French Bliss?

What do I remember of high school mathematics? Not a whole damn lot, that’s for sure. I never had enough audacity to raise my hand and ask “so, what exactly is the point of learning how to do a geometrical proof?” but I was always silently cheering for those who did. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only lessons that stayed with me were the ones that seemed at least half-way applicable to real life. One of them being that when dividing, no matter how close to zero you get, you will never quite reach it. This bit of common sense immediately struck me as analogous to a lot of things in life- the pursuit of happiness for example. Everything is perfect sauf...

Installer is a verb I just recently learned and one that I have begun to use with great frequency. It means: to settle in. C’est difficile d’installer ici. Je ne suis pas encore installer. Ce fait longtemps d’installer. ( It’s difficult to settle in here. I’m not settled in yet. It takes a long time to settle in). Now however, I am beginning to have certain moments where I really do feel- may I- -installed- in this city (thank you). I’ll be walking down the foliage lined streets with a scarf around my neck and a fresh croissant in hand- breathing in the crisp autumn air and enjoying the view of the glistening Rhone river. At these times, it’s as though I’m heading straight towards the ever elusive Zero of French Bliss. And this is when I will trip.

If not trip, then think that I’ve forgotten to turn my stove off (I never have, but I have a preternatural paranoia about burning down my apartment). Or otherwise, realize that I have forgotten to do something essential involving paperwork. Or whatever. The fact is- I have not had one boring day since I’ve been in France. And I should love this, right? In part, I do. On the other hand, I just want life to be predictable every now and then. Predictability can be boring, but it also puts you at ease. It allows you to sleep, to relax, to pay attention in class without thinking of the 35 million things you must do afterwards. I feel as though I must be really bad at this installation business, because after seven weeks in France, I still spend most of my time running errands. Each one seems to bring me a little closer to installation, but not quite. Actually, that’s not true. Some things I will accomplish only to discover out that they open the door to a milieu of further obligations. It’s so frustrating!

Luckily, I have a great group of friends. Friends who seem to find it more endearing than creepy when I break down in tears while trying to host a small evening gathering. Friends to drink coffee with at 8:30 am after our professor has yet again failed to turn up for our 8am class. Friends to go to McDonalds with when the internet isn’t working, and to get slowly enraged with when it fails to work at McDonalds, too. Friends with which I can share bottles of wine, wedges of cheese, notes from class, and crazy stories concerning the trials and tribulations of life in France. At the risk of sounding sentimental, I don’t know what I’d do without them.

My goal now, is to branch out a little, to get to know the people who live here. I finally got around to texting Elena, the Spanish girl who I met on the way to the metro station. We just had coffee together today—so great! Though she speaks very good French, she understands the difficulties of being a foreigner because she’s only lived here for a year, and didn’t know much French beforehand. Talking to her is just a really fun, non-intimidating way to learn the language- and that’s what I’m looking for.

I love the fact that all the exchange students bond while they’re here- there’s something almost poignant about the fact that we’re all on this same mission, struggling together. But I don’t want to only be friends with exhange students because it has an odd way of isolating you from authentic French life, of making the whole study abroad experience feel like an extended vacation rather than simply…life.

It is difficult, of course, when you’ve got severely compromised linguistic skills. You have to find people who are patient, and sometimes it feels like nobody here is. Especially when I wake up to a symphony of cars honking their horns on the street next to my residence—not exactly serene. Or when people shove past you to get onto the train. Or when the boulangere sighs loudly as you rummage through your purse to find those ever elusive centiemes that seem to be in surplus when you don’t need them and in hiding when you do. It’s hard not to let these sort of things slowly eat away at your morale, your resolve to succeed. But Elena was kind enough to teach me a very good phrase. Je m’en fous. What does it mean? Essentially: I don’t give a damn.

Go ahead and giggle when I mix up my tenses, or can’t find the button to open the tram doors, or ask you to repeat something . Je m’en fous.

But I fear that my tone here is bordering on defiant, caustic even. It doesn’t convey all the giddy pleasure that living here gives me, such as:

- walks through the Parc de la Tete d’Or

- or alternatively, feeding geese at the Parc de la Tete d’or, and watching little kids chase the geese, then proceeding to chase my friend who insisted that he didn’t “mind being chased” only to scream STOP STOP! when a group of us put that statement to test

- taking a boat down the Rhone river to a modern art exhibit (la Biennale)

- making droll comments about the general non-sensicality of the art exhibit with my friend

- dancing on a boat with friends (some of whom go all out on the dance floor)

- dinner parties—need I say more?

- Cramming lots of people into my little studio apartment for spontaneous parties that involve unofficial karaoke to Madonna

- Those moments in class when I really get what the teacher is talking about (okay, so that was a not-so-well-disguised attempt to counterbalance all the references to partying…but it’s true!)

