It’s been two months. I got here on September 29th and now it’s been two months that I’ve been in Europe, and a resident of Paris, France.
I’ve hesitated to write about it for a number of reasons. First, so much has happened that it’s overwhelming. I won’t feel like I’ve adequately covered it all, no matter how hard I try. Secondly and succinctly put, this whole thing has been really hard.
I have been overwhelmed at how much my family and friends have been excited for me and behind me in embarking on this experience, to the point where I’m very humbled. It feels as if everyone is so excited for me to be here, that for it to be difficult and for me to feel anything less than enraptured with my geographic circumstances feels ungrateful and downright spoiled of me. This is the furthest thing, obviously, that I want to be, but nonetheless, I’ve found myself in puddles of tears enough to feel that I must be at some degree honest about how hard this whole thing has been! The first few weeks of my time here, I had a lot of friends visiting, traveling with me, and it was wonderful. One of these said individuals challenged me to chronologue how my outlook on this whole 9 month excursion changes over the length of it. I’ve been reflecting much on that challenge--because I promised her I would do it--but have also struggled with how honest I want to be. So, here goes. This is for me, for sure, but also, this is for you Ash. Thank you for the challenge.
I have concluded that one could not find two more opposite places in quote “western society” that Alaska and Paris, France. On many levels. Alaska is vast, wild, sparsely populated and fairly newly touched--just to name a few of it’s characteristics. Paris is geographically miniscule in comparison (or shall we say contrast), highly “civilised”, immeasurably more populated and not at all without an nearly ancient and just as profound sense of heritage. Not that either extreme is at all in its entirety “bad”, but it is anyway worth noting these pronounced extremes in saying that it has been really hard to adjust from living in one extreme to the next. Also, I believe I mentioned in the last update that I found myself so busy this summer that I really didn’t have time to build up expectations or ideas about what France was going to be like. While I found this to be advantageous, I can also say that I was not prepared and had not previously considered this big differences and how they might affect me!
LANGUAGE:
The language has been hard. I’ve realized that while majoring in French--albeit 4 years ago--has been helpful, I have been much better prepared to discuss literature and philosophy in the language that I’m currently immersed in, rather than doing daily life. I could at one point in college communicate very effectively big, universal ideas and truths and discuss the societal ramifications of literature. But, as it’s now 4 years later and completely different subject matter, I’m struggling! In Ernest Hemingway’s The Moveable Feast (which I am currently reading)--a memoir of his time in Paris in the 20’s--he talks about “writing”, and he says that he “learned to not think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day....” And that way his “subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything....learning.” As an amateur “writer” I can totally relate to this phenomenon. But I also find myself hoping that my French language skills will undergo the same kind of circumstance. Only time will tell....
HOME:
Another source of stress has been my living situation, though I think things are getting better. First let me explain a little about my roomates. I’m in an apartment in the 9th Arrondissement, just south of Montmartre and Sacré Cœur--which I can actually see from my bedroom balcony. My Metro stop is the Montmartre stop, which is beautiful but also subsequently always BUSY. I live with an older lady and another middle aged gentlemen. Madame Hélène Vautrin is, I believe, in her 70s, a retired secretary divorcee who raised two daughters on her own in Nice, southern France--while she her self comes from the east area of the country. Nicolas, 46, is a friend of the family and Mme Vautrin’s grandson’s godfather. He’s wonderful, and very patient with my French and very obliging to give advice and cultural insight. He’s also learning English, so I’m often amused when he suddenly emits English explicatives. :) The apartment itself feels like a museum, there are so many antiques, and the floor even squeaks as a good museum does.
As wonderful and (over)mothering as Mme Vautrin may be, she does not claim those she houses on her taxes. Therefore, she did not want to let me use her address for any of my purposes. This is a problem because:
In order to be paid I must have a bank account.
In order to open a bank account I must (French law?) have a “justificatif de domicile” (declaration from my landlord, saying that I live with them) signed AND an adjoined bill from the same address.
In order to get my visa validated AND be covered by French national health insurance (la Securité Sociale) I have to send in my address AND have yet another “justificatif de domicile”.
And lastly, in order to even eat and pay rent I have to be paid. The american dollar that I earned all summer only goes so far...
Eventually, after some tears (she caught me stressed out and in tears at one point) and telling her that I didn’t want her to get into trouble, but I need an address (??!!), she relented and signed the papers.
