guests, guests, and more guests!

This blog has been written for weeks, I swear!! I’m just having a hard time getting is posted!! So I decided to try at the Accent office. Also, I'm working on typing up a blog about Europeans, so I promise that's coming next!!! Sorry for the huge delay in this!

***

Wow, I can't believe I have about three weeks to catch up on! Sorry about being so bad about posting, but things have been incredibly busy, of course, in the month of March!

I guess I'll start with Mom's visit! I was in school all day, so she ended up coming straight to Creteil to meet me. After she finally got here (which is another story that doesn't really have a place here since in the end she got here just fine!) we walked around Creteil for a little while, but she started to get too tired so I had to send her back to Paris. Eventually I got back from school and woke her up, and we had some bread and cheese and wine (of course, the perfect welcome to Paris meal) and then just hung out for a while (which ended up kind of being the rule of the week, which was fine with us!). On Thursday we went shopping a little (there turned out to be a suitcase mishap that merited some replacement clothing...) and then got some coffee and went back to the apartment to make dinner. Eventually we got to the Musee d'Orsay, which is open until almost ten on Thursday nights, and that was really superb to do again. We saw all the impressionists, and I got to see Courbet's stuff (yaaaay!), the room was still closed and the paintings were being rennovated, but they were out this time. On Friday morning we got Mom's suitcase, yay, and then we went over to the neighborhood where I have Finnish and stuff to get crepes from the awesome crepe guy over there. I ended up going to the Nordic library for a couple hours while Mom went to the Pantheon and walked around the neighborhood more. Then we got some Greek food and went home for one of the most excellent dinners EVER! On Saturday, Anne's parents came up from Orleans and we got an awesome lunch at this restaurant in Faidherbe. Then we went to the Institut du Monde Arabe for the exhibit about the Phoenicians, which had lots and lots of artifacts but not very much explanation, so in the end it was not the best thing I ever saw. But of course it was still great to see Anne's parents! On Sunday I had to do work again, so Mom went to the Orangerie even though it was disgustingly cold and gross (what a brave Momma!) and I worked on my Saint Bridget paper. Monday I went to school and Mom tried to do all sorts of things that ended up being weirdly closed (like Pere Lachaise cemetery)...so it was good when I came back and we got to hang out. Then it was already Tuesday, I don't know how the week passed so fast, but then we had to go to the airport and put Mom on a plane! Afterward I had to go to work, but that was okay because otherwise I just would have sat around and moped the whole day... it was a great visit, of course, but way too short!!!!!

I did a bunch of work the next weekend, which was good, I guess. On Friday night (the 14th) I went to this AMAZING choir concert at this church in the 4th arrondissement, it was this mixed choir that one teacher (not an English teacher) from one of my schools sings in, they did Bach and someone else...it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. The church is from the 16th century or so, with a huge ceiling and everything, so the sounds of the choir just echoed perfectly, and the arrangement was wonderful, and there was even an accompanying chamber orchestra! It was really fantastic. Plus the director looked like he was about my age! It was SO impressive, I absolutely loved it! And I had a nice walk back afterward, since I wasn't really too far away. Also, on the way back in front of the Opera, I actually saw Fabrizio (from that wacky party a few months ago!) but I wasn't really sure it was him so I didn't say anything. But he called me the next day to say that he thought it was me, it was pretty hilarious.

Jeff got here on Sunday in the morning, so I went to meet him at the airport because I'm just so amazingly nice. Then I took him around the Marais for a while because that's a nice place to walk around on a Sunday, and then I came back and did some work while he went to the Centre Pompidou. Monday was school...Tuesday was work...Wednesday was school...Thursday work...phew! A normal week, I guess. On Thursday night I met up with Jeff at the Musee d'Orsay, which was amazing again. Then Friday I had Finnish, and then I went to the Nordic Library again to continue work on Saint Bridget. Friday night we went to the Louvre, which was just ridiculous and I kind of realized how...I don't even know what the right word is. It's just that everything in the Louvre is so classical and dry and so is the building itself, and it's just SO enormous that it's impossible to get that much out of one visit because everything's so overwhelming. So we did some sculptures and the ancient Levant, and then we got to the Egyptian section, but I was already way to tired to enjoy it. Luckily I can go back whenever I want...and I think I will to just do the Egyptian section one day, cause there was an awesome mummy and a whole Book of the Dead that I want to scour...

So Saturday I went to the airport again because Jeff left, and then I came back and worked. Then Sunday was great because I went to this photo exhibit with Mme Bluteau from one of my schools, it was this French guy named Edouard Boubat, and his photos were just extraordinary. He went all over the world and just took amazing shots. Then we saw a couple other photographers' exhibits, and they were also great. I didn't even know this museum existed! It's the European House of Photography, and it's in the Marais, so not too far from where I live.

After the museum, we went to meet Amanda at the Gare d'Austerlitz. Then we sat and had a coffee and some lunch, and then we went back to drop off Amanda's stuff and read over my St Bridget essay, which is now close to being completed (yay!). Then we went and walked around for a while longer, around by the Seine and into the 4th arrondissement. Afterward, Amanda and I came back and made dinner. Then today we went on this excellent walking tour of Paris, it was about 4 hours long and the guide was great. It's this group that does free tours, and the guides work off of tips, so they have to be pretty good and entertaining, and this guy was super. He told all these wacky stories and knew a lot of the great history things that I already knew about, but I learned a whole lot and saw a lot of places I hadn't really been to before. So it was really worth it. We met this nice British guy named Mickey and this Canadian girl named Amber, so we went out with them afterward for a little while. Then we came back to work and have dinner and plan out Amanda's day tomorrow. Now I'm working on Saint Bridget, I'm getting so close to having it all done, and then I'll either start on Versailles or on geography! Woo hoo!!

Check out Snapfish for more pictures, and let me know if you need the link! Sorry again for the delay in the post, and I promise things will get better soon!

un automatisme psychique

It's been an incredibly busy past few weeks, with lots and lots of classes and then lots of fun on the weekends. I'm currently on winter break from work, so that has been superb, except for the fact that I ended up with a winter bug that prevented me from being any kind of productive on the days I was off. But I'm getting to work now, I have 4 papers due over the course of March, so I've got my work cut out for me...

I guess I will start with last Saturday, when I went to Versailles with Margaux. She's in my Vikings class and she's actually American, but French American (her Mom's French and her Dad's American) and she grew up in France, so she's much more French than American. Anyway she's doing a double major in history and literature (double majors are really uncommon here) and she really likes 17th century French history, so she was a great person to go to Versailles with! She knows a lot about it and its history, so it was really an interesting and I think useful visit (one of the papers I'm turning in is about Versailles, which was why I wanted to go see it in the first place). We walked around the gardens first for a long time, then went up to the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon (where Marie Antoinette spent a lot of her time), and then we did the castle, which to be honest isn't that huge but there's so much stuff everywhere that it's overwhelming anyway. There was actually an exhibit going on about when the castle was furnished in silver, and they had all this wild silver furniture everywhere...but because of that the rooms were all dark and it was kind of hard to see some of the other art that was there. Plus there were a million people, mostly large groups of tourists. But it was cool to see how intensely ornate the place is...it's incredible. Though to be honest the Grand Trianon was my favorite part because the rooms there are in so many excellent colors and the furniture is really just awesome. It was a little less staged than the rest of the castle, I guess. Plus there were fewer people...always a plus! Anyway, after that, we went to walk around the town for a while and to get some cakes, which were delicious, but it took us forever to find a place to sit so we really saw the entire town. There's not actually much exciting there outside of the small downtown section near the castle, which is quite nice. Otherwise, there are lots and lots of houses....! Overall it was lots of fun as well as being educational (thank you Margaux!) and I think it'll give me a better jumping off point for the paper I have to write. I hope, anyway...

The next fun thing that happened was on Thursday (well, I saw Anne and Greg on Wednesday and we went out, that was fun, but not as exciting as the next bit...) when I went to the Caves for the Medieval party. It's this bar that's really like caves (ok, it was a little claustrophobic...) with wooden tables and lit with candles and everything. You had to wear a costume, so I got to dress up and stuff, though most people had real Medieval style costumes, which is really cool. They have dancing, but I couldn't really follow it because they do a class before the party and I couldn't go because I had regular class, so I didn't get to dance. But it was still really fun to watch and the music was really cool. I also drank some wine with blueberry and this weird rhubarb juice that was actually delicious! It was fun because there were a bunch of people that I knew from class there as well as some other people from school so it was a good time. Plus I got a ride home at the end, though it's honestly about a 20 minute walk from me (except that I got lost on the way there...how embarassing!). Hopefully next time they go I will be able to go again!

On Friday I had Finnish, which was great, of course, and then I saw Anne and we went to this great little cafe next to where I have Finnish. They have all kinds of teas and coffees and it's really cheap! Then afterward I saw Alex Stegmaier, who I went to Finland with almost 5 years ago (!) and who I saw like twice in DC last year (he's at GW) and who was in Paris this weekend (he's studying abroad in Germany)!!!! We met up at the Eiffel Tower and he and his friends took pictures there for a really long time, and then we got some food at this good panini stand I knew (it's in Cecile's old neighborhood!) and then we all split off for a while. I met back up with them in the evening, we were going to go out around Bastille but it was too expensive for them, so we ended up just buying a bunch of wine and drinking it in my room...there were 12 people in my room or so, so it was pretty ridiculous. Alex's friends are really nice, though, and Alex is still totally crazy, so it was great. Some of the kids decided to go to the salsa party next door later, but some of the other ones didn't want to, so we went back out to Bastille, but the bars were all closing, so they just ended up going back to their hotel. Needless to say I went straight to bed after that...it was a bit later than I was planning but it was a really enjoyable night!

