French, my old friend! You’ve come back to me! I missed you so! After about a week (which, I’ll admit, was a bit longer than I anticipated it taking) my French started to come back to me. Monday was the first day I felt like I was starting to understand a decent amount again, and Tuesday evening I was able to spit out what I wanted to say. Success! Today my hosts even commented on the fact that I was getting much better. I make no promises about using the correct verb conjugations or gender (it’s been over two years since I took a French grammar class), but I can once again pronounce things and circumlocute quite well. As Betsy Warrington Ray, heroine of Betsy and the Great World (my personal travel guide), says:
“The way to talk German, is to talk German. If I bothered with forms, and genders and cases and tenses, I’d be tongue-tied. I just string along the words I want to say, and put Nicht wahr? at the end.”
Back in the day I wanted to be able to speak French perfectly, but I’ve decided life’s too short for that, plus I still have a dozen other languages I need to learn. Imperfectly will have to do!
We’ve had guests for dinner the past three nights, which has been quite entertaining (and I’m sure this is part of the reason my French has improved). Night number one (which will go down in history as the night of liver, brains, and tongue, as those were the meats consumed) two neighbors came over. There was a crazy amount of yelling at the beginning because the neighbors didn’t want to stay for dinner and the Ligers were trying to make them. I was laughing my head off the entire time. It was finally decided (after much protestation) that they would in fact be staying, and we discussed, among other things, the price of corn, the handsomeness of Obama (I was sure to mention that he was from Chicago and that Michelle went to Whitney), and how no one practices religion anymore. I love that topics that might be considered taboo in the US (for example, religion) are spoken about so bluntly here. Jean-Paul flat out asked me if I was at all religious and then whether or not I practiced. Then he went on a spiel about how no one practices religion anymore—even him.
Tuesday night Jerome, one of the Ligers’ older sons, came over with his two kids (Jeanne is five and Nicolas is nine). Kids don’t go to school on Wednesdays over here, so they stayed overnight until Jerome could come pick them up the next evening. Jeanne and Nicolas are absolutely adorable—Jeanne and I colored together, and Nicolas very proudly showed me his English workbook. It’s interesting to see the difference in the emphasis put on English in the country (yes, I’ve sadly admitted that I’m not in a suburb, I’m in the country) as opposed to even a small city like Avignon, where it seemed like all the high school aged kids spoke English. All of the Liger sons had eight years of English in school, but they all maintained they learned nothing from them. They start English much younger than we start foreign languages (usually at seven or eight years old) and take it until they finish high school, but apparently without speaking it much. All the Ligers were shocked when I told them I’d only had six years of French, and I was shocked that they didn’t learn more despite starting at a young age—all my linguistics courses seem to suggest that if you throw a young kid into a foreign language, they will magically learn how to speak it. Then again, this is a really agricultural region, and I suppose if you’re going to work in agriculture, you don’t really need to know English. We also discussed organic food (and its ridiculous cost), the Chicago Bulls (while the older generation associates Chicago with Al Capone, people in their thirties tend to associate it with the Bulls, and I’m always happy to discuss the greatness of Michael Jordan with them), and figure skating. The Ligers keep telling their youngest son, Kevin, to take me to the ice rink in Rennes. I’m not going to bother to wait around for him—when he’s not at school, he’s on the computer or with his girlfriend—and have decided that next Wednesday I’m taking a field trip to the ice rink. It will be excellent.
Wednesday was the third night of guests, although this was just one guest—Yannick, the current renter who needs to get his butt out of here so I can have his room and the cool bathroom. J He wanted to know what hospitals were like in the US (he works at a psychiatric hospital), but he mostly wanted to know all about working conditions, since there was a greve planned for today (yes, they’re still protesting any thought of changing the retirement age). He kept asking about minimum wage, social welfare, whether or not there were strikes in the US (nothing at all like the strikes here!), and we had a fun little exchange regarding vacation time. After I told him that I thought minimum wage was about $7/hour (it’s 8€/hour here), he responded, “With four weeks of vacation, right?” Then I laughed. No. He was utterly appalled that most people just get two weeks and that some people don’t even take the vacation that they have. He has ten weeks of vacation a year (which I think is really just excessive, but what do I know?) and thus decided he would not be moving to the US any time in the near future for work. We also had an in depth conversation about insurance differences between the US and France, which was the first time my Econ class from last time I was in France actually was useful. Thank you, Prof. Alcaras.
