This French/American Life

India Star

2011-09-18T13:20:00.001-05:00

Boston's parents took us to India Star Friday night. It is located on Douglas in Des Moines just a couple of blocks east of Merle Hay Mall.

This is a favorite restaurant. Good Indian food at great prices. It had been awhile since I'd been for dinner (rather than the lunch buffet) and I was happy to see a new menu with clear labeling of what is vegetarian and what is vegan. India Star is IMO one of the most vegetarian friendly restaurants in Des Moines.

I took a couple snaps of the menu showing their veggie appetizers and veggie main dishes. They also have a couple veggie platters-what I ended up with. Salad, raita, 2 main dishes, rice and a bit of dessert for the same price as 1 main ($9.99). Can't go wrong with that!

We also got a veggie appetizer sampler. It was a lot of fried food, but split between the four of us, it wasn't too much. I love India food for the fact that I can be presented with 3 types of fried vegetable balls and each one has a different flavor. Some more smokey, some have more anise, etc.

Easter in France

2009-04-17T11:55:00.003-05:00

So Easter just happened.

Anyone have any reflections on Easter in France? When I was there in high school staying with a family, I tried to get them to take me to Mass, but "that's just for the old people. No one under 70 goes to church" haha. Needless to say, we didn't go. We're not over 70!

We did get some awesome chocolate though! Think of the movie Chocolat with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. The scene toward the end when the town leader is found asleep in the store window with all of the chocolat de Pâques covering his face and smeared all over. That wasn't exactly me, but close!

Check out this video, from Rhône-Alphes.tv an interview with a chocolatier while he makes a chocolate creation.

Amazing eh?

Oh to be in France during Easter...ah...

Schools on Strike in France

2009-04-17T11:52:00.001-05:00

France is well-known for it’s strikes. I think most people have heard that if you go to France for a trip and aren’t troubled by the train workers on strike, the airline workers on strike or any of the other public employees on strike, then you’ve had a great trip!

What many people many not know about is that students go on strike as well. Not just short protests in the street to show their dislike for a law that was passed, but 5-10-90 days out of class, with or without the support of the school administration.

Much of this is on a national level and is organized through the student unions. Student interest areas, like manual labor areas here, have organized unions with a structural hierarchy similar to something like our Student Senate. (Some of the well-known unions: UNEF, UNI, FAGE, CÉ.) Allignment is fairly complicated, but to simplify, students from different faculté or school generally align with one union because of that union’s beliefs (but such is not always the case). So the faculté d’art has a union that students are a part of, the faculté de droit has a union, and of course, the faculté de lettres has a union. This fac de lettres is the most well-known for going on strike, it is the part of campus that contains the humanities students that are known for speaking their minds. These localized unions on each campus talk to unions on other campuses and will work together to stage a coordinated effort if a law is passed that affects higher education. For example, in 2007, a law was proposed to reform higher education on the national level. This video reviews what happened at Rennes-II, a university in Rennes, France in the Bretagne region in the Northwest:

It must be said that sometimes the laws are repealed (striking is successful) and sometimes the laws go forward. In my discussions with students when I was in France and on strike for 8 weeks, I talked with some students who felt very strongly about the subject and why they were striking and they work they were doing instead of schoolwork-these were true activists. I also talked with students who were just glad they weren’t in school-they were just hanging out, shopping, playing outside, or working to earn money for summer vacations. Many of my French friends in the fac de droit wanted to go back to class and were working hard to learn the material that should be covered in the time missed.

Sometimes certain schools go further than others with their striking. A recent article from Le Monde brought this to light along with the affect that all this striking and missed classroom time can have on student enrollment. You can check it out here: Les facs mobilisees voient leur image se degrader (don’t forget Drake students, if Le Monde rolls this to their pay only archives, you have access to it through the Cowles Library databases!) As you can see, this particular school, Rennes-II has lost over 5,000 students in the past 4 years and the authors are blaming this mostly on the rise of student striking, especially long strikes.

French students generally attend whichever university is closest to their home and the particular reputation of that school does not matter much-they do not have the extensive search that American students do (we must also say that they pay less than 500Euros per year all expenses included because most live at home and we pay between $20,000 and $40,000 per year). Some parents in the article say they would hesitate about sending their student to the fac de lettres at Rennes-II because they would not spend enough time in the classroom. This might become a problem in the future; will French students put more effort into their college search based on who strikes and who does not?

Traffic Patterns!

2009-03-18T11:54:00.003-05:00

We've been having an interesting discussion over on the French blog for the students here that I decided I could bring over. The professor posted this video from TF1 about people in a small town in France being confused by the 4 way stop.

You see, in France, the 4 way stop, not a common appearance. They do the roundabouts. You might have seen one, they have been popping up like CRAZY in new suburban neighborhoods that are going for that European flair in the US. These Frenchmen and women come to the 4 way stop and don't know who should go first. (Not that I think Americans really know this better...)

Would not be so weird but for the fact that when I was driving home from my parents' place this weekend listening to NPR for a few hours, I hear a short clip about a woman who got "stuck" on a roundabout in the US because she couldn't find the exit! If I remember correctly, she went around and around on that for 15-20 minutes until policemen were called to escort her off! If you can find the place where I heard this, you win the prize because I can't. I hear this small clips on shows like Marketplace and On Point and then can never find them again...

Lesson learned: do not import traffic patterns from other countries. It will confuse the people of your country!

laissez les bon temps roulez

2009-02-27T15:21:00.006-06:00

Most of us in the United States are familiar with the holiday of Mardi Gras, if only in name and what debauchery we think must go on in New Orleans this time of year. Mardi Gras is a holiday that is celebrated in relation to the Christian holiday of Easter, so it does not have a fixed date, rather it floats, but is always a Tuesday. In the French-Cajun region of the United States, the holiday is celebrated that Tuesday and for a few weeks before. For a succinct history of Mardi Gras in la Nouvelle Orléans, see The Times-Picayune article here: http://www.nola.com/mardigras/index.ssf/2009/01/the_history_of_carnival.html#more

In France, however, the tradition varies. The name itself is actually different. In France, as well as in many other places in the world, the holiday celebrated is Carnaval rather than Mardi Gras. The reasoning is the same: to have one last hoorah before lent. In fact, the origins of the word point to the removal of meant. (Merriam-Webster says the etymology is as follows: Italian carnevale, alternation of earlier, carnelevare, literally, removal of meat, from carne flesh + levare to remove, from Latin, to raise)

The timing is somewhat different. When I was in France, I took a weekend trip to Nice, France to get away from the rain in Nantes and imagine my surprise when I came across a Carnaval celebration in early February! In fact, Nice (which holds the largest celebration in all of France-check out their website) started their festivities over Valentine’s Day and they will continue through Sunday, March 1st! Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday? The 24th and 25th of February. In roman times, Carnaval was called septurnales and the festival could be held at anytime between the winter solstice (mid December) and Ash Wednesday. This tradition continues today. Some cities hold their festivals early and some hold them later. When I was there, Nantes’ celebration was actually held after lent was over! I was quite confused by that.

The celebration seems to have been disconnected from it’s religious roots.

What you do see is fantastic though. (One of the floats)

It is unlike anything I have ever seen at an American parade. Check out the website for the Nice Carnaval and some of these photos that I took in Nice and Nantes in 2005 (sorry for the bad quality photos-everyone is moving all the time!). It was contentious times politically and many of the floats were designed to mock Nicolas Sarkozy, who, at the time, was just a minister in the government.

(the "merman" float)

You also get some DELICIOUS food! I had never had churros before and they had stands

(Example of a Churros Stand from zugaldia flickr cc)

set up all along the parade route making fresh churros with powdered sugar

(churros pictured here are from Gill Rickson flickr cc)

pictured here with chocolate instead and in Nice, when it was cold, they had Spanish-style hot chocolate, which is amazing. This churros and chocolate tradition is indeed a Spanish one and something that I was happy for!

Another great thing about these French celebrations is that they aren’t in the New Orleans style of debauchery. Families can go and I felt comfortable and safe there by myself. There are kids with bottles of silly string spraying everyone

If you are ever in France in the first part of the year, check with your city’s Visitors and Tourism Bureau to see if you can catch a Carnaval celebration!

A Cultural Note-Shopping Pleasantries

2009-01-24T19:23:00.005-06:00

I was thinking today about the pleasantries that we say when we are shopping in France and in the US.
I thought back to my first big trip when I was studying abroad in France some years ago, when I went to Nice and when I was visiting small shops there. I had established my shopping habits in the big grocery store in my university town, but not knowing the location of a grocery in Nice and wanting to see the small shops in this marvelous town, I was going into each store I could find. I was amazed to hear that each time I entered a store, I was greeted by the store clerk (probably the owner) with a "good afternoon" and only if I looked particularly interested in something did they ask if I wanted more information about the product or if I needed help. And without fail, upon exit, I received a greeting of "goodbye", or "have a good day" or something similar. It took me a few stores and much observation to understand the role that I was supposed to play in this scene; these greetings are not just thrown at the customer, these are invitations to receive a greeting back. When you walk into a store and the clerk says "bonjour," you say "Bonjour, Madame" and when you leave, preferably before they do, you say "merci, au revoir." Because it was a pleasure viewing the items in their store that day non?

However, the protocol seems to be different in grocery stores. I don't know about in your part of the United States, but in my part, we make conversation with the check-out person and the bagger. The weather, news, a particularly famous olympic gymnastic who might be buying groceries two lanes down :-), etc. But in France, at the mega-marts, you say hello, pay for your groceries, thank the checker and leave.

What about other pleasantries? What other sorts of greetings do we say at, say, restaurants, airports, or other places where we meet people that we do not know? Think about this for a day or a week. It is amazing to think about how such small things as greeting the people that help you in stores are different from one country to another.

Obama Arrested in Paris?

2009-01-21T22:37:00.002-06:00

Wait, it's only a look-alike? I'm confused.

So were the French police apparently. I saw this on The Today Show at the Dentist's on Tuesday, and found a link on The Huffington Post.

Looks like the French activist group CRAN hired an American Barack Obama look-alike to walk around Paris to see how many times the police would question him and ask for his papers. It was a lot. Why Obama? To get attention. It is difficult to bring attention to the problems of racial profiling in France and they thought that if it was Barack Obama that was being questioned, people would notice. I did, because it was on The Today Show. Did you?

How bad is racial profiling in France? Is it different than that which goes on in America? From the videos that I've found related to this, it seems that this guy is just jogging and gets asked for his papers quite often. That's sketchy. But questionable, because Obama isn't the racial profile I would think the French police would be going after. He doesn't fit the North African bill.

I'll do more looking into this.

Followup to the UN Resolution

2008-12-19T23:56:00.001-06:00

Saw this on Reuters tonight:

UN Declaration on LGBT Rights

2008-12-05T11:22:00.002-06:00

I try hard to make my blog more about France and America and culture differences and similarities than about gay stuff. Mostly because my life is about traversing the two cultures than about being lesbian.
But, happily, today, the two intersect and I have the pleasure/displeasure of posting a link to the following from 365gay.com: Vatican Trashes First UN Declaration of LGBT Human Rights

I am having a difficult time finding any articles from good news sources in France, but no worries, I've got my frenchies on the case :-) In the mean time, take a look at this article: Act-Up La moindre des choses

France was on the forefront of Human Rights issues 60 years ago when the first Human Rights declaration was being passed in the General Assembly. And it is nice that this is being proposed now. The Vatican's issue with it is quite interesting because if you look at France's acceptance of gay marriage, it is not full. France has PACS, which is a civil union (that hetero couples can get as well if they don't want a religious marriage), but in France, like in many places that grant civil unions, the recognitions and rights are not the same. Tax benefits, adoption rights, etc. Point being that the Vatican thinks France's ulterior motive with this Declaration of rights is to make countries around the world grant marriages to gay, lesbian and trans couples, when really, France doesn't give marriages or even civil unions of equal rights right now!
Not that I see anything good in France's current status, but there seems to be a fallacy in The Vatican's argument.

There is a lot to be excited about soon! On December 9th: The State of Iowa Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in the Varnum v. Brien case in which the court will decide the fate of the gay marriage case. On December 10th, the whole country is supposed to Call in Gay to work as part of our on-going civil disobedience movement. And the 10th is also the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Should we need a special declaration? No. Do we? yes. When the President of Iran says that there aren't any Gay people in his country and my immediate reaction is to say "that's because you have killed them all" and there are at least 90 other countries in the world that imprison people for being openly or suspected of being gay, we need a declaration.

So, let's give France a hand.

Auto Industry Bailout?

2008-11-20T16:16:00.007-06:00

I had this whole post written out about the financial markets and the auto industry bailout and how it might be similar to the French government ownership of their auto industry when i realized that I didn't know anything about French government ownership of auto industries.

so...I went to where we all go now when we don't know things...

and discovered that the French government hasn't really owned major stakes in any of their auto industries in over 10 years. So what was I thinking? Aeronautics. But that doesn't have anything to do with what we are talking about in the US. So my point was invalid. But I'll make it anyway.

If we bailout our auto industry, we will not be any different from other major industrialized countries (like France). I was not going to say it was a good thing (cause I do NOT thing it would be a good thing), but it would not be the TRAVESTY that so many believe it would be. I'm not an economist, but I've taken more economics classes than the average person and I listen to NPR more than the average person and listen to less sensationalized CNN than the average person and I have no idea what to do about our crappy world economy. It's down and up and down and up; all I know is that I've been in the workforce for about...4 months now, I've put over $200 into my retirement fund and it's worth about $20. And that sucks. I could have put that money into clothes and it would be worth more! That sounds ignorant. How did I get away from France?
Right...my ingorance about the French auto industry. So, turns out, Renault was bought by the French government in the aftermath of World War II (because its CEO had been killed and the company had cooperated with the Nazis, assets were being seized in order to avoid a future state catastrophe) and it was being managed privately, but owned by the state, often at large losses. Eventually, the French government pushed the company to success and it was privatized in the mid-1990s, but even still, the French state owns more than 15% of the company.

In the case of other French car makers, the French government has often intervened to avoid a major collapse of Citroën, but has never owned or had a major bailout of the company (mainly organizing major talks about selling partial groups). So although the French government has never wholly owned major stakes in most companies, it has always seen it in their interest to ensure that the companies were doing well (and good things in the case of Renault and the Nazis).

So what does this have to do with America and our auto bailout? If we are looking for precedent, I think we can look at the idea of pushing for talks of semi-mergers and joint supply lines, etc, but not a multi-million dollar bailout. I think we see that it is not in America's interest to do that. If France, (remember, they are the "socialist" ones!), can't do it, can we?

But we also have to look at what would happen if our auto industry were to go under: then we will be completely dependent upon other countries for a major part of our economy and life in America. I'm not ready to make the judgment that this would be such a bad thing, but many are. Has bailing out the auto industry become an issue of national security? Perhaps the funds should come from the defense budget instead! We all know that they have enough money to cover 25 billion...

