Tomorrow I'm discussing French and American stereotypes with my students.

Tonight I'm working late and wishing I could hop in my SUV and drive to a 24/7 supermarket because I'm fresh out of Coca-cola.

Tous en grève!

My brother is planning on meeting me in Brussels on February second, Groundhog's day. This, unfortunately, is the very date of the next government employees strike in France. No one seems to be able to tell me whether this will affect international train trips. I even tried going to the train station and asking them, but the woman narrowed her lips to a thin line and would only say that the train schedule would not be available until the night before. As one of the teachers at school said, strikes aren't any fun if they don't disrupt people's plans.

This might not bother me so much if

A. The people seeking change in governmental policies weren't the teachers, not the train workers, and

B. I were an actual citizen and in a position to effect any kind of change.

As it is, I'm still waiting to hear from the lady I babysit for on Wednesdays as to whether her husband will be able to come take me and the kids to the train station during her regular afternoon conference call, as that is the only time I can leave so as to be out of Paris before the strike starts.

But with any luck the day won't repeat itself endlessly, trapping people where they are indefinitely.

collège

Yesterday ended way too late, and today started way too early. After coming home from last night's events and writing and sitting around in a stupor because I was too tired to figure out how to go to bed...well, it was the wee hours stretching into the larger wee hours. I set the alarm and fell into bed. When I woke up it seemed that I'd hardly slept at all. That's what I get from lack of discipline, I tell myself. You need to go to bed earlier. Could be worse. You could really feel like crap.

Had some tea and brioche, took a shower and began hastily throwing my bag together. I had taken up one of my teachers on the offer to spend a day at her child's middle school, collège in French, after I had had to cancel last month to go get my immigration papers and by golly, I was going to stick to my word! As I'm about to race out of the door as I'm running about five minutes late, I happen to glance at the clock. I wonder why it says four thirty. Was there a power outage? I glance down at my watch. It, too, says four thirty. I check the alarm time setting. It appears that somehow I managed to set my alarm for fifteen minutes after I went to bed and still have another three hours before I need to be at the bus stop.

I was relieved that I realized this then. It would not have been fun to venture out into subfreezing temperatures only to find that somehow the Metro had broken down and walked all the way to the bus stop wondering why no one was out yet.

Part of me is afraid that I am developing early onset Alzheimers...but the fact that I recognize this is a problem is a good sign (right? right?)

Happily, in addition to lunch, the collège was happy to provide with with lots of free coffee. I spend most of the day with a heavily pierced guy with a German sounding name who kept barking out orders to his students about how he wanted questions from them for the assistant for participation points- and they'd better be grammatically correct- and standing around while nobody said anything. At least in the older classes. The younger ones were these bundles of unbridled energy that would stop asking me questions- while ten others were asking me questions, while I was trying to answer questions, etc. Usually needed the answers translated as well. I feel my French improves more during English class when someone is translating my responses.

One kept singing the theme song from Malcolm in the Middle. It was cute.

Anyway it was a nice change from my stone-silent 18-year-old Terminale Litéraire Spécialité Anglais students at eight in the morning...

A girl has a right to change her mind...

I know I've complained like crazy about the Lord of the Rings movies and how they sacrifice the integrity of the story they're supposed to portray for the sake of giving Liv Tyler more screen time. I apologize to everyone sweet enough to go and see them with me and tolerate my jaded snickers and cries of horror through the entire show.

But, and maybe this is a little bit of distance from the book talking, but I've seen them in a new light. At least the last one. Well, I guess I saw it in the same light, the light of a projector. Commentated by none other than Pere Andre.

I don't know how much I've said about Pere Andre. He deserves his own entry at some point. I know I've been a bit heavy-handed with the superlatives lately, but I think he's one of the holiest priests I've ever met. Or holiest seeming at least, I can't read anyone's soul. He just radiates peace, joy, humility, and faithfulness to the church. I think you'd like him, Dad. Particularly as he was speaking out against the "marshmallow (read "buddy") Jesus concept a few weeks back (incidently, they were selling marshmallow baby Jesuses in all the bakeries and candy shops around Christmas time.)

But he's so gentle. People always ask him such hard questions, and he even provokes them by topics he brings up (gently) for conversation. And he always responds calmly, with something incredibly intelligent or insightful, or if he really doesn't know or has to think about it more he says so. He never hits you over the head with anything, but he never compromises in telling what the church teaches either. And he's always available. Hannah wanted him to come have coffee with us one day and he wrote us right into his PDA and came rolling up to see us in his motor scooter (I don' t know if that's as radical as it might sound...lots of people ride moter scooters around here. It's just practical, especially when it comes to parking) And he's my spiritual director! My very first! And he's been a lot of help.