THEN, I went to open my bank account. Which was a challenge in and of itself given that I had to muddle through legalese in a foreign language. However, It went fairly smoothly until I didn’t get my papers and especially my PIN for my French debit card because my name wasn’t on the mailbox at the apartment. I went in to inquire about this and they told me they’d send the PIN again but there was a possibility of my account shutting down....
Long story short and a dreaded conversation with the “Madame”, my name is on the mailbox. For now. And I have a bank account and a fully functional debit card and now I can eat and pay the rent. And they even call me “Madame Emerson” when I go in the bank. :)
I’ve never before experienced uncertainty about a roof over my head. It’s an interesting sensation. There was a period of time where I wondered if I could stay, and if I would be able to find another place, even. It was incredibly stressful finding a room in the first place, and the idea of having to stay indefinitely in a hostel again and of calling random numbers over and over again to find a home was overwhelming. So, I’m glad the address thing is momentarily ironed out.
Nevertheless, I’m learning more about dear Mme Vautrin. She is highly fiscally conscious. I have made of few “faux pas” in the home regarding the matter. For instance, there is no light in my room. The light switch is broken and the electrician is supposed to come. Sometime. It’s been this way for about two weeks now and she was gone for a week. She’s back now and has made no effort to remedy situation, as far as I can tell. I made do with a clip on light bulb I found in the already cluttered-with-who-knows-what-and-where-it came-from bedroom that I inhabit and promptly got in trouble for using it because it was (drumroll please) 200 watts and too expensive. I also should not have, apparently, roasted a chicken in the oven . I’m not supposed to use the oven either: it’s too expensive.
Suffice it to say, all of this has had me fearing the woman a bit and afraid of doing something wrong! But, as Nicolas says--who was appalled at hearing my stories--one does what one wants when she’s gone. This last week he made a wonderful quiche in the oven and I enjoyed my well lit bedroom.
I think I’m making some breakthroughs with her, though. She came back from her trip to see her daughter with a ton of questions for me about my life and country, because she’d apparently been discussing her “americane” with her family. I also accompanied her to and from the train station with her suitcase, and while it seemed an obvious thing to me--not to mention a pleasure--it seems to have broken some kind of wall down with her. She’s beginning to ask favors of me and take interest in my life. :)
As I live in a big city now, I’m trying really hard to get used to all the noise. But it’s hard, because I hate it. I can nearly follow the neighbor’s conversations through the thin walls, there’s work going on in/on the buildings across the street and rennovation happening in the “square” down the street. There is also a lady that lives in the same building that bursts out in random and very bad operatic notes. I haven’t yet pinpointed the origin of these poorly skilled emissions, but I’m choosing to approach the phenomenon as “quirky” and “endearing” and “funny”, instead of annoying. Hopefully this lasts.
WORK:
My job has been a real highlight in many ways, though it also presents its own set of unsureties and ambiguities. The children are from ages 7-10 roughly and CUTE as all get out! I’ve never been such a celebrity before, whenever I walk through the school hallways they all shout “Bonjour, Traci!” and I hear them trying to speak English to each other. I love it. Also, the teachers have been very warm toward me, which, I hear is unusual. Many other assistants have horror stories about their teaching situation, but I have to say I’m happy with mine. :)
On a broader scale, however, I’m less and less impressed with the Education Nationale itself. In a word: UNORGANIZED. The teachers know it, too. They hate it, but nobody can change it, so it would seem. Much more on the Education Nationale later. Also, I already have stories about how French education itself is conducted on a day to day basis. Very different, but that’ll come later.... My job is very ambiguous and not very well lined out. They gave us some papers stating what each grade level should know at the end of the year and then a whole bunch of “games”. We have “trainings” too, in which we play these said games. Fantastic. Really, though the kids are adorable and the teachers are nice, I have NO IDEA what I'm doing.
HEALTH:
I have been sick for almost 5 days now. My system crashed and I’ve not been sleeping well either. Things are getting “better”, but I’m definitely looking forward to feeling 100% again. I’ve lost some weight due to walking a lot and healthier eating habits, but I know some of it’s stress too. I came to France in not a very good emotional state. And now that friends are gone and I've gotten a little bit more of a daily routine here, it's catching up to me and I need to deal with it. I’ve spent most of my hours at home these last few days and have found ample time to reflect on this. I’ve come to some good realizations. There will be some elaboration on this fact to come, but I feel as I should leave it at that for now.
