The Louvre and Its Amazingness, Dinner with Assistants

I spent all of today in Paris with Sam (finally, it only took one month!) and her friend Whitney at the Louvre. All I can say is: OMGTHELOUVREISAMAZING. Yes, in one word. I was in heaven!

We met in le carrousel which is the underground portion underneath the glass pyramid at around 11 am and proceeded to try our luck with the purchasing of tickets. Sam has successfully obtained her passe d'education, which is the amazing card that assistants get as teachers and that permits us to access all museums and national monuments free of charge. Unfortunately, my schools haven't been so speedy on helping me to obtain one, so I opted instead to buy la carte louvre jeunes for 15 euros. Basically, since I'm under 26, I get cheap unlimited access to the Louvre for one whole year. For 15 euros. Not bad methinks!


Whitney was able to obtain her ticket free of charge as well with her passport since we all are *technically* French residents with long stay visas, and the Louvre is free for residents. Since I'm paranoid and don't like to carry my passport around, I didn't think to do this. Nonetheless, I had a lovely chat with the lady who set up my card and (theme of the year...) was told I speak French very well. Since I now have unlimited access to this fantastic, fantastic institution, I now have something to occupy my time if there is ever a strike and I don't have to teach at school. I hope this will allow me to see a vast chunk of the Louvre's collections this year.

After acquiring access to the Louvre, Sam, Whitney and I wandered at leisure. The Louvre in and of itself is a work of art--the floors and ceilings are incredible. One of the things I love most about Europe is that everything has history, and I often find myself imagining what a particular building or park or street must have looked liked 100, 200, even 400 years ago. I was doing this with the Louvre as we wandered its corridors, thinking about how the castle must have appeared when it was someone's home, what each room must have looked liked furnished, how many hidden spots there must have been for children to play hide and seek.

This is the kind of person I am, and I like to think about the details no one else thinks about: how many chairs were in each room? What sorts of things were hung on the walls? How did they ever heat the palace? How many servants were there?

I admit I did the same thing with the art, and I'm in complete awe of what I saw. I don't know how anyone can look at a chunk of marble and know exactly where to chisel to sculpt a face, a particular curve in the hip, a gesture. The same is true of painting: how did painters ever learn to create so much depth and life on a 2-D surface? I feel as if I could walk into some of the paintings I saw.

We ate lunch for a break and then wandered upstairs and looked at some of the rooms which were furnished with items from the 1500-1600s, and so naturally, I jumped up and down and squealed like a five year old. Because of my penchant for the past, there is nothing I love more to see historical buildings appropriately furnished, and this was a real treat. I even saw Henri II's armor!

Needless to say, there is much more to be seen. Today was spent primarily on the Grecian Antiquities, the Italian painters (oh lord, the Mona Lisa, dite La Jaconde...was surrounded by a million and one people!), the more famous items (Nike of Samothrace [!!!!!],
the Venus de Milo, Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People), and some of the French painters in both the Sully and Denon wings. The Richelieu wing still needs to be tackled, as does all of the 17th century collections. The Louvre and I will be good friends, I forsee.

After the Louvre, Sam, Whitney, and I went to a fellow assistant's apartment in the 10th and ate grilled veggies and meat for dinner, along with some great wine and cheese. Said fellow assistant lives with a mutual friend who happens to be a native and a financial analyst. He worked for a year in Canada and two years in New York city, and (common theme, methinks?) LOVES AMERICA. The poor fellow came back to the apartment later in the evening after working for some of the day and spoke excellent English. He was also naturally charming, and cute. We will see about this one...

A toute a l'heure, mes amis.

Being an Au Pair is like Bootcamp for Motherhood

Dead serious about the title there. Right now it's La Toussaint vacation. La Toussaint, in English, is known as All Saints Day, and is celebrated on the first of November. In terms of religion, it's the day when Catholics celebrate all those who have achieved saint-hood and the "beatific vision" in Heaven. I'd say France has become a more "Catholic by tradition and culture" than "Catholic by practice," nation, but nonetheless, French school children and *ahem* school employees get nearly two weeks off for this lovely holiday.

