thanklessly giving.

Last year for Thanksgiving I was in a foreign country, surrounded by a motley assortment of Europeans and Americans. Only the American expats really had any clue as to what was going on and that's not saying much as we tried to salvage and persuade the others to the merits of a completely American tradition. It seemed strange to celebrate our holiday of giving thanks in a completely different country with mocking British and perplexed Germans and ribald French, but it was also a necessary stab at familiarity that we all desperately desired for at the beginning of an odd holiday season.

This year, I was in my warm, family home in the middle of my hilly, wind-swept plains, sitting around a family dinner table with all of the familiar foods in front of me and all my longed for company at my side. And I found myself feeling bland and wistful and with little connection to all the live faces around me. It almost seemed a little unfair that I was the one enjoying this moment and not the Jennifer of last year who was homesick for parades, green bean casserole, and family.

In the multiverse of reality somehow I wish I could reach through the fabric and just give that girl a hug. That girl from last year. Tell her to be thankful for where she is and where she's at....Have her tell me to be thankful for mine too. And maybe, just maybe, there will be a third Jennifer from the next Thanksgiving in a completely different place than France or home, reaching back and giving us both a hearty smack on the backs and saying..."Hey, you found it! The perfect thankful experience, now please come join me in all my fun. You had no idea what you had in store..."

I don't know if half of that multiverse shite is real or not, but somehow, the infinite mirror in every direction of Thanksgivings is kind of reassuring. And I can look backwards and forwards to all the ones where I'm sitting with my family in our old familiar house on an otherwise dreary gray sort of day, and immediately, no matter how ordinary they felt at the time, they are immediately special, shiny gems of a day. And I could cry for the completeness of it all.  I only wish I could actually reach back and tell my mom how much I appreciated getting to eat my food across the table from her, and look to the left at my dad and tell him how good it was getting to see him in person rather than a frozen Skype screen.

That's the trouble with all this introspective reflective crap, you can look backwards and forwards at all your experiences, but that still doesn't allow you to really experience them. It doesn't give you the agency that you have now in this true and single moment to go and hug those people and imbibe them with the same sudden feelings of warmth and love you're suddenly realizing. And then when you step outside of that multi-mirror complex and back into this single powerful moment of agency, you suddenly lose the armor of perspective and you lose the immediacy of running and telling those people how much you care and ultimately, the vulnerability of now makes it all seem like too much trouble.

So you say, eh, and wander aimlessly back to the kitchen, knowing full-well that any leftovers you find while rummaging around in the fridge will be far too old to eat by now, and next year's are so perilously far away.

friend seeking (local friend[s])

Here is the problem when you like to live in different places around the world and make friends with people from different places around the world: inevitably you end up with a very impressive friend map on facebook, but not much else in the meantime.

I'm waiting/actively searching for my next adventure. In the meantime, I'm back in my hometown. Yee-haw.

Sure this had a certain novelty when I first arrived, but after a while you realize that nothing much has changed, including your desire not to settle down there. So I'm looking for meaningful work that doesn't make me want to go home each night and drink copious amounts of alcohol to deal with the banality of my current state of existence.

However, while worrying over all of my resume catagories, I realized I should be sending out these resumes in hopes of acquiring friends. My work skills are the same things I'm sending out, hoping to find in friends: adventure, language, dependiblity, good sense of humor...

My local friend group is dwindling. Some left for different parts of the country, some for different parts of the world. At one point I was one of those people who moved far away and accumulated new shiny foreign friends. And, alas, now I'm back and wondering when the new new friendships are going to start?

Out of sheer curiousity, I even went to craigslist and did a quick perusal of women seeking platonic friendships. I glanced at the first three. All were girls within my age group and all sounded cool and apologetic for searching for friends on craigslist. However, even though I applaud them for their courage (or desperation) to finally post a call for friends on craiglist, I couldn't quite bring myself to respond for a friend date.

I'm a believer in things happening for a reason. I've made some good long distance friendships based
off of brief, sparkling moments when you bump into a stranger and you just know: This person and I make a wonderful pair.  And there's so little time together, you jump right to the good stuff: similiar interests, fascinating stories, mini-adventures, singular pictures that bespeak of a life-bonding inside-joke.

And maybe that's what makes the friendship so great. The equivalent of a romantic fling, these friendship flings leave only time for the good stuff. Then, when we have to part ways we're left with great memories, maybe a few pictures to load onto social media, and only fond things to say of the other person.

These friendship flings, when properly nurtured (texting an inside joke every month or so, a bday wall post, a youtube video referal), provide you with couches to stay on whenever you might be visiting that part of the country/world.

But, what, I ask you, are we left with in the meantime?

I'm a pro at these long distance friendships, I could practically write a book of rules on these friendship flings. But how in God's name does someone in their (gulp) mid-twenties, make long lasting, local friends, now adays?

Maybe that only happens when you finally grow up and decide to settle somewhere and stay local.

Oh sure, I've got my best friends from elementary school and college, a few of them in the local vicinity. They'll always be there for me (even if that's not in the geographic sense). I can tell them the most embarrassing stories and they'll relate with their different but still embarrassing and weird tales. But other than that, our circles of interest are fading away.

Every couple of years, it seems that I can date someone and for a brief period of time (3-9 months) we have the perfect social life. We amass a solid, unmovable group of friends, much like what you see on programs such as Friends and How I Met Your Mother, and everyone's jealous of how tight we all are, how cool our parties seem to be, how desirable our one-on-one coffee dates go. And then, like clockwork, we slowly begin to dissassemble. Joe and Alice break up,  Peter decides to start his life over in Portland, etc. etc. In fact, it's cruel really.  What I realize we all gelled together over in the first place is the very thing that will tear us apart : we come together over our mutual desire to get out of this town, to try bigger and better things in the great unknown elsewhere, and slowly, we do just that.

And again, I tell you, I'm back to square one.

So this Christmas season, instead of going to Ugly Sweater parties, or having to buy a million gifts for my million friends, I'm sending a million post cards off to different corners of the world, praising past glory days and pledging to see them in-person again.... all the while nursing that cynical realization that I probably won't see them again in this life when I need them the most. They'll only appear in the most casual of happenstances, like a reward for good mental health and personal grooming.

