This has been a fantastic week

I've seen blues skies (and even some sun!) for 5 days in a row, I had a conversation in French with one of the students here and was able to connect with him, another student told me he didn't want to go to French class because he liked talking to me better, I made 2 of my classes sing Christmas songs and they actually enjoyed it, 4 of my 12 classes got canceled, 3 of those 4 were on Friday so I got the day off, I made crab cakes for an English dept potluck and had teachers tell me (in a very surprised tone, of course, since all we Americans eat is McDonald's) that they were really good, managed to bust my outlets again while making said crab cakes but in a truly not French fashion got them fixed 3 hours later, finally found cheap winter boots, and am now on break. What a great end to the first semester.

Outlets are fixed, the sun came out to play, and the DREAM Act passed the House.

This is much better.

Wednesday

I was going to write something positive today. Really, I was. Despite the fact that I've seen the sun maybe 3 times over the past month and that I can't communicate with my friends back home and that my job is completely unsatisfying and that it rains every single miserable day here. Okay, to be fair it doesn't rain every day. It snows sometimes too. 

But fact remains that I'm alone in a foreign country and living on a school campus run by administrators who feel it necessary to censor every damn thing online (the organizing for america website, really??). Look, I need facebook in order to stay in touch with people back home. Yes, I know that email exists. But no, people my age do not communicate using email. We're the social networking/texting generation. We send short little messages frequently to keep each other updated. We do not sit down and write nice long letters/emails to each other on a regular basis. Even our emails are short and to the point. So let me talk to my friends back home, get updates on how and what they're doing. Or if you insist on blocking my account, even though I'm not a freaking student, at least let me pay for a separate internet connection. Give me an alternative! Don't just tell me that it's too bad and that I should try texting and email. I cannot text or email people because I don't know who's actually here and don't have their numbers. And I can't text or email people back home because the mobicarte prices are ridiculous and I don't even have some of my friends' email addresses. And your crap internet connection drops every 5 minutes anyway. You are effectively isolating me from all the Americans in France and my friends back home for 7 months. And that is not okay.

That isn't what pushed me over the edge though. Not today at least. No, it was more the fact that the French like to take time off of work for absolutely no reason in the world. If all of my outlets suddenly stop working as they did earlier today, and I go to the res life office at 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, there should be someone there. I should not be greeted by a sign informing me that no one is in the office on Wednesdays or Fridays. It being Wednesday is not a good enough reason for you to stay home and do nothing. I can't use my computer and therefore can't prepare for my classes, I can't use my microwave or hot plates, I can't use my hairdryer, and oh yeah, everything in my fridge is going bad. If I can't do ANYTHING in my room except for take a shower and sleep, yes, I expect you to kind of do something about it. And by something, I mean something other that responding with "Oh, that's too bad. But it's Wednesday and no one's here anymore. At 3 in the afternoon." 

UGH. 

I'm far too much of a workaholic to live here. But then again, I shouldn't have to survive on bread and carry my laptop/adapter/ethernet cable/class notes/everything I might need in order to plan for my classes to another building at night in the rain in order to do my freaking job, regardless of what country or city I'm in. 

I miss the sun and my friends and family and people who actually work normal hours and do their job efficiently. I miss home.

Thanksgiving

I spent Thanksgiving away from home/family for the first time this year. It was pretty difficult being alone and in a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday, but I did (and still do) have plenty to be thankful for. 

Like the fact that I spent some time on Thanksgiving finally giving a presentation that I prepared instead of conducting more mock oral exams. (Basically almost the entirety of my existence as an English assistant here has consisted of giving these mock exams, which is a terrible idea for a number of reasons I won't go into here.) I taught some students about Thanksgiving and had them play a game afterward to see how much they had actually understood, and it went pretty well. It was easily the most gratifying hour I've spent at the lycee. After classes, I headed over to the bibliotheque americaine's Thanksgiving celebration, which can be summed up as "tea" and "not very reminiscent of Thanksgiving." Not that it wasn't nice, but it made me more homesick if anything and reminded me once more of just how far away from home I am. So I came back and made myself a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner to tide me over until the real one at Pont-a-Mousson on the following Saturday. It was so good to be with other Americans and eat and drink excessive amounts and have pumpkin pie. Mm pumpkin pie. It's strange how being in France makes me miss things that I don't even really eat when I'm in the US.

My somewhat sad makeshift Thanksgiving dinner

Pont-a-Mousson

More Pont-a-Mousson. The river is so much prettier there than it is in Nancy.

Decorations!

Hand turkey!

Appetizers

The desserts & maybe 1/3 of the drinks...

Food! :D You see here turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and green bean casserole.

Sweet potatoes, wild rice casserole, gravy

We went for a walk after dinner and learned how pretty Mont-a-Mousson is at night.

Aaaand then went back for dessert! The homemade pumpkin pie was super good.

