_______ duck.

I'm in a much better mood! I've just rentrée'd from shopping in Paris this weekend where it was wet, rainy, and full of griping Parisians (who are renowned for a reason) but beautiful and breathtaking. I'm currently sitting at home in my adorable, cozy Rouen apartment, getting ready to read and plan for the future all day until I feel like doing otherwise because I'm giving exams all week and therefore don't have to do last minute lesson plans. Life is boooooooon.

Dec. 2, 2011

Once again another year is passing by incredibly quick. A year ago I was in Vernon, fighting seasonal Christmas-away-from-home depression and jam. A year before that I was fighting seasonal Christmas-at-home depression and bitter pedestrians in Beverly Hills. I'm happy this year. I'm anxious and worried about next year (3 months from now, 9 months from now, a year from now) and restless but I think that's normal at the end of a semester. My first semester teaching! I'm sure I'll have more important, profound (wordy) insights to share after Christmas vacation at home but all I have lately are worryings about the future and what I should be doing. I wonder if I should be home because any one of my loved ones could disappear from this world in the next moment and I will have spent our last few opportunities to be together on the other side of the world. I wonder if I should go home to help my family transition to the next chapter in our lives come August 2012. I wonder if I should be home to rejoice in all the wonderful day to day moments or once in a lifetime moments like my friends' weddings. And then I think about how this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to live in France and observe from within the world I dreamed about for so long. What if I end up 28, with no discernible useable resume because I realize I don't want to teach?? (Dear God let me love more and fear less)

School is good and it's actually improving my French, while I'm teaching English. I have to comprehend what my lazy French students say when they don't want to try and speak English. I definitely consider myself a bit lazy in my French conversation classes that I had in college so I hope I'm not coming off too harsh on them, but we're learning from each other. Otherwise I have an uber smart class of high school students who are prepping for all their SAT-type college entrance exams at the end of this year, and they are dependent on me to actually improve their levels of English, which is terrifying. I don't know if I'm doing a very good job. My American fundamental ideas of teachers and students are kind of clashing with the French system in terms of punishment, homework, and general teacher-student relationships. I caught some students cheating and asked someone what I should do about it and she suggested I just not count the grades. Not give them a zero, but actually not count them - to let it go. My initial reaction wasn't to spit them and roast them by any means, but I figured at least give them a 0 on my silly 5 point pop quiz that they chose to cheat on (poorly - the two styles of handwriting were beyond different and the white out was evident on the page). Instead I was borderline accused of trying to deliberately entrap them into cheating by giving them a pop quiz after they were goofing off. I get the feeling this is the pet class of the department and there's more politics involved than I'm aware of - like their level of success will reflect on the department. Meh. Joke's on you guys cuz I don't know what I'm doing! Ma HAaaaaa!

Hopefully I figure it (all) out before May. Or February. Really January 1st would be preferable. March: Marrakesh with my wonderful boyfriend. May: the Mediterranean island of Malta. New Year's Resolution: Lose 10 stone. Learn better French. Love everyone and everything more.

Arrrr!

On this my last day of midterms, I wake to 44 degree temperates and cloudy skies. Normandie. I have some kind of maladie on my throat, suspiciously feeling like the strep throat I had when I was 17, but only on one side, and I await my french coffee to finish brewing. It's been almost 3 months since my return to France and I go home in a month to celebrate Christmas stateside. I'm lonely. Things are different this year. There are no fun, young assistants to do random things with, or know that they are 2 doors down if I feel like being social, there are only students whom I cannot go out with because it's unprofessional, because I'm giving them grades that will influence their college gpas, and university professors some of whom are younger but who speak fluent French and 3 words of English. Students, professors, and P-baby. Who is lovely. Every other weekend or so I'll go back to Vernon, so that changes it up a bit, but I'm pretty bogged down with life and haven't been able to go lately. We did throw a fantastic Halloween party there though at which I was a pirate zombie - thank you the ONE HALLOWEEN STORE IN ROUEN. I'm also teaching P English because if I can't teach my own boyfriend, I'm a pretty sorry English teacher indeed. So my days consist of going to school to teach, coming home to prep lessons, and then teaching. And the gym. I joined a gym which costs 47 euros a month and wins the title of Smallest Gym I have ever seen outside of an apartment complex rec room. Worse, I recently witnessed the French phenomenon of the bises (the kisses on either side of the cheek) in the weight area; a man went around and shook the hand of every single male in the space and then did the bises with the two women there as well, who got off of their machines to do so. I haven't been down to do weights in a week. I would! I don't mind at all in public or with P but I get a certain level of social anxiety when (as a woman) I might have to kiss everyone in the weight area after sweating on the cardio machines upstairs. I'll have to wait when it's less crowded and then pop in the ole ipod shuffle for an incognito approach.



