A Day in Paris, Cleverly Presented in Bullets

(skip to the end for the important part)

- I love the RER E. I love the fact that it takes me somewhere totally different than the other metro lines that run through Gare du Nord. Instead of mindlessly hopping on the 4 or the RER B to Chatelet, or the 5 (I hate the 5 because I have to take it to my horrible specialist doctor at that horrible hospital), I can get off in the 2nd Arrondissement, which I love.

- Eiffel Tower key chains have really come down in price. I remember when they tried to sell them to you for a whole euro. Now 50 cents is almost a rip off.

- Stay far, far away from Rue St Denis. I took it as a shortcut to get from Boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle to Chatelet. Imagine my surprise when I realized the "store owners" who were all wearing fur coats and standing in doorways were actually hookers! Yes, I am naive and innocent enough that I was completely shocked and definitely made some kind of totally surprised face when I realized I was in Hooker Central, in broad daylight, on a Saturday afternoon. It was just so unexpected. So I put on my best "don"t f*%$ with me" face and kept going, hoping I would be safe when I crossed over Etienne Marcel. Nope. I had crossed over to the the sex shop and pornographic movie theater strip of St Denis.

- I wish I were less socially awkward. I shared a table at Starbucks with two girls who are law students in Paris and it would have been so cool to be friends with them, but I of course let that opportunity to actually have friends in this country slip right on by. Not that we would have become real friends or anything, but it was a reminder of the fact that I just don't meet people, although I really am trying!

- I really dislike the underbelly of the Gare du Nord, you know, where the RERs B and D arrive and depart from? This is probably close to hatred, but it's really more like self-hatred because I know my anger towards the station is displaced anger towards myself for always managing to get lost in there! It's so stupid because really, all you have to do is follow the signs and get on the escalator to get back up to the main train station. Not that hard, right? And yet I still manage to get totally confused and lost and turned around and wandering around the bus station. Sometimes I am so kinder.

- Kinder, if you are wondering, is a French candy that the kids love. It's milk chocolate filled with some kind of white, milky interior. I just had one for the first time the other day, it's okay, I'd still rather have American candy. But apparently kinder can also be used in slang when referring to brunettes who have blonde moments. Get it? Because the kinder is brown on the outside but white on the inside, like you have brown hair but the brain is all blonde... Well, I thought it was cute and clever, in any case.

Special note regarding the use of kinder: this may be an obscure slang term only used in Picardie. Use with care.

- I think the Gare du Nord in general is a crappy train station. We don't have good food vendors. I would love a Brioche Dorée there. Instead we have the train station food company and Paul. I'm not a huge Paul fan, don't really like their veggie sandwich. So basically, I'm a picky eater and I'm taking it out on the Gare du Nord. Poor Gare du Nord, it is the scapegoat for all of my various issues.

- I think my town exists in a snow-free alternate universe. How else can I explain the fact that in all the other towns on the way back they had snow sticking to the ground, and when I got back to my town it was slushing/hailing/sleeting/raining with the occasional snow flake. Not fair!

- I love that I can complain about these totally meaningless, mundane things. Because that means I don't have any real problems right now (knock on wood). Contrary to how I may have sounded in this post, I'm actually quite content right now. I'm making snowmen in my classes this week. Winter vacation starts on Friday. I'm leaving on Sunday for the US where I will get my fill of Christmas decorations and music and (hopefully) snow. Hanukkah starts on Sunday night and we'll light the candles, eat fried potato pancakes, and get presents for eight nights. My mom will cook me yummy food for two whole weeks. Life is good.

This weekend at the Katia and Kyliemac 200th Episode Live Broadcast + overall extravaganza was super fun and I'm so glad I went. It was great to meet new bloggers and see old ones again, eat some North American style food, and be part of the shenaniganeries. I even won a door prize! I am still so excited about it. I never win anything, and Andromeda had just won something, so I said to her as she was walking back "I hope I win something too!" And then literally ten seconds later I did! A thermal mug thing, courtesy of Breakfast in America. It's the perfect prize because I had been thinking all week that I needed to get one so that I can have hot tea while dealing with the rugrats at 8:30 AM, and of course in France, land of drinks sur place, where would I find something like that for a reasonable price? Well, Saturday was my lucky day, Katia and Kyliemac heard my expat prayers and I am now the proud owner of a super cool mug. I didn't even have to commander it from Santa Claus! So you heard it here first: Katia and Kyliemac are better than Santa Claus.

