in the end, but we did get on the 1:30 pm bus. After I was molested and nearly crushed in the stand-by line. All of these people had bought stand-by tickets but weren't on any list, and they just kept pushing me more and more against the ticket window. I felt kinda bad for the agent, except not because we wasn't so nice to me either. So after 3 hours of watching Gossip Girl on the floor of this bus station, Matt and I got the hell outta there and rolled our way to Amsterdam. Interesting bus ride. Mostly because there was a family of 5 sitting next to us, one member of which was 2 years old and car sick. Good thing he was so little, cuz I wouldn't have tolerated vomiting from anyone else.
Around 9:30 we landed (so to speak). I had spoken with our hostel (who had to move us to their other location, which was actually nicer so whatever) to get directions, so we set off on a metro and a tram, then arrived. Checked in, changed, went down to the Leide splein and bought two space cakes and a joint. That's right. After all of the crap that we went through, the easiest part of the day was buying drugs. The Dutch have it all figured out. So I ate my chocolate space cake, drank some Dr. Pepper (WHICH THEY SELL IN THE NETHERLANDS! What is wrong with France), and got stoned for the first time. Basically I was just immobilized, I dunno if I'd ever do it again.
The next day we slept in, bought some fatty, fried, cream-filled pastries from a street vendor, and went to the Anne Frank house. Gotta do something civilized, right? The last time I was there, I was 13, and I used their little interactive program as a base for a class I taught on tolerance (for a Girl Scout thing - don't ask). Anyway, they have a new one now, and it's not nearly as cool. You still get to vote on these little issues and news clippings, but the one from back then was visually and content-wise just much more moving. That night we ventured out to the Red Light District, and actually found some prostitutes! When I went with my mom we were just on the wrong track but this time, there they were -- sitting in the windows, red lights illuminated. We also got some pizza and BOMB WAFFLES. In my travels I've discovered that I love seeing what each city's street food is like. In Paris, it's crepes and paninis and shawarma. In Amsterdam, it was shawarma again (like everywhere I've seen), pizza, hot dog-things, and waffles. But the waffles were all dipped in chocolate and covered in something excellent. I got one with milk chocolate and these crunchy, chocolatey candies all over. Heavenly. That night we went to bed rather early because we had to catch a plane to London at 9:30 in the morning. But overall, Amsterdam was a nice kick-off to the trip, and more fun and beautiful than I remembered. I will be back.

Stay tuned for the next installment. By far, the most interesting.

A Very Merry Un-Christmas

2007-12-26T11:53:00.000+01:00

Well I guess the whole thing kicked off when I showed up at the gym on Monday, around 4:45 I would say. Dark. Locks. Closed. Um, yeah, apparently it was Christmas Eve and I had no idea. Plus I never saw a flyer with their holiday hours so I didn't know that they closed at 4. Sad. So sad, in fact, that I walked home to try to recoup some of the exercise. Then I made some awesome salmon and bread for dinner, Matt came over to finish watching Weeds and Skype the fam. It was all very anti-holidays. I never realized how unaware I could be.
Anyway, Christmas was spent inside mostly, I don't know how I killed so many hours. But last night Matt and I went out with Richard and Alex. Originally we were just going to get some take out and go back to Stephanie's, but we ended up finding a cool restaurant near Montparnasse. They had a fixed menu for 16.90 that was an apéritif, appetizer, entree, dessert, and a drink. Pretty bomb. Plus the apéritif was a kir royal, my favorite. Aaaaand after we went back to Stephanie's big empty apartment to fuck around and drink some delicious Bailey's hot chocolate. Richard and Alex left early, so then I was on my own to get home. Matt walked me to the bus stop and out of confusion and a little desperation, I just took the first bus that came, which was supposed to be the "inner circle." Apparently the "inner circle" goes all the way up to Sacre-Coeur. Wtf. So I ditched it at St. Germain-des-Près and tried to take another bus home. But instead I walked like the sav I am. So I got home around 3:30, showered, tanned, and sleepy pie.
Unfortunately, my sleep was interrupted at 9:30 by my neighbor. She asked me last night if I'd keep her suitcases and be there when DHL came to pick them up, so this morning she came by to drop them off. I made it back to sleep for a little, but then mail man rang with Lauren's package. It's all good though, cuz otherwise it would've shown up while I was gone, and it would have been a fiasco at the post office explaining why it took me two weeks to pick up my package. And now I have some pretty new bath stuff and 5 new pairs of Old Navy flip flops, incentive to survive the winter so I can wear them when it gets warmer.
So now today is the big knuckle down before tomorrow's departure. I gotta do some laundry, pack, drop Puck off at Keisha's, go to the gym -- all that fun stuff. And hope I don't go out for long enough to miss DHL. I'm giving up gay clubbing with Matt and Edwin tonight though, cuz I need to be the responsible one. Matt swears he'll be here at 8 tomorrow morning. I'll kill him if he isn't, basically. I also need to print out some directions and a shuttle confirmation but I'm feeling verrrry cheap and maybe I can do it at a hostel instead. Poo.

Un-manic Monday

2007-12-24T11:51:00.000+01:00

Sighhhhhh. Today is the first Monday in quite a while where I haven't had to wake up at 6 am and work all day. Freedom is so sweet. So this morning, I have showered, drank some coffee, played fetch with my cat, and later I will probably paint my toes. I haven't had a pedicure in like a month which is majorly against my religion, but I got tired of them being constantly fucked up because of closed-toe shoes. Honestly I never realized how much the tiny detail of open or closed-toe could affect my life.
Yesterday I walked to the gym which was surprisingly doable. Except it was like 45 which is of course still cold but it was too warm to be hoofing it down to Place d'Italie apparently, cuz I was sweatin'. I walked because I needed a magazine and Gobelins is the only street around with open newsstands on Sunday. This Sunday closure thing really needs to be left behind. Anyway since I haven't had much cash on me I've bought two French tabloids, which I had been avoiding just because I am a magazine aficionado in English, so I don't want to feel impotent in French (also describes my aversion to French essays). But of course it's a tabloid and I understood every word, so I'll probably keep buying them to improve my colloquial vocab and expressions. It's educational! And funny to read about Sarko and his high-profile relationship with, as it turns out, one of the like 5 French celebrities I knew about before I got here.
After the gym I returned my dress -- success. It was the same girl as last Sunday so I guess my theory was correct. Anyway, I gave her the dress, told her it was too big, yada yada yada. Then she inspected it and smelled the armpits (ahahaha) and asked me suspiciously if it had been worn already. I told her no, that I just tried it on (which is true) and she let me pick something else out. I almost got a hat and a scarf as a replacement but then I saw another dress that is pretty much perfect so I got it instead. I will for sure be back to get some other stuff, though. There's another accessories store further down Mouffetard that I need to check out as well. Except it is full of cute shoes and the temptation is huge. Grrrr money. Knowing me I'll get back from vacation with all this leftover money and I'll go crazy spending it. Oh well, c'est la vie!

The Green Fairy

2007-12-22T15:29:00.000+01:00

Everyone hates a know-it-all, but in truth, I take great pride in being one. But there's nothing worse than a know-it-all who actually knows nothing.
Last night some friends and I went to Montmartre to live out some Moulin Rouge fantasies or something and attempt to get fucked up on absinthe. Totally not my idea, obviously, because I am the queen of internet research and some would have been done beforehand if I'd known ahead of time. So we got there and we wandered around. I assumed there was an actual destination, but no. Just that we were not allowed to go to a toursity place on Blvd. de Clichy cuz we'd get ripped off. Which is what ended up happening anyway, of course. It was fun and we did drink some absinthe (for 11 euros each shot) and we didn't hallucinate, but that's beside the point.
Our little bohemian ringleader whose name I won't mentioned just in case, was a pontificating moron. After reading some stuff on absinthe this morning, I've learned these things: it was banned in France for almost a century and therefore is not widely served anymore because it's difficult to make and a lot of people still think it's illegal; it IS spelled with an "h," even in French, you twit; and lastly, it was not hallucinogenic because it's stored in wormwood barrels -- wormwood is the name of a hallucinogenic herb used in the preparation of absinthe. So suck on that, you tool box.
Other than that the night was very fun and I actually ended up learning that one of my friends wrote two books before age 13 and used to do motivational speaking engagements in schools. At 19, he likes to fart on people. Go figure!

Free at last, free at last

2007-12-21T12:26:00.000+01:00

Yes, my friends, as of 8 pm last night, it is officially winter break. My last day went pretty well. We made Christmas cards in all six of my classes which meant no work for me. Although it was a little difficult to get the kids to follow my instructions, even in French. But plenty of them figured it out. I also got some cookies from another kid, and two of them made their Christmas cards for me. Buttttt they're both 11 year old boys so I'm pretty sure it's because I'm wet dream fodder. Dear lord. I was a little sad for my last class because the little kids went on a field trip to St. Germain so I was left with the "special kids." Luckily there's only a few of them and they're pretty well behaved. But this one little girl, Gwendoline. Man, she doesn't even try. I understand she's got some major ADD but she just has no reasoning skills, even in French. I wrote instructions in French on the board to help them with their cards and she just copied them onto her card. For people who love meds so much, I wonder why the Ritalin isn't flowing. I'm going to miss work over break, even though some of those kids just piss me off. During my lunch break I went over to Champion to buy a card and some chocolate Santas to send Ali and Merix in San Francisco. They won't get there in time for Christmas, but that's part of my charm. I'm thoughtful even if I'm late. Unfortunately for Lauren I was really early with her gift so it will be sitting on the counter or her bed or something in San Diego until she gets home.
Anyway, after work I boarded the train to meet my doom at MICEFA. Lovely, lovely Nicolas decided to leave early for vacation (or something) and in his stead, left us an essay. Awesome. So we sat in the room like adults and made ourselves write an essay. It helped that there were cookies and chocolate. But still, he should have left us an educational video or something because obviously we were only there to make sure we put in our two hours. When I got home my door was locked a few times (it locks automatically behind you but you can turn the lock to the left however many times afterward) so someone was there while I was gone. I assume it was Matt using the internet. He's staying at Stephanie's but hers isn't set up yet.
This morning I woke up and realized I was out of milk. So I made myself get dressed and ready and I braved the cold. I went to the lavender store to return a dress I bought on Sunday, and the bitch asked me to come back on Sunday again. I assume so that I could make the exchange with the same sales girl I bought the dress from. Fung. I explained that I really wanted an exchange and not a refund, but to no avail. I would have débrouilléd but I was uncaffeinated and malnourished so I just let it go and went to the grocery store. I'll go on Sunday and talk to the other girl. I just want to get rid of this huge dress and buy another pair of leggings and a scarf or something. I really want and need a hat but my pointy head makes them look weird.
So now it is countdown to vacation. I've got all of our travel documents in order (save my Beauvais shuttle confirmation when I get back from Barcelona -- I really don't feel like printing it out for 2 euros downstairs and the internet was down at work yesterday). I've got a pretty solid idea of what I want to pack other than that. Must remember to bring my own towels though. The hostels only have them for hire, and in London we're staying at someone's house but it's still nice not to make people do my laundry. I really have no idea what to expect from this trip either, which is kind of nice. All my professors and teachers at work have said I'm going to be so tired after this vacation. They're probably right, but we have very little planned in each destination. So as long as we get to each flight and lodging, there are no other schedules or itineraries to follow. I plan to eat, drink and be merry. The end.

Antarctica?

2007-12-17T19:10:00.000+01:00

Um so I'm pretty much FREEZING MY ASS OFF. It was so cold today that the tips of my ears started hurting. That's the first time I've noticed that degree of frigidness here. I almost slipped crossing the train tracks cuz they were...frozen over. What the hell. And of course it doesn't help that once I'm inside, the heat is blasting like a mother fucker.
So today was a pretty good day at work. The problem with teaching six different classes and two different lesson plans is that things take different amounts of time. Sometimes we run out of time. Sometimes there's 15 extra minutes and we play the world's longest games of Simon Says. And there's one class that I still can't stand. The kids, their teacher. Ugh. They are horribly behaved and their teacher is useless. The funny and ironic thing is that today one of those kids gave me a gift bag full of chocolates with a card. Clearly his mom makes gifts for all of his teachers but it was cool nonetheless. When I was little my mom used to make epic batches of apple butter or caramels to give as gifts. Other classes were good too. Some of those kids are so cute I want to take them home with me. And in one class the little girls always kiss me on the check when we leave.
Anyway, after work I froze to death at the train station and somehow survived the commute home. I fell asleep for a while on the train. Sometimes I wonder how people get through that grind everyday. I only do it twice a week and it is just unpleasant. I'm thinking about moving farther away from campus when I get back to San Francisco, and nothing could be as bad as this commute. One bus or light rail for half an hour would be nothing compared to two metros and a train for over an hour like I'm doing now.
After I got home I warmed up some lovely tomato soup and now I'm watching Waitress. Mmm pies. If this journalism thing doesn't work out, I am seriously going to throw it all out the window and become a pastry chef. I wish I had more time/money/facilities to bake. What an awesome hobby.

