One Day in Paris

A week ago, I convinced the girls that we didn't have anything to do in Semur and should thus spend a Saturday enjoying Paris.  My reasons were mostly selfish: I had some friends visiting from town and knowing that my time here is winding up fast, I still had a few things that I still have never seen in Paris.  Plus my walking shoes had just broken and I needed to buy new ones before going to Morocco in a week.

As we were leaving Semur at 5:45am to take the 18euro day ticket to Paris, I was expecting a great day and thought it would be fun to make a type of photo journal of my day.  I knew I wasn't going to necessarily have a super Parisian day at the Eiffel Tower or anything, but realized how blessed I am to be able to hop a train 2 hours and hang out in Paris for 11 hours just about any Saturday I want (if I can get a ride to and from the station).  The day turned out very little like what I had planned, bit of a bummer, but I still managed to take some pictures.

Moi, Moni, et Jie, on fait les betises

The worst cup of coffee in Paris,
perhaps the world.

Vir was sick and Klara was "economise-ing", so it was just Monika, Jie, and I for this trip into Paris.  Small but good group.  Things, however, quickly turned somewhat disappointing, beginning with perhaps the worst cup of coffee I have ever had, and on the Champs-Elysees no less!

Meeting up with friends turned into a bust.  One friend, on vacay from the US with her husband and brother/sister-in-law, had my contact info but didn't get a chance to get in touch.  The other friend, visiting from Belgium, was meeting up with her bf and our schedules didn't cross.  In the last few days of the big winter soldes, I couldn't find a pair of sporty yet cute size 41 shoes that I liked enough to shell out 30+euros for.  The Centre Pompidou, like much modern art, was both underwhelming and overwhelming and succeeded in somewhat depressing me.  Zumba, while exercise and a free "trial" class, was less than stellar, in a class of Taiwanese novices (and a pregnant instructor?) where everyone spoke to each other in a language other than French or English.  It was, suffice to say, a weird day.  Highlights?

Le Petit Palais

Part of the permanent
collection

After our terrible machine-made coffee (made by girls I'm sure failed out of lycee pro), we stopped at the Petit Palais, a building remaining from the Parisian World's Fair that I had never checked out.  They have a permanent collection we perused, but we were really there for a fabulous photography exhibit called "100 Photos" (or something like that) from Reporters Without Borders that focused on the lives of two famous photogs.  The pictures showed everything from wars in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to celebrities and a look at Yves St Laurent's last show.  It reminded me why I love photography and yet again made me sad I don't have a decent camera here or a chance to pursue my love of the medium.  There were articles around in French and English, one of which was particularly interesting.  It was from an old TIME magazine (I think), and it talked about how the French photographer was amazed when he first visited the US because all American women smile so freely and warmly, unlike anywhere in Europe.  It provided insight into my own culture and how natural smiling is, but I know French (women, esp) get a bad rap for always looking so angry while Americans tend to look dopey.  This article just talked about it being "refreshing."  Who doesn't want to hear that?

Centre Pompidou

After enjoying the exhibit, I do what I normally do when we go to Paris,
which is separate and try and check out some new things and meet up with friends in town.  Not the best decision this time.  My eventual destination was the Centre Pompidou, via Les Halles/Chatelet and a chance to find a good sale on a new pair of shoes before going to Morocco.  For various reasons, I basically avoided the winter soldes here in France.  Twice a year the soldes take over the country with great and ridiculous deals on EVERYTHING.  Not that I didn't want to enjoy them, after spending too much money this summer on random pieces of clothing, I didn't want to do the same, plus saving up for Morocco, and gearing up for other things.  This Saturday was to basically be a purposeful exploration of the soldes, hitting up discount stores and a myriad of shoe stores, but in the end I walked away (mostly) empty handed.  A few hours after parting from Monika and Jie, I arrived at the Pompidou, already somewhat frustrated, for my first look at the world of Parisian modern art.

View from the Pompidou,
looking out at the Sacre Coeur

I made a similar mask in
elementary school that
hung in my room for 15 years,
but this one is world famous?

