48 posts from 2007

12.19.07

Holy Geeze. . .

Well, it is 8h58 Paris time and I am sitting calmly, coolly, collectedly in terminal one, satellite 5 of the Charles de Gaulle International Airport.  My flight leaves at noon and boarding begins at 11h00.  I went to bed around 2h00 this morning, awoke at 6h00 to shower, have breakfast and gather last-minute things, and finally left my apartment at 7h12.  I had to drop a letter in the mailbox for Tanya and then I was off.  I managed to fit everything in one large suitcase, one backpack and my big shoulder bag.  My suitcase weighs about 20lbs and the limit per checked on item is 50lbs.  I dragged my suitcase the three or so blocks in the dark early morning to the Cambronne metro stop, and while 20lbs may not sound like a lot, when you are dragging it on crooked Parisian sidewalks, it starts to weigh on your arm.  Halfway between my apartment and the metro stop, maybe even closer to home, I realized that I had forgotten my exercise ring that I use every night before going to bed.  Without baggage in tow, it would have taken me not five minutes to run home, grab it and return, but with my suitcase there was no way.  I decided that instead of feeling frustrated or worried about it, I would simply buy a new one when I’m home.  Then I’ll have two.  

I took line 6 from Cambronne to Denfert-something something.  There I changed for the RER B, which took me all the way to the airport.  I spent a little over one hour getting from Paris to the airport.  I know it might seem a little insane to have left five hours before my flight, but with the holidays and the fact that I’m flying international, I wanted to be sure that I could take my time and not stress out during my trip.  Indeed, I have been able to do just that.  From the REB B station at Charles de Gaulle, I hopped on a free tramway that took me to terminal one.  I should mention that last night I was feeling quite anxious because though I was pretty sure that my flight would leave from terminal one, I wasn’t positive.  I was also concerned that I would have to buy my metro ticket (a 8E20 because of how far I had to go) with my bankcard if the machine didn’t take money and there was no one at the station in person.  It was a concern because with all of the holiday presents I bought within the past two days, I may have hit the limit on card.  In the end, there was someone at Cambronne and I was able to pay cash.  I was right about CDG terminal one.  Everything was easy to find and to get to.  There were virtually no lines at check in or security.  Everyone has been incredibly friendly (it might help that I greet them with a smile and politeness).  And so here I am with two hours to go before I board my plane, completely stress-free, amazed at how easy this all was.  There are so many little details to pay attention to when traveling, but with every trip I * knock on wood * seem to get better and better at it.  It makes me feel like a real grown up type person!

The past two days have been hectic in a really good way.  Over the weekend I spent most of my time walking, trying to figure out Christmas presents and just hanging out.  Monday I had more Christmas shopping to do, which turned into three hours in the freezing cold (right, that was the other thing I did this weekend – I tried to keep warm!), but I had put on quite a lot of layers.  Monday evening was Tanya’s birthday dinner, so I had a deadline for getting stuff done.  She invited me, Whitney, Sarah, Mar, Gwenn, Ikram, Anne-Sophie (Whitney’s friend) and two other friends of Whitney’s that I didn’t know.  We met up at Montparnasse and headed to a little hole-in-the-wall bistro where Tanya was waiting for us, the table set with party favors for us all.  Ikram didn’t show up and we couldn’t get a hold of her, which was strange.  The evening was really nice.  Everyone was in good spirits and glowing.  It is Mar’s six-month anniversary in Paris and she seems to be doing really well.  It was nice to see her because we hadn’t hung out in a while.  It was also nice to see Sarah before taking off.  She and Tanya and I laughed about our jobs and we all went on about how we can’t believe that three months are already over.  We all agreed that we have had a really solid first three months and that the next six will prove to be even better.  The food was great – decent portions, not too expensive, typical bistro-fare.  I can’t believe I’d never eaten there before and we all agreed that we need to go back there again after winter break.  As the evening wound down, people headed out and Tanya and I hung around the restaurant to make sure the bill was paid.  It was nice to have a little time with just her – the last two standing.  She left yesterday and hasn’t yet bought her return ticket for January.

Yesterday was my last day for holiday shopping and, if you can believe it (!), I had not finished my shopping.  Luckily I only had a few things left, so I wasn’t too worried.  One of my classes had invited me out for lunch with them and though I really wanted to go (I was seriously touched that they invited me), it just wasn’t feasible.  They were eating in St. Quentin and it would have cost 8E20 to get there, 8E20 to get back, and it would have taken me a good hour each way too.  I sent them a message through one of the students via e-mail telling them how sorry I was to not be with them.  I wrote it in French because this particular class is always nagging me to speak French and on the very rare occasions that I do, they get a huge kick out of it.  So, instead of going to eat with them, I had a leisurely, late, breakfast at the apartment, took pictures of it that I will eventually post and finally got dressed to do my last bit of shopping.

I ended up walking all the way to the Louvre, which is about an hour on foot from where I live.  It wasn’t as cold as it has been and with a tank top, long-sleeved tee shirt, two hoodies, winter coat, scarf, tights, and jeans, it was actually quite invigorating to be out.  I could have taken a shorter route to get there, but instead I walked up Boulevard de Grenelle and then along the Seine.  The sky was clear and blue and I zoned in and out as I walked, thinking simply how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be where I am this year.  It just keeps blowing my mind again and again and I sometimes don’t even believe that it’s real.  I found what I needed by the Louvre and headed back through the 7th arrondissement, taking Rue Grenelle.  I turned off of Rue de Grenelle and cut through to another street (I’m blanking on the name) that ends at Boulevard de Grenelle.  There you cross Boulevard de Grenelle by passing under the line six and on the other side is where Rue de Commerce begins.  On the corner of Rue de Commerce and Bouvelard to Grenelle is Monoprix.  I decided to stop in Monoprix to pick up some holiday cards.  I also was considering trying to find one last thing, so I wandered along Rue de Commerce but didn’t find anything.  By this time it was getting on 4PM and I knew that I had yet to get organized back at the apartment.  Before heading home, however, I stopped at the atm to get some cash and then decided to pop into H&M.  It’s been quite some time since I’ve bought myself any clothing and I wanted some sort of a sweater/cardigan that I could wear on the airplane instead of my old, dirty hoodie.  I actually had fun in H&M and tried on a few things.  In the end I couldn’t decide between two things, so I got both.  I figure if I change my mind about them, I can always give them to someone else.  Finally after a good three to four hours of running around, I headed back to the apartment.

In addition to packing, last night I had to (and wanted to) go to Lise’s violin recital.  Jacqueline asked me to since she was working, but I was happy to go regardless.  Lise got home a little after I did and we hung out for a while, playing cards, talking about language, laughing about who knows what until finally we forced ourselves to get some work done – she had math homework and I had vacuuming, straightening and packing to do.  Then it was time for “Top Model,” and luckily we had gotten enough done that we could take the time to watch it.  Then we had dinner, quickly got dressed and headed out to her concert.  The recital was quite fun and reminded me of my days in choir.  The concert started with the youngest kids who were adorable.  Lise was in the middle and came to sit next to me after she was done playing.  We stayed until the end, which was good because there was an incredibly impressive girl who played last.  It ended at about 10PM and we wandered home, taking a few pictures along the way.  By the time we got home it was 10:20 so Lise went right to bed and I went back to packing and such.  It didn’t actually take me until 2AM to pack, but I putzed around my room, had some tea, couldn’t sleep and finally conked out for a little while.

Et voila, voila.  Here I am.  It is now 9h30.  I fly from here to Washington D.C. where I have a layover of two hours, I believe.  I think that I might have to pass through customs when I arrive there, so it’s good that I have time between the flights.  Then from there it’s a hop, skip and a jump to Bradley in Connecticut and then twenty-thirty minutes until I am home.  I am in such a state of disbelief right now that I cannot really find the words to express it.  Three months have honestly just flown by and the majority of my time here so far has been positive, uplifting, exciting and full.  I feel happier here than I think I’ve been in a while and I really am so grateful that this year fell in my lap the way it did.  At the same time I am unbelievably excited to be going home.  I already have a full schedule that involves seeing all of the most important people who are there and * knock on some more wood * I have a feeling that my plans there are all going to fall into place nicely.  Tonight I’ll get to see my family and Eliz.  Tomorrow I am heading to Worcester to pop into South High and to see Tucker.  This weekend is my parents’ annual holiday party, which is always a highlight of the holiday season.  The following week there is the YRUU reunion, which should be interesting.  

Coming back to France is also an exciting thought.  When I was living in Dijon I counted down the days until Christmas break, which I have been doing here as well.  However, when I went home for Christmas from Dijon, I was just at the beginning of my time there and still struggling with the language, feeling alone, missing my friends like mad, all of which amounted to home being a relief from a huge challenge that I had given myself.  I went back to France on January 1, 2005 that year and spent New Years Eve home packing.  Well, to be more accurate I spent it staring at my suitcase, then crying a little, then staring some more, etc.  I was so miserable to be leaving home and I hadn’t quite realized it until I sat down to pack.  I felt as though I was leaving everything to go back to nothing and I knew that I had to go.  In the end, obviously, I was proud and happy and fulfilled by my experiences in Dijon, the hard ones as much, if not more, than the easy ones, but it was a real that really challenged me in a lot of ways.  This year in Paris has provided some challenges sure – the bank was a pain in the ass (like usual), paperwork was a little stressful, my job can be irritating at times – but it is not challenging in the same ways.  Perhaps last time was more about sheer survival and this time is more about relaxing, letting go, being grateful, acting my age and learning to appreciate the opportunities that are in front of me, be they as simple as a walk along the Seine or a trip to Strasbourg for a cultural experience.  I am continually surprised at how much easier I find things like socializing with people my own age and interacting with strangers.  I am impressed by the social network that I have formed and I am thrilled that Eliz and Heather are actually coming to visit when I get back.  In December 2004 I was so excited to leave France and in January 2005 I was scared and overwhelmed coming back to France.  Three years later I am leaving France equally as excited as I was last time, though perhaps in a different way, but in January 2008 I will be overjoyed to return.