And since everyone does it on Thanksgiving, here's an incomplete list of the things I'm thankful for:

- Family and friends. I'm sure I'd survive, but life wouldn't be quite so sweet without them.
- The basics - food, water, having a (free) roof over my head. And the not so basics - hot water, electricity, adequate heating.
- Being in good health and having insurance!
- Employment. My job hasn't been quite what I wanted or expected, but I'm still learning from it and I'm grateful for that.
- Other language assistants. Those who I feel I've been able to connect with, and those who make an effort to include me on activities knowing that I can't access facebook like most of them can.
- Internet access and skype. Skype has really been a godsend.
- Students who talk!
- Being fortunate (and wealthy) enough to live abroad twice.
- My education. IMSA and Amherst have been such an integral part of my growth, and I'm thankful to have been able to attend both. And, of course, for the generous people who made it possible for me to afford Amherst. 
- Knowing what I want to do in the future. I've met so many people here and have a lot of friends back home who have no idea what they want to do for the rest of their lives, and I feel fortunate to have something to look forward to. I don't know what it is exactly, but I feel like I'm meant to do this and I'm so excited to get started.
- Thanksgiving at Pont-a-Mousson. I'd be so much worse off without it. 
- Living (permanently) in a country that knows how to deal with snow and ice! I've slipped so many times on icy patches here that I've lost count. Icy sidewalks are a public hazard, France!! Use some salt!
- And a whole bunch of other things. Like my cameras, laptop, my external hard drive and the tons of movies I put on it, speculoos, baguettes, camembert, Love Actually, the electric piano at the lycee, good wine, movies in vo, vin chaud, trains, Christmas music, tea, and sunny days. 

And, of course, the fact that I'll be spending Christmas in Paris with Jeff, and then going to Goettingen for New Years! So excited to spend part of the holiday season with friends.

Alsace

I started a pretty long update detailing the not so pleasant aspects of my sejour here that I will finish (hopefully) soon, but for today, all I have to say is that I love Strasbourg. And I want to spend Christmas there every year for the rest of my life. 

Toussaint

I'm terrible with updates. Hmm. Must work on that.

So I've now been here for one month and four days, done maybe half of the 12 hours of work per week that I was supposed to be doing, illegally traveled outside the country, and watched far too much American tv. Old episodes of shows I brought with me, of course, since my internet connection here is the saddest thing since the midterm elections, which I spent all of today (aka my last day of break) following. Totally should have gone to the laundromat instead.

The break was relatively uneventful, as my lazy self spent far too much time sleeping to actually get anything productive or interesting done. But I did go to Luxembourg with MA and her husband, despite our orders to not leave French territory until we get the tampon (a stamp, not the feminine hygiene product) in our passports. Luxembourg is easily one of the most confusing places I've ever been to. I'm pretty sure I heard 10 languages while walking down one not too long street, which proved to be too much for my already overwhelmed brain as I reverted to speaking Korean. But otherwise there wasn't too much that struck me as being truly unique to the area, although that's probably because I didn't spend too much time there. Oh, that and because there was a lot of fog that prevented me from being able to see much of anything. Still, I did see the ducal palace and get super excited seeing little flags at the registers (indicating which languages the attendants spoke) in a supermarche. 


I also amused myself and most likely annoyed others while grading papers and trying to contain my laughter (kids these days are so creative!) in the mediatheque, a sort of library, before being kicked out at the completely unreasonable hour of 6 pm. Seriously, between libraries never being open and all the manifs, I don't understand how anyone gets anything done here. If you're a 5eme with a difficult oral exam coming up, you should probably be going to school so you can prepare for it instead of striking over the retirement age, no? How do people pass the concours?! On the plus side, more manifestations/greves = less work for me. The only annoying part is that I have to get up at 8 or 9 or whatever time I have class anyway in the highly unlikely case that enough students show up to get something done.

Then last weekend I managed to go out with T, who has been renamed "cute son" since I first met him through his mom (and yes, it was as awkward as it sounds) and met his much more talkative friend Q. Went to a bar, heard stories about people who get arrested every weekend or fall off 3rd floor balconies when they drink, explained kings and shotgunning, then learned that chivalry is not dead when the two walked me back to the school instead of letting me wait 48 minutes for the next tram. It was super nice of them considering they both live in the city center and I live, well, not in the city center. Or if you want to be really specific, a 45 minute walk from Place Stanislas, which is another 10 minutes from where they live. Went out again with Q the next night, met some of his hs friends, had a flamme nicolas or whatever the 3 step flaming drink is called with a 62 year old man, went to my first discotheque in Nancy, then was walked back again so I could stay up until an ungodly hour and skype with people.


The rest of the break involved more skype, sleep, and helping one of the teachers (the only one who's even remotely close to my age) pack/move, and fbing at teachers' houses. Not having facebook access complicates life so, so much when you're in a foreign country and all the other foreigners communicate/meet each other through it. 

Ducal Palace

Market in Luxembourg

This is definitely not wine. But it does warm you up!

Luxembourg. Or what you can see of it through the fog.

Store in Luxembourg

Look at the flags!! Lady on the left was obviously an underachiever in high school.

Place Stanislas, fleurie. It doesn't look like this anymore.

Fancy Pants Nancy, France

(Disclaimer: I did not create the above phrase.)

I've arrived in France and am more or less bien installee in the studio that I've be living in for the next 7-8 months. The trip here was uneventful (if you ignore the freakout that ensued once a woman at the train station told me that my ticket might not in fact be a ticket 20 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave) and people have been extremely welcoming despite my now rusty French.

During the past two weeks, I've wiped down all the furniture and every square inch of the floor in my room, completed my week of "observation" and started teaching, discovered the joys (HA) of French administration, gone to a "Desperate Housewives party" (really a soiree des filles), and had the inaugural encounter with a sketchy old man. I've also come to appreciate and miss the quality/speed of internet in the US, having a car when going to the supermarche, and perhaps most importantly the racial consciousness that I take for granted on a day to day basis when in the US.

But Nancy is a cute, lively ville with lots to see and discover and Place Stanislas, though a little bit too ornate for my tastes, is easy on the eyes. And there's not too much more I could ask for. 

Random street we came across

(Part of the) Place Stanislas

They have animals in the Parc Pepiniere!

More animals! There are peacocks and chimps too, but those pictures wouldn't upload for some reason.

From inside the parc

Place Stanislas

Porte de la Craffe.