I dreamt several times about grad school acceptances and financial aid. I think I’m a bit preoccupied eh.

Pearls Before Swine today

Am done with the 3rd years. Had a good weekend. Trying not to think too hard about the future.

I guess it’s not that generalized really. I got my potential financial aid notification (I say potential because I’m switching programs and the tuition would be 30% less for the first year if I get into the second one) from NYU and had a serious depressing conversation with my mom where I mostly just absorbed adult perspective.

NYU is REALLY expensive. And I’m just going to be a teacher. McGill and UT Austin are the same quality and both are much, much cheaper. (Of course, I haven’t heard from McGill yet.)

So I’m trying to adjust my thinking away from the presumption that I’ll be in France next year. I didn’t realize how used to the idea I’d gotten. I didn’t realize how much I love France. It feels a little bit like breaking up with someone, in that way where you have to disentangle yourself from a person. And the part where you give up all sorts of secret little hopes and dreams.

It’s really weird. I’ve spent all this time learning how to fit in in France (the other day someone asked me if I was French or American, because I don’t have an accent–of course, she hadn’t heard me talk much yet). And I guess all along the idea wasn’t to learn how to fit in and then leave. It was to learn how to fit in and then benefit from that. To break into French social circles and then get to stay in them for a while. To perfect my French and then get to keep speaking it all the time.

Because as it turns out I really adore the French language. I kind of knew this when I decided to become a French teacher, obviously. But it just keeps sinking in more. Recently I was talking to someone about how Belgians say “septante” and “octante” (I believe) instead of the crazy French addition numbers, and how I thought that was so much simpler and smarter. And then they pointed out that they thought that “soixante-seize” and “quatre-vingt-quinze” have a nice ring. And I actually agree. I still think English is great, because of the number of words and how easy they are to manipulate, but it’s not a pretty language (unless it’s coming from a writer).

It’s not just the language though, or obviously Montreal would be just as exciting. It’s also the culture. As hard as it is to break into I think it’s really rewarding when you do. I think the history is fascinating. I like the feel of the streets. I like the way when (most) men look at you on the street they don’t feel obliged to say something ridiculous to you. I like the conversation. I like how people don’t want simple, expected answers to questions. I hardly ever have to say simply that I don’t like George Bush because they expect me to say something much more interesting than that. (And to be honest I hate saying that I dislike George Bush. Disagreeing with him has been such a part of me for the past 8 years that it seems trite to put it in such small words.)

It’s a little funny to realize this all of the sudden, though, because I haven’t been super happy in Reims. I don’t blame France though. France is the part that has more or less made up for it. I blame, well, the city itself. And to some extent the ex.

So, poo. Am trying to remind myself that France will always be here. I can always come back for a summer, or even for a year, after grad school. And at least I will be able to spend my life imparting my bizarre love of a country that’s not my own to impressionable youngsters. In the mean time I feel a little bit torn in two.

Nothing to do today, everything was closed for Easter Monday (makes NO SENSE) so I sat around making vacation plans. It was pretty exciting. I’ve booked all my hostels for Poland and messaged a few people on couchsurfing for Ireland. I feel all ready to go now. Of course I’m not though. Here is what I’m doing/thinking of doing:

Sunday April 6 Fly to Krakow
6-9 Krakow
9-11 Warsaw
11-13 Gdansk/Sopot
Sunday April 13th fly to Dublin
13-16 Dublin
16-18 Galway
18 Cliffs of Moher, maybe pass through Limerick
19-20 Killarney and the Ring of Kerry
21-22 Cork
23rd Fly Dublin-Paris
I haven’t decided if I’ll come home that night or ask to crash at the Y’s. My flight gets in a bit late.

Woohoo! As soon as I get my April salary I should buy my ticket to Morocco, cuz it looks like those prices are starting to go up. Mala and I are thinking of meeting up in Madrid, taking the train down to the coast, then taking the ferry into Morocco.

Yesterday I ate Easter lunch at my boss’s. I guess she’s my boss. She’s the teacher I work with. It was really nice. She mentioned that it would be nice to have my parents for dinner when they’re in France so I told my parents. I think they would have a lot in common as they are both world-traveled couples who teach.

