Sunday, September 30, 2007

Sunday September 30, 2007
Today I woke up entirely too early for a Sunday, but with unavoidable tasks. I went to the train station, which is a 30 minute walk (ugh), to buy my train tickets for the various orientations I have in two different cities. Hopefully they’re the right times. I know I’m getting into City #1 well ahead of time, and Madame Mouty has told me it’s probably best to take a taxi to the place (IUFM, which is kind of like a teachers’ college). Other than that, if it doesn’t work, no big deal. Those three tickets cost me a total of ~20E. Um, thank you Carte 12-25. Between the ages of 12 and 25, you can buy this 49E card that gives you discounts on virtually all trains, and often the discounts are near 50%. It’s a good deal. My other errand this morning was to purchase a small bouquet of flowers for Madame Mouty, because if you’re invited to someone’s house, it’s traditional and polite to bring something like flowers, chocolate, or if possible, some regional specialty. I’m fresh out of regional New York specialties (I gave away the two bottles of maple syrup that Mom picked up for me at the Farmers’ Market), so I got a small 10,50E bouquet. It was really pretty and that is going to be my florist from now on. This is the second bouquet I’ve purchased from them since I’ve been here (that says something, doesn’t it), and they are so patient and helpful and the bouquets are absolutely beautiful. And inexpensive.
So anyways, I bought the bouquet for Madame Mouty to whom I still refer as Madame because she hasn’t corrected me yet because she invited me over for lunch today. She, as mentioned before, is a music teacher, and Olivier is a musician as well. Olivier has obviously studied some English as well, as he kept trying to translate his (very very very verbose) conversations into English even though I completely understood what he was saying and demonstrated such by my responses. They have a hyperactive 5 ½ year old daughter named Camille who is obsessed with princesses and fairies. She’s adorable and was fascinated with my presence. She is just learning how to write and also the syllables in preparation for reading. She was a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be teaching her class English, and showed off the only English phrase she knew: “My name is Camille.” Soooo cute! Can all of my students be that precious? Lunch was a small aperitif of pineau, a liquor from Ile de Ré which is off the coast of La Rochelle. It’s super sweet. Also there was regional sausage which tasted a little tripe-y, but still decent. Thank goodness for peppercorns. Dinner consisted of an entrée of this casserole of lard, bits of ham, egg, potato, and prunes. I tried my best but did not do very well. The main dish was crêpes (yay!) à l’usseloise with ham and cheese. Oh thank goodness. Then there was the cheese. I LOVE cheese. It smells pretty bad but it tastes awesome. Then we went to the Point des Millevaches, which is not “Thousand-Cow Point” like it immediately translates, but is a standard French approximation of some Occitan (south-central France) word. Olivier explained it but I forgot. Basically it’s a lookout tower on top of a huge hill/tiny mountain where you can see ALL of Corrèze. Wow. I just couldn’t articulate how incredible it was to see so much of France, how pretty it all was, how friggin picturesque it all was, and how beautifully mundane. Like there was nothing special to see, just France. But that’s beautiful. It looked a lot like the view from on top of the Ski Hill behind the house at home. And that made me sad. Or homesick. Or lonely. Then we went back to their house where Olivier and Madame gave me a little recital of traditional regional music on bagpipe-like instruments, a vielle (kind of like a violin crossed with an accordion that has a crank), and Madame’s violin. Really neat stuff. Olivier is off his rocker – he makes wind instruments out of ANYTHING, including plastic drinking straws. He also talks a LOT.
It was really nice of Madame to invite me over. When I thanked her, she said “Well, I just try to put myself in your place.” I guess I see her point: the hardest part about this trip, I can tell now, isn’t going to be French bureaucracy or teaching (although that should prove immensely challenging), but rather the lack of familiar faces. I miss my family and my boyfriend and my friends a lot. It’s nice to see the new people here in France like Madame, Françoise, and the English teachers so much because they’ll become familiar and even comforting. I find Ben to be immensely comforting, just his presence, because we at least have a mildly similar background (we both understand the love-hate relationship of WalMart, etc). And yet I hardly know Ben.
My train tomorrow morning is at 6.30ish, and it’s a half hour walk, and I want to be there early, so I have to wake up stupid early. Ugh. Rocío and Ben left today for the orientation, but I had the invite to Madame Mouty’s and also I just didn’t want to go today. I’m sincerely hoping that my questions regarding my residency card, social security/health insurance card, and classroom management will be answered in these next two days.
I also hope this week will provide some answers to the communication embargo I’m under at the moment. While it’s very nice that the high school has offered the computers in the library and the teachers’ room to use whenever we like, Ben and I both have laptops with webcams for a reason, and the library and teachers’ room close. I want to TALK and SEE people – it’s possible in this day and age, and in this country that friggin invented the jumbo jet (see Airbus).
I should go to bed. I’m not tired, but being awake makes me lonely.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Saturday September 29, 2007