Saturday was another busy day, I did a bunch of work in the morning and then went to the Louvre with some people from school. There's this special exhibition of statues you can touch, it's a special thing for blind people or for people who don't see well, so they were taking their friend who's 'malvoyant' to see that. Unfortunately it was not really that exciting, it was really small and there was not that much to touch. So we ended up just walking around and trying to see other stuff, but we didn't actually find much of what we were looking for. But it was still fun, the people were all really nice (I only actually knew one girl) and I got my 'art history student' permanent card so I can always get in for free at the Louvre!

Saturday night, Margaux had a party at her place, which is out near Creteil...it was fun for a while, the people were really nice and everything, but I didn't know anyone so of course it was hard to just start talking with people. There were a bunch of Erasmus students there for a while but after they left I felt so awkward and I was really tired, so I ended up going to bed pretty early (luckily some other people went to bed before me, so I didn't look like a jerk!) and leaving early this morning so I could get back and get to work. Not necessarily the best start to the week but I'm sure I'll be fine by Wednesday!!!!!

Only three more days till Mom gets here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, I added some new pictures to the Bonne Annee album on Facebook!

Hyvää Ystävänpäivää!!!

OK, so I guess it's a little late for that, but still....

Things have been incredibly busy here , and I don't think they will lighten up at all in the coming weeks! It's pretty packed going to and from Creteil every day...I don't really mind it, but man, I have NO desire to work when I get back in the evenings...so needless to say I've had a lot of catch-up work these past weekends. But I've still been doing some fun things in between, because it's not good either just to work all the time! Work and classes are both going well, and Mom will be here in like 2 weeks, so YAAAAAY!!!! Also, starting the 23rd are my 'winter holidays' from work for 2 weeks. I'll have the first week of March off from Censier and nothing off from Creteil. So weird the way these things work here...

Last weekend I went out on Saturday with my friend Adam, he's from near Krakow and I met him in European studies. I can't remember if I mentioned him before...either way he's going to go to the US next year to study in California or in NY, so he makes me speak English so he can practice. It was SUCH a nice day, so we went over to this park in the 19th, le parc de Buttes Chaumont, which is totally awesome. It's huge, I'm not entirely sure how it's set up but there are a bunch of hills and a lake and rock structures and stuff. It was really great. Then we walked around that neighborhood a little bit, had a drink in a bar next to the Canal St Martin, which I hadn't seen before, and then I went back. It was really nice to get out with someone who I don't usually hang out with, and also to see a part of town that I don't know at all! On Sunday I went to see Anne's competition, where she did a duo, not a team, with a girl named Emilie that I met at the tournament at the end of last year. I thought their routine was so cool, but the other two duos were cleaner, so they were third. It was really neat to watch, though, there are so many neat things they do as a pair!

The week was good, normal...lots of school, lots of work...at Victor Hugo on Tuesday, they had crepes for lunch because the 4e E, apparently a terrible class, wasn't there...it seemed kind of strange but the crepes were good so it was nice! On Thursday I went to lunch with Amel, we wanted to get veggie couscous but they put meat in with the vegetables so we got salads instead, which was a little bit boring but okay anyway (better than meat...). Friday I saw Anne in the morning, when she told me to not waste my time even going to London, that I should really just spend all the money and time in Ireland....which is kind of where I'm leaning anyway. I guess we'll see, that trip's to be planned next!

On Saturday Guillaume from Victor Hugo (he teaches physical sciences) invited me out with his friend Audrey, we walked around Paris for a really long time, right next to the Seine, it was so nice. Then we went and had coffee, which was also lovely. They are both really nice and not creepy, I promise. :-) Today I went to the market and got lovely things to make tofu scramble only to come back to find that the tofu was totally gross, so I just ate the vegetables instead. Otherwise I have just been working all day! Being veeerrry productive, it's lovely.

I guess it's not the most interesting post in the world, but it has been a good few weeks since I've been back!

She wasn't serious, she was just Canadian!

Apologies for not having posted anything in so long. I guess I didn't really think anyone would want to read a play-by-play of what I've been studying. Basically since I got back, I've just been working on preparing for exams, going to my last classes, and registering in Creteil.

Well, I have been to each class twice so far in Creteil, and I like them all. I'm taking Geography of France, which has a lecture class and a smaller class where we do more student work, State and Society in France in the 17th century, Scandinavian society at the end of the Middle Ages (also known as the Vikings class), and Europe in the 1920s. I'm also continuing with the second half of History of Rock (I had that exam last week, I did well!) and Finnish, which started today - they changed the hour without telling me! So it's a pretty full schedule and the workload will be significantly larger than last semester, but hopefully it'll go well! I'm hoping that will work to my advantage.

Work is about the same, I'm working with a lot of 3e groups preparing for their final exam at the end of the year. I think they will do well, they already seemed pretty well prepared. They have plenty of time, but I guess it's a pretty big deal, so the professors are already putting pressure on them (and me, I get to work an extra hour each day with a group I otherwise wouldn't see!) but I think they'll do okay.

Last weekend was wonderful, I took a huge break, it was amazing! well, Friday was still pretty busy, I went to see Anne (who made the subject line comment talking about how impossible it is for French people to take anything Canadian seriously...they are worse than Americans toward Canada, I swear!) and then got my first exam back and then saw Anne again for dinner at night. She made me quenelles, which are a specialty from Lyon, they were weird but yummy! We also watched some videos from her rhythmic competition that was the weekend I got back - it was the French championship and she got third! She really did well. It was cool to see the videos again.

On Saturday I hung out in the morning and then took a bike ride to the Musee d'Orsay, which was just phenomenal. I didn't see the whole thing because it's way too huge, but it was just awesome. Of course I saw the impressionists, it was so, so amazing to see their stuff in real life. It's so much more beautiful than in any picture. And there weren't too many people there, which was nice. I also saw an exhibit about Art Nouveau which was just phenomenal, it was full rooms made of wood with the most incredible furniture and glasswork in a really neat style. I also went to the temporary exhibit of Hodler, which was interesting but not entirely amazing. Some of the stuff was great, others I wasn't really interested in. I saw all the Rodin and Claudel sculptures, and then I saw a few other paintings. The Courbet room is closed until like 2016, or something terribly far away like that, which I am incredibly bummed out about. At least I saw everything else!

After that I went to the Musee Maillol (he was a sculptor, he sculpted the same naked women with different fruit or crowns or flowers...not the most amazing art I've ever seen in the sense of variety...oh well) for an exhibition about Germany in World War I. It was the last weekend, so there were about a thousand people, but it was really a fantastic exhibit. Not any fun, just depressing, but really neat art and incredible perspective.

Then I went back on my bike for dinner and then I (gasp) went to a party! Before I left, I met this really nice German guy named Christoph, who is a friend of Tytti's, who invited me over for this party. There were all German and Italian kids there, they were SO nice and really interesting - some of them had been there for a while and some had just arrived, so there was a cool mix. I had so much fun that I stayed until 5:30 in the morning and got the first metro back with Francesco and Fabrizio, two of the Italian guys. And then there was an accident on the line we were on so we had to take another one! It was weird...and I was really tired! But I saw Anne at noon anyway for a falafel, she thought it was hilarious that I had been out all night. We went in the Marais for falafel, there are a million places but the one we went to was definitely excellent.

This week was great, I started talking to some of the kids in my classes and they are really nice. In one part of my Vikings class there is a really nice girl who's American, or at least her father is, and we have a ton in common, she's great ! It's cool to actually talk to the kids in my class! On Thursday I had History of Rock, I started talking to one of the girls there too! Also, the professor pointed me out in the middle of class when a kid asked about what the songs meant and said that I was 'anglophone' ... then I turned totally red. At least I kicked that exam's butt. :-)

I've discovered how amazing Paris is by bike. It's been so much fun riding all over the place (though I did get completely turned around on my way to Finnish, I missed the bridge I was supposed to cross somehow!) and seeing Paris from a different perspective. The traffic is amazing, the number of almost accidents I have seen (not with me!) is unreal, today I almost saw a bus plow over a car but the driver stopped with centimeters to spare. Moving at the speed of a bike and paying attention to a totally different set of surroundings has been a really fun experience. The Velib system is great, I only had a crappy bike one time, but otherwise they are not bad! Though when I get home my bike is going to feel as light as a feather...

This weekend will be a little less exciting, I'm going to one of Anne's competitions on Sunday - she's doing a team ! and then I am seeing some other people at some point. I promise I'll post more often from now on!

Mais c'est un sac, quand meme, c'est gratuit!

Oh yeah, and Bonne Annee!

I've been back in France for a week now, and it sort of feels like I haven't been gone at all (maybe partially because Christmas break seemed like it was about 2 days long...). The day after I got back, I started working again, and the day after I started class again. I've got three classes to finish out, two of which will be having exams and then one with a presentation and final paper. I went over to Creteil university last Thursday, and the woman who works with exchanges there is really nice and HELPFUL (something the people at Censier really weren't, ever), so hopefully this week I'll get to start registering and everything for that.