Upside: I have two weeks of paid vacation.
Downside: My host mom was assigned a last minute flight to Toronto (she works for Air France) and I've been cooped up in a beautiful house in Saint-Germain-en-Laye with three children. And yes, I am half ready to kill (not literally) all of them. *Introduce panicked scream here*

I've decided that being an au pair is like going to ranger school for motherhood. It's INSTANT immersion, no buts about it--it's as if I instantly have a 12 year old, a 9 year old, and a 5 year old without the (minor detail) whole finding-Mr.Right-getting-married-birthing-process thing.

These kids fight incessantly, love each other one minute, hit each other the next, and argue over stupid keychain sized pink flashlights they find in the attic.

They hate every single thing you put on their plate, unless of course it's Nutella or something that will immediately induce Diabetes Types I and II with a side of heart attack to go. Or Butter. I say "butter" with a capital B because around here, butter is HOLY. These kids probably eat around 4 sticks of Butter a week. Last week they went through 60 slices of bread. If I were a loaf of bread in this house, I'd fear for my life. Really.

The only thing that makes a French kid eat his or her vegetables is the eternal threat of "tu ne veux pas grossir," roughly translated as "you don't want to get fat," because if there's anything worse here than being hit with the Ugly Stick, it's being hit with the Fat Stick.

Toys are left around the house listlessly and then forgotten, only to be searched for two days later.

Bread crumbs are always scattered around the kitchen for sweeping; and just when you think you've some peace, said 12 year old and 5 year old are arguing at 11:30 at night over what side of the king sized bed they've decided to share for the evening they will get. Naturally, this wakes you up. After a nonstop day of cooking, cleaning, and child care. And after you've gone to sleep an hour earlier. Because you're taking the 9 year old to Paris at 8:00 in the morning for minor dental surgery. Ugh.

To put the icing on top of the cake, these children have absolutely no responsibilities around the house aside from homework. Am I remembering wrongly that I had chores as a kid? Did I imagine that? I thought I had responsibilities other than homework...guess I'm going to have to consult the madre and padre on that one.

Don't get me wrong--I love the kids dearly. This is not a hateful rant. This is more to say that I have come to a couple of conclusions, some of which I had concluded before, but am much more adamant about now:

1) OH GAWD MOTHER I AM SO SORRY. If you are reading this, I don't know how the hell you did it. I don't know how the hell ANY mother does it. Being a parent is HARD work. I apologize post-haste for anything and everything I ever did that drove you up the mother effing wall. You must have had some serious patience. Hell, you probably still have serious patience. Hell, I just said hell way too many times!

2) I never want to be a strictly stay at home mom. I will go insane. You know, the "completely off my fucking rocker I need a lobotomy" type of insane. I have IMMENSE amounts of respect for all the stay at home moms out there. You are gods. You should be rewarded. With Tiffany diamonds, four month cruises to the Caribbean, and castles with a full-time waitstaff. Oh lord.

3) I DO NOT want children of my own ANY TIME SOON. Repeat: DO NOT WANT.

4) If and when I do have kids, whenever that may or may not happen in the very distant future, they will most likely hate me, because I will probably be a strict parent. In their best interest, of course. Maybe in some weird strange future universe blogs like this will be saved and they'll read this. That's an even scarier thought...

Thank God host mom returns tomorrow. *Cue dramatic music*

Paris for Coffee, grad school musings, and La Toussaint

Yesterday I went to Paris to get coffee with the French guy I met at the housewarming I mentioned in a previous post. We met up at the Place Saint-Michel in the middle of the Latin quarter, which is quickly becoming my favorite, if not one of my favorite, portions of the city. I must admit this is probably because the Latin quarter is the heart of all things academic in Paris, not to mention it's perched across the Seine from Notre Dame, and the cafes and shops are quaint and wonderful.

I arrived about an hour earlier than our agreed upon time of 3, so instead I ate an egg crepe for a late lunch and wandered about in Gibert Joseph, which is the key supplier of all things book related to the Sorbonne (Paris IV, or the historic University of Paris), the New Sorbonne (Paris III), and the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS). Paris restructured its public university system a while back, so while the Sorbonne (the one that's been around since, oh, the 13th century) is now Paris IV, there's also Paris III. The University of Paris 3 and 4 deal strictly with the humanities, while for example, 5 focuses on Math, Law, and social sciences. Why this partitioning exists I know not, but alas, it does. This partioning has translated over to its bookshop, which is spread across five smaller shops or so bordering the Place Saint-Michel. They're hard to miss considering their awnings are bright yellow.