Today is Saturday which means not a whole lot happens, especially in a quiet town like this. This is a touristy place, at least for the French, but more like in the summer when the nearby lake (Lac Ponty) fills up. After August, this place returns to its regular pace. Everyone keeps telling me it’s “tranquille” here, which basically translates to “quiet and lonely.” No but really, it’s an adorable town that has all I need, oh except public transportation. I’d look into a car but that would be RIDICULOUS because I’d have to (1) trade in my New York drivers’ license for a French one, (2) take driving lessons, (3) buy a car which is prohibitively expensive, (4) register it which is prohibitively bureaucratic, and (5) always find someplace to put it which is prohibitively annoying. So I’m looking into a bike. The walk to the grocery store is only fifteen minutes but that’s a half an hour round-trip, and one way is with food. And Rose likes to eat. I did buy a lot of tea, which I’m hoping will help me calm down a bit. I’m terribly “stressée”, and everyone keeps asking me if I’m ok. No, I’m just naturally “stressée.”
Things that have happened lately:
Ben has arrived and the awkward “Do we speak English or French to each other, and in which circumstances?” phase has begun. Ben is nice. He’s from Indiana and studied Latin (!!!) and French, so he’s obviously got a brain. He studied in Rennes, which is in a part of France I haven’t seen yet, and has traveled significantly more than I during his stay (and you thought that wasn’t possible…) so there’s definitely some travel stories to exchange.
Rocío, Ben and I have arranged our stay here together in such a way that everyone shares the cleaning and shopping in ways that everyone is satisfied and comfortable. That was a fun meeting.
Last night (Friday), one of the English teachers, named Blandine, invited the three of us to her house for dinner. Let me make this perfectly clear: She. Lives. In. The. COUNTRY. Ok, the train station of her town is down the street, but wowww I could not believe how far out we were going. But anyways, it was REALLY nice of her – she insists that we call her Blandine and not my immediate default of Madame, and that we use the familiar form of “you” with her (French has a familiar you and a plural/formal you, and the usage of the two depends on age, familiarity, and respect). Her 14 ½ year old daughter Marine was also there. Her husband (I think?) François was not there. She served us raclette, which is a tray of deli meats like ham, various salamis and other delicious meats. On top of the meat you choose, you put a slice of cheese that is melted in this contraption that I just cannot explain – like an EZ-Bake oven with slots for your cheese melting tray. It’s almost like individual fondue. Also there was salad. Ben, with Blandine’s suggestion, tried a regional speciality called “pied de veau” – veal’s hoof. It comes with a sauce that is AMAZING – oil, vinager, about five pounds it seemed of parsley, mustard, hard-boiled egg, capers, and probably some other things. I enjoyed the sauce, as did Ben because he said that’s all he tasted. Apparently the texture was a bit out of the ordinary but hey. Good for him. I tried another regional specialty for dessert called a Meymaquoise (oh spelling whatever) which was two little cookies sandwiching a walnut and coffee cream. YUM. My personal quest to taste-test all patisseries in France is progressing nicely. It was a really nice dinner and just really kind of Blandine to invite us over. The other two English teachers I know of, Karine and Karine, and her are just so kind and sweet and really make a point to make us feel welcome and help us out in any way they can, like going grocery shopping. Blandine also suggested we should take a trip to the Jacques Chirac museum. Chirac, the former president of France, is from this region and has a castle not too far away! In fact, there is a police barracks here, and one of the reasons for it is for the state police to protect his house (castle). How cool is that! Chirac was a good guy, really. He did well for the country, and I’m really interested in how things progress with the new center-right dude they’ve got in there now. Sarkozy or “Sarko” as he’s known, has some serious changes in store for France. I would have voted for him, mostly because he had clear ideas of what he saw for the country whereas the other lady running, Segolène Royal who was from the region that La Rochelle is part of, was really wishy-washy and never directly answered a question during the debates.
I digress.
I must also note that the three woman who are in charge of me, in various aspects, have been immensely understanding, kind, PATIENT, and so so so sweet. Marie-Christine Renson, whom I will meet Tuesday (right?), has always been in contact with me. She put me in touch with Marie-Claude Mouty, whom I am meeting on Sunday for lunch. Madame Mouty is pretty much my district supervisor here, in that she is technically the “pedagogical counselor/advisor” for the elementary school music programs in this neck of the woods, but since there doesn’t really seem to be a “pedagogical counselor/advisor” for the elementary school language programs, she gets to talk to me! She’s super nice and has done a lot of work on my behalf, such as picking me up at the train station in Brive, driving me to Ussel, driving me around the town, bringing me to the three elementary schools I’m working in and introducing me to the teachers and principals (called directeurs/directrices here). And then we’re meeting up tomorrow for lunch. She is so sweet. Madame Mouty, upon driving me to Ussel, put me in touch with Madame Françoise Varrieras, who is like the school’s business officer. Françoise, as she insists I call her including use the familiar you, let me stay with her for two days, gave me a key to her school apartment, let me pretty much do as I pleased in her home for those days, and has said “You could be my daughter” in a really motherly way, not like “I’m so much older than you” way. She has been so. So. So. Helpful and has offered grocery store trips and help with pretty much anything I could ever need. She’s amazing.