I probably won't use those fancy friendship finder websites... at least not yet. I'm still the let-lightening-strike sort of romantic, especially when it comes to friendships. I'm sure the right people will wander into my life just as surely as they have in the past and we'll have some good times. In the meantime, I'll value those friends I've been fortunate to make over the years and keep the correspondence flowing. Hopefully someday I'll settle down and not have to be content with stale acquaintances, but develop mutual interest pools of well-meaning friends.

nowhere in the storm

There’s a storm brewing outside my house, but I’m sitting comfortably cozy on the couch by a warm fire. Leaves are being ripped off the trees and tossed against the windows. The sky is grayish and brown, and a smattering of rain drops fall against the pane.

I only have an hour before I have to get dressed and go out to meet friends.

The three dogs are lying as close to the wood stove and they can possibly get without singing their fur. These dogs are family pets, and, at 12 years old, are getting a little more feeble and senile.  They love their warmth and their comfort and their company.

As the storm worsens Happy whines. He moves from me to the window and back again, sitting straight urgently and glancing at me from the corner of his eye. He needs constant reassurance that it’s okay to relax. Anxious or Manic would have been a better moniker for him.

The other dogs are not nearly as bothered. 

Daisy, the second dog, flicks her eyes up at me whenever I shift in my seat, but her expression is trusting and her body language exudes calm as she rests on the carpet.  Whatever will be, will be, as long as it's ok with you is pretty much her motto. And as long as she has her human companionship, she’s content.

Mable, infamous now for her failing hearing, lifts her head at the most recent attack of debris on glass.  The house rattles and she grumbles audibly but settles her head back on the floor. No storm will fully disturb her from her slumber.  So long as she has warmth and comfort, she’s determined not to leave it. 

The windows creak against the onslaught of a fresh bout and I can feel little breezes rushing through the invisible cracks this old house has acquired over the past 100 years of its existence.  It's funny how not once I've been afraid of ghosts in this place, even though I'm the biggest friggin scaredy cat I know. And somehow a storm makes me feel all the more safe, which is ludicrous considering all flailing hundred year old trees outside right now.

I think about our other animals outside. The one old arthritic sheep, a remnant of a childhood past, sits at the top of the hill, observing and absorbing everything.  No promise of hay in the barn much less a storm can persuade her. We built a makeshift structure to keep her semi-protected in her stubborn post, but at that age, it'd probably be the way I'd choose to go too.

In that little barn which she now neglects, there are three barn cats, fluffy and thick in their growing winter coats, probably nestled somewhere in the hay.

Although I know they’re all safe, on a night like this I wish I could herd them all inside and around the fire where we could all be safe and dry together. 

When I was little, I would imagine that being inside this great big old ranch house was like being at sea. The house was a giant wooden ship getting tossed about by the waves but I was always safe inside it.

Now, that memory makes me thankful to be where I am, cozy and content. It sounds old fashioned and story-bookish, but I think that's the point of it all is it not? I’m surrounded by the artifacts of my family from over a decade of sporadic living in this house. Their touch is everywhere: a quilt sewn by my mom, logs hewn by my dad, scribblings on pieces of paper by my niece, well-worn books resting in shelves that all of us have leafed through over the years or left pen impressions in.

When I was little I used to hope for big snowstorms that would lock my family inside the house. There was always the promise of warmth, food, books to read and games to play. It felt like the best place on earth. Now I'm grown up and the threat of getting snowed in makes living in the country less desirable.

I watch as the giant tree in the yard flails its branches in the storm, losing its fall mantel in the violence of someone ripping off their own coat.  The gray brown wind continues to whirl like a monster against the walls, daring us to be afraid, and yet, I am at peace. I bask in the contentment of a hundred other just such afternoons and evenings, growing up out here in these bare hills. In summer time the hills were my favorite place to be for I felt free and little and could dream uninhibited by reality and concrete. In the winter, this house was my favorite because I knew that the hills would always be there waiting for me in springtime, and in the meantime, it was my shelter and gave me refuge to continue to dream and wonder.

Now, in this moment, I feel at once finely in-tune with the younger self of my past.  The memories of being snuggled up inside this big old ranch house are not merely re-imagined, but felt. They are a consistently flowing stream that I step into and let wash over me, keeping me connected to the child I once was. The great big, terrifying world of grownup responsibilities is outside these thick walls. Its endless possibilities and wants and disappointments cannot touch me here, sitting beside the hearth, surrounded by my animals. 

Suddenly I don’t feel like going out anymore. The hour is almost up and I should be going.  But I'm happy to be where I am in this moment and I don’t want to waste the feeling of this warmth, this history, and this love. My grown up years are an inevitability and this storm only a temporary respite. I need to make it last.

through her last week as a teacher.

This week has been full of goodbyes for me. They weren't all sad. Some were just casual see-ya's, some were good-riddance-s (I'm speaking to you cell-phone company), whereas others were simply heartbreaking.

For some reason, the fact that my contract expires at the end of April wasn't a well known fact and I've had to continuously be the bearer of bad news. Monday, the accounting teacher I work with was going over her lesson ideas for May. I told her I thought they were good plans and if she needed any help she could always email me. She regarded me in confusion. (Remember, this is the same teacher that told me in French, "See you in 5 minutes" and I responded by leaving work for the day.) Well-meaning miscommunication has always been an undercurrent in our relationship, but once I  explained that I was leaving for good, she got that inevitable, disappointed look of realization and I felt that familiar twinge of regret for not extending my contract when I had the chance.


Tuesday one of my teachers took me to Pornic, a lovely little beach town. It was perfect weather, sunny and mild, for a stroll along the rocky coast. She treated me to a café and the region's famous strawberry sorbet. We spoke over a broad range of life topics, completely en français. It was divine. I felt like such a grown-up.

People already on holidays.

Diverse coast-line.

