update

I'm back from France. I picked up a bug on the plane, I think, but I'm getting over it.


We're going to DC! I'm not going to be lost in the wilds of Florida! I will, however, be attending a university there, through the wonders of technology...John's going to the Catholic University of America and he's very excited.

Oh, and we got a new puppy. Her name is Riley. She is a Golden Doodle, that is, half Golden Retriever, half Poodle. The name was conceived to emphasize the Retriever side. Someone got her a t-shirt that says "it's all about me." That about describes her :)

I'll keep sending reminiscences about France...Don't want to overburden anyone.

Peace Out.

Curtain Call

My last night at theater group. We started a scene from The Breakfast Club, the one where Bender and the Principal (is it? Ringo kept calling him the surveillant, which is someone at school pretty much soley responsible for crowd control but I'm pretty sure he has more responsibility than that) have it out about the door and Bender gets five more years roughly of detention. ("Screws fall out all the time; the world is an imperfect place") 'A bit rough ("Eat my shorts" kept coming out as "Heat my shirts," and Bender's outraged scream of F*** YOU at the end kept coming out downright polite). I'm taking off next week for Good Friday, but I would have really liked to see it...

We all went out to a couscous restaraunt afterwards (if I'm ruined for American coffee forever, I'm also ruined for Near East couscous...I can't describe it but it was soft and fluffy and not nearly so coarse...yum!!!) Horace fooled around with Ringo's ultra expensive camera (the one he takes photos for his gallery with, I believe), there was much laughing and eating. And I can't believe it won't come again; I won't see all these people in the same place again. It's weird, the first day when Ringo expected five people to show up (if he was lucky) and I had no idea what to say to any of them...I don't think anyone hoped we'd have a group of seventeen such bright, enthusiastic (if albeit not always punctual or diligent about being present and learning lines), fun students.

Ringo made t-shirts for Anastasia and I bearing the likeness of Marilyn Monroe. I will treasure it always.

He also gave the students a pop (group) quiz at the restaraunt dealing with lines from films we'd done. There wasn't a line he threw at them, even if it had only two words, that they couldn't match up with the film.

I also gave a speech for the occasion. It went something like this (parentheses just for your information...they obviously didn't need it.)

"I will soon be returning from France. It will feel like entering another life, but "I'm not dead yet!" (Monty Python and the Holy Grail). I know this summer, when I'm sticking my head "In the icebox!" (Seven year itch) trying to keep cool, or even "Chicki-chicki dancing" (Brooklyn Boogie), I'm going to be saying to myself, "Are you stupid or something?" (Forrest Gump) How could you leave France? But my life will go on, and so will yours. I just wanted to say something about how much you all mean to me.

"I know you are all bright, and aren't likely to end up like "the little waitress with the fat culo" (BB). And I know some people will try to convince you that success is everything, and that "in order to achieve that success, you need to sell cars!" (Arizona Dream). But I know that you are all individuals, and that you can all do great things. I just want you to take what you've experienced here, and consider it as a "symbol of your individuality and personal freedom" (Sailor and Lula), and know that I've treasured it too. So now, with fond memories, I say, from the bottom of my heart, "Bye bye, anybody!" (Arizona Dream). "

I think they enjoyed it.

POISSON D'AVRIL!!!

Here they have, not the April Fools, but the April Fish.

Apparently back when everyone was tricking one another about the old vs. the new new year's day, people were not allowed to fish in the rivers for fear of catching fish that were not yet grown. Someone got real wild and crazy and started throwing salt water fish in the rivers, shouting "April Fish!"

The English English teacher at school claims that this fishing of young fish was associated with perverse older men preying on younger women, and hence the French tradition of sticking paper fishes on people's backs on the first of April is tantamount to calling people perverts, though it was so long ago everyone has forgotten about it. He comes up with some pretty crazy stuff...

Maude says it has to do with the end of Lent and everyone eating fish...apparently in the Catholic country of Poland (oh, the homeland!) they also have April Fish...

Traditions are weird...

Speaking of fish...

Someone sent me this really cool magic eye...click on the title of the blog, and then on picture 7. Apparently people with way too much time on their hands have been developing these "three layer" stereoscopic images, so you see the original design, then the second, 3D image (like your traditional magic eye)...but if you keep looking you'll see the third layer, which is a picture of a fish...when I found it it was a little blurry, buy you can distinctly see the fins of the tail in the bottom right hand corner...it took me a little while...I finally ended up finding the first 3d picture and looking farther into it to find the other one...I think squinting and tilting my head very slowly to the side helped too...let me know if you find it!

Non au CPE!