And yet he's so young- not even thirty! (I know this because we played at game at Hannah's birthday party recently where we wrote names of people we all (or at least the French or the Americans or the aumonerie people) knew on cards attatched to people's foreheads and everyone had to guess who (s)he was after asking yes/no questions for hints.) And he has this homeliness to him...he has this big black unibrow, these big glasses that seem to have survived the late eighties, a manner that, while exuding peace, can be a little awkward. But his lack of phsyical beauty, not to sound trite but this is true, only accents his spiritual beauty.

Anyway, back on topic, his commentary went about as in depth as that of another you might have read about another movie but, with all due respect my love, this one seemed a little more plausible (well, the movie did come from a Catholic imagination and not a Mormon one...)

Highlights (and yeah, some of this might be old news to a lot of people, but some of the rest, you'd have had to watch it many times to notice. Which perhaps you have):

Gollum argues with himself about killing the hobbits:
evil Gollum starts off calling not so evil Gollum "Smeagol," his interior name from himself, which calls to mind the time he was innocent. However, when he really wants to manipulate him, it's "Gollum," which evokes a time of exile in which he "forgot even his own name" and an image of himself as a murder, which A. floods him with guilt and despair and B. reminds him that he killed once, he might as well kill again. How often does Evil smash our face into our guilt and convince us we have no hope of redemption?

Frodo leaves Sam:
Frodo distrusts Sam only after Gollum plants the thought in his mind that Sam is out to get the ring for himself, and leaves him only when Sam suggests that Frodo give the ring to him (not after it seems Sam has eaten the rest of the lembas.), like Eve was rendered vulnerable when the serpent planted in her mind the thought that God is not all good and loving.

Shelob episode (Shelob is the giant spider for those who haven't read the book):
Frodo regrets leaving Sam when he finds himself alone, in the shadows

Tolkien likes to set up situations that are impossible to escape, only to have his heroes escape by...idunno divine intervention almost?

Sam holding mostly-dead Frodo resembles the Pieta.
"Don't go where I can't follow you!" (Christ to Peter?- Where I am going you will not be able to follow)

Parallel between sleeping and death, prevalent in the gospels

Sam, like Christ to dead people about to be resurrected, commands Frodo to "wake up"

Smallest LOTR sentence could be: Sam wept.

Spider silk wrapped around Frodo like bands wrapped around Lazarus in the tomb?

I noticed: Sam did quite a bit of damage to Shelob with his sword, but it was the light, given to them by Galadriel, not his own efforts that finally drove her back.


Sam gets Frodo back:

Frodo has hands tied together as Christ is often pictured.
Orcs strip Frodo of his garments, divide them among themselves, and dispute over the mithril coat which, I believe, happens tobe seamless
lashes on Frodo's arm, old wound from sword back in first movie clearly visible.
Frodo: this is my burden. Only Christ can bear our sins on himself and liberate us from them.

I noticed: Orcs in the midst of mobilizing themselves against the western armies, disputing and killing themselves. This place really is Hell. (of course the fire and brimstone later on helps this image along). When the orcs and other "baddies" have a common goal they are more or less allies but ultimately everyone is quite ready to attack and kill everyone else, on virtually any pretext. There are no friends. (ok this is kind of obvious)

Sam and Frodo climb Mount Doom?

have to put on enemy clothes- Christ "clothes" himself in our humanity, becomes one of us in order to save us (ok, orcs aren't being saved...but you kinda get the picture). We're not talking about a ray of heavenly light penetrating from outside but someone who really descended into the midst of all the evil the world had to offer.

Frodo falls numerous times on the way

Sam can't carry Frodo's burden- but he can carry Frodo. We can't carry the world's sins, but we can join our sufferings with those of Christ in order to support him in our salvation and the world's.

Outside the pitiful armies of the west are being surrounded by the unnumbered hoards of Mordor. And yet that isn't where the battle is being decided, but by two measly hobbits crawling up the side of the mountain while the Eye's attention is elsewhere. We think we're fighting against all the odds, but really the battle has already been won for us elsewhere. We still have to keep fighting, but our victory is assured by something small and courageous that happened elswhere.

I noticed- Sam finally admits that there isn't likely to be a return journey- more or less renounces all hope of terrestrial life after the mission- and hoists Frodo up and they keep going. He "hates his life" and ends up saving it- and everyone elses.

Ring Toss

good thing they didn't get rid of Gollum like Sam wanted to against Frodo's faith in his potential for salvation...funny how someone betraying someone to such an extent can make the saving act possible...

When the ring is gone, Mordor and its armies are swallowed by the ground, as death is swallowed up in the resurrection.

Those given up for dead are saved by eagles- a symbol of Christ.

I noticed- "If your finger is causing you to sin- cut it off..."