On consumerism

2007-12-16T18:03:00.000+01:00

I spent the entire month of November waiting for a paycheck. After I paid December's rent, I started spending. . .and basically haven't stopped since. A lot of it comes from the fact that there were things I actually needed (food, hairbrush, mascara) that I had been doing without for weeks. And that I was in desperate need of cute winter wear. Buuuuut unfortunately I've been inundated with this cute winter wear. Like I mentioned before, I went to Pimkie like six times in two weeks. And there's this store down the street from me -- this tiny, lavender store. And I'm telling you, I practically drool every time I walk by. The cutest coats on the planet live here. They're not cheap (49 and 59 respectively for the two I'm eyeing), but the other stuff in there is. The dresses, the sweaters, all of it. Honestly I don't even need to scrimp except that I have no idea how much money I'm going to spend on my vacation and so I'm being extra, extra conscious. I definitely have no plans to shop (especially in London, fack), but who knows how much I'll be spending on food and drink during the 11 day period. Pot cupcakes aren't cheap, you know? Haha I'm only sort of kidding. So everyday, I walk by that store and the coats beckon to me. Luckily one of them wasn't available in my size today. And the other one is making me hesitate because it's purple. The other one is black and white, which is a nice change. I have a problem. All of my clothes are black, grey, and purple. It's not entirely my fault -- these colors and little else are prevalent in France. They could really do with some navy here. Or olive perhaps. And I haven't been buying brown stuff cuz I don't really have shoes to go with them. Maybe it would behoove me to buy some brown boots? Let's not talk about shoes. I didn't even wear closed-toed shoes at home, much less all of the amazing boots and flats I've been ogling lately. All in good time. My financial goals this year have been narrowed to two -- travel and buy nice clothes.
This brings me to another obsession as of late. With winter break coming so close, I've started to brainstorm spring break options. I have a couple spring-type breaks, but I think the first one I'll try a shorter, more close-by getaway. But the last week of April and first of May -- I would like to go all-out. At least part of that will include a few days in Rome to visit Lauren. Ideally I'd like to tack on a night or two in Venice just cuz it's on my list of must-see cities. And then there's this amazing hostel (here) in Nice. A few days on the beach in the South of France sounds amaaaaazing.
Another consumerist problem I'm facing. There are few things in life that please me more than full cupboards. I hit up Picard the other day just cuz I'm a sucker for over-priced but excellent quality frozen protein. Hamburgers (-5% fat of course) and chicken breasts were on the order this time. I miss Jennie-O turkey burgers so bad. And Trader Joe's garlic basil sausage --- AHHHH. Anyway, I'm now the proud proprietor of a freezer full of ice cream, delicious little cheese pizzas, frozen shrimp, chicken, and burgers. Mmm. Plus I'm still working on the chocolates and waffles my mom and I brought back from Belgium. Food is so wonderful. Good thing I've got that gym membership.
So in other, less self-obsessed and shallow happenings, I'm about to embark on my last week of teaching and school before break. I've already finished 3/4 of the worksheets I'm handing out with week. Well, one is some matching work for vocab review for the kiddies. Then we'll do some questions out loud and maybe a song if they're lucky. They loved the itsy bitsy spider. But it's a little difficult for them to sing out loud when they're doing hand motions. And during my break I'll work on my homework. I love how I'm getting so on top of things right at the end of the semester. I feel like next semester will be so much better. I feel like I'm about to break even -- I'm settled, I'm clothed, I'm a legal resident, I'm salaried. . .I'm adjusted. It's a nice feeling.
Tomorrow Matt gets in, but I won't see him cuz I'll be working all day and he's going to a Sciences Po party in the evening. Kerstin won't be coming next week anymore, but it's okay. Seeing Kerstin when I first got here was very cool on a few levels. For one, she's been my French education buddy since back in the day. And she was much more freaked out about the mood than I was, so I felt pretty normal haha. But also, I hadn't seen her in about two years -- but we picked up pretty much where we left off. I hope I continue to have friendships like that. Life gets busy and I can get totally tunnel-visioned, anti-social, whatever. But to know that there are some people I can hang out with like no time has passed. . .that's perfect.

Whoops

2007-12-14T11:23:00.000+01:00

Apparently I forgot that I had a blog. Actually it's more like I've been so tired when I get home that all I want to do is lay down and the typing takes too much effort. Anyway, plenty of things have happened since I last put something down here. I did finally get paid, and I celebrated by immediately calling Orange and recharging my SIM card. Okay so maybe it was a late celebration. Mom got in on November 30 and stayed for a week. We went shopping and made guacamole and went to Bruges for a day and all kinds of stuff. We went to like four different Pimkie's so I could bulk up my long-sleeve shirt repetoire. Plus I got some wool tights and dresses and stuff. And Mom bought me a fat raincoat at Etam so now I'm all set. Bruges was cool, although not what I had expected. I knew Belgium had more than one language but I didn't realize how prevalent Flemish would be. It should be interesting when I travel some more because I really don't remember what it's like to visit a country where you don't know the language. The last time that happened I was 13, during my 2 1/2 week trip to Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands. I know people speak English practically everywhere, but I still feel like I should be speaking French, pretty much no matter where I go.
Anyway, the visit was good. It was marred by my stupid Franco-American exposé, so I was stressed out most of the time, but that ended up fine too. On the Monday of that week, I was "inspected" by the local education department. Fun times. It was the two women I already know of course, and they came to my smallest and probably best-behaved class, so it was fine. They said they were very happy that the kids are smiling and excited to speak English and not afraid to mess up. But they also said that there's too much writing involved. Which is silly because all they ever have to write is vocab words and that just helps with memorization. So yeah overall in was fine.
Tuesday I got my carte de séjour, FINALLY. That morning I left early and went to four tabacs to find the fucking stamp. Nothing. Of course. Somehow I arrived at my appointment about 4 minutes early, enough time to run to the tabac half a block away as a last, desperate attempt. And of course they had the stamp all along. This fucking country. I waited for a while to have my name called, but once the process started it only took like 15 minutes. I went in and they did a little weight-height-vision test, plus gave me a female condom. Gee thanks! Next it was the infamous chest x-ray. I took off my shirt, went in, was awkwardly pressed against a machine, and that was it. The nice doctor man told me I should do all the paper work for social security when it comes in (since I'm technically a fonctionnaire -- ahhhh!), but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. I of course took my x-ray home and promptly taped it to my window like fucked up stained glass. It makes me laugh cuz my boobs look gigantic.
So then some stuff and whatever happened and now it's the end of this week. I've been feeling quasi-sick all week and therefore exhausted. It feels like allergies but who knows. The weather keeps going from rain to dry as well so that sometimes messes me up. Currently my weather widget says that today will be a high of 38 and a low of 26. Niiiiice. One more week and then it's winter break, I'm so excited I can barely stand it. I've got some homework to do this weekend, as well as a Christmas worksheet for the kiddies. I'm going to have them make Christmas cards for their families using English expressions. I can't believe it's almost Christmas already. Christmas has sort of lost it's significance for me in the past few years, since we've been going to Vegas or Disneyland instead. My brought did bring our ornaments when she moved though. And she brought me a big Hanukkiah and the nice Israeli candles when she came, so I got to have a relatively normal Hanukkah. Matt will be here on Christmas so we'll have to figure something out, even if it's getting drunk in the Marais and celebrating our Jewishness.
And then. . .vacation. It's so close I can taste it. This week I've put reminders all over the place so I'll remember to print out all of our confirmation info. And I need to find the Eurolines office so I can get our bus tickets. Seriously I walked by it but I think it's in some private building, so I need to call and ask them how to get in. I should've just paid the 5 euro or whatever to have some mailed to me. Speaking of mail, I sent my first package to the US the other day. I compiled a few things and a Christmas card for Lauren. I really tried to find a Hanukkah card but no luck. I did decorate the envelope though. Next order of business is to put together something for Merix and Alexander. They are the boys I nannied last year, who speak French fluently, and are very jealous that I got to go to Paris. So I'm gonna hit up the toy stores and souvenir things looking for some Astérix toys or something. And of course I will send them some Kinder bars so they can feel really French. Their parents will love that. Of course I also want to send them stuff cuz I'd like to secure that job when I get back. Tee.
I have such a problem with getting ahead of myself, but I really can't help it. I've already started to plan my summer school schedule around free mornings so I can work when I get back. I don't even want to think about housing though. I'm staying with my mom at first while I look for something. This year I want to live with normal people whose parents are paying their rent or something. I dunno, obviously not everyone is irresponsible, just be people I've chosen to live with. The key is to plan ahead so I don't have to be desperate. Oy. It's too far away to worry about right now anyway.

Well this resembles normal, at least

2007-11-23T11:08:00.000+01:00

According to ye olde oracle, aka the RATP website, things are getting back to normal. And somehow the RER is back to normal overnight. Whatever. I just hope it starts working outside of Paris again so I can pick my mom up at the airport next week.

Anyway, the past couple days were marred by the transportation nightmare. Actually on Wednesday Paris 3 was still closed, so we had class at a cafe and MICEFA paid for our coffee. Not a bad deal. That afternoon my class at Nanterre was all systems go, but we had a to take a train there, a train that left at 2:06 and if we missed it, we'd be about an hour late to class. So I waited for the bus for a while, it came and was too full. Another one came, and I got on with my face practically smooshed against the doors. When we were about 5 minutes from Chatelet, the door closed across my big toe and effectively ripped off my cuticle. So there I am, stressed out, bleeding, and without much oxygen. This quickly turned into nausea and I was certain I was going to barf all over that bus. So at the next stop I hopped off and sat down to breathe for a few seconds. Luckily I was okay, so I ran over to Chatelet, on the 14, through St. Lazare, and onto the grossly crowded train just in time. After class Keisha and I took the bus all the way home, and I stopped off at the MICEFA "Thanksgiving" celebration. Which was one free cocktail and some potato chips. Oh well, the cocktail was good.

Thursday was another hellish day. I ended up going to bed late on Wednesday and then it was another 5:45 wake up call. Luckily, this time, a bus did come and I got a nice, easy ride to Chatelet in the early-morning, traffic-free streets. The train left at 7:07 and I was majorly early to work. The day was pretty normal, I taught Thanksgiving. Of course these poor kids just have blank and/or quizzical stares about the whole thing. But they grasped the concept of Pilgrims leaving England and setting up the first colony in America. I left out the religious problems, the long winter, and the part where they wiped out Squanto's tribe. We also made hand Turkeys, which were hilarious because these poor kids have no imagination. It took a good 15 minutes to make them realize it was a turkey, not just their hands. They were like "wait why do we put a beak on it? Should we draw finger nails?" And then of course they wanted to see mine so they could see exactly which colors to use and what pattern to put them in. I've never said, "whatever" and "no big deal" so much in my life as when I'm teaching these kids. No wonder they grow up to be grumpy, negative Parisians.

Anyway, after work I got to the train, got to Chatelet, but then there were no buses. Well it's a good 45 minutes from Chatelet to MICEFA, and I honestly tried, but as soon as I got to the Pantheon I made a left and hauled ass home. Sorry Professor. I was late already. When I got home the electrician was here fixing my hot water heater. Which wasn't broken so much as a switch had been flipped in the fuse box and it turned off. Um yeah I'm not a dumb blonde American or anything. But he's a cool guy who lives a block away and drives a scooter so it's not like he moved the Earth to get here.

The rest of the night I just talked on the phone to my mom and my brother and watched Ugly Betty. I downloaded the whole first season and it's pretty addictive. Yesterday was so weird because there are just no signs of Thanksgiving here, and no one understands. Hanukkah hopefully won't be as much as a problem, my mom will be around for the first few nights and we can go to Chez Hanna and eat falafel. I've kind of purged Christmas from my system since I haven't celebrated it in four years now. But yesterday morning at work when I was tired and hungry and stressed out, I was a little emotional about the fact that everyone got to go to my aunt's house and eat Matt's mom's bomb ass pumpkin pie last night. Even my cousin Ian managed to make it, and he lives in China. Here's to next year I guess.

My life is on strike

2007-11-20T12:21:00.000+01:00

Let's start at the beginning.

Yesterday I decided that, barring some sort of nuclear attack, I was going to make it to work. I set my alarm for 5:45, spent 0% of my time lollygagging, and managed to be out the door with coffee, lunch, and snack by 6:20 am. I went down to the bus stop and spent about 5 minutes praying before I realized that I might end up sitting there for half an hour and then totally missing my train and wasting all of this effort. So I decided to man up and walking to Chatelet, which is of course a good half an hour on foot. It was pitch black outside and it was cold, and I was totally disoriented. It looked a lot like that time Matt and I walked home from a club in St. Germain des Près at 5 am, and we saw people walking to work. Well now I was one of those crazy people walking to work before sunrise. So anyway, I made it in pretty good time, and the blessed line 14 pulled up just as I got to the platform. I arrived at the St. Lazare platform and waited only a couple minutes before a train arrived. My train was posted to leave at 7:24, but I was sitting down and leaving the station at 7:12. So maybe the train was really early, maybe really late. Whatever. Je me suis débrouillée!

The rest of the day was pretty standard, and easy because I was teaching about America and anglophones so I just did the same lesson 6 times. After work I trekked to the Marly train station, but I had missed the 4:42 so I had to wait until 5:11. I snoozed a little on the train until we got to La Défense and all of humanity bombarded the train. It was dark when we got to St. Lazare. It really freaks me out that when I leave for work and come back in the evening, the sky looks pretty much the same. Line 14 was a breeze as usual, but then came the issue. I did NOT want to walk. I was exhausted and starving. So I went to the bus stop and waited. I waited half an hour. I'm pretty sure I waited so long because my hunger and fatigue put me into some sort of hypoglycemic shock and I was partially passed out. But I was pretty sure no bus was coming, so I walked. I walked from Hôtel de Ville, across the river, through Notre Dame, across the river again, down St. Germain des Prés, up Mont St. Geneviève. It's very romantic and tragic to be walking in Paris with all of these amazing architectural feats around and just hating it because the city is kicking your ass. I felt like Carrie in "Anchors Away" when she realizes that she and New York don't have the perfect relationship. I was hanging on by a thread when I got home. I ate some hot tomato soup and watched some Ugly Betty and felt normal again.

Next debacle. Hot water heater is on strike, too. Last night the water was pretty lukewarm and it hasn't improved since. I used my boulloire to make hot water to wash my face this morning. This might mean that I have to shower at the gym until this is fixed. I think those showers might be communal. Gah. And I'd have to bring toiletries and flip flops and a towel and change of clothes. I miss PAC. I miss marble stalls and warm towels and guava lotion. Grrr.

Also, pretty much all of France is on strike right now. In addition to the Metro and the students, the fonctionnaires went on strike today. Since everything in France is state-run, pretty much everyone works for the government. Teachers, sanitation workers, the people working on my carte de séjour at the préfecture. Basically we're all screwed. Even if I wanted to go class, and I managed to get there by train or something, and the buildings weren't blocked by protesting students, my professor probably wouldn't even be there. This country is bonkers, man.