On Friday I saw Sasha in the morning, which was nice, and then I went to the library for like 4 hours to do research for my paper. Afterward I went to see Anne and Greg, and then we went to see some of their friends. It kind of sucked, because it was 3 couples and me, and I guess Greg knew the guys from growing up, but I kind of missed out on the 'how everyone knows everyone' thing and 'what are you doing with your life thing,' so it was not really possible to get involved in their conversations at all...plus they use all kinds of youth slangy words that eventually I just can't follow. So I kind of gave up trying to participate in their conversations...then we almost missed the last metro back, and they lived across town. Anyway I was pretty happy to get back, though then it was 3 a.m. and I couldn't sleep, I'm not really sure why. Either way, Saturday was nice and fairly productive, Cory came over to watch Once and I got out of going to the Sales at la Defense with Faima (who was insisting on having lunch at McDonalds at 11 a.m., so I just said that I had too much work. Lame excuse, but honestly I don't need anything, and I don't really want to go shopping with the entire population of Paris and its suburbs on a Saturday morning...

Sunday was great, I went to the market in the morning with the intention of getting some cheese, some bread, some pita and some grapefruit...I came back with a half kilo of cherries, a kilo of apples, three grapefruits, two kinds of cheese, hummos and pita, mint leaves, and a half a baguette. Oh, and a huge cloth bag with the name of the market on the side, I thought I had to buy it but the guy just gave it to me...hence the title of the blog. I always go there to get one or two things and come back with so much more, but it's so cheap and so delicious that it's always worth it.

Then I went over to Mme Philippeau's (one of the English teachers at Louis Issaurat) to celebrate la galette des rois (where they eat king cake, which is a pastry filled with marzipan, and there's a bean hidden inside and whoever gets the bean is the king or queen and has to choose their queen or king. We actually did it at Louis Issaurat on Thursday and I got a bean and a lovely Star Wars crown, but luckily I didn't have to choose a king!!!). Anyway her father was there, he's 83 and totally French, I had lots of fun talking with him. Aude from Louis Issaurat and her boyfriend Jean-Christophe came, too. Aude and Mme Philippeau got the beans, (there were two cakes mixed together so two beans) and we drank really good cider from Bretagne. It was really a nice time, it was so nice of her to invite me there. Her house is awesome, too, it's got a great garden and awesome art and books everywhere.

Afterward, I went to the movies with Adam, a guy from my European studies classes (he's Polish, studying in France for a while, going to the US next year for a study abroad) and we were going to see Into the Wild but it had already started when we got there, so we went to see Atonement instead, which I really liked, though it really wasn't what I expected. I guess I didn't actually know what the story was about, but anyway it was really well done and the acting was fantastic.

Today is just working, seeing Anne and Jean-Francois and Verena later and going to the avant premiere of Juno at Censier! Yay!

BONNE NOUVELLE!!!

Censier is OPEN! This means that we have class this week, and they're going to push our exams back a week or two so we have extra time to study. Woo (I guess)! Though my one European studies class seems to have gone kaput, the professor didn't even show up today and she already gave us some other work to do for the grade instead. At least I've got my other two classes!

I'm still planning on switching schools next semester, I might go to see Paris 12 (in Creteil) tomorrow if I have time. But at least I'll get grades for this semester, yay!

one more week!

Since I've only got one more week till I get to go home (YAY!) I figured I should probably give one more quick update about what's been going on here. Well, my school is closed now, not just blocked, and I'm not sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure there are no exams this year...or something. Tomorrow my independent study is due, so I'm going in to talk to MICEFA about everything. I'm looking at going to the university in Creteil next semester and taking history classes. They have some pretty interesting ones, so as long as I can get that to work out with my work schedule, I'll be good to go.

Germany was amazing, it would take forever to list all the details here, but I really had a wonderful time. Aachen is a really fun city, and Monschau was really easy to get to. The Christmas markets are really just sort of big parties with lots of food and lots of warm wine. Unfortunately it rained all weekend long, which was sort of a disappointment because being outside and wet for many hours isn't great fun. Luckily there were no other major mishaps, and it was definitely a relaxing weekend, though I was pretty tired when I got back to Paris at 10 at night on Monday...

The week went normally, I got to see Faima on Saturday, which was nice but we went shopping at La Defense and it was just insane...there were so many people, and her friend was there with her baby, so it was really slow going and I was exhausted by the end of the day. Luckily I got some cool presents...then Cory came over last night a little bit. On Thursday we hung out, and we thought there was a concert at Notre Dame, but it was really just the telling of the Christmas story...some other MICEFA kids were there but they were all drunk (surprise surprise) so we left to get hot chocolate. We went to this place right next to the Finnish institute and I saw my Finnish professor through the window! So weird. On Friday we took Cecile to lunch as a little going away party, and we went to this excellent cous cous place that had the best mint tea EVER.

Today I was supposed to go to have dinner at one of my teacher's houses (one of the English teachers from Creteil) but her dad is there and apparently he's quite old and tired today, so she cancelled...so I'm probably going to go ice skating with Cory instead! Yay! Otherwise nothing too exciting has happened, I'm ready to get this school stuff worked out and to go home!!!!

So I'm a fascist now...

I thought I should probably write another post about this week before going on my crazy adventure in Germany this weekend. Tuesday was a little ridiculous, we were supposed to start making up the time we missed for one of my European studies classes, but then of course the students voted to reblock during the AG on Tuesday afternoon (I was in Creteil, of course, and couldn't go) so nothing. I went to Finnish movies instead, which was great and I saw a great film called 'No Man is an Island' which is about the director's father who lives alone on an island, and it was really well made and absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately that's the last Finnish movie of the season, so now I have to wait till spring to go again.
Wednesday was equally as ridiculous. When I was at Censier on Tuesday, I saw two girls from my class and they told me to come back for class on Wednesday to see if we could de-block the school. So I went with Kristen from MICEFA and Tytti, and there were probably 40 or so people there as well as our professor. We all got in a group, some girls thought we could probably force our way in because we had so many people and there weren't that many blockers, but the professor said no so that no one would get hurt. We all walked up to the school and said we wanted to go in, which was when all the blockers started calling us fascists. The professor went in, I'm assuming it was to see if it was possible to get a room, but when he came back out they started calling us fascists again and said he was a 'con' (which is a not nice way to call someone stupid) and began to argue with the professor in the most disrespectful way I've ever seen! All of the students were yelling at him, and some crazy professor too, it was ridiculous. But the prof's reaction was great...when they said we were fascists, he was just like, 'Fascists were groups that developed in the 20s and 30s after World War I in Europe, not students that want to go to school.' Either way, several people came around and tried to explain to us stupid folks who can't understand the blockage cause geez, if we just understood then we wouldn't be trying to go to class, but they annoy me so much because they just talk to us like we don't know what's going on, when just about all of us have gone to AG's and have read up and definitely do know what's going on. So that was unsuccessful. and we didn't have class.
Thursday I went to work and it was nice, I had some new kids and they weren't bad, they were really, really excited to talk to me. Thursday afternoon I went to a Conseil de classe, which is something they do every trimester to tell the kids how they're doing. It was really interesting, especially since it's a class that I have and that I like, it was neat to see how they do in other classes and what they do to the bad kids.
On Thursday night I went to a Finnish independence day party! It was at Roosa's, she's Tytti's friend and she's in the European studies master program. It was so fun, we watched the ball on some internet station (there's always a big ball at the presidential palace and all the important people in Finland go and talk about how much they love Finland) and we ate some Finnish food and Tytti and Roosa sang songs in Finnish. They were the only two Finns, there were 2 French guys, three German guys, and a Ukrainian girl, so it was pretty interesting. I even spoke a little Finnish with Tytti and Roosa, which was so fun! and I figured it was good practice for my exam today.
I had my Finnish exam, it went well, I made one mistake for sure but the rest was good. Now I've just been getting ready to leave this weekend! I'll definitely post again next week when I get the chance!

Train toilets, mummies, and a carte de sejour!