On Wednesday I had to hurriedly figure out how to close my French phone account, a harrowing task in-it-of-itself. I had two teachers on the phone with me trying to sort it out. What they tell you in the boutique when you sign up for your cell-phone plan is a little bit different from what the administrative people tell you over the phone when trying to close it. I've sent in a packet of double-checked important documents so let's keep our fingers crossed that it all goes through and I'm not stuck with a French number, converting dollars to euros out of my empty pockets for the next two years.

Thursday and Friday au college was bittersweet to say the least. I had my last run-ins with the less than agreeable classes, played fun games each day in celebration, and my profs and I exchanged goodbye gifts and cards at break time in the teachers' lounge with stoic sincerity.

That's when it all ended during the last hour on Friday afternoon. I readied myself the for worst.

My darling little 6e (the 11 and 12 year olds) threw me a surprise going away party! They had made gateaux and brought drinks to share. They literally lined up to present me with gifts and cards. My arms were overflowing. Oh my precious little 6e, we'd been through some stuff together.  I wanted to hug each and everyone of them, but my teacher told me that was not allowed.

My loot. An odd assortment of earrings, books, and a ceramic doll.

A pretty good representation. Notice the detail spent on the placement of my earrings. However, I've not once worn a belly shirt nor do I have "beauty" tattooed across my stomach. (Just wanted to clarify that for you mom and dad.)

Then one of my biggest fans, Lorraine, tearfully told me she was so sad and Fridays would never be as fun. She then recited a poem she had written for me that day in (for the most part) comprehensible English. The last two lines were something along the lines of "You will never be forgotten. I love you." My heart nearly burst. Damn that no hugging rule. Don't the French realize that Americans are  huggers and that American teachers hug their students on the last day? Especially the little pitiful ones with tears in their eyes reciting you poetry?

After the period ended, a group of girls waited for me outside of the teacher's lounge and walked me to the tramway one last time. It was too much! I can't believe I'm not going to see those shining little faces again, or see them mature into their teenage years and become young adults. Adventure aside, sometimes the "temporary" part of being a temporary citizen in a foreign country really sucks.

That night I practiced my French again by going out for drinks with the college profs. My French isn't great, but it was pas mal last night. I understood things said and was able to communicate my thoughts back. We laughed and made jokes. Sauf for my frustrating accent and sometimes sloppy sentence conjugation, I'm pretty pleased with my (ongoing) progress in French.

Ended the night dancing on chairs and belting out songs at the top of our lungs with my assistant friends later at someone's apartment.  A glorious finish to a memorable week.

Two weeks left, America. Geeze how the time flies.

j'accusing

On Wednesday night I met up with an English teacher from the lycée (previously mentioned in my Valentine's day post) to attend an assembly of the Nantes/Jacksonville/Seattle association, which consists of a bunch of French people who are interested in the United States getting together to plan American activities and discuss exchanges and trips.

It was an interesting night, especially because the first half hour was staged pretty much like a mutiny. The president, who is a very lovely woman, read through the agenda. When she tried to move on to the next topic somebody stood up and bascially  "J'accuse!"-ed her.

In typical French rhetoric, member after member stood up to sound a barage of complaints and old money disputes. I followed it for the most part, my head snapping back and forth between accusations.

All the while, my fellow English teacher was sitting beside me whispering uncomfortable commentary, while on my right, an older gentelman was mumbling furiously to himself.

The crescendo of this mutiny? Another man stood up, his letter of invitation held aloft.  He shoved the paper into the air for emphasis while bringing up some past grievance (which I couldn't quite catch), volleying into, "I remember this outrageous something-or-other happening before with the previous President So-and-So blah blah blah." (Actually in French it's pronounced more like "bleh bleh bleh")

Then the mysterious stranger to my right shot up from his seat, cane clutched in support.  "Say that to my face," he barked, "I'm right here," and identified himself as the aformentioned previous President So-and-So.

 Oh snap.

The heated discussions continued. My teacher was waving his hand to himself in that French, "Oh la la, things better calm down" sort of way, hunkering so low in his seat that I was afraid he'd be on the floor next.

"This isn't normal," he assured me, appologizing for bringing me here.

But just like when I was barricaded in the lycée during the protests by fiery trash cans and assailed by rocks flying through the windows, I was oddly calm in that removed, I'm-a-foreigner-so-none-of-this-will-touch-me sort of observation.

My calm paid off because, very soon and for no apparent reason, all the "j'accuse!"-s died down and the association moved on to the next part of discussion and the lovely current president was none the worse for wear.

The topic of "Flag" (a flag football) league was introduced next. Apparently Nantes has the biggest and most successful club in the west of France. Impressive. Still, the disgruntled and skeptical French in the audience were reserved about partnering with this sport. They may love America but it is the wrong football to be modeling themselves on, afterall. Plus I think feathers were still ruffled from the last shouting session and no one wanted to appear too agreeable.

Afterwards, my teacher introduced me to the current president of the assembly (the very nice lady who handled all the j'accuses very well) who apologized profusely for all the j'accusing that went on earlier. Then, with a few other members, they took me out for wine and a traditional French dinner...

....consisting of pig cheeks and slippery carrot mush. It tastes better than it sounds.

It was a traditional French dinner because we didn't eat until 9:30pm and didn't leave until midnight teetering pleasantly on our feet from the wine. Plus, it came after a strong helping of French disgruntlement in the face of authority. So, a traditional three-course meal.

Ah, la France! Provider of entertaining evenings. Educator of debate. If only all the meetings in my life could go as they did this day, with me as the calm and fearless observer. 

misfortune hunting

I leave Nantes in a matter of weeks. After a weekend filled with farewell activities and last or second-to-last goodbyes, it's getting a little more triste around here. But the sun is shining, flowers are still in bloom, and I haven't opened any umbrellas indoors recently (read on to understand), so it can't be all bad.

I've begun the sorting process that preludes the packing up part of moving. Ugh, what a laborious task.  As the least organized person you probably know, I dread and postpone sorting papers. I've accumulated several piles of said feuilles in the past 6 and a half months and must go about grading them by level of importance, subject, and how-likely-will-I-be-looking-at-this-again.

Sorting through the various caches I have cached around my room, I stumbled over this delightful treat: past assignments. Most likely I will not be looking at these little gems again, hence I won't be taking them with me, but I'd like to preserve the sentiment here. 