ITALY:
I GOT TO GO TO ITALY!!! 3 weeks into “teaching”, the Education Nationale went on a two week vacation and I got to go back to Naples and see my “family” there. It had been 5 years since my stay there over the summer of 2005 and it was actually kind of emotional and certainly precious to be reunited with some really amazing people there. I told my girls there, and it’s so true, that even though it had been so long since I’d been back, I had never forgotten. Naples is a special place.
On that note, I did see other parts of Italy, and overall just fell in love all over again with the country and the language. I also got to re-experience all of this with some dear, awesome friends from Alaska, Rachel and Kristie. Even though I’ve been to Italy several times before and experienced much of it before, this trip and time with them will remain entirely unforgettable. It was rough when they left. :(
I’m still missing Alaska, and very much looking forward to Christmas. It’s been a year since I’ve been home to Oregon and I’ll be hopping on a plane for Canby in a little less than 3 weeks. My sister’s getting married! And really, it's been too long since I've been home.
So, that's some of my last two months. Like I said, it's been hard more than it's been anything else, and that's just my honesty that I've finally decided to give. Some of it's my circumstances and some of it's just me. I'm here, alone, not knowing what I'm doing and trying to figure a lot of crap out. It's good though. As I mentioned before, I'm reading Hemingway at the moment. One of my favorite lines of his at the moment describes the trees of Paris during winter so aptly:
"The trees were sculpture without their leaves when you were reconciled to them..."
I love this because it reminds me of a poem I wrote, once, for somebody else and with them in mind. This quote though, and where I'm at in life has caused me to turn this mirror a bit more on myself. So here it is, and here's me looking forward to Spring--on a couple of different levels:
L'hiver d'un arbre
Once leaving her usual more drapèd state
A silent, barren, and shivering tree
In stretching to invite a new frigid weight
Offers a raw and naked form of beauty.
The snow adorning all original lines,
O winter's blanchèd form of weeping
Paints anew an obscure but divined design
Ne'er perceived till the dawn of summer's sleeping.
Humbled may she be, stripped to naught
Undergoing a brief annual time to remind
A catharsis solidifying what a year may've wraught
A flight back to loveliness found only inside.
But her foliage is come back, and so supplements
A diff'rent season's rendering of natural grace.
The joy of spring's budding is only ever lent
Warm vibrance by foil of a colder place.
So, the winters of life disparage not then
For out of them speak untold colors within.
T. Emerson
I’ve hesitated to write about it for a number of reasons. First, so much has happened that it’s overwhelming. I won’t feel like I’ve adequately covered it all, no matter how hard I try. Secondly and succinctly put, this whole thing has been really hard.
I have been overwhelmed at how much my family and friends have been excited for me and behind me in embarking on this experience, to the point where I’m very humbled. It feels as if everyone is so excited for me to be here, that for it to be difficult and for me to feel anything less than enraptured with my geographic circumstances feels ungrateful and downright spoiled of me. This is the furthest thing, obviously, that I want to be, but nonetheless, I’ve found myself in puddles of tears enough to feel that I must be at some degree honest about how hard this whole thing has been! The first few weeks of my time here, I had a lot of friends visiting, traveling with me, and it was wonderful. One of these said individuals challenged me to chronologue how my outlook on this whole 9 month excursion changes over the length of it. I’ve been reflecting much on that challenge--because I promised her I would do it--but have also struggled with how honest I want to be. So, here goes. This is for me, for sure, but also, this is for you Ash. Thank you for the challenge.
I have concluded that one could not find two more opposite places in quote “western society” that Alaska and Paris, France. On many levels. Alaska is vast, wild, sparsely populated and fairly newly touched--just to name a few of it’s characteristics. Paris is geographically miniscule in comparison (or shall we say contrast), highly “civilised”, immeasurably more populated and not at all without an nearly ancient and just as profound sense of heritage. Not that either extreme is at all in its entirety “bad”, but it is anyway worth noting these pronounced extremes in saying that it has been really hard to adjust from living in one extreme to the next. Also, I believe I mentioned in the last update that I found myself so busy this summer that I really didn’t have time to build up expectations or ideas about what France was going to be like. While I found this to be advantageous, I can also say that I was not prepared and had not previously considered this big differences and how they might affect me!