This past week would not have been nearly as good had it not been for the welcoming people here – the English teachers, Françoise and Madame Mouty. It must also be said that the other teachers here at the school are also very welcoming and friendly, and the librarians! Wow what nice ladies. I did also meet the principal (at a high school they’re called “proviseurs”), who just stopped by today to see how the three of us were doing. No, I don’t remember her name. She’s short and kinda looks like Judi Dench.
So I don’t have internet yet, so I’m typing this on Word in the hopes that someday I’ll be able to post it. I don’t know if it’s still jet-lag, but I’m feeling this weird fatigue. It’s a combination of physical fatigue of walking everywhere and pushing my body to do things at weird hours (I haven’t the foggiest idea the time anywhere), mental fatigue of conducting my entire life in French – and I don’ t just mean the language , and also the fatigue of anticipatory emotional fatigue. It’s like my body and head knows that I’m going to be really homesick and lonely despite being surrounded by kindness and even a like-minded compatriot, and so I’m sad already even though I shouldn’t be. I really should unpack. I do have pictures of Mom and Dad, Peter and Nicholas, and me and Andy unpacked. Those make me feel better. I really am doing well here – there isn’t anything that hasn’t gone as it should. I have bought a French cell phone, doing that pre-paid thing so I don’t have a contract to break whose number I haven’t memorized yet and so far, I haven’t found it to cost more to call the States than to call France. I also have a ridiculous number of text messages, so look for those. I have opened a file at the “Sous-Préfecture” (I don’t know what the equivalent is, but it’s like the DMV, county, state, and city offices all rolled into one) to apply for my residency card (carte de séjour) without a hitch, and all that I need is an “attestation de domicile” which, because I don’t officially live in the apartment reserved for the high school assistants, is basically a letter from Françoise saying that I live with her, and also I need a carte vital, which is like a social security card and health insurance card in one. I’m hoping to find out more about that on Monday and Tuesday. Ben and I are seriously looking into a wifi box for the apartment, as the wifi that exists in this building does not work. The IT dude, Rodolphe, is all over the place but I’ll catch him yet. I have also opened a bank account with no problem at the same bank Françoise is with. She told me to ask for a Mr. Dazin, but he was busy so I got to talk to this lady Madame Brugière, and when I told Françoise how it went, she was like “Oh that is SO not who should have spoken to…she’s kinda bitchy.” But I have a bank account with online banking that I have yet to access, a Visa debit card coming next week, and also a checkbook I may not use but good to have anyways. Let’s see if I keep this one balanced. So yeah. So far, no hiccups. I guess there wouldn’t be in such a tiny little town where this is the ONLY high school for miles around and the three of us are pretty much part of about a dozen foreigners altogether. I mean, everyone has been expecting us and has prepared for our stay, and traditional French hospitality is really something Americans could look into.
Oh, Dad, because one of the questions you always ask us kids when we’re out of the house is “How are you eating?”, here you go. Monday lunch through Friday lunch, I have a card to eat at the high school cafeteria; Tuesday and Thursday lunches I eat at the school I’m at for that day; breakfast I do myself in the apartment, and weekend meals I do myself in the apartment. Dinners Monday through Thursday are at the high school cafeteria. And before you get nervous and think “Ew, school cafeteria?” don’t worry. For the less than 1,50E price for a meal, you get bread, appetizer (veggies, salad, one day it was cold cooked fish…), main course (meat, veg, starch), cheese, fruit or dessert depending on the mood of the chefs, and because we’re not students, we can ask for changes like more of the main or more cheese or more dessert. It’s pretty institutional food (think square pizza), but it’s a LOT and I have yet to finish a whole meal. I haven’t eaten at the elementary schools yet but I imagine more of the same, as this format was exactly what I found at the University Restaurant in La Rochelle. For breakfast, I do it à la française – tea, toast and jam or Nutella. I also have instant soup, pasta, rice, yogurt, and butter. I’d like to get some frozen foods like stir-frys and whatnot because those are easy and nice to change things up. Unfortunately, the nearest bakery is about 10 minutes away so fewer baguettes and patisseries. But I’m eating quite well. Ben made pasta for dinner, which was nice. I cleaned. Rocío didn’t want anything.
So I’m ok. I’m a bit lonely and sad in anticipation of the oncoming homesickness and not seeing any family or friends for a few months.
I have to take some more pictures of this town – everyone keeps asking me how I like it and I always reply that it really does remind me of home. It’s hilly, there are lots of trees, it’s not very big but it has everything you need, and it’s a tight community. Mom and Dad, you would love the houses. They are just so cute and “just so.”
I miss everyone a lot.

