A Chalet and Rain: Something's Wrong There

One would think, or at least hope, that if one spent time in a chalet in the mountains next to a ski resort, it would snow.

There was certainly plenty OF snow -- being everywhere -- but I am not kidding when I say it rained almost constantly Monday and Tuesday, the days during which I was there. Being out in the snow while it is raining is not the most pleasant experience in the world. Nevertheless, Monday afternoon, I decided it was necessary.

The reason it was necessary was this: I was at the chalet with a new French friend, who extremely kindly invited me to join her family there for a few days. The thing is, she has a younger brother and a younger sister, plus in the group was a little cousin, and the three of them would NOT stop arguing. More than that, the little cousin somehow managed to get chicken pox and would not stop crying. In a very small chalet, with no real room to escape, I can assure you that the noise, along with the sniping, was getting on my nerves -- I was always polite about it, I'll have you know, and so I suggested to my friend, Margaux, that we disappear.

So we went for a walk, that took us up and around, down into the snow to make angels, here and there, to a lake but not on it, as the ice was a little mushy from the rain, a random tiny church that is only open on tuesdays in July and August -- go figure -- and then finally back to the chalet. We were completely soaked by that time, but at least it was nice to get out for awhile. We needed it for that night, I can tell you that.

The next day was better, because mostly we weren't in the chalet. The morning we made snowmen and I endeavored to make the perfect snowman and then decorated it with only natural things, like sticks and pine branches etc. Of course it started raining less than an hour afterwards, so there you go. It's probably all gone now. In the afternoon we went sledding, which was great fun, if not extremely wet, because it was raining quite hard by then and didn't stop all afternoon.

The little cousin was getting better and the kids had all decided I was the cat's pajamas, so I somehow ended up entertaining all of them before dinner. I think the easiest way to get them to stop fighting -- though they tried often to restart -- is to just tell them it's not that serious. They kept sniping over the paper airplanes I'd made, and I just said, it's just an airplane, forget it. I never took anyone's side, so naturally they all assumed I was on their side. Works like a charm.

One thing always good, though, was the food. I ate for about four straight days -- breakfast of bread and crepes, full lunches, three course dinners, a hell of a lot of chocolate, cheese, some roasted chestnuts, you name it we had it. It was wonderful.

Wednesday we headed to Strasbourg, which was great fun. In the morning we actually made a stop to the pasta production factory where Margaux's dad works and took a tour -- got to see the whole process from start to finish, which was actually really, really cool. Then on to Strasbourg, which is a beautiful little city. Old, especially Petit France. I get the sense that it sleeps all year long and comes alive for the holidays, especially at night.

As it gets dark, the lights turn on -- and there are lights everywhere. Windows, streets, the little huts selling trinkets, ornaments, food, whatever it is. There is vin chaud and hot chocolate everywhere, gingerbread and bretzels, people -- essentially, Christmas. The town lives for this time of year, and I get the feeling that they're proud of it.

The cathedral, by the way, is utterly spectacular. Huge, gothic, built with the reddish stone of the countryside, it's extremely impressing. Inside tapestries are hung everywhere, there is a huge astrological clock, and of course a nativity scene. It was fairly dark, but still beautiful.

All in all, it was a great change of pace for me, and I'm very happy I went, even with all the sniping and crying ( which, to be fair, got better after Monday). I'm back in Paris now for the holidays and spent about four hours today at the coiffeur getting my hair done -- it was expensive, but I'm happy to report that after years of wanting it, I am now platinum blonde. Yahoo.

Bisous à tous.

Come on, Siegfried, emote! : An afternoon at the ballet

A lesson in false advertising: "Premier rang" being at the same level as the "first balcony", "en face de la scène" (in front of the stage). Actually, not: premier rang tickets, 10 euros but bought for 50, are at the very top level and on the side. False advertising, I tell you. I suppose it's my karma check for having essentially bought black market scalper tickets to Swan Lake at the Paris Opera, but I have no regrets -- there were NO tickets at the last minute, not one. Scalper or nothin'.

Thankfully, however, there were some random French people on the stage yakking about something - whatever it was, I'm sure it was important - and the girl checking tickets got bored and left her post -- just long enough for my friend and I to bust ass around and sneak into the only empty seats in the section. We checked later -- 55 euros the place. Muhahaha.

So this was the Rudolph Nuryev version of Swan Lake, danced by the best ballet dancers in Paris. It was beautiful. Sometimes actually moving -- but those moments were rare.

