Time to Say Goodbye

These are my last few days in France. The past seven months here have been wonderful. Despite some minor obstacles and living in a pretty isolated area, I loved being in my little corner of France. All the staff at the high school were incredibly nice to me, which made the transition at the school really easy. My students were polite (most of the time!) which made teaching calm and enjoyable. Most important to me, though, is the relationships I formed while being here. I am really sad to say goodbye to my BFF (Best French Friend) who lives in the next town over. I wish I could pack him up and bring him back to America with me. I think he would like it (at least eventually). He helped me more than anyone else here and I cannot express enough gratitude for his friendship. I hope he comes to visit soon (I know you're reading this!).

Also, my two American chicas in Grenoble are both moving on to separate endeavors, and I don't know when I'll see either of them again. I'm sure I'll find a great excuse to come visit Katie next year.

I've had the amazing opportunity to travel all over Europe during my time here, not the least favorite of which was my recent trip to Ireland. It's easy to see why my family comes from there - everyone is well-meaning and helpful, but a little bit crazy.

I am really excited to come back to see my best friend in the whole world, Beth, and watch her walk down the aisle! I couldn't be more happy for her, and can't wait to share in all the celebration. I am also really excited to spend time to with my sister, brother-in-law and my nephew. Also, I am beyond thrilled to be reunited with my kitty!

I don't know what else to say except that I am absolutely affirmed that this was the right decision for me. My French has improved enormously, and I feel more like myself than I have in a long time. I don't think I'll continue this blog, so thanks for reading and for your comments. It's been nice to feel "in touch," even passively, through this blog. Au revoir!

It's Closing Time

Well, I am officially done with classes. On Friday evening, the school closed shop for (yet another) two-week vacation. The students will come back in May, but my contract is up and I am hitting the road. My first stop is Ireland. I have wanted to go to Ireland for a long time. Friendly people, rocky coastlines, green pastures, pubs on every corner with a delicious pint of Guinness waiting - just sounds like my kind of place ya know. I am staying with some people through courchsurfing.org, a networking site of travelers willing to share their homes for free. I fell in love with this site after a great experience in Torino, Italy. Speaking of which, I need to recap that....

Living less than an hour from the Italian border, it seemed silly to me that I would spend a schoolyear here and not hop over to say "Ciao!" to my neighbors. So I talked my friend Katie into roadtripping with me. Adventure ensued. After some crazy bouchon (the French word for traffic - it also means cork), we made it through the Mont Blanc Tunnel which is a ridiculous 11km long (!) and drove through some lovely Italian countryside. Every 30 kilometers or so, some ancient fortress on a hill seemed to appear our of the 15th century. It was a little bit like time traveling.

The rumor that Italian drivers are crazy is no exaggeration. Anyone who has driven with me knows I am too so I fit right in. After some serious detours driving around the city of Torino, we arrived at our destination to meet our gracious host Francesco. A guy in his late 20's, he lives in a small studio pretty close to the center of town, and just a couple blocks from a huge park. People were reading, playing frisbee, sunbathing, and of course kickingback with a coffee or beer like this guy in the pic. For the brief 24 hours we were there, we did nothing super special in Torino, but ate plenty of gelto and pizza. A place called Grom makes organic gelato that's pretty out of this world. My favorite flavor was Salted Caramel.

On Sunday, Francesco lent us old bikes that we rode around the city, going nowhere in particular. That Sunday was Palm Sunday and the palms were GIANT. Take a look at that pic below. I will have more posts of course about my thoughts about leaving France (it's a grand and emotional topic), but for now I'll just say Happy belated Easter to all you Christians. Here's a fun little jam about JC: "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" by Judee Sill

What I Teach: Musics!

I mentioned a while ago that my favorite way to teach is through music. The students enjoy it, I like it, everyone stays quiet, and they are really engaged in what they're learning. The only tricky part is that the lyrics have to be sung clear enough that the students have a chance at understanding them, and the words/phrases can't be too familiar or "slangy." This eliminates a lot of songs. But with the right song, there is opportunity to teach language and culture. Here are some excerpts from the best examples of songs I've used to teach:

1. Secret Heart by Feist

Secret Heart
What are you made of?
What are you so afraid of?
Could it be three simple words,
Or the fear of being overheard?
What's wrong?

Lesson enforced: Forming questions
Vocabularly: Overheard, sacred, tough, conceal, reveal, lonliness, bear (as in grin and bear it), admit, "go through it" and "something to do with"

2. Homeward Bound by Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

I'm sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket for my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands, my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.