More of the same limbo.

So today I woke up pretty late because I could NOT sleep last night. I think I had a migraine - splitting headache and nausea. Luckily I was able to sleep it off, but not the side effects of too little sleep and not enough appetite to eat anything.

This morning I met back up with Madame Francoise - where I am also staying tonight because she is the world's nicest lady - and bugged her for a bit. She gave me a little tour of the high school, which in terms of the size of the campus, is similar to American high schools of the same student population, but there are different buildings for the cafeteria, classrooms, various offices (the French love their offices), and dormitories as many high schools in France offer housing for students who live out of town.

The Mexican assistant arrived at lunch. Her name is Rocio (which apparently means soft rain, like sprinkles I guess) and she is from a city called Leon, north of the capital of Mexico. Her French isn't that good, spoken or comprehension, and she was visibly tired by the end of the day. She's all about me sharing the place with her and the American dude, whose name is apparently Ben and from Indiana. Oh Facebook, you are such fun. She had trouble understanding people talking to her, and I really am not the person to ask for translation help; I just get really fatigued and annoyed. Hm. Remind me not to go into translation and interpreting. Hopefully Ben will agree and I will have lodging for a temporary time. Temporary because Ben leaves Ussel at the end of December for a different town, so it would only be me and Rocio. Rocio's contract is until April 30, at which point I would not be allowed in that apartment anymore. At that point, Madame Francoise has told me that we'd look for a studio for the last two months. See? It all works out.

Anyways, the apartment that she and Ben are entitled to is huge. There are three bedrooms, and it is FULLY furnished thanks to the former assistants, two of whom were Argentinian and apparently enjoyed entertaining. I think we'd only need a TV. There is also wifi there. I may not get a landline, but a cell phone may be helpful especially if I plan on travelling. The apartment is also incredibly cheap - last year, for four months, it cost less than 900E. And that was divided by the two assistants who lived there. Um, doable. If I lived there, I wouldn't be eligible for the housing subsidy because I am not technically allowed to be there so the federal offices wouldn't recognize my request, but it wouldn't matter because it's sooo cheap.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with Marie-Claude who will show me around to the three (four? who's counting...) schools and maybe even give me my schedule (emploi du temps). Woohoo!

Also, it's still raining. Have I mentioned how much I hate rain.

I'm in Fraaance.

So after weeks of silence, I actually did make it to France with absolutely no fanfare. Well, except for Mom making 80 chicken wings and every available family member coming to see me. But maybe they came also for Oma and Nicholas' birthdays. But anyways.