I found pumpkin pie! Rather I found the Thanksgiving Store in Paris which specializes in imported American and English goods. I bought 3 cans at 3 euros each, 3 cans of evaporated milk at 2 euros each, and a ready made graham cracker pie crust at 5 euros. I regret nothing. And I made a convert out of my frenchman.

I've been seriously considering the pros and cons of returning to school to get a Masters in English I guess, with a teaching credential in French. But I'm not sure of the wisdom in that. I don't want to be stuck teaching in high school at $44k each year for the next 20 years, I would love to teach at university level, but then that means I could most likely be using my English masters to do that, and I'm not sure I'd like to teach English. Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do when I come home, without any serious degree or diploma or certification to back up the last 2 years of teaching in France. I really hope I'm fluent by the time I come home.

I think that's enough introspective moping and worrying for now. I intend to be much peppier on egg nog and brandy the next blog entry I write, but who can say? (who can say??? The Thanksgiving store! Who also sold egg nog for 9 euros a carton) Off to class!

Encore! Encore!

I've returned! Except instead of returning to Vernon I've rentrée'd to Rouen and it's even better than I remembered it. Aside from my stove breaking, fuses blowing, and not having internet for 2 weeks, it's been pretty seamless. To begin...

Grandpa! After P and A picked me up from the airport we went straight to Brittany for their grandfather's birthday party. It was lovely aside from my hideous cankles - ALWAYS WALK AROUND ON A LONG FLIGHT. Apparently there's a risk of embolisms occurring if you don't which can lead to fat hideous swollen ankles or blood clots to your heart. So walk around! The entire family was there and I met everyone and got ridiculously drunk. Like everyone. That in combination with jet lag made it a sleepy kind of drunk but wonderful nonetheless. P-baby got so drunk he almost forgot I was there and started walking out to the dinner carpools without me. La vie en rose! He also passed out on the grass in front of the charming french cottage restaurant where a wedding band was setting up for a reception later that evening. The party continued back at P-baby's gpa's house (which is beautiful, with tons of acreage, several barns, chicken coops, old rotting tractors and cars sitting around, several tool sheds and hills in Brittany) with alcohol Grandpa had made earlier - aka Moonshine. I also had some Courvoisier and a bottle of wine from.. wait for it.. 1985. Perfect. His dad and aunts and uncles also all took pictures of me hugging the bottle and looking gleeful we were born the same year.

After spending the weekend in Brittany the siblings and I drove home together to Vernon but not without the car dying in some blink of town because I had to pee. We had to push the car down the road and then P-baby was able to get it started. He went around the town and then came back and slowed down literally long enough for the rest of us to jump in and took off before it could die again. I didn't pee.

We got back, spent the night at his parents and then moved me in to Rouen the next day. The apartment is cozy and adorable with a coat of yellow paint for the interior. And a fabulous roof just outside our window where P-baby can smoke or we can sit outside and people watch. It's also sound insulated so heating is great and even though we're in the heart of downtown next to this great bar la Boite a Bière, the Joan of Arc church, and a chinese grocery store, I can never hear the drunkards stumbling home. It's a nice walk to the bus stop which dumps me off directly in front of my building at the university.