Tomorrow it’s back to the grind. There’s not really that much of the year left. This is my last week with the 3rd-years. Friday afternoon I watch them take a test. Next Friday morning I watch some of them take the TOIEC, which might actually be sort of interesting, at least the listening sections. Then there’s the Gala and the next morning I ship off on my three-week vacation. When I get back it’ll be two weeks till Laurel gets here for long-delayed shenanigans, including a trip to the Loire valley and probably Luxembourg, and seeing Explosions in the Sky in Paris. After she leaves it’ll be two weeks till I see my parents in Paris. Linda and I plan on throwing some sort of joint birthday party in there since her birthday is a week after mine. Then at the beginning of July I’ll meet my parents in St. Malo and then hurry off to Morocco. After that it is all still up in the air… I’ve probably summarized this all before. But it helps me to write it down again.

So I’m reading French or Foe, finally. I was buying Almost French on amazon and it showed me one of those “buy this and this for this much” links so I kow-towed to the marketing gods and bought them both. Almost French is not here yet but French or Foe arrived a while ago and I’m almost done with it. It is excellent and will be added to my shelf of American/French cultural comparison books.

I love this kind of book but I am wondering if I should take them with a grain of salt. Near the end of French or Foe is a section on French people’s experiences in the U.S. One of the author’s points is that they are usually surprised by the huge emphasis on money as a sign of success. She quotes someone and now I’m quoting her:

“Ask a young Frenchman why he works, what he wants out of life and he will tell you, ‘To earn enough to live nicely,”‘ said Yvonne D. after two years in San Francisco. “Ask an American and he’ll say, ‘To make a lot of money.’”

Am I an exception here? Is it because my family has made its way into the middle class that I don’t think this way? Because I don’t know anyone who would give that answer. No one from Mac and no one from Texas. I can see how CEOs might say this. But they’re hardly average Americans. Any input from other Americans or foreigners here would be welcomed. In fact that’s kind of my goal in posting this.

Also she mentions that many French ex-patriates are surprised that Americans talk so freely to each other about their salaries. And in my (albeit limited experience) this isn’t really true. In fact I remember talking in a women’s studies class in college about how if we DID talk more about salaries, maybe the glass ceiling would be less invisible and easier to overcome.

So given my reaction to the statements about Americans I’m wondering if I should give less credit to the statements about the French. Which isn’t to say that I don’t still love the book.

and tired of it. Some days I can’t find a way out of the funk. It’s usually a weekend day when I have nothing to do. I wish I were more self-supportive. I think there’s a better word for that but it’s not coming to mind right now. Blurg.

I. Paris

Paris was interesting. I can’t quite figure out what I think of it. I didn’t realize how much I’ve gotten used to Reims. In Paris everything seemed bigger, weirder, and more touristed. I stayed with the Y’s down in the 15th and the concert was up in the Parc de la Villette, pretty much the other end of town, so the metro ride was about an hour total. I got on the wrong train at one point, making me a little late to meet up with J*’s friend who was meeting me for the concert. So I didn’t see much of Paris but I spent plenty of time on the metro.

I was taking the 4 all the way to the end to get back to the Y’s, and was in a super good mood after the concert, when this guy sat down in front of me and said something to me in French. I was pretty sure he was asking how long we’d been sitting there in that station (2 or 3 minutes) but I couldn’t understand exactly and didn’t want to give him the wrong answer so I said “comment?” and he repeated. Still couldn’t understand. So he smiled and said “Vous n’?™tes pas fran?ßaise” and asked the guy next to him, whose answer confirmed that I had understood correctly. So anyway this first guy, who’s young and friendly-seeming, asked me where I was from and I told him the U.S. He asked me how long I’d been in France, and we must have been speaking in English, because I remember answering 2 years in English. To which he said (still trying to be friendly) that I really should try to learn some French! Two years is a long time! At which point I got really annoyed because I DO speak French, very well, and he just assumed that I didn’t based on one misunderstanding. I think my irritation showed because he asked if it bothered me if he talked to me. It didn’t really, it just bothered me that he had been so dense, so we kept talking, a mix of French and English. The thing is, French people can be so dense about what it means to speak another language that even though we’d said a lot in French, by the end of the conversation he still probably thought I didn’t speak a lick. And it continued to bother me all night. It’s an impossible thing to explain to a stranger on a train that missing one word doesn’t mean you don’t know any of their language.