Ballets -- original ones, that is -- never cease to amaze me at their fluffiness. The entire first act is composed of a bunch of people onstage in fancy outfits cavorting about. The premise is that they're invited to the birthday party of Prince Siegfried. And that's it. They're just there, saying hello. The girls are trying to interest Siegfried, who is either really sleepy, really bored, or just really limpid. At least, he was in my production. He liked to wander around with his hand on his chest deferring to people.

And then there's a random trio with a few solos, for no other apparent reason than to showcase a few dancers. All the ladies disappear to change into swans, and the guys have some dude time, as long as you can call dude time prancing about in pinwheels on stage. And we wonder where the stereotypes come from?! My god.

I have to admit, the swan corps was pretty impressive, a hell of a lot of pretty female dancers who do exactly the same thing at the same time. The dancer who did Odette/Odile was really good, though she could have been more evil. Siegfried immediately promises to marry her, le sigh, but hey, you gotta move the story on.

The guy who danced Rothbart, the evil sorcerer, was extraordinary. He had a finish to his movements that was just incredible, a sort of presence and energy on the stage that pretty much everyone else was lacking. The only time that I was interested by what Siegfried was doing onstage was when Rothbart tells him he just promised himself to Odile, not Odette, and you see Odette flapping away in agony.

Siegfried actually brought himself to care about something, and stumbled about on the stage in appropriate agony, which I actually understood. However, once the swans came back and it came time to say goodbye to Odette, he was back to his fluff self -- though she did a pretty good of being agonized.

Okay, there are certain steps you have to do, I understand that. But I thought it would have been entirely possible to endow the exact same movements with a little more...story, a little more emotion. So, here my thought process during the ending scene, when Rothbart drags Odette away:

Man, if I were directing this, this would be so much better. Oh, come on, Siegfried, he's dragging away your girlfriend! Aren't you upset? Why are you still being so polite to let him dance with your girl? Come on, be angry, damn it! Now Rothbart is dancing with you, doesn't that make you angry? You probably want to kill him! That's right, try to kill him! Go ahead, Siegfried, just try to emote!!

Or something like that.

I did, I'll have you know, enjoy myself thoroughly. We got out fairly late and I had a request for a RDV not too long afterwards -- say an hour -- and I REALLY wanted to change clothes. All you have to know is, I was barely 8 minutes late, and I went from the Bastille to Alèsia to the Marais in an hour, including a full change of clothes. That's hard to do, by the way.

My secret?

Running in heels.

I thought as I was doing so, Wow, I have become a true Parisian woman. 

Back to the fun stuff: The soirées in Paris

That's right, I am stepping off my soapbox and getting back to what you really want to read about, which is life in Paris and not my pontifications about learning. So I am obliging.

A small anecdote before we begin: In other words, I complain and mutter. This morning I dragged my ass out of bed at 6 in the morning after my alarm clock went off at 4. It has this terribly chivalrous habit of, if I set it earlier than the previous morning, going off two hours before it's set. i.e., four when I wanted six. I lay there, as I always do, waiting until I can keep my eyes open for five full seconds before I get out of bed, and then thought to check the time. Yep, that's what I thought. I muttered a bit and went back to sleep. Then this morning I had to venture out into the minus four degree weather, although I am, thankfully, speaking in terms of celsius. Either way, not particularly amusing. Then I get to the high school and my students never show up. I could still be in bed. Argh.

In any case. There is a difference, so far as I can tell, between a 'soirée' and just a regular old 'rendez-vous pour prendre une verre' (to meet up for a glass, literally). When somebody says 'soirée', they mean business.

Such as the one I was very kindly invited to on saturday night by my new french friends. It took place on a péniche, in other words a boat, au bord de la Seine, just along the Seine. There are a lot of them, docked just on the side but still on the water. They have restaurants, bars, dance floors, whatever you want. Two or three floors, one being a terrace, though even with their small heaters, there wasn't much going on up there saturday night. Just too damn cold.

Soirées also start very late - 22h30 or after, and most people arrive late. I was on time because I had no idea how long it would take me to get there, but was one of the few. The reason it starts so late is because people have dinner beforehand, and French meals last a long time. When I got there they were just thinking about bringing out the cheese course.

After dinner was finally over, the tables were removed and the band came on. Not rock, really, but dance kind of music. They only sang in English. I have no idea why. I recognized a lot of songs. In any case, with everyone arriving and heading for the bar - champagne, alcool fort (hard liquor), wine, whatever you wanted it was there.