Gray Havens- Frodo rides off literally into the sunset, welcomed by a guy in a white robe and long white beard. Seemingly as if into the sky with the reflection on the ocean. Can we say- the ascension?

Before he goes he leaves those who have followed him through all this the book containing his life story, leaving a page for them to write- as Christ left us with the Gospels and the church is left to write the last page of the final days.

Anyway, maybe all this was really obvious...but maybe the movie has its merits after all.

Final tidbit- "Baggins" is rendered "Sacquet" in French. "Sac," of course, meaning "bag."

Also: we watched the movie on our wall.

Kid's stuff

something else for the St. Michael Gallette to slay...

I just about got kicked out of the Lycee media center I was laughing so hard..
I don't know if it's so funny if you don't know the guy. Just rest assured- This is as weird a present for him to get as it would be for you to get it. Weirder in many cases.

Finally- a snack to help combat Damnation!

figuring out the French

Read the article the social science teacher gave me on class/ethnic conflict in France. He is concerned that the US way of parsing people out by race is invading France, where they supposedly don't have the concept as much. As a result, working and middle classes, once united in an effort to hold their own against the ruling classes, start hating eachother and let the rich people walk all over them while they fight amongst themselves. Or rather, if we blame problems on race, a rather hazy concept to begin with, we can't really solve them, while economic disparities are relatively easy to deal with.

I can see his point. However, in my American Culture-mindedness, I can't help thinking that France and America have different approaches to the problem based on their histories, and both seem to be lacking something.

France is the land of liberté, EGALITE, fraternité. Which is to say that lower classes fighting for equality with upper classes is accepted and praised as living up to the ideals of the republic. However, (and I keep running across this problem in books dealing with men and women saying égalité between the two is a recipe for distaster when I know they aren't saying then women aren't worth as much as men or vice versa) they often fail to distinguish between "equal" and "like."

On the other extreme, America is the land of the melting pot. Salad bowl is a better metaphor. Whereas the writer of the article boasts that French immigrants become homogenized plain old French within a few generations, that happily their family structures break down and they fit in with all the other French, we wear tee-shirts proudly proclaming our Irish heritage, even if was five generations back. If you you talk with your hands, it's because you're Italian (or your great-grandfather was). My grandparent's parents came from Poland and we still have a traditional Polish dinner every Christmas Eve. For the most part, say what you like of hard core conservatives, we're proud of our diversity. And we're all for equality- in therory. I don't know if we can say we're as committed to it as the French, though.

We have a ways to go. Both of us.

politics and self image

(wow, that sounds impressive doesn't it? Don't get too excited, it's not a poly sci or psychology thesis) (by the way, the French pronounce that "p" in words like psychology or pseudonym)

Ate lunch with Maude today. She just had someone visit her classroom to tell her that for a commoner she was more or less up to snuff but not for the level she was at. Then went on to say that she needed to change a hundred billion things that she went on to list. Never mind that she did anything right.

This reminds me a lot of clinical practicum.

Also familiar is Maude's relationship with her class. They tend to walk all over her. And the tighter the grip she tries to get on her class by being alternately stern and likeable, the more they slip through her fingers.

Man, I've been there...

Because she might be interviewing for a position teaching French and St. John's college at Cambridge and she feels she really needs to work on speaking directly to the point and not meandering around everywhere when she speaks (ah, circumlocution...I use it every day), I'm relaxing my pas d'anglais policy

But it seems over-praising Anastasia was a mistake.

Anastasia just had a class visit too...she apparently got a really good report. It doesn't surprise me. I've seen her in class. She's brilliant. Not to mention she speaks English so well that knowing there was an English English professor there the first day and hearing her speak, I thought it was her at first.

I remarked that I said something to Anastasia about the audtious color combinations she was wearing (kind of brown and hunter green with a teal blue jacket...sounds strange but it worked) and that I hoped I didn't say anything that seemed negative or made her look bad in front of the guy who had just reviewed her, then went onto talk about the amazing French sense of style (ie how they manage to tie their scarves.) and how Anasatisia seemed to have an overdose of it... and then how outgoing and confident she seemed.

Maude said something about how Anastasia always seemed rather reserved to her. I remarked that maybe it was the really bright colors she always wears and Maude remarked about how she liked to wear bright colors too...

As my life and Maude's seem to have many parallels (I've lent her all my English children's books, which she's been eating up, and she promises she'll take me French children's book shopping soon) I should have seen it coming. I felt that way about lots of people through school. You struggle with something and someone else is always shining around you...one day you find yourself down and someone pointing out something that seems to accentuate a difference you feel keenly...Or maybe I'm reading way too much of my experience into this. Anyway, if Anastasia had been in my speech language pathology program, I am ashamed to say I probably wouldn't have liked her nearly as much as I do now that we are equals but not doing exactly the same job.