I went to the first shop to buy a new "lifebook." My lifebook is what keeps me sane. I put all kinds of important "life" information in there--useful phone numbers, addresses, daily to do lists, and as of the moment, essential information for applying to the aforementioned universities. Apparently if you want to find lined, rather than gridded, notebooks in France, you need to find a paper supplier, because gridded paper is just how it's done over here. Needless to say, this American found a properly lined purple "lifebook" to keep her sane for the time being, and finds it more appropriately hilarious that this lifebook comes from Paris. I've found that if I don't write down what's in my head, I'll play it in my mind like a broken record worrying about it all, so my lifebook can be thought of as a preventative measure.

After acquiring the necessary lifebook, I spent a while in shop for lettres modernes and drooled. The more I'm around French university life, the more strongly I feel the intense need to be here again next year as a student. I successfully scheduled a meeting with the head of the French Lit Masters program at the Sorbonne, and as my mom put it, he "had better be ready to be interview by Lindsay and not the other way around." I'm crossing my fingers it goes well.

The more I learn about the ENS, however, the more I want to study there as well. ENS was founded after the French Revolution as a way to train teachers to support new pedagogical initiatives. Small provinces and towns elected individuals to attend this "teachers college," where they were given room and board, as well as a monthly salary, in exchange for service to the state as educators.

Today the ENS is part of the system of grandes ecoles outside of the public system of higher education, and among the most fiercely competitive. ENS has about 2500 students who live together on campus at its historic rue d'Ulm site; French nationals and students from the E.U. are given, as per tradition, room and board and a monthly salary of 1000 euro in exchange for 10 years of service to the French state in the public sector. Foreigners, such as myself, if admitted are given a scholarship and aren't required to give 10 years of service. There are two ways to enter as a foreigner: through competitive national exam, which should be called "The Most Hellacious Academic Bloodbath you Will Ever Encounter," which consists of a 6 hour written examination and a trial-by-fire (oops, I mean...jury) where a candidate alone must prepare and defend a presentation OR through direct application. Considering most French students spend two years in competitive private preparatory classes for the national exam, I'm thinking a direct application is my better route...though it feels like cheating. Enough of grad school.

Around 3:15, said Frenchman arrived and apologized profusely for being late; the poor fellow came in on RER line B, which is, of all RER lines, the most volatile with the strike. I told him not to worry and we traipsed across the Ile-de-la-Cite past Notre Dame and found a cute icecream/coffee/pastry shop and got out of the cold.

Frenchman is an interesting guy--to the correction of my mistake, he's just finishing up his Masters, not his undergrad, at the Sorbonne and studies North American history, aka, the US. I laughed and joked that he probably knows more than I do about my own country. He spent two years in the states: one in Michigan, the other in Washington, D.C., where he interned for the French Embassy. He was also one of France's Fulbright scholars to the US, and his dream would be to eventually get dual citizenship. He's attempting to find a job in the states right now so he can return, but alas, the job market is not at its finest. With that said, if there's anyone in my readership willing to give a poor guy a visa, let me know LOL.

We had great, intellectually stimulating conversation. We talked about American politics, French politics, religion, race, cultural differences, and so on. It was enlightening, and also rather ironic given that currently there are armed forces out everywhere in Paris--men in camo with large guns patrolling the Metro and RER stations, out amongst the benches near Notre Dame, quietly watching. The retirement legislation has been passed in the French assembly, and now it's going through the Senate; you had better believe if it passes all hell will break loose and this country will more or less shut down. Oh, the joys of socialism!

I do have to appreciate socialism for one thing, however, and this is the fact that I more or less have 2 week vacations every 2 months. I'm currently enjoying La Toussaint vacation as I write this. Also, THANK JESUS the Bears bounced back against Arizona. I swear, the Bears are all over the place this season and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Nonetheless, I give thanks for victory.

A toute a l'heure.

Mark the Calendar.