I'll be honest, I normally stay away from modern art.  It's not that I don't like it all, there's just a lot of it that I don't quite "get", or like many a culturally ignorant person, think if I had only stuck with art more seriously, I could do something better.  There are obvious exceptions, but still.  I instead normally choose to spend my time at the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, or other place where the images in the paintings are more discernable than I few brush strokes.  In my many visits to Paris, including Summer 2006, I had never once entered the Pompidou because I didn't want to pay so much to see something I wasn't really that into.  As an English Assistant, I have a fabulous Pass Education, which gets me into any national monument or museum gratuite, including the Pompidou--meaning that now is the time to see anything I haven't already.  Honestly, I'm very glad I finally saw the Pompidou, but I'm also very glad that I didn't have to pay to see the permanent collection.

This is cool.

The permanent collection at the Pompidou consists of two floors: the upper stuff a little bit older and perhaps more well-known and the lower very new stuff.  There was some good works, some more thought-provoking, many disturbing pieces, and then others that just confused me (a video of a kid riding a bike?).  Some exhibits were clever, like an awesome set of sculptures that were related to wine, but not in an obvious way.  Many just kind of confused me.  There were Picassos, Matisse, Salvador Dali, and many other famous modernists I knew of, but then hundreds upon hundreds of inconnu to me.  As with any museum, I do what I can to see every piece  and make sure I don't miss anything, but this may not be the best strategy because it only served to overwhelm and slightly depress me.  It may have been the gray weather outside, my terrible shoes and heavy purse, disappointment about not meeting up with my friends, or something else.  No matter, halfway through I was ready to be done, but forced myself to finish.  There were some clever gems though.

Part of an exhibit about male-domination
in many art museums, very funny.

Paints or an installation?
I'm not sure, but it still got
me thinking.

 For me, any art museum is a very introspective experience.  As a child, I was very into art and even thought I might some day become an art teacher myself.  I first loved painting and drawing, then watercolors, photography and collage, pastels, ceramics, mixed media, and dance.  With the exception of a photography class in high school, I did very little art between middle school and discovering the art department at AU my junior year of college.  I like to travel with pastels, but didn't bring any to France, and for much of this winter have felt my creative juices flowing with nowhere to go.  I love getting into the photographer mindset and finding awesome shots, even with a teeny tired camera.  Art museums, of all sorts, call out to that hidden artist in me that wishes I were brave and focused enough to pursue these interests more regularly.  Even the Pompidou was no exception.

Kind of reminds me of a pediatrician's office

 After finally finishing the permanent collection (and noticing the crowds trying to get in, was glad I ate my sandwich en route and avoided the lines), I was feeling heavy-hearted and downtrodden.  I passed a few more shoe stores, nothing, and one rando, discount department store where I walked in, saw a cute long dress for 5euros, and bought it without trying it on.  It was screaming "perfect for warm weather!"  :)  It made me feel a little bit better, as was the idea of heading to a free Zumba class!

The dance studio for Zumba

My last day trip to Paris, in January, was fabulous because I met up with my friend Danielle and we hit up a rockin' Zumba class in the shadows of Notre Dame, en francais, with real Frenchies, before meeting up with some AU people.  I guess I was hoping for the same experience?  The instructor had emailed me a few weeks prior to tell me about this free trial class and how to get there, which I was stoked about.  It would be my last activity in Paris for the day and feeling slightly down about things, I knew Zumba would perk me up.  It usually does.

The metro popped me out across town, in a residential neighborhood in the 13th.  After walking through the rain past a sign that I assumed was where I was looking for but didn't look like what I was looking for, I called the instructor.  Her husband picked up in French and I asked about the class.  A few minutes later, Nisa opens the door and leads me up and down several series of stairs in an apartment/dance studio complex.  We start chatting in English (she's Taiwanese and married to a Frenchie but doesn't really speak the language) about how funny exercise classes in France are, and then I start to put details together about the class as the other two students show up.  Yes two.  And I was the only non-Taiwanese, and just a foot shorter than the ceiling.  I noticed Nisa rub her stomach a few times in that tell-tale way.  Hmm, this was going to be interesting...  In the end I enjoyed my free workout, but it was not nearly what I expected.  We did perhaps 7 or 8 songs--definitely not the Healthbridge Zumba I am used to, but that's a blog for another day.  The girls were very nice and I needed the bougement, but I don't really intend to go back and it didn't quite pull me out of my modernist art and rainy weather mood.