I am having a difficult time reading through the French news about their plans for saving the economy right now. Anyone else seeing the plans? Sarkozy isn't going to save the world by himself (like Obama can), but he has to have plans right?

David Sedaris on Rick Steves on NPR

2008-09-26T09:03:00.003-05:00

Anyone hear this interview?
I'm going to preface this by saying that I generally like David Sedaris. His books are funny-I'm on the waiting list at the library for When I am Engulfed in Flames (I hardly ever buy books anymore-too much $$ spent in school) and I literally laugh out loud when I read them!

BUT...

I was really disappointed! I know that he's been living in France for awhile and therefore doesn't do all of the typical tourist stuff, and that's okay! Sometimes, going to a grocery store in the country you are visiting can be a great adventure, so when he said that he doesn't go to the monuments, he goes to Monoprix, I was cool. When he said that he's never been to the Lourvre, only the shops underneath the museum, I was still cool. There are SOOOO many French people that haven't been even to Paris, let alone the Louvre (same thing with Americans and NYC and the Met) that I wasn't going to fault him. I didn't go to the Louvre until my 3rd trip to the country.

BUT, my acceptance of his Americanized living in France came to a screeeeeching halt with movies and food. He has a pass to the theatre chains and only goes to those. It's okay, chains are chains and when you are going to at least 1 movie per day, it's nice to have the discount, but at least sometimes go to the small quaint family theatres! And see a French film every now and again! They are good! (not all of them, but many!) He's gay! Paris MUST have a gay cinema celebration during Pride-go see the great LGBT films that the country has produced!
And then the talk of food which almost made me cry-when David Sedaris has friends visit him, he takes them to Quick. Do you know what Quick is? It's the McDonald's of France! There is no better place to take visitors than Quick? I was APPALLED!

So, dear readers, it's worth a listen if you want to be enraged. I think it was on this past Saturday on my local NPR station and I know it's out in podcast form. Take a list to David Sedaris' Americanized version of France, but this time, you'll be laughing for the wrong reasons.

**Note, there was a joke in there about why landlords have/should have a higher willingness to rent to gay couples than straight couples. That was funny. I admit it.

Credit Card cross-industry discounts

2008-09-26T08:55:00.002-05:00

Saw on e-marketing.fr the other day that Total (France, so it's Toe-tal rather than todal :-) hehe) has teamed up with some other companies to provide an interesting new promotional credit card.
The gist is that the more you spend on various purchases, the less you pay for gas. They had specific numbers for the card, but I'm having trouble finding my way back to the article, so for example: spend 1,000 Euros on clothes and stuff at IKEA (and let's be honest, that's not hard!) and you pay 30 cents less on gas/litre that the list price. Spend 3,000 Euros on various purchases and pay 90 cents less on gas/litre.

Seems like a pretty good idea to me! I'm not sure that I've seen this sort of cross-industry tie-in in the states. It would be really awesome if all of my Jimmy John's lunches got me $$ of my Nordstrom shoes!

Anyone else heard of this before? Even in the gas industry here?

Catholicism in France

2008-09-17T08:58:00.002-05:00

This isn't really marketing or travel related, but rather, something interesting about France. The Pop was in France this past week visiting with Sarkozy and giving mass in various churches and blessing those in Lourdes (really interesting PBS show about Lourdes was on a couple of months ago. If you are interested in why people with grave illnesses flock there, watch the documentary!)

With the Pope’s recent visit to France (see this article from France24), it seems appropriate to look at Catholicism in modern France. There is often talk of Islam in France and how the influx of Muslim people are affecting the national identity, but can we honestly say that the national identity was primarily Catholic before the influx?

L’INSEE does not have any hard data on each religion in particular, but there are some studies on religious practice (see here) that show that faith in France is falling. In 2005, approximately 45% of people 15-24 did not practice nor have belief in any faith whereas for those over 60, the percentage is much lower (around 15%). Some of this can be attributed to getting older and feeling a higher need for practice and belief in faith, but not all of it. We are seeing a generation that is rejecting faith.

I think many of us have the thought that France is a predominantly Catholic country (probably because of the history of the church there, not because we hear a lot about religion in France), but that does not hold true in data or in experience. When I was in France, I went to cathedrals for “Messe” and saw mostly empty pews. There are also stories of the need for priests to lead churches (see this English article from the BBC)

Though there is still a demand for priests and adherents in the seats, Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that the standards will not be lowered. One article discussed the recent actions of some priests to make divorced people whole again in the eyes of the church allowing them to become full members and the Pope avowed that this was not acceptable behavior. The church may be suffering in numbers, but the rules will still be enforced.

For many years now, the government has been pushing the country to become less involved in religious affairs and has been pushing things that Catholicism does not agree with: abortion, rights for gay and lesbian partners and parents, no religion in schools, etc. In fact, on his visit, the Pope and Nicolas Sarkozy talked about “laïcité de la France” but Sarkozy seems to be backtracking a bit. He is encouraging “laïcité positive” in placing religion in the public sphere again and having conversations about religion. The Pope had very large audiences in Paris and in Lourdes; Catholicism in France might be experiencing a slight resurgence, but it’s not appropriate to say it has been the practiced religion of the people for quite some time.

Catholicism does still impact the society with children celebrating not only their birthdays, but also their “saint day” (each day has at least one saint to honor and because most are named after these saints, each person has a “saint day” See this calendar. Does your name have religious origins? Can you find which day is your “saint day”? Alexandra would be Alexandrine with the date of April 2nd).
Major holidays are still celebrated by even the not practicing, non-faithful (Noël, Pâques, Carnaval, etc.)

Overall, there are still some remnants of the time when Catholicism was a major force in the daily and political life, but France has gone secular. Many French students visiting the US talk about how surprised they are to hear each politician say “God Bless America” as that would never happen in France. Religion had been pushed to the private sector until the rise of Islam was noticed and public conversations about religion arose again.

Olympians

2008-08-15T11:39:00.002-05:00

Woke up this morning (after a LONG night of watching the Women's Gymnastics All-Around competition) and NPR was doing a story about French athletes. It was said that French Olympians are viewed there are we view celebrities here.
I'm not so sure that I completely agree with that.
Granted, I'm not in France and I'm not living through the experience in France right now, but it's hard for me to imagine the paparazzi following French Olympians around all the time, waiting outside their homes, the restaurants in which they are dining, the shops in which they are shopping, etc. The paparazzi are crazy here. I guess there is a market for it, otherwise they wouldn't do it (although I am in the middle of writing a song entitled "supply and demand" about how the law doesn't apply to everything. Perhaps celebrity coverage should be included-I know I'm not the only one who is disgusted by the coverage of Brittney Spears instead of what is going on in Georgia...) But that doesn't happen in France. I remember back in the last French Presidential election when the media was following Ségolène Royal everywhere and taking photos of her at the beach with her kids and people were amazed. I was amazed that they were amazed! That seems so normal here, and yet it was a foreign concept to the French that their Presidential candidates would get so much media coverage including details of their private lives.
Perhaps it has gotten worse since then and moved on to Olympians. It is certain that Laure Manadou and her soap-opera life is getting a lot of coverage in French and American press!

One thing that is very interesting to me is the different types of sports that are covered. Of course Basketball, which is hugely popular in the US generally, is getting a lot of coverage here, but other sports that are not popular except during the Olypics are getting much coverage: Gymnastics, Swimming, Volleyball.
In France, it is a little bit different. The main page of LeMonde.fr today is about French fencers and if you go to the page dedicated to the Olympics, you see coverage of all types of sports! Handball, Sabre, Cycling, Judo, Canoe, etc. I think, in general, the French have a more holistic view of sports whereas Americans focus mainly on basketball, baseball, and football. So to see more sports being covered isn't that much of a surprise, but I was surprised by the coverage of sports that the French are not normally so enamored with! Sabre? Canoe? Amazing!

The Olympics is a great time to bring some attention to those athletes that work very hard year round and get little credit for it. Home Depot is running ads during the games about the number of olympians that work/have worked for their company. In reading about Lolo Jones (American hurdler from Des Moines) I read that she once worked for Home Depot herself! It is amazing to think that these folks lead regular lives, working cash registers during the year and then go off to compete in the Olympics!

What do you think about all this? Is the media coverage all that surprising? What do you think Olympians do when they aren't competing?

Natural Disasters

2008-08-04T23:17:00.002-05:00

It is easy for us to think that natural disasters do not happen in Europe-they don't have the waters/winds so conducive to hurricanes as we do, they must not be over tectonic plates because they rarely have earthquakes and I'm not sure the last time I heard about a tornado outside of our little tornado alley in the Midwest.

But it is true that the United States doesn't always bear the brunt of natural disasters and right now our thoughts need to be with those in France. Not only are they experiencing a heat wave that very well might rival that of 2002 (could it be that long ago? perhaps 2003...), but a tornado recently struck a city in the north and has taken the lives of some French men and women.

Not to rail on American media any more than I already do, but where is the coverage of this? Americans I guess just don't care about other people, so we don't report on events across the globe unless it has killed thousands (Chinese earthquake) or was the work of terrorists.

Why is it that American media is so weak on international news, yet French media covers our Presidential elections like it was their own while still also covering news of flooding in Iowa and what is going on in Israel? argh...

French Word of the Post: canicule (a new feature)

Barack Obama-A celebrity

2008-07-31T09:00:00.002-05:00

I'm rationalizing posting about American politics in a blog about life in France and the US by telling myself that one of the reasons that this became an issue is because Barack went to France. That's my disclaimer for those that are upset that I've ventured outside my realm.

Senator Obama went on a world tour last week. He visited the Middle East and Europe (namely Germany and France). Now, Senator McCain says he's too big for his britches' (my mom is not from the South and yet somehow, words like britches entered her and now my vocabulary). Senator Obama is now a celebrity. His crowds are there because he is a celebrity to be seen, like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

I remember 2 years ago when Senator Obama was at the Harkin Steak Fry and my friends all went down because they wanted to see this new celebrity, this Junior Senator from Illinois who was making news on Facebook because of the million plus adherants to the group to convince him to run for President. Those were the days that Senator Obama was celebrité. He has now engaged in political debates with the best of them and won. He has fought the hard fight on some tough bills. He now has real political meaning.

The crowds in Europe don't come because Senator Obama is a celebrity, they come because they believe he is ushering in a new stage in politics wherein a black man can have true political power. I remember a few months ago when I was finishing up my thesis about coverage in the media of foreign policy issues during the primaries and I came across an article in Le Monde about black people in France being so interested in the American primary elections because it was hope for them. And it doesn't have to just be black people. I think there are enough people around the world that have had enough with the institutionalized racism in this country (and their own) that they are excited about the prospect. Senator Obama isn't merely a celebrity, he brings hope just as his campaign says, that the future can be different, people can be treated equally, and descendants of Africa can rise above the colonizers that have held them back for so long.

Sarkozy changing France

2008-07-18T08:15:00.005-05:00

France on Amphetimines

"On the domestic front, he has got a Socialist leader to confess he’s also a liberal"

This and a comment about the 35 hour workweek is the only reference to French domestic policies under Sarkozy in an article lauding his international work (bringing together France and NATO, working in the Middle-East, etc) and his changing of French society.

Now, I know I've been somewhat hiding under a rock (or, under the training manuals in my new office) and I haven't been able to follow French news as I normally do, but this guy can't be serious! The only potentially bad thing that Roger Cohen has to say about Sarkozy is his control over the media and that only merits an aside.

The man has alienated over half of the population! He has cracked down on immigrants, undocumented and documented alike. He has proposed laws and ministries that harm people that aren't 'French-enough' for him (We could have a long discussion-I took multiple classes-on what is 'French' these days, but we'll leave it to say that to Sarkozy, it's not immigrants).

He insults people, it seems almost daily, in interviews and walks in the park. Those that follow French news should be familiar with what I'm referencing here, but for others:
(And this is merely one example that is not so terrible, but trust me, there are others.)

I'm not saying that Sarkozy is any different than any other French (certainly not American) President/leader, but Mr. Cohen makes him out to be the saviour of France with the slight exception of that tendency to control the media that he seems to have picked up from Berlusconi...

This is what I despise about following French politics in the American media. We never get the same story. I remember when I was in France during the CPE strikes and my parents flipped out because according to American news, there were riots happening in the city that I was in! However, when I walked down the streets, I saw the police leading the protest parades through the streets... What a different image of what happened.

The Chic Burger

2008-07-16T10:22:00.004-05:00

In my perusal of the NYTimes this morning, I noticed an article about Hamburgers in France. I read the article and it was so interesting and amusing. In America, we don't really think of hamburgers being particularly interesting or gourmet food (well, that $5k burger in NYC aside...) and yet, here are the French, going crazy with the burger.

It reminded me of a few days ago, I was preparing for a housewarming party (Did I mention that I've changed apartments and changed my view on poverty and childrearing forever after my previous apartment experience?) and asked a friend from Nantes, France for a recipe for Galettes (Brittany style, not galettes du roi) and she pointed me to a French recipe site (seems similar to foodtv.com). In poking around after finding a sufficient galettes one, I found their guides to world cuisine. After looking through the scrumptious Indian and Italian recipes, I decided to venture forth into what they deemed "American cuisine." It was muffins and cookies and hamburgers! What an interesting thing to see American cuisine defined. I certainly don't have much to say when people from other countries ask to go to "an American restaurant" for dinner. What can I say? McDonald's? Applebee's? It's such an agglomeration of world cuisines that I never saw anything particularly "American" but to this French website, it is muffins and hamburgers.

Although I am a vegetarian and would reject all of the hamburgers, both French and American style, the French ones certainly sound more appetizing to me. Their toppings have inspired me for when I make my own veggie burgers to include some variations on the traditional blackbean ingredients.

p.s. the galettes were wonderful despite not being able to find buckwheat flour and making do with whole wheat flour.

Euro 2008

2008-06-30T10:46:00.003-05:00

Congrats to Spain on winning the Euro 2008!
I'm at my new job now and currently working with a man who can honestly say he hails from all over the world. He's gotten me interested in the Euro Cup and although I never watched a game (hooray for no cable TV at the new place!) I had been reading blogs and following in the (non-US) news. From this, I now know that this is a big deal for Spain, so really, congrats.
I wasn't quite sure who to be rooting for as I have a Spanish friend in Madrid and a French friend in Germany and was torn, but in the end, I liked Spain's story more, so I'm glad they finally got it.