Things I have done in the past ~72 hours:
1. Play hurry-up-and-wait game.
2. The Syracuse-Newark flight was 45 minutes late at take-off but somehow we made it to Newark on time. Figure that one out.
3. Ate horrible awful no-good airport food.
4. Quasi-puked before we landed in Paris.
5. Wait, I mean we landed in Belgium. There was a bus to take us to the terminal.
6. It's raining in France. All over.
7. Taxi ride to the hotel. I gave him like 5% more tip because my bag was ENORMOUS.
8. Crappy overpriced hotel but it was clean, the door locked, I had my own shower, and it was close to the really ugly train station.
9. Bought a phone card. Called the lady in charge - Marie-Christine Renson - and let her know when I was coming to Brive-La-Gailarde. Called Mom and Dad. Called Andy.
10. Watched a lot of TV. I like the news and the commercials. I do not like dubbed Cold Case, The Shield, or Dora the Explora.
11. Took a 4 hour train ride to Brive-La-Gaillarde where a Madame Marie-Claude Mooty (cannot figure out that spelling) picked me up. I waited for her to be done with her job at the district office (they were scheduling supervision visits of elementary choral classes) and then we went to Ussel.
12. Arrived at the Lycee Ventadour Intendance (Business Office, essentially) and met up with Francoise Verrieras, kind of the school business officer. She offered her apartment to me for tonight. Um, yes please.

So that's what's happening right now. I am in Madame Francoise's extra bedroom which is bigger than my own at home, on her internet connection. I am showered, fed, and very tired although my head is not entirely convinced that it is 9pm.

Tomorrow, I will (1) call Madame Renson to let her know that I'm here; (2) find out if the other two language assistants - a male American and an unidentified Mexican - will let me share the three-bedroom apartment that is reserved for them. I cannot, under the cadre of an elementary assistant, apply for a room in the high school dormitory, but I may if the other two assistants agree. Yeah, I don't get it either, but just go with it. If they say no, then we work on the other options. We being Madame Francoise, Marie-Claude M, and Madame Renson.

Marie-Claude M also informed me that I would be teaching at three elementary schools in Ussel. All three: La Gare, La Jaloustre, and Jean Jaures. I figured as much.
Then on a tour of the town - which by the way is friggin GORGEOUS and so cute, I can't wait to get pictures - Madame Francoise showed me a fourth elementary school, Ecole de la Ville.

So far, doing ok. I still maintain that France is silly but I'm really doing well so far. Yay!

Pre-France hesitations

The more I think about my stay in France, the more people ask me about it, and the closer I get to the date of my visa appointment, the more hesitant I get about this whole thing.
The hesitations have been recent, so don't think that I've been all nervous about this for a while.
I keep thinking about things that, during my last stay in France (studying abroad for five months in a city about three hours away from where I'll be), really bothered me. Let's make a list. I shall call it the "...fucking French..." list. Pardon my language, but France can be ridiculous.
-Ubiquitous dog crap on the sidewalks.
-More smokers and fewer non-smoking areas, like restaurants.
-Mopeds. I rank these on the safety scale just below donor-cycles. Ask my dad about the etymology of that one.
-Phone conversations. As I mentioned in my last post, phone conversations in French are my weakest interaction. I don't necessarily get nervous about them, like I did when I was little and had to call people (even my friends!), but I can't anticipate the direction of the conversation all that well and therefore the vocabulary I'll need.
-Food. A sub-list, if you will:
--American food I will miss but can replicate almost as well in France:
---grilled cheese sandwiches
---boneless skinless (meatless fatless tasteless) chicken breast, the easiest and most bland piece of meat to cook
--American food I will miss and cannot replicate at all:
---real pizza (not this silly French business with one olive in the middle and if you want, a fried egg on top for 1E more)
---Anchor buffalo wing sauce
---Oreos
---Smucker's peanut butter
---potato chips with normal flavors
---donuts that aren't filled with apricot (?) or prunes (don't even get me started)
---Chicken wings. Specifically, Mom's.
---goldfish
Send me any or all of these things and I will break international postal law to send you a bottle of cognac.
Back to the issue of things that make France silly...
-My inability to read people. Try it: walk into WalMart or wherever and pick out a person. What is that person's socioeconomic status? Are they married? Do they have kids? What do they spend their money on? What are they in that store for? Why? There's a lot about a person you can guess through social contexts and stereotypes. I cannot do that in France. I am not familiar enough with the social contexts of France, and may never be. This makes for a very lonely expatriate.
-Disenfranchised youth whose malaise I cannot decipher for the aforementioned reason. I'm hoping that my students will be too young and too rural for this.
-35 hour work week which basically translates into any given store being open for exactly 35 hours a week.
-Grocery stores that close at 7pm. (What.)
-Banks that are closed on Mondays. (Whattt.)
-French bureaucracy. I will be staying in France under different and more permanent terms, which will require more visits to administrative offices. This should prove frustrating, tearful, amusing, and generally unnecessarily aggravating.
-A single woman in France gets a lot of looks and catcalls, not necessarily from French men, but also from the north African population. Yay. I have stories from my last stay.
-I will not have an immediate social network from which to find friends. In La Rochelle, I was in a university setting, in classes with French and international students, so I had a really neat group of people to be with and made some really good friends (and enemies...those Spanish girls HATED me!). I will not have that. I will be with teachers, while I am the temporary foreign assistant.
-There are more.