Operation Overlord

2007-11-18T10:45:00.001+01:00

Friday turned out to be sort of successful. After a good 20 minutes shivering at the bus stop, a bus did show up and I managed to get to Place d'Italie. I did a little shopping at the cheapo Wet Seal/Forever 21-ish stores. Unfortunately until I get paid I can't do a ton of shopping. But I got a few long sleeved shirts, which I can add to the two pairs of shoes I ordered that my mom is going to bring me in a couple weeks. I'm getting used to wearing my boots and flats but I miss the days of Uggs and flip flops. Actually there is a new pair of Uggs out that I am so in love with I think I'm going to buy them and figure out a way to get them here. Too bad I just found them or I would've had time for Mumsy to bring them. Anyway. I got some cat food at Bricorama, went to the gym (FINALLY. It was glorious) and then stood out in the even more freezing cold to catch the bus back home afterward. It reminded me of the days of Muni buses, standing in the cold waiting and then the excruciating crawl through traffic.

Yesterday, a Saturday morning, I dragged my ass out of bed at 7 am and walked in the dark and freezing cold to MICEFA. For my Franco-American relations class, we had to take this mandatory trip to Normandy to do some WWII learnage. Luckily MICEFA is all about the charter buses so it was a comfortable 4 hour drive. Except for the part where I thought I was showing some self control by not buying anything at the gas station mini-mart on the way there, because we were promised a crepe stand at the beach. Well, crepe stand was closed. That started a long road of starvation that lasted until I finally had something more than my morning coffee and a few Pringles, at 7 pm on the way home.
Anyway, the trip itself was really cool. I went to Hilton Head in South Carolina when I was really little but I don't remember it, so technically it was the first time I'd ever seen the Atlantic Ocean. It still strikes me as odd when I see beaches in cold climates. At home the beach is fun and inviting, in San Francisco it's just grey and scary, and in Normandy it was cold and really calm. It's the ocean but it was also the English channel so that explains the lack of breakers I guess. Plus the sea gulls were just floating near the shore like ducks! I couldn't believe it. Luckily it was a perfectly clear day so we just kind of walked around and looked at stuff and took it all in. Oh and Morgan waded into the water to get sea shells for everyone like a savage.

Then we got back in the bus to go to the American cemetery, which was pretty disorienting I have to say. Well first we had to go through security which was funny cuz I had a coffee thermos in my bag that pretty much resembled a torpedo. And we got inside and there's Dubya's framed publicity photo (why he hasn't gotten a new one in 7 years, I'll never understand) looking like the goofy asshole he is. Our chaperone didn't much like my reaction. Sidenote: she was a bitch, basically. Just way out of touch or something, I dunno. At least Barbara treats us like humans. Anyway, bitchy chaperone told me that when you're overseas you shouldn't talk shit about your president or something. Is she kidding? If I'm supposed to be representing Americans then I should let people know that not all Americans are Bible-thumping cowboys. Honestly just because I may have shown a chink in that United We Stand bullshit doesn't mean the the rest of the world is going to suddenly realize that America isn't invincible -- trust me, you twit, they know. ANYWAY. The rest of the cemetery was really cool. Our tour guide was extra perky and excited, and there were some cool displays with maps of all the fighting. Of course in the actual cemetery portion I had to find all the Jewish people. Luckily they got Stars of David instead of crosses, which everyone else got regardless of their religion. I know it's an old cemetery, but that still seems kind of silly. I mean they are bunches of military cemeteries in California and they all just plain white, pillar-like headstones. Anyway, yeah. And someone asked what the stars were for.

Okay maybe this is a bit of a rant, and if you didn't grow up in an urban or yuppy-ish area then you probably don't know any Jewish people, but seriously. I didn't know any Muslim people for most of my childhood but I still managed to pick up a few things about Islam. There's a woman who works at one of the schools where I teach, and granted she seems a little stunted emotionally and not totally aware of social propriety (in that she sometimes stares at me like I'm a zoo creature), but when I told her I wouldn't be missing Christmas with my family because I'm Jewish, it was just a blank stare. I understand if you don't understand what Kosher is or why some people wear kippahs, but there are people who think Jews celebrate Christmas? Actually I shouldn't be surprised -- Chelsea didn't know that Jews didn't believe in Jesus until I told her about a year ago.
Okay I'm getting off track again. The rest of the museum was nice, with lots of displays and a short movie to watch. Again, it was all very American with our super American tour guide and I felt more like I was visiting Pearl Harbor, but with less Japanese people. Oh and toward the end some members of the Royal Marines showed up and the girls (and of course many of the guys) in our group were pleased. I'd never seen a jarhead with a British accent, it was cool. I find myself straining to here British people speak all the time. Is that creepy? Sometimes I wish I had a fun accent.

So after the cemetery it was back on the bus and back toward civilization. Except this time in addition to the idiots behind me singing along to Jessica Simpson on an iPod, there was this crazy woman to the right of me. I knew there would be trouble when she threw into an earlier conversation that she was the youngest of 6 children. Immediately I was like, oh dear, she has a desperate and pathological need for attention and validation. And did she. I'm quite certain that more than half of the stories she told Morgan (I was just eavesdropping) were complete bullshit. I could almost see her thought process as a subject was brought up and she came up with some outlandish story or statement to make herself seem amazing. Plus she was just hypersexual about everything which sadly makes me think she was abused or something as a kid. Who knows, I shouldn't psychoanalyze people. Anyway, I wish I had brought my iPod cuz honestly after a while listening to her speak made me nauseated. Plus I was hypoglycemic from not having eaten anything that day. And I couldn't doze off because she'd start talking about vaginas or excrement some more and my stomach would turn. Finally her husband called her and she stopped talking (oh yeah, husband. She also announced to our part of the bus that we should get married ASAP before our tits start to sag. As if that fucking ring is going to keep her husband from cheating on/leaving her disgusting ass in five years. Oh and then there was the part about her next life phase "making the babies." I wish people could figure out something more to do than populate the Earth with their unevolved offspring).

Anyway, despite some of the irritations of the day, it wasn't bad for a field trip.

This morning I woke up, and it is fuckin' frio in the world. I turned on my heater for about 20 minutes to warm the place up a bit. I hate heaters for some reason. When I was little we never used it, that's probably why. My mom would just tell me to put on some socks and a sweatshirt when it got cold in the house. Sometimes the heater would turn on for a bit in the middle of the night, but only when it got to like 45 degrees in the house. I dunno. It makes me feel like I'm wasting energy, like when people leave the lights on in empty rooms or throw away their plastic bottles. I feel bad because I don't pay my electricity bill so if I overuse my landlady has to deal with it. So I've been keeping everything except the phone unplugged unless I'm using it. Sadly, it is getting really cold and I may have to keep the heat on at least while I'm at home. At night it's actually not really necessary cuz between the covers and the cat I'm super warm. According to my weather widget it's 32 degrees outside. Fack.

Crunch crunch crunch

2007-11-16T11:09:00.000+01:00

I have to preface this entry with the fact that my cat just captured and ate two flies in the span of about ten minutes. The crunchy sound of their deaths will haunt me for life.

Anywhoozle. Yesterday I wanted to get proactive about the strike and work around it. Unfortunately, line 7 turned from 1 train every 45 minutes to quasi-nul while I was waiting. So I tried the bus, but it didn't come. I walked down to the nearest Velib' station to test my bravery. Broken ticket machine. So I walked down to Censier and tried that one. Unfortunately, I haven't received my October paycheck so my French bank account doesn't quite have the 150 euro deposit for the Velib'. I thought about walking to the gym, which is feasible, but by then I would've been running late after walking there, working out, and walking back. So instead I wasted some time at Monoprix looking for tights. And sadly they had some that I really liked but only in bigger sizes.

At 6 my Franco-American relations class attempted to happen at MICEFA. I bundled up like never before in my life and walked. Class was held in the tiny upstairs office and was just comical. A bunch of chairs jammed into a teeny room with the professor right in our faces, writing on a pathetic little white board. But whatever, we worked through it I guess. Bless his heart, that man needs a shower or some deodorant or something. Luckily it was so stuffy in there that it didn't seem strange when we kept opening the window for air. Class was semi-interesting, although it gets kind of funny because Americans know nothing about history. So he's asking us about WWI and we're like, "durhhhh." I managed to pull Franz Ferdinand's assassination out of my ass from 10th grade world history. Thanks Mr. Lockhart. The professor is always very careful to make sure we don't get too full of ourselves after he concedes that America saved France's ass twice. He's like, "well the war would have ended differently if American hadn't shown up, but they were very late and France did most of the fighting." I'm just sitting there like chill out, we are college students studying in France and attempting to master the French language -- we don't think America the world's savior.
Another fun fact. The French government subsidizes French cinema and television. True story. They take the proceeds from American movie ticket sales and allocate a part to French production companies using French crews and actors. Same with ad revenue from American TV shows. The thought of that is kind of creepy. I know the French are all about preserving their culture, but the government here just knows no bounds. Maybe they'd be able to get social security out of debt if they weren't giving money to make French movies and TV shows that no one watches because they still suck, no matter how much funding they get (okay not all of them, but most French people prefer American TV shows, and French movies never get as much box office as American ones).
After class everyone was trying to figure out their ways home -- some people had walked 2 hours to get to class. Crazy people. Nicolas (the professor) offered to drive some people to the right bank to catch some working metros over there. Luckily I live a 20 minute walk from MICEFA, so Melissa, Taylor, Susie and I just hoofed it up St. Michel.

I'm going to make another valiant effort to work out, and maybe shop a little. Tomorrow we're going to the Normandy Beaches and it might be muddy. I don't have shoes for mud. I left my rubber rain boots at home! Fack.

Frizzle my nizzle

2007-11-15T10:25:00.002+01:00

Okay kids, it is starting to get cold. And I'm not talking "haha, it's 45 degrees at night" cold. I'm talking, it is 10:26 am at 37 degrees outside. Luckily it is a perfectly clear day. I think I can handle the cold as long as it's not raining. I can wear cute boots and coats and scarves but being wet and sludgy is crossing the line.

Yesterday, in the face of a strike at school and a strike on the metro, my History of Paris class s'est débrouillé (note: se débrouiller is a common French expression that literally means to de-fog yourself, but basically means to figure it out, work it out, or if you're my reporting teacher, POWER IT. I will use it often as it's a common theme in my life right now) and had a quasi-class anyway. We met in front of Paris 3, did a little walking through the Jardin des Plantes, but the intense cold got to be too much. I mean honestly when the wind blows, I think I might shrivel up and die. My new goal is to never spend that much time outdoors again for the next 4 or 5 months. Anyway, we couldn't take the cold anymore so we found a cafe and had class there, inside, with coffee. Niiiiice. Actually my teacher gave up on lecturing because she had plenty to say about the strikes. And blah blah we talked about some French politics and crap. The professor looks like an animated Disney character (one day I'll pinpoint whom exactly), but she's actually pretty cool.

I didn't really realize how long it's been since I last wrote. Well last Friday my Ikea dresser finally arrived. Bright and early, at 8:30 am, my buzzer startled me awake and I rushed to put on a sweatshirt and cover my head because the delivery man did not need to see me like that. After he dropped it off I tried to go back to bed, but then realized that I'd gone to sleep at 10:30 the night before and despite being rudely awakened, I had gotten plenty of sleep. So in the wee hours (haha), I made some coffee and watched Chocolat while I put together the dresser. I got as far as I could without only a flathead screwdriver, then took a break to go to MICEFA and the hardware store. I finally finished the dresser that night.

On Sunday I managed to get myself up pretty early and I hit up the farmer's markets. I ended up only getting lemons cuz the salmon I wanted was too expensive. Instead I went to good old Picard and bought some different extravagant salmon but ya know, that's life. I also gave in and bought a coffee thermos. I've been looking for just a tumbler so I can save some time in the morning before work but I don't think they really exist in France. So I bought a well-priced thermos and a good tupperware thingy to bring my lunch in.

Monday went off almost without a hitch. Finally a day when almost everything worked. I emphasize the word almost. The morning was like a well-coordinated relay race. Get up, get dressed, make coffee, pack lunch, pack bag, out the door, line 7, line 14, and BOOM -- at St. Lazare with five minutes to spare. I drank my coffee on the train, it arrived in Marly on time, voila. Of course once I got to work I realized that my period had started and then later one of the worksheets I made for class that day wouldn't print. But I was semi-prepared for the first issue and ended up improvising on the second, which turned out better than my original plan. During my lunch break I went to Champion to buy "supplies" and ended up getting some other fun things, like socks and Disney princess tissues. I don't even really use tissues but I suppose they could come in handy. Oh and of course one of my students came strolling by with her mother while I was picking out tampons.

Oh here's a little side note about Champion. This one in Marly is heaven. Almost Target-like in its divinity. First of all, it's totally Americanized, down to the in-house butcher and bakery, and a little club card for your keychain. Unfortunately they're still not open on Sundays. Anyway, you know how the Ralph's bakery has little packaged cookies and donuts in stuff? In France, the pre-packaged baked goods include religieuses and macarons. Fucking incredible. They're probably not that good but hey, how novel. Also, when I was looking at band-aids and other things to fix sore feet, I realized the condoms and lube were right there next to them. Another novelty. Not hidden next to the Vagisil, or in locked in a case like the fascist Walgreens on West Portal (that place just pisses me off). Also Champion has colored toilet paper with scents like lilac, jasmine, clementine. That's a little excessive, I think.

The rest of this week has kind of been marred by French unrest. Everything is on strike. It might have been feasible for me to get to work today as two of my three required modes of transport are supposed to be working, and I was just going to take a bus to replace my first metro ride (but even the buses are only running at 30%). When the alarm went off at 6 I just said "fuck it" cuz they're not expecting me anyway. And this way I know I'll be on time for my class this evening, which is being held at MICEFA because the Sorbonne is still trippin'. So today I'll finish up my homework, attempt to go to the gym, and go to class finally. Hopefully I can catch a metro or bus to the gym. I thought about using the Velib' yesterday but quite frankly I'm terrified of riding a bike in Paris. Apparently it's not acceptable to drive on the sidewalk like back in the CV. Uh oh.