I can't say too much else fascinating about except that you must have to picture this: Notre-Dame is right behind you, the lights of Paris reflecting on the Seine. You dance and drink all night long, and when the boat closes at five a.m. you stumble off for breakfast and then head home, collapsing into bed at seven with the world still spinning madly.

Yeah, it was fun.

But equally as fun is another option, which doesn't last all night, but maybe just a couple hours. This one is much more simple. Find a café after dinner - make sure it's a café and not a restaurant - and sit down with a couple friends (small groups only). Order some cocktails. Smoke, if you care to, puff if you want, mostly it's about the ambience. Either way, the point is to sit down and not go anywhere for about two hours. A couple rounds is plenty to be pleasantly tipsy.

I was out Monday night - yes, I know, monday, but it worked for all of us - with my best friends in the program. we're all americans, but speak in a combination of french and english. We spent over two hours, starting with wine for them and a margarita for me, then cointreaupolitans all around for the next round. This wasn't intellectual. We weren't discussing the secrets of the universe. We were just goofing around, being, for awhile, young. I can tell you that I don't do that very often, and certainly not enough.

So there you go. Cafés, boats, the wonderful thing is that I'm in Paris with great people, and for those moments I don't have to be going anywhere or accomplishing anything. I just have to be where I am, right then.

And, like before, I don't do that often and not nearly enough.

When did we forget how to learn? A Pontification

Yes, I know, the title is a bit pretentious, but I wanted to write about this in light of a thought I had yesterday upon receiving the grade for the midterm in my Paris in Context class. It was a commentaire du texte, and after we got them back, the professor went over the text to talk about what we should have looked at and etc.

What the article was about is kind of unimportant, but for your information it was about the Panthéon and the funeral procession of Voltaire, which was essentially a revolutionary party. Again; the subject is not the important bit but just for the context. In any case, something very interesting happened during our discussion - the class staged a silent mutiny.

Here's how it went down: The professor, in the course of the discussion, mentioned some things that we really should have known, like the fact that the monarchy was still in place in 1791 so therefore obviously place Louis XV wasn't yet place de la république; Voltaire was a playwrite as well (something I did't actually know) and so obviously the procession stopped at the Opéra and théâtre de l'Odéon; the 'Franklin' alluded to was obviously Benjamin Franklin and thus every American should know that he was extremely influential to the French revolution.

I admit: it is frustrating to hear someone tell you that any fool could have guessed these things that you honestly didn't know and thus couldn't write about at the time. However, I heard, very clearly though it was not spoken out loud, everyone in the room thinking, well, I did't know I was supposed to do that, well, I didn't know that, how could I have known, how could you dare expect me to know that. Suddenly, everyone in the room was completely on the defense, and had completely discounted everything else the professor was saying. I couldn't have known. You didn't tell me that.

Now: I am not saying this isn't valid. Yes, it's frustrating. However, what struck me the most was that suddenly the point had absolutely nothing to do with learning. The only thing that was important was getting it right, and upon not doing so, there was a mutiny. You didn't tell us how to get it right. Therefore, I have every reason to be upset, and to tune you out.

This all struck me as I was walking home. Does anyone really care about learning anymore? or do they just care about getting it right? It occured to me that this doesn't just happen in schools: take a look at Congress, for example. As far as I can tell, absolutely nobody gives a shit about learning. All they care about is being right, and if the other side doesn't agree, well that's their problem because being right is the only option.

Hang on a second. Just as I said last week, I think we can do better than that. No, I did not know that the monarchy was still technically in place in 1791. No, I did not realize that I had to specifically acknowledge the inclusion of Franklin. But now I do. If I wrote the paper again, I would do those things. Next text I may mook more specifically. I'm not trying to be condescending or put myself on a ladder. I felt just as stupid as everyone else. But I just think the point is not to be right. It's to learn. Isn't that what school is about?

At what point did it become okay to not learn, and to only be right?

French teenagers talk about school

Well, at least, I try to make them talk about it - in English. My current job, as assistant English professor at a high school just outside of Paris. I work with all years - keeping in mind that there are only three years of high school here, so my kids are sophomores through seniors. That is actually where I am currently writing this; I'm in between classes. I'm also, I'll have you know, writing this on aEuropean keyboard, which is just similar enough to be comprehensible and just different enough to be maddening. I forget constantly that you have to press shift to get a period, the W and the Z are switched, there's a Q where the A should be, and M is god knows where. Also, it took me about five minutes of staring at it before I found the apostrophe.

Mais voilà. Moving on. I'm tired today, so my thoughts are all over the place, but I wanted to write something about the discussions - or lack thereof - with my students. 

