Toots Sweet

Happy First Birthday Seth Carson Waters!

Hope you've finally gotten through "Happy, Baby Animals" in one sitting. Enjoy your cake and ice cream on your special day! Love, Aunt Nené

The third week of ma vie à Paris is drawing to a close, though at times, it has felt as if I've been perpetually living here. Could be due to living in Besançon last semester and the fact that I will have soon successfully avoided two notoriously horrendous winters in Nebraska. In any case, it is a relief to realize it's only been three weeks so I can occassionally admit how little I know about Paris and France and know that there is plenty of learning left to be done.

First item of business: Teaching.

Despite previous statistics I cited about freshmen dropping out during the first semester in the French public university system, the majority of my students seem to be motivated and earnestly interested in being in class. They have also been quite candid on the whole. In reponse to "What's your name and what do you want to do after your license?", one student said, "I'm not sure if I want to do my license, or even this semester." I replied, "Well, I hope I can change your mind about that."

As this has been my first time being responsable for entire classes, I didn't fully acknowledge myself as a teacher until a student said, "Bye, Mrs. Oglesby! See you next week!" I've never been called Mrs. Oglesby, much less Madame, which often is the way my students address me. I felt the first two weeks were spent establishing myself as a teacher, not a student as I appear to be due to my young age. I am teaching a few students who are only a year or so younger than I.

Thus far, I am enjoying my teaching experience, on the whole. Though the negative aspects of living in Paris (which I'll address later on) are beginning to show, I am certainly glad to be teaching university freshmen who are better disciplined than les étudiants terminals, high-school seniors. Had I accepted the teaching position in Besançon, this would have been my lot.

Second item: Complaints.

Teaching is great, especially when you get paid for it. Unfortunately, I cannot attest to this truism. I've been gathering paperwork to apply for my aforementioned carte de séjour, however, the two remaining pieces are floating somewhere in the Parisian ether of bureaucracy. Any bank in France requires a carte de séjour to open an account through which UMLV could pay me, but the waiting period to receive my carte de séjour could take up to two months. I do have one available weapon the ether does not: Madame Machet, the most helpful, patient secretary I've ever met. This woman kept in contact throughout the mystery of my missing visa paperwork last summer and has been helping me navigate form after form. As it turns out, the ANAEM is once again the culprit. They will supposedly send the two remaining documents via mail which would allow me to complete my application for the carte de séjour. When this might happen, no one can tell. So, this wonderful secretary has side-stepped the rules, will cut me a check next week, which we hope will enable me to convince a bank to open an account, or I can at least ask a friend to cash it for me. In the mean time, I wait for these missing, crucial documents to find their way to me. That was gripe number one.

Gripe number two involves the realization by myself and Jacob that we may not be cut out for the big city life. If you don't jump out of the way in time, the local Parisian foot traffic will plow you down, or at least run into your shoulders often enough that you have a scowl on your face by the time you walk six blocks. I can barely recall a time when someone stepped out of the way for me. You really have to have your game face on. Some people explain this phenomenon by calling the French rude or selfish. I can see where the stereotype comes from, but I think they are just used to the crowds and have decided that many of them are tourists anyway, so plowing is a-okay in order to get where you're going. Possible solutions: a) wider sidewalks, b) changing my personal style to goth, wearing pointy objects to persuade people to move out of the way, or c) retiring as quickly as possible to apartment after work and developing my misanthropy.

Speaking of misanthropy, nothing will make you imagine what eternal damnation can be like more than standing in terribly long lines with screaming children in an overheated grocery store. Or a line for a state organization whose sole business is bureaucracy. A funny thing about lines and the French: if you aren't standing directly behind the person you are in line after, someone will cut in and not apologize, not give up the place which is rightfully yours. I find that I dislike everyone a whole lot more in these conditions. The local supermarket chain is called Monoprix. Jacob and I find ourselves there often for orange juice, oatmeal, or whichever type of wine happens to be on sale that week. A recommendation for future vistors: avoid shopping for anything anywhere during peak hours. We often end up going when I get off of work which is a bad idea. We have better strategies now. This may explain why there are so many tiny marchés, boulangeries, and boucheries. That way, if you happen to just need a jar of salt or some bread, you can bop in and buy it for a few extra centièmes. But your sanity is worth that price.

Just so you know, it's not all gripes here. I believe I fell into this same pattern in Besançon. About a month in, after the shiny romantic idea of living in France has lost some of its sheen, you being to criticize pretty much anything which trips your trigger. Another month or so, you realize perhaps your criticism is the first symptom of homesickness in disguise. In yet another month, you find yourself praising many aspects of the United States which you formerly doubted or at least you realize their function in comparison with other forms of freedom and demo/bureaucracy. The fourth month, after a serious bout of homesickness which may manifest itself physically, you realize you're stuck for at least another several months and must make the best of it. Once the analytical, cultural anthropologist within you has had its fill of de-bunking myths (cultural and personal), you may finally enjoy the rest of your time in France. This, of course, is only a projection, but I'm a creature of habit and will most likely follow the same pattern as before.

As promised here is a tour of the Servant's Quarters along with video of the miracle of hydrolics which takes places outside of the Quarter's everyday, hyperlinked to Youtube.