LANGUAGE:
The language has been hard. I’ve realized that while majoring in French--albeit 4 years ago--has been helpful, I have been much better prepared to discuss literature and philosophy in the language that I’m currently immersed in, rather than doing daily life. I could at one point in college communicate very effectively big, universal ideas and truths and discuss the societal ramifications of literature. But, as it’s now 4 years later and completely different subject matter, I’m struggling! In Ernest Hemingway’s The Moveable Feast (which I am currently reading)--a memoir of his time in Paris in the 20’s--he talks about “writing”, and he says that he “learned to not think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day....” And that way his “subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything....learning.” As an amateur “writer” I can totally relate to this phenomenon. But I also find myself hoping that my French language skills will undergo the same kind of circumstance. Only time will tell....
HOME:
Another source of stress has been my living situation, though I think things are getting better. First let me explain a little about my roomates. I’m in an apartment in the 9th Arrondissement, just south of Montmartre and Sacré Cœur--which I can actually see from my bedroom balcony. My Metro stop is the Montmartre stop, which is beautiful but also subsequently always BUSY. I live with an older lady and another middle aged gentlemen. Madame Hélène Vautrin is, I believe, in her 70s, a retired secretary divorcee who raised two daughters on her own in Nice, southern France--while she her self comes from the east area of the country. Nicolas, 46, is a friend of the family and Mme Vautrin’s grandson’s godfather. He’s wonderful, and very patient with my French and very obliging to give advice and cultural insight. He’s also learning English, so I’m often amused when he suddenly emits English explicatives. :) The apartment itself feels like a museum, there are so many antiques, and the floor even squeaks as a good museum does.
As wonderful and (over)mothering as Mme Vautrin may be, she does not claim those she houses on her taxes. Therefore, she did not want to let me use her address for any of my purposes. This is a problem because:
In order to be paid I must have a bank account.
In order to open a bank account I must (French law?) have a “justificatif de domicile” (declaration from my landlord, saying that I live with them) signed AND an adjoined bill from the same address.
In order to get my visa validated AND be covered by French national health insurance (la Securité Sociale) I have to send in my address AND have yet another “justificatif de domicile”.
And lastly, in order to even eat and pay rent I have to be paid. The american dollar that I earned all summer only goes so far...
Eventually, after some tears (she caught me stressed out and in tears at one point) and telling her that I didn’t want her to get into trouble, but I need an address (??!!), she relented and signed the papers.
THEN, I went to open my bank account. Which was a challenge in and of itself given that I had to muddle through legalese in a foreign language. However, It went fairly smoothly until I didn’t get my papers and especially my PIN for my French debit card because my name wasn’t on the mailbox at the apartment. I went in to inquire about this and they told me they’d send the PIN again but there was a possibility of my account shutting down....
Long story short and a dreaded conversation with the “Madame”, my name is on the mailbox. For now. And I have a bank account and a fully functional debit card and now I can eat and pay the rent. And they even call me “Madame Emerson” when I go in the bank. :)
I’ve never before experienced uncertainty about a roof over my head. It’s an interesting sensation. There was a period of time where I wondered if I could stay, and if I would be able to find another place, even. It was incredibly stressful finding a room in the first place, and the idea of having to stay indefinitely in a hostel again and of calling random numbers over and over again to find a home was overwhelming. So, I’m glad the address thing is momentarily ironed out.
Nevertheless, I’m learning more about dear Mme Vautrin. She is highly fiscally conscious. I have made of few “faux pas” in the home regarding the matter. For instance, there is no light in my room. The light switch is broken and the electrician is supposed to come. Sometime. It’s been this way for about two weeks now and she was gone for a week. She’s back now and has made no effort to remedy situation, as far as I can tell. I made do with a clip on light bulb I found in the already cluttered-with-who-knows-what-and-where-it came-from bedroom that I inhabit and promptly got in trouble for using it because it was (drumroll please) 200 watts and too expensive. I also should not have, apparently, roasted a chicken in the oven . I’m not supposed to use the oven either: it’s too expensive.
Suffice it to say, all of this has had me fearing the woman a bit and afraid of doing something wrong! But, as Nicolas says--who was appalled at hearing my stories--one does what one wants when she’s gone. This last week he made a wonderful quiche in the oven and I enjoyed my well lit bedroom.
I think I’m making some breakthroughs with her, though. She came back from her trip to see her daughter with a ton of questions for me about my life and country, because she’d apparently been discussing her “americane” with her family. I also accompanied her to and from the train station with her suitcase, and while it seemed an obvious thing to me--not to mention a pleasure--it seems to have broken some kind of wall down with her. She’s beginning to ask favors of me and take interest in my life. :)
As I live in a big city now, I’m trying really hard to get used to all the noise. But it’s hard, because I hate it. I can nearly follow the neighbor’s conversations through the thin walls, there’s work going on in/on the buildings across the street and rennovation happening in the “square” down the street. There is also a lady that lives in the same building that bursts out in random and very bad operatic notes. I haven’t yet pinpointed the origin of these poorly skilled emissions, but I’m choosing to approach the phenomenon as “quirky” and “endearing” and “funny”, instead of annoying. Hopefully this lasts.