This is old news now, but in my moving and new job craziness, I've not blogged for awhile, but let it be known that I did not let it go unnoticed! This story of the couple in France who had a divorce granted on grounds that the woman did not possess essential qualities. I've done a lot of thinking and talking and blog reading on this and don't think I can add much more to the already prolific amounts of information/questions surrounding this except to say that I'm surprised by my French friends. The story was pointed out to me by a friend that I am quite close to in France and after I'd done some reading, I asked her what she thought. She wouldn't say. I was surprised; as I mentioned, we are close friends and she is not the type of girl to keep her mouth tightly closed on anything and so, as I said, I was surprised, shocked even when she didn't want to share her opinion. So I asked another French friend who would say nothing more than repeat the juridical opinion to me (she's a lawyer), so instead we had a conversation about the difference between divorce and annulment in the United States and France. An enlightening conversation nonetheless.
So that's all I've got to say about that. Why don't my friends want to talk about it? Bizarre.

One last note, I've been doing some research into the sites that TV5 has up for Professors and students of French and they are really great. If anyone out there is looking for a way to improve French skills, go to apprendre.tv to check out TV5's resources.

A plus tard,

Re-Branding

2008-04-29T12:06:00.002-05:00

I guess I should clarify the changes. In Marketing class today, we were talking about Opinion Leaders and what each one of us is an expert in. I got to thinking about my blog and how extremely random it is. I'm undertaking a rebranding project of myself including my blog. I'll be graduating here in about 2 weeks and need to move on. I'm going to focus more on what is going on in the world specifically in my area of expertise: France, European Travel, Linguistics, Global Marketing, etc. I want to be useful.

Sorry for the confusion!

Flights to Europe

2008-04-29T11:48:00.002-05:00

For those that have not already heard about the new "Open-Skies Agreement" The New York Times recently published an article about what the agreement is already doing for transatlantic flights.
With my previous experience in flying transatlantically, my parents often consult me when looking for flight info/prices and general cultural info about Europe. One of my mom's friends is planning a trip to Ireland in the fall and she contacted me about how much she should be paying for a flight. I was AMAZED when she said she'd found one for under $600. This might not be surprising for those from the coasts, but getting a flight from the midwest to Europe always costs over $650 and in the fall, the prices might jump all the way up to $1100 (especially the last weeks of August and first weeks of September). I told her to buy it immediately.
I got thinking about it and did some research. I was under the impression that the agreement was not going to go into effect until 2009, but apparently, it's already happened. That is what is causing the lower prices in airfare, but still surprising. When I first saw the news about the agreement, it was more about RyanAir's plans. Now, RyanAir is a great airline when you are country hopping within Europe. You can't beat going from Madrid to Paris for less than $30 taxes included. However, I'm a little hestitant about doing it transatlantically. There was plenty of buzz about a year ago (The Guardian for example covered it) surrounding this idea of RyanAir going transatlantic for under $12 (taxes not included, so call it less than $150 with all of the American taxes...). But thinking back to RyanAir flights, I'm not sure I could do it. The constant barrage of advertisements over the intercom system, the EXTREME lack of space for each passenger, no seat assignments, etc would be a bit much on a 7 hour flight. One would hope that they would include meal service on this one, but probably not. You'd have to buy their food or sneak your own on. I can only imagine the other flyers on the plane as well-think back to your most recent transatlantic Delta flight and compare it to an American or Northwest flight. The passengers are generally more cranky. It would be even worse. However, worse enough to cough up an extra $500? I'm not sure.

What do you think? Do the costs outweight the benefits on this one?

A follow-up

2007-06-28T08:15:00.001-05:00

Well, looks like I will be working with the French students at least in a professional way. I have started working with the director of the language program at my university and she has asked me to do work similar to that which I did last summer working with the French students coming to my university. This means that I will be helping them find work within our language program as well as helping them find apartments and helping them settling in. It is exciting. I do enjoy helping them because my experience at the French university that I attended was very hectic and I would have loved to have had someone helping me out. It is really my pleasure to help them adjust. Although all the work that they ask me to do (check papers, write letters, etc.) can be a bit much!

As for graduate school, I emailed the Monterey Institute (my #1 choice except for the whole $$issues) a few questions I had about the program and this is the response I got:

1.) How different is this from traditional masters degree programs? Is
there a thesis to be written? If so, are the students paired up with an
advisor to work on this? Or is it mostly in classroom setting? If there
is no written thesis, is there a final project that is done and what does
that consist of? Master program in translation and interpreting is quite
different from other master programs due to the training required for
being a successful translator and interpreter. Our master program is more
like a intense training program. Although you still need to read and do
research, but you will also spend a lot of time practicing for
interpreting. You do need to write thesis if you plan to get a degree in
translation and conference interpreting. But you do not need it for the
translation and interpreting combine program.

2.) What professional experience/contacts are students given? Are there
job fairs/job shadowing/internship experiences that the program assists
with? We will help you to find places for internship and employment. We
have job fairs for translation and interpreting program students held at
our school annually. Also specific private agencies and government
agencies do come to our school to recruit students. You are more than
welcome to talk to any of your professors or faculties regarding career
choices or questions.

3.) Does the school have a health insurance program for graduation
students to take part in? Yes, we do have health insurance plan.

4.) I saw the list of experiences that are recommended to qualify for
scholarships. I have done many of these including multiple summers at
Concordia Language Villages, Study Abroad, etc. However, I would imagine
at such a school, many students would have also had these same
experiences; how likely is it really to qualify for scholarships or other
merit-based aid? Honestly, the most important thing our school look at is
your language ability, thus if you can prove you have good language
ability through your EDT, GRE. TOFEL and others will definitely help you
to get into our school and receive scholarship. Also if you have good GPA,
it would help you get scholarship as well. Experience is really a very
small part for as for the for scholarship concern.

5.) Why is this program better than going abroad for graduate studies? I
would imagine that the language skills one would attain abroad in the
immersion setting would be quite beneficial. You can definitely gain your
language skill by study aboard, but translation and interpretation is
something require you to use your language skills, which is very different
from just learning a language. You definitely need strong language ability
to be successful in translation and interpreting, but being a good
translator and interpreting need a lot more than just good language
skills. And our school have the first-class interpreter and translator as
professors to teach your how to be a good translator and interpreter using
your language ability.

6.) What is the real 2nd language level of the students? As I mentioned
above, I do have a good understanding and speaking ability of French that
has come from much study. I took the language exam provided on the site
to ascertain how my abilities compare to that exam and I did very well.
But I still feel that I am not completely fluent and I am apprehensive to
begin a program if that is what it requires. You French need to be at
near native level or fluent, else you will have a lot of difficulty to be
able to survive in the program or potentially get admitted. I would assume
English is your native language, so your French do not need to be as good
as your English, but definitely need to be at a substantial level. I would
say the gap or difference between your English and French should be
relative small.

Learning Languages

2007-05-29T01:25:00.000-05:00

A friend asked me today if I would help him learn a bit of French. He seems quite motivated. He is intending on studying abroad in Italy next year and he is trying to pick up as much of as many languages as he can. He has a Polish friend helping him with that, listening to Russian podcasts, and somehow picking up some Italian and now he wants French.
It makes me think about my own forays into second (and third) language learning. I started with French because it was what all my friends were doing. Now that all of those friends have stopped with the courses (most in high school and one moving on to Italian at her University), I'm still doing it. But am I really? I stopped taking classes at my university because I had all of the French students to converse with and taking a class was going to put me over full-time courseload, so I would have had to pay more. In the end, I decided that I was learning more French outside the classroom than in, so decided to let it go for a semester. But I did not sign up for it in the fall either. Do I think I'll find more French friends next year? Do I even want to? That question was posed to me a lot by many of my Spanish and French friends as they were leaving. Do I want to be friends with the international kids like I was this year? They all assumed that I had done that all through my years at Uni, but I haven't. This year was my first adventure into the land of chauffeur and guide to the 1-year exchange students. It has been fun. I've learned a lot. With them being here for only one year, you push a lot more "getting to know you" things into a shorter period of time and really get to the deep stuff quickly. I learned more about Spanish culture and government than I ever did in class. And even after my semester abroad, I learned so much more French this year and more about how French people interact and their expectations for others in those interactions. About how they console each other at sad times and how they celebrate together (have you heard that Americans act like idiots drinking abroad? That does not even begin to compare with the behavior of French students at my uni!) But the goodbyes are so difficult. And life in general was so difficult. It put a strain on my own relationship and with my American friends as well. There are people that I completely neglected this year because I was so busy hanging out with and catering to the internationals. It was really a mixed blessing. There were so many benefits and so many drawbacks. So really, I don't know what is going to happen next year. I will probably seek out the French and Spanish students again. But I might be a bit more frugal with my time (and my gas $!) I want to continue learning, but watching my friend in his eagerness to learn makes me question my own desires. I don't watch Spanish TV, I have basically stopped reading French newspapers and I can't find in my quick searches any good French podcasts. I want something that is just funny or news or something like that, but in French. not a "here's how to speak beginning french" podcast. Something like NPR, but in French! So if any of you readers know about this...let me know! I think I would listen. I hope I would listen.
I need to be more eager, more inquisitive in my studies. Maybe I was overzealous this year and I am just coming down off the mountain and I need a little break time before jumping back in.
That's it for the night. I'm a little crazy. I'm quite sick and took some medicine, so I have no idea what is going on. It makes my head a little fuzzy and groggy. Perhaps what I really need is a bit of sleep!

Summer Reading

2007-05-24T11:49:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd get a jump start on my honors thesis that I must do to graduate with honors or in the honors department or something. (They really should make that a little bit more clear. I have no idea why I am writing the paper, just that they told me I should... It wasn't until I talked with someone else who is in the honors program, but is not doing the thesis that I discovered that I do not actually have to write it. I'm so confused)
Anyway, I had plans to get started on reading for this thesis and working on Fulbright App, but I've gotten sidetracked. We have a section of the library called the "browsing section." I discovered it when I was looking for a memior that I thought might be applicable to my research. I found many many many interesting books in there including Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain. I love this book. In the first part, the author has written a few short stories relating different gramatical structures to her experiences in Spain while she was there for a year teaching English. It is amazing how insightful the book is and how much her experiences reflect my own in France. Although she seems to have "integrated" better than I did; she shared an apartment with a Spaniard and I think that really helps. Also, having school in session all the time, rather than closed because of student strikes for half a semester as well ;-) Nonetheless, I really like the book and it has inspired research on my own part. Research into teaching English abroad and how to go about doing that. The author's year abroad was in the same town where one of my Spanish friends is from and her descriptions are so striking that it just increases my desire to go back to Spain, but this time with a Spainard!
I haven't found too many opportunities to teach English in W. Europe. The only European countries seem to be in the eastern part, but also, all over Latin America as well as Asia. That might be an option. We'll just have to see I guess. I'm scared of going to Asia after my time with authentic Asian food over spring break! But Latin American would be cool and Eastern Europe as well. Although, I am apprehensive about going anywhere that does not have a romance language because I would just die. Going to France was scary enough knowing French!! I can't even imagine going to the Czech Republic or Poland!
That's it for today.
Go check out the book. It's amazing!

I'm BACK!

2007-05-21T20:38:00.000-05:00

I thought I would just use this blog to keep my friends up with what was happening while I was in France, but I've decided to revive it.
I'm at that time in my college career that I need to figure out what I'm going to do after graduation. I've got a few options:
1.) Go to grad school in the US. This would probably be at The Monterey Institute of International Studies for their master's program in Translation and Localization.
2.) Go to grad school abroad. Perhaps France. Perhaps Switzerland. I've done some checking into these: University of Geneva or University of London Institute in Paris and there are so many others. Such a big decision to make. So scary. Can you imagine? Going to study abroad in a country where you do not understand the school system nor the way of academics or the way of grading/writing/everything else?
I felt differently about going abroad for the semester. I knew that I would be seen as an international student even though I was there on the direct exchange and would be treated differently. I was not aware of all the issues I would encounter and since I've gone through all of it once, I'm more aware and therefore more afraid. I had the briefest thought that things might be different in a British institution or a Swiss one. As if all the problems I had in a French university would not hold true elsewhere. I haven't the slightest idea...
3.) Try to find a job. What kind of job, I have no idea. I wanted to get an internship in marketing this summer. That did not pan out. It seems as though people looking for a marketing intern are only interested in people pursuing a degree in marketing, not merely a minor. So instead, I am working a quite enjoyable, but low-paying and futureless job at the university. Without an internship nor a degree, I see getting a job in marketing going none too far... But I'll still try. Should I try for a FSO? Or a separate job within the state department? Should I try to do translation without a specialized degree?
4.) Take off for another part of the world. I jokingly told a Spanish friend that my plan is to go to her home in Spain and work in her family's fruit store. I could there or try to find another job elsewhere. We have this program at my university where you go to China to teach for 2 years after graduation. Gives one a more international view and more time to figure out what to do with one's life.
In the end, there are so many different options. I also have no idea what to do. This blogging revival will be about my explorations in career and grad school options.

signing off

Madrid

2006-05-30T10:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I safely returned from my solo trip to Madrid, Spain. I lived through the loneliness and even enjoyed it! Some highlights on the trip: hot girl in the Irun train station who then slept on top of me on the train to Madrid (no, not literally on top of me, but on the bunk above mine...hehe) from Michigan. I got the autograph of a famous Morrocan singer at the Hispano-Marroqui Festival! I was not quite so in to the concert and then the crazy woman next to me took my hands and made them clap along and then I got into the music and was dancing with the crazy woman. She started talking to me either in Arabic or Spanish, so I told her that I didnt speak either one and we just danced. Then, I got out my notepad and wrote down "quien es?" I handed the paper to my new friend and pointed at the stage. She understood that I wanted the woman's autograph, so she walked up to the stage and got the autograph. I still don't know who the singer was, but the music was very good. I met a CRAZY girl in the hostel and I'm not even going to go into her craziness, but she was crazy. But good and entertaining nonetheless. I went to the Plaza Mayor on my last day and got semi-drunk from a HUGE cup of Sangria. I tried to get into the Biblioteca Nacional and learned the difference between French and Spanish administration. If I were in France trying to get into a building where I was not allowed, someone would tell me, "Vous ne pouvez pas entrer" and even though I would ask questions, I would get no response and I would leave. In Spain however, I tried to get into the building and they even helped me try to find a reason why I would be allowed in "are you a student here?" "are you doing research?" etc and when I said no, the woman told me that I could not go in. I said okay looking a little confused and she explained that it is a special library where they keep super old stuff and so they limit access to keep the things nice. I was going to take it as that and leave and then another woman came up and launched into a little history of the museum and the kinds of things that are kept there. It was the nicest way I've ever been told I could not go somewhere before. Nice Spanish administration! Over all, I did not get to speak Spanish as much as I'd hoped (almost EVERYONE in my hostel was american or australian), so although I did not learn anything new, I did get my speaking level back up to where it was before I came to France and forgot every word I ever knew of Spanish. Good times in all. I promise I'll post some pics when I get to my own computer. Bisous a tous!