One of my first lessons at the lycée was about superstitions in American culture. As homework, I asked my students to explain some French superstitions to me. What I received the following week was a scant number of assignments written in almost incomprehensible English.  I attempted to decipher them then, but these messages are more cryptic than Nicolas Cage's career. Unable to give them grades, I put them aside for later reflection.

Another baffling decision in the life of Nic Cage.

 Although I suspect an on-line translator to be at the root of most of this fancy backwards talk, I can't help but admire my students' laziness. In the name of good-natured fun and in the spirit of being a smart ass, let's pretend that my students said exactly what they meant to say, and let's commence at making fun, shall we?

1. THE CRUEL UMBRELLA THEORY:

I used to think that opening an umbrella in the house would just bring rain. Good lord was I wrong. 

Version I: 

Open the an umbrella in the house it's the 7 year old of misfortune.

Terrifying. Is this seven-year-old delivered to you or is he lurking in your closet, waiting for the first sign of an inappropriately opening umbrella to start gnawing on your furniture? The punishment hardly seems to fit the crime. And how long does this 7 year old stick around for? Until he's eight? How much misfortune does he actually cause? The vagueness is troubling. I'd probably say Bloody Mary three times in the bathroom before trying this.

7 year-old of misfortune.

Version II:  
When we open an umbrella in my house it's not luke. 

This sounds less like a general superstition and more like an ongoing tragedy of one family's attempts at locating Luke. The disappointment after each umbrella opening must be tremendous.  However, I admire the implication of mankind's perseverance to hope. This adage was inevitably created because someone continues opening umbrellas in hopes that their long lost Luke will eventually tumble out. 

Probably the reason she mixed up the spelling of "luck"

2. KARMA'S A BEACH:

Use the crutches of somebody who really needs it can make you undego the same fate, carry crutches in turn.

I especially enjoyed this because it appealed to the barely contained nerd in me. Its cryptic advice reads like a regulation card written for an RPG game. And judging by how many new kids show up with crutches every week, I think there is some merit to the statement.

3. GREEN, THE COLOR OF FEAR:

The green color, it's the color of fraities, who would be furieus of seeing the people concerning it, and specially on friday, day of the death of the christ the cross and of the redemption, from whom they are exclused.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure by the spelling mistakes that this was not the regurgitation of an on-line translator. Still, I'm confused as to who these mysterious regulators of the color are and how/who is excluded from their wrath.

Furieus Fraity?

Or Furious Fairy?

4. THE DREADED NUMBER:

We can't be thirteen to eating because thirteen is a figure misfortune. 

Either I can't have thirteen people in my dinner parties or I can't feed thirteen-year-old children. Either way, I'm saving money.  

5. THE TRIFORCE OF DOOM:

In this student's case, they either sloppily crammed three superstitions into two sentences or they are creating one gigantic megaplex of bad luck involving ladders, black cats, and mirrors breaking. The magnitude of misfortune must increase three fold as well.  

In France, there are a lot superstition as to see a black cat crossed uner an ladder. it carries misfortune to break a mirer cause 7 years of misfortune. 

6. THE DEVIL BREAD HYPOTHESIS:

I like this one because of the background provided.  However, she gets pretty technical towards the end so I blame my incomprehension on her use of unknown baker-jargon.

To present the bread at the table attract the devil. It comes because the baker kept the bread intended fro the excecution back in front under the former regime. Besides a popular coutime wants that we made of the point of the knife a sign of the cross on it to some bread of numerous persons even not relgious make him systematically. 

I know, this was an enlightening way to spend 5 minutes of your time. But you've done a big favor to me if you have chuckled at least once or twice. My lycée students have been a constant source of motivation for the past 7 months to improve my French. Their mockery of my accent and laughter at my misused verb tenses have rung in my ears for half a year now. I know it's not very mature of me to poke fun at them, but, guess who's laughing now? Moi.

Pondering "the What ifs" in Life

The tangled web of the French teenaged mind.

I played a game this week where I presented my students with a lot of unusual situations and they had to respond at random with what they would do. It's been an enlightening look into the mind of the average French 15 year old.

Par exemple:

Q: What would you do if you saw Tony Parker? 

A: I would hit him and ask for autographe.

Obviously the only viable response.

Some of my students are real sweethearts.

What would you do if you were a movie star? I would start a charity.

If you could read minds? I would know who loves me.
If you had a time machine? I would return to my childwood. (yes, childwood)
If you could make a movie? I would make a movie for my mother.

And, my favorite:

If you could fly? I would take Sarah to the sky.

Heartwarming. And it rhymes. Unfortunately his French desire not to put an emphasis on the right syllables prevented him from realizing his extra accomplishment.

Others are slightly more fixated on consumerism. My least motivated student became my most eager participant when I presented him with an opportunity to tell me his greatest desires. I asked him to be creative.


What would you do if you were a movie star? I would buy a car.
If you had a million euros? I would buy the cars (all the cars)
If you had a time machine? I would buy a flying car.


Keep dreamin' big Samy.

I saw so many responses in 48 hours, I feel like I could employ this game as a method of psycho analysis. 

One boy is definitely an at risk conspiracy theorist.

What would you do if you could read minds? I would know my friends' secrets.
If you were invisible? I would watch them.
If you could see through walls? I would spy on Obama.  

.... Hmmmm. 

Other kids had a strange fixation on control. These little opportunists could be the next dictators-in-making. They really shone when it came to authority.

What would you do if you were a teacher? I would be strict. Bah...and I would kill the students.

If you were queen? I would have my own empire.

If you found a wallet? I would take your money... or... I would keep the identity cards. (it's nice that it was an either/or situation for him)
 
I'd say these are normal enough responses (although I hope I never lose my wallet here), but in my last class, Dillan, the class clown, offered a truly unique perspective:

What would you do if you were a teacher? I would fight my students.
If you were king? I would kill everybody. (This wasn't even his question.)
If you found a cave? I would hide...no... I would visit it. (Ok then.)
If you saw Brad Pitt? I would kiss him.  
If you met George Clooney? I would kiss him.
 