The big 2-6! The first week here I was going pretty much a mile a minute, setting up internet (yelling at Orange to set up internet) and phone service, furnishing the apartment with food and stepstools for roof access, lying to the Social Security office in order to get health insurance and going back and forth to the University setting up for classes to begin. I barely noticed that my birthday was coming up when P-baby insisted we go to Vernon for the weekend. To my surprise and sheer delight he threw a party for me at his house and invited a bunch of friends including making us all an amazing dinner and supplying a shit ton of beer and liquor. His precious sister made me 2 delicious cakes, one for the party that night and another the next day at lunch with their parents. In an otherwise wonderful night among people I haven't grown up with while speaking primarily my 2nd language, there was one moment that sucked. When people were still settling in to the garage (where we partied) I kept hearing this one guy saying "l'américaine" over and over, almost certainly talking about me right in front of me, which gets really annoying, especially on my birthday. It's just rude. Normally I would ignore it, but IT'S MY DAY so I sassed him and it backfired a bit. I said "Dude, I can hear you!" in french, which I guess doesn't work in french, so he was like, deadpan mind you, "So? Hear me." ....And A explained quietly (because everyone in the room had stopped moving or breathing it seemed like) that it's something you can say in English, an expression of sorts. I was THIS CLOSE to bursting into tears and blubbering in English but I held it together and instead made this weird laugh/guffaw noise to show that HEYYYY I was only joking! Whatever! And then someone else joined the party and we all moved on. I felt guilty though, like I momentarily ruined the party, so a few days later I confessed to P-baby, who had been out of the room at that moment. Instead of saying, well Lauren you jumped the gun and shouldn't have tried to chastise him, when clearly he was just being himself and didn't mean anything by it, he said My friend can be an asshole sometimes. He is always breaking balls like that, I heard him say l'americaine too and I told him, 'hey! quit breaking balls!'

I love P-baby. He says all the right things.

Also there was a GIANT spider in the garage that crawled right behind his sister and I and she started screaming and crying immediately it was so big, and I was looking for something to squish it with, when P-baby jumped up and smashed it with his BARE HAND! Savages these Frenchmen!! I love it.

School has officially started today and Emily is coming back to France this weekend to join me in our love for the R. brothers. It's been a little over 3 weeks and I'm finally feeling settled just like it was the most natural thing in the world to be in France with my wonderful boyfriend, teaching in an incredible job, living in an awesome and cheap apartment. Sometimes I remember to be sad about being so far away from home and everything amazing American, but mostly I'm happier than I think I've ever been.

I mean this is all pre Holidays when the lack of pumpkin pie is sure to cripple me (again), but I'm cautiously optimistic for the time being. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to eat the Breton cake my frenchman just made me.

So I've been MIA not because I don't love you Dear Diary Blog but because I've been INSANELY busy.

May consisted of traveling Europe and seeing the sights of London, Ireland, Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Madrid, Rome, Florence, and Pisa and then flying back to France to act as camp counselor for Région Langues - a week long intensive English summer camp in June, before flying home. HOME. Sweet sweet burrito filled talking pundit karaoke singing 24 hour convenient store HOME. But not before I landed a gig for next year. THAT'S RIGHT BLOG I'm returning to France in a matter of days now to teach! I rented an apartment before I left in the center of town and got my first taste of native living - minus that blasted Carte Vitale. P is going to fetch the keys from the landlady next week and hopefully pick out and arrange every piece of Ikea décor I've always wanted but never wanted to keep for more than a day to fête my 2nd tour of France. He's very excited. I'm very excited.

P came to visit me a mere 9 days after I left France in my homeland, the great state of California, where we did everything our pursestrings could afford. For a month. Some people were worried (his mother was worried) a month would be a long time together. I myself warned him of my inherent American feminism and possible clashes of opinion or culture shock on his part or general headaches from all the translating to be done, but none of it came to pass. It was exhausting as we saw Sacramento, San Francisco (twice), LA, San Diego, and Vegas but mostly just impoverishing rather than dis-amorous-izing (disamoring? disamorizing? chipotable?). Look out GRE I make my OWN WORDS. I had a wonderful time with him as he gave me an excuse to see everyone and everything I had missed during the last year. For his part he's halfway convinced to move here, he loved it so much - good job Cali & Co.!