Mark the calendar: I JUST bought Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu in one volume in its original language. I could pee myself with joy I am so happy right now; if it weren't so heavy, I would've ripped the plastic off on the way home from the bookshop and started reading it on the street. It's me, Proust, and 2401 pages of thin paper with fine print against the world. SO DAMN EXCITED.



Mind you, the bookstore was heavenly, and I was so tempted to blow way more money than healthy on the massive shelves of Zola, Balzac, and other lovelies shelved there, but I restrained myself. I had better sign up for the free municipal library if I intend to not live in poverty this year.

(Shhh....don't tell anyone: I'm a full fledged nerd.)

Une Pendaison de la Crémaillère

I spent a rather large portion of this weekend in Paris at une pendaison de la crémaillère. For those curious among you, a pendaison is a housewarming, but rather a mouthful. The phrase literally means "the hanging of the pot hook," and refers to the former practice of hanging a hook for a cooking pot in the chimney of a house; a house was considered a "home" once this was accomplished because then a family was capable of cooking meals and therefore extending hospitality. The pendaison I attended, however, was much more modern, and involved English language assistants from here to Jamaica. Literally.

Two Californians and Two Texans inhabit a sixth floor walk up on the rue Richer not far from the Place de L'Opera, and on Saturday night, they hosted a soiree bustling with Canadians, Brits, French, and of course, the distinctly American. Cigs attended, and I was finally able to make out a little more of his character: he's officially removed from the DB category and placed into the artsy and more quietly New York category, if New Yorkers could ever be classified as quiet. We got to chatting over baseball when he explained that he's a huge Yankees fan, to which I responded that my mother, a native of upstate NY, is too. Then we chatted football, which naturally brought up the ever-so-touchy-subject of Cal football, but then segued into a discussion of his eventual ambition to do a joint PhD/J.D., perhaps at Boalt. All in all, he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

I also met at this pendaison a French guy, and a student of American History at the Sorbonne (he's still an undergrad) who spent two years in the states (Michigan, to be exact) and speaks English well. He's Parisian to the core: born, raised, and now a student there. We got to talking, and we might end up doing a language swap: he wants to work on his English, I want to work on my French. We'll see where the road goes.

Additionally, I was able to hang out with Jamaica, whom I adore. She teaches in my region and was my buddy during training. This is her first time in France too, and we both ended up crashing on the leather furniture in the came-as-furnished sixth floor walkup inhabited by our kind assistant friends. This was after we had all left the place at 1 a.m. to hit up an Irish pub a few blocks away called Corcoran's, and it was honestly one of the oddest, most fun, but bizarre experiences of my life. I have never before seen an Irish pub in which electronica and techno, plus very Tango/Salsa-esque stuff was played. We also can't forget that the DJ went on a one hour 70's/80's kick, and so Blondie snuck in there too. Irish pubs abroad certainly do garner their reputations...

The evening ended at 3:30 am with a frigid as all hell walk back to rue Richer and an early morning/late night (whatever you prefer) crepe. Paris was still very much awake, and I'm convinced that if there is TRULY a city in this world that never sleeps, Paris must be at least one of them. Nonetheless, Jamaica and I left the next morning around 9:30, freezing our asses off but smiling. She's worse off than I am in the "adapting to cold department," poor thing. Oh well...All in all, very fun.

Monday means I'm back to reality, but I did enjoy teaching today. Things are less confusing now that I've been around the block for one week, but just as I get on a roll, we cut into vacation. French school children here have the 23rd to the 4th of November off for Toussaint vacation, so I'm trying to squeeze in what I can.

Today we reviewed the days of the week with one class. I explained that each day of the week does end with the word "day," and therefore the only element that changes is the first half of the word. I was then asked if:

a) "Sunday" is the same as "Sunny day" or "Son day," which I elaborated upon...

but better yet, and my personal favorite, is:

b) if "Monday" is the same as "Moonday" and if that had anything to do with Michael
Jackson's "Moon walk."

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what it is with this country and MJ. Like, seriously! And it's not even the adults, it's the CHILDREN. Children who were born in 2002! (Martin, one of the children I look after as an au pair, and born in 2000, can play "Thriller" on his guitar. Solidly. Damn.) I clarified the moonwalk notion by explaining that the moonwalk is meant to imitate what walking on the moon looks like and even added a bit in there about the US's first moon landing...but oh my, did I have a inner chuckle at that one.