A disturbing mix to say the least. Perhaps inspiration for the next HBO villain? The serial celebrity kisser? On reporting his answers to my French counterpart, she merely rolled her eyes.

Because this was my last class of the day and I had done ten of these panels already, I decided to pretend as if this game really did have a broader use in the field of psychology. Instead of scoring answers for correct grammatical structure, I rated the students' personalities. My usually worst class (and by worst, I mean least motivated, most disruptive in the entire school. Their history teacher refused to teach them that day) became rapt with attention.

T., you're a fearless adventurer, B., you're a sneaky spy (couldn't translate conspiracy theorist), S., you're an opportunistic consumer, G., you're a polite young man (he refused to look at girls in the shower even though he could see through walls, despite the other boys' encouragement), and Dillan, dear special Dillan, you're a passionate weirdo.

They were all surprisingly pleased with my classifications and took them seriously. I was like a backwards guidance counselor for a day.

Working on the conditional tense you learn a lot about people. Hence, I hope none of my students ever rule the world.

to Mont Saint-Michel

A continuation of my ambitious week of local travel:

Sunday, Krista and I had to get up extremely early to make it to our train for Mont-Saint-Michel. This meant, annoyingly, that we had to be responsible and duck out early from a birthday party for a couple of our fellow language assistants the night before. But the walk home was worth it. We walked through a very vibrant, very loud carnival going on in Nantes. The smell of fried food, the sight of overweight parents, the sound of loud children, terrifyingly creaky rides, and blaring radio tunes, the presence of overpriced, impossible games of chance... besides the portraits of topless women painted on some rides it almost felt like being in America.

Look closely at the right panel.

 We arrived to Mont-Saint-Michel Sunday morning after two trains and a bus ride, four hours later. And oh, what a sight.


We were expecting sun, but for whatever reason, weren't expecting the wind. Silly me. Saint Michel is an island off the north coast of France. Where there is sea, there will be wind.

I had worn a short(ish) flowy skirt in my attempt to look non-touristy. This proved successful as soon as we walked through the medieval gates, as a group of British teenaged boys mistook us for French and didn't think Krista and I could understand their English commentary on our sexiness. Yes that's right, sexiness. Now if only I could get this approval from someone in my own age group.

We spent the day touring the stone streets and windy shop district as we climbed up and up the little island to its main attraction, the abbey. It reminded me a lot of Eze, a little medieval town near Nice that's built on the top of a hill. Only, less warm and more mist.

Cavernous old rooms *

Krista and I made it inside the abbey and strolled through the cavernous old rooms. On the top balcony I had to make the gutting choice between saving my brochures or saving my ass from making an indecent appearance. FYI, never wear a flowy skirt to Mont-Saint-Michel.  I spent the remainder of my time trying to keep the wind from whipping it up and away as it did to my brochures.

After we had combed every nook and cranny that the place had to offer, we ate some lunch on some steps, people watched, and shivered in the sun.

Then we ventured down to the beach.



With all of the fog and mist, it looked like we were standing in some weird sky meets sky limbo.  As I was preoccupied about protecting young children from seeing a flipped-up skirt, I let Krista venture out further into the mucky beach on her own.  The sand around the base of the island was wet and already pulling at our shoes. I had tried to warn Krista about the dinosaurs. You know what happened to them, right? They got stuck in mud and now we reassemble their bones in terrifying displays in museums.

Krista chortled at my tale of caution and stomped out confidently into the ooze. Then she almost lost her sandals.

Krista not heeding my warning  *

Try as she might, she couldn't quite get the muck off her feet for the rest of the day.

That's what you get for laughing at my skirt problem Krista! HA!

When we walked back around to the entrance to the walls, we saw that tour groups had been instructed to take off their shoes before walking into the prehistoric muck lands. Lesson learned for next time: no loose skirts and no shoes on the beach!

After an hour and a half bus ride and one delayed train, we arrived safely back to Nantes, slightly more world experienced than before.



*Photos stolen from Krista Schilling. Please visit her blog: http://thesagaofone.blogspot.com/

to Les Herbs and 6 minutes in Clisson

Last week was pleine de choses pour moi.

For my Tuesday off, I took the bus to Krista's tiny lil town, Les Herbiers, and chilled there for a couple nights.  We saw some cows, took a walk in a forest, were watched by frowning old French men, were then ignored by her French roommates, and ate some gourmet feasts. On my way there I got to see green hills, grape vines, and bunnies. On my way back (5:30am) I got to see bleary eyed French travelers making their daily two hour commute into Nantes. I returned their bleak stares with my own barely-functioning expression.

All in all, it was a nice break from Nantes. Small town livin' and the smell of cows reminded me just enough of Cheney. (sidenote 3 more weeks America!)

Les Herbiers' Cows and Jennifer *

Saturday, I decided to go to Clisson. Actually, I've decided to go to Clisson every Saturday for the last two months but have never quite mustered the resolve to get on the train. This chronic inability to make it to Clisson isn't because I drink too much wine on Fridays, thus rendering walking impossible the next morning. Obviously it can't be blamed on cold weekend weather either, or me having zero money in my bank account . No, if this were the case then I wouldn't have actually made it on the train last Saturday, despite the existence of this combined trifecta of doom hanging over my head (recap: hungover, broke, and freezing).

Krista and I actually conquered all three of these possible deterrents and found ourselves standing in Clisson at 1:03pm.

6 minutes later, I found myself on the train headed back to Nantes. Seems the return train to Nantes on a Saturday is either at 1:09 pm or after 6 o'clock. And, well, Krista and I had places to be in Nantes before then. Plus, I've been told you can see all of Clisson in less than two hours, so we weren't keen on waiting around an extra three.

Therefore, I've stood in Clisson, I've looked at its trainstation parking lot, but I still have never actually been there.

So, using a complicated application of physics and the proven theories surrounding fate, the build up to me actually seeing Clisson means I can expect to reap a truly great reward upon achievement.  I'm hoping this reward will take shape in the form of a very dapper looking Vincent Cassel waiting at the castle, eager to make the acquaintance of a 20-something-year-old girl with an adorable American accent. Let's cross our fingers. Or at the very least, let's hope my next attempt in Clisson will result in me getting out of the parking lot of the gare.

