It’s been very tempting these past few days to bail and decide to go back to the U.S. next year. The problem is that going back is not simple and easy. I’d need to tell my boss now (like right now, seriously), to start looking for a job now, and to possibly fly back to the U.S. during my April vacation to interview and visit schools. There would be no back-up plan if I don’t get a job so I’d really need to put my all into it.

So to help me think I thought I’d make a list of pros and cons, even though in the end I think it will be decided by gut feeling. They range from major to tiny.

For going back to the U.S.:
• I want badly to move to the Northeast, mostly Boston. I dream about living in Boston the way I used to dream about living in France.
• I’d be paid better.
• I could start a real career.
• I could have all my stuff with me, get a real apartment, and really settle down.
• I could get a dog sooner.
• I miss my country and my people. I want to make friends easier. I want to be around people who get me. I want to play Time’s Up and know what more than half of the guesses are (not that Time’s Up even exists in the U.S.).
• I could get the HPV vaccine. If I go back to the U.S. when I’m 27, I presumably can’t. (Actually, am considering just shelling out for it and paying out of pocket here in France.)
• I want to settle down, meet someone, and stop wandering. Am I willing to wait till I’m 27 to do that?

For staying another year in France:
• I’ve applied to a couple of conferences and am soon going to start turning my masters report into a paper to submit.
• I want to do an intensive Spanish program this summer so I can teach beginning Spanish if needed. This and the first point mean that my resume will look better next year and I’ll be more hire-able.
• I love my job. I love love love my job. I’m learning things that I can implement next year. I have so much freedom in what I do. Once I start teaching high school there’s no way I’ll have this much freedom.
• I love being with people who are in between two cultures. Sometimes I feel a little isolated among my French friends but I’m sure I’ll feel similarly once I’m back among people who’ve never really lived abroad.
• My feeling is that once I move back this time, I want it to be for good. I want to start building a life somewhere. If I go back now, it’ll feel a little bit like I maybe gave up before I should have. Am I really ready to give up on France?

Well, there it is. I think I know what I’ve decided but I waver so I thought I’d write it all down. Any advice? Anything to add?

I’m thinking about moving. The past couple of weeks I’ve been depressed in Poitiers and, though I love my roommates, I think I need a big change. Poitiers is a walled city but, unlike Avignon, as I’ve been trying to explain to Zandra, a lot of the city is actually outside the walls—the fac, for instance. So I think I should move either to inside the walls or near the fac. I’d be able to join associations, join the orchestra, and walk into town and, if I stay friends with my roommates, make conscious decisions to go hang out with them instead of waiting for people to just show up at the house.

I think I could certainly afford to move, the only question is, when and how to tell them? And do I look for more roommates or do I go to an agency and find a T2 for myself? I’m in Avignon till Thursday so I have time to think about it, and I also have to figure out exactly when I can move since I did get put on the contract and I don’t want to screw over my roommates, who are my only friends in Poitiers (because of the above problems).

This retour has been sort of hard. I think the last one was too so I keep trying to remind myself that every year I’ve been in France, January has only been the beginning.

So I keep waking up pretty bummed out and just wanting to stay in bed. And then I do like an adult and get up and go to work. It really cheers me up. Some of my students are awesome. The first-years had to do presentations in December (on something of their choice related to science, business, or technology) and then I told them to do a portfolio-like project (only portfolio like because it is the only one, though maybe we’ll do another next semester), totally different from anything these little future engineers do in their other classes, and some of them made really awesome things. The girl who presented on pedometers made a brochure in the shape of a big foot. I can’t wait to grade them. I’m even enjoying my TOEIC prep class and my first-year catch-up classes (they’re technically “soutien” classes).

Boris:
mom and dad went to ostin and Nina isn’t even there any more so i don’t see that they had any excuse to leave and leave us alone in the house. Well sure Shary took good care of us but she didn’t stay here all the time and we never had to sleep here all alone before and it was kind of scary. Sure otto is a fierce and loyal sidekick-defender of the house with me but what if some one came and tossed the yellow cigarillo at me and not him?

(A little explanation: Otto has this tennis-ball-material toy in the shape of long column, which he loves to have thrown at his face so he can catch it in his mouth. He’s really good at it. Boris runs away if you throw it at him. Reminder: Boris is 20 pounds bigger than his little brother.)