I'm constantly tempted to say "I know exactly how you feel" to Maude...but I know that's not true and that's not what people like to hear...but sometimes it's eerie. And I know how much it sucks to be doing all you can to be the best at what you do, and it doesn't work, so you get upset about it, which makes it worse etc. (only honestly Maude is doing a much better job at keeping her cool when she needs to than I would...)

Anyway they're both great...I don't know if they get along pefectly well...I thought it a little odd that Anastasia invited me to her birthday party and not Maude but figured maybe she was just being nice to the foreign girl (who did manage to fall asleep during the after dinner conversation)

AAARRGGH! is this sounding way too much like middle school or what?

Bottom line: if I could take Maude and Anastasia and oh heck why not while I'm dreaming, Pierre home to be friends with me, I would. It's not like we're bosom companions or intimate acquaintances or anything...they just rock.

(BTW, I got both Anastasia and Maude Holes by Louis Sachar for Christmas (Yeah, the guy who wrote Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Think of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings and you've got an idea of early Sachar vs. late, though not nearly as dark.) It's absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to anyone who likes a good story and good writing. Forget that it's a kids book, that's completely irrelevant. They both loved it and were discussing it together during class so I guess things have to be at least pretty good between them...)

Je connais "les inconnus"

Annemarie had an inconnus party this evening. Which meant first we sat around in the living room eating hors d'oeuvres and talking. Then we stood around eating pizza (with pitted olives), quiche (the two tend to fall in the same category of "tarte" here.) and salade, after which I entertained everyone by popping popcorn in the microwave.

Then went to the basement (la cave) armed with drinks, a chocolate cake (fondant, which is kinda brownie-like) and these little lemon tarts to watch les inconnus, a French sketch comedy group, on their projector. We would have watched it on her wall, but she had a screen. She brought down a fruit salade later, to cleanse the palate. The girl's in college, I don't know where she finds the time to prepare all of this! But it was really good.

Tidbits of les inconnus

"Jean Claude van Damme" as Jean Valjean

"Sylvester Stallone" in "Jesus II- the return (more making fun of the US than anything else. They eat hamburgers and ketchup with big obvious bottles of coke at everyone's place at the last supper)

A morning news show where everyone ends up falling asleep, except one chef, who ends up cutting off half his hand and sitting there with the big knife still in his other hand saying "I hurt, I hurt."

A song about paying taxes sung by vampires

This great power rangers parody.

Girl: "Oh, I'm nice. The mean guy is chasing me. I don't know why."

Bioumen: "We'll help. Why are you chasing the nice girl?"

(guy in weird bird-looking costume):"Because I'm mean!"

(transformation scenes.)

"Bioumen": Don't worry. We don't like mean people either. We're nice too. (lots of karate chopping the air.)

Annemarie's currently doing some sort of practicum to be an elementary school teacher, and one day the teacher hosting her told her she would have to take her home later than usual, because there was going to be a parents' meeting. Great, Annemarie said being bold and ambitious. Can I come and observe? Sure! Except when everyone was there and the door was closed there was a mediator who made it clear that the meeting was strictly for parents- no teachers aloud. Apparently they were airing complaints (this happened to be a school in the banlieue, that is the suburbs, which is really the socio-economic equivalent of our inner city, whereas here the inner city tends to be the nice place to live. Go fig. In short- the school wasn't in a nice neighborhood). Someone mentioned to Annemarie that she hadn't been at the last meeting and that she should introduce herself. Oh, no no, I'm not a parent, Annemarie protests. Oh, but you're going to be, someone suggests. No, says Annemarie, looking down at her flat stomach. Then she explains what she is doing there. The mediator is not happy, but the parents want them to stay. Fine, if you're all unanimous about her being here the mediator relents. Then all the parents procede to roast Annemarie's host teacher in very colorful language. Apparently the meeting is all about her. Annemarie, very brave, though feeling she might be risking her life, stands up for her as best she can.

Coming home we passed a woman in a long fur coat on the corner. She kept going up to cars. I think she was a prostitute. I think it's legal here. I tried smiling at her. She had very sad looking eyes. I think they're only around very late on Saturday nights.

It seems France is a place of conflict, and they like it that way. One of the teachers at my school keeps trying to teach me all about lots of social issues, and he says that's the only way anyone gets anything done. A poor person doesn't like his conditions, so he gets together with other poor people and they call the rich people on the carpet. Or the rich people invite lots of people over for cake, and the bigger the cake the have, the smaller they cut the slices for everyone. So poor people have to get together and recut the slices. This is how he explains it to me.

carrefours

carrefour (n): 1. (route) intersection 2. name of a chain of supermarkets 3. (fig) a crossing of paths

Just exchanged pleasanteries about the break with one of my colleagues...apparently they're re-thinking the longtime turkey tradition in France. Nowadays people like to experiment with meats they don't normally eat during the year. This particular woman had an ostrich roast for christmas dinner. Apparently it's a little like beef. Bison is another popular option.

in other thoughts:

Being in France has alerted me to how poorly I know French, but also to how well I know English. It really amazes me, after painstakingly learning vocabulary grammar and pronunciation, that none of these pose any problem in my own language, and I didn’t really have to work for any of it, at least not consciously. Thinking, talking, listening to, reading and writing (ok, maybe not so much judging from the effort going into my application essays...) require so little effort in English, whereas in French, which I've been studying for more than ten years now, is still a constant balancing act, though I'm steadier now than when I got here.

