Hello again. If there are any veterans reading this, then
thank you for your service! The reason I didn’t take pictures during this stretch
of time is that I thought my camera itself was broken because I dropped it on
Saturday 10/20, and it seemed to be dead. So the one photo that’s in this post
was actually part of a failed test to see if it was working. I’ll go ahead and
tell you, though, that dropping it apparently only had an impact on the
practically-new batteries, because after I changed them on Thursday, just
before planning to get a new camera prior to my trip to Houlgate in Normandy on
Friday, it was as good as new! So, Lord willing, my next post (hopefully on
tomorrow 11/12) will talk about my trip to the northern coast of France and
include lots of pictures. For now, here’s a fairly speedy look at a 4-day
stretch. Peace - ML
Sunday, October 21 –
Sunshine at the Park + « Pot au Feu » + Bottled Water vs. Eternal
Life
·
Church x2, as usual, with my buddy for the
second service at the American Church
·
Nice, sunshiny day, so we decided to spend time
outside at the Jardin de Luxembourg after church just chatting and
people-watching; brief detour at a shoe store, where I helped counsel her about
a boot purchase
 |
| A glimpse of the kitchen, where I spend a lot of my time |
·
Made classic French dish of « pot au feu »
for dinner (with some help from the folks who pre-packaged it for me…); it’s
basically just beef stew; supposed to be 2 helpings but I had enough leftovers
to eat it 2 more times during the week
·
Failed attempt at getting more bottled water
from the grocery store as I sought to look ahead to my probable level of thirst
over the next day or two and my lack of sufficient bottled water (BTW it’s very
normal to drink bottled water rather than tap water here); grocery stores near
me were all closed, though, since it was Sunday night
·
The Holy Spirit reminded me that Jesus told the
woman at the well: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but
whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give
him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John
4:13-14, NIV). In other words, I didn’t need to stress out or “…worry, saying,
‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the
pagans run after all these things, and [my] heavenly Father knows that [I] need
them” (Matthew 6:31-32, NIV)). As the next verse indicates, a spiritual
perspective is much more important than an earthly one: “But seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto
you” (Mt. 6:33, KJV). Indeed, all day, I felt like I was having little moments
of “spiritual awakenings” in terms of real-life Bible application, for which I
was thankful.
Monday, October 22 –
Cheaper Water + French Dream + Quisaitout
·
Woke up early to work on grad school app process
and check emails
·
Wished 4 or 5 kitchenmates a « Bonne journée ! »
(“Have a good day!”) as they stopped through on their way to work; Spanish
kitchenmate – one of the few who sits down to eat – asked me details of my job
responsibilities / involvement in lesson planning, prob because she wanted to know
how I have a job that only requires 12 hours in the classroom per week
·
After failed attempt to get a few bottles of
water yesterday and being thrown off by the employees at my regular grocery
store who were in the middle of pricing the water bottle section, I found the
cheapest water yet at an alternate grocery store in the other direction with
six 50-centiliter bottles for €1,10 (or 1,10€ as it’s sometimes written),
which is only about €0,18/bottle compared to the €0,30/bottle price that I’d
seen in the least expensive scenarios when buying 2 bottles or so. Buying more
definitely helps. I wouldn’t have done so had it not been for my disappointment
on Sun.
·
Tried to blog, but kept getting
distracted/stressed out over other things…needed a nap…
·
First dream in French during my time here!
Except it was awkward because I was speaking French poorly with lots of
hesitation as I struggled to be understood (don’t remember the context), which
is why I remember that the dream was in French.
·
Métro line 12 to Solférino
for my first theater/voice class with the club for foreign students/teaching
assistants; even though others were there for homework help, no one else wanted
to do the pronunciation/articulation training on this particular day, so I got
a one-on-one class; read a scene from a more traditional play where a daughter
doesn’t want to marry the suitor that her mother has in mind for her and then a
silly scene from a modern play called Quisaitout
et Grobêta = play on words describing
a person who thinks he knows everything and a person who is not very
intelligent. I let the lady have the latter and read the smart one ;)
Tuesday, October 23 –
Adele + Presidential debate + Speaking Spanish + International gender roles
discussion
·
As is often the case, spent time before breakfast
checking emails since the Internet in my room works best in the mornings
·
Got my clothes in the washing machine in the
next room very close to my scheduled time of 9:30 and listened out for it to do
that weird mid-spin-cycle-pause-until-you-reselect-the-type-of-wash-thing from
last week, although I really didn’t think anyone had signed up for the next
time slot on the list downstairs
·
Different laundromat to dry clothes in order to
save money: €1
for 10 minutes instead of €0,60 for 5 mins. or €1 for 8 mins. as at 2 other
places in my neighborhood; this place is also a dry cleaners so people were
coming in and out to pick up /drop off their clothes & I listened in on
their convos from my chair in the small waiting area to see if I could
understand what they were saying as I “read” my book, which was also in French
BTW
·
Turned on the radio in the kitchen while I ate
my leftover pot roast for lunch, but instead of French music, I heard Adele and
“that don’t impress-sa me much!” So much for immersing myself in the language.