I have small groups, anywhere from 4 to 12 kids, most commonly 8. My job is to make them talk - a worthy goal, but often very difficult! For whatever reason - shyness, level, uncertainty - they are all very reluctant to participate for the most part. I'm trying to figure out how to convince them to try, because I don't believe that students don't have opinions. They just, for the most part, don't share them. It gets frustrating for me when everyone in the class is staring at me when I know they have opinions. The teachers say there are kids who just don't talk, and seem to just think that you can't change that. Of course, I am not an educated teacher, nor am I a psychologist, but it seems to me that there are certain conditions in which kids will participate and certains conditions in which they won't, and it's my job to create a space where the conditions fit the latter. These days I'm just doing it by trial and error.

When they do at last choose to share them, however, they have some interesting ideas. Across the board, they think school is 'pretty bad'. They all think there's too much work and not enough free time, a sentiment I understand. This is a private school so it is much more strict and intensive than usual, but even the public schools here pack in full days of work. 8am to 5 or 6 pm seems to be the norm, and the kids are just worn out. But of course, no teenager in their right mind really 'enjoys' school, do they? However true it may be, I think it's pretty sad.

But one thing they all keep saying, and something that I think should be listened to much more than it is, is that school is boring. I keep asking what would make it better - not because I want them to think they have no choice but because I'm actually curious. If school is boring - and I think these kids are not alone at all - then what can be done to change it? I know from experience that learning can actually be cool - but it seems to be an accepted thought and a foregone conclusion that school will be boring.

We could go to more museums and exhibitions, a few of them suggested. Good point - the opportunity to see what's out there, learn in a practical setting. Have class in different rooms, be able to choose classes so they're with their friends. Almost everyone wants to be able to choose what subjects they study - of course that's not always possible, but maybe it would be possible to create a schedule which includes the basics but also lets them study what they love.

One student said something that I thought was absolutely fascinating. Teachers should be more passionate, they said. I was intrigued. Teachers should be more passionate? Are they not? They make boring classes because they don't like the subject? I doubt that's true, but maybe it is true that we lose the passion in the act of trying to "teach". If you have to Teach, with a capital T, then maybe you worry more about if the students are Learning. But it seems to me that people respond to passion - and perhaps we should leave behind the idea of Teaching, and think about sharing - just sharing. Just like saying, hey, I think this is really cool. Let me tell you why.

Hey, it's worth a shot, right? Especially because at least 60% of every class thinks school is 'pretty bad'. As for me? I think we can do better than that. 

The Daily Life: getting used to life in Paris

Yes, I owe you all an apology. I haven't really updated the blog. To be honest, I just haven't known what to write. I've been on a couple trips, but I think you can get a good sense of them by going to my photobucket and checking out the pictures. They can be found here.

In the meantime, I just didn't know what to say. My brain has been working overtime, but most of the details would, I'm sure, bore you to death and besides you'd rather hear about Paris.

But what can I tell you about Paris? I don't know how many weeks I've been here - a little over two months, I do know that. But what that means -- I'm not sure I could say. Some days I feel like I only arrived yesterday -- most days, in fact. I really find it difficult to keep track of the day, the date, the weeks even. They go by very quickly.

I can tell you, I suppose, that occasionally I notice that life here has become habitual. I drink coffee in the morning with my host mom if we're up at the same time. Whoever's up first makes the coffee, whoever finishes it washes out the machine. I walk to classes, or more often take the metro. I buy paninis for lunch, or I bring cheese and buy a baguette.

I take it for granted that I can get a baguette at any time during the day from really anywhere, and that it will be really good. I feel shafted when, as the case has been the last two days, the boulangerie is out of them. I try to keep myself to one pastry a week but usually fail, because they are just. so. darn. good.

The first floor is not the ground level and when someone says "4th floor," I understand that means I go up 4 flights of stairs, instead of 3 in the US system. I get annoyed when the Metro magazine or the Direct Matin or the Direct Soir isn't around in the metro stations, and when they are there, I pick them up. The American TV series are dubbed into French and it surprises me whenever I hear someone on the TV speaking English.

I have finally mastered the 24 hour clock and can roughly understand what it means when it's 8 degrees celsius (cold). I have picked up several typical French speaking habits, like inserting "en fait," "fin," and "bah" in my everyday conversation, including my favorite, that something is "n'importe quoi", meaning it's nothing, rubbish, ridiculous. I don't think about answering people in French, and upon learning where I'm from, I'm very often complimented on my speaking ability. I notice American accents and am starting to hear the British accent.

