Time Traveling, Internationally

A hint

A riddle for you: If you're reading this right now (as in, right now right now, in a non-literal sense) it's probably yesterday for me. Even though we're both living and breathing at the very same moment, separated only by continents and wind streams, technically my iPhone thinks you're still in yesterday. Yesterday, a lovely nostalgic, albeit naive state of mind where the future is bright and there are less mosquito bites on your feet. Somehow I lost a day and yet I'm not any older.

How can this be?

A man-made concept of time measurement. I've gone and crossed the International Date Line.

Bug bites, blood cubes, and beautiful thunderstorms. I'm in Thailand.

Please don't let the previous sentence fool you into thinking that I know enough about Thailand to take what I say seriously.  But here I am (my here, not your here, it's a literary device) and it's all new.

I want to do this place justice with some actual serious blog entries, so let's just consider this the pre-ramble (for a definition of "pre-ramble" refer to my 2010 post where I established the term http://jennifershannahan.blogspot.com/2010/11/do-polska.html).

This is basically to set the scene and let you know I'm in Thailand, Ubon Ratchathani to be exact, visiting not just Thailand, but Asia for the first time, and doing a two month teaching practicum at UBU. I live on a campus the size of Manoa Valley (for you Hawaii friends) or Cheney (for you Washington friends) or to all my other friends just check out google maps. I ride a bike around, I make friends with stray dogs, and I'm learning how to order the most delicious fruit on earth. Oh, and some really fantastic people are here doing the practicum with me, or are in the class I'm teaching, or are simply occupying the same geographical region as me.

So sit back, subscribe, and come with me on all my non-offensive, lovably self-deprecating adventures across the International Date Line. But most importantly, help me decipher these taxi-glyphics.

As illuminating as they are mysterious. 

Part of the teaching crew

Where I work. 

A roommate.

A street (try crossing that).

How I got here. 

Whoops, these again. (It's the one on the right that's getting me)

Jennifer Shannahan

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.