It's really been a long time since i posted last, and a ton has happened since then, too! Most importantly, it's December and there's less that three weeks till I go home!!!!! Technically (well, according to the student mobilization website, I don't know if that's 'technical' or not) my school is still blocked, but on Thursday there was a secret ballot vote that the president called for - most people (students, professors, workers...) boycotted it because the General Assemblies rejected a secret ballot vote three times, so only about 3,000 people voted (out of a lot more, I can't remember how many), but of course they voted to de-block! But I haven't been back since Thursday night, when they were having a little protest in front of the school against the vote, and there was no class. Thursday afternoon there was an enormous student protest at Bastille, I saw it on my way over to Censier after work. Hopefully I'll find out something more today and maybe will have class on Wednesday...
There doesn't seem to have been any more protests in the suburbs, but evidently they're trying to tighten security around the schools in Creteil...I guess we'll see where that goes! Hopefully things stay calm.
On Friday I went to Anne's for dinner, which was nice. We were going to go out afterward but then we were both tired and feeling lazy so we just hung out and talked for a while. It's going to suck not seeing her for two weeks! It's so weird still, though, because the first time we met, I was with her for about 2 months straight, and then I didn't see her again for 5 years, and now I see her almost every week! It's awesome, but still kind of weird to have a sort of 'normal' friendship ; I've always considered her one of my best friends but we've never had this kind of a seeing-each-other-all-the-time friendship! Hopefully we'll get to go to Orleans soon, too!
Saturday I went to Amiens with Sasha, it was a really fun day! We left at 8 in the morning and didn't get back until 7 p.m., so it was a bit long, but I had fun. The train had Hogwarts Express-style compartments, which was awesome, and I used the train toilet for the first time - there's no flush, it's just a hole...you can watch the ground rushing by if you like...it's only a little cold...also it's not like on an airplane where there's not usually too much motion...I almost fell several times! Anyway we got into Amiens at 9, and we went to the tourist office and got a map and figured out what to do. We went to the cathedral first, it's the tallest Gothic cathedral in France, or something, and it's from the 13th century. The outside is beautiful, but I have to say that overall the cathedral at Chartres was much more stunning. There weren't as many windows or little chapels inside, and outside the architecture was not very exciting, compared to Chartres. The labyrinth inside was really cool, though, and actually the floor overall was really interesting. After that we decided to go to the Musee de Picardie (Picardie is the region that Amiens is in) , which was by far one of the best museums I've ever seen. There was a whole archeology section, and I got to see a MUMMY!!!! It was AMAZING. There were sections about ancient Egypt, Greece, the Gauls, the Romans (Amiens used to be a Gallo-Roman town) - apparently the Romans were into glasswork! So they had all kinds of cool glass, as well as stuff from the old baths and another dead guy, this time the skeleton of a warrior and all the stuff he was buried with. Then there were a painting galleries and a lot of sculptures, which were so awesome because you could walk up literally right next to them, I almost touched a few because I wanted to know what the marble felt like...but I was really good! Anyway it was just one of those great museums where there's enough of a variety that it's really interesting, but there's not too much stuff that it's overwhelming.
After the museum, we walked around the Christmas market for a while (apparently this is becoming popular in France in all the major cities) , and I had a hot-off-the-grill Liegeois waffle for lunch (the best kind of waffle there is...mmm...). It was a cute market, there was a lot of kind of random stuff but it was nice. In the morning there weren't too many people, but by the afternoon and before we left it was so packed, I couldn't really handle it...anyway we moved on to the Quartier St Leu, which is pegged in the city's brochures as 'The Venice of the North,' it's a little neighborhood that's built around whole bunch of canals. The houses are mostly older, some are half-timbered style, and it's really, really cute. We walked around there for quite a while, and then we went to the Parc St Pierre, which is a really big park on the edge of the town. Normally in the summer they have this thing called 'Les Hortillonnages,' floating gardens, and you can take boats all through the rivers and canals and see the gardens. Of course now it was just muddy and cold, but we saw the boats and walked around the lake a little. It was very nice, even if it did almost start to rain and begin to get really, really cold. I got so tired, too, I'm not sure if Sasha still had energy, but we were just killing time in stores before going to the train station, and I couldn't do that for very long. So we ended up sitting in the train station for an hour, which was fine and a little warm, but we got on the train as soon as possible and I think I even fell asleep on the way back. So overall it was a nice day, I'm really glad we went!
On Sunday I went to the Musee du Quai Branly with Mme Bluteau from Victor Hugo. It's the museum that Chirac dedicated a few years ago, it's sort of a 'civilisations of the world' type of museum. It's really huge, though, and strangely set up so that there are a million different artifacts that are all really interesting, but there's almost no information about them. Also, it's really hard to read the descriptions of each thing because all the text will be on one tiny plaque on one side for an entire case of artifacts. While the stuff they had was awesome, I really didn't learn anything at all, which was disappointing. Luckily, because it was the first Sunday of the month, it was free, so I didn't waste any money. Afterward it was absolutely pouring rain and really windy, we got lunch in a cafe near there and then headed back to Gare de Lyon. Then I did a little homework and had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which was perfect!
Today I went to the Prefecture and I got my carte de sejour! I can legally live here until April, yay! No hassle, almost no waiting, it was a very atypical visit to the Prefecture. I'm kind of glad that's all over and done with now, I have to say... Now I'm all set to go to Germany this weekend! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I can't believe that after this weekend I'll have been to Germany as many times as I've been to France! I need to practice my German...
I have my Finnish exam Friday! Why am I so excited...?

Moushin & Larami, je pense à vous...

Sorry for the lack of, well, anything in the past week or so. Everything here feels like it's out of whack, with Thanksgiving & not being home for it for the first time in my life, not having class until who knows when, and planning a trip to Germany that's been way more of a hassle than I had bargained for. While the transport strike is technically over (meaning they're still in negotiations, no one's really satisfied, but the train unions thought they'd try to get the French back on their side by giving them some mobility for a bit), the blockage at my university is continuing with no real end in sight. I've been working again, trying a little to get into a new rhythm but it's not that easy when I'm never really sure what will be happening each day.

Paris sort of feels like a powder keg right now. The threat of the transport strike starting anew, the potential of fac-blocking students attempting to take over the whole city, or restless suburban youth who have once again decided that lots of fires and riots is the only way to get revenge for the deaths of more young people at the hands of police are all contributing to this tension I feel mounting. This time, in Villiers-le-Bel (a suburb to the north of Paris), two more young boys (15 & 16) were riding too fast and without helmets on a motorbike (which, in the first article I read, was allegedly stolen, but that accusation seems to have disappeared...) and crashed into a police car. It seems easily enough to be just another tragic death, but this is a Paris suburb - only hours after the accident, riots broke out, and by today 80 policemen had been injured and a large number of buildings - including a library, I want to add - had been burnt down and busted up. It's the same story as two years ago, two young boys with non-French names die, their neighbors take to the streets, set cars and buildings on fire and attack police with whatever they can find - including guns. It's the same questions, only different words : did the police chase Bouna and Zyed into the power station where they met their deaths simply because the police are inherently against all non-White French people (or at least because these policemen had bad intentions)? Or did those kids have something to hide, be it the fact that they didn't have their papers or something worse? This time, it's, did the police hit the kids head on and then leave them at the scene to die? Or did they actually steal the bike, and, in their haste to get away, hit the side of the police car while going way too fast? None of these questions will ever have answers, but it's obvious who is on which side. Now, it's just a matter of how far it'll go this time. It's the same spark, will it set off another wave of riots till all of France is consumed? Will Sarkozy answer again by calling these kids thugs and criminals, while he's the one taking away all their future jobs to buy airplanes in China? I'm not saying that huge riots are the right way to answer things ; it doesn't take long until people start dying and rioters burn up an old lady because she's on a bus and they couldn't wait for her to get off to set it on fire. I'm just saying that Sarkozy's response to the riots in 2005 was less than sufficient and certainly less than respectful, which I imagine doesn't make suburban kids want to kill police any less. Anyway, I hope I'm jumping the gun this time and that someone will act in a positive way before I start seeing the burnt-up shells of cars in Creteil.

Sorry to leave such a downer, but I've been thinking about it a lot.

On the other hand, I apparently have friends : Vegetable Man and Nighttime/Sunday Market Man. Vegetable Man's from the market, obviously he sells me vegetables, but he is really nice and always remembers me and talks to me about Bush and Sarkozy being friends. Nighttime/Sunday Market Man works at the market that's across the street that is open at all the times that every other market is inconveniently closed, and the other day I saw him in the street and he recognized me, and then this evening he told me I am the only American who speaks French well. Anyway the point wasn't to talk about weird people in my neighborhood, just the fact that people in my neighborhood know me as that American girl who speaks French well...it's pretty cool. It makes this place feel a little more welcoming when I've got people I can strike up a conversation with regularly.

Oh, and I wanted to tell a tale called French Bureaucracy at its Finest. It has to do with banks and transfering money to another country. I'm not at all sure how that works in the US, so my first transfer ever being done in another country/language was probably not the best foot to start off from anyway. I was so proud of myself, I knew I had to do the transfer today so I went and found the bank in Creteil so that I could go there this afternoon, I did all the research online and it was great. I go into the bank, tell the girl I want to make a transfer to Germany, and she says, Oh no, no, you have to go to your Agency, which is the place where I opened the account. Which is in Paris near MICEFA, suuuuper convenient. Not. But I had to do it today, so I had to go to Paris during my lunch break before 2 p.m. So I go to the place where I opened the account, go in, the lady's so nice, she helps me fill out the form and isn't even annoyed that I've got no idea what those blanks mean...only when I'm done she says, oh, Mme Jousserand opened your account. Well, she doesn't work at this agency anymore, she moved down the street. Your account moved with her. It's probably better if you go there and send this transfer from there. It's right down the street. So I went, did the transfer, no big deal, got my checkbook and everything. It was so nice of them to let me know that my entire account had moved!!! Luckily it wasn't far, it could have been a lot worse and even right after the transfer was done I was laughing about it. And I got to eat Greek for lunch, I found another (cheaper!) Greek place right next door so it was worth it. And I even made it back to Creteil on time...

Well, I should go to bed, as I have...ONE CLASS tomorrow, yeah grammaire du texte! Gute Nacht!

Le Mans!! et toujours la grève!!