Other small spot of news its that mumsy called the other day and announced that she'd like to take a day trip while she's visiting (she comes two weeks from tomorrow) and she had settled on Bruges. So I'm going to skip school for two days and we'll take the train to Belgium right after I get my carte de sejour on the 4th. Life is pretty good.

It's always something

2007-11-08T19:03:00.001+01:00

This country, I swear. Shit just doesn't work. I now understand why the French are so grumpy and negative -- they are constantly being inconvenienced. Today I was late to work for the third time in the month I've been teaching. This morning, the crise du jour was a fire on the train tracks about 15 minutes from my stop. Lovely. So we had to get off the train, and then it was a crush of humanity to board the buses outside. Originally I was planning to patch together a couple bus rides to get to Marly, but the buses were being slow and quickly filling with lots of pushy people. So instead of crying, I called the office that is in charge of me to ask them to give me a route and to call my first school to tell them I couldn't make it. Silver lining: at least now I am sure that I can understand and speak great French under pressure. I ended up taking the train to La Défense, then taking the RER out to St. Germain en Laye, then taking a bus to Marly. Fucking ridonk. And of course I got there at 9:45. Too late to go to my first school (where I finish at 10), but a good hour before my next class. So I photocopied and made handouts, the best way to kill time at work. And of course I tried not to pass out because the commute had sucked all of my energy. Luckily I'm not feeling very sick anymore.

So after surviving the day well enough, I had an easy ride back to Paris and to the Sorbonne. When I got there, I saw a big protest outside. No big deal. The government is thinking about charging students to go to college. Obviously for me it's like "duh, college costs money," but it doesn't for the French as of yet. And plus they pay taxes out the ass so they shouldn't have to pay for school. Anyway, I thought it was just a fun little demonstration until I got closer to the entrance (to look for classmates and/or the professor) and saw what I think was a French SWAT team outside. Like most other authority figures in France (except for the national guardsmen with machine guns at the train station), their style of dress made them very hard to take seriously. First of all, they wear these helmets with plastic screens like welders or something (the firemen wear them too, so silly). Plus they were wearing these shin guards and chest plates that can only be compared to catcher's gear (baseball). And of course there are the enormous plastic shields (to protect themselves against rotten fruit?) that they used to form a wall to block us from going to class. Picture that epic masterpiece Troy, when Hector's army is guarding the gates and they make a big wall with their shields. Yeah, that's exactly what it looked like. I had to giggle a little. So, for all intents and purposes, I assume that was canceled today. Although I can't for the life of me figure out why, if some of the students are protesting, that the whole Sorbonne had to be closed for business. And guarded by policemen. Plus, the cops just stood there silent, looking more scared than anything. Another very French phenomenon. In France, the Man is afraid of YOU.

Brush with greatness

2007-11-05T23:19:00.000+01:00

So today I was in Franprix on Mouffetard (the little one, for those who know), trying to get over to the ice cream freezer when my path was blocked by a cameraman, a dude with a boom mic, and some other dude in a suit. I assumed they were filming some sort of news piece. But then, as I went to check out, one of the check stands was loaded down with groceries (about 125 euros' worth, as I noted) so I moved to the next one. Then I realized that the woman at the check out was with the camera crew, and she was Mathilde Seigner. She's a French actress who was in a movie I saw in class last year (Harry, for the 306 alums), and these people were following her around for an interview or a documentary or something. It occurred to me that it might be a movie, but the guy talking to her had a clip mic on his shirt so I highly doubt it. Too bad I don't have TV cuz I'd like to see myself on French television haha. It was a bizarre experience because I don't really even know of any French celebrities, but I instantly recognized her (plus her face is all over the metro because she has a new movie coming out). Paris is a weird place because everything is here. In America, movie stars are in LA, models are in New York, politicians are in Washington, DC. But in France, they're all in Paris.

That brings me to something else -- Sarko walking out on 60 Minutes. I think the guy's a total toolbox, but I definitely felt bad for him. The dumb bitch should've just let it go. Most Americans don't get this, but in France, the personal life of a politician is totally irrelevant. The French don't just talk about their sex lives with strangers, even if they're public figures. I'm actually amazed that he just took the mic off instead of calling her a nosy bitch (or maybe a "putain salope américaine").

Getting shit done

2007-11-04T17:52:00.000+01:00

I hate that I become so paralyzed when I'm a little overwhelmed. I mean, I've had almost this entire past week to do tons of stuff and I've only gotten some of it done. They say, if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. I'm much more productive when I'm frenzied, unfortunately. Otherwise I'm like one of those pathetic housewives from The Feminine Mystique with all day to get the housework done but who can't help but drag it out to fit the time available. I can't look out at an empty calendar of five days and figure out where I want to squeeze in the maybe three hours of work I have to do. Only this morning did I start to work on some assignments. I need the pressure of a time constraint. I'm sure I won't start practicing for my exposée on Wednesday until maybe Tuesday morning before class. I will never understand why it seems so much easier to freeze up and waste time than to get shit done and revel in the amazing feeling of having accomplished something. I feel great when I have clean laundry, a tidied apartment and all of my homework out of the way -- yet somehow I'm not addicted enough to continuously seek that high.

Tomorrow I am determined to get some lesson planning done. Aside from the thought of lesson planning, I'm almost excited to get back to 14-hour days and the triumphant feeling when I'm finally horizontal after a long day of trying to engage kids.

All Saints, and not much else

2007-11-01T20:13:00.000+01:00

I have to admit, I was a little afraid of what a real French bank holiday would be like. At home, such a thing doesn't really exist. It's no problem to hit up the grocery store or the movie theatres any day of the year, even Christmas. But here, I wasn't sure they'd caught on to the capitalist strategy that when everyone else isn't working, you should stay open to serve them and make more money. From what I can tell, nothing was really closed. Except the bank, naturally, which I needed.

So on Tuesday I got a little letter in the mail saying that my debit card was ready for pick up. Silly, silly French people. You can't just mail me my card? So anyway, I go in, and of course they tell me to come back next week cuz it's not there yet. Why the douche bags sent me the letter, then, I don't know. So meanwhile I need to pay my rent by online transfer, but I can't put money into my account without the damn card. So I ask the guy if there's a place to make a deposit without a card (because this branch doesn't have tellers -- WTF) and he tells me to go up to St. Michel to do it. By this time I was late for class so I'm going to do that today. Anyway, I wouldn't have been able to make the transfer for rent anyway because in order to add my landlord as a recipient, I have to get a confirmation code IN THE MAIL. After the first one they sends the codes by text message, but COME ON. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who makes things difficult just for the sake of being difficult.

So anyway. This holiday nonsense was all very poorly-timed because I couldn't get this important banking done yesterday. Although I'm hoping that 1. the code comes in the mail today, and 2. my landlord hasn't even bothered to check her account to make sure I sent her money. She's kind of getting on my nerves. We signed the lease at a dollar amount back in January (the equivalent of 750 euros back then) to guard against currency fluctuations. Good thing, too, cuz the dollar is in the shitter. Anyway, after I moved in she mentioned that it would be better for me to deposit euros into her account here so she could pay the bills with them. So meanwhile I set up this bank account and took almost all of my money out of my American account to put it in my French one. But now she doesn't like that the euro amount of the rent will be different every month so she wants me to send her checks for dollars in the States. Well god dammit, I'm very low on dollars and I don't even know how I would transfer money from my French account to the American one. I wonder if I can make online transfers to her American account. Gah.

So there's that as well. Today I'm also going to attempt to pick up Matt and I's bus tickets to Amsterdam. Of course, there was some sort of ridiculous service charge to have them mailed to me, so I opted to pick them up near the Sorbonne. Except they want me to print out the confirmation email and bring it to them, along with ID and the credit card I paid with. Fuck them. Printing shit out is way too expensive. I'm going to go systéme "d" with my ID, credit card, and confirmation number and convince them that it's enough. Again, they just like to make things difficult, and then you're a worthwhile human if you fight them through it.

Another fun story. My dumb ass locked my stuff into a locker at the gym without putting my keys on my belly button ring (haha). Of course I realized right away, but I decided to do my workout first before I dealt with it. Afterward I had to search all of the posters around to find the words for "lock" (une serrure) and "locker" (un casier). Luckily the verbs for locking and closing are the same word. There is a poster in the locker room about how the club accepts no responsibility for stuff being stolen from lockers, and then another one saying that we shouldn't use combo locks. So I found the words and the nice girl brought out some giant pruning shears and cut my lock off. So now I need a new one. I tried to go to Bricorama at the mall to find a new one, but no dice. I did however find some very affordable cat food in big bags, so I won't have to buy Puck the little bags at the vet's office anymore. But now I want a combo lock more than ever. I used to have a sweet purple one but I left it at Fitness USA once.

I responded to a babysitting ad on Craig's list, out of compulsion, I think. It's just for occasional work, which is good. At first I wasn't going to babysit because my job pays so well, but now that I'm doing all of this traveling I figure the more extra cash the better. Except they live in Villejuif (a suburb) and I can't figure out if it's a good neighborhood or not. Whatever, I'll go meet them during the day and we'll see. I also feel kind of awkward giving references when I haven't talked to my references since I left. I don't even know why that would worry me.

So yeah. This break has been very relaxing but at the same time I know I have stuff to work on. I have like 6 written expression assignments, an exposée on Wednesday with Keisha, plus tons of lesson planning. My plan is to make a bunch of handouts online and then print them out at work in one shot when I get back. Luckily they understand what a flash drive is. This will save me lots of money at the rip-off printer's downstairs.

One more news tidbit. Oink and TV Links were both busted during the same week. Sad time for me. I need a new music downloading service, but I think I can find another place to watch streaming TV cuz TV Links was just a list of links from other services. Still, though, the man is fucking up my life.

Ewwww

2007-10-29T13:50:00.000+01:00

So recently there was a notice poste in d downstairs that the co-op board had hired an exterminator to come kill the mice in the building. Now I know there were no mice in my apartment, because had there been, Puck would've been all over it. Anyway, I'm not sure when he came, but the poison worked because as I left my apartment this morning to run some errands, I saw two dead, little grey mice in the stairwell. At first I wasn't sure what they were because the mice in America are brown. But there they were. So gross. I'm hoping that if they hired someone to come kill the mice, they're going to hire someone to come clean them up. I mean it's not like ants or something. If you put poison in the walls and they all die in there, they're going to decompose and smell, right? Unless this magical poison makes them all come out and die in the hallway. Ugh.

Also. Where does one recycle plastic and cans in Paris? There are a few huge, green globe things around that I thought were for general recycling, but apparently they are just for glass. As some crazy wino pointed out to me today.

Another buzzkill today came in the form of a missed package slip I received in the mail. I thought it was a package from Lauren so I was stoked to go pick it up. Alas, it was just a certified letter from my bank. Sadness. Plus it's raining like a mother fucker out there and I'm feeling less than motivated to go to Gibert Joseph now. Although it might be nice to hang out in a bookstore for a while. I really don't mind rain for the most part, especially after living in San Francisco for two years, but I still can't stand having anything to do when it's raining. I'm short and all of my pants are a little too long and when it rains they get stuck under my shoes and then soak up all of the water. I need to get some good boots that I can tuck my jeans into. Anyway, I prefer to snuggle under covers and vegetate when it's raining.

I'm actually not in a bad mood, there just seems to be a lot of stuff to complain about today.

Winter, or something like it

2007-10-27T11:09:00.000+02:00

That's right, friends. I am officially freezing my arse off. The season change kind of eased in with a few cold but clear and sunny days. This sucked for me cuz I was like, "Sun! Flips fops! Yeah!" But once I got outside I realized it was about 45. It's the worst in the mornings when I work, because it's about a ten minute walk from the train station to the school. . .in the pitch black, of course.

I feel completely wrecked from this week. I spent two days glued to the news, missed four straight days at the gym. Just not great decision-making all around. Yesterday I went to work in the morning to make up for some of hours I missed during the metro strike. As soon as my phone started vibrating at 6 am, my entire body just seized in pain. 6 am is an ungodly hour and should never be attempted two days in a row. But I dragged myself to Marly, did two really good classes, and got the hell out of there. Although since it was about 10:15 when I got to the train station, I had to wait until 10:40 for the next one. Anyway, I wrote the proposal for my TA-ship last, last minute, then napped and gymmed and did the regular Friday night stuff.

So now I'm sort of on vacation until next Thursday. I don't have work, my MICEFA classes were canceled this week, so it's just one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. I have no idea what to do with myself. I'm going to make a trip to Gibert Joseph to buy some books for class. I'll do some hardcore lesson planning. But what I really want to do is go to Disneyland. It's decked out for Halloween until November 4. And they have some kind of second park, Walt Disney Studios or something? I assume it's akin to MGM Studios at Disneyworld, with all the behind-the-scenes kind of stuff.

Every time I see the Halloween Disneyland ads in the metro, I get really homesick. There are plenty of reminders of America here, like McDonald's and The Body Shop and Starbucks, but Disneyland dressed up for Halloween combines two of the best things about America, that I actually take part in gladly. I taught Halloween to the kids this week, complete with candy and paper jack-o-lanterns. I explained trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving in French so that they would understand. Apparently Halloween was a big fad a few years ago but has since died out. I'm sure the French marketing machine couldn't keep up. Selling Halloween involves giant bags of fun-size candy bars and shitty made-in-China costumes and accessories in Rite Aid by the beginning of September. Large bags of candy, cheap Chinese products, and Rite Aid all don't exist here. Monoprix barly resembles an American drugstore. Poor kids.

Next on the list for American culture lessons are baseball and Thanksgiving. Of course there will be obligatory hand-turkeys. I wonder if I can find a mitt in France?