A dapper looking Vincent Cassel.

Coloring

I've been filling out a job application. It asks me what other languages I speak and to rate my level of fluency: beginner, intermediate, professional, or fluent. What an interesting question. It's been 6 months now. So, how has my French progressed? 

Let me start by reminding you that progress isn't always linear.  In this case, it probably is better represented by a coloring book than a line. 

I'd love to attach one to this job application. Whoever gets it will leaf through and note that half of the pages have been scribbled on but nothing filled in. Upon closer inspection they'll see that certain elements have been given special attention. Maybe there's a bit of green on a blade of grass, a tint of red on a rabbit’s nose, a corner of sky colored blue. And then they'll run into some odd color choices, a blue giraffe, a pink carrot…mishaps clearly. Then perhaps I've gone off the grid entirely and added a flying unicorn on this page or hidden a gnome somewhere on the next (I've never been good at staying in between the lines)... 

I’ve dabbled here and there and I've made some mistakes.  The book hasn’t been completed yet.  While the progress isn't always evident, even spotty at best, at least I'm still a work in progress. 

After 6 months, "still a work in progress" doesn't sound too promising. Take a look at any of my old coloring books and you'll probably doubt the likelihood of me growing up to create art.  Success isn't always linear. And as most things in life, it isn't very neat either. 

I've always loved the idea of language, the philosophy behind it, the implications and broader social consequences of replacing "ca va?" with "ca. av?", the history that led to the delicate formations between formal and informal speech...  But my application of language and its fundamental principles has always left me wanting. I fail at practice. I'm a theory person, through and through. I know that doesn't make much sense to you practical folks out there, but this is the only way I can explain it. It warms my soul to float in that inbetween space, just above the tangible and just below the ideal, wondering about their meeting point. 

My successes in French communcation are like gleaming, elusive victories. They make me excited to continue learning and participating. But my failures and shortcomings in comprehension and grammar usage are daunting beyond belief. They cloud my judgment. I can't tell you what my level of French is. 

I can have a successful meeting with someone at my bank and we understand each other easily. Speaking French comes as smoothly as running water. Complete sentences are made, little jokes sprinkled here and there, comprehension all around.  I've had a human connection. And then a few days later,  I sit down at a restaurant, order two chocolat-banane crêpes, and my friend and I are served two sucrée-beurre crêpes instead.  It would be lovely to blame this on poor service by our waitress, but I can't ignore the fact that she's the native speaker and I'm the timid French-as-a-second-language customer.

I've had some other mishaps being the French-as-a-second-language speaker. A few months back one of the accounting teachers I work with stopped me while I was going to her class, said something about an "examen," then threw a "à tout à l'heure!" at me. She left me staring after her as she ran in the opposite direction.  I thought she'd said, "I'll see you later," as in, "I don't need you because there's an exam," so I left.  I found out later what she really meant was "See you in 5 minutes." I had left the school for no reason. It took talking to another native French speaker to learn that "à tout à l'heure" can mean see you in 5 hours or see you in 5 minutes. Talk about failure.

But then today I had a remarkable moment in an everyday sort of situation. One of the teachers in the staff room didn't know how to format columns in her Word document. None of the other teachers knew how to do it either. They couldn't even think of the word columnes (columns) and could only describe it as "mets comme sur le tableau" (put it like on the board).  So I said, "Excusez-moi," and listed out the instructions in confident French. The teacher was so surprised and grateful, she touched my hand, said "Thank you" in rusty English. I felt like a hero. Win. Shiny elusive victory. 

Such a tiny thing shouldn't make me feel so redeemed. But it's the everyday stuff that I struggle with the most.

One of my favorite experiences in French was a very un-everyday conversation.  While we sat in a cafe drinking our espressos, I had an hour long philosophical conversation with another professor. Together we treaded carefully through my limited French grammar and vocab. We forged our way through the thicket of possible meanings until we’d reached a satisfying conclusion.The root of this conversation had stemmed completely from my own musings, a complex thought process that had had murky beginnings even in English. Even now I couldn't really relate this conversation to you back in English. It was carved out of French. 

This was the first time in French where I thought, despite my shoddy accent, I'm communicating.  It was also my first time in France that I thought, woohoo, a real grownup conversation. It wasn't pretentious, it wasn't flaky, it was enjoyable and worthwhile. I'm wasn't just conversing, I was relating something of worth to someone else, showing another person who didn't speak my language a real part of myself. 

Now juxtapose this to what I struggle with on an everyday level. I try to have a simple exchange with some of my peers about what I did last weekend, what I plan to do tomorrow, or what the weather is like, and I become flustered, fumble over sentences and spit out the words as if I were a 12 year old learning French for the first time.  

These frustrating sequences rule the better part of my experiences speaking French in France. But instead of taking them as a discouraging sign of my failing acquisition of French, I've realized that they show me where my strengths and weaknesses lie elsewhere in my life. My usage of French reflects my character.

As a personal trait I’m shy. (Or, "reserved" as my parents like to say.)  As much as I’d like to speak and share myself with others, I’m simply not sure how.  I’ve never been very good at small talk. Acquaintances think I'm quiet. I might be considered witty, but this is usually reserved to an inner monologue. It comes out when I feel comfortable with everyone listening. I've always been slow to speak because of an unfortunate mix of insecurity, perfectionism, and cowardliness.  

In high school what I regret the most is not speaking enough. I should have spoken up to those who used me, I should have spoken up as the captain of my team, and I should have shared my opinions in class. I can think of at least one English teacher who practically begged me to speak in class every week, but I simply lacked the confidence to share my views with my peers. He resorted to reading from my papers when I was absent. I owe this to cowardliness.

Although I've improved in this department, I'm still lacking in others. Even in English I can be pretty embarrassing at ordering food. It took years of training not to become timid or flustered when deciding what to get at a restaurant. I had a truly unpleasant experience at a Quizno's last summer where I completely froze when it was my turn to order and I couldn't form sentences. My mind went blank and I didn't know how to get out of there fast enough. It was like a flashback to my youth.