As the return train was going to depart in an hour, I headed back to the train station to meet up with Moni and Jie.  Rather than go straight to the station out of the metro, I turned right on a search for a light dinner and BAM!  I discovered the cheap eating section of the neighborhood, full of panini and crepe stands.  The crepe man was super friendly and wished me a "Bonne soiree Mademoiselle," as he handed me my 1.90euro egg crepe.  Perfect.

I grabbed a double row on the train for us and waited for the girls to get back.  They had a less disappointing/more fruitful Paris voyage than I did, but I'm still glad we went.  I saw two new museums I had never been to, met some new people though I will probably never see them, and developed a new appreciation for the ginormous Louvre.  Not everyone can take a day trip to one of the world's cultural capitals, wander centuries old boulevards, and eat crepes, so that's pretty cool!

I'm pretty sure I'm making the Senegalese disagreement noise while wagging my finger, but why?  I don't remember.

An Update of Sorts

Right after the break, Christine (an English teacher) invited Vir, Monika, and I over for a traditional Bouche de Noel

So I guess I've been pretty terrible about actually updating or sharing anything interesting about life here in France.  Maybe it was a mistake to keep the blog going, but I hope somewhere I can find something to write that others will find interesting (but then again, isn't that one of the "problems" with my generation...we all think that everyone should be interested in our lives?  I was on the national news once about this).  Then again, in many ways I feel like I don't have much "interesting" going on.  Yes, I live abroad--in FRANCE!--but I've lived abroad 31 of the last 36 months so the "abroad thing" is relatively normal for me (which I am very blessed with), though the plentiful wine and cheese is a nice change.  :)

Maybe it's a sort of writing stage fright.  Many of my friends, as well as my sister, have incredible, interesting, and creative blogs out there and every entry is packed full of insightful cultural exchanges, humorous anecdotes, and/or delicious recipes.  It's hard to compete with that.

There are definitely some cultural exchanges that can be strange or interesting here (strikes, bureaucracy, etc), but they don't necessarily merit blog entries.  The amount of ridiculous things that happen in my life (outside of the way my lycee functions) has decreased exponentially since leaving Senegal.  I don't feel the need to list what I do on a daily basis (wake up; eat breakfast, class, eat lunch, maybe more class or grocery store, workout, dinner, prep for class/waste time, bed) because I figure it's not that different from what (I imagine) life is like in the US.  I'm a coffee fan but not a foodie, so I don't normally have recipes or cooking adventures to share (though there may be a blog about this subject in the near-ish future).  Some of my silence has also come from some frustration with my job here, but that is the subject of a different post.  Needless to say, I don't feel like I have much to share, nor do I know if anyone outside of my family still reads this blog.

On the other hand, I acknowledge I am doing something that many people around me have never done and I have an obligation to let them live vicariously through some of the ridiculous things in my life.  I am trying to make a point to really experience life in Burgundy and take advantage of everything I can.  Sometimes I mentally write blog posts while on a walk or run and it disappears the minute I get to my computer.


Instead, I will focus on some of the highlights from January, because it was a pretty good month:

January 8: day trip into Paris with the other Semur girls.  Jie and I saw Harry Potter 7 (in English, finally) and the weather was nice.  I met up with Danielle, a friend from my AU/Modern Times days who is doing grad work in Paris, and we hit up a Zumba class, in French!  It was awesome and I really needed the chance to dance like a fool, Lord knows I don't get enough of that here!  After the class, we met up with some more AU peeps: Alex, who is an assistant in Lyon and applying for the Peace Corps, and Beth, my freshman year French prof who I'm close with because she loves West Africa and we even met up in Dakar and Thies a year ago!  The four of us grabbed coffees and hot chocolate, caught up, shared silly stories of cross-cultural adventures (and I shared quite a few adventures from my time in Senegal), and suddenly it was several hours later, rainy, and I had to meet the other assistants for the train back to Cote d'Or.  Sure, I didn't really do much of anything truly "Parisian" but it was day that was good for the soul.  I'll see the Pompidou next time :)

Jan 15-17: Three full days in a row of sunshine and warmish weather, started when I submitted my last grad school application!  I took a lot of walks outside, including an 8km hike around a man-made lake just outside of town.  I was in a great mood the entire weekend and tried to absorb as much natural sunlight as possible.  That weekend we also checked out the only bar in town on Friday night, went to a Beethoven/Brahams classical concert at the theater, and saw the showing of To Kill a Mockingbird at the movie theater.  I started the week asking all of the students what they did over the weekend, hoping for stories of outside adventures.  What did I hear instead?  "I stayed at home and played my XBox/game console/facebook/computer."  Gah!

