Hello dear neglected blog. Sometimes I get so behind in my writing that I feel as though I could never catch up, so let's begin with the present and see where that takes us, shall we? I've been in something of an incubatory phase this past year. There are times when I feel like I am drifting, in a constant state of becoming- becoming what? I haven't the slightest idea, but I suppose that's the essence of life. We are never stagnant. Always moving from one phase to the next with no actual goal at the end of it. Becoming is being. Never really waking as exactly the same person we were the day before. It reminds me of an IMAX science movie my Middle School class went to see; for some reason throughout all these years one piece of information from that film has stuck with me: each day the top layer of your eye (as do all the cells in your body over time really) renews itself and upon waking, you literally see the world with new eyes. This constant renewal of our physical being offers boundless hope if we realize that our more ethereal selves are just as ( if not more so) plastic.
Anyway, the reason I finally decided to sit down and write, besides the fact that writing is incredibly therapeutic to me, is that I've been accepted into graduate school in Lyon to study Linguistics. A new phase is on the horizon once more. I am sure this will be another emotional upheaval, but I crave growth and change and, of course, travel! So it is with joy that I open my new eyes to the future. Everything has finally lined up for this to work. I've got a job that will only last through the summer here in the US, two jobs and a place to live in Lyon, as well as of course a great guy waiting for and supporting me across the wide water. There is much to do and many goodbyes to be said, so I will leave this space for the present and hopefully be back here again soon.
Peace!
dimanche 7 juillet 2013
lundi 12 mars 2012
...Oops?
Did I just drink some French wine and cut off the majority of my hair...? Mayyyybe ;) It grows back, right?
lundi 23 janvier 2012
Still alive and kickin'
The worst part about falling off the wagon with this blog is that it is so hard to get back into keeping it going... So many amazing and, let's face it, a few irritating things have happened since I last posted that I honestly don't even know where to start now. Grr. After so many technology problems, I finally borrowed a computer from the school which I will have to return very shortly. While I do have internet access, however, I would like to keep this blog going and hopefully I can motivate myself to make it a priority.
Teaching has actually been going better than I had expected; yes, of course I have had rough patches and a rather long learning curve since I came into this thing hoping that charisma and actual teaching experience are more or less synonymous and that I can get away with having one and not the other. Despite my natural discomfort and lack of in-born talent when it comes to public speaking, for some reason I have been more at ease with these kids than is generally the case and have been able to avoid my natural deer in the headlights reaction.I think that coming into this thing slightly terrified and expecting the worst actually saved me since it really hasn't been as horrible as I expected.Of course I am burdened with the typical stereotypical adolscent, who just sits there looking bored or pretends to be way too cool to broaden his horizons and learn about another culture, but I also have some great kids who are well behaved and actually interested. All in all this has been a really good experience and I have even sent in the paperwork to stay another year. We shall see how this goes.
I think that I will post my other adventures separately so that I can get into at least a little detail. It's been so long now that that may not be the simplest thing to do, but it's all good in the end.
Teaching has actually been going better than I had expected; yes, of course I have had rough patches and a rather long learning curve since I came into this thing hoping that charisma and actual teaching experience are more or less synonymous and that I can get away with having one and not the other. Despite my natural discomfort and lack of in-born talent when it comes to public speaking, for some reason I have been more at ease with these kids than is generally the case and have been able to avoid my natural deer in the headlights reaction.I think that coming into this thing slightly terrified and expecting the worst actually saved me since it really hasn't been as horrible as I expected.Of course I am burdened with the typical stereotypical adolscent, who just sits there looking bored or pretends to be way too cool to broaden his horizons and learn about another culture, but I also have some great kids who are well behaved and actually interested. All in all this has been a really good experience and I have even sent in the paperwork to stay another year. We shall see how this goes.
I think that I will post my other adventures separately so that I can get into at least a little detail. It's been so long now that that may not be the simplest thing to do, but it's all good in the end.
samedi 26 novembre 2011
An American Cabaret in France?
A few weeks ago (I really have no sense of time anymore so this is just an approximate guess), the other assistants and myself were invited to go to the cabaret. Since I had never been previously, I figured why not. Turns out the entire thing was in English and the performers were actually American. Apparently, they were trying to promote a more... voluptuous female body image, which don't get me wrong I am all for. I am so so tired of the being told that the ideal modern woman has the body of a 12 year old boy. Women are curvy end of story. In my opinion health is the greatest beauty of all-neither too fat nor too thin. But I digress. So this was an American cabaret and some of the performers were rather overweight, that combined with an act centered around KFC was not exactly what I had been hoping for as probably the only American in the crowd. The thing about living abroad is that you want to present the good parts of your culture to the world and the thing about being American is that, unfortunately, the most widely circulated cultural tender is printed on bills a bit unflattering. This being pretty much the only view that the French (and probably most of the world) see of us, I have to be a bit critical and wish that Americans show a different view of our culture to the rest of the world. Sure American pop culture is horrible and this country has done some dispicable things, none of that should be excused, but those should not be the ONLY things exported. The US has a lot of great things about it and I think a more balanced view should be presented to the world. That's all.
mardi 8 novembre 2011
Cursed?