Podcasting

2006-05-18T07:48:00.000-05:00

In the absence of 1.real people to talk to, 2.tv to watch, 3.radio to listen to, 4.internet to surf, 5.phone cards to call with, I have taken to downloading absurd numbers of podcasts when I do get on the internet and then listening to them NON-STOP while I do not have other forms of entertainment. Basic Premise: People record themselves, other people, music, etc. and post it on the internet mostly based in blogs and internet sites. If you have iTunes (free download from Apple.com for Windows and Macs), you can go to the music store and search or browse the different categories of podcasts. Podcasting is the best invention since the internet itself. Real no bodies can broadcast their normally non-exciting lives on the internet and get hundreds if not thousands of fans! And we actually listen to them talk! Seriously though, it is interesting. I will sit through the randomness that is most podcasts to get to a few minutes of pure genius. And most people actually have interesting things to say every once in awhile. Seeing as I am cut off from the world here, I get all the best news from my podcasts. A lot of people talking about immigration right now and I am getting the picture of what is happening. I haven't made up my mind about this issue yet and I cannot even talk rationally about it (trust me, I've tried), but listening to other normal people has helped me. It's fantastic. They talk about their opinions and conspiracy theories and I decide if I agree or not. So even though I can't tell you how I think, I can tell you what I don't think! But, I think the best part about podcasting are the "friends" made. I don't really know these people (only what they decide to tell me about themselves, sometimes not even their real names) and they for sure don't know me, but we converse and interact through email and comment boards. Amazing. So for all of you non-podcasting people or for those that don't even listen to a podcast, I encourage you to go find a few that you enjoy. Some of my favorites: NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" News Trivia show, "The Planet Podcast for L Word Fans" "Carnegie Ethics Lectures" etc. They can be humourous (that's all those crazies you see on the bus/metro/walking down the street laughing to themselves), News content (such as those NPR published shows), they can be in foreign languages (I learned Italian from a podcast!), or technical (learn how to podcast yourself from one of these). Go find some and make some internet friends!

In other news, not much has been going on here lately. I have watched at least 1 movie per day for the past week. In theatres: Transamerica, V for Vendetta, The Da Vinci Code (I saw this movie before most of you were up the day it came out! Yeah for France being 6 hours ahead!), Family Secrets (I don't know if this one is out in the US, with Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean fame and Kirsten Scott Thomas), Comme T'y Es Belle, Les Filles du Botaniste, etc. It has been expensive, but fun!! Plus all the movies I rent from the library and those I borrow from other students. It has been a week full of movies. I love it!! Getting caught up with all of the "classics" that I've never seen that people keep saying "that's a classic, you need to see that!" Such as American Pie, Dumb and Dumber, etc. After watching them, I now know why I decided to not see them in the first place... I'm just not a fan of that kind of stupid humor. I need smart humor... You know what else I need? A piece of flan! Afternoon snack time!

Addendum: forget about nothing going on in Nantes! There was another protest in the streets this afternoon! I don't know what it was for, but they stopped the tram in the outskirts of the city center and said that we couldn't go any further because people were blocking the line. I was in a hurry to get to the train station to buy some tickets and get back in time for a skype meeting, so I didn't get to go see what it was, but exciting times! I'm guess it was about immigration. Seems like people all over the world are talking about this. They are proposing some immigration legislation in France right now that isn't very nice to foriegn students, so I'm guessing that is what the protest was for, but I guess I'll see tomorrow in the paper!
p.s. sorry about all the run-on sentances! Terrible English and I am ashamed!

Overheard in Nantes

2006-05-16T06:51:00.000-05:00

You know that website: www.overheardinnewyork.com? Random people who hear weird things in NYC send them into the website and they post the "sayings" of New Yorkers and all the other crazy people in that city. Well, here is my piece for the day to send in to "Overheard in Nantes" : "All I want is a piece of love" -Crazy French girl. Overheard by: Astonished American.

A Change in Heart (for the worse?)

2006-05-12T07:31:00.000-05:00

Before I came to France, I defended this country and its people at every turn. If there was a conservative who criticized the riots in the suburbs saying that that would never happen in the US, I made sure to point out the riots in LA in the early 90s. If someone said that French people were rude and smelly, I would point out their own ignorance and rudeness in saying something like that as well as pointing to someone on a bus who could use some perfume.
However, after a few months here, my ideas have changed. That is not to say that I have become an American Illitist, but I am beginning to see that the France I saw before as my person Fiji, is no more what I see. I have been in a French university and have seen what they (don't) have. I have interacted with the French administration and seen how they treat students (French and foreign). It's not a pretty picture. I was looking over my New York Times news briefing email today and saw this article: "Higher Learning in France Clings to Its Old Ways" (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/world/europe/12france.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th) I read the article and amazingly enough, I agreed with the author. She was criticizing my precious France and I agreed! It was a jolt to me to realize this. What is more is how true the article was. The students do feel a sense of entitlement, when I tell them that I pay $28,000 a year for my university, they are astounded. (Even more astounding is that I am still paying that when if I directly enrolled here, I would be paying about $500...) And they are upset about the fact that they might not get a job after these 3 years are over. However, unlike what Ms. Sciolino mentions in the article, I have not talked to one student who feels like they are not getting enough "extras". True, the Nantes campus where I am is better equipped than the Paris Nanterre campus, but there is still no heating in the buildings and the graffiti and general degredation of the buildings is amazing. Still, no complaint. Is it that they do not know better? There are some students here who will be attending my university next year and I want to talk to them after they have been at an American university for a semester and see what they think. Will they be amazed or will they think that for all the extra money paid, it is not worth it? Only time will tell I suppose.
As for me, although my French dream has been shattered, I still love this country. Only in France can you get a Pain au Chocolat for less than $0.50 and sit outside and stare at people and they don't think anything of it because people always stare.

What was supposed to be a nice break

2006-05-09T11:09:00.000-05:00

I went to Lyon this past week for a much needed break. History: I stayed with a student in St. Etienne two years ago and then she came to the states and stayed with me for a week on an exchange between our high schools. I had emailed her when I first got to France to say that I was here and that if she wanted to visit me she should just let me know and we'd work something out. The reply was pretty noncommitive so I figured she'd had enough of me and didn't want to get together. I emailed her at the beginning of April to see if she was willing to host me over my vacation and the response was estatic! It was crazy she was sooo excited that I was coming! So I went and looked for train tickets. TGV tickets were WAAAY expensive (like 100 Euros each way), so I looked down the road less traved-the LONG TER train. A 8 hour trip, but for 25 Euros each way, it was the right price. So last Wednesday, I boarded the train at 8AM and started the day. A two hour layover in Tours (interesting people hanging around the train station in Tours...) and then off to Lyon. I had emailed Fanny to tell her that I would get in at 5:21, but I forgot to tell her that I was coming from Tours and I wouldn't be arriving from Nantes. So I waited for awhile and she wasnt' there and she wasn't there so I texted a friend jokingly asking how long I should wait until I just find a ticket back to Nantes... Fanny finally called me at 5 after 6 to ask where I was. Yes! She got there! We went back to her appartment and dropped my stuff off and went for a picnic in Parc Tête d'Or. It was pretty nice. We people watched and just chatted. It was frustrating because Fanny talks in slang ALL the time-lots of words that I don’t understand, but I think it was more frustrating for her as she had to stop and think of a different way to say everything ☺ It definitely showed me that my French is nowhere near fluent no matter how good I thought I was doing in classes. Thursday we got up and went to class. Fanny had a presentation to make in one of her TDs about African stories, so I went with her to watch. It was pretty interesting-different from my TD. I wrote this in class: “I visited Fanny’s TD today. It was very different from mine. The prof talks with the students about their presentations, not just the format. In my TD, the prof just screams at the students for using the wrong words in the plan. Is that due to the subject matter-law is law-you can’t discuss it whereas the history of stories is totally discutable or is it that this prof is a real prof-old and experienced wand mine was young and still working on his masters degree. Totally different. “ Then, she had a stats class, so I skipped that and walked to the store because she needed sugar and I thought I’d help out. I went to the computer lab after I got back from the store and was checking my email (and looking at Christy’s new hair pictures-oh my god, I have no idea what to say about that. She looks like a man. I don’t like it at all) when all of a sudden, the blue screen of death popped up. SHIT!! I asked the girl next to me what to do and she didn’t really know either. So I had to go to the desk and explain what happen and hope that I didn’t permanently break anything. The guy laughed at me, told me he’d take care of it and that I should go away basically. That was okay, it was time for me to meet Fanny to go to her Informatique class anyways. They were learning Powerpoint that day (oh la, I learned powerpoint when I was like 13…) so I helped Fanny and one of her friends and fiddled around on the internet looking at a site another girl gave a presentation about in the TD. It is www.bookcrossing.com. Okay concept, from what I understand, pretty poor record. People take books that they want to share with others and register them online with the ISBN number and put a sticker on the inside cover explaining the process. The person then takes the book somewhere and leaves it and posts on the internet where and when they left it. Then, if someone comes across the book, they read the sticker on the inside and go to the site and log that they found the book and what they are doing with it. Whether they are keeping it, putting back out in the world, or what. While she was giving the presentation, I kept thinking, well isn’t that the point of a library, but I guess this is supposed to reach more people because you leave books no matter where… But I wouldn’t pick up a book that I found lying on a table in Starbucks or wherever. I was looking for books around Nantes, then Des Moines and Kansas City, but books had been left three weeks ago and never logged back into the system. Voila the problem. There is no guarantee and someone in the system will find the book and therefore, a vacuum develops. More books put in, more books fall out never ending cycle until I suppose the website becomes more popular and more people join the system. So yeah, good idea, not such a good following right now. Thursday night, Fanny had a small gathering in her apartment with me, Émy, a friend from Bourg who was in Lyon, and Florisse, a friend from the Fac. They made crêpes that we had with ham and cheese and then dessert crêpes with nutella and then lemon juice and sugar. MHMMM good! Then, we went to a hashisha bar. The atmosphere was cool, all the Chinese, Indian designs on the walls and all of the decoration, but I didn’t like the Hookah much… First of all, I started out with the notion that I wasn’t going to like it because of the tobacco, so I was a little scared and apprehensive but it was supposed to taste like Mango and it didn’t and it just made me want to get a new set of lungs… The tea was AMAZING though! So then we went back to Fanny’s apartment and went to bed. Friday morning Fanny had class, but I stayed in bed. I had texted Christy the night before to tell her that if she called at 1 her time, I’d be awake and available to talk. Unfortunately, she didn’t understand that I meant 1 AM her time, so she didn’t call me. Oh well, that’s life. So I slept in a little bit and got up and ready before Fanny got back. We had lunch and then did a little shopping. I, YES!, bought a new pair of flips. They are brown with some sequins and beads. I don’t really like all of the sequins, but it’s cool. Beginning to grow on me. Fanny was shopping like a maniac without buying anything until I looked down at my watch and it was 3:05. She had wanted to leave her place at 3:15… We rushed back to her place to get our stuff and ran to the tram and then ran to the train station and JUST missed the train! So then, we ran to the other train station to get that train. Just made that one, lucky! It was super crowded, but we managed for find spots diagonal from each other in a 4 seat spot. Fanny and I talked a little bit (in French of course, this whole weekend has been a French weekend) and she sent me in search of a controlleur to explain that we hadn’t had time to compost our tickets and besides that, they were the wrong tickets… I couldn’t find them and came back and she left for the bathroom. When she left, the man next to me turned and said, “Irish? What are you doing in France?” We continued to have a little conversation about what I was doing in France and on a train from Lyon to St. Etienne until he got a call. Fanny came back and we chatted a little and then he said “you speak very well English hehehe French!” I laughed. I make that kind of mistake all the time, but when we got off the train, Fanny made fun of him. I thought it was cute that he was trying to talk to me and he made a little mistake, it happens for goodness sakes! When we got to St. Etienne, we were at the wrong station, but we had a little bit of time before we had to get the connection to the other station and so Fanny tried to get me to use my stupid americaness to get the tickets returned/exchanged. I was willing to do it until I realized that I didn’t know what I was supposed to pretend I didin’t understand and that wasn’t going to work especially since one of the tickets was supposed to use Fanny’s discount which is basically a discount because she goes back and forth between Lyon and St. Etienne every weekend… That wasn’t going to work. So she lied to him instead and told him that she totally fucked up and didn’t mean to get the tickets from Lyon to St. Etienne, just from St. Etienne to Lyon on Monday. Because we hadn’t had them checked on the train, he bought the story and refunded her. Cool but at the same time, I don’t like traveling illegally. So then what do we do? Get on the connection train illegally! She was all nervous and true that it started because we missed the first train but really! How much would that have cost? Like 1 euro! The train from Lyon to St. Etienne was just four! So from one station in St. Etienne to another, you’ve got to be kidding me. Whatever, I told her that if we got caught, she was paying my fine. So we got there without a problem and then Fanny’s dad picked us up and we drove back to Bourg-Argental. Anaïs was away for the night in St. Etienne with some cousins and Nans was away working or something like that, so we had a short dinner and started to watch Police night on France 3, but I was falling asleep, so I came upstairs at like 10 and went to bed. Saturday, we got up and ready and Fanny and I went to pick up her grandma who was to lunch with us and then Fanny left for work. Fanny’s mom, Anne-Marie, the grandma (Mamie is the only name I’ve heard her called) and I went to the greenhouse to buy some flowers. FUCKING hilarious!! To listen to mother and daughter both fully grown argue over flowers! My mom and grandma do the same, but this time it was in French! Hehe. Then, I came back and read and talked to Anaïs who had returned by then. She had English homework to do (write a 200-250 word dialogue about two people waiting for the sunset on the Mexican side of the Mexico-US border to cross. Why she has to write a dialogue between two Mexicans in English, I’m just not sure…) so I helped her with that and then at the end, she left to go pee or something and I grabbed the paper and wrote the last 100 words… Good times good times. I hope she understands what I wrote. She went over it and seemed to understand. It was funny though, her last assignment was to write about the best time in her life and the teacher made mistakes in the corrections!! Anaïs, Nans, and I then went to the movies to watch Ice Age 2. It was funny, but it was weird because whenever there were jokes that everyone else laughed at, I didn’t think they were very funny, but when I laughed at certain jokes, I was the only one!! Different sense of humor between French and Americans? That’s all I’ve got… Then, there was a traveling theatre troupe who was to be at the house of Fanny’s aunt and uncle, so Mom, Dad, Nans, Anaïs, and I all piled in the car to go. (Fanny was still at work) We got there and sat down to watch the piece. It was pretty good, I understood the story, but not the jokes at all!! People all around me would be laughing, but I had no idea why! But afterwords, things went downhill. Everyone knew each other and they were all one big happy family. I don’t like big groups of people, but especially when I don’t know anyone! And this was terrible! It actually made me long for my nice, small family! And every once in a while, someone would ask me how I was doing because I was standing by myself not talking to anyone. It was terrible. However, there was a cute girl who had been in the play and she wasn’t talking to anyone, so I got up the courage to go talk to her (figured out in my head what I would say) but at the moment when I decided I’d go for it, Fanny’s dad, Maurice, pulled me away saying that there was another American in the room that I had to meet! Damnit. I was even more disappointed when I saw the man. TALL! And fat. We had a little conversation and he annoyed the hell out of me with all of his beliefs that he is better than everyone, blah blah blah. While I was gone, Fanny had started talking with the actress, but when I finally got a chance to leave, she had stopped and so I had to go over and talk with her, her cousin and Nans. Well, not really talk, but listen to them talk. Good times good times. We finally left at 12:30 AM and came back to the house. Anaïs decided that it would be a good time to show me the photo album that Fanny had made. I was already feeling bad because I had eaten so much at the house (pot luck French style-LOTS of quiche and fruit tarts, very good, but not good…) and then she shows me this photo album and about every other photo Fanny has some little comment about the fat Americans. A picture of Héloise and the French prof from LSHS and a comment like “guess which ass belongs to the French girl and which to the American?” and lots of other shit like that. I got quite upset and just got into bed and went to sleep. This morning, Fanny was showing me more photos from when I was here and she made some comment about Helen and although I found her quite annoying, that was enough. I tried to jokingly but seriously say that I’d hate to hear what she had to say about me when I wasn’t around, but she didn’t get it. Fuck. And then there was a whole other party today at the house with a shitload of people and Fanny had to go to work again, so it was me against everyone who knew each other already. And they yell, oh how they yell. And they carry on like 5 conversations at the same time with everyone yelling, it is impossible to follow! Definitly makes me incredibly tired.