Jan 20: I worked early and late, but finally made a morning stop to the Senegalese-owned cafe in Semur, called the Cafe des Arts.  I found it my first weekend in Semur but felt too poor to visit it the first few months.  I quickly made friends with the saisai Senegalese server and the owner, both of them finding it hysterical I gave them my Senegalese name instead of my American name and we chatted for a bit in French and Wolof.  The irony?  I forgot my wallet, haha!  They let me go on the promise I would be back again very soon (and I was within the week for attaaya and thiakry!).  My lycee pro kids sang happy birthday without my prompting and then after my step aerobics class, Monika and the other assistants had a somewhat surprise dinner party for me.  They invited a few of the teachers and made a delicious dinner (cheese pastries, schnitzel, two types of potato salad, and a chocolate hazelnut cake, plus plenty of Burgundy cremante and German white wine).  People shocked me with sweet gifts and sent me to bed feeling loved.

On the walk to Mont St Michel

Jan 27-30:  Monika, Vir, and I hopped a few trains to go north and spend the weekend in Normandy.  We stayed with Vir's friend and fellow Argentinian assistant, Sabrina in Cherbourg.  We didn't have time to visit the D-Day beaches in the area, or the museum in town (all were closed the month of January), but had the chance to explore the city and enjoy the gastronomic specialties of the area: crepes, gallettes (salty, similar to crepes), and cider.  We took one day to head to Mont St Michel (one of my goals for the year!) and were blessed with sun and minimal crowds (plus free entrance!).  There was a lot of train time, but with good company and a good book, we had a great weekend!

Monika blowing out the candles
 on her tiramisu

Jan 31: Monika's 23rd birthday.  I planned and cooked a Mexican fiesta with burritos and all the finishings (meat, beans, cheese, peppers, rice, guac, salsa, chips, etc) as well as margaritas!  Klara made a delicious tiramisu, Vir and Jie came, and our favorite teacher and his wife.  Monika was gifted with lots of cheese and chocolate :)


I finally gave in and purchased more storage for my Picasa albums.  I had been avoiding finding a new photo hosting site and trying to get a new Picasa one to work was also frustrating, but I feel bad not being able to share my pictures with people.  They aren't super amazing, but I'm trying to get better, even though my camera is still tired after two years in West Africa.

Ok, that's all I've got for you right now.  I'll try to get some more interesting posts up very soon!

-----------------
Note: I now see that I way overuse parentheses when writing these entries.  Sorry to all of the serious grammar people out there who find my little asides annoying and incorrect!

A Little Something About Work

Vir and I reading Jane Austen on the way back from a day in Paris
(totally unrelated to this post)

Some of my blog silence lately has come from frustration with my job here and being overly aware about how much I've already complained about the disorganization, too many students, and general functioning (or not) of the lycee.  I'm grateful, I really am, and so hate when I find myself complaining with the other assistants or friends. This post is pretty honest about my job (I'm not even going to get started on the apartment...), just be warned; I'm not really looking for sympathy, just wanting to share my experience with anyone out there.

Back up: I am the only English assistant at the high school (lycee) here in Semur.  There is another English assistant that works at the primary school but no one for the middle schools.  There are assistants for both German and Spanish classes at the lycee and middle school.  All students are required to take English class throughout middle and high school and then choose from Spanish or German in addition.  Also, the lycee is technically comprised of two schools: the professional (think technical skills and hospitality) and the general (regular studies, more like a US high school).  There are 5 English teachers at the general school and 3 at the professional school, plus a handful of other teachers dedicated to subjects like business and teach in English, but I can't work with them.  I work with 37 or so different groups of 10-17 students, which amounts to almost 500 students.  However, I am only legally allowed to work 12 hours a week.  Doesn't quite add up does it?  Well, it works out that I see each student about every 4-6 weeks for 50 minutes.  Some I work with some every 2 weeks for 25 minutes ("Hello, what did you do this weekend?  Oh, class is over already, go back to your teacher!")  Doesn't make sense does it?  Nope.  One week ago, I worked with a group of students for the first time EVER--it was the middle of January, but due to my ridiculous schedule, holidays, and testing, we only just met.  Ridic.