Keep on swimming

2007-10-23T11:07:00.001+02:00

So I went and opened my account an hour ago. And didn't even need to prove anything that I thought I would. No carte de séjour required. Just my student card and my passport. So I waited all of this time for basically nothing. Whatever. Anyway, the agent asked me where I was born and she mentioned the fires and said she hoped everything would be okay. The French are so informed it's amazing. In America you wouldn't even know that something besides Malibu was burning. Anyway, I've got to get back to the rest of my day and do something productive.

Channel 10 is streaming the news here: http://www.10news.com/video/14036255/index.html

Bogus, bonkers, and creinous

2007-10-22T23:55:00.000+02:00

Well the biggest news of the day is that San Diego is up in flames. Again. Four years to the day, practically. Except this time the fire is closing in on Carmel Valley. The ironic thing is that my house is sold and my mom and brother are in Washington, DC while my mom attends a conference. My entire childhood is already packed up and ready to go, but sitting in boxes with no one to rescue it. So we'll see how it goes. I've been checking signonsandiego.com and listening to their radio stream but there are so many places burning that they barely get into the coastal communities. As far as I know there are lots of voluntary evacuations and a good deal of mandatory ones, but they're all for the sake of being overly cautious because of what happened last time. It's hard to even identify the nearest fire by name (I think it's the Witch).
The rest of today was actually going rather well until I got home. It was another long day at work, but there was some fun. My oldest class went totally batshit because their teacher left them alone with me for the first time. That woman is just such a bitch I'm sure they couldn't believe their luck. The funny thing is that I don't even care if they make noise. I don't even care if they don't learn anything. They know that their teacher is going to come back and kick their asses if they don't shut up. My last class was sort of canceled because of a family emergency so I went over to Champion to buy some envelopes and the large amount of cheap candy to give out when I teach Halloween on Thursday. I used to think that Christmas started early in America. Right after Halloween, maybe mixed in with a cornucopia and a paper turkey. But I went into the grocery store today and voila, chocolate Santas. Shit son. Another down side of the lack of Halloween here is the severe lack of large bags of fun size candy. There are fun size boxes of Smarties, but they come about 20 to a bag for 2,57 euro a bag. And I have about 170 students. Needless to say I can't afford that. So I bought four bags of fruity candies with about 60 pieces each. Maybe the good classes will get two candies each. I'm excited to use Halloween to start teaching them about our hyper-commercialized, consumer culture.

Fuck this fax machine

2007-10-21T10:57:00.000+02:00

So fax machines are ghetto and practically useless to begin with. But you know, sometimes they come in handy (for photocopying, or printing from my computer) so I'm glad I have one in my apartment. But the chick who bought this one last year cheaped out and bought the ghettoest model that requires thermal-transfer ink and special thin fax paper. WTF. And what's better is that neither of these things were in the apartment when I got it so through trial and error I've had to figure out where this shit is even available. And I don't think I can send faxes to the US which is just totally pointless. There is a copy store downstairs I've been going to but it's a rip off and I kind of said that to the guy who works there so I don't really want to go back. Basically I printed something off of my jump drive and he charged me as if I'd used the internet for five minutes while I was futzing with Windows. Douche bag. So now I'm determined to figure out this fax machine and just send print jobs to it from my computer so I can stop bothering with the printing store. And I still have access to big, laser-jet Xerox machines at work.

In other news, I went into the bank yesterday and of course I had to make an appointment for a pre-arranged time.. Those tricksy French! Perhaps the idea is that I will feel special because the one-on-one time an agent has spent with me to open this account -- but I am American and I want it and I want it now and why can't I just walk in and get it? That's the way it went when I opened my US bank account anyway. Whaaaaatever. Tuesday morning I will present myself at the BNP Paribas between the Pantheon and the Eiffel Tower and I will suck it up. And then I will present all 93475904 papers proving my student and job status even though I don't have a carte de séjour. Unfortunately the paperwork that says my card is in process hasn't come in yet. But I suppose there's always tomorrow for that.

This morning I forced myself to wake up as soon as I first opened my eyes. I usually wake up early and turn over and sleep until 11 am, but I need to get myself tired to enough to go to bed at 10. So ridiculous. But it's not very practical to get on that kind of schedule for every night. I mean if I was waking up at 6 on class days I would be miserable.

(Side note: one of my neighbors is cooking green beans or something and totally stinking up my apartment. Fack)

Also, travel plans are about 80% done. The main forms of transportation to each city are arranged, plus the hostel in Amsterdam and the bus to get us from Stansted airport to London. Left to be arranged transportation from London back to Stansted, and the shuttle that will get me from Beauvais airport back home to Paris. Oh and Barcelona hotel and a cat sitter. Man this is going to be epic. I've been looking at apartment rentals in Barcelona because it's four nights and there's four of us and it's nicer than a shitty hotel room. Plus I like the idea of having a kitchen and a washing machine (as I'm packing very lightly for an 11-day trip and I will probably run out of clean shirts). We'll see how it goes.

In a perfect world, I would get my bank account on Tuesday and be able to send in paperwork to the Ministry of Education to get paid right away. Then I would be able to put most of that money toward my mounting credit card bill. And I would be able to put back all of the rent money I've been borrowing to pay for my gym membership and my metro pass (which hasn't arrived yet gah).

I really cannot wait to be settled.

Système "D"

2007-10-19T12:44:00.000+02:00

I love the feeling of exhilaration when shit gets done. It's a nice contrast to yesterday, when laziness and a lack of transportation prompted me to stay home and do pretty much nothing all day. Luckily, yesterday was a mess of travel plans and bookings and research, so technically I do have something to show for it. Matt and I are in the final stages of our winter break travel plans. So far they look like this:

December 17 - 26: Matt is in Paris, staying with Stephanie and maybe myself as well.
December 27 - December 29: Amsterdam. We still have to book the bus and the hostel, but I'm pretty sure this will happen.
December 26 - January 2: London. Originally we were going to go to London from Paris, so now we have to switch the tickets to leave from Amsterdam. And here supposedly we're staying with friends.
January 2 - January 6: Barcelona. Originally it was supposed to be Berlin, but I'm actually excited to maybe have some sun and to see the Mediterranean for the first time. Plus Matt is fluent in Spanish and neither of us speaks German, so getting around there is preferable to Berlin.

I have all of these damn breaks and they're all inconvenient. Basically, I have a week off every six weeks for both work and school, but only twice (first week of March and last two weeks of April) do these coincide. Otherwise I have lots of time when I have no school or no work. I guess it's good for everyday life, but not for traveling. So perhaps there will be some long weekends. I would like one of these to be in an apartment in the South of France. Who's down? There's also the issue of my two week spring break, which of course does not coincide with Matt's or Lauren's. Although I think I'll spend some of it in Rome. I'd really also like to go to Greece, but I can't seem to find a good way to get there. Trains are just totally expensive and the cheap airlines aren't completely comprehensive. I would very much like to see Venice as well. Matt and I got really cheap tickets to Barcelona because of a Ryan Air sale, so maybe they'll do another one when I've got a better idea of where I want to go and who wants to go with me.

In other news, I had an advising meeting at MICEFA today to map out my course equivalents at SFSU. History of Paris, History of Franco-American Relations, and my job all sailed through, but my oral and written expression classes were iffy. Although I have taken three upper division French classes at home and received two B's and an A in them, and I got a B+ in the advanced preparation program, I tested into level 2 at Nanterre. Frankly, the test was in a strange format and not very symbolic. PLUS, when signing up for classes, we either sat down with a male or female adviser in the little office. The male encouraged people to sign up for more advanced courses, while the female told us we were stuck with what we got. So fine. I'm in level 2, which technically is upper division according to our student guide. Anyway, Rosalie agreed with me and wrote down upper division credits. I'll switch into level 3 at the semester.

Next order of the day is to attempt opening a bank account. The bank I want has a special expatriate account where you make an appointment with and English-speaking agent, but it takes forever for them to confirm the appointment online. My idea is to show up with all my crap and ask. Only problem is there aren't really any account-opening guidelines on the website, so I don't know how much money I need to open it, or in what form. Hopefully I can just use cash. I don't think I can write an American check. Whatever, I need this so I can get paid, folks. I'm putting all of these travel expenses on my credit card so I can pay them off when I get paid. I'd like to do that all at once.

The gods have smiled on me?

2007-10-17T22:22:00.000+02:00

So new announcement from the SNCF: no trains tomorrow. Good thing I couldn't get through to the cab company before I checked my email. So no work, hopefully I can make up the day next Friday. And no class tomorrow evening either. Sooo I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess it will be a very French experience, cuz those toad suckers love a good strike. Well, I will lesson plan, maybe hit up the bank and beg for an account. And I'll almost certainly be walking to the gym. Holy christ, parish the thought. However, it is doable with a good night's sleep and proper nutrition. So there you have it. In the meantime I'll be catching up on my downloaded TV shows.

La Grève, and other happenings

2007-10-17T17:48:00.000+02:00

Well three days into my first full-force week in Paris, and I'm not gonna lie, it's too much. But such is life and I will adjust. Teaching on Monday went really well. Obviously, the easiness of teaching is in direct proportion to how well I prepare. The tricky part is my A. lack of printer/photocopier and B. laziness. I can make lesson plans at home, but then it is a pain in the ass to go to the print shop and pay for photocopies and printing. Or I can lesson plan during my lunch break at school, but then I'm only half-way through the day and I can't prepare a lesson plan for the classes I haven't yet had. So. There you go. Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of instruction I'm doing for a while, cuz Monday is review day and on Thursday I'm doing Halloween day. I suppose I should ask the teachers if they mind if I give their students candy, right? Hopefully they don't say no, because honestly there is just no point without candy. Other than that, there will be vocab and maybe mask-making.
Tuesday I had my first class at Nanterre, a written expression class with a hard-ass French professor. Fun is not the word I would use, but hopefully I'll learn something useful. I also forced myself to work out in the morning so I could get it out of the way. In the evening was a big, three-course group dinner with the MICEFA peeps. It was all very French. And I ate veal, guys. It was sad. It tasted like pot roast. But honestly, it was pretty bland overall. So I have discovered a French dish that I'm kinda like "ehhhh" about. Oh and we were too busy being loud Americans in the metro to board the train in a timely manner, so I got my purse stuck in the doors. It was pretty much hilarious. Nothing fell out or anything, we just waited until the next stop and it was free.
Today was a fun-filled trip to the Hotel Dieu (a medieval hospital which, I was shocked to learn, is still functioning. In fact we saw some poor guy being wheeled into surgery on a gurney). I was basically trippin' today because I had class this morning, a short break to get some work done, then three more hours of class, then the gym and sleep. Plus somewhere in there I needed to go to Office Depot to buy notebooks and find somewhere to get cat food. I really don't think there's anything here akin to Petco, and the only real pet stores I know of are a metro ride away, which is not so convenient. There is an organic supermarket nearby that I checked, but no such luck. So I bought Puckleberry some super expensive food at a vet's office, because so far that's the only place I have found that sells quality cat food.
So there is a huge transportation strike tomorrow, and the inspector of the academy where I work sent me an email today saying that I should ditch tomorrow and I can make up the day another time. Yeah fuckin' right. My only free day is Friday and like hell I'm doing two days back-to-back. So when I go to work, I take two metros and the train. Well the train I take is not striking, and one of the metro lines doesn't have drivers and so doesn't strike. So that leaves the problem of getting to Chatelet, so I'm just going to take a cab. I sent all of this to my boss and she didn't get back to me, so whatever. I'll try to go and if I make it, then bien. If not, I'll suck it up. But I'm pretty sure it's all good. Oh and my Thursday night class was canceled because of the strike, so tomorrow might not be so tough.

Yayyyyyyyy

2007-10-13T11:28:00.001+02:00

So, my friends, last night I went to the gym for the first time in exactly. . .(wait for it). . .45 days. That is more than four times the longest amount of time I had gone without working out in over three years. Basically, it was atrocious and I'm so glad it's over. In addition, I am in love with my gym I think. It's not absolutely perfect because they don't have Precor ellipticals (stop snickering), but they have nice, sorta new Life Fitness cardio machines, and like 200 new Life Fitness weight machines. The other issue is that they don't have a stretching/floorwork area, but I'm sort of used to it after two years at the highway-robbery scam that is Fitness USA. Anyway, I just staked out a little spot on the floor in the weight room. I feel weird taking my shoes off to stretch because the French have weird ideas about hygiene (Speedo mandatory in the pool, toilet seat covers not) and I don't want to offend anyone. The elliptical they have is kind of awkward and on a weird axis or whatever, but I made it work. Oh and there was the conundrum of lockers. I bought this itty bitty key-padlock cuz I couldn't find a combo one when I was shopping. So then there's an itty bitty key on and itty bitty keychain. So where do I keep the key when I'm working out. I couldn't put it in my shirt because it would fall if I moved too much, and I didn't have the forethought to put it on a safety pin or something. So what did I do? I attached the itty bitty key chain to my belly button ring. Har. Perfect storage spot.

So, other than that, it is the weekend again and I have some time to breathe. But not too much because I need to figure out what xeroxing needs to be done for my job this week while the printing store is still open. And maybe figure out why I can't send a fax on my fax machine. Fax machines are so dumb, especially this ghetto piece of shit. Anyway, I'm going to post something on These Words now, so go look over there.