Finally I'm in the final days of my visit home as my work contract calls me back to the Franceland and I'm a bit pooped. Sad. But getting more excited with each passing day. What a great adventure life is! How many opportunities are out there just waiting to be found and taken! I'm also currently considering taking the GRE and doing grad school apps this Fall which would mean with concurrently teaching 10 classes a week. What??????

To be continued with baguette in hand

La fin

After 7 months of sporadic classes, ridiculously long vacays, and one or two really obnoxious students I had my last day of school today. I was supposed to have 3 classes but 2 of them were cancelled because the students are in mock exams. So I had one class with a group I don't really know too well, that talked too much, didn't really understand my game, and then overheard me kinda tattling on one of the students who was more obnoxious than usual to their english teacher. Overall kind of anti-climactic. So instead I'll relate Tuesday's last class.

My favorite class whom I've had all year since I began, with my favorite english teacher, is my last class on Tuesdays. They're Premiers meaning they're all about 16 or 17 years old, and they're in the European Studies division, so they're all really smart. They always surprise me with their level of comprehension, how they understand me even when I forget where I am and rattle off sentences way too fast, and they get all my hilarious jokes. I love them. They were the ones who while playing the I Know Someone Who game, said "I know someone who... loves Frenchcoco!" and every one of them got up to switch chairs. I love them so much that when I was asked to do my hour class with only half of the class, I stayed an additional hour afterward so that I could say goodbye to the other half. Some of the students cried while they asked me final questions and while I told them stories about my experiences here in France. But mostly there were a lot of laughing. I gave them my last name and told them they could find me on facebook now that they were no longer my students and by the time that I walked the 5 minutes back to my room I already had 3 requests from cell phone accounts. If anything was a catalyst for making me want to continue teaching or if there was a specific moment that spawned the idea, it occurred with this group.

This year has been absolutely incredible and I cannot believe it's almost over. I usually feel this way about everything but it's 100% true that I regret absolutely nothing about this experience - including the 10 pounds I gained and then (almost entirely) lost.

On to EUROPE! The itinerary is as follows over the month of May: London, Ireland, Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Madrid, Rome, Pisa. Stay tuned for wacky photos and worse language gaffes! <3

Things I want to remember years from now

Walking home with P in freezing January and spotting a hedgehog ducking between parked cars. Stooping down on the ground in heels and searching for the little guy, willing him to reveal himself and appease my curiosity. I didn't even really get a good glimpse of him and the only reason I could understand what P was excited about was because I recently read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" and had researched the translated title. Apparently they always show up on that street, only during the month of January.

Walking back from a class I just taught and hearing my name being called in a thick french accent. "Laurenne! Laurrrenne!" Turning and not seeing anyone initially, and then spotting 3 teenage boys hanging from a third story window, who then shouted in english, "I love yoooou! Lauren I love you!" Without skipping a beat and without having any idea who they were I blew several kisses to them and kind of skipped back to my studio.

Trying to explain what is Mac n' Cheese to a classroom of french teenagers and getting "preservatifs" (condoms) confused with "conservateurs" (preservatives).

Dancing with P to the song Johnny Be Good in a crowded bar in which no one else is dancing and then being dipped and twirled while everyone watches.

Playing drinking games in french with the french and the terror that gripped me for almost a whole hour while I tried not to lose first.

Telling a 19 year old in a bar that I'm 25 years old and having him respond with, "Fuck! You could be my mom!"

Being proactive and asking P's mom and sister if I could help with lunch and then having absolutely no idea what their response was, and staring blankly while they tried to employ french and pantomime to help me understand.

Debating hip hop with a Senegalese 27 year old.

Debating English imperialism and superiority with an Englishman.

Teaching one class wherein the students are awed and impressed by my "excellent French" and then teaching a class directly after that wherein not one person can understand my words and snickering ensues.

Playing "I know someone who" - a game where everyone sits in a circle with one less chair than people and if the phrase pertains to you, you must stand up and quickly change chairs; if not, then you stay seated. Having a student stand in the center and say, "I know someone who loves Lauren" and having every single student stand up and change chairs.

Thinking that 52 degrees Fahrenheit is time to break out the skirts.