This past weekend I went to Le Mans, a city in the Centre region of France, to visit my friend (pen pal) Frederick and his wife Anais. Actually, this blog entry has to start hilariously on Friday morning when I decided it was a good effort to try to get to Creteil (I have to say that sometimes my power of reason is not at full force at 6 in the morning), I talked to a bunch of people in the station who told me I could get a train in 25 minutes but they couldn't guarantee anything for the afternoon. For some unknown reason I thought it would be a good idea to take that train, I made it all the way to Creteil, and I talked to another guy in the metro who told me there were three trains in circulation that could stop at any time. I went ahead and walked to the school (again, unknown reasoning here) where my morning class was all assembled but Aude (the teacher) wasn't there. They really wanted to have class anyway, they suggested we do it in the hallway, but I told them I couldn't really do that and they had to tell me what do because I don't actually know the procedure for when the teacher's not there. Thank goodness those kids are awesome and took themselves to la Vie Scolaire where I talked to the guys who felt so bad about me having come and just sent me back to Paris. So at 9:30, I caught the LAST metro of the morning back to Paris. Needless to say we were packed. Like sardines. In a crushed tin box.
I made it back to Paris, took a little nap, and then woke up and called ILPGA to see if they were blocked or not - and they weren't! (I found out last night from Anne that part of the reason they started putting different parts of universities in other places than the main building is so the can't block them all...) I went to class there, and my usual professor couldn't come, but we had a different woman who I liked a lot. There were only 5 of us, and I was the only non-French person, and we did some review, but it was still fun. Apparently there's a minor in Finnish you can do where you take at least one other course that's practically entirely grammar...some of the girls were talking about it. Oh well, this suffices for me, at least it's the one class I actually have!!
So after Finnish, I went straight to the train station (lots of love for line 4), where I found out that NO TER's were running (that was the train I was supposed to take) so I got to take a TGV instead and didn't have to pay anything for it! I had to wait in the train station for a lot longer because I didn't want to get to Le Mans and have to wait in the train station there for someone to get off work, but I will never get to the train station that early again - it was FREEZING and there was no place in any cafes...I had to keeping going into the same bookstores over and over to get warm. But I finally got a train, and it only took an hour to get to Le Mans (the TER would have taken 2,5!). I met Fred in the train station, and we walked to their apartment from there. It's a really cute and typical French apartment, the kind with a separate toilet and bathroom and everything. Anais made dinner, she's a great cook and I ate really well all weekend. We all went to bed fairly early on Friday night, but we got up Saturday morning to go to the 'bio co-op,' it's an all-organic co-op a little ways outside of town. On the drive there, I got to see that Le Mans is actually surrounded by a Gallo-roman wall and has a really nice little old town. The river Sarthe runs by the town, too. The co-op was really awesome, there were so many fruits and veggies, stuff I'd never seen before like the 'potimarron,' it's in the squash family and is orange like the tramway. It was really fun to look around at all the amazing food in there, and all entirely organic, even the cheese!
We had lunch, and then we decided to walk around Le Mans, they were inaugurating the new tramway that weekend, so there were tons of people and music and lots and lots of orange. The tramway's orange, like you can see in the picture, and apparently the mayor asked everyone to wear orange for the occasion (none of us had any orange...). We walked around the tram lines, then to the main square (Place de la Republique) and up to the cathedral, which sits on top of a big hill and is surrounded by the old town. The old town's really cool, it's all old half-timbered buildings and lots of tiny cobblestone roads. The cathedral was really nice too, not as impressive as in Chartres or anything but still really beautiful. We walked around for a while, and then we went back to the other part of town and went to some interesting shops there. They were having some projections on the buildings at Place de la Republique, so we went there for a little while, but they were kind of strange and it was getting cold, so we ended up going back to the apartment and eating a cabbage lasagne that was excellent. I stayed up with Fred for a while and looked at all their wedding pictures (they took a big trip around France afterward, to Bretagne and Bordeaux and then to the south too).
On Sunday I went to the main market with Fred, we took the tram one way but it was SO crowded because it was free all weekend, so we walked back. We just got some cheese and looked at the book stand (of course), but then we went back for lunch (I got to try the potimarron, it was yummy) and then afterward we went to l'Arche de la Nature, it's a big nature place like 20 minutes from Le Mans. It's a big wood with farms and stuff, but unfortunately it was raining and freezing, so we didn't get a chance to walk around. They were having a fair for apples and chatignons (like chestnuts but not...) so I got to smell apples and watch goats, which was excellent. I got some apple juice that I've yet to open, but I'm sure it'll be excellent! Unfortunately I had to go like right after we got back, so we had some hot chocolate and I changed my socks, and then it was time! Luckily I got to take another TGV back to Paris, but getting back was another adventure. There were no buses, so I had to take the line 4 and 1 metros, but when I was in there listening to the announcements about other lines, several of them had no trains running at all. It was really disappointing to come back to that after having such a nice weekend not worrying about what trains are running and which ones aren't. Sigh. Also, my school's still blocked, they voted to block it until Thursday afternoon, when they'll vote again. I couldn't get to Creteil at all today, so...stuck in Paris again, at least this time I'm going to attempt to go to the movies! (as long as the electricity's not on strike...which it very well might be)
We're having a large Thanksgiving gathering on Friday night, I'm really, really looking forward to it! Hopefully everyone will be able to get here!!

L'Assemblée Générale

So I thought I'd follow up a little bit, because today I spent 4 hours in the 'Assemblee Generale' of my fac (university, but who wants to write it out every time?) to figure out what exactly people are against and what exactly they're trying to do to get Sarkozy to break. Of course in heated debates, I can't understand all the French, but this is what I found out.

The Assemblee Generale is pretty neat, it really does consist of an enormous group of people being fairly democratic about every single thing. At the beginning, they explain what they'll be talking about and why for the rest of the meeting. Then they had a debate about the law, each person got to speak for 3 minutes (called interventions) where technically no one's supposed to interrupt but people do anyway. Then they had some 'perspectives,' some ideas they had about other things to move to next (like another Assemblee Generale and the Assemblee Nationale and stuff like that), and they had proposals, again a bunch of people speaking for 3 minutes each. At the end, we voted for 14 proposals as well as whether or not to recognize the strike and whether or not to block the school.

Basically the law is how I explained last time, and most people are in agreement the things need to be changed in facs because of the huge numbers of students going to them and the fact that government funds are changing around. The problem is that there will be some pre-inscription requirements, I think, and less public funding, so there will be a lot less students each year (ok, I admit I am not entirely clear on this point, but I'm working on it). However, about the companies financing schools, basically they're trying to create facs with special niches that will only send students with special degrees to those firms - problematic because those degrees have no value outside of some big organisation that's financing the school. Most people support the 'abrogation' of this law, which means that people are recognizing there needs to be a change but are refusing this law (la loi Pecresse) entirely, they think it should be thrown out and something new started. Some people think, though, that some parts of the law should be kept and other parts negociated, because if everyone agrees there needs to be a change, then why start over entirely?

Either way, I have resolved that I'm against this proposed law. My problem is still with the reaction of the blockage of facs. I still can't understand how this is an affective way to show Sarkozy that they disagree with his law. "OK Sarko, we don't like your laws, so we're not going to go to school - nor are we going to let people who want to go to school go - until you let up." If they're talking about equal education and autonomy for students, then they are being completely paradoxical. They are only hurting themselves and other students by shutting down schools. There are much better ways to mobilize as students and show solidarity for one another. They are also discussing blocking train stations; this is the goal for tomorrow - but the railway unions have already expressed their disapproval of this idea. If students want to show support for the rest of the unions trying to mobilize against Sarkozy, that's not really the way to do it.

I'm almost sure they're going to vote for another blockage Monday, so that it holds over at least until Tuesday when the other major strike should be happening. The potential to be really affective is there, I think, I just hope they let me go back to class eventually...

Your opinions, please.

Today, I began to lose my certainty with the school strikes. I’m supposed to have three classes today, and one of them’s offered by my exchange program. It’s usually at the Sorbonne (the old, famous building), so I took a bike there this morning because it’s too far to walk. When I got there, there were fairly large crowds at each entrance, which were all still shut at around 9:15 or so. By the time 9:30-9:45 rolled around, the students had literally blocked the doors, so people couldn’t really get through without a fight. Annoyingly, I had to get over to the exchange program’s office for my class because at the last minute they changed the location.

After that class, I went ahead over to Censier, which is where I have my other two classes, and it was physically blocked, as in there were tables piled up in front of every door (except to the library). I asked the kids what was up and if I could go in, and it turned out that every normal undergrad class was cancelled; the only classes to be held were special international student ones (like French as a second language ones, not like where I take a class that’s mostly international students but still considered a French class) and masters programs. Tomorrow at noon they’ll be voting whether or not to continue the blockage. So I went over to the library where I found my friend Raoul (he’s French), who asked me whether I was for or against the blockage, and I automatically said yes. I didn’t really have an answer as to why, so he proceeded to explain to me why he’s against it, which is where my confusion started to come in.

What the students are striking against is this law Sarkozy wants to push through that makes universities have the choice to be autonomous. Currently, they are entirely state-funded, and only ‘poor’ students get financial aid (there’s no merit-based financial aid), though schools cost nothing in France compared to what we pay in the US. The autonomy law would allow schools to choose to be financed (partially) by outside organizations, which would then open up more jobs to students who had graduated from the university they finance. According to Raoul, students who couldn’t afford to get to a university would still be funded by the state. Students would also still have the choice to go to whichever university they want.