The excitement and overall excellence of the weekend was followed by the miracle of SNOW, and not just any snow, snow that stuck to the ground! Well, it stuck for about two hours until it started melting and turned to rain. I ran out while it was still pretty snow to take some pictures, so if anyone in the 02 heard tales of a crazy girl running around taking pictures of the snow, that was me. I got some good pictures on the small hill in town where it was colder and there was maybe half an inch of snow, so I'll get those up as soon as possible. I think I was the only (adult) person who found it beautiful and didn't just get freaked out about cleaning off my car and driving in it. Sometimes I feel like I've moved to Georgia, you know, those states that us Northerners always make fun of in the winter when they shut everything down because of a couple of flakes of snow.

I'm trying to ride the wave of these two excellent things going into my day tomorrow at L School (formerly Directeur Napoleon Complex School and home of the infamous Monster Class). Tomorrow for once my main worry isn't the monster class, it's the other teachers. I went to see my conseillère pédagogique on Friday afternoon to ask her for some advice about them and also about dealing with two CE1 classes that have 5 or 6 out of 20 students who are en difficulté (they are slower on the pickup of things like reading and writing and therefore also English). Her suggestion was to divide the classes in two and leave the other half with the teacher so that with the monster class I would (hopefully, although I doubt it) have less discipline problems, and with the CE1 I could spend more time working with individual students. Well, the problem with her plan is that for two of the three classes we're talking about the teachers don't stay in the room with me, so she offered to go to L School and tell the teachers they have to stay in the room with me. She was nice about it, not like "you're violating the rules" but I think it was taken badly at L School. The Directeur and the CE1 teacher are not my biggest fans, and I'm sure they think I went behind their back to criticize them to the Inspection, which is not at all the case. They've probably had fun trashing me (more than usual) this week (because the people at this school are petty like that and always have to have someone to talk about), and I'm a little worried that tomorrow is going to be less than pleasant. But like my mom said, I have to go in with a positive attitude and not feel all defensive, just explain calmly and clearly why I went to go speak to her and how they can help me. I don't work with the directeur this year, so whatever for him, but the CE1 maitresse is your classic screaming, degrading the children, constantly putting down the kids having a tough time French teacher, so I don't really want her involved with my class, but I may have to let her in a little. I bet she's really going to crack down on the kids now.

And I know it would have been better if I told them myself that they need to stay in the class with me, but if I haven't done it for he past year, I'm definitely not about to do it now. I'm very shy about these kinds of things. So I will hope that I can clean up the mess that I made. On verra.

Well that was a big, fat failure

I did a trial run of my phonics lesson on short "i" (with a little bit of "or" and "th" practice thrown in for kicks, to help with their thirteen/fourteen problem) at V School (New School) and it went awesomely well, I was so impressed by how well they did and how much their pronounciation imrpoved. I wasn't expecting the same results from the monster class at Directeur Napoleon Complex School (or L School, which is perhaps easier to remember and type) but I certainly wasn't expecting what happened....

... which is that they were more monster-ish than they have ever been in the past year+ that I've been working with them! OMG, I have no idea what to do with these kids. The noise that they can make is unbelievable, it's beyond anything I could even imagine out of 9 and 10 year olds. Granted, there are 25 of them, but still! And then the drawing that just wouldn't stop, and the constant, constant talking... it was a very unpleasant 45 minutes. Even having the teacher in the room with me did nothing. Not surprisingly they didn't learn much. I just can't think about them anymore today, they will have to go on the back burner until Sunday.

And I have so many things to cheer myself up! I went out and bought two pastries (desperate times call for two pastries) and tomorrow is the Katia and Kyliemac 200th Episode extravaganza! As Sabrina says, "Paris is always a good idea." Especially when you spent most of the day completely demoralized by French children.

Will Hooked on Phonics Work for Me?

I hope all the Americans remember that commercial so I don't feel like such a dork for making it the title.