I can hold a conversation with somone, but unexpected problems come up. For example, it's hard to go to spiritual direction in a language where the distinction between "like" and "love" isn't as obvious as one word or another and talk about relations with members of the opposite sex. Misunderstandings are bound to pop up. And often you don't even realize your interlocuteur might have gotten completely the wrong impression untill you look back on a conversation.

current ideas about bridesmaids dresses

Imagine them all in blue. Of course, how they will look on an actual person is anyone's guess. Comments welcomed and encouraged.

Speek you ze eengleesh?

Apparently English really is the international language. A girl, we'll call her Nathalie, gave a talk on her time at the Taize international encounter in Milan around New Years. Thirty thousand people, largely between the ages of seventeen and thirty, from France, Poland, America, the Phillipines, and everywhere in between, all meet in a given city to pray in the tradition of a community founded in the 1950s (pop. 100) in the small village of Taize (pop. 50) around Bordeaux. Apparently people all communicated in English. Now, Nathalie was excited about this...she always insists on speaking to Heidi and me in English and seems excited about learning it.

Unfortunately, the French have a reputation for being bad at English. Or so they say. In fact, Nathalie told us that for one Taize activity they seperated the group into "French" and "other" and proceded in English, getting someone to translate for the French. Heck, most everyone one I've met can get their point across more or less in English, which is more than you can say for Americans in any given foreign language, so I always tell them they're not so bad. Though next to all the German people I've met they're not so hot...

likewise the English that is the "international language" isn't the English (or American for that matter) we know and love. Nathalie said an American girl got up and said something to the sea of Taize-goers in "good English," so that immediately afterwards one of the Taize brothers had to get up and translate into "Taize English." (That's Tay-ZAY, by the way, I don't know how to type with accents on this program)

I'm not sure how I feel about English being the "international language." It seems useful to have one, but I don't see any need for English speaking culture to rule the globe...

but then, for any language to take off, it helps to have native speakers, so even with it's two million speakers I don't know that Esperanto is ever going to make it (though I have to say it's a nice idea...)

Other highlight of the evening- I got to introduce French people to one of America's (I think) truly useful inovations- microwave popcorn. Aumonerie-goers gathered around the microwave and excalimed things like "Ooh, it's unfolding!" "Look, it's inflating! What a neat idea!" and then "wow, something smells really good." and then, "Oh, good, I prefer salted popcorn anyway." (apparently over here sugared is an equally popular choice)

But guess what...

I have the internet in my room now!!!!

so if you email me, rest assured I am checking my email obsessively and will get back to you probably the same day.

bus-1 etrangere-2

Last night someone informed me that the front gate was broken and that no one would be able to leave until someone came to fix it in the morning. There is a back entrance to the building/parkinglot; however, you have to go through the part of the building that’s closed off to us students to get to it. But I was determined to make every effort to get to school before I called in with the lame excuse that I was locked in.

The wall around the parking lot is rather high. There are no sturdy enough branches on the willow by it to use to climb it, and even so, I didn’t like the idea of a 10-15 foot drop onto the concrete after I got to the top.

Finally, someone arrived to open the office around 7:30. The Intendante, a very friendly woman, shook my hand warmly (trying to welcome the bisou-shy American, I’m sure) and said goodmorning but I was on a mission. Running down the street, I barely made a metro, which allowed me barely to make the 7:40 bus. Success is heady.

Robert, the guy who welcomed me the very first night I was here, happened to be on the bus with some of his friends. We exchanged stories about our vacations (apparently he drank way too much and was still sick when he showed up to school the third. Is the Fidel Gastro, as Ringo calls it, really the flu?) (he was also calling me tu but as I never see him in class I let it slide. Usually students are supposed to use the more formal vous with teachers). He had broken up with his girlfriend. She had slapped him several times and his friends kept telling him this wasn’t normal. It wasn’t until she scratched him hard enough on the face to draw blood that he could stop justifying her actions to himself and say hey, something might be wrong here. In his words (I think) c’etait le goutte de l’eau qui a fait déborder le verre (it was the drop of water that made the glass overflow)

Good for him. He’s a sweetheart. I hope he finds someone who deserves him soon.