Still 12.20.07

It is now 3:53PM Eastern Standard Time, which means that in Paris it is . . . 9:53PM, which means that I have been traveling now for . . . what, fifteen hours?  And I’m not done yet.  My next flight boards in about an hour and I’ve already been sitting here at the gate for at least a half hour.  Luckily there is a friendly lady sitting next to me, so we chatted a bit.  I also got some food.  Oh, the flight information just went up.  The flight leaves at 5:25PM EST, will be one hour and eighteen minutes long and we will travel a total of 500 miles.  As I anxiously waiting for my first flight to get to Dulles, I watched the little plane on the television screen map fly right over Longmeadow.  That was a long, long flight.  For some reason, in my head it should have only taken six hours to get from there to here.  Maybe it was six hours from Boston to Paris or something, but apparently flying from Paris to Washington DC takes a good seven hours and fifty-five minutes.  Yes, almost eight hours sitting not in a window seat, bored out of my mind and drifting very uncomfortably in and out of sleep.  There was a child behind me who kept kicking my seat and her toddler brother was across the way from her crying and being really difficult from time to time.  Eventually the girl to my left and I started chatting and that was a nice way to pass the time.  We commiserated about the length of the flight and how we just wanted to be home.  From DC she is heading to Boston, so like me, she has another leg of her journey to get through.

When we landed we were instructed to follow the purple arrows for transfer flights.  We first had to stand in a very long line to go through customs.  The line moved quickly enough and the girl from the plane, another girl in front of us, also coming from Paris, and I chatted a bit to pass the time.  I had filled out the declaration form on the plane and wasn’t sure if I should bother declaring anything.  Obviously I’m bringing home presents, so I had stuff to write down.  I had a decent estimate for the cost of everything, but I certainly didn’t have recites handy.  I decided that the chances of them actually wanting to see recites or wanting to even see the stuff I brought were slim, so I wrote down most of what I was bringing.  The guy who checked my passport and declaration form actually thanked me for having filled it out, so I felt good about my decision.  Then I had to go pick up my suitcase to re-check it and pass through security yet again.  Passing through security went quickly enough, but was kind of irritating since I was juggling my backpack, shoulder bag, winter coat (that I was too hot to wear), passport, and boarding pass.  Additionally I wanted to take all of my jewelry off just in case, was required to take my laptop out of my backpack and had to take my shoes off.  I filled up three of the plastic bins with my belongings.  But I was not in a rush, so that was fine.  Then I headed off to find my gate, popped into the bathroom, got a cup of turkey chilly to hold me over and voila, here I am.  

It’s kind of weird to be surrounded by English.  Coming home from Dijon it was more striking because I really did have to speak French there all the time.  I spend a lot more time here in English this year because of my job and friends, so the transition from language to language is not quite as striking.  The nice woman with whom I was chatting here asked me where I am coming from.  I felt a little snotty, but also kind of awesome, saying, “Paris.”  Then the inevitable question to follow was, “how long were you there?”  Well, actually, I live there.  It’s kind of hard to talk about it without sounding a little smug.  I mean, I try to make it clear that I am incredibly grateful and lucky to be there, but I have a hard time finding words to really portray that.  Instead it comes across as, “So yeah, I mean, it’s pretty awesome.  I’m definitely really lucky to be there.”  And with every question comes an answer like, “Oh, well I do actually live IN Paris.  Yeah, and I live there for free . . . Um, I only work about three times a week, so the commute isn’t a big deal.”  

4:09PM.  Getting closer.  It’ll be nice to arrive in the evening, but overnight flights seem to go a little bit faster.  I feel gross.  I was incredibly cold on the plane for a while, then got incredibly hot.  It was dry and my nose is all sore now.  

12.15.07/12.17.07

There is always a moment at the end of the semester when I feel as though I have run right off of the edge of a cliff, but I am do not fall to the ground.  Rather I just float.  I am suspended between all of the work, chaos and ups and downs of the semester and the upcoming vacation with family and friends at home.  I am officially done with the semester but still physically where it took place.  And that is where I find myself today – floating.  For the first time in a week, I was able to sleep in this morning.  For the first time in a few weeks, I have a day with absolutely nothing planned.  Last night Tanya and I were lamenting the fact that every day here seems to bring something different, new or surprising, and there is little time to just sit down and do nothing.  And even when those moments arrive, there are plenty of activities that we could partake in, so it tends to be a conscious decision to do nothing.  I have made, sort of, that decision for today.  Or at least, I have decided that today I am going to do whatever I want whenever I want to do it and that no one else will interfere with that.

Yesterday, Tanya and I had to go to the prefecture to pick up our temporary carte de sejours.  Now, I should admit (finally) that I was becoming slightly stressed out over the fact that we had heard nothing and our departure dates are quickly arriving.  I figured that if I didn’t get anything from the prefecture before leaving, I would just take a deep breath, cross my fingers, smile pretty and hope that they let me back into France in January, but there was a tiny doubt in my mind as to whether or not that would work.  Apparently last year Whitney had no problem getting back in, despite the fact that she had no carte de sejour, and an expired visa.  But whatever the case could have been, we were given a meeting to pick up the temporary ones yesterday.

Now, I’m not sure if I ever got around to writing about our first visit to the prefecture.  I know that I’ve written about the unbelievable frustrations at the bank and how insistent they were that we have copies of our carte de sejours, despite the fact that we did not and would not be able to actually get them right away.  I believe that I have also discussed the fact that we had to wait until we were contacted with a date for our medical visits before even going to prefecture and I am sure that I wrote about those lovely visits.  The first trip to the prefecture when we turned in our paperwork went surprisingly well.  Everyone told us horror stories about how they waited in line for seven hundred and twenty-three hours before anyone even talked to them, and then they were rudely told that they also needed a photocopy of some other random, hard to get paper that seemed completely ridiculous and unnecessary.  Or better yet, they waited for hours to be told to go to another office where they waited for another long period of time only to be told to go to yet another office, etc.  Every story we heard about the prefecture involved angry, mean, discontent French government workers who had no problem yelling at people and saying, “no, no, no, no, no . . . no.”  And beyond the stories we heard from other expats here, I have also read in various books and heard from other people who have lived in France, that in French bureaucracy the first answer you get to any question or response that you ask is, “no,” no matter what.  The key is to continue asking until you get a yes.  Or to ask to talk to someone else and to continue talking to someone else until you get a yes.

Obviously, based on all of this, Tanya and I were not exactly thrilled or hopeful to confront the horrors of the prefecture, but we knew that we could not wait any longer.  Additionally, instead of taking these stories as proof that we should be prepared to cry, we decided to face the prefecture with a very nonchalant attitude.  That is to say, we went in with the assumption that this would merely be one of many trips there, that we would be told that we were missing about seven different papers, that we would spend the entire day there, that we would be yelled at, that we would be sent from one office to another, and that it would be generally just an unpleasant experience, but that we would not care.  If we had these expectations, we figured we could just take it, laugh about it, shrug it off and pout our lips in the oh-so-French, “meh, whatever, doesn’t bother me” way.  We made the conscious decision to not allow ourselves to get stressed out or worked up – we figured there was no point.

When we arrived for our first attempt, we didn’t know where to go in the building, so I asked a woman at the front desk.  She asked me, in a slightly abrupt manner, if we had an appointment.  I calmly explained that no, we did not, nor did we need one.  I knew this, I explained, because I had already checked on the Internet.  Oh, she turned to the woman next to her to figure out what to do with me, turned back to me and told us to go to stairwell E, first floor.  Pleased that we got this information out of her, we headed out to find stairwell E.  When we arrived on the first floor (here in France the first floor is what we call the second floor in the states), we saw two long hallways and not much indicating where to go.  We headed down one hall, looking for something that might be what we needed, didn’t find anything, headed back to the other hall, and found nothing.
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My approach this with reckless abandon attitude was in full effect and so, without hesitation or nervousness, I asked two random people drinking coffee in the hall if they had any idea where to go (in French, of course).  They didn’t seem to really know where to send us, but pointed us in one direction.  As we wandered in that direction, we realized that they had no clue.  We looked at each other, wondering what to do.  Then I noticed that one of the doors to one of the offices in the hallway was partially open.  I looked at the sign beside the door, had no idea what it meant, and then popped my head in the office.  I smiled and politely asked if either of the women in the office knew where we needed to go for our carte de sejours, explaining that we are teaching assistants at the University level, which is different from those who teach in lower levels.  They went back and forth for a minute and the one of them said that she was pretty sure she knew were we needed to go.  Then she said that it was kind of tricky to find, so she would walk us down there.  So not only was she friendly, she took the time out of her day to accompany us to the office – so far, our experience was nothing like the horror stories.

Not only did she walk us down to the office, once we arrived she came in with us to ask the women working there if this was indeed the right place for us to be.  One woman took our passports, asked where we worked, disappeared, came back and said yes, we were in the right place.  The random woman who accompanied us returned to her office and Tanya and I had a seat.  The woman who took our passports was helping someone, so we had a little wait.  She gave us a few forms to fill out while we were waiting, which passed the time.  Additionally, there was no one else in front of us and so within about ten to fifteen minutes (not seven hundred hours and twenty-three minutes) it was our turn.   One of the forms seemed to be about requesting a medical visit, which we had already done so we left it blank.

When it was our turn, she took care of both of us at once.  We gave her our forms and I asked about the medical form.  She said that it was for required medical visits.  I said that we had already had them, and she said that there were specific visits for the carte de sejours, so we would need to get another.  She must have thought that I meant that we had visits before coming to France.  Rather than getting in a huff and fighting with her about it, which is the response that we were supposed to have based on the stories we had heard, I said with genuine surprise, “ah bon?” (“really?”) and then I pulled out the paperwork we were given at the end of our visits.  It was then her turn to be surprised that we actually had already had the correct visits.  She asked how that happened and I explained that they were taken care of through the woman in human resources at the University of Saint Quentin.  I think that it must have made her life easier, so she took our photocopies of that.  Then she continued to ask for various papers and Tanya and I continued to produce them – photocopy of passport, photocopy of visa, proof of residence in France (both a copy of a recent utilities bill and, for me at least, a note from Jacqueline to prove that I do indeed live with her), copy of our contract and copy of our birth certificates.  Tanya and I had almost everything, which, again, was not at all what we were expecting.  However, we were each missing one thing.  I was missing a photocopy of Jacqueline’s ID and apparently Tanya needed a copy of her marriage license.  The woman told us that we could fax these things to the office and as soon as they received them, they would begin to process our papers.  It would take about a month, she informed us, once the process got underway.  I asked if we could have a paper proving that we had made our request for the carte de sejour, she said no.  This was the only point in the entire meeting that I ran into the, “no, no, no, no . . . no”  I insisted that we need it for the bank, that I had been given one in Dijon, but nothing I said convinced her.  This is Paris, after all, not Dijon and the back doesn’t have a CLUE about this type of procedure.  We gave up because it wasn’t worth fighting.  As we left the prefecture, we couldn’t stop beaming over how surprisingly well and easily it all went.  In fact, I almost didn’t want to believe it for fear that we missed something big.  And, I believe that I have not even written about it in here for that very reason – I did not want to jinx it.