Commentary on French school

2006-04-19T09:15:00.000-05:00

I wrote this during my Travail Dirigé class today:
They tell you that you are supposed to analyze and think for yourself, but the moment you come up with your own ideas, they tell you how to change it to make it RIGHT-like everyone else's. What is the point in thinking for yourself then?
I was told that the TD class was one in which there would be interaction between the teacher and the students, that we would be required to write papers and encouraged to think for ourselves on these. From what I have observed in this class, the opposite is true. I suppose there is interaction between the teacher and the students, but only so that the teacher can ask the students a question and keep asking until one student has answered in the EXACT words s/he wants. It is ridiculous. That is not really interaction. And "question" time? Forget it. The teacher says "questions?" as he is moving on to the next subject... We turn in papers, but we also have to give presentations of the papers from time to time. Students write their "plan" (another way of cloning the work of all students-everyone has a I with an A and B and preferably a 1 and 2 for each as well as a II with the same internal structure) on the board and give their presentation and the rest of the class time is spent with the teacher criticizing the plan and then writing his own on the board. Why even ask? It is never right even if the teacher only has a problem with ONE word, as he did today, he still writes his on plan on the board saying that this one is better. For every class, there are two topics to choose from to write about. He asks those students that wrote about this topic if they had the same plan. If they did not, he tells them why theirs is wrong. What is the point?!? I NEVER insult the ways of others, it is just different I normally say, but this is my last day of class and I can't do it anymore. Why bother to encourage students to think for themselves if, the moment they show that they are, you tell them it is wrong?
Next frustration with France: "Entitlement Society" I have read a couple of op-ed pieces in newspapers since the whole CPE debacle began and they all start with this premise. I defended the people and got upset with these authors, this is their history, you can't expect them to change overnight and who says that it is wrong? People in the US change jobs over and over and still aren't happy in the end so what is the point in that? But things have gone too far. I was waiting at Pôle Étudiant today for one of the servers to ask me what I wanted. There was NO ONE else at the bar and the two servers were chatting away about their kids, etc. I stood there for more than 1.5 minutes (I timed it after a little bit) while they finished their conversation until the server looked at me with this glare that clearly meant "what do you need so badly that you are interrupting this conversation" and said "oui?" I politly asked for my Pain au Chocolat and continued on. Anna went up to the counter and the same thing happened to her. She brought the subject up that this is not the first time or the first place that this has happened. Are French workers so secure in their jobs that they don't worry about actually doing their jobs? The true evil of job security and the sense that they are entitled?
Next frustration: the students. After 2 months of protesting the CPE, the humanities section of the university voted again last week to continue the strike even after Chirac gave in. The President of the university who has supported the students throughout this sent a letter out to all students saying that if they don't go back to class, the semester won't be valid and anyone who was to receive their diploma after this year will not. He ended by saying something like "this might sound like a threat, because it is" The students were outraged, how dare he do that?!? Invalidate the whole semester when they were striking for a good cause! It made me think, what were they thinking when they started? That despite not going to class and not learning the material, they would get credit and life would go on like normal? I understand the strike as expressed above, but come on! No work=no credit. All of the rest of the universities have gone back to class, why is this section of my university the only hold out? I don't understand it. And then, in Le Monde, today, there is an article: CPE: l'État fait payer les dégâts aux universités about the amount of damage done to the universities during the strikes. I don't know about other universities around the country, but this one certainly has seen better days. There is no heating in the building, there already was graffiti on the walls as well as water damage from leaky walls and ceilings. Maybe the students think that if they do more damage the state will simply pay for new buildings to be built? It's a sad wish if it is true. France doesn't have enough money to pay to keep up the current buildings let alone build new ones... What is worse is the impression that this state of being gives foreigners. I have heard other foreign students say that the buildings look more like prisons than universities. They would NEVER go to school in a place like this, etc. Are the French students so habituated to this that they just don't care and so what is another layer of graffiti on the walls?

Le Monde quotes that fixing the damage caused at my university alone will cost 40-50 thousand Euros. That's a LOT of money! So where is the money coming from? Le Monde says from the university budgets themselves. The state will not appropriate any special money to fix these damages. An official from the Unviersity of Rennes-II (not far from here) said that with an already fragile budjet, he's not sure there will be money to do it with. I do not think things are that bad here-no rooms are totally unusable, there are broken windows, but only to the basement where classes do not take place. But for other universities where lecture halls have been rendered states of disaster, what will happen when classes need to take place? I've never understood violent and destructive protests. I suppose the majority of the students were not supporting these measures, but nonetheless, it happened and what happens now?
Oh France, how I love thy language, but not thy customs...
A reflection on France....

Easter Sunday

2006-04-16T17:25:00.000-05:00

Excuse the typing errors. I am typing this just after midnight with no glasses and no a French keyboard meaning the keys are all screzy.

Today was Easter. Although I am not a religious person myself, i went to bed last night thinking that I wanted to go to church today. Problems arose when I realiwed I didn't know where to go or when to go or even if French people went to church on Easter Sunday. There is a catholic church across the street, but I would feel TERRIBLY out of place there and I've only seen one other Protestant church since I've been here... I don't know what it is about this country, but sometimes I just feel the need to go to church. And then I get pissed off because I know they wouldn't like me. So instead, I slept in and went to the park for a picnic and some reading. I've been reading 'Tis by Frank McCourt. Favorite passages:
On Education
In my classroom I wore no buttons, took no sides. There was enough ranting all around us and, for me, picking my way through five classes was minefield enough.
Mr. McCourt, why can’t our classes be relevant?
Relevant to what?
Well, you know, look at the state of the world. Look at what’s happening.
There’s always something happening in the world and we could sit in this classroom for four years clucking over headlines and going out of our minds.
Mr. McCourt, don’t you care about the babies burned with napalm in Vietnam?
I do, and I care about the babies in Korea and China, in Auschwitz and Armenia, and the babies impaled on the swords of Cromwell’s soldiers in Ireland. I told them what I’d learned from my part-time teaching at New York Technical College in Brooklyn, from my class of twenty-three women, most from the Islands, and from my five jmen. There was a fifty-five year old working for a college degree so that he could return to Puerto Rico and spend the rest of his life helping children. There was a young Greek studying English so that he could work towards a PhD in the literature of Renaissance England. There were three young African-American men in the class and when one, Ray, complained he’d been bothered by the police on a subway platform because he was black, the women from the Islands had no patience with him. They told himn if he stayed home and studied he wouldn’t be getting into trouble and no kid of theirs would come home with a story like that. They’d break his head. Ray was quiet. You don’t talk back to women from the Islands.
…They worked, took care of their families, went to school and this was a wonderful country where you could do what you liked even if you were black…
I told the women they were heroes. I told the Puerto Rican man he was a hero and I told Ray if he ever grew up he could be a hero too. They looked at me, puzzled. They didn’t believe me and you could guess what was running through their minds, that they were edoing only what they were supposed to do, getting an education, and why was this teacher calling them heroes?
My Stuyvesant students were not satisfied. Why was I telling them stories of women from the Islands and Puerto Ricans and Greeks when the world was going to hell?
Because the women from the Islands believe in education. You can demonstrate and shake your fists, burn your draft cards and block the traffic with your bodies, but what do you know in the end? Fro the ladies from the Islands there is one relevance, education. That is all they know. That is all I know. That is all I need to know.

On Being Jewish
We listened to young Malachy who was twenty and didn’t know what to do with his life. I told him since his monther was Jewish he could go to Israel and join the army. He said he wasn’t Jewish but I insisted he was, that he had the right of return. I told him if he went to the Israeli Consulate and announced he wanted to join the Israeli army it would be a publicity coup for them. Imagine, young Malachy McCourt, aname like that joining the Israeli army. He’d be on the front page of every paper in New York.

And then on my lonely Easter Sunday, I went to see Rent the movie. SOOOOO good! It was just like hanging with friends. I was laughing when no one else was because it was in Version Originale and the French people didn't understand the jokes I guess. And I was ,outhing the words and dancing in my seat (there were only 4 people in the theatre and only 1 behind me so no worries about me embarrassing myself). It was the best 2h15 that I've had in awhile! I love that movie. I probably would have loved any movie at that point, but that one was especially good because I know all of the music. I don't like that they changed a fez parts from the broadway musical, but i understand time limits...
I came back and had Spaghettios that my mom sent from home. I'm not normally a spaghettios fan; but I was in the mood today. And ate some grapes-the package said they were seedless, but one bit down and CRUNNNNCH there were seeds. I want to take them back and complain; but I don't know how or to whom I would do that.
I called a friend from home that I didn't think would be celebrating Easter with family and we had a good 1.5 hour chat. It's nice talking to people from home even though it makes me more homesick than I was before I called... I like getting updates about what is going on. It makes me feel included even though I am the one making the effort; although, I guess I am the one who up and moved to France for 6 mos...
That's it for today.
Joyeuse Paques!