I have run into a long string of events that have served to convince me that I have run out of luck. Suffice it to say that for the moment my computer is completely dead and since I had to buy new glasses it will be a while until I can buy a new one. I will hopefully one day be able to catch up with this blog since so many lovely things have happened, but it might not be for a while. Who knows, perhaps sooner than later.
lundi 17 octobre 2011
The Weirder Side of Adventuring
In some ways I still have the immortality complex that kept me company the greater part of my teenage years. Fortunately, I also generally have incredibly good luck, which makes for some pretty fantastic adventures that you should not try at home and from which I will probably eventually die.
Being the bibliophile that I am, one of the first things I did when getting to know this town was check out the bookstores. Now things here close pretty balls ass early, which you'd think I'd be used to given my previous habitat, but alas in some ways I am not. So I was doing my usual wandering looking for all that is awesome when I saw a bookstore that was still open or so I thought. Inside a couple people were drinking wine together and since I am still not quite used to only speaking French, I tried to avoid having too much conversation with them. That doesn't fly so high in this country since apparently I am a fabulously interesting and exotic person. So we all got to talking and drinking wine and trying to choose which books to buy and in the end they offered to drive me home, so I figured fuck it why not. Well, the drive home turned into dinner. I loooove French dinners; it's not just the food either but the conversation tends toward a more intellectual bent that suits my fancy perfectly and this one was no exception given that 3 of the 5 people there had their doctorate in some interesting field. Although they did tend to have some preconceptions about Americans, I think I proved to them at least in some small way that we don't all fit the stereotypes. I am glad to be here to share the good parts of my culture with these folks. Unfortunately, the wine kept flowing and I was soo drunk by the end that I was speaking some gibberish language neither French nor English and am really surprised that anyone understood me at all, I pretty much had to be supported to get down the stairs, and with the tortuous roads, my not all that sober driver, and the speed at which he was driving I had to do my best not to be sick in the car. When we finally got back to my place after dropping off the others, I think the poor bastard thought I had lost my wits completely and would take him to bed for the night since he kept trying to kiss me in a very un-bise-like way. Fortunately, I am an expert at man-repelling and managed to squeeze inside alone, puke a whole lot and pass out.
The next day I met the other assistants who work here-great people! I really do adore them. Then I had dinner with some assistants who also live in Besançon but don't teach here at my lycée. Apart from a terrible time trying to figure out how we should split our bill and the realization that math is one of the things quickly forgotten after finishing school, the dinner was not all that eventful though it was nice to meet other assistants here and share those awkward expat moments. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am profoundly directionally challenged and could get lost in my own backyard, so what did I do coming back from dinner but get terribly terribly turned around. As I was wandering the streets near the witching hour, I found a really amazing graveyard whose creaky gate just happened to be unlocked. It was just much too tempting to avoid so I wandered around the mausoleums and monuments to the departed. I wish it hadn't been so dark so that I could read the gravestones but beggars can't be choosers and graveyards during the day and when you actually know where you are situated on this earth just don't have the same mystical aura to them at all. One of the most unpleasant things about being lost is that you lose many of the creature comforts to which you are used and have, for example, to piss in some random woods that may or may not be someone's yard (not that I am speaking from example or anything...;) ). Eventually, I did get home and realize that traipsing around for miles and miles in the middle of the night is a great cure for jet lag.
N.B. I am still trying to get caught up with this blog so these events are bit old in the telling, but nothing I can do about that.
Being the bibliophile that I am, one of the first things I did when getting to know this town was check out the bookstores. Now things here close pretty balls ass early, which you'd think I'd be used to given my previous habitat, but alas in some ways I am not. So I was doing my usual wandering looking for all that is awesome when I saw a bookstore that was still open or so I thought. Inside a couple people were drinking wine together and since I am still not quite used to only speaking French, I tried to avoid having too much conversation with them. That doesn't fly so high in this country since apparently I am a fabulously interesting and exotic person. So we all got to talking and drinking wine and trying to choose which books to buy and in the end they offered to drive me home, so I figured fuck it why not. Well, the drive home turned into dinner. I loooove French dinners; it's not just the food either but the conversation tends toward a more intellectual bent that suits my fancy perfectly and this one was no exception given that 3 of the 5 people there had their doctorate in some interesting field. Although they did tend to have some preconceptions about Americans, I think I proved to them at least in some small way that we don't all fit the stereotypes. I am glad to be here to share the good parts of my culture with these folks. Unfortunately, the wine kept flowing and I was soo drunk by the end that I was speaking some gibberish language neither French nor English and am really surprised that anyone understood me at all, I pretty much had to be supported to get down the stairs, and with the tortuous roads, my not all that sober driver, and the speed at which he was driving I had to do my best not to be sick in the car. When we finally got back to my place after dropping off the others, I think the poor bastard thought I had lost my wits completely and would take him to bed for the night since he kept trying to kiss me in a very un-bise-like way. Fortunately, I am an expert at man-repelling and managed to squeeze inside alone, puke a whole lot and pass out.