My next step in the process was to get a copy of Jacqueline’s ID to fax to them.  I had not been living here for very long at the time and felt a little awkward about asking Jacqueline for her ID.  I also had no clue how to go about faxing it and hoped that once I did ask her, she might say, “Oh sure, why don’t I fax it for you from work?” (Not that I know whether or not she has a fax at work.  Now that I think about it, probably not.)  When I finally felt stressed out enough about getting it done and I finally asked her, there was no offer to fax it for me.  However, she handed it right over and I was able to make a copy of it with Lise’s printer/photocopier/scanner.  I made two copies, in fact, because you never know here.  I asked Mar if she could fax it for me from her work, but in the end I was too tired and rushed to get to go drop it off with her.  Then I figured I’d just fax it from the post office, hoping that you can do that here.  Then I realized that while I did have a fax number, I had no clue to whom I was faxing it.  I didn’t really know the name of the office, certainly didn’t know the number, had not gotten the name of the woman who helped us and therefore felt very unsure about faxing it.  In the end, though it was the last thing that I wanted to do, I decided to go in person to drop it off – visit number two to the Prefecture.  I made the second journey there alone and it took about five minutes.  I remembered exactly where to go, there was no one in line, the woman took my paper, and I even saw her put it in my folder.  Then she went so far as to double check that nothing else was missing and, thank whoever is up there looking over me, there was nothing else missing.  She told me that it would take about a month to process my file and that they would call me when it was all set.

Now, we are back to that phone call and mysteriously disappearing voice mail that I mentioned earlier.  Just to point out that I am a slightly responsible person, I did in fact try calling the Prefecture myself one day two weeks ago.  The phone call involved random people answering the phone, me reciting the same phrase, “Euh, oui, j’appelle d’apres mon dossier de titre de sejour,” (“Um, I’m calling about my titre de sejour”) only to be asked if I would mind being put on hold and then being put on hold before I could even squeak out a “non.”  Sometimes it sounded like the same person picking up and putting me back on hold, other times the voices changed.  I think that my call was shuffled around to various offices for a while and finally someone came on to ask me to call back later because the office was too busy to take my call.  This person then told me to call before 4PM because that is when the visa office closes.  I looked at the clock, which read 3:45 and said, “um, 4PM, like in fifteen minutes?  When would you suggest that I call back?”  Ten minutes was the response, but I decided to just give up.  Actually, I changed tactics, finding an e-mail address and sending an e-mail in the vain hope that someone might actually read and respond to it.  After all of that, I figured that I did my part and if I didn’t get my carte de sejour before leaving, and they actually said something about it during my travels, I’d just explain to the customs people what happened.  

Finally this Monday as I was leaving for my daily walk, my phone buzzed.  It was a number that I did not recognize, so I picked up, “Allo?”  A woman responded and told me she was from blahblahblah (yup, that’s about as much sense as it made to me) and that she was calling about my titre de sejour.  Now, I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I HATE talking on the phone in French in general (though it is getting better and better) and not only was I on the phone with this woman, but I was on my cell phone, outside in the street and the call was very important.  To my great relief and surprise I understood her quite well and she seemed to understand everything I said too.  She told me that I could go to the prefecture on Friday morning to pick up my “recepice de demande de titre de sejour,” which is basically a temporary carte de sejour that I have until my official one is ready.  I gave her my e-mail address so that she could e-mail me the details.  Then she mentioned that Tanya could get hers at the same time as well and she asked if Tanya spoke French.  I said that she kind of does, but if the information for her was the same as for me, I would make sure that she got it all.  The woman said it was the same, so that was that.

Except that that wasn’t exactly that because the woman did not send me the information via e-mail.  Or she got my e-mail address wrong because I never received it.  I waited until Wednesday, thinking that perhaps she had gotten distracted.  When Wednesday afternoon rolled around, I got up the courage to call her (didn’t know “her” name) back.  I didn’t even know if the same woman would pick up, but luckily she did.  She seemed to be having some issue with her computer and asked if I could call back on Thursday.  I told her that I work on Thursday and, slightly incredulous, she said “ALL day?”  “Yes, actually,” I replied a little crisply, “I leave at 7AM and return at 7PM.”  “Oh, mumble mumble, hold on,” and voila she got me the information that I needed.  Tanya and I could go between 9AM and 11AM Friday morning to office 1708 at the prefecture.

We agreed to meet up around 8:30, but I was late and then we ended up doing things at Tanya’s apartment for a bit before heading out.  Turns out that office 1708 is the same one we had already been too.  There was a slight line, but even with three or four people in front of us it only took about ten to fifteen minutes before our turn.  We spoke with the same woman that we had seen the first time and she has us verify a few things before signing a few things and voila, we were holding our temporary carte de sejours.  Then she asked if we would be leaving the country anytime soon, and we said that yes, indeed we are both leaving this week.  She informed us that our recepices only allow us to get out of France, not back in, so we would need to go get special one-time return visas from the visa office.  Of course there would be one more step, but she didn’t indicate that we would have any problem with it.  So, down to the ground level to find the visa office.

The visa office was much more crowded that 1708.  It looked a bit like a DMV and seemed to function the same way in that you get a number and then wait a long, long time.  The woman who gave us our numbers told us that for our return visas, we would need a passport sized photo and a photocopy of our recepices.  Of course we had neither, but no fear, the Prefecture is equipped!  Right outside of the office are several photocopiers and two photo booths.  I had the twenty centimes I needed for my photocopy, but not the 4E I needed for the photos.  Luckily, Tanya had a 5E bill and some change that added up to the 8E we needed.  However, the machine would not take the bill and it took us a while to discover that there was a change machine.  Once we got the change and got back in line for the photos, a very pushy woman got in line behind us and kept trying to get us to hurry up, asking if we were in a rush, and did we BOTH need to get pictures taken, etc.  She was actually kind of cheery and not nasty, just really insistent and wouldn’t shut up.  She pissed Tanya off a lot.  Once we both had our (HORRIBLE) pictures taken and photocopies made, we went in to sit down and fill out the form while waiting for our numbers to be called.  This wait was longer than the wait in 1708, but finally it was Tanya’s turn, then mine.

The woman who helped me was fantastic.  She was all smiles and chatted pleasantly with me about anything and everything.  It took about five minutes for her to get through everything she needed to and as she was working, Tanya came over to ask if I needed a stamp.  I thought Tanya wanted to know if I needed to get my passport stamped for the visa or something and I didn’t know yet because the woman wasn’t quite finished.  Then the woman asked me if I had a stamp.  Um, no.  She told me that I would need to get a 6E stamp, at which point Tanya exclaimed, “See!  That’s what I need too!” and she directed us to another office where we could go buy it.  So we set off to buy our stamps, got them (wondering why on earth we needed stamps for our visas), returned to our respective people, gave them our stamps, and watched as they actually pasted the stamps inside our passports where they had put the return-visa.  This is such a strange country.  We could not stop laughing about it as we walked away from the prefecture, in complete disbelief that we had actually succeeded in getting the right paperwork through and done and that we can actually, legally without worry, now leave the country and return in January.  I swear we must have looked drunk or high or something as we stumbled across Pont Neuf in fits of laughter and headed to Starbucks for a celebratory latte.

Before we left Starbucks that day, I went to use the bathroom only to find no toilet paper.  Tanya and I decided that I should write corporate to complain.  Well today I had another negative Starbucks bathroom experience!  I set out at 11:35 this morning to finish Christmas shopping, which I have found to be very challenging and stressful this year, and after a while I needed to pee.  I was at least an hour away from my apartment and not nearly done with my shopping, so I decided to treat myself to a latte, which would allow me to use the bathroom and to sit and calm down a bit.  The latte was delicious but Starbucks was crowded, so I drank it quickly and went to use the bathroom.  There was only one stall and it was occupied when I went in.  A minute later a girl came out, and as I went in and started to turn on the lights, she told me that there wasn’t any light.  And indeed, the lights in the bathroom were broken.  With the door closed it was pitch black and I was juggling a few shopping bags and bundled up in tights, jeans, tank top, tee shirt, two hoodies, my winter coat and a scarf and it peeing in the dark just wasn’t going to work.  Being the resourceful girl that I am, I thought to pull out my iPod so that I could use the light up screen as a sort of a flashlight so that, at the very least, I could be sure that my scarf didn’t fall in the toilet or, what would have been worse, missing the toilet all together!  While this was a reasonable solution, I have my iPod set so that the backlighting automatically turns off after ten seconds, so I had to keep scrolling through the menu to make sure that the light didn’t go off.  It was all worth it in the end and I felt recharged to go tackle more shopping.

It is unreal to me that I leave the day after tomorrow.  Like I said, I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what to get people.  I had all sorts of ideas and then they didn’t quite work out.  Then I would see something that seemed fine, but I wanted to find something GREAT, so I put off buying the fine thing in hopes of stumbling across something better.  But generally I didn’t stumble across better things.  I also kept thinking, “I bet I can find that cheaper elsewhere” or forgetting where I saw things in the first place.  Today, thankfully, I have made the majority of my purchases.  I have a few things to pick up tomorrow but * knock on wood * I am 97% positive that I know what I am going to get and where I am going to get it.  That’s good because after tomorrow I’m out of here.  And tomorrow in the afternoon I might be going to lunch with some of my students (they invited me to go out with them, isn’t that sweet?) and tomorrow night I am going to Lise’s violin recital.  Tonight is Tanya’s birthday dinner, so, as usual, I am really down to the wire here.