It's all coming together

2007-10-10T13:39:00.000+02:00

Today I had my first day of class. Granted it is a MICEFA class and takes place in the same building where I had my immersion classes, but there was a lecture and I took notes and it was real. We also had a small field trip over to Les Arènes de Lutece, the fun little Roman arena where I watched Some Like it Hot a while ago. Anyway, we saw that, then went over to my neighborhood, where there are the last few visible spots of a wall that surrounded Paris in the 7th century. Pretty sweet. The class is "History of Paris," so there will be lots of these little field trips. I think it's gonna be rather easy. A higher level French is required for the class that starts tomorrow, History of Franco-American relations. That is just going to be balls because after 8 hours at the elementary schools, I have to catch the 4:42 train to St. Lazare, then metro over to the Sorbonne for class at 6. Thursday is just going to be a heinous day. Next week I start my grammar classes (blah).
On the front of exercise, I may have found a solution (I know, it's like my 9798475th idea). Anyway, I went to Paris 7 yesterday to check out the sports complex. That entire campus seriously looks like a prison. It was so cold and metallic and scary. I saw the weight room and such, but France is fuckin bizarre and I can only use the work out rooms if I take the classes. So I have to take the cardio class twice a week or whatnot in order to use the machines. What a load. So after I escaped from St. Quentin I went home and made a last ditch effort to find a private gym online. I went back to the Club Med Gym website, which I had initially overlooked because none of the clubs are in walking distance. Well, one is a 4 minute metro ride away, so I figure it's worth a shot. I just plunked down $700 for that metro pass so I might as well use it, right? I'm going to check it out this afternoon. Another shitty thing about France is that everything has to be paid up front, so I assume I'll have to do another two-part ATM withdrawal in order to get this gym membership. So ridonkulous. There's another fancy gym sort of nearby but not very accessible by foot or metro. I made an appointment to check it out on Saturday, so if worse comes to worst, I get a free workout.
And now for something completely different. Lesson planning sucks ass. I have 6 classes, with kids who have about three different levels of English. So I've resigned myself to making three different lesson plans. So gross. So that is my homework tonight, I will go to bed at the ungodly hour of 10, wake up at the even more ungodly hour of 6 am, and pray that the fucking train comes.

Sometimes my life is like a movie

2007-10-08T18:44:00.001+02:00

Whether one crazy roommate is throwing my food out the window, or I'm suing another in small claims court. This morning was like some sort of situational irony where two simple mishaps just screwed me over.

So. I did manage to get to bed at 10:30 last night, giving me approximately 7.5 hours to sleep, minus the usual tossing and turning. Nevermind the fact that Puck fell in a box at 5:30 and I didn't get back to sleep (don't ask). So this morning, I had a plan. A good one. Here's the back-story. I need to get my carte Imagine-R. It is the student metro card, it is cool, blah blah. In order to get it, I must get a money order for 547 euros and send it in with my application. Because I am picky (and stupid), I don't yet have a French bank account. I could get one with Societé Générale sans carte de séjour, but what would be the fun in that. Anyway, so in order to have 547 euros in cash, I must withdraw it from my Bank of America account. Over two separate days, of course, because there is a $500 withdrawal limit per day. No prob. I got out 250 yesterday, I was going to get out another 300 this morning. And then I would go to the post office during my lunch break. Well, this $500 a day rule applies to each American day, as I've learned. So I withdrew 250 euros yesterday at approximately 2 am PST. And when I went to withdraw more this morning, it was technically 11 pm PST. Fuckin' A. I tried twice for good measure, then moved on with my life.
Unforunately, that extra five minutes on my day set into motion a dire chain of events. I was at the ATM, so I missed the 7:03 metro. I had to wait, and thus arrived on the platform at Gare St. Lazare just in time to miss the 7:18 train. No big deal, another one comes at 7:33, which will get my to Marly-le-roi at exactly 8:05, 25 minutes before my first class. But the 7:33 train never came. At 8:15, a train pulled up to the platform. I was ecstatic and rushed on. I would be late, but I would make it in time to teach something that first class. About 15 minutes into the trip, past the point where I could've changed trains, I realized that my train was heading in the wrong direction. I am still not clear how this happened, because each platform receives only one direction of trains. So I was like, "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck." But at least I knew that I wasn't too far from Marly, so I exited the train at Versailles Rive Droite and frantically searched the bus map for the line to Marly. No such luck, it's too far north. But, this bus line would take me to La Celle St. Cloud, a train station on the line to Marly. So I took the bus all the way to the fuckin' end, then waited ten more minutes for a train that then took ten more minutes to get to Marly. By the time I had hoofed it to my first school, I had just enough time to apologize to some faculty before I ran off to St. Exupéry. Sorry kids, we'll have to pick it up on Thursday.

Titles are hard

2007-10-06T12:14:00.000+02:00

It is Saturday morning and I am savoring the ability to sleep in and do almost nothing, more than I have in months. I'm glad that I had the entire month of September to essentially fuck around, because shit is about kick into high gear.
Tuesday was heinous. The RATP website (the transit authority for Paris) was down on Monday night and so I couldn't make an itinerary for getting to orientation. I decided it couldn't take more than half an hour on the RER and planned accordingly. Man I was wrong. I spent an hour on the RER, then another half hour on the bus. The main office for the Academy of Versailles, department of Yvelines, is in the middle of NO WHERE. In a giant shopping mall. So ridiculous. So basically I was an hour late. The orientation itself was basically pointless. I mean I signed legal papers and got paperwork for direct depositing my paychecks, but the teaching tips were bullshit. Afterward I was so tired and frustrated that I bought myself a giant chocolate macaron and braved the commute home.
On Wednesday I had to go to the post office to pick up my missed package from Darty (toaster oven and hot pot). Of course the two relatively small items were packed into a giant box with a bunch of padding. There was a big blue string-like thing tied around it, so I used that to carry it home. I must have looked so dumb. Then I mounted the giant box on the banister in my stairwell and pushed it up three flights. It was totally bonkers. I am still sore from the ordeal. That afternoon I officially turned in everything for my carte de séjour, so now I have to wait for approval so I can go get a medical check up. Keisha already had hers and apparently they tried to ask for her vaccination records. The French are all about outlining the rules and then throwing in some extra stuff when you're all ready to go. Luckily most of this extraneous crap is just a power trip and not really essential. Anyway, Keisha also had some sort of torso x-ray done. I understand that they want us to be healthy so they won't have to take care of us in case some pre-existing condition makes us sick, but honestly what was going to be on that x-ray? A baby? I don't think cancer shows up on your average x-ray. Whatever.
Thursday was my first day of teaching. I was up at 6 am and on the 7:18 train leaving from St. Lazare. So bogus. The schools are fine, so are the kids, but I'm frustrated with the administrators. There are just no teaching guidelines, no materials, no way to find out what their English teachers are teaching so I can supplement it. So I will wing it. Luckily I'm not responsible for testing or grading, just for getting them to speak. So that is what I will do. After teaching my first CE2 class (8 year olds), I was so frustrated I just wanted to leave. I don't understand why they want me to teach a conversation class to kids who have maybe a month's worth of English in their brains. They're not conversational, duh.
Anyway, I managed to overcome the hopelessness by the end of the day. The kids are great for the most part. They're very chatty but I think it bothers their teachers more than it bothers me. Their teachers want them to shut up all the time and honestly, I only need silence when I'm talking or I'm calling on someone. I remember quite vividly what it's like to be a kid, and even more vividly what is was like to learn a foreign language for the first time (although I honestly can't remember about much English Mme. Butler used -- the two languages have melted together in my mind).
Anyway, I survived that day and dragged my tired ass home. Friday was another Nanterre-marathon day. I got two of the classes I wanted, but one is too full so it looks like I'll be in two MICEFA classes (History of Paris and History of Franco-American Relations). Oh well. Keisha, Lucia, and I also stopped by the sports complex to get the schedule of classes and such. Next week I'll get my SUAPS card (they LOVE their acronyms here) and then I'll try to fit stuff in around my class schedule. I also need to stop by Paris 7 to check out their schedule and sign up procedure. Their website says I need a medical exam, but Paris X doesn't, so who knows. I'll have two classes starting this week with MICEFA, but my Nanterre classes won't start until the week after.
I stayed up way too late last night and now I'm afraid I've screwed myself for waking up at 6 am on Monday. Ugh, it is so painful. Today I'm going to take it easy, do laundry, maybe go out tonight? And tomorrow will be lesson-planning day. Gah. Luckily class periods are only about 35 minutes, so I don't have to fill up the time with much.

Shit son

2007-10-01T18:18:00.000+02:00

Today I discovered why so many French people smell bad. It rains. It's humid as a mother fucker. And then you run around all day and sit on the metro with a billion other people. Then you smell. Today I ran up the stairs to my apartment, stripped, and threw myself into that frigid shower. Who needs hot water when the weather sucks so hard?
In other news, I went out to Marly-le-roi and met les gosses and the teachers at my schools. One of my schools is named after Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and there are little petit prince drawings all over the walls. I met some little kids with French flags painted on their faces -- so cute. I am starting on Thursday, which is terrifying because my orientation is only tomorrow. The kids are pretty young and so I have a feeling that there will be a lot of French involved because their English is not up to par. I've been warned that I shouldn't speak French to the kids because they'll laugh at my accent (whatevs) but the director today said that I "parlez presque sans accent." Perhaps the best French compliment I've ever heard.

Et alors, il commence. . .

2007-10-01T10:32:00.000+02:00

These past two weeks have been a whirlwind. Matt arrived on the 18, and we promptly blew out my electricity with a surge protector. We managed to get the emergency electrician over with help from a French friend, and most of the problem was fixed. After one more visit from another electrician, all of the appliances and lights were working. However, the dire situation lies in the water heater, and I have not had a hot shower in almost two weeks. My landlady offered to put me up in a hotel until it's fixed, but I don't think it's worth it. I feel like I should save this karma for another time.
The first few days Matt was here, he slept between 19 and 12 hours a night, which turned out nicely because I didn't have to worry about keeping him entertained while I was in class. We saw three movies (Death at a Funeral, Paris Je T'Aime, and Interview) thanks to Rentrée du Cinéma, a nifty little offer over a week or so where you buy one movie ticket and get one more for a euro. Holla. We did manage to get out on Friday night though, to drink under the Eiffel Tower with the Sciences Po crew.
This past week was much more exciting, after Matt had conquered the jet lag and a wicked cold acquired in transit. Tuesday night was a Sciences Po party. I felt so Parisian and grown-up, walking into the club at 2 am and not leaving until 5. Alas, the techno is probably taking over my life, but they did manage to throw in a couple songs I knew, even if most of them were disco or oldies. The French like a very bizarre mix of American music. Then we walked our sweaty and sore asses home only to finally nous couchons at 6 am. Which was great when I got up at 11:30 the next day to write some notes for the exposée I had to give in class at 1 pm. For whatever nutso reason I stayed for the party and movie, then dragged myself home to nap. Matt was on the first of a few of his self-directed excursions, but my nap was shot to shit anyway by the electrician. And still no hot water.
On Friday we ventured out again with the Sciences Po crew, to Le Queen, a formerly gay and now mostly trendy club on the Champs-Elysees. In an attempt to make it a somewhat earlier night, we should up at midnight, just after opening. Stupid idea. Everyone sipped their Smirnoff mixed drinks at tables and stared at each other until probably 1. And this time they only played one, SINGLE, SOLITARY song I knew. But whatever. It was great fun. I've adored dancing in that setting since the days of Bar Mitzvahs and Jew dances, but nowadays the guys actually know how to dance and it is a vast improvement.
In fact, while dancing on the mini-stage thinger with my buddy Alejandro, he refused to move for the glittery go-go dancer and got kicked out. Never get belligerent to a man in a fur stole. We ended up finding him outside, then going for crepes and taking the night bus home.
Saturday night was more low key but still fabulous. After seeing 2 Days in Paris (for the second time), we hoofed it to the Marais to try a cafe one of Matt's NY Times editors suggested. It was packed, but we ended up finding Chez Hanna around the corner. I have to preface this by saying that the Marais is both the Jewish and the gay district in Paris. So we ate falafel and hommos in a pink room with feather boas glued to the lamps while listening to the Scissor Sisters.
Sunday morning, we got our asses up before dawn and cabbed it to Gare du Nord, where I saw Matt off to Angleterre. I promptly returned home and slept until 2 pm. I spent the rest of the day watching Buffy, then listening to Say Anything and missing San Diego. But in a good way.
For those of you who don't know, my mom put our house on the market last week and sold it in five days. That's Carmel Valley for you. She's put in an offer to buy my cousin's old apartment in Berkeley, where I once spent a shit-faced night and still adore. It's a little disorienting because while I was packing for Paris and blowing a gasket at the thought of having to choose which stuff made the move with my mom, my comfort was that I had plenty of time. Not so anymore. But whatever, if she can get her dream home and pay off school for Sean and I, then allez-y.
Alright, now that you're all caught up (hi Sean), I have to leave so I can photocopy some shizzle, turn in my carte de séjour shit at MICEFA (read: LAZY), and spend an hour on the fuckin' RER so I can go meet some personnel at my teaching job. Peace out!

Les Actualites

2007-09-14T13:25:00.000+02:00

So the big news this week is that I finally met up with the directors of the school where I'll be teaching English. Since I never received my documents from the ministry of education, I had no idea where I was I was teaching or how to get in contact with anyone. After prodding the people at MICEFA for a few weeks, they contacted the school and the director emailed me. We set up a meeting for Tuesday at 2:30. I rushed home from class that day, shoveled in some food, and off I went on the train. I took the RER there, which is essentially the BART to the metro's muni. Anyway, it's about an hour away, but that is sort of preferable here because it is past the suburbs and into a rich little town with a pretty castle. In France, the center of the city is the richest, and the farther away you get from there, the more ghetto things are. So in France, a suburb is basically the projects. Anyway, I met with two directors who picked me up at the train station and drove me to the school. One was wearing bright purple mascara with matching eyeshadow and the other bright blue. Silly townspeople. So they jabbered for forever, but we ended up picking my work schedule (8:30 to 4 Monday and Thursday --- good christ) and they printed out all of the train and bus schedules and showed me the fastest ways to get there. Very accommodating, which is rare among the French or so I've been told.

The rest of the week has been business as usual. Class in the morning, then some food shopping. We have a group trip to Fontainebleu tomorrow, so a few of us decided to have a picnic. I bought myself some turkey and a baguette to make a sandwich (sidebar: here in France, I am not considered a freak if I slap some butter and turkey on a baguette and call it a sandwich. That is what a French sandwich consists of). I also picked up two huge boxes of tiny strawberries for 5 euro as my contribution to the picnic. Few things make me feel more French than walking back to my apartment with a baguette under my arm. Later I'm heading to MICEFA to figure out my residency card crap and start my enrollment in Paris 10. Let me regale you with what I have to present for my residency card:

passport
six ID photos
copy of my lease
copy of my landlord's residency card
copy of my most recent electricity bill (which has to be faxed to me from New York because I don't pay it)
proof of my French health insurance
a copy of my financial aid statement

Needless to say I will be pro skills at French printing and xeroxing at the imprimerie.