Had a mini French lesson today in the Salle des profs concerning /u/ and /y/. The one is more or less the oo sound we use, and the other one, which to the untrained ear very closely resembles it, can be likened to an “ee” sound made with rounded lips. Both are very commonly used sounds. And there are lots of words and phrases that differ only by this sound, so it’s important to know the difference. For example, the words for over (au dessus) and under (au dessous). So if someone tells to put the book under the desk and grab a chocolate kiss from the jar on top of it, you need to listen closely. These words also form an expression that means “helter skelter”- Sens dessus dessous (which when Ringo pronounced it sounded just like “sans tsoo tsoo.” )

Apparently a former assistant from years past liked to play off the English ignorance of these sounds and would thank people saying “Merci beau cul” (Thanks nice ass).

last night

I did very little today. Really only stepped outside to go to mass (lesson learned in a Marilyn Monroe moment: floor vents and full skirts don’t mix. Particularly not in church. Granted, I don’t think my skirt was full enough to really cause scandal. But I dropped my hymn book in my automatic effort to push it back down (real smart, Lauren, why not just keep walking?)) which is unfortunate, because I may not be stepping back outside for awhile. The gate to the parking lot is broken somehow, and no one is coming to fix it until 8 tomorrow. Too bad that’s when my first class starts…or maybe not too bad, as physically not being able to leave your building for a completely unforeseen cause you didn’t even know about until the night before, when it was too late, seems a legitimate reason for not going to work.) So I’m trapped in my building for now. I’m only writing this because by the time you read this the situation should be resolved, but I really hope there’s no fire tonight

(ok, if there is it should be alright, we should be able to get far away enough from the actual building to survive.)

Saturday night walking home from confession (sweet!) and purchasing an honest to goodness French breviary (and nearly purchasing one of several really cool French comic books in about Saints (sorry Dad, they really are cool) but I couldn’t decide between Louis King of France/Saint Clare, Charles de Foucault, Jean Paul II/ St. Bernadette, or Mary, mother of God.) I passed a crowd of people in front of these two guys playing guitar and another guy with what looked like a long wooden pole stuck into a upside down plastic tub, with a cord stretching from the top of the pole to the tub, which he held against the pole higher or lower to change the pitch of the bass note he was strumming. It was amazing. How do you learn to do that? No frets, just higher on the pole for higher and lower for lower, and he was managing to play along with the guys on guitars. And they were good! I mean, there’s always someone playing the saxophone or the accordian or the guitar in that area, usually really out of tune, but these were drawing a crowd.

I stopped several minutes to listen to them. Some girls with dreadlocks with them selling beaded bracelets they had made, and they had a dog with them that kept picking fights with other dogs who walked by. At one point, one of the girls went over and lifted it physically up by the scruff of the neck and the scruff of the, well, buttocks or lower back, and hauled it back over to the guitar guys, giving it a good scolding. It seemed so odd that these seemed like the crowds of dirty young folk I always felt like avoiding, dirty with hippy-like clothes and rough looking dogs, often asking for money or calling out mocking words to people. But these seemed almost oblivious to the crowds forming around them. They just kept playing, intently, and singing, and talking about what they were going to play next.

If they were selling CDs I would have probably bought one. I had to restrain myself from breaking out into Charleston. They were so playful. At one point a guy started improvising a harmony with his mouth, like he was imitating a kazoo or something. There was a flyer taped onto the plastic tub that said “Bateau Ivre” (Inebriated boat), I suppose that’s what they called themselves.

This was right by Notre Dame des Poubelles as I’ve dubbed her, the Mary and baby Jesus that they like to dump all the trash by. Almost like they were serenading them. Almost made up for all the empty boxes nearby.