Knowing that everyone that I meet here is a learning experience about myself, my shortcomings, my strengths, my passions, and the world itself.

Random Update

I've stealthily infiltrated the french life and culture by dating a local. That's right. "SkKKKOCCHHH T.Paine to Uncle Sam - we have breached the premises" And it is just as we suspected. Lots of kisses on both cheeks hello, few preservatives in food, and atheism abounds! My french is still lacking but I have good days and bad ones, and overall am only improving by immersing myself in love texts in an alien language and likewise the local drinking games.

On the other hand I haven't received packages that were sent to me 3 weeks ago. The french bureaucracy is notorious for it's lack of efficiency and after 2 weeks of snow halting all traffic in France, I fear there's a large backup somewhere.

Work goes as well as ever, only now occasionally I see students in my classes that I saw at the latest party last weekend. Awkward. And as ever, an experience to make the best of and blog about later.

I've also begun training for the Paris Half Marathon. I was talking about it quite a bit to random people for a while but now that the prospect of running 13.1 miles again has become painfully imminent to my knees, I'm keeping my mouth shut. Not that I expect to bail before race day, but... maybe I won't broadcast to the world (on fb, not blogspot) until I'm sure I won't be carted off to First Aid. Baaahhhh.

happy new year en français

While I would like to be sleeping off my hangover from last night's New Years Eve party, after lying in bed for the last 2 hours wide awake, it appears I could be more productive with my time. By blogging!

I got blackout wasted. I literally blacked out from about 11pm to about 1am according to the time stamp on the photos that were taken despite my total incoherence. Looking at my fb album, I don't remember the majority of those photos. Worse, I don't even remember counting down! GAHH! I LOVE the countdown! Now it's freaking 2011 and I couldn't tell you the difference.

Yes I've been hanging out with P-baby and his friends all week and have been getting progressively more comfortable with them and with speaking french with them. I'll even say I'm funny. But last night started with a new crop of friends and an intimate dinner before the party started at some guy's house. Of course everyone spoke way too fast for me and of course I had to ask the host to repeat his question twice before I understood he was asking my name. Faaantastic. Then everyone else came and it just looked like I was shy, not necessarily that I was a foreigner, because everyone was talking or not talking and just milling about. And then the drinking began. I figured hell, my french needs a little boost from confidence juice - have at it, self! And so I boozed. And I became a little too comfortable, smacking the German guy around a few times, and actually bickering with him in english (because 99% of Germans speak excellent english). And then I blacked out.

(Insert countdown to 2011, everyone having champagne (including me), and vigorous dancing - all of which I know only because I looked at my camera around 4am)

I woke up on the bed in a guest room next to the party. I think I slept for around an hour but then fell back asleep and woke up to a boy plopping down on the bed beside me in the dark. I was willing to share the bed but then he kept reaching over to caress my face or something, and I got the distinct impression he was going to try to kiss me. So I jumped up after muttering some english and french about what an asshole he is, and again did the "I'm ready to leave!" scene and told P-baby I was leaving NOW. Sloppy. Then I thought I had lost my camera or that that kid stole it from me when he was distracting me with the creepiness factor, so I went back into the bedroom where he was still lying on the bed, and there were several people in the room doing something and started to look around him, under him, getting really worked up. I actually kind of fluffed and tugged the blanket underneath him bc I thought he was lying on it, and I was mad at him still for being weird and making me leave my comfy repose, and made audible noises of frustration until P-baby told me to stop it - in front of his friends who were still in the room. Then I stormed back to the dance party room looking for my camera, kind of crying at this point because the French are so stupid and keep doing weird creepy shit to me, and I'd lost my camera, when it occurs to me that I have my camera. I unbutton my coat and find it hanging on my arm from the camera strap, where i usually keep it during parties. And immediately burst into drunken laughter. Poor P-baby had been searching for it for me everywhere and was utterly relieved when I found it. Adorable. And TERRIBLY obnoxious of me.

Bonjour, je m'appelle Lauren. I make the language gaffes and cultural snafus. Beyond all of the above bs I actually had a fantastic time and only saw 2 students who go to my school, but whom I do not teach. Bonne année!