The problem most students see with this law, like one of the kids holding up the blockade told me, is that they think it is a step toward privatization, like in the American system. However, autonomy does not mean independence; at the end, the government is still going to have a hand in direction of the French university system. I sort of feel like this system can never be completely privatized – in the US, schools were private from the beginning, and it’s kind of a whole, whole different system of who directs what (as in states directing public universities and the national government not really having much of a hand in anything). The problem seems to come in with the difference between autonomy and independence – and there is definitely a huge one (think about Finland, it was autonomous, it had a form of self-government, for years under both Sweden and Russia but wasn’t actually independent until 1917 – and in a case like that, we’d never mistake autonomy for independence).
Raoul and I were discussing how paradoxical this total blockage of the school is. If students want school to be free and free for everyone, how does it make sense to not allow people to do go school if they want to? They are imposing their opinions on everyone else, and now it’s some students who are taking away other students’ independence. The blockage was decided by a popular vote (and will be decided to continue or not tomorrow – potentially until Tuesday, when teachers and public workers are striking). For the French students, it’s no big deal, the school can’t fail over half the students for striking and missing a month of classes. But for the exchange students, we risk being required to stay over the summer to make up classes or not getting credits transferred because we haven’t had enough hours of classes. How is that fair to others who also deserve an equal education? When Raoul asked another kid from our class if he was for or against the blockage, this is what he said: “I’m not really for or against it, I voted for it...” so Raoul asked him why, and he basically said that it was because everyone else was voting for it. He said, “If everyone votes to go to class, I’ll go to class, and if everyone votes for a blockage, I’ll go to protests.” Really well thought out. It made me lose a lot of the confidence I had previously in the well-founded decisions of the French students.

I’m interested to see what others think. I know many of you are really not into the higher education thing, or government funded anything, but please consider what the reality is for France at the moment, that the government funds all transport and all universities, and let me know what you think. I feel like on principle I should be supportive of the strike, but I also feel like there’s something much bigger here than one principle. I’m just really questioning whether or not this is the most effective way to show that people are really against this new plan.

So, please let me know what you think about this, I'm really having a hard time with it.

La grève demain : ce n'est que le début!!!

My new best friend, Radio France, has been keeping me updated about the new strike that's set for this week. Tonight (Tuesday), it's the SNCF (train network), and tomorrow the RATP starts (Paris transport system). As it's again an open strike, there's no set end date, and it'll only be over when someone gets something done. Best case scenario : the strike lasts until Friday (SNCF & RATP included). More possible scenario : nothing is back to normal until Sunday. Worst case scenario for the poor traveller and best case scenario for the unions : the transport strike lasts until next Tuesday, when 'functionnaires' (public sector workers, including teachers) and students are having a general strike, and then everyone joins together in an Anti-Sarko bloc that completely immobilizes the country. As of right now, that sounds fairly feasible even though it may seem ridiculous to those of you who have not yet fully experienced the incredible power of the French left. Tomorrow I'm expecting to use no public transport ; I might try out the Velib (the bike rental system) but it may not be possible because the bikes are in too high demand during the strike. I can potentially walk to Sorbonne for my MICEFA class, but I will put money on the professor not getting there because I believe she takes the RER - line A is 'quasiment nul' and line B will have no traffic. According to the nice lady in the Creteil metro this morning, there will be no trains on line 8. As for Paris 3 classes, apparently the students & functionnaires are jumping the gun ; they're set to be on strike for tomorrow too. Looks like I might have a free day coming, so hopefully I'll get caught up in some excellent giant protest somewhere. Anne told me she'd take me to one...

In other news, Saturday was excellent, it was strange to see Anne's parents after 5 years but they are great and just like I remembered. Except for that Luc's French got easier to understand (not a bad thing...). They invited me to Orleans sometime, so hopefully I'll be able to find a weekend to go with Anne, though I guess it might not be until after Christmas. It was definitely too short this time, so I hope I can go sooner rather than later! After they went to lunch, I went to meet Faima, which was excellent. I have a much better time understanding her in person than on the phone. We hung around the Champs-Elysees for a while, and then we went to Parc Monceau, and then we went to La Defense for a little bit. It was awesome, I invited her to the Thanksgiving dinner so hopefully she'll be able to come and then we can hang out on Saturday for a little bit, too. I went to Elly's after that, we had dinner and *gasp* watched some TV. I figured I was allowed since it's been 2 months since I've watched any. The rest of the weekend was fairly boring, I tried to get some work done...Verena came over last night to help me organize/read some stuff for my trip to Germany in December, so that was nice to see her (since I probably won't see any of my friends this week...).

I didn't go to Creteil this morning, since I was supposed to be with Amel (who works at both schools) and she told me if I didn't hear from her then I shouldn't come since she didn't have anything for me to do. But according to one of the students, she told them that I didn't want to come...whatever, I guess I don't really want to deal with those kids who throw chalky erasers at my stuff. This afternoon was normal, I've got some homework to grade and a 'prise de parole continue' (oral report sort of thing) for the 3e Europeans in a few weeks (next week is supposed to be another orientation, but we'll see because of all the striking) and then the next week they're going to Caen. I think that'll be a good way to handle things because the kids who actually want to work and make the effort will get a good grade anyway, I know they'll do the thing and I know they can stand up and speak for two minutes. I'd prefer to even take them one by one, but we'll see if that works.

So...Bonne Greve demain!!!!!!!!

Les Reliques de la Mort!

I got to get HARRY POTTER today!!!! I finally got paid on Thursday, I got a check and everything (even though the whole ordeal with the bank account was so that I would have direct deposit...) so now I can be all fancy and French-like when I buy things with a bank card. It's kinda cool...

I feel like I have nothing to tell, hence the lack of blogging over the past week or so. It's been weird, I'm kind of getting to the stage where the things I brought from home are running out, I've had to get all sorts of things like toothpaste, floss (that was an adventure...I got some from Monoprix but it was horrible, no wax or anything. I had to go to a pharmacy to get waxed floss, and it cost 4 euro!), band-aids (also ridiculously expensive, I guess the French don't get hurt...I'll have a really nice scar to show everyone when I'm home, by the way...)...I'm dreading the time when the choice of what shampoo to get arises. I guess this all might sound kind of lame, but for me, every time something runs out, it's a new adventure of where to go, what to get, and the fact that there's no Crest toothpaste in France. Today I had a nice time walking around my neighborhood, trying to find some things like a pencil sharpener, and I ended up finding a cool organic/fair trade store where the lady gave me some kind of disgusting tasting drink (Guarana cocktail...) that apparently helps you focus and is good for diplomacy, and I ended up getting some coffee (of course) and some nice spices (cinnamon sticks and cloves...I'm going to make mulled wine and it's going to be amazing...). I also went into a random bookstore that had a lot of neat books on religion but the guy told me (in a not very nice sort of way) to be careful of my backpack, and then he watched me the entire time to make sure I didn't break anything. I glared at him on the way out. I tried to make French bread pizza for dinner, but without an oven it didn't really work. I can use my microwave to make gratins, or something (there was metal in there and nothing blew up!) but it just made the bread chewey and got cheese everywhere. I tried to make the other half in the pan on the stove and I just burnt the bottom of the bread. Sigh. Luckily I have Harry tonight.

This weekend was fun, Amy came up again from Vierzon, on Saturday we went to the Indian neighborhood (which is really only one street long) and had really fantastic food, and then we went to a grocery store where I got some henna! Anne met up with us, we walked aaaallllll over the place for a while and ended up going back to Anne's for dinner, and then we went out for drinks afterward. We were talking about Americans with accents in French, and Anne was saying that neither of us have distinctly American accents, but that we sound like some kind of foreigner, or maybe a French person with a malformed mouth. Which I guess is a compliment... :-) It was pretty hilarious. On Sunday Amy and I just hung out, I did my henna and we made a huge dinner, and we watched Umrao Jaan (Bollywood movie, of course). She left on Monday, and I went to the library to do a bunch of good research. I even bought a copy card so that I can make copies when I go...I feel so cool.

I forgot about last Wednesday, I went out (ooo!) with a bunch of kids from my European studies classes. It was mostly French kids, and two Finnish girls (one named Tytti, who I'm going to be doing a little project with on Kalevala for the next class!) and a Polish girl. It was really fun, some random dude on the street gave one of the guys 50 euro so he bought us all drinks. It was cool to hang out with French kids (finally) and I talked with one guy, Raoul, for a really long time about the classes and our professor who never talks about slavery, only the end of it, and who also talks a lot about the end of colonialism...he was glad to know there was someone else who notices and has a problem with how this professor talks about some stuff. Oh, and Raoul grew up in Creteil, he knows where my colleges are, how weird is that? I guess it's actually not that weird, he'slived here his whole life...Anyway there is/was some potential for us going out again tomorrow but I haven't heard from anyone so I'm not entirely sure what's happening, but I will be hanging out with Tytti and working on this project.