There comes a time in every relationship when things that used to seem charming become downright annoying. It used to be cute when I’d try to go to a shop on Wednesday afternoon and found everything closed, for example. Ah, those French, I’d say to myself, They work to live; they obviously don’t live to work. How refreshing. How quaint.
But today as I’m rushing to the library across town to return my overdue books before I have an appointment with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrement, I was not at all pleased to find it closed. On a Thursday. Apparremently it’s closed all day every Thursday. And Monday. And of course Sunday. I guess being open four days a week for eight hours gives the people who work there almost the full 35 hour French work week, if you count opening and closing.
No big deal. It’s not like lots of libraries at home don’t keep weird hours. I’ll just drop off my books in the drop box. And I start looking for one.
There is none.
No drop box. No drop box. Who on earth would think to build a library without a drop box? They can’t be that expensive. They don’t create any more work really. Maintenance costs virtually nothing. And they make life so much easier! I thought maybe it was just the one library. Nope. I asked Professor McGonagal and she said that they don’t have anything like that. Not even in England or Scotland!
France has imported Marilyn Manson, Coca Cola, and Pizza Hut. I even saw a kid wearing tennis shoes with $100 bills printed all over them (it’s all about the Benjamins, baby.) I heard at a party here once the dictum “Culture is like jelly- the less you have, the more you spread it.” And wondered whether they were talking about the US. Well, one is not forced to import anything. Why on Earth do other countries insist on importing the most fattening, tasteless, violent, money-worshipping exhibits of culture America has to offer? It’s almost as if we completely ignored champagne but were all about promoting the use of the guillotine, then went around talking about how macabre and violent the French are. (ok, it’s a stretch, but you get the point.)
I have a plan to ease international tension. I propose that they close down just a few McDonalds in the area and send all the employees all around France to various local libraries promoting the elegantly ingenious device in use all over the States: The drop box. “It will save your clients time and trouble!” they will say. “Wow,” the bibliotechaires will say. “Americans aren’t so stupid after all. This makes a lot of sense!” Perhaps in a counter-gesture of goodwill they will send someone over to teach all the Starbucks people how to make coffee.
Things really aren’t so bad here. I ran into the nice lady who lent me the money to dry my laundry last year. Apparently it was just closing time but because she trusts me she’s letting me stay with the doors locked until my laundry is dry as long as I don’t let anyone in. She has four grandchildren, two still in the oven. She knows one is a boy, as are the two she’s already seen and she’s pulling for another girl. Is there a patron saint of baby’s sexes, anybody?

Truth and fiction

Today I had a conversation with Patel and a guy from Benin about how Patil acts around his friends and how he treats his enemies- a conversation about something personal and not purely sociological—success! Furthermore, I understood both of their heavily-accented Frenches! (for the most part).

It’s such an odd mix at the Catholic center on Wednesdays….there’s us two Americans, Hannah and me, then Patel from India and a whole bunch of people from Subsarharan African countries…I keep trying to get closer to guest speakers because of my pitiful imperfect French that benefits from being as close to the speaker as possible, then remember that half the other people here are furrners too, then remember they’ve all been here longer and often speak French at least part of then time in their own country, or at least something resembling it. There’s a guy from Camaroon who must speak French at home, because I can’t imagine doing the things he does to it if he didn’t pick it up as a real dialect.

We had a guest speaker tonight- who wrote a book I bought and read (most of) my first month here! (small world) It’s called Femmes, Aimez vos Maris (wives, love your husbands) and it goes through a lot of Catholic stuff about love, marriages, and baby carriages I’ve already read…but he talks a lot about how women were dominated for a long time and things are getting better now, but now we’re so afraid of being dominated again that we end up trying to make everything completely equal and end up trying to behave like men and end up pushing them away and making them feel useless…Things to ponder. J. doesn’t think this is happening yet…but we’ll see….

Things I learned from Hugh Dollié:
- Couples that pray together are virtually indestructible (rock on!)
- Praise your husband for making dinner, even if he burns it, otherwise he may never try it again.
- Women are on average smarter than men
- However, there are more “super- genies” and “super- débiles” chez les hommes
- Women tend to accord a point per present received, regardless of the size, whereas guys afford much more “credit” for “big” presents (J. holds that it is more quality or usefulness that matters.) i.e. women tend to value quantity or frequency of presents and guys value quality
- Conversely, guys tend to value quantity of sexual relations more and women tend to value quality more.

Things I learned from watching TV this morning:

- When throwing a party, knock before you go into the bathroom to retrieve a bottle of champagne from the bathtub. You never know who your boyfriend might be kissing in there.
- When a girl suggests that she, unlike some girls, isn’t as “complicated,” she’s after one thing and one thing only.
- If you’re Catholic, try not to be homosexual, because the Pope has made his feelings quite clear on this manner. This can be accomplished by sleeping with your gay friend, if you think you might be a lesbian. (note- if you do this, make sure you don’t later invite him to the same parties as your mom’s gay friends. See first point.)
- In addition to the pope’s views on premarital sex, it is ok for conscientious Catholic teenagers to disregard general church teachings on respecting your parents and other authority figures and loving your enemies (unless deliberately hitting them on the nose with a basketball and sending them to the hospital can be interpreted as “loving.”)
- My Catholic, swing dancing, singing friend C.K. from Cleveland has a long- lost twin sister playing a teenage girl on French daytime television! (ok, I think it looks like her)

Wouldn't you like a wooden shoe?

Coming down from the sunrise over the quilted clouds into the dim, artificial lights of Amsterdam reminds me vacation is over… time to quit the joy of my (albeit rather sick and miserable) family and friends (ok, I was joyous at least) and back to the ambiguous struggles of what is popularly known as the real world

(ok, it’s not so bad as that…but the visual metaphor sure made it seem that way!)