Last Tuesday none of the teachers thought it was worth me coming to school and facing the public transportation crises for the two dedicated students I might have (if I was lucky). So I spent the time cleaning my room and exploring Rouen a little in this time of strife. I was lazy and got up too late to catch a lot of the brouhaha (though I think I went in to early too, as it started up again after lunch). But I got pictures of a group of students blocking the door to their school, as well as a group of my students crossing the Seine of the way to lunch. They posed for a picture for me too...They seemed to be having a good time.

They told me there were over 50 thousand people demonstrating in Rouen that day, that they completely filled the road from the trainstation down Rue Jeanne D'Arc all the way across the Seine to the (somewhat shadier) Left Bank, a distance of 1.7 kilometers, or a little over a mile. There were about 3 million people demonstrating all over France.

The Parliament was discussing tossing the law. They didn't. Chirac made a few changes, but I don't know if it will be enough to avoid another huge strike next Tuesday.

Ecole Primaire

I went to visit the little kids on Monday. I haven't felt like such a celebrity since we broke the World's Longest Dance Party record in Cleveland...and everything they had to share! "I have five guinea pigs at home!" "I have 50 mice at home!" "I've been to Switzerland, La Reunion, Italy, and Brittany!" Not to mention the questions: "What's your favorite sport?" "What's your favorite animal?" "Do you have any brothers?" "What's his name?" "How old is he?" "Do you have a husband and kids?" "How many kids do you want to have?"

I don't think I've ever seen a happier bunch of kids! Are they all like that?

Words I learned:

La loutre- otter

As some of you may already know...

My dog Bailey, after living the longest, fullest, healthiest, happiest life any dog could wish for, and after several weeks struggle with cancer has, as they say here, disappeared...

I remember when my parents, having gone for a "drive in the country," as I believe it was, brought her home to my brother and I unexpectedly...this ball of orange colored fur...and then my parents and my brother popped off to a basketball game and left me with her, except I kept trying to go into the living room and eat and watch a movie and every time I did she'd cry and cry and cry...

Any of you have Bailey stories to share?

le dîner chez Anastasia

Saturday night I had dinner at Anastasia's house with her and her PACSman and Pierre. Maude, unfortunately, forgot until the last minute and couldn't come. I arrived at 7:30 sharp-on time for once- with gerberas and some catnip (herbe à chat or cat grass in French) for Volvox who is now no longer a kitten.

I reckon I understood about 90% of what was going on...almost everything that wasn't deeply seated in school politics or gossip about names I didn't recognize (probably for the best...).

I actually participated.

I feel like I'm finally starting to fit in as a person and not just as "the American."

How do I love "thee"?

Someone asked me the other day why we don't use the thee/thou form anymore, when just about every other language makes a distinction between plural and/or singular and/or formal "you." I had no idea. Anyone know?

I took that opportunity to ask him why some people used "vous" (formal) for the Hail Mary and other people used "tu," (informal) even though the Our Father is always "tu" (the implication seeming to be that you can be familiar with God, but not His mother...) Apparently back in '66 someone decided since the Bible is all in "tu," the liturgy should be as well...well, this bothered some people and so as a sort of compromise the Hail Mary was kept in "vous," until recently when people, having forgotten the whole compromise story, decided "tu" just made more sense.

Apparently somewhere in Jerusalem they have the Our Father engraved in all these different languages. It appears twice in French, once in vous and once in tu

Current situation

hey, I think this is my 100th post!

Someone mentioned that they saw the protests being illustrated with movies of car fires from four months ago on CNN (they have cable). Just so y'all know (and don't get worried, Mom) none of that is going on anymore! This seems to be involving pretty much everyone, so I don't think they feel they need to resort to violence to be heard. I think the riot police have had to use tear gas and stuff in some of the bigger cities, but nothing major.

The whole mess is about these Contrats de Premiere Embauche (CPE, or roughly, first job -contracts) whereby companies can hire people ages 18-26 with a two- year "trial" period, in which they can let them go for pretty much any reason, no explanation required (except certain like being preganant or black, etc etc, which are protected by law...but then if you can fire someone for no reason, are you going to tell anyone it's because they (fill in discriminatory motive here)?). The students I talked to seem to be concerned that 1. companies will keep hiring people for two years and firing them just before their time is up so that they can hire fresh blood to exploit 2. It will be hard to take out a lease on an appartment if there's no guarentee they will be able to pay the rent for the next year.

The official reason for having them in the first place is to allow more jobs to be created for young people, as their unemployment rate is really high right now.

And I'm realizing how ignorant I am...what's required for you to be able to fire someone in the US? Do you need a valid reason? For anybody? (Law student? Have an answer?)

What's the matter with kids today?