The end of the strikes and the beginning of a new life

2006-04-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

Well, I went to Rome and came back alive (but just barely) The following is the recount of my experiences while in Rome:
What a trip that was! This is a VERY long explanation of EVERYTHING that I did in Rome, but some of the stories are FANTASTIC, so you should read it when you have lots of time. I went with two other girls from my uni. We had to be on a bus to go to the Beauvais airport at 5AM, so we went into Paris on Wednesday and stayed with a family that one of the girls knows in the suburbs. Up at 4 to take a RER train into Paris, onto a bus to the airport and then onto the plane. We were flying RyanAir which is a cheap European airline and it only flies from small airports, so we had to take a 1.5 hour bus to the airport in Beauvais. We got to Rome and found the hostel okay. We dropped our stuff off and got going! We just did some random walking on Thursday because we only had a couple of hours. We did walk by the Quirinale which we didn’t know what it was at the time, but later found out that the President of Italy has official functions there occasionally hence the guards. We also walked by a touristy area and one of the girls was looking for an Italia jacket. She decided to try one on and it was the same one that the store worker was wearing, so we decided to take a picture. Right after the picture snapped, the guy turned and kissed her!! It was CRAZY! On the way back to the hostel, we passed through Republica. Friday though, we got up and started walking early and didn’t stop all day! We had decided to go to the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica, so we hopped on a bus and went. We had to wait in a line to get into the museums, but it wasn’t so bad. We saw a lot of paintings and other stuff. It was okay-after awhile, all of the Michelangelo paintings of angels and Jesuses (Jesusi?) start looking the same. Same thing with bust of famous Roman person after bust of famous Roman person… The Sistine chapel was nice. It was cool to see it in person instead of just printings. I must admit though, I was getting pretty tired and sat down on a bench and did a little head nodding as I was falling asleep. I’m a bad person-I know. When we got out, we decided to find some gelato. Gelato for 1,50 Euros and one girl’s cappuccino for ,90 Euros!! Italy is cheap!! Back up to Vatican City to see St. Peter’s Basilica. I guess Monday was the one year anniversary of Jean-Paul II’s death, so they were getting ready for HUGE crowds and had a large stage and chairs set up all in the courtyard. We decided that we could appreciate the Basilica from the outside and took a few pictures and left. Next on the list of the things to do was a walk next to the river Tevere. There are people set up all along the river selling bags and sunglasses. One of the girls was looking for some black sunglasses, so she stopped at one and looked, but didn’t see anything she liked. We left when the girl said that they were 25 Euros because they were REAL Dolce and Gabana glasses, not cheap stuff made in China. Then, a few people later, a guy selling bags starting talking to us asking why we didn’t buy his sister’s stuff and how he was angry. It was a little scary, but we kept walking and there were lots of people, so we knew we were cool. A minute later, a police car drives by and we see all of the people pick up their stuff and RUN down stairs to the river side or behind cars, etc. I guess what they are doing is illegal… Well, we learned… So, we are continuing to walk along the river and there are lots of police, but we didn’t think anything of it, there are police all over the city. One of the girls turns around and says, “oh my goodness, there is a dead body” I looked out and saw nothing, just some ducks “no, it’s just ducks” Her: “no, in the middle of the river!” I looked out, sure enough, there was a dead body floating down the middle of the river. It was pretty creepy. A few seconds later, the water rescue team was zooming down the river after it. So, I saw my first real dead body in Rome. I guess that’s something to say. On down the street and to the Piazza del Popolo. One of the girls says that this was in The Da Vinci Code, but I don’t remember it. Anyone know? We walked around there for a little bit watching the people dressed up acting like the Statue of Liberty or the Sphinx. One of the girls wanted to go to the Villa Medici, so we walked over there passing on the way, the Tiffany & Co store (not much in the window there, very disappointing…), the GUCCI store, the Dolce & Gabana Store, etc. It was a very expensive street. The Villa Medici wasn’t very exciting, it is some French museum now, but it was closing, so we couldn’t go in. Then, down a small hill to the Spanish steps. A few pictures there and we decided that we were too tired to walk back, that we would take the metro. We got on the Metro at Spagna and it was already pretty crowded, we didn’t think we could smash in, but we did it. We had to go three stops. People continued to get on. I was smashed up against the pole to hang on to and forgive my language, but my chest was smashed into this group of 3 Italian girls’ hands. One girl looked at me and said excuse me and I just had to laugh. Why is she saying excuse me? So there I am laughing and then the others start laughing and we are the group of girls laughing until we are crying on the metro. We finally get ourselves under control 1 stop before we need to get off. By this time, there are so many people that I can’t move at all. My glasses are crooked on my face, but I can’t move. And all of a sudden, one of the girls starts shouting at someone “what do you think you are doing? Get your hands out of my pockets!” Getting a little bit nervous, but still unable to move, I just stood there. A hand reaches into my pockets and finding nothing, moves inside the waistband of my pants. I was ANGRY! Thank goodness the car stopped then because who knows what would have happened if that had continued. I would have gone crazy kicking and hitting people to get to the guy who had basically violated me. We all get off the metro and are on the escalator going up to fresh air and the pickpocketer is in front of us looking at us shaking his head. I just about kicked him right there. What in the world? Shaking his head at us? He was the one who had his hand in my pants 2 minutes previously! After that, we just went to a Pizzeria and got pizza to take back to the hostel to unfold after a LONG day. We met some people in the room with us: Paul-34 married with 3 kids taking a trip by himself to get away from the kids; a group of 3-two guys just done with school in Barcelona and one girl still studying at an art institute just north of Rome on vacation; a group of 2 on a Spring Break trip from CA; and another guy on Spring Break from MIT. Pretty nice people and we chatted until it was time for some sleep before another busy day. Saturday we had planned to go to the Colesseum, Roman Forum, and Paletino hill in the morn and then some shopping and the Trevi Fountain. We walked down to the colesseum stopping for some AMAZING hot chocolate on the way, and stopped at a couple of churches (Santa Maria Maggiore and Sant Pietro in Vincoli. There are these guys dressed up like gladiators and one of them stopped us and was asking where we were from, etc when he got a text message from his mom! So he whipped out his cell phone and Anna got a picture of the Roman Gladiator and his cell phone! We walked off and were looking at the Arco de Costantino when we were approached by some other gladiators. They asked if we wanted pictures, so the other girls gave me their cameras and went over and stood next to the guys. One of them was pretty good looking-young and muscular with long hair and the other was older and balding. One of the girls with the younger guy and the other with the older one. In the pictures, the older guy is pretending to cut off her head with his sword and the younger was kissing her check, okay right? So I took my time taking the pictures, making sure they’ll turn out well. I finish and the older guy asks me if I want to take some “sexy” pictures. I declined and the girls came back over to me to look at the pics. I noticed that one of the girls had a funny look on her face, but figured it was the heat. The guys came over and said “five and five Euros” We all looked at them like “what are you talking about?” One girl gets out a fifty cent piece and the guy says “five euros for you and five euros for the other” I was SOOOOO glad that I hadn’t taken the pictures!! They both handed over the five Euros and we walked off and the story came out of the girls. I guess the guy had been kissing her cheek and then tried to turn her head to kiss her lips and she had moved away and then he started kissing her ear and sticking his tongue in her ear!! EWWW!! I guess the life of the pretty skinny girl isn’t so fantastic lol. That makes two kisses in two days that we’d been in Rome plus some pocket action on the third!! Oh, I just had to laugh. I don’t even know what it was that attracted these people to us. We dressed just like we dress in France and no one thinks that we are foreign until we start speaking. We aren’t the crazy, loud, inappropriately dressed Americans! Oh well. Then, we decided to walk over to the Gelato place with 100 flavors that is in the Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring book, but on the way, we saw a place where one can rent these bike/golf cart things. It kind of looks like a golf cart, but it is made of two bikes joined together. It was only 10 Euros for the hour, so we decided to go for it. I signed for it and paid the money, so I got to drive first. The driver is in charge of steering, braking, and using the horn (AKA small bell). The driver and one other passenger pedal and we somehow managed to fit our third person on who just held on for dear life. The man told us that we were supposed to drive in the streets, so off we go. We were fine at first, staying in the bus/taxi pick up lane so no one would hit us, but then we had to turn. I somehow forgot that this was a bike thing, not the same pickup as my little Honda at home… I saw a break in traffic and tried to go…It didn’t work. The bike goes REALLY slow! Especially on hills. It might have been a little dangerous, but there are these little rental places all over the city, so I’m sure the Roman drivers are used to crazy tourists in traffic… We did drive through the old Jewish ghetto and I saw the first Synagogue that I’ve seen since I arrived in Europe! Pretty cool. Brie and Shaniqua-I though of you ☺ We also saw the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II and the Colonna Traiana. We drove all over again trying to find our way back. At one point, we were going down a hill and I had the break on and they asked me what I was doing, they wanted to go fast! So I let off the break and we ZOOOMED down the road until they were SCREAMING at me to stop. So I stopped the cart. What is it with people? They just change their minds all the time!! We did a huge circle and drove across the river and back through the middle of the Arco de Constantino and almost hit quite a few old people, and were only 20 minutes late! It was a crazy adventure. I wish we’d had a video camera following us. They were screaming the whole time. It was quite a lot of fun! Off to eat more gelato! We walked by the Panthenon-“wow, big building, okay gelato!” I could skip all the old buildings and just eat gelato and pizza and pasta the whole time ☺ It was crazy. There really were 100 flavors!! I got strawberry, kiwi, and passionfruit. It was yummy. We walked to the Palazzo Montecitorio and Piazza Colonna and did a little shopping, but it was all fancy designer names, so we didn’t buy anything. Then, the Trevi fountain. We all through our 1 cent pieces in Rome to ensure a return to Rome. We all had a good laugh that Katie had already found quite a few loves in Rome and she hadn’t even thrown in 2 cents into the fountain yet! (I think that’s the legend: 1 penny and you’ll get back to Rome someday, 2 cents and you’ll find love in Rome.) We decided that we definitely deserved a real dinner, so we found a restaurant near Republica-Zeus. It was another interesting experience. They were filming a commercial (so, the next time you are in Rome, watch TV and look for me in the Zeus’ Restaurant commercial!!) and so everyone was on their best behavior. We got a pitcher of Sangria-mmmm and I got some Rigatoni alla crema di broccoli. And for dessert: Tiramisu and “homemade sweets” which actually was a cake that tasted like Key Lime Pie covered with chocolate. They advertised live music on the poster outside and boy did we have live music. A woman that looks like she just stepped out of a country music video 20 years ago-fried blonde hair, lots of makeup and sparkles! Singing the cheesiest music you can think of in English… After that, we went home and to bed. Long days in Rome! Sunday was our last day in Rome and we had planned out a trip to the Hard Rock Café for some Nachos, the Modern Art Museum and some shopping. We were dragging in the morning, so we decided to stop at a café to get some coffee. It was a hot day, so the girl asked for a cappuccino with ice. The woman looked at her with a quizzical face. There was a guy next to us at the bar drinking his coffee and acted as interpreter telling her that yes, the girl really did want her cappuccino on ice. The woman looked at her and looked at her like she was CRAZY! It was hilarious! And then, her coworker came out from the back with a bucket of ice and he looked at the girl and picked up a spoonful of ice and made the action to put the ice in the coffee and raised one eyebrow like “you really want me to put ice in this?” We all laughed “si” It was a good frappaccino though! We then walked to Porta Pia which I guess is like the entrance into the city or something, I don’t know. It’s a big Arch with huge doors. We got to the Hard Rock Café and had our Nachos and Chicken strips and water WITH ICE!!! It was a miracle! Ice in Europe!! With refills! Ahhhh American food. I wanted to get the Mac and Cheese, but it was 12 Euros… The Modern Art Museum was okay. They had some installation pieces that were pretty much playing with black lights, mirrors and strings. It was fun. I tried to take pics, but they didn’t turn out very well. With or without flash, the fun of the blacklight just didn’t show up… There was a lot of art from the 1800s, which I don’t think of as Modern, but I guess in the art world, it is… I was glad that the museum was free. Then off to do some shopping. I managed to not buy anything! Yes! I went back to the hostel before the other girls to clean up and when I got out of the shower, they told me that Paul had bought a bottle of wine and had invited us to join him up on the terrace. We had bought our own bottle as a sort of good-bye to Rome party, so we went up there. I thought it was a little weird that he wanted to drink with three college kids, but I rationalized that it was because he spends all day everyday alone and just wanted someone to talk to. He was really pushing the alcohol on us though… Weirdo. We finally went back to the room and to bed at midnight only to get up 3 hours later to get back on a bus to the airport and back to France. What a trip!!

So now, the strikes are over and I've gone back to class. Things are turning out okay. I've been quite worried about grades and the like after I got back the first paper I had to write and I'd gotten the equivilant of 40%... I went and talked with the professor of the class and I guess he didn't realize my situation (that of an American IR student stuck in French law school) so I told him I needed a 10 and basically, he said okay. So that's good. And the professor of another class told me that his exam is not "french style" and so I should be able to do okay. I'm still worried about it, because it is a lot of law stuff that I don't completely understand, but at least I don't have to worry about the game. I realized that yesterday. Writing a French paper is a game-to see in how many dual divisions one can divide the subject. If you can divide the subject into two themes and then each theme into two parts and then each of those into two parts, you win!! I have one more week of class left and then two weeks of vacation and then exams. And then the fun finally starts!!! Traveling! And then I get to go home and spend the WHOLE summer with my amazing girlfriend that hates me right now because I am 4,732 miles away...

Post pics later

A visit that was too short

2006-03-27T10:42:00.000-06:00

Well, my girlfriend left on Friday. I took her to Charles de Gaulle and saw her to the boarding gate before I started crying. I felt like I made progress. We had a lot of fun while she was here. A couple of days in Paris including a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d'Orsay, and a fun walking tour. While in Nantes, we did not do much. She wanted to sleep and at first I was a little upset because I wanted to show her my life here, but I realized later that it was her trip and if she wanted to sleep all the time she could. It was good to just be together again talking and laughing. I have friends here, but it is just not the same. Being with her is just more...complete. So all in all, a good trip. I'll post some photos later.
This past weekend was crazy. I got back from Paris Friday evening and had a meeting with a woman from my university at home who was visiting and then dinner and hanging out and then phone calls home. Saturday, a friend and I went downtown to do some shoe shopping and there was a fair going on!! Tents lining ALL of the streets and it seemed like everyone in the whole city was down there. Clothes, perfumes, jewelry, shoes, food, etc all for sale and sales in the stores!! It was great! So I bought some shoes :-) Off-brand chuck taylors for 10 Euros. I just need to get some awesome shoelaces to go with them. I'm waiting to find the perfect ones. And then back down there Sunday for "Carnaval". I thought Carnaval was the european name for Mardi Gras, so it was always the week of Ash Wednesday and before. Like what we saw in Nice. But I guess I was mistaken because the family that my girlfriend and I stayed with in Paris celebrated Carnaval on Thursday and then there was this huge thing in Nantes this weekend and I guess it continues to next weekend...
Strike Update: I haven't gotten results from today's vote on the Student Strike, but I'm guessing it will continue... There is a HUGE protest tomorrow all over the country including ALL students and unionized workers (which in France is pretty much everyone) so no public transport tomorrow. I hope it stops before we need to get on a tram and then train and then airplane to go to Rome Wednesday/Thursday... I would be upset if we had to cancel our trip. I'm super excited for it!
So that is a short update for the past week. I get back from Rome next Monday I think so I'll put up pics from that and from this past week then.
A Plus!

CPE Protests, Flowers, and French Pop Machines

2006-03-15T11:04:00.000-06:00

You might have heard by now. I saw that they finally put news of this in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/international/europe/15france.html). French students all over the country are protesting because the government put into place a new law for "Contrat Premier Embauche" or CPE. This law allows employers to fire their employees under 25 without reason. The government's purpose was to decrease the unemployment rate amoung the under 25 age group, but it has students incensed. Some students at the University of Nantes have been protesting for 3 weeks now, for the Law School (of which I am a part), this is just the 2nd week. They took to the streets yesterday to protest and I decided to document the protest in photos and videos. Voila some of the photos:

Also, so much for that "Make my life better by having a plant" wish. I have officially killed my dear "fleur"

I tried to get a coke from the pop machine. I was a little worried because I only had a 2 Euro coin and the pop is 80 centimes, so I wasn't sure I was going to get all my change back... Instead! my coke AND a can of Minute Maid orange juice came out along with all of my change!! YES to French pop machines! Also, there is a recycling "machine" here and when you put your can in, things spin like in a slot machine at the casino and you can win prizes!! I haven't won yet, but here's hoping!

BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!

Lonely Weekend

2006-03-13T12:10:00.000-06:00

All of my friends went to Paris this weekend. I decided to stay here because I will be in Paris for the next two weekends picking up and dropping off my g/f at the airport. I woke up Saturday morning and the sun was shining! (A rarity in Nantes) I got on the tram. A guy with a guitar got on. An older guy got on a few stops later. The two men started talking. Guitar man offers to play a song for old guy. Old guy laughs and says “for me? You’ll be playing for the whole car” Guitar man says “no, just for you” and starts playing. Old man starts singing!! One bar or so, nothing more. Guitar man puts his guitar away and turns to old man “five euros please” Old man tells him that that is too much to ask for such a little song. They continued by talking about Brittany until we got to Centre Ville. Ahh France...
I decided that since it was sunny, I would go to the beach. I bought a ticket to Le Croisic and hopped on the train. About an hour later, I stepped off the train to the cloudy, windy, empty town of Le Croisic. I walked and walked. At one point, I was stopped reading the sign at the sundial and this little girl of about 4 is looking at the sundial and says “Papa, c’est quoi ça?” I thought to myself, this is sad, I’m just like a French 4 year old. I had the same thoughts when I saw the thing…I gathered some shells and stuck my hand in the Atlantic, walked back to the city center, had a coffee and got on my train to go home. A good 5 hour walk around the peninsula. I walk a lot here. On the train ride back, I saw a cruise ship on land in St. Nazaire and French Buffalo. It made me laugh.

I got back to Nantes and as I was passing through Commerce on my way back to the dorm, I saw this:

Not related to Nantes at all, but post worthy

2006-03-02T08:19:00.000-06:00

Ohio lawmaker to propose ban on GOP adoption
BY CARL CHANCELLOR
Knight Ridder Newspapers
AKRON, Ohio - If an Ohio lawmaker's proposal becomes state law, Republicans would be barred from being adoptive parents.

State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to "introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents." The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship.

On Thursday, the Youngstown Democrat said he had not yet found a co-sponsor.

Hagan said his "tongue was planted firmly in cheek" when he drafted the proposed legislation. However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.

Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.

"We need to see what we are doing," said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill "homophobic."

Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.

To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.

Just as "Hood had no scientific evidence" to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said.

"It flies in the face of reason when we need to reform our education system, address health care and environmental issues that we put energy and wasted time (into) legislation (Hood's) like this," continued Hagan, who has been in the Ohio Senate nine years. Before the Senate, he served 19 years in the Ohio House.

A Humorous Story

2006-03-01T12:20:00.000-06:00

I decided to hop on a train to Nice with another girl from my uni- me for the weekend and her for the week over our vacation time. 13 hours (and not much sleep) later, we arrived. We checked into the hostel, dropped our bags and got going. Espresso on the beach
, Carnaval Flower Parade, shopping, outdoor markets, park on a big hill with an AMAZING view of the coast line, and the nighttime light parade all in one day!