And ask anyone who's talked to me on the phone and they'll tell you I'm the most awkward person when it comes to saying goodbye. I've just never learned how to gracefully exit a conversation. I say, "bye!" and hang up the phone before the other person can get an "ok, later!" out. No wonder it would take an embarrassing mix-up to teach me the subtleties in using "à tout à l'heure!" 

And small talk? I'm the worst. I've learned how to feign it in English. The trick is to actually find something you care about mentioning and let the other person take it from there. But it takes a while for me to warm up enough to have a genuine conversation in English where I can let my thought process roll out without constant re-editing, never mind in French. And before that can even happen in French, most people have written me off as inept at the language. All I can do is take that as a loss and resolve myself to not be so floundered next time by a simple "ca va?"

My struggles with French are my same struggles in English, only magnified by the glaring question mark of "fluency level" that hangs above every encounter. 

I have such a long way to go, but I’m not discouraged in my French speaking skills, not yet anyway. Perhaps a little unmotivated at times, but there’s hope for me yet. A friend just wrote me, "don't sweat the small stuff." So, instead, I'm learning to celebrate the small stuff. 

Just yesterday at Mont-Saint-Michel, I overheard a mother scold her son for climbing everywhere. I knew what she had said straight away, and then I thought about it a second later. Arrête= stop. Grimper = climbing. Constamment = constantly.  And then I was suddenly beaming. I had understood spontaneously spoken French. This had been my New Years Eve resolution:  understand French spoken in the street. And, eureka! I wasn't worrying about it and I had done it. 

My biggest desire in language is to just be able to roll into a conversation and contribute to it, feeling at ease in the spontaneity of it. But I weigh my words too much in both English and French and I’m insecure with my own self-image. I have been a work in progress for a long time. But I'm not discouraged.

Instead, I've realized that I've accumulated so many people in my life who excel at this sort of thing that I lack. Sometimes acting as my life line, sometimes acting as my downfall, I've learned from them and at times, hid behind them. They are the sort of people who can become best friends with just about anyone. They are also the ones, who for some unknown reason, feel compelled to pursue a friendship with me. These individuals are like guides who have kindly extended their hand to help me navigate the social complexities of life. 

To them, those who are still a part my life or have just passed through, I am extremely grateful to you. As for my time in France, speaking French, I'm thankful to those native speakers who motioned me into their lives and patiently let me try speaking French with them. To my fellow assistants, German-speaking, English-speaking, and Spanish-speaking, I'm grateful for you kindness in extending that first hello, and your patience in working with me as I stumbled through my French and my English.

So...

... Bye!



(told ya I was bad at exiting.)

picnicking!

(Pictures to follow at a later date)

(Pictures followed)

Can we just talk about how lovely France has become? It’s been in the 60s for almost a week (minus one or two rainy moments) and almost completely sunny. Flowers are blooming and birds are chirping like they are the chorus of spring itself.  

I’ve run alongside the river Erdre a couple times with sun on my face and blue water on my side. I only wish I were more in shape so that I could run longer. 

I had a picnic on Sunday with Lindsey and Krista.   It was Lindsey’s idea, and for the most part Lindsey’s food. I knew there was a reason I liked her.  The park was perfect. There were meadows and meadows of daffodils popping up anywhere and everywhere in wild tufts. There were magnolia trees exploding in soft pinks and snowy whites.  There were other colorful flowers in lavenders and blues that I have no name for but I wish I did. There were waterfalls freshly flowing and swans patrolling the banks. It was magnifique.

Lindsey's food

We dined on cheese, fresh bread, sparkling peach wine, and some snickerdoodles made possible by a container of creme of tartre I had smuggled back from Scotland in January. We even had a stick of wild boar sausage before a hawk swooped down and clawed it out of our hands… The carnage was unbelievable...
 

A hawk causing carnage

Not really. If this were a choose your-own-adventure we'd be screwed right about now. But luckily this is just my adventure, which was much more exciting. Although there were birds of prey circling high overhead they never landed. A much more bizarre bird-experience was when a man walked by with his two little children and his pet parakeet. The bird was in a cage, ducking and scuttling across it's bar, trying not to get hit by the hoop swinging back in forth. The man had a perplexingly sour French expression on his face for being out in the sun taking his bird for a walk through a daffodile field.

Besides these appearances of wildlife, there were other animals of prey circling the area. 

Dogs were out and about, off their leashes and  in their element. Weird little purebred alien French dogs and cuter bigger French mutts were racing around in pure bliss, celebrating their momentary freedom.  One of said little alien dogs stopped to stare at our picnick. He was luckily on a leash, otherwise I'm sure he would have torn us all to threads. Instead, his owner let him stand a few inches away from our blanket and stare up at us with his weird, disapproving eyes. This went on for a few minutes before the owner tired of who would win this staring contest and moved on.

There was another particularly rascally dog in our meadow that would pounce out of a mound of daffodils in a fit of joy every time a group of young children came by. Inevitably the French children just screamed and ran away. Every freaking time.  I don’t know what their problem was, he just wanted to play! I wanted to hug him.

I miss dogs, I miss big dogs. I wish you could rent puppies while you traveled. 

Now it’s raining outside, a sometimes heavy, but always insistent sprinkle, but that’s okay. The smell of the rain mixing with the warm weather and new growth makes it smell like spring. Home in the spring is exactly where I’d like to be right now, sitting in the hills behind my parents’ house, smelling the damp earth, feeling the grass on my hands, the sun on my cheeks, hearing little animals slowly going back to their activities after my initial disturbance. 

But if I can’t be there now, I’ll make the most of it here in France, which has shown me in the last week that it has its own special brand of nature and spring paradise to offer.

IRELAND (for real this time)

Part II of the thrilling saga:

On to Ireland.

On the grounds of Kylemore Abby

IRELAND!!!!!!

Beautiful lovely Ireland. Being surrounded by hills and fields and forest and nature was exactly what I needed. It was a little cold but anything compared to Poland this time of year feels like spring. We were lucky to have 6 days of almost perfect sunshine/clouds mix and mild temperatures. There might have been one or two afternoons when it was rainy or misty, but we were never outside when it rained.

