Being Broke in France

This summer has, despite the constant inundation, been lovely and I'll have to post separate articles about the things I've been up to, for this one has a much less noble cause and sometimes we must start from the bottom and work our way up. I've had trouble finding work this summer since my main draw (preying on unsuspecting children needing to learn English), has proved a bit dry. I have yet to figure out exactly what French children do during the summer, but I am forced to believe that, like everyone here, they take their vacationing very seriously (really it's like work!), which means no prepping for the school year. There might be kids somewhere here wanting to avoid the beach and  improve their linguistic prowesse, but I have yet to find the cranny in which they hide. Anyway, there are summer camps (like some that shall remain nameless in case I decide to work there one day ;)  which purport to be  like taking a trip the US without leaving France, but after perusual of their website appear to be places where a bunch of kids shack up together in an old French estate and play on the computer. As an addendum: I actually have no idea what kids do at these places, but I am still going to judge them harshly for what appears to be their false advertising and crappy internet pictures), to which I probably should have applied had I  been more on the ball and less lazy. I just thought that living on pasta and an ever growing list of ccrushed dreams would be a more pleasant experience. I've cleaned up my act a bit recently though and have been applying like mad to anything that crosses my path; it would be nice to go home for Christmas and avoid all the "so I bet this meal is better than all that Mcdonald's that you eat at home" ignorant discussions that spending any significant amount of time with French people tend to bring about. The problem with this is that I am still slightly terrified of speaking on the phone with professionals- seriously I can't stand these conversations even in English, but their being in French just brings out an entirely different éventail of insecurities. Despite all that, theys have gone pretty dang well and while I still don't have an actual job for the month of August, hopefully I'm getting over this fear a little bit. There's probably a silver lining hiding around one of the corners of this bastard.

It's funny, I thought briefly about consecrating this article to tips on how to survive here on a low income and I imagined all the happy people who would come and read it and go away with bright smiles and hope, but yeah who are we kidding? I don't want to brag or anything, but I am just really fucking good at being poor. It's become a facet of my being and trying to enumerate the steps to  pull it off is like trying to explain how to be born a brunette. That said, maybe I will post some advice on here someday and help out a bunch of poor saps who think that moving to France is a splendid idea (which it totally is!!). Just don't keep your hopes up.

Watching Paint Dry

Sometimes I start a thousand things passionately all at once and then never finish any of them. It's a glorious  symphony missing it's finale, a bright storm without a rainbow Lately, that's been my state of mind- like I seriously have a whole bunch of blog drafts saved on here that are half shadows of interesting things, and you know I would be surprised if this one survives its journey to the web. This is why I can speak particles of numerous languages, but have only implanted an entire grammar of two into my brain. There are just far too many things in this world that fascinate me and so very little time; well, that's often the reason for projects begun and left as drafts, but recently there is some kind of sinister disinterest blazing it's way into me, a slow devouring thing that leads me to seek but never find. Sometimes I wonder if I've just diverged too far off the intended trajectory of my life (does that even exist??? or are we all just wandering eyeless and confused grasping at whatever we bump into) and that every step I take leads even farther off that path. The journey is more important than the destination, but what do we do when the journey is just kind of beige and uninteresting? Perhaps while I'm in France living the starving part, I will add in artist to make life survivable. If I can find a way out of this blandness, that is. Well, that was a lot of rambling for May evening, but well these things must find their way out from time to time.

This past year briefly

To summarize events since my last visit here: I spent a year scraping by in the US trying to save up enough money to go to grad school here in France. I worked for Greenpeace (lovely people and a good way to come out of one's shell, but I honestly don't have enough of a "salesman" personality to make that sort of thing a viable option), though I am keeping the non-profit door open for the future. Then I got a job taking care of an invalid woman's dogs. To be completely frank, this lady was batshit crazy; I will remark though that she presents a good lesson in the need for mental activity. It was clear to me that she was very intelligent, but being bedridden, she felt the need to create drama where there was none. Anyway, to make a long story short, I am glad that's over! I then worked for a childcare company, which was actually not all that bad- mainly because I was with some great people and not left alone with the barbarian horde.  I taught French to young American children, and finally found employment at a doggy darcare surrounded by a group of some of the coolest hounds I've known. Despite the times that I found myself a bit bored, I really enjoyed working with these animals. Their joie de vivre really puts the kibosh on all our human cynicism and being surrounded by 50 dogs is definitely a unique experience.

After all that, I had to take a horribly stressful trip to LA to get my French visa. Before leaving, I had this sens of dread and foreboding, which turned out to be well-founded. I left Denver, taking the bus to the airport (since I had no car) and arrived in LA safe and sound. I went to the rental car place, stood in line forfriggin (hail to the infix)  ever and then went to check into the hotel. Realizing that all that had taken much longer than planned and wanting to take advantage of the two short days I would spend in this city, I found the closest beach- a beach I shall call The Beach of Disappointment and watched the trash wash up along the shore. Trying to ignore how awful and destructive humanity is, I watched the sunset and then headed off to pick up a friend from the airport since he too had to make the self-same visa trek and we decided to split the costs.

The next day, we got up early to head to the French consulate. My friend had just about as much bad luck as I did and didn't get his documents in the mail in time, so decided, plane tickets being expensive to change, to head out to Cali and enjoy the sun anyway. My visa appointment was a total disaster! My visa  was refused because they would neither accept my letter of acceptance from the school nor the fact that I would be working to support myself in France during my stay. I was, needless to stay, devestated after all the hard work and sacrifice I had made to finally further my education. But life goes on and so must we, so my friend and I headed out to Santa Monica to have lunch with a friend I hadn't seen since my days palling around with musical folk at the recording studio in Weed. Though slightly awkward, it was quite nice to see her again and talk to some positive people after my recent disappointment. We then parted ways and my friend and I went of to the beach for a short swim before going back to the airport. The sea is a great place to drown your sorrows and I tried to let the waves sweep them away. I so love the sea and there is something so cleansing about swimming in that salty water. Unfortunately, since we had already checked out of the hotel, I had no way to wash so I just hopped on the plane salt-clad (which honestly wasn't that bad) and homeward bound.

Luckily, this story does not end here. Shortly thereafter, I received an email from CampusFrance inquiring how things were going and I recounting my tale of woes. There are some very dedicated people working there who contacted the French Embassy to very politely rip them a new one, which means that they accepted their error about my letter of acceptance. I still had to prove that I had enough income BEFORE leaving the US to pay for my stay in France. I got around this by withdrawing $2000 from my account and depositing it into my dad's and having him produce a letter saying that he would be sending my money each month (I come from a very poor family, so no one had enough money to do this in the first place). I had to spend a fortune to change my original plane ticket, but I eventually arrived in France- I got here rather broke, but it's all good since I have become quite good at living on nothing and a dash of dreams.

So there you have it. A brief summary of my year back in the US. Much time was spent with my wonderful family and it's been hard being separated from them, but I needed to give an eye for knowledge so here we are.