Sunday: Breakfast in the Hostel and the real adventure begins.
The girl that I went with wanted to rent rollerblades to roll down "Promenade des Anglais" I told her that I didn't want to because I don't know how to stop and that presents a problem. She said, No, we'll stay on flat ground! It'll be fine. back and forth back and forth. I gave in. 4 Euros later, I have a pair of rollerblades and I'm ready to go.

We skate across the street and onto the Promenade. She starts up the hill... No! I don't want to go up the hill! That means that one has to go back down! But I follow her. BAD IDEA! She tells me that she wants to go look at the boats. On the OTHER side of the hill... I am okay at first, I skate and run into a wall to stop. Skate, wall, stop, skate, wall, stop. Until we run out of wall... I see a light post. My plan: skate to the light post, hug it, go around in a circle and that is how I will stop. I start rolling. faster and faster. Arms out. I grab the light post. Next thing I know, I'm opening my eyes to lots of gucci and chanel clad people looking down at me wondering what the hell I am doing... It seems as though my arms got the light post (they are still wrapped around) but my legs continued. Out into the street. So there I am laying on the ground, legs in the middle of the street ready for someone's million dollar car to run over arms still hugging the light post and my head POUNDING because when I fell, I slammed it against the sidewalk. I manage to get up (still not sure how I did that), skate over to a bench, swollow 4 asprin and skate back up the hill where I hold on to the fence ALL the way back down... I have HUGE bruises on my arm, my side, scratches all over my hip, and a bump on my head. I decided it was time to turn the skates back in and to spend the next 2 hours sitting on the beach and then a nice lunch before heading back to the coldness of Nantes. Good times.

What a fantastic day!

2006-02-23T06:06:00.000-06:00

It is only one o'clock and I am having a great day! I realized yesterday that life here is becoming routine, which is good. That means that life is settling down. And today, I had an appointment with my new French friend to go over class notes to fill in the holes that I had. We sat and talked for two and a half hours going over notes and just chatting. It was excellent. He is a little bit nerdy, but that is okay. I am too sometimes. And then we had a lunch appointment with some people that will be going to my university next semester that are from Nantes. So, meeting with Fred, Maïlys, and Florence over and I just feel super pumped. One girl said that she would call me next week to go out during vacation time to meet some of their other friends! I'm super excited. Finally some real French friends! And they sounded truly excited to meet us. It might have been that we were giving them important info about school/life in the states, but nonetheless, it is exciting and has made my day. AND! I leave for NICE tomorrow!!! CARNAVAL PARTY TIME!!! AHHHH
Life is good

Adventures in Pole Etudiant

2006-02-16T11:17:00.000-06:00

So at the University of Nantes, there is what might be equated to a student union type place in the US. At least that is the closest it comes. People sit here and do homework or do stuff on the internet. There is a little café where one can use meal tickets to buy lunch and coffee/soda/pain au chocolat the rest of the day/evening. It has really weird hours, but yesterday and today it has been open past normal closing hour of 7pm. Yesterday, I was sitting here drinking thé citron (lemon tea) and then they opened the other half of the room and around the stage were all of these black drapes. I continued my internetting while half watching the hour long performance of one guy acting out a whole story (I would say mime, but that calls to mind men with striped shirts, berets, and painted white faces pretending to be in boxes. This was a story about mountain climbing and love) to the music of another guy playing a guitar, a flute, and a rain stick. It was a very surreal experience. And now, I know there was going to be this short jazz concert here tonight to kind of preview the upcoming season at the Jazz spot in Nantes, Pannonica. So I came a little bit early and had been reading/writing emails and now these guys are on stage. What might be a barisax, but it looks bigger than a barisax, a bassist playing with his fingers and the bow at the same time, a drummer, and a BLIND accordionist. They are playing very new jazz. I wish I could remember the type from my History of Jazz class, but stuff like Cecil Taylor Unit and Albert Ayler. Not really the kind of jazz I like. More like the kind I think is just noise because it just doesn't...fit...together. So another interesting experience in France. oh and as I look around the room, I noticed a guy walk in with a trombone case. I figured he was in the band, so I didn't think anything of it. He is sitting in the audience. With his trombone case... A later thought: how does blind accordian guy know when to play? The other guys can look at each other and get their cues, but what about him? I thought for a moment about how he reads music and then I remembered the blind woman in my University choir last semester who had braile music and besides, with this kind of music, I doubt they have sheet music to read from. Even at the beginning. I think blind guy is asleep at the accordion. Oh, concert over and trombone man is leaving, with his trombone case. Never got it out. maybe he has a gig after and had to bring it along?? Uh oh, accordion man is playing yodelling music now. And now French subway music... I don't know if that can be genrified. There is just a type of music that is played on French subways... And now circus music. Drummer joining in!! And now the bass man! Impromtu circus!!! Maybe I should get up and show them my cartwheel skilz! hehe
Valentine's Day was better than expected. I got LOVELY roses from my girlfriend and my grandma had offered to pay for me to take out a friend or two, so me and two other girls went to a restaurant and got a very, very good, complete meal. And in the French style, it took 3 hours to eat. So it was an okay day. PLUS! I went the extra mile and introduced myself to one of the guys in my Insitutions de la 5e République class! I'd arrived a little bit early so it was me and him in the middle front and two other people in the VERY back. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey, I know this is a little bit weird, but I don't know anyone in this huge lecture hall so (this is when he turns to me and realizes that I am talking to him) I thought I'd introduce myself. I'm an exchange student from the US.
Alexandre: Oh, that's cool. How is everything going for you? Are you doing okay in class?
Me: It is okay. I'm not actually a law student in the states, so when the professors talk about law stuff, I am lost...
Blah blah blah.
I just thought it was funny that in this HUGE lecture hall where he was the ONLY person within speaking distance, he didn't realize until I was halfway through my "speech" that I was talking to him... He is kind of a nerdy guy, but he helped me with the words I didn't know and talked to me and in this time of almost no friends. I can't complain.

Yesterday however was day from hell. We got an assignment in my TD class to write a dissertation and I don't understand the question and I don't understand the French way of writing it. They are SOOOOOO specific about what to write and how to write it. In the example that we did in class last week, I don't even see how the proposed outlined response even answers the question. So I am in deep shit and I realized that. I went up to the teacher to express my apprehension and I was trying to talk and my voice was cracking because I was so close to breaking down in tears. I don't know what I am going to do. If anyone out there in blog land knows how to write a French dissertation, any help would be appreciated! hehe. So I walked home the whole time thinking about how I am not a law student and I am not qualified to be in this class and how I shouldn't and do not want to be here. I was thinking that about 20 minutes out of a week I like being in France. 20 minutes out of a whole fucking week that I want to be here. That means that the other 10,020 minutes of the week, I do NOT want to be here... So yeah I tried to talk to the other girl from my university about it, but she just doesn't understand. Her French is not as good as mine and she has developped totally different goals than mine for this experience. She tells me to not worry about it. I think, that I know the language, I may not have a law background, but I should be able to figure it out. I should be able to get by. If I blow it off and don't try, I will feel like a quitter and I don't like that feeling. I am here to experience and drink in (literally and figuratively lol) the French culture, but I am also here for school. If I blow of school, well then...I am a failure and I don't like that. So she can't understand. So they all went out for sushi last night and I sat in my room and cried. And then I went down to the phone and called my girlfriend and cried some more. God, I cry at home, but this is ridiculous. It is like I just don't stop! I met the nice girl from Guangzhou (I think that is how it is spelled) China yesterday who lives next door to me. I bet she thinks I am a little kid, I sit in my room and sob so often. So, I had to get over it and I started writing. This experience is going to be very good for my creative side. I have now written poetry because I was so bored and I have sketched because I was so bored and now, now I have written stories because I was so sad.

Today was a little bit better. I got up at 10 still feeling upset and I layed in bed playing snood and crying until 11:40 when I decided that I just needed to get up and do something. So I went in search of the GLBT community center. I had found it on a map before I'd left and I'd kind of planned out the course to get there, but I didn't want to get the map out when I was walking, so it was an adventure. 3 shops down from a huge ass catholic cathedral... Not really much to it. It was closed, so I couldn't go in, but it looks smaller than most cafés here and not very exciting. I wish they had a student group on campus. I feel like I am the only lesbian on the whole damn campus! Those could be built-in friends right there! Too bad they only have groups for bicycle riders and people from Africa... This sucks. So I walked all over the city and it was clouded over, but wasn't raining. I got on the tram and rode it to my dorm and it was POURING!! I got completely soaked even though I had my umbrella and I went to look for a package that I was supposed to get Tuesday and no, no package. GRRR La Poste!!

C'est la vie maintenant. J'ai un rendez-vous pour le dîner à 19h30 alors je dois partir. I'll attach photos later

Another week over

2006-02-13T07:55:00.000-06:00

It is Monday again. Still a relaxing day for me as I don't have classes, but still the start of another week. The weekend was a pretty good one. I had a very French saturday. Got up, went to see Brokeback Mountain in French(not as good because it was too difficult to understand), left the theater and saw a group of people. I thought it might be the continuation of protests against CPE, but upon closer examination, we realized that it was a man in a neon Pink leotard with pants with gold sequins all over VERY low slung with a marilyn monroe blonde wig hanging from a tree and singing... I would say "only in France" but I'm sure I could go to San Fran right now and see about the same thing!! So, after that spectacle, we went to a café and sat outside people watching while drinking coffee. It was a BEAUTIFUL day (I didn't even wear my coat!) and a great one to be outside. We walked around downtown awhile looking for a chocolaterie and a fruiterie to buy...chocolates and fruit. Found, bought and walking continued. Back to the dorm where we cooked a quick dinner (and a bottle of wine) before heading out again. It was time for a "night out on the town" after hitting three bars and drinking maybe a little bit too much, we headed home - or what we are calling home right now... I wanted to leave my g/f a message, so I called her and much to my surprise, she answered! well, what was supposed to be a quick message turned into a long conversation leaving me with no money left on my phone. Sunday-nothing open in France, so I couldn't reload my phone. Went downtown to do some exploring and walked around and took pics. Found REALLY good bread (pain viennois-those people from Vienna make good bread!) and walked to the park. Kids playing and couples walking. made me lonely, but excited to be in France nonetheless. Everything here makes me lonely, so I just have to look for the good points. i was in France, eating good bread on a beautiful day. There is a little informational building with art and aquariums and information about the rivers that I hung out in until it got too cold and it was time to go back. I made myself a REALLY good dinner (pasta with white sauce and steamed broccoli and red bell peppers) to eat with my REALLY good bread while laughing at the argument between a French girl and an Idaho boy about whether art was subjective or not.
Can something be called "Chef d'Oeuvre" or is that a subjective statement that each person will use as a label? A good discussion I thought. They moved on to whether all litterature is art or not. Made me think about porn. Are all movies, photos, stories art? Who is to say what is art and what isn't? Is it up to each person to decide the value of the piece and if so, who decides what goes in galleries/exhibitions? Which got me to thinking about that episode of The L Word where Bette wants to put the video of jesus fucking a woman in the exhibition and it makes all the conservatives pissed off and angry and they start protesting. And the cartoon that is causing rage in the Muslim world right now. Were that video and that cartoon art? Who decided that they were or were not? The video could be considered art even by a Christian person and appreciated by that same person, but at the same time, angering a whole multitude of others. And the cartoon. I'm sure there were people who thought it was funny, but it angered so many others. Does the amusment of the few justify the anger of the others? Does there need to be justification? Just a thought or two...
So yeah. Good dinner. Snood for a couple more hours until I couldn't take it anymore and went to bed. I woke up this morning with every intention of reloading my phone. I got on the tram and went to the store only to be told that they are out of the paper that they print the code on, so I wasn't able to reload... FRUSTRATING. and they moved the other store that I knew of, so I have to wait until tomorrow! GRRRR.
I am now sitting in the law school freezing my fingers off typing this! Fun times fun times.

FUCKING HILARIOUS!! There are all these old men standing around in the lobby area that I am sitting in during their break from Masters classes and one of them just said "ver ist ze trazsh?" "ze trazsh ist een ze classssss" I have my headphones in. I am typing. They have no idea that I am American. It makes me laugh

An Email Sent

2006-02-08T09:23:00.000-06:00

The following is an email I sent to the head of the French dept at my university:
Professor,
I haven't resorted to emailing you yet. I have stuck with it. I don't understand 1/8th of what goes on in lectures, but I can look over other people's notes. The administration is incredibly frustrating, but I dealt with it. Here is the point where I break down. I just got out of my first Travail Dirigé. We spent the whole 2 hours discussing methodoligical (is that a word?problems that the students had writing their commentaries last semester. He was talking about students that failed their classes because they did not write their papers in the correct form! Are you familiar with this? This Cartesian Dualism as Professor XXX (British Prof here) calls it? Although when he was talking about it, I understood it, I thought, "take the question and answer it in two points? I can do that" After sitting through 2 hours of my professor asking students what they would write in response to some question comparing the separation of powers under F. Mitterand to the separation of powers in the
US and criticising their responses and reformatting them changing two words, I am FREAKING out. Two words! They had two words switched in order and that was the difference between being good and failing. I don't even see the difference
between the two! I am not a law student, I have no pretense of being one. I don't want to go to law school. I just bought a HUGE droit international public book referenced by all of my professors. International Public Law? French Constitutional Law? I don't know American law!! I feel like I have fallen into another space and time. The subject matter of the courses is okay. International and European Organizations-I like that! That is IR, but then he throws in all of this law stuff. I am so afraid that with the cartesian dualism and the law stuff that I don't understand, I am going to fail all of my classes and it is not even because I don't understand what is being said! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I guess I have no recourse, but to stick it out, but unless it gets A LOT better very soon, my thoughts on this whole exchange program will be that one needs to be a graduate program law student with a VERY good grasp of French and a VERY good understanding of the French style of writing papers before even thinking about embarking upon this trip.
Just thought I would make my fears/thoughts known,
-Lost in French Law School

Where to begin?