For those of you who read this silly blog of mine, please know I miss you and would love to hear from you. Oh, and just as a memo: please send some of that killer "it's 91 in October in California" heat my way. Ok? Ok. Thanks.

Bissssssssssous.

Going on Week Three...

This week has been a touch crazy, to say the least! Monday was my first day of official work at my first school, which is located in Cergy-Le-Haut. Cergy is a relatively modern town, mostly industrial, and from what I can gather, a result of France's influx of immigrants from its former colonies. Caucasian children are the minority, while there are many Franco-Africans, Algerians, Chinese, and Vietnamese children in my classes. Never the less, they are adorable, and many of them are therefore already bilingual.

It goes without saying that I got lost on the way there. If there's one pet peeve I have right now, it's the fact that I keep getting lost, because I'm a pretty damn good navigator, in the US at least. I took the RER to Cergy-Le-Haut, which is the end of line A5 and hopped off expecting to catch STiVO bus 36 to my school only to find out that Bus 36 starts running at 9:15, which is when I start teaching. Instead, I hopped on Bus 44, and ended up having a lovely chat with a bus driver who was kind enough to help me out.

Irony of the week #1: the day ended with me discovering that I could've merely walked across a park to my school from the train station instead of worrying about a darn bus. Womp womp.

On Tuesday I went to my second school; I'd woken up super early to catch the trains out there since the syndicats for the RATP were on strike because French President Nicolas Sarkozy is attempting to raise the age of retirement from *gasp* 60 to 62! ( I'm sorry. The American in me understands the strike in principle, but laughs very hard inside. I feel that if I merely took all the protestors and threw them into America, they would not be complaining about retiring at 62).

Irony of the week #2: I arrived at my school just in time, only to discover instead that (haha) the teachers had decided to strike and no one was there. In fact, no one had even taken two seconds to call me or shoot me an e-mail to let me know I didn't have to go. Oh well. It turns out this was the experience of many other assistants on Tuesday, so at least I'm not alone in that?

I used my free time on Tuesday to take care of administrative things, mainly so I can 1) be paid, and 2) not be in this country illegally, both of which involved going to the post office for the first time, which was a trip. In France, the colors of the post office are yellow and blue, and mail boxes placed around the city are bright yellow, so they're hard to miss. It rather reminded me of a canary.

The children are also hilarious. My first sessions of the week were basically Q and A about all things America and myself. Some of the highlights include, and these are direct (translated) quotes:

1) "Is there really a fake Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas?" Me: "Yes."
2) "Is there a McDonald's in every neighborhood in America?" Me: "No!"
3) "Do you have the same brands and types of cars in America?" Me: "Yes and no, but
American cars are much bigger..."
4) " What kinds of food do you eat in America?" Me: "Lots of similar things, but in
California, we really like Mexican food too."
5) "Don't you have a black president?" Me: "Yes, his name is Barack Obama."
Kids: "Barack Obama!!"

I also realized (and you can totally hate me for this if you'd like) that I'm only actually teaching 9 hours a week, and that my adviser has given me 3 free hours, which I'm assuming she intends me to spend on class prep. Fine by me! Because of the strike though, I only worked 6 hours this week, and am still getting paid in full for the month. Part of the American in me screams "Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy..." because I'm habituated to the hustle and bustle, the go-go-go-go mentality that is the states and very much California, but at the same time, I need the year to breathe.

I loved college and I especially loved Berkeley with all my heart, but I literally gave it all I had. I don't know, in retrospect, how I could've ever considered going straight from from undergrad to grad school without time off. I think I would've burned out and dropped out, and that's saying something, because I know I have a *special* amount of stubbornness in me. It's hard for me to feel "lazy," so I have to re-frame the way I think about this time "off."

Oh. Well. Potential plans for this weekend include: runs with the Paris marathon training group, the Paris apartment warming of fellow assistants from Texas and California (the rule being that you have to dress up as something from Cali or Texas), and gay club hopping with Sam! We'll see how it goes :)

A toute a l'heure!