·
Meant to research the races on my absentee
ballot from Athens-Clarke County (the last place in the States where I lived
and contributed to society in a productive way before crashing at my parents’
crib in Cobb Co. for a few weeks leading up to my departure) so that I could
start filling in my votes in an educated way; ended up watching the ENTIRE 90
minutes of the first presidential debate on my laptop in the common room since
I’d read so much about it and was curious to see the President’s allegedly
awful performance for myself
·
Actually spoke some Spanish while in the common
room b/c a classical music group (perhaps from Spain?) was performing in our « arrondissement »
(district/neighborhood of which there are 20 in Paris) and staying at our « foyer »
(residence hall). One of the group members didn’t know how to log-on to the common
computers but also didn’t know how to speak French or much English, so I broke
out my little [SPAN 1001 (Spring 2009) + SPAN 1002 (Fall 2009) + 3 weeks of
individual classes in Guatemala (Summer 2010)] knowledge and we got it figured
out, plus I got a compliment on my Spanish, which was refreshing!
·
Cleaned my room a little and went grocery
shopping
·
Brainstorming of initial Halloween ideas for
Wednesday classes + light lunch 2 with kitchenmate + creation of final
Halloween handout
·
Young Adults Pizza Night @ The American Church
in Paris: after food and fellowship, small group discussion topic was gender
roles at home/work/in the church based on our countries/cultures of origin
since it’s a very international church; cool to hear everyone’s perspectives
and simply to be in the midst of folks my age who also wanted to be hanging out
at the house of God on a Tuesday night
·
Wrote in my journal this evening from memory
these words from Psalm 20:7 (though I had to consult my concordance to find
where this verse was in the Bible): “Some trust in chariots, and some in
horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” Felt like this day
had been particularly successful because I’d approached my long to-do list with
the right attitude, unlike yesterday. Looked forward to another day (Lord
willing) that was sure to be full of its own challenges, which would not be
insurmountable if I would only lean and depend on the Lord.
Wednesday, October 24
– Bringing out the kid in me to teach about Halloween + « Merci,
Spartanburg ! »
·
Good attitude continued, which helped me last
through the day even though I had to wake up at 5 am for my 8:25 class: “Rejoice
in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).
·
Although I didn’t grow up celebrating it for
religious reasons (which I mentioned briefly to my students in our
non-religious school with my teacher’s blessing), I taught about Halloween this
week since it’s a major American celebration and a topic that I thought would
motivate the students to participate in class.
o
Put the ball in their court by first asking them
to tell me all the words they knew IN ENGLISH related to Halloween as I made a
list on the board; I’m not going to be able to differentiate between the
classes I had on Wed/Thurs/Fri very well, but I got all kinds of responses from
“ghost” and “witch” to “afraid” and “eggs” (as in, the ones that are thrown at
windows as a prank) to “pagans” and “pumpkins,” although very few students knew
“pumpkin” in English right off the bat
o
After we made our list, I asked about their
Halloween traditions. Many of them did nothing or said that they used to
trick-or-treat (though they might not have used this phrase) when they were
little, but that now they just accompanied younger siblings/cousins without
putting on costumes. Others were going to have slumber parties to watch scary
movies with their friends or go to one of the major theme parks in town (Parc
Astérix
or Disneyland Paris) very late at night to take advantage of the
Halloween-themed activities going on there.
o
Next, I distributed the handout I had made with
5 Halloween terms/definitions that needed to be matched to the 5 images below: pumpkin
patch, horror film, trick-or-treating, jack-o’-lantern, and candy apple. I told
them that I knew the matching activity was easy, but that I wanted to focus on
reading and understanding the definitions. They got really into it, and I
typically didn’t have any trouble finding volunteers to read. I let them finish
before saying something like “very good” and then correcting any (wow, I was
about to type “grave” because that means “serious” in French) serious pronunciation errors.
o
After we read each definition (which I made up,
by the way), I asked if there were any questions, and many students weren’t
afraid to speak up when they didn’t understand particular words. As the week
progressed, I could kind of predict what they wouldn’t understand, so I had my
drawings/gestures/acting routine nailed down for things like…
§
Children going through the large “selection” of
pumpkins in an open “field” that are available “throughout” the month of
October.