Other things: weather here was good up until today, which has been cloudy and rainy. I did some laundry today in a tiny, 19-year old laundry machine. Due to the fact that I mentioned that we ate a lot of chili at home, Denise went out and bought some microwave Mexican food for me…I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, because a) it’s microwave food and b) Europeans RUIN Mexican food. I know it’s going to be awful, but I want to be polite…hopefully it’s better than I’m expecting. I went into Rennes last Saturday with a former assistant who’s now attending law school in Rennes, and we went to a ridiculously huge flea market. ‘Twas insane. We spent at least three hours there and didn’t get through half of it. I bought a mug for tea (if you want a decent sized amount of tea at my house, you have to drink it from a bowl, because you can fit about two tablespoons in their teacups), a 2€ hairdryer with a diffuser, and then Stefanie gave me some small bowls that had come as part of a set (she only wanted the bigger ones). I also met two of Stefanie’s friends. They’re Columbian and are going to school here, and we went and had some iced tea with them later in the day. They were very friendly, and it was fun to meet some other non-French and hear what they were doing here. It was also entertaining since the only language we all had in common (French) was no one’s first language
I went to my school once this week, but I’m going again tomorrow and I’m hoping I can observe some classes next week, so I’ll hold off on talking about school until then.
A bientot!
1) On politics:
A conversation between me and my hosts regarding my sister’s decision to go to school in Minnesota:
Me: I went to school away from home, too.
Host Mom: Couldn’t you guys find anything at home that suited you?
Me: Well, I suppose, but in the US it’s very common to leave home for school. It’s seen as a way of becoming independent.
Host Dad: Ahh, Katherine’s a crazy capitalist!
Me (internally): QUOI?
2) On vegetarianism:
My host parents when their neighbors stop by: This is Katherine. She’s American, and she doesn’t eat much meat. Oh, we’re having brains and liver for dinner, do you want to stay?
3) On considering the virtues of vegetarianism:
(this is more a short story than a conversation)
Katherine, beginning to feel the slightest bit hungry, opens the fridge. She sees an eyeball looking back at her. A split second later, she realizes it’s a part of a skinned cow’s head. Katherine closes the refrigerator, no longer feeling the slightest bit hungry. Fin.
4) On pronunciation:
Host brother: Do you use vasbu?
Me: Comment? (that’s what you say when you need a repetition or seven)
Host brother: le phazebu?
Me: I've never heard of it…
Host brother: phazebuk?
Me: FACEBOOK? Oui oui oui!
I then descend into a fit of laughter.
5) For you Franglais out there:
Host mom: Il n’y a pas depuis.
Me : Depuis quand ?
Turns out she was saying ‘il n’y a pas de pluie.’
A bonus number six because they just keep making me laugh:
Host Dad: We LOVE Obama here.
Host Mom: He’s so handsome and good-looking!
Katherine laughs.
Host Mom: Oh, I’m sure he’s a good president, too.
I write this from the SNCF waiting room. I found an outlet to use to charge the phone that one Klare kindly gave to me, though despite my sincerest efforts, none of the wifi networks are working. So I shan’t be able to post this (or notify my parents of my survival) until this evening.
Speaking of time, it is currently 10:48 AM on September 16th, which makes it 3:48 AM on the same day in Chicago. Thankfully it’s sunny in Paris, because if it were even the slightest bit gray my body would probably take that as a sign that it is time to sleep, RIGHT NOW. I actually slept an hour or two on the plane, which never happens, so that’s something. I decided not to get coffee upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle (we’ll see later if that’s a good idea depending on whether or not I sleep through my stop to Rennes) so that when I arrive, I can pass out immediately, sleep the requisite 15 hours, and then be on France time. This worked for me last time, so let’s hope it’ll work again this time. I’m not even going to try and stay up for dinner. Plus my stomach is being nicely predictable in that it refuses to have anything to do with food until I get some sleep. Last time I went to France it took me over a week to actually feel hungry. I’m not going to lie, that would be a nice bonus this time around since I’m responsible for finding my own food and I could stand to save a little money.
You know, there’s something that happens to one’s syntax when one starts to think in another language. Example: One starts to use ‘one’ as a subject way more often than one ever would in normal English syntax. I was reading some of my old blog posts, and it’s the case for those as well. I would talk about frequenting places—clearly my ability to speak English goes down as my ability to speak French increases. Anyway, don’t be surprised if my English starts to sound wackier and wackier as this blog progresses.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Now that I’ve gotten settled a bit and am no longer writing while in the airport as an attempt to keep myself awake, I can complete this disjointed entry and attempt to bring everyone up to speed on my life.
The trip was long, exhausting, and generally not fun. If it weren’t such an unpleasant trip, I’d probably be tempted to go home for Christmas, but I absolutely hate 24 hour trips, and thus I try to avoid them at all costs. England for Christmas it is!