What else can I tell you? I don't look at metro maps anymore. I know which lines to take in which direction and am working on remember where in the station to get on and off the cars to maximize my efficiency.

It has been two months and that seems like such an incredibly short time to me. There is yet so,so much time left here. I've been here long enough that I'm finally starting to miss certain places, and especially people. It's still a really long time until I see most of my family and friends, and that bothers me often.

I wish I could tell you more, be more specific, but my life is not specific these days -- it's just life. And that is, I suppose, the best indication that Paris is becoming home to me. I don't need to think about every day so much. It just is -- it is there, and I live it. So simple.

I'll try and be more creative -- and quicker -- with my next post.

Bisous à tous.

The Countryside Remembering: At the D-Day beaches

Samedi 30 octobre: We were supposed to take the buses -- bus verts, ligne 70. Leaves Bayeux at 12h15. Goes past the American Cemetery, Colleville-sur-mer, Vierville-sur-mer, etc. Supposedly returns from American Cemetery to Bayeux at 17h00.

But of course, upon getting on the bus and asking the bus driver (Thank GOD we asked!!), we were told that the 17h00 bus stopped running at the end of September and that we would have to take the 14h17 bus instead, giving us about one hour total to see everything.

"Sinon, vous pouvez prendre un taxi," the driver suggested.

"Combien?"

"Vingt cinq."

It wasn't 25€, it was about 38€, but it turned out to be a very good thing we took a taxi instead, because I called the company past 17h00. We had been through the American Cemetery, walked along Omaha Beach, had lunch, and checked out the Musée Memorial d'Omaha Beach.

It was a stunning fall day; not too chilly, sunny. The water looked particularly blue. It made the green of the hillsides even more brilliant. Because this country, you see, has grown in. Cows roam along the bluffs -- very surprisingly steep. The Germans, I realized, had the high ground. Their barracks, strongholds, are still there in concrete, nestled into the hillside. They are empty these days, while the green ivy and grass creeps down, above, around. The gun holes are filled with green. A butterfly sat primly in one. A rather ironic, or maybe just beautiful, image I thought.

The cemetery, on the contrary, is perfectly cultivated, in relation to the wild hillsides. Perfectly tended and trimmed grass paying tribute to the endless white crosses, a handful star of David's thrown in. There are over 9000 graves here. Walking among them, you notice how many of them died between June and August 1944. Some of them have no name. The cross says instead, "Here rests in honoured glory a comrade-in-arms. Known but to God."

I found one grave. 6 Juin 1944. Div 1. He was in the first division and died on the first day. I think, he must have been one of the first to set foot on the beaches. The first to walk directly into German machine gun fire.

As we hiked down the bluffs, I found myself wondering if it had been this beautiful that morning, if the sun had risen bright or if it was dark, gray, cloudy -- more appropriate for the bloody work that had been done. I looked at the beach and wondered what it must have been like, to board the ships leaving the channel, to watch the beach approach and then to have enough courage to get off the boat and walk forward.

The American troops landed at Omaha at 6:30 in the morning. By 8am they had the first pocket of defensible land. One and a half hours is nothing in the scheme of things, but at the time it must have felt like centuries. At the Musée there are photos and videos from the invasion, and I found myself thinking how different war is in the movies -- there, fast, sudden. These films -- it is slow, dogging, dragging stumbling. The soldiers run or walk across endless countryside, they drag their wounded back to the ships, they exist somehow in the middle of the ruckus.

The witnesses of the veterans have several things in common -- they mention it was 'tense', a strange and remarkable frankness about the battles, how they were all frightened, how the beaches were littered with bodies.

500 men died in the first few minutes. That was the price of that first pocket of defensible land. They started an impromptu cemetery but had to move it, so the incoming waves wouldn't see that 500 graves were already there. 500 in the first wave. They called it Bloody Omaha for a reason.

Throughout the whole day I couldn't help but try and imagine it, imagine the stumbling landing, the way it must have looked, the weather, the impossible courage of those men.

The thing is about these beaches, this countryside, is that it remembers. The blood has long since been washed away and the shells of mussels now litter the beach instead of bodies, but this land is where it happened. A man with a gun used to be standing where the butterfly is right now. War has never been fought on American soil -- but these people here remember, or have family who remember. They can't forget -- even though life goes on these days, the little houses quietly tucked into the hillside, the countryside vibrates with a kind of deep, somber remembering. It's not sad, really. Not broken either. Just like in its stomach, deep in the soul of this place -- it remembers. Quietly. Calmly. Letting the sun bathe the sand and the water and the grass and beating -- like this, boom, boom.