Otto:
mom and dad came home and after all their heinosity in leaving us here alone in the cold sunroom with just food and water and toys and soft things to lay on and Shary to visit us three times a day they had the nerve to give us baths. well dad gave us baths cuz mom is still gimpy on her purple foot that Bobo gave her last week. at least she let me play with the light beams that come off of the shiny thing on her wrist. but she doesn’t know how many times i had to scare off burglars while she was gone so she is taking me for granted and all we want is to be taken to Petco

Mostly about talking about money in France. Which is to say, I’ve made the mistake of doing it. I told my roommates my salary because we were talking about the CAF. And my female roommate has become, how should I say… chiante about it. Basically, she likes to joke around, and a few too many times now it’s taken the form of joking about how little I work, how lazy I am, and how rich I am. Now I may be being over-sensitive but I find this really, really annoying, especially because I love my job and take it very seriously.

But also because I’m not rich. I make a salary that I think is perfectly comfortable for me at this point in my life. I make more than an assistant and more than a lecteur. My rent is incredibly low. I don’t have a car to pay for. I finally make enough money to save some and spend some. And I have student loans to repay.

The second time I made the mistake of mentioning my salary I was eating dinner with the roommates (minus Marie) and a couple of friends. One of them (who I like very much in general) asked me my salary and I hesitated but in the end I said it. At which point she said, “Wow, that’s a lot, my mom makes less than that.” Then our Slovak friend (who is not only not French but also older than the rest of us) finally pointed out that it’s actually not that much money. For one thing, I make less than the other teachers (which is perfectly normal), so my salary can’t be extravagant by French standards for the qualifications I’m supposed to have. I just don’t get it. My plan is to stop talking about money with French people. But then, no one American has ever asked me how much money I make, as far as I can remember. Maybe they have and I don’t remember because they weren’t jerks about it afterward.

(I should say, I’m perfectly aware that I might be having this experience just because of the age and kind of people I hang out with. Marie makes less than an assistant as far as I can tell, so to her earning enough to pay taxes is apparently extravagant.)

Just venting about a phenomenon that is starting to seriously confuse me.

My parents are coming to France to visit in March (yay!). So far I’ve managed to see them in France every year I’ve spent in France and last year I even saw them twice.

Since there is not a whoooole lot to do in Poitiers we are planning to rent a car and go just a little farther south of here to the area around Bordeaux. I’m hoping we can squeeze in a visit to the Dune de Pyla. But we’re mostly interested in wine-tasting. Here’s where I need help. March is totally the off-season and it’s making vacation research difficult. I’m willing to make some calls but I don’t even really know where to start. Have any of you readers out there ever done this? Here is what my dad and I found poking around on the internet:

http://www.saint-emilion-tourisme.com/uk/groupes-seminaires.html?idcat=12

But I think that tour is for groups and there will only be three of us.

and

http://www.viator.com/tours/Bordeaux/Bordeaux-Vineyards-Wine-Tasting-Half-Day-Trip/d468-2915CT

which looks a little more promising.

We’re mostly interested in wine and small towns rather than the city of Bordeaux though we will probably stop there at some point, and we’ll probably need to fill two days. Does anyone have any advice on this? (Also, my parents need the tours to be available in English.) Has anyone traveled around there and found anything (hotels, vineyards, anything really) to recommend?

Am back in France. Thanks to my dad’s award miles I flew first class on my long trip back yesterday/today. I have to say it completely changes flying. It makes it fun again! I felt kind of dumb not knowing where the tray table was or how to operate the seat, when the family of kids next to me seemed to know it as second nature. I had a yummy lunch and a yummy dinner with an ice cream sundae for desert. Everything’s in glass dishes! And the flight attendants actually have time for you! It was weirdly wonderful. I think I probably slept around 4 hours (I never keep track on planes because it just stresses me out) and the seat and blanket were soooo comfy. I don’t know how I’m ever going to go back to coach. (Although I think it wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t always doing it alone.) Also I watched I Love You, Man=best airplane movie ever. It was really funny. Also I was out of the airport within a half hour of stepping off the plane. Unfortunately I still had to wait in the cold at Montparnasse for about an hour because my plane was late enough that I missed the early train. After being in first class I couldn’t bring myself to get on the RER with my fifty-pound bag, violin, and backpack (although actually I remembered that it was RER + metro and that’s what dissuaded me), so I shelled out for a cab, which was actually under 50 euros, if anyone wants to know for future reference.

So I’m back, I rearranged my room, put my new 500-thread-count sheet on the bed (AMAZING, think I need a slightly better couette to go with it), took a shower (missing American plumbing…), napped, and watched Pride and Prejudice (the short one) with Marie. Tomorrow afternoon I have to go to school to prepare my classes and Wednesday at 8 am it’s back to the grind for two weeks, until exams when I have almost an entire week free except for Friday.