I had to cross a picket line to get into school today. After my first class began a huge hoarde of students began running through the school, shouting and hollering. One of my students reached over and locked the door and I soon found out why. The crowd was cavorting through the school, pretty much barging into classrooms, trying to get other students to join them before they went down to Rouen for the big demonstration. They seemed to be having a good time. The prinicipal looked downright grumpy but I guess he couldn't do much, legally or physically.

It was a bit hard to hold class with all the noise, but eventually the protesters left and the school was left in peace, if not rather emptier than usual. I had six students today. I think some of them are starting to worry about falling behind.

I was impressed that my three first students weren't spirited away by the Pied Piper... however, I was less impressed when we got into the lesson...thinking it was relevant with all the interuptions, I started asking them questions about this whole CPE business, but they got tired of trying to explain in English (even though I kept providing them with vocabulary and asked to do something else.)

So I went on with my swing lesson...and after not to long it became clear they were dying to do something else, particularly as good natured giggling was giving way to downright mockery at my expense.

So I broke down and asked them what they wanted to do.

Take a field trip to the United States, they answered.

Ok, I answered, you get up the funds to pay for our plane tickets and pay me for the salary I'd be missing out on and we'll start making plans. Until then, what do you want to do? Why are you here?

To improve our English, they answered. You dancing is not helping us.

It's cultural, I defended myself. But I tried to lead a discussion!

That's too hard, they answered.

Ok, so they want to improve their English without doing anything hard. Like, you know, talking in that language.

Does this seem a little unreasonable to anyone else?

Perhaps it was the difficult vocabulary. Perhaps they feel if they hear the syllables "C" "P" and "E" together again they're won't be able to prevent themselves from jumping out the window.
Perhaps it was the abyss of my ignorance which demanded to be filled before the conversation continued. At any rate, I spent the rest of the period trying to find something they would be ok doing in two weeks for our last time together. They didn't have any suggestions. I suggested the chat idea, and they reluctantly accepted, provided the topic of conversation wasn't anything political and that I found someone under the age of 30 for them to talk to...

So if you're interested (and don't mind staying up rather late on a Monday night) or know someone who would be let me know. And even if you aren't for this time it would be cool to have people from other classes.

C'mon. You know you want to.

Charlotte Fraise

Happy Feast day of St. Joseph

In honor of this occasion, I splurged and bought this pastry I'd dreamed about trying ever since it appeared in a conversation, allegedly taken from the Cordon Bleu, in my Advanced French book (does anyone else get excited about visiting places they read about in text books? Or am I just that big a nerd?)

The Charlotte.

I really wish I'd thought of taking a picture before I dove in. It's probably one of the most beautiful desserts I've ever eaten (look at the design on the side!)

The counterpart of the American strawberry shortcake (both the desert and the cartoon character), the Charlotte Fraise consists of a sort of thin sponge cake shell filled with a sort of strawberry mousse and topped with strawberry jam and, in this case, two halves of a thin white/milk chocolate wafer, perched like a pair of leaves on a choice piece of fruit.

I guess it's a French thing. Nothing is complete without a bit of chocolate.

There are times I really, really love this country.

School days

Lesson 1- two seniors. The ones at 8 in the morning who never talk. Listened dutifully to my treatise on the origins of swing dancing, giggled politely when I gave my demonstration of the Dean Collins Shim Sham and mastered the basic Charleston step fairly quickly.

long dark teatime- another English professor wanted me to help her grade this practice test for this former student trying to get into piloting school. Yes, they have to pass an English test to be a pilot. There were questions there I had no clue about. A lot of them were probably more difficult than anything I had on the SATs. Who makes up these tests? And what kind of super bilingual person is supposed to pass them?

For example: (and yeah, if you happen to own a business don't answer)

The companies formed a three way a. blah b. bluh c. combination d. body e. bleh

Is it just me or do none of them make sense (ok, three I didn't remember but they definitetly didn't make sense...)


Lesson 2- ten "seniors" acting like "nine-year-olds." As in I take them to the library and they start hiding from me in the magazine racks. I kid you not. Talk to eachother throughout my presentation (though I had the music working this time!) clapped glaringly off rhythm during my demonstration and no one would stand up and learn anything- though one kid decided to try dancing to the music...I'm not sure if he was actually trying to do it or was just making fun of me...

Lesson 3- probably the best lesson I've had all year. With admittedly the superkids who are funny without being immature or crazy and will talk without being begged...heck, they pretty much told me they just wanted to discuss stuff from now on. Forget movies and such. Ok, fine by me.

Anyway, we set up a chat with a certain Seven seas...everyone was great! everyone asked awesome questions and the kids wanted to talk to her again...

Thanks so much, R! You rocked!