Certains L'Aiment Chaud

2007-09-12T11:07:00.000+02:00

This weekend proved to be infinitely better and less stressful than the last. I woke up on Saturday morning and it was a glorious day, so I decided to take my camera out and photograph the neighborhood so I can put the pictures up here. After spending most of this summer photographing strangers, I still feel like a total asshole. Except now I'm even more of an asshole because I look like a tourist. I'm sure they can picture me back on my plaid couch in Arkansas showing the pictures to my toothless, inbred parents. That evening I went with three friends from MICEFA to Arene de Lutece to watch Some Like it Hot. Arene de Lutece is a Roman arena and one of the few Roman traces left in Paris. Apparently Rue Mouffetard used to be the Roman highway to Italy. Hmm cool. Anyway, it was totally bizarre to be watching this movie in a gladiator pit, cuz my brain can't really wrap around anything being that old.
On Sunday I got up and went to the Place Monge farmer's market, which was an interesting experience. It was basically like the farmer's markets in America, except the fishmongers and butchers were there. I swear if I have to see one more skinless rabbit with its bowels sliced open, I'm going to have a psychotic break. And I was actually considering buying some salmon from a fishmonger, but the evil meat bees were crawling all over the fish. That's right -- evil meat bees. I have no idea what they're actually called, but they're black and yellow, kind of shiny, and they bite. One year at Girl Scout camp these meat bees attacked us ruthlessly in hoards. It was so bad that Lauren Hays's mom was bitten by one in a paper towel she was holding underwater and using to scrub a dutch oven. We had to cook our meals outside and run into our cabins to eat. This was also the trip that Karin Alyon went on, and if she's reading this, she should consider herself lucky to be alive because we almost attacked her and buried her in that forest. I warned everyone when she joined the troup that she was a big weirdo, but no one listens to me.
ANYWAY. No fish. But I needed garlic. But how to ask for it? I'm not even sure what one unit of garlic is called in English (a head? I think it's a head of garlic), much less in French. So I thought, okay, I'll just ask for two garlics. "J'aimerai deux ails, s'il vous plait." It worked well enough, but he was disappointed at only making a 0,59 sale and I'm pretty sure he knew I was American. No matter. Oh and I made a HUGE ass of myself with the homeless-newspaper vendor (the newspaper is for the homeless, I'm pretty sure the guy wasn't homeless). Anyway, it's basically the Parisian Street Sheet. And I walked by this guy and he sort of shoved it in my hand, so I thought it was free. Not so. I could hear his voice a little and him poking me as I hurried away, but he caught up to me and apparently it wasn't free. Haha. So I gave it back, told home "desolee," and peaced it. I definitely made an idiot of myself, but maybe this guy shouldn't shove newspapers into people's hands.
That afternoon I braved the laundromat for the first time. I packed my clothes, sheets, and towels into duffel bags and headed to the nearest one, about two blocks away. The previous tenant here left me a note to warn me that you pay for each machine at a central station, so I kept that in mind. I managed to fit everything into one machine, paid my 3,40 (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) at the station, and sat down with Anna Wintour's biography. I usually leave my laundry in the machines and leave when I do it, but this was my first time using public machines, so I wasn't sure of the protocol.
A strange Frenchman with heinous BO came in and put about three loads of wet clothes into two dryers. He came back with three more loads of clothes and put them in the washing machines. Then he left. But he never turned the dryers on. I was perplexed, but also secretly laughing because he was smelly and about to come back to a ton of wet clothing. He did come back about half an hour later, emptied the three washing machines and added them to his loads already in the dryers. This asshole wasn't stupid -- he had just hogged those dryers for half an hour without actually drying anyway.
This next story is bittersweet. Haha. This guy came in and moved his stuff into a dryer. He left and came back with a baguette and Cadbury chocolate-dipped biscuits. He set them down on a washing machine, took his stuff out of the dryer, and left. I thought maybe he was coming back for them, but who would leave their food in the laundromat while they wait at home for their clothes to wash? About half an hour later, he was still gone. So I did what any poor student does -- I jacked them. Sorry, dude.
So after you pay 3,40 to do your tiny load of laundry in one of maybe 12 machines, you put it in a giant dryer, one of five. I guess the idea is to wash separately and dry together. Whatever. But it costs one euro for every ten minutes in the dryer. Luckily they are industrial dryers you probably don't need more than twenty minutes to dry, but I was over it after one cycle so I just shlepped my slightly moist stuff home.

Ughkj;lkjs;dlkjf;skljdf

2007-09-07T17:55:00.001+02:00

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Today is a sad day, for I have let Bank of America make me cry. That's right.

So the deal is this, basically. My landlord lives in New York City, but she pays for the apartment to have a year-round property manager to take care of stuff, like when I need a plumber or a handyman or something. I need to pay her 400 euro for the year (deducted from my rent) for her fee. Well I went to pay her on Monday and of course had to withdraw that amount from my bank account. Well fuckin' Bank of America put a hold on my account. I understand, they thought someone had stolen my ATM card and run off to France or something. So I emailed them and asked how to resolve the situation. 6 emails later, I'm using capital letters to denote yelling at some idiot in a cubicle who keeps giving me the wrong phone info. Apparently there is some procedure for calling customer service internationally but they don't actually know what it is. Plus they use stupid little email templates that say how they're so sorry they've inconvenienced me and they value me as a customer. I really like Bank of America, but this email situation is ridonculous.
Anyway, after the tears, I signed up for Skype as a last resort. I wasn't planning on getting it because my landlord offered to pay if I could find an internationally calling service for my landline, but this is just easier and probably better quality. So I got Skype and used my free intro minutes to call Bank of America and fix the situation. Now I'm off to buy groceries and use the ATM like there's no tomorrow.
I really just need my carte de sejour. In France you need to get a residency card after you have arrived in order to work and get a bank account. So that is Monday morning's mission -- I will go to MICEFA so they can start the paper work. I also need to get going on that cuz I can't leave France and re-enter without it -- which would mean no Spice Girls!

Le bon, le mauvais, et le laid

2007-09-03T16:58:00.000+02:00

Voila the first of, I'm sure, many posts where I list all of the fanastic/bizarre/ridiculous things I am discovering about Paris. Enjoy.

Yogurt. Full fat yogurt is very rich and almost disgusting. I learned this accidentally after I bought some lemon yogurt during my first grocery trip with Kerstin. I don't think it even exists in your average Safeway. I was afraid when I got here that the terms "low fat" or "non fat" didn't exist. They sort of do, in so many words. Dannon has a line of products called "Taillefine," which loosely translated means something like "nice size." Voila the low-fat products. They make yogurt with flavors like ruby red grapefruit and passion fruit. I'm sold. They also make some packaged baked goods (but I'm pretty sure they're just like Snack Wells, i.e. gross and full of sugar) and some yummy fizzy soda that I also bought.
There is a lot of bread and cheese in France. Two things of which I eat very little of at home, unless it's string cheese or whole wheat toast with my turkey burgers. Luckily I'm too broke to even be tempted to eat at restaurants or even crepes and paninis.
Which brings me to something else. The French panini. I discovered it the last night Kerstin was here, when we went back to the nice crepe man. She got a cheese and mushroom crepe, but I wanted some protein. A French panini is essentially a stuffed baguette -- a foot long loaf of bread with a slit, filled with stuff, then toasted in the panini press. I had the bolognese and cheese. It's fucking awesome. All for 3,50. It really doesn't get better.
Coffee. It is very hard to find a travel coffee mug. I found one at the Bodum store but it was expensive. Perhaps I'll have to buy one at -- gasp -- Starbucks. I understand that French people make time in their morning to have their tiny cup of coffee and a warm croissant while they read the paper. Me, I like to make the coffee while I'm getting ready and drink it in transit. So I must find a travel coffee mug.
There is also no coffee creamer. Sad day for me, because I love Coffee Mate. I wait for the winter so I can get my Pumpkin Spice or Peppermint Mocha creamer. So now, instead, I use a dash of whole milk and a spoonful of Nesquik powder. It gets the job done, but chocolate will probably be tiring after a while.
The mini croissant. All the deliciousness, half the price and half the guilt. For 0,45, I will probably make a habit of it.
Everything is smaller here. Apartments, cars, stores, even toilet paper. I kid you not, the toilet paper is noticeably shorter, as are the paper towels. Unfortunately, so are the frozen chicken breasts, and that is sad.
Ice cream. The ice cream is awesome. I'm addicted to the low fat variety back home, so I was afraid that eating ice cream here would add to the significant amount of arterial blockage I'll have from all the fucking cheese and butter. But no. The ice cream is essentially low fat on its own. And the packing is great. You get a little plastic tub (I have been cleaning mine out and using them for store. It's great tupperware) and the ice cream has a cool design on top like it was piped in with a pastry bag, and little chocolate chips sprinkled on top. It it totally ridiculous, but it delights me.
Gyms. This part is killing me. The gyms here suck. I understand that indoor exercise is a new concept to the French. What I don't understand is why these shitty little gyms cost so much money. I mean Club Quartier Latin This ties into what I already said about things being small, except these gyms are deceptive. They make these fancy websites with great pictures of the facility that cleverly mask their size. LAME.
BIG flies. I leave one of my windows open when I'm home to ventilate the place, and these gigantic flies buzz on in. At first it freaked me out and I wanted to keep my windows shut, but the flies are great exercise for Puck. My studio is very small and he is used to big hallways for sprinting. But when the flies come in, he goes nuts trying to catch them. So far he has trapped and eaten two of them. So now the flies are welcome.

I should really make lists of everything I see that strikes me, cuz it happens constantly.

Le week-end

2007-09-02T23:55:00.000+02:00

This weekend I set out to get shit done. That's right. Productivity. Unfortunately, this was not as pleasant and easy as hopping in the car and driving a few minutes to Target, where life is perfect. My apartment is fully furnished, but I decided to buy a few little personal things of my own. So I got out my star-shaped Post-its and made a list. Can opener, measuring cup, laundry bag, travel coffee mug, regular coffee mugs, a cute can for coffee storage. I also wanted to look at toaster ovens and hot pots, which I get to pick out and deduct the cost from my rent. I found these online at Darty, somewhat of a French Best Buy, and the closest store is in Forum des Halles. Forum des Halles is a gigantic underground mall that used to be a garden or a museum or something (isn't everything in Paris?) Also, I wanted to get a gym membership going because I am slowly becoming insane without structured exercise. I had researched a few places online with elaborate websites (more on this later), in walking distance, so I was going to hit those first.

Saturday

Well, drawn by the promise of home stores, I set out for Forum des Halles. But first, I went to W.H. Smith, an English bookstore near the Louvre. I've been plotting my return to the gym and when it comes to fruition, I will need some American magazines. Eventually I plan to read French ones, but ya know, baby steps. The store was great, except that Us Weekly costs 6,50 euro (about 9 dollars -- not worth it for only enough reading material for one day at the gym). So I settled on the similarly priced but much heftie Allure, Glamour, and Cosmo, which will get me 2-3 sessions each. So what if I spent 20 bucks on them.

Off to des Halles. The metro stop for this mall (Chatelet, Les Halles, and Chatelet-Les Halles. . .yes, that's right. Three stations in one. It takes maybe 10 minutes to get from one end to the other) is bad enough, and took me about 10 minutes to just pick an exit. Once I was out, I wandered around for a little while. Luckily, big tourist attractions in Paris have some signage near them. I found my way there, and down into the depths I went.
While on an epic hunt for the Darty store, I ran into Maisons du Monde. It can best be described as a French Pier 1. And it was great. But of course, I always need to compare prices everywhere before I buy something, so I left empty-handed. I did eventually find Darty. After all of this, I still had no housewares. My landlord told me about a department store nearby (this should have been my first deterrent -- French department stores are crowded and expensive and generally miserable places to be) called BHV, so I searched it out using my excellent sense of direction. By this time, I was tired, hungry, and dehydrated. Not the best conditions for going into a 7 story department store with about 7,000 people. I found the housewares department, it was way too expensive. I was OVER IT. So I went home. The end.

Sunday

After the disappointing housewares search of Saturday, I decided to hit up my neighborhood open market. Sunday morning is apparently the biggest time on Rue Mouffetard (Google it), so I got up early (10 am?) to check it out. I walk down it pretty much every day to go to class but I'm usually tired and in a hurry, so today I just stroooolled. The first block or so isn't very market-ish, just lots of restaurants and boutiques (CUTE ones that I fully intend on patronizing once my job starts). But about half way down, the pedestrian-only gate was up and the food shops started. Almost immediately I found a housewares store. GLORY HALLELUJAH. I got a can opener for 3,10, a meauring cup for 1,50, and a great coffee storage can for like 5 something. Success. Next I decided to look at food and see if I was up to the French grocery shopping challenge. Protein is so expensive. Chicken is hard to find in the boucherie, and fish is just outrageously expensive. So is fruit. I've been really craving blackberries recently, but these people wanted like 3,25 (the commas mean euros, in case you hadn't caught on) for a box with maybe 20 blackberries in it. No thanks. I didn't end up getting anything (there were some chicken breasts on sale, but I didn't feel like freezing them myself), but I did stop into Picard, which I imagine is where we'll all be shopping in 2050. It is a store of all frozen food. Croissants, veggies, ice cream. I paid 9,30 for a kilo of chicken. Ugh I miss Safeway. Who wants to send me a giant bag of frozen chicken breasts?