I arrived in Rennes and was picked up at the train station by the ‘proviseur’ of my school (lycée Anita Conti). I’m pretty sure that’s the equivalent of a principal. He was quite nice, though he spoke French quite rapidly (that said, after a 24 hour journey I’m not sure my listening abilities were up to par), and he took me to the place I’ll be living. I’m renting a room, bathroom, and kitchen from a couple in their late 50s. For the next two weeks I’ll be sharing their bathroom and kitchen as their old renter doesn’t leave until the end of September. I’m also using one of their guest rooms until then. It’s a tight squeeze right now, but it’s certainly better than paying for a hostel for two weeks. I’m definitely looking forward to moving into the other room though, so I can unpack a bit, and I seriously can’t wait until I get the renter’s bathroom—it’s way nicer than the one the family uses. I’m also looking forward to being in my own kitchen. I can be a bit of a control freak when it comes to my food, and it’s odd for me not to be in charge of that. Also, I don’t think they keep their fridge cold enough, so I’m excited to be in charge of the fridge temperature. Like I said, I’m a control freak.
The best part about the house is that it has wifi! I can’t get it in the room I’m currently in (the signal doesn’t reach up here), but I’ll be able to get a decent signal in my future room. For now I just go downstairs to use the internet. I’m so excited to actually have internet that I don’t even care!
The couple I’m renting from, Jean-Paul and Denise, have three sons. Two of those sons are married with kids and living on their own now. The youngest, Kevin, is a year younger than me and he’s still living at home. He’s working part time and going to school. His girlfriend is really nice. She came over yesterday and was incredibly friendly. They’re both really into music—apparently the other two sons are musicians, too.
I’m in an area that’s both agricultural and industrial. There are a lot of factories nearby—Jean-Paul works at the Peugeot factory just down the road. But there are also a lot of small farms once you get off the main roads. Jean-Paul and Denise have a HUGE garden, and grow a ton of their own food: green beans, tomatoes (apparently there aren’t any squirrels or rabbits around to eat them like they do in Chicago), onions, pears, apples, peaches, melons, carrots, potatoes. It’s pretty impressive, but when I told them so, they said that this was actually a bad year for the garden. There wasn’t enough rain, so apparently they didn’t have as good of a harvest as they usually have. I just nodded. And I thought the fact that my family grows our own basil was impressive…
There’s a bus that goes both into Rennes and into Bruz (where I’ll be teaching) just outside the house. Denise took the bus with me to Bruz yesterday, and it was a really short ride—six or seven minutes at the most. The exciting news: It maybe be impossible for me to get lost going from home to school and vice versa, because you can see the bus stop from the house and the school from the bus stop I get off at. This is excellent. Don’t worry, I’m sure that if I try and go into Bruz’s town center or into Rennes I’ll manage to get lost plenty. Denise also showed me how to take the bus to a nearby grocery store. It’s pretty decently sized, and has some home appliance things, too. I picked up some food basics (though they didn’t have any fresh spinach…boo) like apples, cereal, bananas, tea, chevre (yay for real goat cheese!) and yogurt. Denise also bought an electric tea kettle that I can use while I’m here—yay!
Now, for the important stuff: The Milk Chronicles, Vol. II. Much to my amazement, the grocery store did have non-UHT milk, which is kind of a miracle. That stuff did not exist in Avignon. However, you can only get that in low-fat (not skim…sigh). It’s also outrageously expensive--2€ for a half liter. SO not cool. The UHT milk is half the price, but as I know from my past time here, it’s disgusting and can only be tolerated with cereal. Plus there’s just something a bit weird about milk that you can leave on the shelf, unrefrigerated, for months at a time. Ugh. Can’t wait to go to England and have real skim milk…
Jean-Paul and Denise are out of town this weekend, which my stomach is happy about because it’s had no interest in eating at all. Sadly, this is the norm when it comes to traveling, but that doesn’t make it any fun. I try to eat what I can during meals, but they still freak out about how I’m not eating enough. This will also give me the chance to go to sleep at a ridiculously early hour. I’m still not really on France time (instead of sleeping for 15 hours my first night here, I slept for two hours, woke up, slept for another two hours, woke up, stayed up for three hours, and then slept for six hours) and all I want to do is crash by 8 PM. Of course, we don’t even eat dinner until 8:30, and when I tried to sneak away at 9:30 last night, they wanted to know why I wasn’t going to watch the end of a movie. So I stayed awake for that, and then promptly conked out. My alarm woke me up at 8:30 this morning, but I was still exhausted. I’m going into Rennes today to meet a former assistant who’s now going to law school here, and then I just plan on going to bed immediately.
That's all for now. I have a quiet day planned for tomorrow, and then on Tuesday I'm hoping to go into my school to meet the teachers I'll be working with.