Il parrait que ce pays m’avoir changé. Je pense toujours maintenant de les choses que je veux faire, les endroits que je veux voyager, les nouveaux choses que je veux apprendre. Pourquoi est-ce que c’est le cas? Je ne sais pas, mais quand-même, c’est très bon. Il parrait que ce change de la vie avoir ouvrit mes yeux des nouveaux possibilities. Il m’avoir montré qui je suis et ce que je veux vraiment. C’est fascinée, ce change. Je suis tellement heureause que j’ai decidé de ne rester pas à Chapel Hill. Bien sûr, Chapel Hill me manque- quelquefois plus que les autres. La semaine dernière, je ne pouvait cesser de la penser. Ohlala- le yogurt pump, les arbres, l’union des étudiants ou l’internet marche TRES TRES BIEN! Mais maintenant, je n’ai auncun désir d’y revenir. Ce me rend heureause parce que j’avais peur que je resterais comme ça pour la reste de ma visite. Mais c’était simplement une période, je peut voir maintenant. Et j’ai fini avec cette période là.

It seems this country has changed me. I’m always thinking now of the things I want to do, the places I want to travel, the new things I want to learn. Why is this so? I don’t know, but all the same it’s very good. It seems that this change in my life has opened my eyes to new possibilities. It has shown me who I am and what I really want. It’s fascinating, this change. I’m so happy that I decided not to stay in Chapel Hill. Of course, I miss Chapel Hill, sometimes more than others. Last week I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ohlala- yogurt pump, the trees, the student union where the internet works VERY VERY WELL! But now, I don't have any desire to return there. This makes me happy because I was afraid that I would feel like that for the rest of my stay. But it was simply a phase, I can see now. And I’m finished with that phase.

As always, please excuse the cheesiness. And the bad French.

L'écrivain en repos

For no apparent reason other than that I had Microsoft Word open today, I started looking through old files. It started with my interest being piqued by a document labeled “BAD redaction”—which turned out to be an essay I’d written for French class my freshman year of college, which included sentences like Je pense qu’ils sont interessant et j’aime leur parler. Il serait bon pour mon francais aussi. When at last, my mixed reaction of laughing and wretching came to an end, I proceeded to my writing folder to re-read some of my little old stories. Some, I realized, were frankly bad. Others I thought to be decent. But regardless, I couldn’t shake the feeling of how impossible writing seemed. It’s a feeling I get whenever I’ve slacked off and have stopped writing for awhile- that the Sisyphean boulder has indeed tumbled and I must start again from square one.

Of course, I didn’t expect to be writing as much here, especially for the first few weeks when I barely have time to shower. Then again, writing has a strange way of keeping me sane when my life is filled with one petty technicality after another. It feels lofty, even if I’m just twiddling my pen and staring at a blank page. But where does one find the time? This is always the question.

At least I gots my blog!

And speaking of which, I think it’s high time I wrote an entry with real substance. It’s just hard, because I have no idea where to start. I did however, write a long, detailed letter to my friend the other day, and would like to share some snippets here. Some of them don’t *entirely* make sense out of context, but that’s the fun!

I cannot begin to describe the chaos of the school system here. Whereas you have already finished mid-terms, I am not even officially registered in my courses. The classes are posted on the walls, and if there are any changes, they just post those on notes and hope you’ll find them. The course descriptions are found in a totally different area of the school. The syllabi are non-existent. The concept of “online registration” is so far out of these people’s realm of thinking, it’s laughable. There is ONE computer lab in the entire school, which is filled with mega-size computers that look like they belong in a historical museum, or your great-uncle’s toolshed. I walked into it with my friend Kat, from London, who immediately gasped, “Well, this isn’t PRIMITIVE!” Needless to say, we garnered some dirty looks.

But here’s one other crucial difference. The classes are actually…good!

And thank god! If after all that they were bad, I’d have to kill myself. But I find all of them really interesting. It’s definitely a struggle, since of course I find concentrating hard even in English, not to mention French. That’s compounded by the fact that my schedule is bizarre and I have classes, no joke, from 12-8pm on Thursday with just a half hour break. One is english but STILL. Luckily, I have Monday off. Everyone I know has been forced into this sort of insanity at least once a week due to the disorganized nature of the French system. I sort of had to choose between good classes or a good schedule, and I opted for the good classes. They’re not even smart enough to make sure there’s always a ten minute break in between classes. Thus I have a class that ends at 2 followed by one that begins a…2. What?But that’s always how it is…shit makes no sense because everyone’s too busy enjoying life to look into the details.

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So I’m supposed to be doing another presentation on Wednesday, on any subject I want. Got any suggestions. My German friend, Kathrin, cheekishly suggested that I do one on how much I love George Bush. You aren’t going to believe it, but there is a boy in my class from Georgia. He has THE WORST accent I have ever heard. I mean, he can’t even make his “h’s” silent. It’s shudder-worthy. What was his presentation on? “Le Sud Profond” of course! I. Am. Not. Joking. Sub-title “Les Vrai Etats-Unis”—a fifteen minute powerpoint glorifying the confederate flag and rednecks. I almost choked on the irony. At times like these, and others, such as when the other American boy in my surrealism class write things like “Salvador Dali-Lama” on his laptop in 72 point font, it becomes astoundingly obvious why the French hate us.