Three Day Recap

The past three days have gone by quickly. On Friday, I had my last day of pedagogical training, thank goodness. Much of it involved myself and about 20 other assistants crammed into the same cold room at the Maison Departemental de l'Education in Saint-Ouen-L'Aumone. First, we were made to sing "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around," by German Smackdown Lady to simulate (again) how it feels for little French children to be instantly immersed in a foreign language. Naturally, this went over with no smirks and no laughs from anyone.

I ended up sitting next to Cigs, who is one of the only three gentlemen in my grade level and region. Cigs smokes and rocks the leather jacket, scarf, and messenger bag look. He also just graduated with a degree in French from Tulane, and so we were both chatting about how even if we'd wanted to teach high school kids, the government would've never let us since we've got stronger language skills. He and I and another fellow, Pittsburgh, probably have the best speaking skills out of the assistants in our region. Cigs is also passably attractive, but terribly quiet, and I can't figure out if he's because he feels some sort of douchey superiority complex, or if he's just really shy. I also can't tell if he's gay, since that's always a likely probability (I hate to say it) with any male French major, at least in my experience.

Now Pittsburgh, I like. Pittsburgh just graduated from NYU and has moxie. He arrived to training two hours late because he wanted to sleep in, which he, of course, did NOT tell German Smackdown Lady. Rather, he stated that he'd missed his RER train, which is, in all honesty, plausible. Nevertheless, Pittsburgh is hilarious, adorably happa, and someone I'd like to get to know better.

Other highlights from the two days included a coffee and soup vending machine that made ghetto fabulous cafe au lait and cafe noisette for 40 eurocents--Canada 2 and I were joking that it was our crack, and we'd go and get hits of caffeine at break times--and a small bakery and deli around the corner where we'd all congregate and buy sandwiches.

Saturday I spent taking care of administrative things; I'm happy to say I FINALLY have a bank account, and can now get on with life and paperwork. I ended up running errands with Charlotte, and afterwards had MacDo (yep folks, that's McDonalds) in France for lunch. You can order on a computer here, and they even have falafel on the menu! The french fries are nowhere near as good, though. I read the rest of the afternoon since I'm under the weather and spent the night in watching Avatar for the first time entirely in French with the kids. Emma fell asleep on the floor and at midnight Charlotte took her up to bed.

Today is a beautiful fall day, in the mid-fifties with sunshine, so I went to the National Domaine of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which is a regional forest nearly the size of Paris. I ran on some cozy trails, which brought my stress level down. I've been overwhelmed with what I'm supposed to be doing next week in my classrooms; it's still so damn confusing.

I have never before appreciated how much more efficient the U.S. government is than the rest of the world. France is a bureaucratic nightmare, and because of that, I and the rest of the 9 month assistants have no effing clue what we're doing. The main difference between us and the 7 monthers is that if you're in for 7, you're simply an aide to the teacher in the classroom. If you're a 9 monther, you ARE the teacher. You make the lesson plans, you are responsible. The problem with that is that a) my two schools HAVE NO materials for English, which means I have to make them all, and I'm not getting paid for a single second of prep and b) my kids are far behind where they theoretically should be since they have learned English from teachers who have been mandated to teach it without speaking a word of it.

It's also horridly inefficient because France imports new assistants every single year. I can't imagine how much of a paperwork nightmare it must be, and I don't understand why they don't just start to train ALL of their elementary school teachers to teach English over--oh, say--the next 20 years or so. Cigs and I agreed that we'd be much more useful training teachers to teach English since we're both basically fluent in French, but alas, it's not my choice.

France's language teaching theory is all screwed up too. If it were up to me, the first thing these kids would learn would be the alphabet, in English. However, as German Smackdown Lady puts it, "we MUST adhere to the guidelines set forth by the European Council on blah-de-blah-de-blah," and so instead, I have to teach them pre-determined sets of vocab and phrases in a four part process: 1) listening 2) memorization 3) reading 4) writing. Ugh. Can it be next weekend yet?

Otherwise, life is pretty good. I'm settling in and finally getting a grip on things. I'm just praying that the kids don't murder me on Monday and that the transportation strike that's slated for Tuesday actually happens, because if it does, I don't have to work, which gives me more time to figure out what the hell I'm doing while getting paid to sit at home. Also, a shout-out to the Bears who killed UCLA this past weekend in football americain for a fabulous homecoming!

A toute a l'heure.