I am now farther east than I have ever been in my life…

More of the signs here are in English than in Dutch. For the first time I am in a country where I don’t speak the language at all. But I feel as if I haven’t left the Anglophone world.

The airport is modern, luxurious, and blessedly easy to navigate. More than I can say for some airports

(when I left for the US I got off the RER train at Charles de Gaulle Concourse 1, was redirected to concourse 2, then found myself facing nothing but train platforms. I finally found my way to a big empty space upstairs leading to concourses 2A-2G. Nobody would stop and tell me how to find the Air France counters, not even my fellow Americans. No wonder. There’s one in each concourse. But which concourse am I supposed to be in? I swear, it says nothing about it on my e-ticket!!! I finally blunder into one of the screens that records all the flights and figure out the way after stopping at a few more help desks- thank goodness I didn’t resign myself to the line that stretched halfway down the concourse after winding around several times without checking to make sure that was the right one- I checked into the right line. Well and good, but my hands and back wished I’d sucked it up and coughed up the money to do my laundry in France…as it was, I almost had to pay the heavy baggage fee anyway…)

There is a casino, a sushi bar, and gift shops every fifty feet peddling tulip bulbs, chocolate, cheese, blue and white dishes, and anything you can possibly make in the shape of a wooden shoe or a windmill.

Amsterdam from the air reveals long lines of seemingly identical buildings. As we rise, long strips of black and green resolve.

I’m not on my way home, but I’m going back where I belong, for the moment. I’m not a stranger anymore. I know how to get where I’m going. I know how to phone my parents when I get there. I even have mastered getting on and off an escalator dragging 90 lbs of luggage.

(side note- I’m not quite so skilled as I thought. I got a bit lost changing RER trains on my way to the St. Lazare station from the airport. And I’d left my keys at home. Lucky for me I got back just in time to catch a stray priest going home, who managed to get me a spare key from the diocesan office. Ok, we’re working on it.)

(BTW, the RER trains are like the metro but go further out into the Paris suburbs and cost more. With my discounted main like tickets, it cost almost as much for me to get from the airport to the train station as it does for me to take the train from Paris to Rouen!)

on the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

A stomach flu... hence I haven't felt like writing much...so please forgive me and keep checking back! I'll try to have something real written for tomorrow...

here we go again

A short (fewer than 500 words) personal statement about how your current and/or past academic and work experiences, including volunteer work, have influenced your ability to become a leader in the information professions.

Recent work and volunteer experiences have helped me rediscover my life-long passion for books. Encounters with diverse populations have helped me better understand educational systems, information use, and language and literacy development across the lifespan. Both have fueled my interest in helping the next generations navigate our burgeoning information stores and fostering in them a passion for literature.

For my undergraduate senior thesis, I wrote a section of a children’s novel, researched topics related to my plot, and reviewed children’s books that inspired my work. I also helped organize a reader’s response session in which local elementary students critiqued my work. I had the opportunity to reflect on children’s interests in and responses to literature, to work with others to organize literary discussions, and to collect and implement feedback from readers.

However, it was during my speech language pathology graduate studies that I first considered a library career. My fellow students’ preference for whatever was most easily available online over more specialized research tools amazed me. I became aware of the potential to misuse information that accompanies its immediate availability. I found that I was often more concerned about the correct handling of information for projects than about the information itself.

As a student clinician in this program, I also worked with children of various ages and abilities in a number of educational settings. I was able to counsel parents about their children’s speech and language development as well. These opportunities provided me with insight on language and literacy development and the contingent information needs of different populations. Furthermore, clinical practicum gave me the opportunity to comb public libraries for books to use in therapy. Reading and re-reading children’s literature, I became versed both in new titles and books I missed as a child.

(or, instead of big section in italics in that last paragraph: In addition to insight on language and literacy development and the contingent information needs of different populations, clinical practicum gave me the opportunity to comb public libraries for books to use in therapy. Which do you like better?)

My literacy and language development coursework in addition to my clinical practicum experiences inspired me to expand the reading program at my summer daycare job. I encouraged children to chart their own reading progress, selected books to read aloud, and experimented with storytelling techniques. By the end of the summer, children who had shown no interest in books were requesting favorites from the library. I was encouraged by my successful identification of a need and development of a program to help meet it.

To confirm my interest in libraries, I volunteered in a media center in a school for children with disabilities. There I explored collections management software and databases, as well as various classification systems. Drawing on this experience, I am currently, as a volunteer, developing a cataloguing system for a small collection of books belonging to a university student organization in Rouen, France.

I am confident the unparalleled learning environment and experiences offered by the Catholic University of America would develop the insight and confidence I have developed these past few years. I look forward to begin developing there the skills I will need to confront the challenges facing future generations’ effective pursuit of the facts of life and the truths of fiction.