Tomorrow I have class again, but only in the morning...I have Grammaire du Texte, and then lunch with Cecile and Cory. I have to work again Thursday and Friday (sigh...) but then I get to see Anne's parents and Faima on Saturday! Then next weekend I'm going to Le Mans to visit my penpal, evidently there are going to be strikes again so we'll see if that even happens. As much as I like strikes, I REALLY want to go to Le Mans, so I kind of hope it doesn't happen! Sorry, SCNF workers!

Sorry about the brightness of the picture, I just wanted to show off my hair and my Harry!!

Objectif proof that my French is improving...

is that I just talked to Faima on the phone, and I probably understood 70 or maybe even 75% of what she said, instead of 30%!! I'm so excited, I'll actually not embarass myself when I see her, I'll probably even be able to understand most of it! Yay! (I'm going to see her on the 10th of November.)

Yesterday it was raining, which didn't really motivate me to get to the library, but I did it anyway and was there for a really long time. It's really nice, because there's enough people there that when you get too tired, you can take a break and people watch without leaving your seat. I read a lot about intellectuels during the Dreyfus affair, which is surprisingly interesting! I think I might go back Thursday (yes, I am that nerd who is using her vacations to get ahead in her studies...) and try some more history of rock books, since evidently I don't have class because it's a holiday. But we'll see, I might take a holiday too...

Today was SO SUCCESSFUL, I went to the Prefecture and came out with a Recipissee! Which means 'This is proof that I turned in my documents and am now waiting another month before I will have the real carte de sejour.' I was supposed to have the appointment at 10, but I went at 9 because I wasn't sure if I was going to have to wait in line...it took me till 10:30 anyway!!! I'm not actually joking about the month thing, it's really not going to be ready until after December 3rd...as long as all the documents are okay, which they may not be since my name is actually spelled with one L on the attestation d'hebergement. I didn't say anything, I hope they won't notice...we'll see! I've heard that it takes three times to do anything administrative in France, and if things go well...then yes, it'll have taken me three times to get the thing. Actually, I wondered, the first time I went in there, why all the other people knew what was going on and didn't have to ask for help...now I can understand that it's because they've all been there probably twice before!

I met this other TA girl there who said I'm going to need to translate my birth certificate for the health insurance people, I'll have to look into that further because the translation thing doesn't sound like much fun...

Afterward, I met Anne and we went to Maisons-Lafitte to visit Jean-Francois, it was really nice! He made us lunch and stuff and took us around the town a little. It was nice, it's a nice suburb and fairly bourgeois, according to him. His house was really, really nice, his family lived in China for a while so they have all kinds of amazing Chinese furniture and pottery and everything. He's such a funny guy, he went through a goth period in high school and kept everything from it, he was showing us today...it was very romantic goth, so lots of lace and really wacky jewelry. He's so serious about it too, but he's making fun of himself. I don't know quite how to describe it, but it was really entertaining. Now he's studying 'naturopathy,' natural healing stuff, and he does a lot of yoga and is studying plants and energies and stuff like that. Anne asked if he went straight from being goth to being a yog-ist, evidently there was a transition in there somewhere. Either way I really enjoy hanging out with him.

I came back with Anne, I took the 14 line metro, it's electric and runs with no driver, it was strange. There was an abnormally large number of businessmen there. I am trying to get some homework done, but of course blogs are more interesting than homework so I'm doing this instead...but now I should really go read, so a toute a l'heure!

P.S. The top picture is Escalier F, Prefecture de Paris, where you go for your titres de sejour. The other picture's from Maisons Lafitte.

Another week in Paris...and Chartres!

Centre Pompidou!

Chartres!


Monday I did successfully make it to the library, it was actually great. I read some books for History of Rock, and I'm actually going to go back tomorrow to read some more. I really enjoyed being there, I think tomorrow I'm going to look for some books for my Europe classes, too. Tuesday was another normal day at Victor Hugo, it was week B so I got some 6e and they all want me to bring them American names. I think I like the 6e classes best...though I really, really like some 4e at Louis Issaurat...the littlest ones are just so nice, they still don't hate school that much and they think I'm a lot older than them, so they are not mean.
Tuesday night I went to the Institut Finlandais again for another documentary, this one was about the Finnish military service requirement - apparently the civil service option (which is one year) is longer than any other country's requirement in Europe. Also, Finland is the only European country that puts people in jail for being conscientous observers. The film followed three guys who were all 18-20 who each chose a different option, it was really interesting. It was definitely the highlight of my Tuesday!
The rest of the week was fairly normal, I was supposed to go to another orientation on Friday but it was after Finnish, and I didn't even make it to the train station until 4, and the thing was supposed to end at 5, so I just didn't go because it would have taken me a half hour to get out there, and I just didn't think it would have been worth it. And it was fine, because then I got to hang out with Anne - we went to a bar place in the Marais and I had my first citron presse (it's really just fresh lemon juice) and we stayed there for hours and talked about all kinds of stuff (what a French lesson!). Since Greg's mom lives in Chartres, she told me some places to go. I didn't get in until 2, but we had so much fun! I think I forgot to mention that we're giving each other mutual French/English lessons, which I think will be really helpful for me - she's helping me with paper writing and stuff, like the actual words you're supposed to use and formats and stuff. I'm helping her talk about sustainable development, because that's the kind of program she wants to do, and apparently they all require English! It's funny to be in France and speak English with Anne...but it's fun to do, and then we get to see each other at least once a week anyway.
So Saturday I went to Chartres with Elly and Cory! We got the train from Montparnasse (which is kind of an insane station...) at 9:30 in the morning and got into Chartres at 10:30. It's really a small town, but it's famous for its cathedral...which is really incredible. It's huge (not as huge as Strasbourg or Cologne) and incredibly beautiful. Apparently its real beginnings were in the 4th century, but there's nothing left from that period. The earliest remains are from the 6th century, but of course we weren't allowed to see those. It was burned a few times...once by the Vikings...anyway most of the church is from the 12th century, it has 176 stained glass windows from the 12th and 13th centuries, and it's also the place where the color Chartres blue comes from, it's all over the windows. Anyway it's beautiful, the outside architecture is amazing as well, we spent so long there! Then we walked around the top of the town for a while, got some crepe lunches, and then walked down to the river (the Eure) where there are beautiful little houses next to the river. It's very picturesque and very typically French. We went to another church, where they happened to be having a fungus exposition (I'm not lying, though it may seem completely unbelievable)...we just wanted to see the church, but then there were hundreds of mushroom and other types of fungus specimen, and the craziest part was the number of people there who seemed a. interested and b. like they knew what was going on. It was one of the strangest things that's ever happened in my life! There was also a really pretty medieval garden outside complete with every herb ever and an absinthe plant (just in case you were wondering how they make absinthe...). We were really tired by the end of the day but we had a great time!! I'm so glad we went!
Like I said, tomorrow is the library again, and then Tuesday's the big Prefecture day! Hopefully this time I'll come out with a recipisse instead of nothing!!!!!

Le Mont St Michel, and being the first person to ever exit the Prefecture de Police with a smile.

Saturday I went to le Mont St Michel with MICEFA folks, it was about a 4 hour bus ride from Paris into the north of France. The bus ride was okay, it was beautiful to drive through the countryside, but of course a couple of girls would not shut up and I didn't get to sleep at all (I was up at 5 so that I would make it to MICEFA on time in case I couldn't get a bus, which I did). For those who don't know, le Mt-St-Mich is an 8th century abbey that is built on an island in the Atlantic (I guess it's in the Atlantic...), and there's a little town there around the abbey and everything. As soon as we got there, me, Cory, Cecile, and Elly decided to ditch everyone else from MICEFA, and we decided to go straight to the abbey, which turned out to be a good idea because we beat a huge group of people. It's really just amazing, I'm not sure I can describe the place in words because it's so much about the feeling you get walking around a place that's so old and so beautiful. It's just sort of incredible to think of what it must have been like in the 10th century when there were pilgrims and monks and who knows who else there. The view from the top of the island is amazing, too. We were so lucky to have amazing weather, too. After we toured the abbey, we walked around on the beach for a while, and it was wild because it's sand there, but it's really just mud because it's saturated all the time. We were there during low tide, but when the tide comes in, it comes right up to the bottom of the island. Unfortunately we couldn't stay to watch the tide come in, which was a bummer, but it was also quite fun to play around on the rocks and in the sand. It was great to get a vacation from Paris for a day, and Elly and Cory and I decided that we may go to Chartres this Saturday because it's so nice to have a break...
The way back wasn't bad, though those girls were annoying again...we didn't get back too late, but traffic getting back into Paris was awful because it was the rugby final and there were just tons of people. Elly came back with me to eat, we took the bus, and then I slept so well on Saturday night. Sunday I was supposed to go out with the same girls for lunch, but I woke up and Anne texted me and asked if I wanted to watch a rhythmic gymnastics competition, so I ended up doing that instead. It was totally awesome, I've never seen RSG in real life, so it was awesome. I'm going to go to some of Anne's competitions in November and December...I'm really excited about it! Afterward we went to Bois de Vincennes with Gregoire and sat by the lake for a while, it was really nice but it got a little chilly. I went home and failed at doing my homework...sigh.
Today has been really productive so far! I went to the Prefecture to do the carte de sejour, and I think I discovered the secret to making French bureaucracy workers not be mean to you...well, the first lady I talked to was not very nice, but then I went in and talked to this secretary guy, and I was very nice to him, and I shocked him by having all my documents...he asked me for them one by one, and he seemed so sure that he was going to stump me, but I had everything and more! Actually the problem came when he needed the attestation d'hebergement, which is the document that says that I have housing, and he couldn't accept what I had, and he even said 'C'est dommage,' as if he were disappointed by the fact that he could not help me, since I already had everything. He gave me an appointment for next Tuesday (I completely forgot that vacation starts then!) and then called Adrien at ACCENT and he's going to try to hurry the guy who's doing the attestation up so that I can have it by then. Anyway he turned out to be nice, I just kept smiling the whole time and being nice and having my documents, I guess that's how to not piss people off! I almost got lost trying to find the exit...it was a little silly.
I decided then to go to the Centre Pompidou to go to the library, but of course I forgot that it's not open before noon, so I thought I'd do my grocery shopping and write this blog. I'm working on uploading the pictures from MSM but of course I have almost 200 so it's taking a little while. I guess I should try to make it to the library this afternoon and I can take as much time as I want, so I guess I'll end the blog for now.