The next day I met the other assistants who work here-great people! I really do adore them. Then I had dinner with some assistants who also live in Besançon but don't teach here at my lycée. Apart from a terrible time trying to figure out how we should split our bill and the realization that math is one of the things quickly forgotten after finishing school, the dinner was not all that eventful though it was nice to meet other assistants here and share those awkward expat moments. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am profoundly directionally challenged and could get lost in my own backyard, so what did I do coming back from dinner but get terribly terribly turned around. As I was wandering the streets near the witching hour, I found a really amazing graveyard whose creaky gate just happened to be unlocked. It was just much too tempting to avoid so I wandered around the mausoleums and monuments to the departed. I wish it hadn't been so dark so that I could read the gravestones but beggars can't be choosers and graveyards during the day and when you actually know where you are situated on this earth just don't have the same mystical aura to them at all. One of the most unpleasant things about being lost is that you lose many of the creature comforts to which you are used and have, for example, to piss in some random woods that may or may not be someone's yard (not that I am speaking from example or anything...;) ). Eventually, I did get home and realize that traipsing around for miles and miles in the middle of the night is a great cure for jet lag.
N.B. I am still trying to get caught up with this blog so these events are bit old in the telling, but nothing I can do about that.
jeudi 13 octobre 2011
Recap of first few days in Besançon
Hello lovely lovely people! I finally have a somewhat reliable internet connection in my room thanks to the best neighbor I have ever had who is sharing his with me. I feel like so much has happened since I last wrote that I don't know how I shall I record it all and I may have to chop this into several separate blogs so as not to be too overwhelming.
The journey here was absolutely exhausting and involved almost every mode of human transportation possible. I ended up having to leave CA at about 3am to drive 3 hrs to Sacramento to catch my flight, then it was on to Seattle, then Iceland, then Paris, which I didn't get to see at all, and then a harrowing and incredibly exhausting train ride to Besançon where one of the teachers picked me up and took me to his house for a quick late night omelette. Needless to say I was closer to the dead than the living the first few days here. At this particular lycée, they've decided for some ungodly reason to teach subjects other than language in languages other than the students' mother tongue, which given the level of English I have seen these students speaking, seems like a really awful idea, but whatevs. The next day was spent with one of these teachers. She is a math teachers who teaches in English and she is absolutely gorgeous in that French-I-don't-need-to-own-a-hairbrush-to-be-stunning kind of way. Well she took me around for my first view of Besançon and many of its sites. Absolutely charming town! Afterwards we had lunch chez elle surrounded by her 4 small children (I have rather a penchant for French children) and her equally handsome "compagnon" (which translated to super-sexy-guy-I-live-and-make-tons-of-babies-with. Yes, it does don't argue with me) She let me use her computer so that I could contact my family for the first time since I've been here and then, since the rules of her house are to relax completely Sunday afternoons, I took a nice long rest in her hammock as the sun shone down on my through all kinds of verdant goodness. Lovely! Afterwards, we headed to her mom's house for one of the best inventions on the face of the planet CRÊPESSSSS. Her mom apparently is a playwrite or some shit like that and is a very charismatic personality whose company I very much enjoyed AND her grandmother is the cutest little old lady I think I have ever seen. Bless her heart she thought I was French.
So, in a very quick nutshell those were my first few days here.
The journey here was absolutely exhausting and involved almost every mode of human transportation possible. I ended up having to leave CA at about 3am to drive 3 hrs to Sacramento to catch my flight, then it was on to Seattle, then Iceland, then Paris, which I didn't get to see at all, and then a harrowing and incredibly exhausting train ride to Besançon where one of the teachers picked me up and took me to his house for a quick late night omelette. Needless to say I was closer to the dead than the living the first few days here. At this particular lycée, they've decided for some ungodly reason to teach subjects other than language in languages other than the students' mother tongue, which given the level of English I have seen these students speaking, seems like a really awful idea, but whatevs. The next day was spent with one of these teachers. She is a math teachers who teaches in English and she is absolutely gorgeous in that French-I-don't-need-to-own-a-hairbrush-to-be-stunning kind of way. Well she took me around for my first view of Besançon and many of its sites. Absolutely charming town! Afterwards we had lunch chez elle surrounded by her 4 small children (I have rather a penchant for French children) and her equally handsome "compagnon" (which translated to super-sexy-guy-I-live-and-make-tons-of-babies-with. Yes, it does don't argue with me) She let me use her computer so that I could contact my family for the first time since I've been here and then, since the rules of her house are to relax completely Sunday afternoons, I took a nice long rest in her hammock as the sun shone down on my through all kinds of verdant goodness. Lovely! Afterwards, we headed to her mom's house for one of the best inventions on the face of the planet CRÊPESSSSS. Her mom apparently is a playwrite or some shit like that and is a very charismatic personality whose company I very much enjoyed AND her grandmother is the cutest little old lady I think I have ever seen. Bless her heart she thought I was French.
So, in a very quick nutshell those were my first few days here.
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