The monster class is driving me insane. Yes, I was lucky enough to have those little angels yet again this year. Every day with them is a joy, as you can imagine. Discipline is actually going better this year, I'm just a hard ass from the minute class starts until the minute it finishes and I think I'm slowly breaking them (or so I tell myself). But what's driving me nuts about them right now isn't their inability to behave but their inability to listen, understand, and reproduce English sounds. They can't hear the difference between thirteen and fourteen (and half of them STILL haven't learned their numbers in English) and they can't pronounce English sounds correctly. We just played a number pronounciation game where they got upset that I wasn't giving them credit for the right number, but how can I possibly do that if I can't understand them?!? So after pulling my hair out about this for weeks, I've decided to do some phonics with them. I think part of the problem is that they just don't understand that in English the sounds are different and that they are supposed to try to reproduce and understand the sounds I make, not do whatever they want. We all know the problem of the French not hearing anything in English because all movies and TV shows are dubbed in French. This group of kids is also already at a disadvantage because many of them come from poorer and more troubled backgrounds. So we're going to try phonics and hopefully that will help, and I'm also going to tell them to watch a DVD in English this weekend. Otherwise I am at my wit's end. If anyone has any other listening or pronounciation activity ideas please share!

This weekend I had my first choir concert in France! It was fine. I find it a little unsatisfying musically to be in a "just for fun" choir like this. We don't prepare our songs to the same level that I did in high school and college, so it feels sloppy to me. And last night when we were learning new music we didn't even have to sight read, the director just played our notes for us. In any case, they are all super nice, and I enjoy singing in a group and making music and using my voice for more than singing the ABCs and the Hello Song!

Another Thanksgiving Miracle!

I went down to the sous-préfecture today to see if the récépissé for my carte de séjour was ready yet ( this is the piece of paper that says I've applied for my green card) . Remember that there's a weird new lady this year who wanted my last three pay slips, attestations from Sécu, and my tax sheet in addition to the usual birth certificate, contract, etc. I'd kind of been thinking that with all of these extra things submitted for my CDS that I might somehow slip under the radar and get a salarié card instead of an assistant/lecteur card. A salarié would be valid for about a year, give me the right to stay and work in France and the right to renew the card versus the assistant card that's over and done with when your contract is up.

The récepissé was ready, and after telling the weird new lady how happy I am that Obama was elected, I left the office, free to examine my shiny new piece of paper from the French government. And it says....

"... a demandé la delivrance d'un premier titre de séjour d'un an..."

Or in English, that I have made the request for a CDS of one year! I don't know for sure if it will be salarié or if it'll be a normal temporary card that's valid for longer than usual. In any case, I'm cautiously hopeful! This means that theoretically I will be able to stay in France without having to find a guy who will PACS me. I'll just have to find a company desperate to employ a native English speaker.

Come to think of it, finding a man is probably easier!

How to Make Thanksgiving Dinner Without an Oven

I love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. I have such great memories of spending it at my aunt's house, watching football while the yummy cooking smells rolled in from the kitchen, me and my cousin trying to break up fights between my brother and sister, getting stuck on the Pennsylvania turnpike for hours in snowstorms, turkey jigglers, my aunt's collection of turkey household objects, the whole family in an over-eating induced stupor on the couch after dinner watching Home Alone ... I really like the idea of a day where we have to think about what we're grateful for in our lives, instead of our usual routine of complaints and dissatisfaction.

And yet I find myself in France and not celebrating Thanksgiving with any Americans this year due to various scheduling problems (thanks SNCF). So I was determined to try to do something Thankgiving-y for myself, despite my very limited cooking implements: one electric burner, a microwave, and a refrigerator. I wasn't terribly hopeful of finding anything really typically Thanksgiving, until I saw cranberries at Monoprix last week! So I got my mom's recipe for cranberry sauce and headed back on Monday to pick up the cranberries....

...Except there were no cranberries, they were sold out! I panicked, cursing the horrible Frenchies who for whatever reason had decided to eat MY cranberries, and had to hope that they would be replaced the next day. No dice on Tuesday, and when there still weren't any cranberries yesterday I almost cried. But then, today, a Thanksgiving miracle! Cranberries had returned! So I grabbed them quickly before someone could take them out from under my nose (clearly they're a popular item), then headed over to the meat section to see what I could do about finding some already cooked turkey. The whole no oven thing is complicated when you have to make turkey in a country that doesn't really eat turkey. I don't know why they aren't more into the turkey, it's a delicious bird. I found this "roasted cooked turkey" (it was that or fried turkey patties, gross), and after a consultation with my friendly Monoprix butcher, I decided that it was a loaf of turkey deli meat that I could slice and warm in the microwave.