Every day's an endless stream
of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be,

Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.

Lesson enforced: Contractions (I'm sitting, every day's, I'll play)
Vocabulary: railway, one-night stands (hey, if I'm going to teach it, it might as well be in this context), neatly planned, endless stream, long, pretend, shades, emptiness, thoughts, escaping

3. The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band

Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy
But give the devil his due
I'll bet a fiddle of gold
Against your soul
'Cause I think I'm better than you

The boy said, "My name's Johnny
And it might be a sin
But I'll take your bet
And you're gonna regret
'Cause I'm the best there's ever been"

This song is all about a story - as the title says, the devil goes to Georgia looking for a "soul to steal" and bets a boy named Johnny that he can play better fiddle. If the devil loses, Johnny gets a golden fiddle and if he wins, he gets to take Johnny's soul. My main goal with this is not vocabulary (the word "hickory" as in "hickory stump" doesn't even exist in French) but culture. Most students don't know what a fiddle is or what it sounds like, so it's new and fun for that reason. I also just want them to get the main idea of the story and know who wins in the end, the Devil or Johnny.

What I Teach: Recent Engineering Feats

One of my classes studies the design of industrial parts. My M.O. for this class is to select a text on a recent invention, and we simply read it aloud in class. We break down the sentence structure, go over vocabulary, and check for understanding. Then we usually have a short discussion at the end of what they think of this invention - whether it's practical, what the pros and cons are, etc. It's pretty straight forward. Here are the things we've discussed:

AirPod - A car even smaller than a Smart Car, this tiny vehicle is electric, and is operated by a joystick in place of a foot pedal. It can fit 3 adults and 1 child. Paris has apparently requested a bunch of these vehicles for its 3,000 car AutoLib fleet - Autolib is a program which I believe runs similarly to its city-wide bike rental program. Think environmentally friendly ZipCar.


Martin Jetpack - Yeah, it's a jetpack. It's hard to know what else to say, except that it runs on gasoline, can fly about 30 minutes on a full tank, reaches an altitude of 8,000 ft and a speed of 60 mph. It was developed in Australia, and apparently should be now available to consumers (even without a pilot's license) at a cost of about 100k.



eLEGS - Designed for paraplegics, this exoskeleton system allows those with mobility disorders to stand and even walk. "This collaboration between UC Berkeley and Berkeley Bionics is a successful model of industry-university work to bring critical technologies to end users. Under medical supervision, eLEGS will initially be used in rehabilitation centers. Clinical trials will begin early 2011 with a limited release scheduled for mid-2011."

What I Teach: Food Deserts

Time to bring this blog back down to earth. I started with the intention of sharing what I learn and teach. I've had the opportunity to teach about some pretty cool stuff. I wanted to teach high school because I wanted to be able to teach content, and not just vocabulary and grammar rules. Some of my classes have been able to engage at a high level, and those are my favorite teaching moments.

One of my favorite lessons has been on Food Deserts, which is a place where it is difficult to find affordable nutritious foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. This is actually a huge problem in the United States, and something that Michelle Obama has been particularly focused on. Food Deserts exist in both urban and rural communities, and are in important contributor to obesity problems.

I love this lesson because it challenges students to think in ways they may not have before. For instance, the United States is incomprehensibly large to a lot my students. Texas alone is bigger than France and Alaska is about 3x its size. When we talk about how some people have to travel 30 miles (50km) to a grocery store, it's absurd to them. If that were the case here, the closest grocery store would be in Geneva.

It also gets them thinking about poverty. The United States is seen as a money hungry country where most people are wealthy. The reality is that wealth is concentrated heavily in the top 1-5% of the nation's richest (as the graph shows, not even most Americans know how large the gap is). This lesson has the intention of making kids aware of how deep America's poverty problem runs and how that, in turn, affects so much else (money to afford food, transportation to access food, obesity and therefore healthcare costs, etc.).

At the end of the lesson, I ask what are the most important factors are for why people don't eat well. The top answers have been as follows:

Poverty: Eating costs money. Eating well costs even more money.

Accessibility: If you have money (or food stamps from the government), the question becomes, what do I have access to?

Knowledge: Okay, I have money and access. How do I know what I should eat? Do I know how to cook healthily? Did my family teach me that or did I learn it in school?

Culture: I've got money, access, and knowledge. Do I have time? In America, maybe not. The culture always seems pressed for time. This is instilled in children very young, when you only have 20-30 minutes for a lunch wave.