My plan leaves at noon on Wednesday and I am planning to take the train to get there.  According to the website, it should take me one hour and eight minutes to get from the closest metro station here to the airport.  The airport, I am sure, is going to be pure chaos, so I’m planning on leaving here at 7AM just in case.  I’m sure that sounds insane because that is five hours before my flight, but I would much rather sit around the airport for five hours than arrive there at the last minute, stressed out that I am going to miss my flight.  I think that I should only need to use my big suitcase and my backpack.  I have decided not to bring any of my cameras home and also not to bring a lot of cloths home either.  That just leaves shoes, bathroom stuff and presents.  It’ll be great if I only have one carry-on item with me.

Anyway, I should go write Tanya’s birthday card and figure out what I am going to wear tonight.  For the past three days I have been layering up like I just described.  It is practical because it keeps me warm, but it is not very stylish.  So now I have to figure out a way to look good and to stay warm enough getting to and from the restaurant.

Today is my last official day of work for this semester, though I have just found out that I might have to administer some sort of oral exam to some student who I've never seen before.  Uh, what?  Yaeh, unless she hunts me down, I'm not going to worry about it.  So, right, I am actually at work right now, sitting in the T.A.'s office wasting time.  Normally I would have a class right now, but they finished their oral presentations last week, so I cancelled today's class.  Oh darn.  It gives me three hours between classes, which is nice in that I can have a leisurely lunch, play on the Internet and correct those tests that I compelety forgot to grade (ha!).  So of course, instead of grading them right now, I am writing this.  But I will make it worth my while because I am going to make a list of everything that I have to get done before I leave to go home next WEDNESDAY!  Yup, less than a week!  In one week I will BE home.  Woah.  And in order for that to happen successfully, in the next five days I must:

1.  Do holiday shopping.  Yup, it is not finished.  In fact, it is barely started.  This is quite typical of me, but even so with only five days left here, it's pretty ridiculous.  I have ideas and I keep going out for walks with the intention of buying stuff.  Then I get too caught up in walking and don't want to stop . . .  It's all right though because either I will do it Saturday (if I don't end up going to Dijon) or I will do it tomorrow after . . .

2.  Getting my titre de sejour!  Um, I think that technically I'm just getting a piece of paper saying I've been approved for it and that it is on its way.  This is really quite fantastic though because I was starting to wonder how it would go at customs if they saw my expired visa.  Going home would be fine, I'd assume, but being let back into the country could have been a different story.  Tanya and I are supposed to go tomorrow morning between 9 and 11.  This will force me to get up and to start my day, which could lead me to getting some shopping done.

3.  Friday night will be dedicated to cleaning my room and doing laundry.  Well, I might end up going ice skating at the hotel de ville if I can find anyone interested, but I can do both.  I might try to start the cleaning/laundry tonight depending on how tired I am when I get home (and I'm planning to get out of here early).

4.  Packing is, of course, the last thing that needs to happen.  As it turns out, Lise has a violin concert the night before I leave and it looks as though Jacqueline will be working, so I'm going to go.  Hell, even if she isn't working I'd like to go.  It starts at 8:30, so it'll be a nice break from packing.  Or a nice pre-packing activity, as the case may be.  Ha.

There are other odds and ends of things to do around here before I leave.  I mentioned maybe trying to head to Dijon this weekend.  It all depends on how Brigitte is feeling because she's moved from chemotherapy to radiation therapy and it is quite taxing.  I texted her to say that if it would be enjoyable for her to see me and if she has the energy, I'd love to visit, but that it is entirely up to her.  If I do go, my plan is to leave here Saturday morning and to come back Sunday afternoon.  If I don't go to Dijon, I might go to Euro Disney with Sarah and a friend of hers, though that would depend on how much money I've spent on Christmas shopping and if I've even done it!  Then Monday night we are celebrating Tanya's birthday.  This past Tuesday we went out for Sarah's and it was great fun.  Ten of us met up for dinner at a restaurant called "Le Pied de Cochon."  I knew all but three of the people there and it was a really nice mix.  Ikram, Guy, and Mar are all joining us for Tanya's birthday dinner, which is nice because I haven't really seen or spent time with any of them recently. 

So there you have it.  I've suddenly become busy in the best way possible here and am so excited about going home.  I am tempted to write more, but alas, I cannot avoid grading any more =P

12.7.07

This week, I was like a real honest-to-goodness grown up type person.  That’s right, I went to work five whole days this week.  Uh, er, I went to work five days – the “whole” part isn’t really accurate, come to think of it.  It was my second to last week in the semester and I finally decided that I needed to offer some make-up classes for the ones that I missed during the strike.  More specifically, I decided that I would offer an option third listening comprehension test for my second year students.  The deal was that they could take it if they are concerned about their grades, giving them a total of three tests, and I will take their top two scores.  In other words, taking the extra test would not hurt anyone.  Of course when I offered this option to them last week, there was all sorts of arguing among the students about when I should come in.  Finally I said that I would come in Tuesday and Friday (the two days I don’t work), which seemed to give everyone a chance.

Tuesday I scheduled the test for 2PM, figuring that I could get up and go for a nice leisurely walk in the morning.  The problem is that I generally try to leave one and a half to two hours before my classes start, especially when I have to record a tape onto the machines, in order to make sure that I can start class on time.  This meant leaving around noon and obviously I was going to sleep in somewhat.  So, by the time I was up, dressed and had eaten, walking wasn’t as much of an option.  Actually, I think that I ran into Jacqueline that morning and we ended up having breakfast together and chatting a bit.  I made it to school right on time, got the tape recorded with no problems and proctored the test to the whopping TWO students who showed up.  They happen to be two students who have been struggling a lot this semester, but who seem to actually care and to try to understand me (as opposed to those who struggle and give up, choosing to sit in the back of the room and to chat with their friends in French instead of asking questions and participating).  I want to help my students when they care and make an effort, so I was glad they showed up, even if it was only two of them.  I’m pretty sure that I got a walk in after I got home, but now I honestly cannot remember.  Oh!  I know, I met up with Ikram to go holiday shopping and was frustrated because I didn’t get to go for a walk, but then we ended up walking a ton and it was fine.

Wednesday I taught in Versailles.  Last week a girl volunteered to bring, “An Inconvenient Truth” for us to watch, which made my life easy.  Just in case, I had a couple of other activities with me as backups and what do you know, she forgot it.  However, someone had “Alice in Wonderland” with them, so we did a short activity and then watched “Alice in Wonderland.”  The second group did not have the video, so we did the same activity, which involved small groups creating stories based on pictures that I gave them.  I planned on doing the “Sharing a Story” activity and then talking about how to write cover letters and resumes.  Based on the minimal amount of time the first group took with “Sharing a Story,” I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to fill the hour and a half, even with the resumes.  I was forgetting that my second group is more advanced and they ended up spending the entire class working on their stories and then presenting them.  They were quite good and amusing, overall.  What was even more fun for me was that I had given them my own personal pictures to use, so I listened to one group make up stories based on pictures from my childhood and another based on pictures from my college years.  At the end I would tell the real stories behind the pictures, which they found to be a lot of fun.

I had completely forgotten that last week two girls from the second group at Versailles approached me to ask if I’d be willing to give an interview with them for some project they have to do.  I said, “Sure, why not?  Is it in French?”  Yes, it was, but I watch them struggle with English, so it was only fair that I take a turn.  Like I said, I forgot.  Well, that is until they showed up in class with a video camera.  By the end of class I was exhausted and hungry, not feeling very well, but I stayed anyway.  I love it when my students feel comfortable enough to ask me for help and to approach me after class, so there was no way I was letting them down.  It didn’t take very long and was fun.  They asked me about culture, cultural stereotypes and such.  Of course while I was on camera I couldn’t think of a thing to say and afterwards I had all sorts of ideas.

My plan was to head home from Versailles, grab a bite to eat and then hit the streets.  However, when I got back I really wasn’t feeling well.  I had been feeling slightly off for a few days.  It started with a headache, but by Wednesday it had turned into a really awful stomachache.  I sat down with my laptop on it in hopes of soothing it.  I figured I’d give it an hour and by then things would settle so that I could go for a walk.  No luck.  In the end, I sat around all afternoon, then crawled into bed, put a DVD on and fell asleep for two hours.  I awoke in time to eat a little with Lise and Jacqueline, who was not working, got a little energy back and putzed around for a while.  Then I went back to bed because I knew that there was no way that I could miss school on Thursday and I needed the rest.  

I should probably mention that I have some suspicion as to the causes of my not feeling well.  The two main possible culprits, as far as I can tell, are lack of sleep (still can’t figure that one out) and the fact that I went for a two-hour walk in the rain on Sunday.  Sure, writing it down like this for people to read it sounds really obviously stupid, but temperature-wise it has been really mild here and on Sunday it was so warm that I was wearing capris.  It just so happened to be warm, but raining.  I did take an umbrella with me on my walk.  The problem with the umbrella was that it was warm, raining, and also windy.  Now I’m not talking a little breeze or the occasional gust of wind.  No, I’m talking steal my umbrella, knock me over as I stand and wait to cross the street, blown my scarf around uncontrollably until I’m ready to just abandon the damn thing in the street windy.  So within about ten minutes of walking, I put the umbrella away because it was much more frustrating to try to control the umbrella in the wind than it was to get a little wet.  It wasn’t actually raining all that hard anyway.  I did, however, end up hurting my feet because of the rain.  I was wearing half-socks and once my shoes and skin were soaked, the strap that goes across my ankle started rubbing against my skin.  I now have two very lovely open blister-y-type sores on my ankles.  I got worried that they would get infected or that I’ve not been feeling well because they had already gotten infected.  However, no worries Mom, I have looked at them closely, washed them well and bandaged them (with triple anti-biotic ointment on them).  The real point here is that while I thoroughly enjoyed my walk in the rain (and honestly, it was wonderful and the two hours felt like nothing), it may have cost me the rest of my week.