2006-02-06T07:42:00.000-06:00

Fountains from Quai Chateaubriand
Place de la Marie
Gare de Rennes
Parlement de Bretagne
Galeries Lafayette
We took a small trip this weekend to Rennes and Mont St. Michel. Rennes was fantastic. We got off the train and did not have any plans at all. Just started walking. I LOVE that kind of trip! It lets you figure out what you want to do as you go along. No worries if you want to stop into Galeries Lafayettes and try on hats for an hour or stop into "C'est deux euros!" and look around. We ended up going to the toursim office and the woman there gave us a pamphlet with a suggested walking tour of Rennes to see all of the good parts of the city. We got to see the Regional parlement building, the city hall, the old part of the city, the shopping district, etc. We also passed a few mexican restaurants (VERY few in France) and made plans to return for dinner. The city was fantastic and just walking around was great. Again, I love doing that. I got to talk a lot with the other girls I was with; good bonding time. I had worried before the trip that things were going to be awkward because I'd only hinted to one of the girls my amourous situation before we left. Well, it came out on the train ride there and she was great about it. I like open-minded people. The problem arose the next day at Mont St. Michel. This is an 'island" of the coast that is connected by a road to mainland France and at most of the times during the day, also by silt/mud. Originally built to be an abbey, it had been built up over the years with a taller and taller church at the top and a small! city around the bottom. During WWII, it was used as a prison for politicos and is now a functioning abbey and REALLY BIG tourist attraction. Due to the not so great weather in France in this season, there weren't as many people there as there normally would be, but still enough to make it feel crowded. One of the girls wanted to go to the church service and thinking about it, I didn't really want to go, but thought I could make it through if everyone else did. However, when I got to the top (look at the picture posted the other day. we walked from the bottom to the top in less than 5 min. WHEW!) I totally freaked out. It was the weirdest reaction. I just got all upset that this is a service run by the catholique church that would hate me if they knew whom I love. My eyes teared over and I couldn't handle it. I walked outside and looked at France mainland and thought and thought and thought. I just don't understand people's prejudices, but especially the Church's. According to them, being gay is a sin like any other, but at the same time, they don't turn away liars or people who say mean things to their parents. It is like for them, any sin connected to sex is worse than the others. I don't remember bible verses, but isn't their one that says all sins are the same in God's eyes? Not that I think what I am doing is sinful, how can it be sinful to love someone, but on their level, is it not hypocritical? I was not prepared at all for the reaction I had and I still don't completely understand it. I knew from the start that France is a catholic country and that most of the attractions are or were at some point religiously affiliated, but this, wow, I don't even know what to think. One of the girls followed me out a few minutes later and I tried to explain to her what was going on and I couldn't explain. I don't think I've done a good job here even. I tried to Skype with my g/f last night. Except, I had no microphone, so she talked and I typed back. It didn't work out very well. I like talking much better; too much of a delay between me sending and her receiving... Grr. I don't like France. I want to go home.

Picture Parade

2006-02-02T11:45:00.000-06:00

And this is what happens when I use scissors on myself. It is a little bit longer now and I can style it better. For about 5 days, there was nothing to do except let it stand straight up.

This is where I'm going this weekend!!!

It snowed!!! Lydie said it never snows in Nantes, but God must have decided to bring a little bit of home to Nantes to make me happy!

There is a lovely park, Jardin des Plantes that I went to the ONE day it was nice and sunny here!

Me in the park

My rose plant. There are more blooms on it now!

This is the horse race that I watched one Sunday. Mom says that they have this kind of race in the states, but I've never seen it.

This house is just a small walk from the Modern Languages building. I have NO idea what it is, but it is pretty!

I am connected on my computer!

2006-02-02T07:19:00.000-06:00

Yes that is right folks. After two weeks of run around with the French administration, I have a student ID card and am able to connect to the internet in the UNHEATED law building from my own computer! yes! Classes have started and I am doing okay. It is difficult to get into the "french" mood when I speak English all the time (more about that later) to listen intently to the prof and take notes, but i'm getting into it. I am thouroughly enjoying my International and European Organisations class. The other two however, are a bit more about French Law than I was expecting/wanting. What the hell was I thinking enrolling in French LAW school? I don't even know anything about American law!! Anyone want to help me out and tell me what juridique means? I look it up in the French-English dictionary and it is about the same word. I look it up in the French dictionary and I don't understand the definition... It is mentioned quite a bit in my classes. I feel like I should know what it means. If anyone out there can give me a good definition IN ENGLISH of this word for a person who has never taken a law class before, i would be very appreciative. Trip to Italy this weekend is off; too much money and too much time on the train (23 hours for Paris to Rome!!!). Instead, I'm going to go to Rennes and Mont St. Michel and explore a bit. It is soooo cold here. I looked up weather at home and here and compared. 10 degrees warmer there. I want to go home!!! I did have a moment the other day when I was truly happy to be here. I felt like that was a big step forward. Now, if only those moments would come more than once a week...and not necessarily when I am eating French pastries... I've met some people, but none of them are French. I live in a building with like 2 French people and the other 98 are Americans... It is difficult to find people to talk to in classes because they have all been here for a semester and know each other and aren't looking for a lonely American hanger-on... This leaves me speaking French only occasionally. I have found a French-English conversation group which is good. Everyone there is there to work on speaking skills, so no embarrassment! And they correct my French and I correct their English. It is fantastic. I did have a good moment yesterday. I went to buy a cellphone and the woman asked me if I was a foreign student and I said yeah, I'm from america. She then helped me with my stuff and at the end told me that I speak French better than all the other students that she has seen!! yes to good French skills!! And then, I tried to reload my phone and couldn't understand what I was supposed to do and the good feeling was gone :-( I miss my girlfriend a lot and I got an email from her the other day saying she was really sad and that made me even more angry that I decided to do this. I know this is my dream and everything, but I regret it. I was listening to Michael Bublé yesterday and his song "Home" is pretty much my song right now. Except I'm not in Paris and Rome and surrounded by thousands... I've been thinking, I would give it all up for her. Is that too much to say? She is probably going to read this and get freaked out, but the more I think about it, I would switch careers for her and move anywhere in the world for her. I love her so much and this is tearing me up inside. The only bright light is that she will be here in less than than 2.5 mos!! I'm going to buy train tickets for us tonight!! yes!! g/g i'll post pictures later

Je me suis arrivée

2006-01-26T10:49:00.000-06:00

i have arrived. this is the beginning of week 2 in Nantes. i still dont have regular internet access, so i have to use the computer lab. Hence, i cant update often and no pictures... When i do get my ID card and I can log onto the LAN with my computer, ill give a full update and pics. (hopefully this will be early next week). until then, think of me missing all of you and imagine my hair VERY short as i cut it myself the other day.
bisous de la France

Leaving tomorrow

2006-01-16T16:09:00.000-06:00

I'm off tomorrow to discover the land of Nantes and the French University life. I couldn't sleep last night. I stayed up and worried and cried. blah blah blah. and wrote and wrote and wrote about how stupid I am for leaving. I don't know why it's not until now that I get all worried...I guess now it is really me on my own in France when before it was me arriving in France with someone else (more importantly, someone FRENCH) to do all of the important things for me and to get me at the airport, etc. Now, I'm on my own and will have to get train tickets on my own and find the right platform on my own and get my carte de séjour on my own (I'm sure that will be a story to tell when I finally get around to doing it...) I'm feeling okay about everything now, but that might change in 10 minutes when I lie down to go to sleep and my mind starts running... I just need to listen to her voice: "everything turns out in the end" and I'm sure it will turn out okay for me. That's about it. I'm crazy missing the g/f and all the peeps back home and this had better get better or else I'll be on a flight home ASAP

Paris

2006-01-14T11:28:00.000-06:00

I'm sure I'll make changes to this later, but I have a couple extra minutes to write now. Julie and moi took the RER train to Paris today. Got off at Musée d'Orsay and walked to Le Louvre. We spent a good 3 hours walking around looking at paintings, egyptian, greecian, roman, and Iranian stuff. and of course, La Jaconde (aka Mona Lisa). As everyone says, pretty much a let down. I'd been warned that it was not going to be this huge thing and of course, it wasn't. It was nice that the museum wasn't very busy today, so there were only about 20 people crowded around the painting instead of the normal 50+. It is pretty cool how her eyes follow you everywhere, but really... I can't wait for the movie though! I hope it will be as good as the book! I think it comes out here the same day as in the US, so I should be able to see it in French and then in English when I get home! yeah! Right, back to the Louvre. Paintings were pretty cool, although as Julie pointed out, we only say 1 painting of a black woman. There were a few more of black men in war paintings during the holy wars, but 1 black woman. Pretty disappointing. But I guess it was a long time ago. Nothing to do, but work to change now. The egyptian stuff was pretty cool, but I think the mummy exhibit in KC was better... Am I terrible for saying that? That a small midwest museum had a better exhibit than the most famous museum in France and maybe the world? oops. At the end, Julie called her mom to ask if we should come home or if they were going to come into the city and she said, it would be 2 hours for them to get to Paris. I thought that was okay; there are plenty of shops in the basement of the Louvre and we could have walked around Les Tuileries because today was FINALLY a nice day and there were the people selling shit to look at. So I told Julie, "Okay Let's shop" and then she walked up the stairs and outside. Okay...so now we are outside and Julie knows nothing about Paris, so we didn't have anything to do. Call mom back and tell her we are taking the train home... and I didn't even get to buy any museum souvenirs! My peeps back home need stuff from France! So I'm a little pissed about that... But I'll get over it. maybe when mom and dad come, they'll take me into the shops even if they don't want to see the museum. I fell asleep on the train ride home and now we are at the house and I think we are going to drive back into the city in a little bit to take a sight-seeing tour by night. All in all, it was a good day, even if my blistered feet don't agree with me :-)
Pictures weren't allowed in the museum part, but I got some outside and some underneath the big pyramid.

and life goes on

2006-01-14T04:05:00.000-06:00

Today I'll be heading into the actual Paris area to "do le louvre" and maybe do some sightseeing afterwards if we're not too tired. I'm sure I'll have some good stories after this trip!
Yesterday was an interesting day...the mom of the family that I am staying with has, all week, worn jeans. Yesterday, she was wearing a short skirt, fancy kimono style top and heels. And what did she do? Clean the house! Apparently, in France, people clean the house in fancy clothes. J/K, she was just vacuuming, but still...
I'm going to put some pictures up of the house after the cleaning.

Things are different in France

2006-01-12T12:03:00.000-06:00

So I was talking to my girlfriend today about how small things are different here and decided to take some pictures as evidence. Voila les résultats. Some photos of the plug issues that I suffered and how I resolved the issue. Photos of the toilet and flushing button and how it is different (See the 1/2? I think you can 1/2 flush the toilet. I have yet to figure that out) and the door handle-très fancy for a middle class house in the US, but I guess kind of old and not so fantastic for this middle-class French fam.

Computer Problems Fixed

2006-01-12T05:19:00.000-06:00

It is currently 12:20PM here. 5:20AM home time. I have solved the computer problem! Julie's mom took me back to the store where I bought the converter and the girl said, "Bien sûr, il ne marche pas. Il est un adaptor pour les choses d'angleterre" We told her that the man I talked to last night, who was from Washington D.C., told me that it would work. She directed us to the manager who explained the whole problem and also explained that I should be able to plug my grounded plug into an ungrounded adaptor and be okay. He was also nice enough to give me my money back for the adaptor that I had bought even though I'd already opened the package. yeah! So I've been able to charge my computer and put my photos on it and everything. So here are some of the first of what will surely be many, many photos.

I have arrived

2006-01-11T16:15:00.000-06:00

I got to France. I am now staying in a suburb of Paris (Voisins le Bretonneux) with the family of a girl that stayed with me this past summer. Things are going well. Everything is different here. When driving from the airport to her house, I was simply amazed with how different things are. The mix of the very old architecture and the new is very interesting. And of course all of the roundabouts. And the lines on the roads are different colors. And the stores are different. Although H&M was the same with American music and everything. The kids come home from school for lunch everyday because they have schedules like college students: free time during the day and classes don't run consecutively. I'm tired all the time, but that is just because I have to get used to speaking and listening to French all the time. I'm currently fighting the electrical system here. I can't find a way to plug my computer in-with the grounded socket none of the adapters I find work. I might have to use a non-grounded one and hope it works.
That's all for now as I'm trying to conserve battery.

Pre-Departure Jitters

2006-01-04T23:26:00.000-06:00

So, it is Wednesday. I leave on Monday. I feel so unprepared. I feel as though I know no French, and that I am woefully unprepared to go on any sort of trip. My g/f has distracted me from my preparations (for which I have no regrets) and there is so much left to do. I need to sort out financial things, and although I keep telling my parents that there will be for sure, someone to meet me at the airport, I'm really not sure... It's just like finals, it feels so nice to forget about it and not prepare, but at the same time, I know that I will regret it.

I decided that for this big trip, I needed a big change, so what better to do that chop my hair off. I had nice, shoulder length hair, and now, well now, I have 2in long hair. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think I would like it except for the fact that every time I see my mother she says, "it's like I'm looking at myself" I don't think I like that... Maybe I should go dye it while I'm at it. Not enough money I suppose. My g/f says she didn't want me to do because she thinks it makes me look more butch than her. I'm trying to continue to be feminine. Makeup every day and fingernail polish. Maybe I should go get some sparkle stuff to keep the girlyness. Wait, I don't have any money. No sparkles... Oh well. What is done is done and this will have to do.

I probably won't post again until after I arrive in France, so wish me luck!

17 Ways to Improve My Life in Nantes

2005-12-27T16:15:00.000-06:00

I was going through my bedside table at the house and found this US News and World Report entitled "50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2005" (I am later adding to the list things from this year's 50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2006) I'm going to borrow from it and change it to be my plan for making life good in France. So here are my 17 Ways to Improve My Life in Nantes (I admit, Yukki's influence is definitely coming through. Is that good or bad? I am edging towards self-help land. She showed me this book, Blink; said I should read it. I keep seeing on "Books to read" lists. Maybe I should read it...) Anyways, my list:
1. Set Your Priorities (Learn the Nantes culture, learn more French, Travel, study IR if there is time hehe)
2. Meditate
3. Use Your Gray Matter
4. Grow a Plant (must see if this is allowed)
5. Listen to New Music
6. Read More Books
7. Fix Your Finances
8. Exercise
9. Get Sufficient Sleep
10. Eat Better (Greener Greens, Consider Cantaloupe, Wipe out White (breads, pastas, etc), Toss the Can (soda that is), Treat Yourself)
11. Live Healthy (Floss, Stretch, Wear the Right Shoes, Breathe, Take Vitamins)
12. Take Up Philosophy (Read "Plato, Not Prozac!" by Marinoff)
13. Volunteer (Get this to count for GA as well!)
14. Update Your Wardrobe
15. Forgive
16. Don't Let Tech Distract You
17. Be Fearful of Lying

So there is my list. Hopefully I'll be able to follow through. (Bizarre, Gavin DeGraw "Follow Through" playing right now) I'll try to post my progress.

My story

2005-12-26T13:13:00.000-06:00

I am a student at a small liberal arts college in the midwest of les états-unis. I will embark on 9 Jan 2006 for a semester at the University of Nantes in France. I will leave behind my friends, family and most importantly, my amazing girlfriend. I have been studying French for 7 years and for some reason, my professor thinks that my capabilites are such that I could directly enroll in a French University. I'm encountering much internal anxieties about this because I do not think myself capable, but I suppose we shall see. This blog shall be a record of my time in Nantes; the people, tastes, and cultural phenomenon I encounter while I am there as well as my own feelings as time passes.