Don't think that I'm getting down on this experience - I cannot believe that a program that is randomly selective (there are no criteria or qualifications for this job; everybody and nobody is hired) and this cool hired ME! I get to spend ~12 hours a week giving English lessons to elementary school kids. How sweet of a deal is that. And I get all the baguettes I want. (You have no idea how much I am looking forward to baguettes. Omg.) I am so excited, really. I do believe that this excitement is also creating some of my hesitations and rememberances (omg who remembers Hamlet with Dr. Bedy??) of my past experience.

Also, is there anymore France for me to discover? Everything tells me yes. I need Lonely Planet France and I'll let you know.

Oh btw

I realized that I forgot to post about my phone conversation with the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs. Since I couldn't figure out the fax and this place doesn't have an email address, I called them. At 5:30am. YOU try speaking French on the phone after rolling out of bed. It ain't easy. Phone conversations have perpetually been my weakest interaction, mostly because there are no context clues like facial expressions, nonverbal communication, or visual aids. Also because native French speakers still do kind of throw me for a loop, even after a graduate class this summer with a native French professor. But I digress. After spending thirty minutes on the phone with the world's most patient and understanding receptionist, I have tentatively reserved a room - basically a bed - from about the end of September. I am under the impression that I will also have the opportunity to upgrade the room to a full-on studio: bed, full bath, kitchen. And these accomodations are also eligible for the CAF/French government housing subsidy, which after using the CAF calculator online, may save me up to half of the rent.

The problems with this arrangement include not really knowing what I've reserved, the lack of a set arrival date, and that it's 2.5km from the train station and my school. It is near the hospital, so maybe that's a plus. Also, FJTs as they are called is government housing for young people 16-25 (or sometimes older), and sometimes this low-cost and ubiquitous housing option doesn't attract the best crowd: the poor, disenfranchised young North African population which faces enormously hurtful racism in France, kids who got kicked out of their homes, homeless kids in between stints on the street, oh and also people like me who don't have the best way of getting other housing. It's entirely possible that I could go through a real estate agency to get a different apartment somewhere, but I'd like the majority of my money while I'm in France to be spent exploring and not paying for an apartment.

So that's what's happening there.

No news.

So tomorrow I will be handing my most direct supervisor at work a letter and giving her my two weeks' notice. I will be ending work on September 16. I like the job well enough to not mess up stuff on purpose like I did when I was volunteering at AIDS Community Resources (I would staple reports backwards just to make the accounting lady, who was ridiculous, angry...it was fun), but if I had to be a receptionist for the rest of my life, I think I'd go crazy. I don't want to put down anyone who is or has been a receptionist, but it's just not a fun job at all. I also learned that the auditing lady at work is also leaving because the job is "too boring." Interesting.
Also the cranky lady at work today was especially cranky when I followed her directions exactly and then she's confused as to the results, making her more cranky but directed at me. I HATE when the cranky lady is cranky at me.
Mom, Dad, and Bro Nick return from Cape Cod today where it was sunny and warm and beachy.
On Saturday, Mom says that my uncle will be playing at the State Fair. I can't find him ANYWHERE on the schedule that was printed in the paper today, but I have three advance sale tickets for me, Maggie, and Andy and doggone it we're going. For llamas, the chicken barn, Rainbow Milk Bar, and sausage sandwiches. Llllllamas.
My contact in France is supposed to be back from vacation on Saturday. I will be writing her an email tomorrow detailing my progress: visa appointment, tentative room reservation at the FJT in Ussel, annnnd not much else.
Hopefully this blog will become more interesting once...things start happening.