When organizing my schedule, the English teachers basically just gathered all of their classes and divided my time in a way so as many students as possible get to "work" with me, which might be good and promote equality in some ways but proves to be completely ineffective and a waste of time.  I don't have a partner teacher and never actually work with the teachers (at the general school).  I work on my own with a bunch of sophomores, tons of juniors, and just a few groups of seniors.  For the most part, the sophomores and juniors are nice and somewhat interested in participating but the seniors are, for lack of better words, the bottom of the barrel--a step above the pro school but not taking the same bacc (exam) as the rest of the seniors (whom I do NOT work with).  Some aren't even being tested in English.  When I asked to work with the seniors being tested in English as well as the classes of juniors specifically studying English (they have an extra few hours of English instruction each week, by CHOICE), I was told that I "don't have the right" because it wouldn't be "fair to the others."  For the record, most other English assistants in the region work with these groups that I'm not allowed to.  Yea, I don't understand it either.   

Do I work hard and try to plan interesting and culturally-relevant lessons in English that the students will learn from and maybe enjoy?  Yes.  Do I think the students I see once a month for 50 minutes actually retain much that helps their English in the long term?  No. 

Like any good citizen of the world (ha!), I'm learning to adapt instead of getting/staying mad.

Instead of stressing about language level improvement and a crazy system, I am focusing on giving my students a bit of cross-cultural awareness.  They walked away from the Thanksgiving lessons knowing that we eat a strange dish called pumpkin pie and watch football, which is something, but I doubt it ultimately helped their English levels.  The same goes for my lessons on MLK Jr, Shel Silverstein (I taught the students the words "aint," "wanna," and "gonna" and we reviewed other contractions), and French-American stereotypes.  I think many of the students like coming to my class because it's something different from their regular lessons and I usually stand in front of the group acting ridiculous in an attempt for them to understand what I'm saying [through this I am also gaining a deeper appreciation of my high school French teacher].  After years on the SEAS mission team and Senegal, I don't have a problem with being a little silly and getting people to laugh with me.  They seem to enjoy the silly pronunciation exercises and tongue twisters I give them and are amazed when I explain about the costs of university in America.  After a funny class on US-France stereotypes, the German assistant ( my roommate, Monika) overheard one of the students saying "Vraiment, l'assistante d'Anglais est franchement cool!" (apparently I'm really cool, haha!)  This was a great compliment and made me smile about my silliness, but I wish I felt like I was actually able to help them improve their English rather than just being "cool."

After having such a positive, though difficult, but ultimately extremely productive Peace Corps service, it has been frustrating to find my attempts somewhat blocked here in France, without anyone much caring.  Relationships and community are important to me, which I think is part of why seeing the same students so rarely is tough for me.  Not seeing the students very often means it's hard to get them to open up to me and real discussions are that much harder to come by.

For the record, I think that most of the English teachers are very nice, and a few I truly like a lot.  I know whose students are the most motivated and excited to work with me (though I see them less often than I wish) and I am genuinely sad that I rarely get to see them.  I started a kind of English club discussion group (off my contract) as an opportunity to see some of these students more often.  We sit around and chat about n'importe quoi, which I really enjoy because it allows us to all relax a little and get to know each other.

I'm glad that I came here and tried out the job.  The town is great as are the other assistants.  However, I will have a lot of feedback and suggestions for the teachers, lycee, and rectorat (kind of like the regional district) about how to make the work of the English assistant in Semur a little more effective (two assistants, or just one or two levels of students at a time, more frequently).  This has definitely been a learning experience and is getting me excited to hopefully start grad school in the fall (prayers for that please!).

D'accord, that's all I've got for you!