Preference and Habit: You just like the taste and you don't want to change your habits

Tradition: Your subculture has certain cooking traditions that may be unhealthy

As I'm always interested in getting feedback, I'd really love to get your thoughts on this. Have you heard about food deserts? How big of a problem do you think they are? Is there something else I could have added to make this lesson better? Post comments!

Just Do It

Well, after an eventful two weeks back in the US, I am back to teaching in France. I started writing this post about how overwhelming the past couple weeks have been, but it's more than that. The past year has been really overwhelming for me. In fact, I was told the other day by someone really close to me that they were beginning to associate me with the word "overwhelmed." I guess that's just the word I use when I have so many emotions going on and I don't feel like pinpointing what they are.

A lot of changes have happened in the past year or so. At the beginning of 2010, I was in a long-term and long-distance relationship. It became clear that our lives were taking us on different paths and it ended. By the end of 2010, I had another long distance relationship (seriously, what's with that?), which I am happy to report is just dandy despite cross-Atlantic communication.

But of course the biggest source of this overwhelmed feeling was moving to France. Doing this meant leaving a secure job I was happy with in Chicago, IL, one of the best cities in the world. I gave up most of my possessions, gave my cat to a very compassionate friend, broke my lease, and couch hopped for about 6 weeks before making the leap across the pond. After voluntarily doing all a lot of things that (tragically) happen to those who are forcefully displaced from their homes, I have to ask myself, (a) "Am I crazy?" and (b) "Was it worth it?" I think we all know the answer to (a) so moving on to (b)...

I am lucky enough to have lots of very wise people giving me advice. My dad has also been a pillar of logic, giving me much-needed practical counseling at times. My sister sees my dilemmas with unusual clarity, and my mom has always believe I could do whatever I want. My oldest brother, a family member who shares my wanderlust, told me that if I want to have an experience like this, it will only get harder as time goes on. Other bits of wisdom I have been lucky enough to hear along the way are, "You have at least 40 years of your life to work, no need to rush to a decision," "You can always make more money, you can never make more time," and "Start a Roth IRA." All good pieces of advice.

I didn't go into this experience expecting too much, but I have enjoyed the ups and the downs so far. And there have definitely plenty. I am looking forward to the next seven weeks here, and then continuing the roller coaster of life back in the states. After all, I have my best friend's wedding and my expecting sister waiting for me in New England, a storage locker and a cat in Chicago, and an apartment in Florida with my name on it. I guess life rarely gets simpler. But why wait for a storm to pass when you can dance in the rain - or better yet, get a wind turbine to turn that storm into green energy :o

I guess my point to this post is, yes, it is worth it. I have been lonely, isolated, missed the hell out of my friends and family, and got hit in the face with language and cultural barriers. BUT, I have skied in the Alps, bathed in thermal baths in Budapest, seen the Lights of Lyon, been to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the basement of a Czech bar. I've also made really great friends. These are experiences that I will probably never have again but will never forget. So if you're a student and can study abroad, do it! If you have vacation time and can spend it doing something new and exciting, do it! And keep in my mind this all coming from someone who has always loved roller coasters; if you're thinking of making a life change that seems "crazy," JUST DO IT! I really believe it when they say, "you will regret the things you don't do more than the ones you do." Et moi, je ne regrette rien.

Edith Piaf, "Je ne regrette rien"

(There is a lovely movie about this woman's life called La Vie en Rose. You should watch it!)

Musics

I like some various musics.
Here is a list of my musics according to my moods.

There is no reason for this post other than it's my blog and I can do what I want.

For waking up:
Priscilla Ahn, "Dream"

Favorite lyric: Long walks in the dark
Through woods grown behind the park
I asked God who I'm supposed to be
The stars smiled down at me
God answered in silent reverie
I said a prayer and fell asleep


For relaxed happy mood:

I'm From Barcelona, "Treehouse"

Favorite lyric: I have built a treehouse
Nobody can see us
it's a you and me house

Camille, "Paris" (About moving from Paris to the south of France)

Favorite Lyric: Fini le ciel gris
Les matins moroses
On dit qu'à Toulouse les briques sont roses
Oh là bas, Paris, les briques sont roses

For a calm mood:
Alexi Murdoch, "Orange Sky"

Favorite Lyric: I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by

For a dancing party mood:

Cold War Kids, "Mine is Yours"

Favorite Lyric: I try to talk big but my mouth don’t move
Cuz I don’t own the sun I don’t own the moon
They only come out when they want to
They don’t care whether I promised you

For sleep:

Melody Gardot, "Les Etoiles"

Favorite Lyric: Les étoiles les étoiles
Si seulement je savais
Dites moi étoile de qui obtenez-vous la lumière

Pictures from Saturday Skiing

Skiing hasn't been too great this winter, according to everyone who lives here. Apparently there is usually MUCH more snow. As I am writing this, it is raining (instead of snowing as the forecast predicted). One of my classes it watching An Inconvenient Truth at the moment - how ironic. But I still think the skiing is pretty great. Here are some pictures from this past weekend at Contamines.
And now for parts of the mountains that get the most sun...