WORK:
My job has been a real highlight in many ways, though it also presents its own set of unsureties and ambiguities. The children are from ages 7-10 roughly and CUTE as all get out! I’ve never been such a celebrity before, whenever I walk through the school hallways they all shout “Bonjour, Traci!” and I hear them trying to speak English to each other. I love it. Also, the teachers have been very warm toward me, which, I hear is unusual. Many other assistants have horror stories about their teaching situation, but I have to say I’m happy with mine. :)
On a broader scale, however, I’m less and less impressed with the Education Nationale itself. In a word: UNORGANIZED. The teachers know it, too. They hate it, but nobody can change it, so it would seem. Much more on the Education Nationale later. Also, I already have stories about how French education itself is conducted on a day to day basis. Very different, but that’ll come later.... My job is very ambiguous and not very well lined out. They gave us some papers stating what each grade level should know at the end of the year and then a whole bunch of “games”. We have “trainings” too, in which we play these said games. Fantastic. Really, though the kids are adorable and the teachers are nice, I have NO IDEA what I'm doing.
HEALTH:
I have been sick for almost 5 days now. My system crashed and I’ve not been sleeping well either. Things are getting “better”, but I’m definitely looking forward to feeling 100% again. I’ve lost some weight due to walking a lot and healthier eating habits, but I know some of it’s stress too. I came to France in not a very good emotional state. And now that friends are gone and I've gotten a little bit more of a daily routine here, it's catching up to me and I need to deal with it. I’ve spent most of my hours at home these last few days and have found ample time to reflect on this. I’ve come to some good realizations. There will be some elaboration on this fact to come, but I feel as I should leave it at that for now.
ITALY:
I GOT TO GO TO ITALY!!! 3 weeks into “teaching”, the Education Nationale went on a two week vacation and I got to go back to Naples and see my “family” there. It had been 5 years since my stay there over the summer of 2005 and it was actually kind of emotional and certainly precious to be reunited with some really amazing people there. I told my girls there, and it’s so true, that even though it had been so long since I’d been back, I had never forgotten. Naples is a special place.
On that note, I did see other parts of Italy, and overall just fell in love all over again with the country and the language. I also got to re-experience all of this with some dear, awesome friends from Alaska, Rachel and Kristie. Even though I’ve been to Italy several times before and experienced much of it before, this trip and time with them will remain entirely unforgettable. It was rough when they left. :(
I’m still missing Alaska, and very much looking forward to Christmas. It’s been a year since I’ve been home to Oregon and I’ll be hopping on a plane for Canby in a little less than 3 weeks. My sister’s getting married! And really, it's been too long since I've been home.
So, that's some of my last two months. Like I said, it's been hard more than it's been anything else, and that's just my honesty that I've finally decided to give. Some of it's my circumstances and some of it's just me. I'm here, alone, not knowing what I'm doing and trying to figure a lot of crap out. It's good though. As I mentioned before, I'm reading Hemingway at the moment. One of my favorite lines of his at the moment describes the trees of Paris during winter so aptly:
"The trees were sculpture without their leaves when you were reconciled to them..."
I love this because it reminds me of a poem I wrote, once, for somebody else and with them in mind. This quote though, and where I'm at in life has caused me to turn this mirror a bit more on myself. So here it is, and here's me looking forward to Spring--on a couple of different levels:
L'hiver d'un arbre
Once leaving her usual more drapèd state
A silent, barren, and shivering tree
In stretching to invite a new frigid weight
Offers a raw and naked form of beauty.
The snow adorning all original lines,
O winter's blanchèd form of weeping
Paints anew an obscure but divined design
Ne'er perceived till the dawn of summer's sleeping.
Humbled may she be, stripped to naught
Undergoing a brief annual time to remind
A catharsis solidifying what a year may've wraught
A flight back to loveliness found only inside.
But her foliage is come back, and so supplements
A diff'rent season's rendering of natural grace.
The joy of spring's budding is only ever lent
Warm vibrance by foil of a colder place.
So, the winters of life disparage not then
For out of them speak untold colors within.
T. Emerson