Timeline:

First day/night: Dublin. Dublin its self isn’t too interesting. It’s just another big city, thousands of people on the road or in the street going about their business.  Besides witnessing what I'm sure was a leprechaun ducking into a 7-11 for a hot dog around 9am in the morning, I didn't see anything too unusual worth note. I think I was really just craving nature. Maybe if I went back after a summer in the country it would hold more appeal.

Hillary along the water's edge.

Second day/night: Went to Galway.  We spent most of the afternoon strolling alongside the coast, soaking up sun, looking at shells. 

Add caption

 

Then we went to a tea parlor and drank some very delicious tea out of very pretty china and read our books. 

Guinness, Galway, and entertainment

That night we checked out the pubs. We settled in first at the pub: Garavans Ltd. Despite the chilliness of the evening, we opted to sit outside to enjoy the musical styling of this street performer. He had a big, belting voice and sang for at least a couple hours without stopping.  He had the right kind of rough voice for a rousing rendition of "Zombie." Then he requested that Hillary and I buy him a drink as payment for our hour or so of listening, so we did. By this time we had made a couple more Irish friends, Paddy and Porich, who took us on a mini tour of other good pubs in Galway. Apparently this was the RAG week, the last week before exams for university students and the biggest party week for the whole year in Galway. Good timing as always.

Third day/night: We took a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher. Tourists were everywhere, but it was easy to lose the crowded feeling once you staked out a spot alongside the cliffs, gazed out at the waves crashing in against them, and beheld the immensity of the place. Miles of verdant green grass juxtaposed against the slate blue of the ocean and so much sky...the jagged cliffs are the perfect border between three worlds. So amazing. 

Fourth day/night:  We took a bus tour of Kylemore Abby and Conemarra.  Gorgeous, empty terrain, filled with spindly legged sheep. 

Fifth day/night: We took a bus tour of Glendalough and KilKenny. Glendalough was my favorite destination. A beautiful, moss grown forest, shaking off the morning chill, erupting in birdsong, everything dappled in morning sunlight.  In celebration I even hugged a tree. There's a picture of this but you don't get to see it. I then proceeded to frolic in the woods. There is a video of this but you don't get to see it either.

That night we went out in Dublin. We stuck to the touristy Temple Bar district and settled in at the Aulde Dubliner to  listen to another very cute male Irish singer, though with a different, sweeter voice and calmer song delivery. 

Sixth day: We ate lunch and did some shopping in Ireland. Happily we found the Irish music CDs we had been searching for our dear old Da. 

Highlights:

Driving across Ireland. Getting to see all of that countryside was amazing, comforting, and awe-inspiring all at once. 

Meeting Yolanda, a Polish woman on our bus trip to Connemara. She speaks about as much English as I speak Polish (which isn’t a whole lot).  Luckily having just been in Poland, I could say about 5 words/2 embarrassingly pronounced phrases, such as: Yes, No, Hi, Please, Thank you, You’re welcome, Cheers!, My name is….

She was really quite fun. She sort of adopted Hillary and me for the day and we had some semblances of conversation.  I think having a conversation with someone when you can’t automatically speak English is one of the most gratifying experiences. It means that you both have to be really invested in the conversation and laugh at the mishaps. I was able to glean that her daughter is studying in Dublin and Yolanda is visiting her before taking a larger tour of Ireland. She knows Russian, German, and Polish and a little bit of Latin for medical reasons (perhaps she is a nurse?). She doesn’t think me knowing French is very impressive. 

Apparently that’s not a language she holds favor with. One of the mishaps we had? The bus driver kept referring to her as "Poland" and me and Hil as "Washington." This was a bus full of 20 plus people.  When I tried to explain this to Yoland, she mistook that she was supposed to introduce herself. "YOLANDA!" She excitedly interrupted the tour guide. Crickets..

All of the Irish accents! Along with the nice Irish people! They were really all so nice and charming.  My favorite thing they said was "sorry," as they squeezed by you on the street or in a store. They say it in such a gentle, endearing way they might as well be asking you to marry them (my answer is yes!). I also like how they say "sound" where I would say "cool." And yes my Scottish roommate Gregory says "sound" and I heard it all throughout Scotland, but it just never stuck in my head until one of the Irish tour guides said it to me. Sound.

Getting my nerd on and striking up a conversation about Irish Gaelic with our newfound Galway friends in the midst of a pub crawl. Hillary was embarrassed but I was living out a dream. Real live speakers!

I drank some very delicious beer (Guinness and a Kilkenny) and ate some hardy meals, including the best fried fish I’ve ever had (in Galway) and potato and leek soup (from Kilkenny).

Downsides: 

Leaving too soon! It hurt in my chest when we got on the shuttle to the airport.

No working debit card.

The realization that creepy old men exist in Ireland too. 

I think Hillary had enough of grubby hostels. 

(corresponds to that mystery picture of the first blog of IRELAND series.) It's a Fairy Circle!

Hillary and I were supposed to spend a couple days in Paris, but after one bad credit card situation after another, we just decided to call the whole thing off and return to Nantes early. We arrived in the Charles de Gaulle airport quite late and the next train wasn’t until 6 am in the morning. We resigned ourselves to having to sleep in the airport and/or train station again, until Keri Ann, wonderful roommate that she is, called up her friend living in Paris. This amazingly nice girl let Hillary and I, two complete strangers, crash on her floor. She even made up beds for us. It wasn’t until we got back to Nantes that we learned it had been her birthday the day before. She was really so generous and hospitable! 

We ended Hillary's vacation with a couple extra days in Nantes. The weather was perfect. We went to a park one day with my roommates Keri Ann and Gregory. The next day we took a brief tour around the town itself.  

The Cathedral on a resplendent March day.

Speculoos gelatto in the shape of a rose, charming!

We ended her trip by spending the night at the Nantes airport (because we love airports so much). Then I waved goodbye to my big sister and went home to my nice own comfy bed for some sleep. 

It was a great adventure for me and Hil.  We got to spend a lot of time together, catching up and getting reacquainted (we both might admit we spent a little too much time together). I love my sister! Thanks for coming with me Hil!