Back to Wednesday.  I went to bed.  Thursday is my big day, as I have mentioned before.  This Thursday was particularly important because my second- and third-year classes began their oral presentations/skits, which are worth half of their final grade.  I was quite pleased because it meant that I didn’t have to do a lot as far as running four out of my six Wednesday classes.  This was especially good because though my stomach was feeling more or less better, I was still achy all over and not really feeling back in shape.  I did the teacher thing and re-explained my expectations and what I was considering when grading the groups.  I got even more teacher-like when I threatened to take points off of the grade for anyone who dared talk when another group was presenting.  Then I turned it over to the students.

Both of my third-year classes did a great job.  The presentations were all at least a little funny, well organized and it was clear that everyone had prepared beforehand.  The first class was particularly successful in engaging in a full-class discussion facilitated by the groups after each presentation; it was really impressive.  Then in the second class I was blown away by one group, not because of their linguistic skills, which were decent, but because they went so far as to dress up in costumes!  To be fair, students in the first class had worn costumes and brought in props as well, but in the second class one of the boys dressed up as Santa Clause with a wig, red hat and everything and was just so funny.  The other boy in this group dressed up as a doctor with a neon green, curly wig and a lab coat.  Their topic was chocolate and they were really creative in presenting it.  They had one girl who was the owner of a chocolate store and had lots of facts about chocolate, one girl pretended to be a little kid who had misconceptions about chocolate, Santa Clause who wanted to buy chocolate because his elves had gone on strike, and the doctor who helped the store-owner correct the misconceptions Santa and the girl had about chocolate.  Basically, it was random, over-the-top, strange, and yet well organized, funny and it worked.  I almost brought my camera with me to school that morning, but figured that it wasn’t charged.  Now, of course, I’m kicking myself for it.  It was just so good.

The second year presentations were much shorter and not as impressive.  They were decent though and did show that the students had done a decent amount of work to prepare for them.  They were also rather humorous, which I appreciated.  There was one group in the second class that was not prepared.  They asked if they could go the following week, and I got all teacher on them and told them that if they did it would be an automatic point off of their grade, which is out of twenty, so one point does make a difference.  They decided to go ahead and do the best they could and their main problem was that it was much shorter than it should have been.  We ran out of time for them to lead a class discussion, so I told them if they do a good job of it next week it might redeem the fact that their presentation itself was too short.  In the end, I watched about four and a half hours of these presentations and while it was nice to sit in the back of the room instead of leading the class, it was really tiring to sit there taking notes on the presentations and thinking about how on earth I am going to give each student an individual grade for them.  I also tried to give feedback to each group based on my notes immediately after they presented, but by the end I was having a hard time concentrating myself and wasn’t very copious in my responses.

I had two hours of first year students after the presentations.  The first group of first year students that I see on Thursday is just a really fun group.  They always have announcements and are eager to talk with me about anything and everything.  As a group they seem to really get along well with each other and it’s overall a nice atmosphere.  They wanted to know if I will still be their teacher next semester, and at the time I said I wasn’t sure.  I have since found out that I am not scheduled to teach them, but I may try to trade for them.  After a nice long set of announcements (it was Damien’s 18th birthday on Sunday, so we had to talk about what he could now legally do in the States if he were an American citizen), we got to work on that same “strong suffixes” exercise I had to use on Monday.  This time when I stopped them early, I went through each grouping of words first asking what words they didn’t know, then giving them definitions and clues that would lead them to guess whatever word from the list I was thinking of.  They loved it and got rather competitive.  It turned out to be a lot of fun for me too – kind of like playing the Pyramid Game Show with my students.  One of the sections had the word “genius” in it, so I said, “not to brag or anything, but you know, I really am quite smart.  Some might say I’m a . . . “  Then the word “unusual” was in the same section, so I said something along the lines of, “you may have never had a teacher like me before, I am kind of . . . “ And Ingrid yelled out “gorgeous!” (one of the words on the page).  It was hysterical.  Then they started yelling out other words, I don’t remember them now, but it was really amusing.

My last class only had three girls in it.  There was a fourth, but she ended up coming to the first group because she was there with nothing else to do.  They were quiet and shy and I was tired, so we went very quickly through the handout and I let us all go fifteen minutes early.  More or less exhausted, I popped into the T.A.’s office where Anabel, the somewhat odd British professor who drives me crazy, happened to be.  We ended up having a really nice chat and I left feeling much better about her.  I didn’t stop at Carrefour like I do sometimes because I wanted to get right home so that I could do a little baking.  Jacqueline also had her long day yesterday, so I thought it’d be nice if I baked a loaf of lemon tea bread to have waiting for her when she got home late at night.  

Last week I baked the banana bread, the week before was cranberry bread and previously I did cupcakes.  I’m really enjoying this baking kick that I’m on and the fact that she and Lise eat what I bake (and that way, I don’t eat the whole thing in one sitting!).  Lise also seems to have fun helping me out, or at the very least hanging out with me while I bake.  She particularly likes cracking eggs, so I always leave that for her.  She and I have been having a lot of fun recently.  Tuesday night while we ate dinner we somehow ended up talking about dating and such.  She asked about my first boyfriend and I told her about my first kiss.  She seems to be really opening up to me, and getting attached I think, and it’s neat to feel our relationship growing stronger.  She’ll often pop into my room when she gets home from school, she always says goodnight to me before going to sleep and we often end up having breakfast together in the morning.  We’ve also become addicted to the French version of America’s Next Top Model and this silly show called, “Incroyable Talents.”  It’s a variety show/competition in which anyone with some incredible talent can compete.  The strange thing is that you end up having an amazing twelve-year-old boy singing opera who is competing against Canadian acrobats.  The two don’t compare, but they are still in competition with one another because they are both incredible talents.  Anyway, baking is one way that we’re bonding, even if it’s only because we are in the same room and she likes to crack the eggs.

So, I got home from school right around 7PM to find Lise playing a computer game and watching “Top Model.”  She asked how my day was and then told me that she had gotten a bad grade on a math test.  She was feeling really down about and it showed.  Usually she’s peppy and full of energy, but Thursday night she was very lethargic and feeling down on herself for her grades in general.  Plus she knew that Jacqueline wasn’t going to be pleased.  As Jacqueline wasn’t there, I tried to give her the best advice I could – talking about how the grade itself isn’t as important as whether or not she understands the concepts and why she got the grade that she did.  I tried to suggest some strategies for the next time she has a math test and reminded her that if she let’s her stress and frustration overtake her, she’ll put so much energy into that that she won’t have any left to live up to what she really is capable of doing.  Then I ran out to buy lemons.

Back from Franprix and the fruit stand with lemons, eggs and butter, but no walnuts, I was ready to start my lemon tea bread.  I stumbled across a file on my computer called, “Mom’s Recipes” the other day, so low and behold I had her recipe to use.  I got all of the ingredients and bowls that I would need out, which covered the table where we eat and about two seconds later Jacqueline walked in.  The fact that my baking project had taken over was not an issue; I was just surprised that she was home so early.  She seemed amused by my endeavors and left me to my thing while she showered and made some phone calls.  Lise’s anxiety level rose a bit.  It didn’t take long to make the bread and after I popped it in the oven and got to work making dinner for Lise and me.  As I was cooking Lise’s meat, she told Jacqueline about her test.  They were in the other room and I could hear them going back and forth about it.  As someone who never got yelled at about grades, it was strange to listen to.  Obviously Jacqueline is just concerned that Lise is successful in school and most likely she feels frustrated because she can’t do that for Lise.  Lise is frustrated because she knows she just makes silly mistakes and gets stressed out, even though she understands the basic concepts.  It was basically the kind of conversation/argument that has no resolution and then dinner was ready.

Actually, before dinner was ready I peeked in on my bread only to find that the entire top was burnt.  At this point Lise and Jacqueline were no longer talking, so I told Lise to come look.  It was then that she realized that the oven was on broil not bake.  In hopes of saving the bread, I pulled it out of the oven and scrapped off the burnt layer.  Then I stuck it back in and crossed my fingers.  Then we ate dinner.  It was slightly tense at first, but eventually Lise turned the T.V. on to see if the game show that she and I often watch while eating dinner (“Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old Student”) was on, because we recently heard rumors that it was going to be cancelled.  Alas and alack, it is no more.  She turned the T.V. off.  “Well,” I said, “we’ll just have to make up our own trivia questions instead!”  So we started.  

Lise and I went back and forth asking each other whatever random questions we could come up with.  I had to ask my questions in English, while hers were in French.  Most of mine had to do with the United States and hers with France.  Jacqueline did not participate, but was highly amused watching us go back and forth.  The mood lifted significantly and eventually we were all giggling and having a grand old time.  By this time the bread was done and miraculously turned out quite well.  I poured the glaze (lemon juice and sugar) over it and served it for dessert.  Jacqueline and I both really liked it and I think Lise did too, though she didn’t have seconds.  We somehow got to talking about moose because they didn’t know what the word “moose” means and I didn’t know how to say it in French.  Lise has decided that she is going to become a professional, world-class moose rider and then she is going to have a moose farm.  I definitely need to get her something moose-related while I’m home.  I guess it doesn’t sound all that funny now, but we were beside ourselves.  

Despite the fact that I had had such an incredibly long day, I was rejuvenated by dinner.  I am really starting to feel incredibly comfortable here.  Not that I have been uncomfortable, but maybe it’s more that I’m starting to feel like I belong here and like I’m an important part of this household.  It’s really nice.  Living with people is so good.  I am so glad I didn’t get a place on my own because things as simple as sharing a meal and talking about your day with someone else can sometimes be just enough.  Tonight, in fact, I almost went out with Ikram for dinner or to a movie or something, but I am still feeling a little off so I decided to stay in.  And staying in meant watching “Top Model” with Lise and Jacqueline, and then eating and chatting with them.  And that was great.  It was a lovely evening and now I have time to write in my journal.  

The other reason that I did not want to go out is that tomorrow I am going to Strasbourg with Tanya for the Christmas markets!  I am incredibly excited.  Just the thought of getting to ride the train there and back makes me really happy.  I need to make sure that my digital camera is actually charging tonight and to get organized before I go to bed.  The weather doesn’t look so great, but if it’s really horrible we can just find a restaurant and settle in for some good food and people watching.

Twelve days more days and then I’m on my way . . .  