Technology woes

So a big reason I bought this laptop was because it has a built-in webcam and microphone. Somehow, in my experimenting, I have either disabled it and/or made it so "another program has locked this device." Attempts at video chat via AIM or this other program Mom has been using on Henry (the parents' computer) called SightSpeed have been unsuccessful.
I may bring this whole thing to Geek Squad and ask them to make the webcam work and show me how to work it. I feel very silly.

In other news, the visa appointment arrangements have been moving into place, which is exciting. I just really need that visa before I get my ticket. AHHH.

A housing option for me may be, aside from a room at the high school dorm which I won't hear anything about until August 25th at the earliest, may be what's called a Foyer de Jeunes Travailleurs (housing arrangements for young workers). There is one in the town I'll be in but they don't have a website or email. They do have fax. I may fax them a letter to see if they have any availabilities for a female. This is rather late so the possibilities of an opening are slim but who knows. I can't fax that from work though. The international fax would probably throw up some red light somewhere.

I just REALLY want to go to France soon.

Les vacances! / Vacations!

I know many people are interested to know when my vacations will be while in France. The school calendar is set, like everything else in education, by the National Education Ministry in Paris. Each académie/BOCES is assigned a zone, and each of the three zones is scheduled vacations so that all of France's schoolchildren aren't on vacation at once. Can you imagine the chaos. The vacations do coincide a little. I am in Zone B, which includes a number of other académies. But enough explanation.

Start of school for teachers: Monday, September 3
Start of school for students: Tuesday, September 4
Toussaint holiday: Saturday, October 27 to Thursday, November 8
Christmas: Saturday, December 22 to Monday, January 7
Winter: Saturday, February 9 to Monday, February 25
Spring: Saturday, April 5 to Monday, April 21

The first day of my contract is October 1 and the last day is June 30. However, I will not be in the classroom for the first day as there is a workshop, and then there is observation, and from reports from former assistants, I probably will not be doing anything for real in front of the students until the end of October.

I have got to figure out how to turn off this mousepad thingy on the laptop. It is really messing me up.

There had to be at least one stumbling block...

So I had it all planned out where I would go to the French Consulate in New York (Central Park East) and hand in the paperwork needed for my visa and walk out, sticker in my passport, and spend a weekend with my Aunt Karla. Then through some lazy poking around the assistantsinfrance.com forums, I discovered that I needed an appointment to apply for a visa!!! Oh no. I registered for the online appointment system and discovered that not only were there no appointments available for the date I was planning to go to New York, but there were no appointments for all of August.
I made two different appointments: one on the very first opening available, and another for a similar date to the date I had thought of in August.
I don't really know at this point if I am going to New York this weekend, as my dad has offered to drive me to my first appointment, and I'd like to save the money for the bus ticket, but then again, I did totally block out my aunt's schedule and I haven't seen her in months. When I go in September, Dad may be able to drive or I could ask to stay with my dad's cousins who live in near Washington Square Park.
Oh the dilemmas.
In other news, the contact at the French Embassy in DC (her name is Meg Merwin) finally emailed everyone. We got academie/school district specific emails this time, so I know the emails of everyone else who is going to be in my academie/school district. I sent them all a hello email as well because I can be very forward and overly energetic. I am very excited. Can you tell?
I have also made one of the more important purchases for this trip: a laptop. It is a Toshiba with a built-in webcam and microphone, so who's up for some AIM Video Chat? I am accepting submissions for names.
Also I need to draft a letter of resignation from my job as a receptionist at the temp agency. The job was only supposed to be for six months but I'm leaving them a good three or more months earlier than expected. I'm debating if I should tell them the truth about why I'm leaving which would explain all of my "appointments in New York", or just lie to them some more because I may not even put this job on a resume anywhere. I kind of like the job, but if I had to do this for a living, like Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00, I think I'd go crazy. For $9.00 an hour.
Today was also the final exam for my French graduate course at SUNY Cortland. It was taught by a French professor of history I had had when I was a student at L'Universite de La Rochelle. The course was on the history of the French in the Americas, and it was really neat. He was very well-versed on the subject, on all historical subjects for that matter it seemed, and I really learned a lot. I'm not sure it's evident on my final exam but whatever. I paid for the class so I earned graduate credit for it but who knows where it'll be applied, if at all.
So that's what's happening right now. I don't expect to hear anything from France until August 25 when my contact in France comes back from vacation, and I'm not buying a plane ticket until I get my visa, so...I guess I'm shopping for these really cool shoes I want and the biggest rolley suitcase allowed.