La visite medicale et toujours la greve!

So I wanted to explain the strike a bit better, I got a 'Appel a la Greve' in my mailbox this morning at Louis Issaurat (among other things I got in the mailbox...urgh) and it explains all the details about why everyone's striking. Basically, Sarkozy's trying to impose a law that seems mostly to affect people who work for a salary. He's trying to make them work for longer (usually they work 37.5 years, he's trying to extend it to 40), and he's also reducing their pensions depending on when they retire - it's worse if you retire at 60 than at 65, but even those who retire at 65 will have their pensions reduced, according to this new law. He's also trying to reduce military pensions. Evidently he's also trying to reduce the number of people on salary by 22,000 by 2008, which includes 11,200 people in education - and making up for it by having teachers work in more than one school, etc. The strike is also against the privatisation of Social Security, which is what Sarko's all about (and for students, it's against the privatisation of universities - he's trying to make at least some schools private). There's also an addition on this sheet that I got from the school that it's against his immigration policies and the deportation of individuals who don't have their papers. So it seems like a broad range of complaints against Sarkozy, but it has really been a large-scale strike, and people don't really seem to want to back down.

Yesterday, I waited for a metro to Creteil for 45 minutes before I gave up. Line 8 (which is the one I take to Creteil) seems to be having a lot of problems - I think it's the ones that extend furthest into the banlieue which are the most affected. Anyway, I didn't want to get stuck out there and miss my class. So I stayed home and got some work done, and then I walked to Censier for class - it turns out that the walk is nice and probably about as long as the bus ride! As for today, I really had to make it to Creteil, and the metro was really, really packed. It's usually busy, but this time it was unbelievable. I waited about 25 minutes this morning before a train came, and then I got to Louis Issaurat and found out that my medical visit for my carte de sejour was...this afternoon! In Montrouge! (They received the fax on Tuesday, and I just got it this morning!) I wouldn't have been so stressed out about it except for the strike! I went to one class, the 6e, who chose their American names, they were so excited about it, and then I left! I waited about 20 minutes for the metro this time, and it was really kind of scary because it was so full, I thought I wasn't going to be able to get out! Luckily I did, I got home, grabbed my passport and every document about anything ever, and then had to head to Montrouge.

If you're looking at a map of Paris, Montrouge is basically south central suburb, right outside of the city (literally, you cross the peripherique and you're in Montrouge), but I didn't want to take the 13 line, which is closer to there, because I didn't want to have to change trains, so I walked to St Michel to take the 4 line to Porte d'Orleans, which is still in Paris but on the way to Montrouge, and man, it was a loooooong walk. It was much longer than I thought it would be. Luckily I got a train right away, and I made it to Montrouge without getting lost, though I walked about 2 miles before I found the ANAEM (the place for the medical visits). And of course, the visit took about 30 minutes, I got special treatment for being a TA...it was kind of weird to have a medical visit in French. I had to read alphabet eye charts, and I was so scared she was going to think I couldn't see because I mixed up letter sounds! And I had to get a chest x-ray (they let me keep it!!!!) and then I had to do my blood pressure - respirez, soufflez (breathe in, breathe out), and I had to talk about vaccinations...she asked me if I had had my vaccinations, I didn't know which ones she was talking about but I'm assuming I had them all before I came to school. Either way, I got some stuff stamped, got authorized to work, and was out around 2. I took a bus back to the metro, and I got back to Paris fine, I stopped by ILPGA to see about the Finnish class (Verena had texted me earlier to say that it was cancelled, but then she wasn't sure), and I talked to some dudes from my class and they said that it was cancelled and also told me where to find the bus. They were nice, I was excited. Anyway then I came back, went to ACCENT to copy EVERYTHING so that I can go to the prefecture on Monday (though I don't have a real attestation d'hebergement so they might not accept me yet) and then I got some Photomaton pictures done (they are so bad, of course), and now I'm ready to go to the prefecture...hopefully things go fine!!!

Sasha came over for dinner - Elly, Hannah, and Cecile were also supposed to come but they couldn't get transportation and didn't want to get stuck, so they didn't, which is fine cause I'll see them tomorrow anyway. I had a really nice time with Sasha, she updated me on everything, and things seem to be going well for her. I went to the Marche at Aligre earlier today and got some veggies, so I made a nice salad with some good dressing...I even broke down and bought some buffalo mozarella from this Italian dude who's at the market, so I put it on my salad, basalmic vinaigrette dressing with garlic, it was really awesome. Now I have a massive amount of really good lettuce in my fridge, I hope I can eat it all before it goes bad!

So anyway, that's my life from the past two days, I am looking forward to a little vacation tomorrow to Mont Saint Michel. I'l definitely be posting about that, probably Sunday, so keep your eyes out, and until then...la greve continue!!!

BONNE GREVE!

Starting at 8 tonight is what hopefully promises to be a huge strike by the SNCF (train system), RATP (Paris transport system), and pretty much everyone else (some of the teacher from Victor Hugo are striking). It's set to be really big, but we'll see, some people think it'll be much smaller than has been forewarned. However, I will be experiencing it full force, since I'm set to go to Creteil tomorrow morning, and the banlieue are going to be the hardest to get into/out of. I just tried to connect to the RATP's website, where they're posting new information as soon as they have it, and there are already too many people on it! Luckily our professor let us out early tonight so we'd all make the last trains/busses home...and we didn't have our class in the middle of the day, so in fact my busiest day was probably my easiest for the week.

Saturday I went to see the rugby game on giant screens at the Champ de Mars (the big field in front of the Eiffel Tower, it sparkled during the game) with Elly and Hannah (and some random other people from Cordon Bleu, where Hannah goes - the cooking school). It was really fun, some random French dude sat with us and explained the game to me, which was nice. I couldn't see that well, but France was winning until about the last minute, when England scored a large number of points and won...thus ended the hope of a home team victory. On my walk home, I ran into Molly and Daryn and Carla (from AU, they're in Rome and Brussels and were visiting for the weekend...I didn't even know they were in Europe!) and they broke a bottle of wine on the sidewalk...

Sunday I mostly relaxed and did some work, my friend Verena from my Finnish class came over, it was very nice. We had tea, of course. Monday was another work day...I was going to go to the library for my history of rock class but then I discovered (thanks to Anne) that libraries are closed Mondays, and plus I got really confused as to where/what/who I was supposed to be looking for. So I went to dinner at Anne's instead, it was really fun. They made a cauliflower gratin that was delicious. Anne & Greg think I should go to the Pompidou Center's library because it's fairly easy to access the books and you don't have to get a card. I just don't know when it'll be possible if it's closed on the days I'm off, I guess we'll see.

Tuesday was an adventure at Victor Hugo again. I had some good kids in the morning, then I had to threaten some kids with 'I will not talk in class' because they were laughing at fart noises (but they were 12 or something, when it's still kind of okay to laugh at fart noises, and then someone actually farted, too...). Unfortunately I'm having a lot of trouble with the 3e European group, I guess because it's the last class of the day, they just never want to work and I choose to stay the extra hour so I can benefit them...I usually get one good (ish) group and one bad group, and the bad group made me so mad because I asked them to write their names on papers so I could read and learn them, and they just wrote nasty things in French (thank goodness they were things I knew or that could have been bad) and I just thought it was ridiculous that I was trying to do something nice to get to know them and they couldn't even respect that. I think I made one kid feel bad, I hope so. I guess I'm dealing with a different level of maturity than I'm used to, huh? At least I got to see a Finnish movie afterward, I went to the Finnish institute with Verena to watch this cool documentary about some kids who didn't do anything with their lives, I thought it was really well done. We're going again next week, and I'm really looking forward to it! It's a nice way to relax after being at Victor Hugo all day!

Today should have been really busy...but I had grammaire du texte this morning (I pleased Mme Le Coadic with one of the texts that I wrote!) and then my first European studies class was cancelled because the professor wasn't there, and the second one was short because of the strike. It turned out to be a good class, too.

So tomorrow should be interesting, I'm totally unsure of what I'll be doing because it all will depend on whether or not the metro runs and how often. Hopefully I'll be able to post tomorrow with some pictures of the strike, and I'll try to get a more complete idea of why they're striking (I know partially, I just want to see how big it is and who actually gets involved). So, until tomorrow...BONNE GREVE!!!!