12.3.07

Of all of the things I could be doing right now (cleaning my room, vacuuming, correcting tests, planning Wednesday’s lesson, Christmas shopping, napping, stretching, reading, etc.), writing seems the most appealing.  Truth be told, playing on the Internet sounds much more appealing, but Jacqueline is connected right now, which means that I cannot be connected.

Today was my second to last Monday of the semester.  As I’m sure I’ve mentioned many times, I adore my Monday classes.  As usual we started with announcements.  I’m not sure if I’ve really talked about this at all in my journal or not, but in case I haven’t I’ll quickly explain announcements now.  Basically I stole this idea from my high school French teacher who began his classes (or maybe it was only on Mondays and Fridays) with “les annonces,” which was a five to ten minute period of class in which we shared anything we wanted, as long as it was in French.  It could be a birthday or a trip we were going on.  It could be a sporting event in which we would be playing or a concert in which we were performing.  He always had some sort of commentary on whatever you said, and it often involved asking if we were going to invite either the class or a specific class member of the opposite sex to join us.  It was a really stress-free way to get us to talk in French as best as we could and to allow us to learn vocabulary that wasn’t necessarily in the book.

And so I decided back at the beginning of the semester to use that as a ritual for the way my classes here would begin every week (in English, of course).  It seemed as though my students were a little confused by the concept at first because, I am guessing, it seemed too . . . easy.  Well, easy in that there are no wrong answers, there is no pressure, and it is wide open to whatever they have to say or share.  I have to say that in almost all of my classes the “announcements” thing has actually caught on.  At worst I can usual get a timid hand or two, normally I can get a couple of volunteers and then I can drag some more people into sharing, and on good days announcements overtake the lesson and we run out of time to do the activities that I’m supposed to be doing with them.  Oops.  

Today was a normal day for my Monday kids.  There was one birthday today and so, as usual, we talked about what you can legally do once you turn eighteen in the states (as it was Lorraine’s 18th birthday).  Someone else told us about talking to an old friend who she hasn’t seen in four years and is going to see later on in December.  I shared the story about the bank calling me because they want a copy of my new titre de sejour, which I have yet to receive from the prefecture.  I told them how I got very aggressive and curt with the lady, telling her that “No, I cannot give you a copy of my titre de sejour because, no, I do not HAVE it yet and YES I know that my visa is expired, I’m waiting for it too!”  They laughed.  French bank lady thinks she can boss me around . . .

Anyway, it’s just nice to realize that this one little thing that I decided to do way back when and stuck with, even though at times I wasn’t sure it was worth while, has actually taken hold.  It’s also nice for me as the teacher to watch the signs of recognition as a I got through the same set of questions that I’ve been asking all semester, questions that used to yield looks of confusion, fear and whispers in French.  The introduction that I developed when students didn’t quite know what to say or how to participate in announcements at the beginning of the semester goes a little something like this:

“Haaaaaaappy Monday!  How is everybody today?  Excited to be back in school?  Wide awake?  Yeah, I know, I’m tired too.  So, here’s the agenda for today, blah blah blah, but before we get to the tapes, let’s take some time for announcements.  Does anybody have any announcements?”  

Here I pause to see how many volunteers are going to get the ball rolling for me.  One of the important aspects of this time for sharing, I have discovered, is making sure that I respond to what each student says.  Ideally, we would be sitting in a circle and other students would respond as well.  Sometimes other students do jump in, but generally the conversation happens between me and whoever has something to say, while the others listen and react.  My responses are never grammatical corrections, though I may repeat what a student has said with correct grammar or help them with a word that they cannot quite get out, but rather I ask them questions about their birthday, or that friend that they saw, or the party they went to.  Another aspect that I personally think is important for them is that I don’t ever force anyone to share.  The idea is that it is low key and that the students need to take the initiative to join in when they feel that they can.  Oh, and for a while I had a bag of candy and threw a piece to anyone who shared – that was a big help.  Anyway, if no one volunteers right away, I continue:

“Any birthdays?  Anybody see a good movie?  Eat a good restaurant?  Go to a party?  Go on a trip . . .”  I pause in between each question looking to see if I get a response.  If the silence continues I always end with the question, “did anybody get engaged?” which always gets a laugh.  In the end, I can usually squeeze a good five to ten minutes of announcements, though with my second year students it often falls flat.  It seems to help create a sense of community and comfort in each group and allows us to laugh and to relax.  

I’m also pleased with how announcements have gone this semester because it reminds me of some important teachery stuff.  For example, it reminds me how effective it is to get to know each student as an individual human being and to teach that person, rather than to go in with the agenda of “I am here to teach English!”  Announcements allow me to find out a little bit more about what is going on in everyone’s lives and they are always impressed when I remember something that they’ve mentioned in a previous class.  The community aspect, which I just mentioned, is something else that I need to keep in mind.  One risk that I run with this practice is that it is easy for certain students to dominate the conversations while others sit back and get left out.  Like I said, I don’t force students to share, but I do try to encourage them to participate and I think that next semester I will be much more conscious of gently pushing those who have been too quiet thus far.  And the practice itself is important.  My students know that when they walk into my classroom there will be an agenda on the board and the very first thing on it will be “announcements.”  As a creature of habit, I like having routines and I think that in the classroom it can be really effective.

So now that I’ve gone on and on about what wonderful things I am doing in my classroom, I’ll add that I realized today that I could be doing a lot more with the exercises that I am given if I would take the time to look them over before class.  For example, today we had a worksheet with a recording that had students listening to and repeating words with “strong suffixes.”  They had to practice putting the stress on the right syllable and for each suffix there were at least fifteen words that they had to repeat, followed by several sentences.  I got the tapes all set for them, briefly went over the handout and set them free to work independently.  As they worked, I listened to their pronunciation and checked to see how everyone was doing.  Then I started reading over the paper and realized that the students probably didn’t know what a lot of the words, or sentences, meant.  But, like the good, obedient students they are, they sat there and repeated, trying to mimic the woman on the tape.  There was no explanation of what a suffix is, the assumption being that everyone already knows.  There was also nothing . . . catching, grabbing, or exciting about it.  So, winging it as best as I could, I decided to try to use the handout as a jumping off point for something a little more interesting that might stick with them more.

I stopped the first group fifteen minutes before the end of class and asked who knew every single word on the page.  No one did, duh.  So I asked everyone to find one word that they did not know, and we talked about some of them.  For the word “impoverished” we pulled out the word “poverty” and talked about looking for pieces of the word that they recognize.  We said the word “cushion” until it sounded like complete gibberish.  I wanted to have them repeat words to me in ways that represented the meaning of the words (i.e. to have them say “dramatic” dramatically), but we ran out of time.  Before I allowed them to leave, however, I made everyone find the sentence that was the most challenging for them to say and they had to say it to me at the door on their way out.

I was a little more prepared for the second group and before they even began I talked a bit about how I think that the exercise is good and bad.  Good in that it is important to know where to place the stress in a word, because they all want to work on improving their accents, because they get to work at their own pace, etc.  Bad, I explained, because it either assumes that they know all of the words or, what’s worse, that the meaning doesn’t matter because they are focusing on the pronunciation.  The exercise essentially pulls the language apart in a way that is unnatural and a little too compartmentalized, for my taste at least.  I told them that my belief is that we learn a language to communicate, and sure, the better we pronounce the words in that language, the better we are understood, but I think it’s a little silly to remove the importance of meaning simply to focus on sounding perfect.  I should also admit that I used to enjoy this kind of activity when I was learning French because I did really want to get the pronunciation and accent just perfect, so like I said, I do see some merit to it.  

Anyway, I stopped the second group fifteen minutes early as well.  First I had them chose one word they did not understand, their favorite word on the page and their least favorite word on the page.  I said that the favorite/least favorite words could be words that they don’t understand and simply enjoy or dislike for the sound or their ability to pronounce it.  Equally, they could choose words that they liked or hated because of the meaning.  I began by asking what some least favorite words were, then we talked about favorites and finally we talked about words that they did not understand.  We had a little time to play around with saying words like they meant them, but because we were running out of time it didn’t work so well.  I also made them say their most challenging sentence to me on their way out.  All in all, I think that my little impromptu addition to the lesson was fine, but had I looked it over before I would have been able to better structure the lesson.  I guess that I tend to assume that the lessons are going to be so dry and repetitive that there is nothing I can do to save them.  But it’s not a very just assumption to make on my part.

Someone in the first class asked if we could have a party next week since it’s our last class.  I said sure, bring in food if they want.  I’m going to see if I can borrow Tanya’s iPod speakers so that we can have some music.  Oh!  The other thing that I had them do for me today before the suffixes activity was to give themselves a grade for the semester and to write a few sentences about why they deserve that grade.  It seemed as though very few of them had ever been asked to do this before, which was odd to me because my teachers used to make us do this a lot.  I told them that what I consider when I grade them is first and foremost effort and participation in class.  Then I think about progress and how far they have (or have not come) linguistically.  It was interesting for me to read what they had to say and to see where they think that they are.  Mostly it was in line with what I was thinking, which is a relief because now I’m not anticipating angry students arguing with me over their grades.

The rest of my day was nice and low key.  I stopped by Carrefour to pick up some groceries on my way back from work, so I didn’t get back to my apartment until around 2:45PM.  Then I had a late lunch, watched a bit of the movie “French Kiss” and finally headed out for a walk.  I left around four and had until 6PM to walk because I had plans to meet Ikram at 6PM to do a little holiday shopping together.  I decided to hop the metro over to the other side of the Seine and to walk around near the Opera and Galeries Lafayette because the stores are now decorated for the holidays.  Before leaving, I made sure that I had Ella Fitzgerald singing holiday songs on my iPod to help set the mood.  I did a good job keeping an eye on the time and was a little disappointed that I had to be back by a certain time.  Then Ikram called to ask if it would be OK for us to go tomorrow instead of today and, obviously, that was fine with me because it meant that I could walk around longer and take my time exploring.  