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Today my friend told me that in Germany they tell children their eyes will turn square if they watch too much television, and then their heads. So I asked, “what next? You’ll grow an antaenna?” and she was like “yes, like a teletubby!”

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God, as if flirting wasn’t hard enough in English- think about what it’s like in a language you barely know.

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I’ve never really understood the art of banter but let me tell you, between the drinks and the gay and the cracked out, I was MASTERING that shit!

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The next morning I had a 10:40 train to catch to Montpellier. I woke up feeling nauseated, and texted Kat asking if she was alive. She and I had drunkenly attempted to bike to the party, on the same bike, which of course had led to us falling off after about two minutes and stealing a ride on the metro instead.

Me: R u alive?

Kat: Juste.

Needless to say, I just barely caught my train and looked, felt and smelled terrible. For a few days, my hot water wasn’t functioning, so I didn’t take a shower for about 4 days straight, which is really nasty when you’ve danced in a smoky, crowded bar and walked all over the damn city. But I’m not complaining. Life’s exciting and as the Germans (apparently) say “you can sleep when you’re old.”

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Then there was Montpellier, where I saw the beach and my friend Chloe and another girl from my school, Jen who is a comparative litterature major also. We drank wine by a fountain and went to an Australian club to pee. Just as we were about to leave, “Smells like teen spirit” came on and we decided we had to stay at least for that. We saw a few guys doing air guitar, which somehow inspired us to do air violin, flute, clarinet, trombone and piano and because we were drunk, we almost died laughing at our own (very apparent) hilarity, though I’m not sure if the french boys were as amused.

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Last weekend, everything seemed to be going wrong and I just started crying as I was walking down the street. And then I thought I was going to be spending the night alone, but I ended up with eight people in my apartment. Eight hungry people who I was trying to feed with the resources in my little kitchenette. We called it a “depression era theme dinner.” I am about the clumsiest host on the planet and of course, actually dropping mousse and splattering it all over my legs at one point. But then we watched a film,a comedy of errors about a French exchange student called “l’auberge espagnol” and it was just what I and everyone else needed.

So that’s that. As a parting note, I would like to take this opportunity to inform the world that I have met a cute French boy. His name is Henri and we communicate very well. Why? Because he’s three years old! This babysitting job is like no other and I am delighted to say that I have now heard, for real, the phrase je fait du mal uttered from the lips of a child. I’m supposed to teach him English, but it’s hard not to get carried away speaking French to him, since it’s such good practice for me, too. Honestly, I have as much fun playing with this kid as I do on any date- making madelaines, flying toy aeroplanes- sometimes it’s nice to just get away from all the hassles of life and be a kid again.

But now, alas, it’s back to the daily grind.

So many events, so little internet

I am so content, it's not even funny. I have found the cafe of my dreams, a place called Raconte moi la terre. It's a fair trade cafe on top of a travel bookstore. Not only does it have free, and more importantly, functioning WIFI, it has peanut butter! I am not too pleased that I just payed 2euros for an ounce of coffee (what is UP with that? i'm all for moderation but really) but nonetheless, this means that I will soon be able to sit down and write a real entry before I forget all these crazy things that have been happening to me. For now, I will just offer this little rant I wrote the other day, about McDonald's.

Something very bad has happened- my internet has ceased to work. Entirely. I can now only get access in McDonalds. I go there every day now, sometimes twice a day. You may think that’s because I’m an internet addict. That’s partly true, but it’s mostly because I also have yet to get my French SIM card working, thus the internet is my primary mode of communication.

I just realized that that first paragraph was written rather tersely, reflecting all too well my sense of withdrawal.

As much as the French like to make fun of McDonalds as the emblem of shitty American cuisine, they sure don’t seem to mind it! At lunch time the place is packed and it’s definitely not just foreigners. If my ears are working correctly (and here, I can never be certain they are) I do believe that the voices humming around me as I crouch over my laptop are those of native speakers. But while the country has more or less succumed to the golden arches, it still won’t let its language anywhere near atrocities such as chicken nuggets. And there is no way in hell it is calling those yellow plastic squares we put on our hamburgers “fromage.” I can’t say I blame them, myself feeling that McDonald’s is terrible on many levels. I can understand this sort of reticence in a country where good food isn’t just valued, but practically held sacred. The French won’t go so far as to reject McDonald’s entirely, so long as one remembers that the food is absolutely not French.

All the same, it makes ordering quite awkward for an American gal such as myself. Do I really need to pronounce Chicken McNuggets in a French accent? I tried this the other day and ended up sounding like a drunk Scottish person. Another challenge was keeping a straight face while asking for a Croque McDo. All the while, I’m feeling as though the people there must think I’m some nostalgic American, ungrateful and ignorant about France’s great cuisine. I want to say je suis ici uniquement pour le WIFI but that will probably just pique, rather than placate, their suspicions. Moreover, I’d be insulting them. You can’t win! Really though, I have to say that McDonald’s is about the one place I can count on for friendly service. And even if it makes me a terrible person, I do kinda like those fries…