So I ended up with a huge tupperware container full of cranberry sauce, warm turkey deli meat, and a baked potato. I was too hungry to wait for a vegetable to be cooked and ready to eat! The one burner thing makes cooking a rather long process if you want to get into the main course plus side dish thing, and cranberries are a fruit anyway, so I got some fiber and vitamins. I have to say, it wasn't a half bad substitute for Thanksgiving and I am very thankful for that meal. I've been congratulating myself on it all night long, especially the cranberry sauce! I've never made it before and I'm known to really screw things up the first time I try to make them (kind of like how I always get lost the first time I go somewhere). Luckily it turned out okay, and tomorrow I can have the second best part of Thanksgiving food: leftover turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches the next day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Six Things

Leah tagged me a few days ago, and after a busy, tiring, and half malade week, I'm finally getting around to it. So here we go, my first tag (!) and six things you probably don't know about me:

1.) I'm a huge nerd. Okay, this may not be something you don't know, because I think I've written about it on here before. But it really is true, I am a huge nerd. I always liked school and I still really like learning, especially about history (and current clinical practice in oncology, but that's another bag of worms). I plan my vacations here in Europe around seeing cool historical stuff because that's what I like to do on vacation. After years of lamenting my complete lack of coolness I've embraced my inner nerd and I am not ashamed of it. Clearly I was never very popular in school :(

2.) I really like rap and hip hop. It is a total non-sequitur with the above, but it's true. I can rap along to most Ludacris songs, and if you get me drunk enough I've been known to do it in public. You could say that I have an eclectic taste in music. When I put my iPod on shuffle I often have Jay-Z followed by opera followed by John Mayer.

3.) Ben and I are no longer together. He broke up with me about a month ago. He says that he's just not capable of being in a new relationship yet (after a very complicated history and nasty break up with his ex) and that it doesn't have anything to do with me, he has no idea why he feels this way, etc blah blah blah. Basically when I got back we had one good week and then things got weird, and finally I had to force him to break up with me. When things started getting weird I told him that we could just try dating and see how that went but he was insistent that he wanted to be together with me, and then clearly that didn't work out .... I don't know, it's all very confusing. It's been hard, not only because we built a really strong connection during those months when I was in the US when we were talking on the phone or emailing every day, but also because I was expecting to come back and have him there, and he's not. And then of course there's all the usual break up garbage. I mean, I know that we had a rather unconventional "relationship" and we weren't really "together" because we spent so little time physically in each other's company (especially compared to how much time we spent apart), but being forced to speak to each other (and we could talk for hours on the phone) really forced us to get to know each other, to know a lot about the other person and to see if we were compatible together. So in summary, as you can all see I'm totally incapable of starting or maintaining a normal relationship. Blah. I sandwiched this in the middle on purpose so that it doesn't make the end of the post all depressing. Let's forget about it and move on to number four...

4.) I really like those silly coffee dispensers they have in France. I'm not a big coffee drinker (only with milk and sugar, and of course in France you aren't allowed to put milk in your coffee so I don't drink coffee here, and it really bugs me that you can never get it to go except at Starbucks), but I like the thé nature and cappuccino. For only 40 centimes you get the same amount of liquid that you get at a café for €3. And the stuff tastes pretty good too! In fact I am sipping a thé nature while I'm writing this. And speaking of tea, why don't the French put honey in their tea? They always offer you sugar, and we all know that the superior tea sweetener is honey.

5.) In general I'm a pretty calm person and not too many things make me very upset, but beware if you get me going about politics. I was a poli sci major in college, and politics is something that can bring on very passionate reactions from me, including telling people they've been brainwashed into believing Republican nonesense (even if the brainwashing bit is true, you really shouldn't say things like that, it's rude). I just feel very strongly about public policy, specifically health care and social welfare policies, and I let my emotions get away from me. I mean, these are policies that determine the well-being of millions of people, you have to make sure it's done right. So it's probably best not to get into political discussions with me. Let me be crazy in my own head and we'll all pretend that I'm not two steps from being one of those psychotic people who rant on cardboard boxes on the corner.

6.) I am bordelique, as the French say, or in English, I'm messy. This doesn't mean that I'm dirty, because I am a germaphobe. Bordelique means that I accumulate stuff, mostly teaching stuff, and have nowhere to put it but generally around my room. I try to set up an organizational system with pochettes and hanging file folders and boxes so that everything is in a logical order, but it just doesn't work, because the next day when I come home with my teaching stuff I'm just going to throw it on top of the pile instead of in the hanging file folder or pochette where it belongs. And then things get really unorganized because I take multiple classes' photocopies to school in the same pochette, even though every class has a different pochette, and then don't reorganize it when I get home, so when I'm looking for it I can't find it because it's not where it's supposed to be. I'm hopeless.