I ended up near the Centre Pompidou in an area that I used to wander through when I would randomly visit Paris three years ago.  I haven’t spent much time there this year because I tend to walk in areas that are closer to where I live.  It was strange to notice places that I had walked by three years ago, or grabbed a bite to eat with Tomoko once when we were in Paris together.  Everything makes so much more sense now that I live here – I can put things into a context that I didn’t have before.  I did manage to get turned around a bit as I randomly turned down interesting looking side streets, but ultimately I could reorient myself and found my way back to the Opera to take the eight back under the river to my side of Paris.

Last night I decided to do laundry and to clean my room and no sooner had I put a wash on than I got a text message from Tanya inviting me to go to the Centre Pompidou.  I had realized earlier on in the day that yesterday was the first Sunday of December, which meant that all of the museums in Paris were free admission.  I thought about going, but it is usually a hassle to wait in line so I didn’t.  Tanya’s text came around 6PM, I had already changed into sweats, and was cleaning for the love of god.  I explained all of this to her, but she insisted that I go.  I don’t think she understands how monumental it is for me to get the urge to clean.  Anyway, I figured that going to museums on the first Sunday of the month is something I always TALK about doing but don’t do.  Plus I had never been to the Centre Pompidou and don’t think that I’d bother to pay the admission because I’m not the biggest fan of modern art.  So I pulled my dirty dirty hair (another one of my objections – it hadn’t been washed since Friday!) into a half-ponytail or something along those lines, threw on some cloths and headed out.

I won’t bother going into great detail about the museum, but I will say that I liked it a lot more than I anticipated.  I would even go back sometime.  I might want to go on my own, or at least to go when I won’t feel rushed.  By the time we got there it was almost 8PM (I think) and it closed at 9PM.  Needless to say, we rushed a bit.  And we were hungry.  So we left a little before nine and found a restaurant nearby for dinner.  All in all it was a pleasant way to spend a rainy Sunday night.  

The rest of this week is going to be full.  I’m going into work every day this week because I have, kindly, decided to administer optional oral comprehension tests for my second year students who feel that they have not done as well as they could.  I’m offering the test on Tuesday and Friday.  Saturday Tanya and I are off to Strasbourg for the Christmas markets there and I am quite excited.  The train ride itself sounds incredibly appealing to me right now and on the return part of the trip, I am in first class!  First class on the train isn’t nearly as exciting as it is on an airplane, but it’s still cool.

12.2.07

I’m not sure how this happened, but it is time to recharge my navigo (metro) pass, and the real significance to that is that another month has passed here.  I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to recharge my navigo for December because I will not be here for the entire month and it seems like a waste of money to charge it for the whole month.  What I have decided is to get the weekly passes on it for the first two weeks when I’m still working.  They are roughly 33E each.  Then I might also do that again for the third week that I am here, but I’ll only buy zones 1 and 2 because I won’t be going into work, which is zone 5 and more expensive.  The only catch with all of this is that you can ONLY get week passes from Monday to Monday, and since yesterday (Saturday) was December first, I was stuck with a potentially metro-less weekend.  I bought a book of ten individual passes to make up for it, figuring that while I won’t likely use ten metro tickets this weekend, it’s always good to have an extra one in my wallet.

Friday was not December and I still had one day left with my charged up Navigo card.  There was a conference for English teachers (who teach English as a foreign language) here in Paris and I had decided to go.  Luckily it didn’t start until the afternoon, which gave me plenty of time to sleep in, to go for a walk, and to laze around here before going.  Getting to places in Paris always takes a little more time than I anticipate, or I always leave five to ten minutes after I know I should, but at the same time it seems that being late here is a commonly accepted, and anticipated event.  So after a morning of walking and lazing, I finally got my act together and headed out.  The conference was near the metro stop Corvisart, which is on the line six and the line six happens to be one of the closest lines to me.

Headphones in, wearing my H&M long gray coat and what I hoped was a slightly more professional, slightly more adult outfit than I tend to normally wear (no Clark hoodie for me!), I hopped on the metro, found a seat and listened to my iPod.  Between here and Corvisart there are eight stops, which made for a nice, leisurely ride on the train.  Then we rolled into the fifth station, Raspail, between here and there and the metro stopped, doors opened, people got off, people got on, and the conductor came over the intercom to announce that there was some issue up ahead and we were going to have to wait a few minutes before we could continue.  There was a massive groan.  Then a few minutes later he came back on and announced that there were some “SDFs” (Sans Domicile Fixe – homeless people) who had descended on the tracks (it wasn’t clear why) and we would have to wait until the police arrived to get them off of the tracks, so it was going to be a while.  

I forgot to mention that I had not officially registered for the conference and I certainly had not paid.  I did unofficially register via e-mail, but I was supposed to print out and fill out the registration for to bring with me and I had forgotten to do so.  With the metro problem I thought about simply turning around and going home.  Maybe I would be able to go for the second half of the conference on Saturday and explain that I couldn’t get there because of the metro.  Or maybe I would just give myself a few days off to do nothing in particular but relax, do Christmas shopping and catch up with Tanya or Mar.  I got off the metro and wandered over to a metro map to see what my options were if I did want to put in the effort that it would take to get to the conference.

There are only two lines that stop at Raspail, the six and the four.  Obviously the six was the issue, so I found Corvisart, which is east of where I live, on map to discover that the six is the only line that goes there.  I went back to Raspail on the map and traced the four north, found where it connected with the ten running east, followed that until it hooked up with the seven that would take me south again eventually to a stop where I could pick up the six and take it west one stop to my final destination.  I was positive that I would be quite late if I decided to take this little metro tour to get to the conference, but it seemed to be the only way.  Since I was enjoying simply being on the metro, which I really do love, I decided that I might as well give it a shot.  If nothing else, it would be a nice ride on the metro (using my paid for navigo) and a fun little adventure.  So I set out, proud of myself (I must admit) for figure all of this out.

While it could have easily taken me a half hour simply waiting back at Raspail to finally get to Corvisart, it took me probably a little less than a half hour to get there using my detour.  Of course the half hour of detour felt like much less time than a half hour of sitting, waiting, wondering and worrying would have.  And in the end I decided to go to the conference.  It was no problem that I was late, as this is Paris after all, and there were a few other stragglers who came in with similar stories about the metro.  The conference was kind of interesting.  It was fun to be in a big lecture hall again and to take notes on a lecture.  I miss being a student a little bit.  The first workshop that I went to was interesting and gave me some good ideas.  The man who spoke had candy that he threw to people in the audience who participated and I was amused to see it, since I often do that with my classes.  The second speaker that I saw seemed a little flustered and intimidated.  Her talk was on phonetics, which was and was not interesting all at once.  The day ended with a plenary session and the woman who spoke at plenary was really great.  Honestly, it wasn’t anything new for me, but it reminded me of Clark and forced me to think about why I do love teaching, which is good because it is easy to get frustrated with details and to forget the bigger picture.  She was funny, too, which is always a positive.  I got a few good ideas from her in terms of concrete activities, which I sure need.  

There were hors d’oeuvres and cocktails after plenary.  I chatted with a few people here and there and met two lectrices from another university who work together.  One is American the other is Irish.  The American seemed very disinterested in everything, very annoyed to be there, very discontent about life in general and I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to look cool or what.  The Irish girl was very sweet, smiled a lot and I thought that it was a shame that I had to meet them at the same time, because otherwise I might have had a decent conversation with the Irish girl.  I didn’t stay too long at the conference and was home at a decent hour.

I went out again later on Friday evening only to find yet another issue with the metro.  This time I was taking the line ten to Odeon, which is seven stops from me on the ten.  Apparently there was a serious accident with someone on the line ten and it had completely blocked all traffic on the line.  At first I thought that the traffic was fine in the direction that I was headed, but when the announcement came on again and I looked at the map, I realized that there would be no trains coming my way for a while.  So I looked at the map again and found an alternative route that involved walking a few blocks to a different station, taking the six to Montparnasse, which is a HUGE station and always involves lots of walking, then picking up the four, which goes directly to Odeon.  In the end it was no big deal and I again had that little moment of pride in figuring out the metro system.  As I was walking home from the metro station later that night, I couldn’t help but wondering what is going on in Paris right now.  There is some strange energy in the air it seems.  The metro strikes are over for the moment, but there are other strikes, the riots in the suburbs, the SDF’s protesting on the train tracks (that’s what I heard later on at least), and it just feels like there is something off right now, or like there is some tension in the air.  

Actually, last night is also a good example of this.  I was going to the belly dancing show with Guy and Ikram last night, and after going to the second half of the conference on Saturday (I skipped the morning part), I came home to change, do my make up and get ready.  I headed over to their apartment because Guy still had his mom’s car and was going to drive us.  Neither of them were ready when I arrived, which doesn’t bother me in the least, and they fought about the directions to the restaurant, Guy insisting he knew where we were going, Ikram insisting that he always says that, never knows and then gets really frustrated in the car.  Their bickering was also nothing particularly new or striking to me and doesn’t bother me in the least.  We finally set out, figuring that it would take us a half hour to forty-five minutes to get there.

I think that we must have spent at least an hour in the car.  Guy took the Periferique, which is the highway that encircles Paris.  Traffic was very heavy, and we sat for a good while in stop-and-go traffic.  Guy was a little on edge, but for the amount of traffic, it was understandable.  I felt like I was in some futuristic movie or something as I watched motorcycles zoom between cars and as I looked out the window at the big, unfriendly, nondescript hotels and buildings that decorate the outskirts of Paris.  It might just be that I’m not used to riding in a car here and that I am used to being inside the city, which has a certain amount of grace, charm, and beauty in almost all areas that I know and frequent.  The combination of dark sky, street lights and city lights also added to the movie feel.  Ikram chatted away and I watched people in passing cars wondering where they were all headed at 8PM on a Saturday night.

Finally we got to the restaurant only to find that they didn’t have our reservation, despite the fact that Ikram called about two weeks ago to make it and even left her number.  I had a feeling, for some reason, that the belly dancing show wasn’t going to work out.  You know how that just happens sometimes?  You just kind of know it’s not going to work out.  That was the feeling I had and I was right.  Ikram got very upset and felt as though the woman at the door treated her very poorly, which was more or less true.  She and Guy talked to the owner, who seemed embarrassed by it, but couldn’t do anything because the place was full.  In the car when we left Ikram fumed about how poorly organized it was and was convinced that the woman at the door had chosen to give seats to her friends at the expense of other people’s reservations.  I was just hungry.  