Anyway, back to Paris. Possibly it was because all I did was go to a rock concert where the audience was half anglophone, but the city didn’t seem as French to me as it used to. Probably it’s just that my idea of what French is has changed to conform to, uh, the East. Everywhere else feels foreign.

* female, American J, not ex J

II. Tegan & Sara

Short note about the opening act: I didn’t know anything about Northern State, but they were fun and cute.

Can you see her at all? My camera doesn’t take good pictures in the dark. Or in the red. Or else I wouldn’t have cut Tegan out of this.

My obsession with Tegan & Sara started, yes, when I heard them on the Gray’s Anatomy soundtrack in 2005. I listened to Walking with a Ghost for a few weeks and then listened to So Jealous compulsively all summer long. Consequently I associated all those songs (Take Me Anywhere, I Know, I Know, I Know) with the events of that summer for a long time. But I’ve listened to them enough now that all those connotations are pretty much gone. Oh, I also saw them at the Minnesota Zoo that summer.

So I downloaded most of The Con (it wasn’t released in Europe, but I DID get it for Christmas) last September when it was really appropriate because things with J were not going well and T&S seem to hit the nail on the head with the complexities of relationships. It’s kind of a dark album, I think, but I think it’s better than So Jealous (which don’t get me wrong, I adore).

Point is, I haven’t been listening to The Con in a while because I try generally to use music to keep me in a good mood, and The Con + breakup doesn’t really do that. But it’s an awesome, awesome album, one of my favorites, and it was so much fun to hear it last night. Listening to the album and hearing it live are not at all the same experience. They even sang one of their earlier (pre-So Jealous) songs that I normally don’t care much for, and it was great live. I think I would go listen to these girls every month if I could.

I changed into my “Evening looks I want be free” t-shirt before going to Paris, where I met up with N, a friend of a friend who had just arrived in Paris, in the metro station by the park. We followed the trail of hipsters to Le Trabendo, somewhere in the middle. It was a nice place. N and I had a pretty good view, on the upper level, right behind some short French girls who had all the songs memorized. I mean, I have all the songs memorized, but I know it bothers people if I sing along, so I don’t. These girls didn’t really care. I shouldn’t complain too much though because as far as concert crowds go they were a good lot to be stuck behind.

I took a lot of videos but the quality of my camera is such that they will be enjoyable mostly only for me, to remember being there. So I’ve uploaded three of the best.

So Jealous

You can hear the girls in front of us in this one.

Random banter from Sara

Living Room

They closed with Living Room. The recording is not bad at all! until the bass and drums come in, ha.

Hop a Plane

This is the only song I recorded in full (because it’s so short to start with). It gets pretty fuzzy near the end. Also I think I was holding the camera above my head so I lost Sara at one point.

III. Conclusion

I love love love Tegan & Sara. Paris still has to win me over.

It must be from the orthotics. It’s my butt, thighs, upper back and neck. It feels a little bit like right after my car accident in high school only more places on my body hurt. Anyway it should go away soon.

Yesterday I got my haircut again but it doesn’t really look any different. I just asked the woman to clean it up so I could try to grow it out. Then she blew it dry curly like I asked only she didn’t do it as well as I do it. WEIRD.

Linda and I wasted about three hours on the Place talking yesterday, because it was sunny for once. Today it is going back and forth between sunny and rainy, pretty much directly affecting my mood.

Have decided to brainwash my students with St. Patrick’s Day info tomorrow. Oh well. It’s better than bringing them green beer to drink.

I went to a country music night last night at L and D’s church. It was pretty incredible.

Look what I found! It was hidden in this very small box on the top shelf next to the peanut butter and the tacos in the produits du monde aisle. I gave one to Linda but I don’t actually know if I can eat the other two (I think they are imported from England, why else would they come in threes?). I might just stare at it for the rest of the year.

I bought a dress today:

Interestingly, it is quite difficult to move my arms in it.

Also I bought Feist and Exposions in the Sky albums.