§
I used a
little kid voice to say “trick-or-treat” and explained the threatening idea
behind this phrase, which brought up the eggs or toilet paper if the class hadn’t
already mentioned these items.
§
And I tried to help them realize that they knew
more than they thought they did when defining words like “carve” in the context
of a jack-o’-lantern; I put “fork,” “knife,” and “spoon,” on the board and
asked which I would use if I wanted to carve a face onto a pumpkin. They always
answered correctly, although someone pronounced the “k” once.
§
I was sure to tell them that spoons are also
involved in the process when I helped to describe the phrase “hollowed out” to
them. For that part, I acted out the lifting of a heavy pumpkin onto the
teacher’s desk in order to let them know that they are “full” and not “empty”
when you first get them from the “patch.” I got a lot of laughs because I was
being so silly, but at least they were paying attention and asking questions.
§
P.S. Shout-out
to my small group from Athens Church with whom I carved a pumpkin in 2010!
I kept thinking about you while I was teaching this lesson. Someone asked what
you do with the stuff you take out of the pumpkin, and I was reminded of all of
that messy pulp we had to deal with! I did tell them that you could roast the seeds (which required acting out a
farmer planting seeds that grow into trees or something) for a snack :)
o Felt
like a successful teacher when one student came up to me after class to ask for
a copy of the handout for an absent classmate and another to ask me what she
could do to improve her English because she hoped to move to America someday. I
almost wanted to look around like, Oh,
you’re asking me? That’s right, I’m the teacher!
o I
think the black-and-white Ann Taylor Loft dress from graduation combined with
my red sweater (GO DAWGS!!!) helped me look like a pro ;) I definitely dress
more nicely than a lot of the other teachers, but I’m also like 10-40 years
younger than them, so I’m tryna balance things out.
·
Wasted some time/money trying to print the
postage-paid absentee ballot return envelope template that I had received by
email so that I wouldn’t have to pay to send my ballot to Athens-Clarke County.
I was trying to buy an appropriately-sized envelope at the grocery store, but I
forgot that I had memorized a rough estimate of the template in inches rather than centimeters. The only
rulers on the school supply aisle were in centimeters only, so that didn’t
help. And I don’t have a smartphone here. All I could think of was 2.2 for some
kind of conversion, so I told myself that there were 2.2 cm in an inch and
bought a pack of envelopes that seemed like they would be just right for
printing the postage/address template. Too bad this conversion I was thinking
of was for kilograms and pounds. Plus, when I got to one of the
printing/photocopying places in my neighborhood, where they actually had larger
envelopes available, the guy said that envelope wouldn’t fit in his printer so
he couldn’t help me. So much for that! Perhaps if I’d actually applied for an
absentee ballot early enough to have them mail
me all of my materials instead of sending them by email, then I wouldn’t have
had this problem.
·
Attended a Wine and Cheese event sponsored by
the Fulbright Alumni Association that evening, so there were French people
(young and old) there who had gone to America to work as French teaching
assistants at the secondary or post-secondary level or to do research, as well
as all of my American colleagues who are here teaching English or doing
research in the Paris area plus a handful of American alums who are still
around.
o Favorite
part was when these two older women were kind of looking over at the group of
people I was standing in and saying something about “the one from Atlanta,”
which made me go over to them. It turned out that one of them had taught middle
and high school French at “Colored” and “White” schools in Spartanburg, South Carolina
in the late 60’s/early 70’s on a Fulbright grant, so she had noticed that I was
from the southeast when we had done our introductions earlier. I told her that
actually my dad was from Spartanburg,
so I had been there many times during my childhood. She was shocked because it’s
a pretty small town, so she hadn’t even expected me to have heard of it (sorry,
Dad). She launched into stories about teaching at particular schools there, but
they didn’t mean very much to me since I am not very familiar with the school
system. And I think we figured out that she wouldn’t have taught my dad because
he moved to Detroit at around the time that she was in town. As we left the
function, though, I helped her find her gloves that had fallen on the floor,
and she said « Merci, Spartanburg ! » (“Thank you, Spartanburg!”)
I never thought I’d have that nickname…
o Oh,
and another French alum whom I’d met at our welcome function earlier in the
month and who had studied at the University of Alabama (I had to forgive him
for that) said something about seeing me at the Halloween dinner in a few weeks.
I was like, Do you mean Thanksgiving? That wasn’t the first time
I’d heard people mix up these two very American holidays.
o I
decided to take the bus home instead of the metro because it was a straight
shot. The ride took me past the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triomphe on the
Champs-Elysées.
What a wonderful reminder that I’m really here, in Paris.
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