Guy had a headache and was not thrilled to be back in the car fighting traffic again.  They wove an interesting conversation (though that is far to gentle of a word to do the conversation justice) in which they jointly ranted about the restaurant and woman, bickered with each other over it, tried to figure out what actually happened and finally ranted about it some more.  I didn’t follow everything perfectly, but I added in the appropriate phrases of consolation and indignance when I needed to and sat in slight awe of the way the conversation ebbed and flowed in intensity, anger, frustration, conflict, and irritation.  One moment Guy would be insisting that Ikram just let it go and calm down because he was trying to drive, the next minute he was consoling her with stories and explanations of how things should be done in a well-run restaurant, the next minute Ikram was nagging Guy about his driving while he cursed the drivers in front of us and then there would be a lull for a few minutes before someone took up the conversation again.

Finally we ended up at the Moroccan restaurant where we celebrated Ikram’s birthday.  Honestly, I think it turned out better than the show would have.  The restaurant was full, but there was space for us.  The service there is wonderful and the waitresses are really attentive and know what they are doing.  As a chef, Guy has a tendency to critique restaurants when he eats out, but he finds no fault with this one.  The food is absolutely delicious and since we had all planned on spending 45E for the show, we indulged and had some wine, appetizers, the main course, tea and a little dessert.  I am still full.  Guy and Ikram also calmed down a lot once we were at the table.  They were very relieved to be somewhere where they felt welcomed and were in need of some food.  In the end, we had a really nice evening and were out until around 12:30AM.  

Now it is Sunday and it is raining and windy.  I almost went on a walk yesterday morning since I skipped the morning part of the conference, but instead I hung around here chatting with Jacqueline about parenting as we had breakfast together, and then chatted with Lise for a bit, then took a nice shower, and then it was time for the conference.  I also thought about skipping the conference all together, but I did pay for it so figured I should go.  It’s a shame that I didn’t force myself to walk though because it was gorgeous out yesterday.  I think that I am going to brave the rain and the wind this afternoon, however, because it’s not pouring rain and I’m a tough kid.  I’m just hoping that I can borrow Jacqueline’s umbrella because I’m not so sure that my 2E umbrella is going to be able to stand up to this weather.  We’ll see.

Eighteen days until I come home.  I am excited.  I can’t wait to spend time with my family.  I already have so many plans for what I want to do when I’m home.  I feel like there is more in my head that I wanted to squeeze out into this, but I think that I’ll go for my walk first and come back to this later.

11.25.07

This weekend has been very full . . . full of food, full of friends, full of laughter, full of smiles.  It always surprises me how my life can go from feeling like an endless expanse of free time that is overwhelming and hard to sculpt into something worthwhile into being so full that I barely have time to sit down and take a breath.  The weekend started with my Parisian Thanksgiving on Friday, and has continued to be busy busy busy.

Originally we were going to hold the Thanksgiving at Sarah’s apartment, but with the strike and the fact that she lives outside of Paris, it seemed a little too risky and a little too complicated.  Plus, Guy had offered to cook the turkey at his apartment, and the thought of transporting a large cooked bird from his place to Sarah’s (even with the metro) seemed rather . . . crazy.  So in the end I asked Guy and Ikram if we could have Thanksgiving chez eux (at their place) and they agreed.  They both worked all day on Friday, so they left me the keys under the doormat and told me to make myself at home cooking, arranging, doing whatever to get ready.

I woke up at 10:30 and by 11 was on my way to Bon Marche, which is a good 20-30 minutes by foot from my place.  I went in search of cranberry sauce, but was disappointed to find that they were sold out.  I had wanted to get a walk in anyway, so it was nice to start the day with the walk there even if I didn’t get what I wanted.  On the way back I picked up the few ingredients that I still needed for my pumpkin pie.  I decided to cook the pumpkin pie and the cranberry bread here because I had all the ingredients and the pans I needed here.  I got back around noon and got right to work.

The cranberry bread went quite well.  I had made one earlier this week, which was decent, but the one I made on Friday was excellent.  Thanks to the first one I made, I knew to add a little extra orange juice and to cook it for a little less time.  Oh, and if you’re wondering how I got cranberries in France, I have my dear mother to thank for that.  Yes, my mom MAILED me a bag of frozen cranberries.  She sent them a week ago, but only told me that she sent me a package, not that it had cranberries in it.  Then she kept nagging me about whether or not I had gotten the package, which seemed a little odd.  Then the package arrived on Monday and when I opened it I pulled out a bunch of wadded up plastic bags, then a book in a plastic bag (and I was thinking, “um, what is wrong with my mother?”) and THEN I pulled out a plastic bag with something wrapped in tin foil and a red liquid resembling blood.  My first reaction was, “uhhh, my mom sent me a cut of meat in the mail!?  WHAT!?”  Then I realized it was cranberries.  Ohhhh.  So the bag was enough for two loaves of cranberry bread, and the second loaf that I made for Thanksgiving was by far better than the first.

I thought that the bread and the pie cooked at the same temperature, so I planned on preparing both and baking them at the same time.  Of course I was wrong, so instead of finishing the two things in 45 minutes, I had to cook each separately for 45 minutes, which threw my schedule off a little.  It worked out in the end because while the cranberry bread was baking, I made the pumpkin pie and while the pumpkin pie was baking I showered and cleaned up the mess I made while baking.  It was my first time making a pumpkin pie and I had no idea if I was doing it right.  In the process of preparing it, I accidentally grated my thumb while I was grating the nutmeg.  Awesome!  Luckily I didn’t get any blood or skin in the pie.  Then when I was taking it out of the oven, I burned my other thumb a little bit.  

I left the pie to cool, and headed over to Guy and Ikram’s with the bread, supplies for the stuffing, cameras, my computer and a few other supplies.  When I arrived I checked out what was there and figured out what I needed to go buy, so that I could run to Monoprix to buy the ingredients that I would need for the stuffing.  Three years ago when I did Thanksgiving with the Louvriers, I was in charge of the stuffing, so technically this was my second time making it.  However, I had no clue what I was doing.  I had my dad’s recipe, which is slightly vague and I am not quite as confident as he is in figuring it out as I go.  PLUS I was preparing it to be eaten by not just my friends, but also a professional chef (very intimidating).  So I called home and had my dad talk me through it a bit and got to work.  It was easier than I thought, though the fact that there is absolutely NO counter space in their kitchen made it a little tricky.  I had to prepare everything on the stovetop itself.  When I finished I looked at the stuffing and thought, “ummm, I think I just made enough for about twenty people.”  I divided it into two bowls so it would look like less and put it in the fridge because Guy wanted to stuff the bird with it instead of eating it on the side.  I started the mashed potatoes, but then Guy got home and he said that I could run home to get the pie and such if I wanted and he’d take care of the potatoes.

I quickly returned here to pick up the pie and to throw on a little make up.  Then I ran to Franprix (like Monoprix, but a little cheaper) to grab some ice cream and whipped cream to go with the pie.  When I got back to Guy and Ikram’s it smelled amazing.  The turkey was stuffed and in the oven and Guy was making a sauce (not exactly gravy) to go on the turkey.  He showed me my old bedroom, which was set up with a big tablecloth on the floor, where we would eat.  It was perfect.  Then I had to run out to buy him a bottle of wine for the sauce (it’s good to have stores open the day you make Thanksgiving dinner!), so it was back down five flights of stairs and back to Monoprix.  Ikram was home from work when I returned from Monoprix and she and I got to work putting together the sandwiches that go in the pain surpris (see pictures).

Soon after people started arriving and it was just perfect.  Everyone was happy to be together, everyone offered to help out as they could, there was no awkward silence and it just felt . . . it felt like the holidays.  I think that I could not have asked for a more perfect celebration-away-from-home.  In the end Marannie, Gwenn, Tanya, Will, Ikram, Guy and I were there.  Sarah got a stomach bug and couldn’t come, which was disappointing (but good thing we didn’t try to do it at her place!).  We started the evening with wine, pain surprise, olives and potato chips.  Then we had the meal, which was picture perfect (as you can see in the pictures I already posted).  There was turkey (thanks to Guy), stuffing (thanks to me), mashed potatoes (thanks to me and Guy), peas (thanks to Marannie), green beans (thanks to Tanya), a huge loaf of bread from the famous bakery “Poilane” (thanks to Tanya and Will), and more wine (thanks to Mar).  The food was delicious.  Mar, Gwenn and I sat on my old bed, which was folded up like a couch, and the others sat on pillows on the floor.  Ikram joked that the three of us on the couch were like her and Guy’s kids.  It was sweet.

After the meal, we had a cheese course, thanks to Gwenn, with five or six different types of cheese.  We were already stuffed, but we managed to find room.  She brought morbier (sp?), which is one of my favorites, and some other really delicious, slightly pungent cheeses.  For dessert we had my pumpkin pie, ice cream, cranberry bread (they seem to think it’s a cake here), AND macaroons.  A round of coffee helped make room for dessert, but even so we were all moaning and comparing our stomachs.

My words aren’t really doing justice to the night.  As I was walking home around midnight, I felt like singing and crying all at once because I was so overwhelmed and so full from the night.  It went so flawlessly and reminded me of how lucky, how absolutely lucky, I have been here in connecting with this random group of people and of forming this family away from home.  Even with the dry spells here (i.e. the weeks that feel endlessly long and empty), I have so much to be thankful here.  I am also thankful that in twenty-five days I will be heading home to be with my real family.

I also have last night to talk about, but I need to go shower and get ready to meet the UU girl for coffee.  I’ll try to write more later tonight and maybe to do more justice to Thanksgiving.  But for now, here’s the long and short of it.

Thanksgiving yesterday was really wonderful.  I'm still glowing, and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside from it.  Or maybe that's all the food that I ate . . . I got back from Guy and Ikram's at 1AM and stayed up until 4AM uploading, editing and reformatting the pictures I took.  It is noon and I just got up.  I have my shutters drawn so my room is absolutely dark, which made sleeping this late easy.  It also made me a little confused about the fact that it's already noon.  Anyway, since I'm just waking up (and have yet to have coffee), I am going to stop writing and to simply put the pictures from last night in here.