After I got home, put away my purchases, and ate some lunch, I set out for Club Quartier Latin. If you look at the website, it looks perfect, and about a 10-15 minute walk away. The price is steep (about 60 bucks a month), but apparently one of the cheapest options in Paris. Well, I guess that's proportional here, because it was sad. The cardio area was about 200 square feet, with two sad and crappy elliptical machines. Dammit. So I went home, got the address of another place I'd be eyeing. It's much more expensive but hey, I'll pay for a nice gym. Club Jean de Beauvais is super nice, but like everywhere else, very small. I was almost charmed by the medieval architecture and nice-smelling spa, but 780 euros upfront is just ridiculous. Maybe I'll go back if I can't find anything else, but not until the rest of my financial aid comes in. So I went home, severely disappointed, and spent about 2 hours looking for every possible Parisian gym on the internet. There are a few promising places outside of my neighborhood, but I just don't want to take the metro to work out.

After all of this research and nearly deciding to take up jogging (yeah, I must've been delirious), I decided to check if Paris 7, the University of Paris nearest to me, had a sports complex. It does, and if I read the information right, it's possible to get a membership if you're not a student there. I sent an email to the sports director explaining that I attend the University of Paris, just not 7, and if it would be possible for me to use their facilities. Pray, everyone.

And so now

2007-09-02T23:30:00.001+02:00

After last weekend's trauma, this week has been very. . .educational? I dunno. Monday and Tuesday were MICEFA orientation. Luckily, the immersion classes are held at Paris 3, a 15 minutes walk down Rue Mouffetard from my apartment. And what happens to be just at the juncture where I turn left down the street to campus? Well, beside an amazing little bakery where I've been buying mini croissants for 0,45 everyday. . .a Starbucks. I know I'm an ugly American and I should get over it and drink my coffee from a tiny ceramic cup on the terrace of a cafe, but I gave in. There's something about a big cup of drip coffee -- I'll never give it up. So on Tuesday morning, I stopped in and bought a moyen (tall) cup of coffee of the week for 2,40 euro. Luckily, this price will keep me from making a habit of it. But the familiar decor, the case full of crappy pastries, and the little shakers of vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, and nutmeg -- it was all the same, and I was comfortable. However, coffee kept sloshing out of the cup as I hoofed it to class. I don't think I've ever had to drink coffee on the move like that.
On Tuesday afternoon I met Kerstin on the Champs-Elysees. There are all kinds of practical things I needed/need to get done, so that day I got an Orange F SIM card for my phone. Mohamad paid to have it unlocked, which is fortunate because everyone else I know has cheap little LG phones that come with the phone cards. There's no charge for receiving calls or text messages in France, it's pretty cool. Anyway, we just wandered. All the way down the Champs-Elysees, through Place de la Concorde, and to Tuileries gardens (which are in front of the Louvre). We just walked, sat on benches, walked more. It was very uneventful, but perfect. At the time, I was so overwhelmed with everything that all I wanted to do was wander. I've been to Paris twice before, I was broke, there was no need to sightsee. That evening we went back to my neighborhood and bought our first legal drinks. I could taste the Smirnoff in my 5 euro happy hour cocktail, but I gave it a few good stirs and it was tasty.
I took the placement test for my immersion classes on Wednesday, then began classes on Thursday.
The rest of the week is a blur of naps and online research (some day soon I will accept that not everything can be found on the internet, if only in France), but I did manage to get to the grocery store a few times. It's almost bizarre to buy small amounts of food a few times a week (in fact, I need to run into Franprix tomorrow for more ice cream), but it doesn't hurt that I live on a giant outdoor market, with a couple modern grocery stores thrown in for when I'm too overwhelmed by the boulangeries, cremeries, boucheries, and marches.

Thus far, part 3

2007-09-01T12:52:00.000+02:00

Saturday

I was woken up around 8 am by a text message from Lauren, and as soon as my eyes were open, the adrenaline was flowing and I was awake. So I texted Kerstin and told her to come over and go to a cafe with me. She didn't end up arriving until around 11, and was in bad shape when she got here. We went to La Contrescarpe and I had a cafe creme (soooooooo good but also 2,50) and a tartine grille (toasted baguette with butter, more delicious than you would think). Afterward we just kind of walked around the neighborhood, had a crepe (the crepe man is so nice and offered to give me a free banana -- I didn't realize at the time that he was going to put it in my nutella crepe, I hate bananas. I sucked it up), found the 24 hour supermarket and got a few staples. Her hotel was out in the ghetto so she needed to get back before dark. This day is rather fuzzy but also comforting because we were both miserable.

Sunday

According to the info MICEFA mailed me over the summer (MICEFA is the program overseeing my University of Paris studies), I was to meet with our director at 2 pm, walk to the MICEFA office and the campus where we're doing immersion classes, and then have a 6 pm boat ride on the Seine. This time I had the foresight to write down her cell number, and good thing too, cuz when I called her from the meeting place, she informed me that the meeting had been moved to the day before. Oh well. So I texted Kerstin and met her at Les Invalides. Luckily I know this neighborhood pretty well, so we walked to Rue Cler (where I stayed during both my previous trips to Paris), but Sunday isn't really a good idea to see anything in Paris. It's all closed. We also walked to the Eiffel Tower, got some ice cream, and laid in the shade at Champs de Mars.
Apparently this guy had been looking at us for a while and Kerstin was wondering what the hell he was doing (I didn't notice), but he did approach us and asked if we would speak English with him. He was Russian but had been living in Paris for years and spoke English with a heavy French accent. He was nice enough, very geeky (he was obsessed with American movies and music), and told us that Million Dollar Baby was playing that night for free and outdoors. He gave us his number and took us to the metro station to go back to my place. We decided to go to the movie but we didn't want to lead him on (he was very interested in being BFF and showing us everything and helping us get cell phones), so we didn't call. We got some shawarmas from the Lebanese take out place on my street (there are like four Lebanese food places in a block radius. Fun fact: there is a place where you can also get take-out pasta in Chinese food containers), then head off to the park. It was a long way away and I definitely fell asleep on the metro. We were both exhausted but we toughed it through the movie, then back to my place to crash. Kerstin slept on my guest floor mat cuz the metro stops at like 12:30.

Thus far, part 2

2007-08-31T22:10:00.001+02:00

The End
So I'll skip the week that I was at home. Well, at home and in Las Vegas for two days. It was a good diversion I suppose but I was also completely spastic with nervous energy. So I got home on Tuesday and had my last San Diego meal: Nico's bean burrito, then Golden Spoon with Matt. Sigh.
Wednesday was just a completely awful day. I would pack for about half an hour, then go upstairs and try to distract myself for an hour, then go try again. I was basically just falling apart. It's one thing to pack up and leave home for 9 months, but it is quite another to pack and realize that you will never be back in this house again. Who knows when I will be back in San Diego again. Every time I think about it I feel sick to my stomach. Somehow I made it through that day and topped it off with fondue and take out Ruth's Chris creme brulee. After dinner, Matt picked me up and we went to Torrey Pines Beach for the last time for the forseeable future. I ran to the shore to put my feet in, but ended up falling off a small shelf and nearly face-planting. It would have been even more funny if it wasn't so uncomfortable. The water was disconcertingly warm -- maybe 70. I don't think I've ever felt it that warm during the day. Matt took me home around midnight and somehow I got to sleep that night.

The Plane

Thursday morning. My mom woke me up, I don't remember a whole lot but I packed up the last of my stuff. I sat in the back seat with Puck. We left the house at 6:30 and got to LAX around 8:45. My flight was at 12:40. For the first hour there I just laid in the back seat and tried not to lose all control of my bodily functions. Around 10 we went in, got Puck checked in, somehow managed to skate through the extra fee for bags over 50 lbs. I got through security and went to the newsstand to buy a converter and a bottle of water. I ended up smashing my toe with my suitcase and bleeding all over. Nice start. The flight to Montreal was pretty uneventful. The movie sucked so I watched Entourage on my computer. Not a single scrap of food was served, but I did have club soda so I needed to pee but didn't want to make the people next to me move. No more window seats on international flights. At the Montreal airport I exchanged $20 and got some chili for dinner. By the time I had eaten that and bought a Cadbury bar (mmmmmm), the plane was boarding. That flight was pretty long but I don't remember a ton of that either. I watched Blades of Glory which was better than I thought it would be. I slept a little but it was hard. For some reason though, when we were descending, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Bad time to fall asleep.

The Arrival

The line for customs at Charles de Gaulle is always bonkers so I just toughed it out. But the baggage claim. You would not believe. I think there are 8 carousels in terminal 2 at CDG, 4 on each side of the terminal. Well, for whatever reason, that morning 6 flights came in at one time and they put them all on one side of the baggage claim area. So there were maybe a thousand people with carts, no room to move, and some hideous BO. First I looked around for the courtesy phone my shuttle company told me about, but I couldn't find it. Luckily, my magical cell phone was able to make calls to Paris, so I just called the shuttle company to let them know I had landed. I ended up just standing in the baggage claim for a good 45 minutes while it cleared out. I managed to find all of my bags, and I saw the customs agent bring Puck up the special baggage counter. Sidenote: remember when I got him vaccinated, microchipped, and had a vet fill out a health certificate for him? Yeah, I didn't have to prove any of that. Anyway, by the time I got everything together and found the shuttle driver with my name on a sign (I felt so fancy), it was 12:30. I was the only one in the shuttle, and we left.
When we were about half way to Paris, the guy's company calls him and says he can't take just one person so he has to go back to the airport and pick up this family. Whatever. I knew I was going to be late anyway (I had a 1 pm appointment with the property manager to let me into my apartment). So we get this family, drop them off, and head over to my neighborhood. First of all, he didn't know where he was taking me when he picked me up. Then he insisted that he couldn't drive down my street. I live off of a roundabout that he kept driving the wrong way around, and then turning off on the street right before mine. So after circling about three times, he parks and tells me he can't get any closer. It was only about a block away, which would have been fine had I not brought two rolling suitcases, two duffel bags, and a cat. So I beg him to leave the car and help me take my stuff to the door. I start crying, he kind of laughs at me. He insists in the two minutes he might be gone, he would get a parking ticket. So what did I do, I took my shit in two trips, left it on my doorstep, and prayed no one would steal it while I was gone. Pretty sure that fucker didn't get a tip. Anyway, now it was 2 pm so I had to call the property manager, but I didn't think my phone would work so I hadn't written her number down. I pulled out my trusty laptop and used the wireless from the cafes down the street to get her number out of an email and call her. As I sat on the stoop with five pieces of luggage on the sidewalk, three cars went down the street. Fuck that shuttle driver. But Madame Lasse came, helped me get my crap up to the third (fourth, technically) floor, and I was in. I was also completely drenched in sweat, so I took a shower, texted my mom, and went straight to bed. I woke up that evening, starving as I hadn't eaten anything since the blueberry pancakes on the plane, but the only thing in the apartment was quick oats. So I put in some sugar and called it a meal. Then I went back to sleep.

To be continued again.

The process thus far

2007-08-31T14:59:00.000+02:00

I suppose that this story starts a year ago, but it starts to get really interesting about, oh, two weeks ago. Two weeks exactly, actually. So after packing up most of my life (my bed, TV, and other household stuff are living in a West Oakland storage space) on August 16, Puck and I started rolling south toward Santa Barbara. My car is old and the air conditioning doesn't work, which is usually fine for me, but the poor kitty was basically overheating from the time we hit San Benito County. I spent a while frantically looking for a Petco or Petsmart where I could put him on his leash and take him inside, but no such luck. Ever notice how by the time you see the huge signs advertising Target and Bed Bath and Beyond, etc, you've already missed the exit? Yeah. Anyway, he toughed it out, panting bright pink nose and all. He had an interesting time in hiding in Lauren's apartment. For those of you just tuning in, Lauren is my best friend. We have known each other since she wore sparkley magenta horns on the first day of eighth grade. I thought she was weird.

Anyway, the following morning we woke up at the crack so she could go to work and I could get driving to LA. In an attempt to secure a visa appointment at the last possible moment, I made one at the French consulate on Wilshire Blvd. for 11:15 am. Anticipating traffic in the Valley, I left promptly at 8:15, but not before counteracting a previous brain fart and running to Kinko's to print out a visa application and get some passport pictures taken. I also went to The Coffee Bean for the first time in my life. I have to say, impressive pastry selection. The drive was pretty smooth sailing until the southern end of the valley, but luckily once you get on the 405 it's only three exits to Wilshire. After driving around trying to find the building and I spotted a parking garage. I snagged a spot on the ground floor and left the windows open for the cat. Of course now I had to worry that a) he was still suffocating and b) my car was being stolen. I made it about 10 minutes early, and the process was going rather smoothly until my second trip the window, where the woman asked for a copy of my passport. Huh? I definitely read the list of documents needed to apply about 97890845 times, and a copy of my passport was not on there. So she sends me across the street to the federal building (with 20 minutes until the consulate closes), where I ask a security guard where I can make a photocopy. He says the post office or the cafeteria. The post office doesn't do copies, the cafeteria is closed. So I'm sweating, frantic, and running back to the consulate. In the elevator I almost asked some people if they were going to their offices and if I could use their Xerox machines, but I reasoned that this bitch sent me to the wrong place, so she should deal with it. She made the photocopy. I waited for the Consulate General's signature, then got the hell out of there. Puck survived.

It tooks four hours for me to get home. No joke. I left the consulate at 12:15. LA traffic wasn't great but not horrible. It was pretty smooth sailing through most of Orange County. I got off of the freeway in Carlsbad to get gas around 3. It took me an hour to get home from Carlsbad, and that's only because I got off of the freeway at Manchester and took the coast. I literally thought I might never make it home. But I did. . .at 4:30.

To be continued.

Bienvenue!

2007-08-30T20:41:00.001+02:00

So this is my Paris blog. I figure instead of writing long, drawn-out emails to everyone individually, I'll condense it all here. I know blogging is trendy and lame now, but I promise not to take myself seriously and that there will be interesting things here. I would've started this sooner but I feel like now I've had enough time to settle and distance myself from the hellish ordeal that was getting over here, so I can write about it and laugh. I have an extraordinary memory so if the details bore you, skip over or whatever. Stay tuned.