Tartiflette and Culture Talk

My weekdays have become pretty routine - I teach in the school or tutor everyday but Friday, a day during which I tend to sleep for long periods of time. Also during the week, I keep one leg firmly planted in each culture by watching the latest episodes of Glee, 30Rock, and (a little embarrassingly) The Bachelor the day after they air in the US. Weekends are finally beginning to feel like real weekends - pauses from the routine.

A couple weeks ago, a woman named Florence who works for the Office of Student Life (La Vie Scolaire), invited me and a couple others over for dinner this past Friday. She made tartiflette, a traditional dish in Savoie. It's delicious! The whole night was really great - Florence has two very nice children about 6 and 12 years old I'd guess, and a man friend. Also, another student life employee, Xavier, came to dinner. We talked about culture, politics, and of course food.

So many French people I have met readily admit that the French are not particularly open-minded, particularly about language. Part of that is the education system - it's just not parituclarly good at teaching English, it seems.
Example: One example of this would be that textbooks first teach middle school students the verb "to have" with the word "got" so that students learn that the appropriate way to say something is "I have got the keys" or "She's got blue eyes." I think they are taught that this is the Present tense, but it is actually the Present Perfect of "To Get", and "have" in this structure is really just a helper verb to the main verb "Get." I explained to my middle school tutoring student who just learned this that "got" is actually optional and that the main verb "have" does not need "got" with it to make it correct - in fact, she will learn in the future that that verb "to have" is a helper verb to all sentences formed in the Present Perfect, in which the principal verb could be anything.

Anyway, I understand the French perfectly well on this topic. I used to hate it when I heard people speaking Spanish in the States. But I've changed a lot since then ;)

Another point that came up was America's obsession with murder and crime, evidenced by popular shows such as CSI and Dexter, which are very popular in France. I proposed that in the debate of whether Art Reflects Life or Life Reflects Art, this would be a case of the former. Violent crime IS much more prevalent in the US. We get accustomed to reading about it (I don't remember a week when I opened the RedEye in Chicago and didn't see news about gun deaths) but the truth is about 30,000 people die each year in the US by guns, about 40% of which is homicide. So, it makes sense to me that we would have more cultural commentary -in this case, in the form of TV shows- on this particular state of our culture.

Then we talked about 9/11. Oh Lord. I was asked very seriously if I really believed it was terrorists or if I thought there was "something else" behind the acts. I remember being jolted by the movie 9/11 by Michael Moore and some of the disturbing facts it presented, but I also understand Moore to be a bit manipulative with facts, and someone who thrives on making bold and controversial commentary, so I took the movie with a grain of salt. Had I ever given serious thought to whether our own government could have a hand in the attacks? Simply, no. I responded that if I really believed our own government could be responsible for that, I couldn't live in the US. But since I also can't NOT live in the US (since all my family and friends are there), there is perhaps an element of forced belief - as in, I am forced to believe our government couldn't possibly do that. At the end of the day, I think it's conceivable that certain individual members of the government could have profited from the attacks, but I don't believe that it was a widespread conspiracy planned on a systematic level.

I am not one to shy away from heavy conversations, but even I was starting to feel the heat. Finally, the topic of conversation changed to food. I love that the French can talk about food literally for hours. It's fantastic. Crepes, honey, cheese, wine, stews, ahhh! I love it.

Anyway, then we played some games. One of them was called the "Lapin Cretin," or the Crazy Rabbit, which was a visual accuity and reflex game. I won. Then we played "War of the Lambs" the point of which was to "fence in" as many lambs of your color (black, red, blue, or yellow). I lost that won.

More chatting by the fire and we called it a night at 1am. Florence said she's going to have another dinner, when she'll make fondue. YES! Can't wait!

My favorite unedited photos of France (edited versions to come later)

This isn't my favorite photo, but I feel like it captures well the feeling of isolation I get sometimes. So when I say "I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss Chicago, etc." - this is partly why. There is also beauty in what I think is a sobering image. There is a certain freedom in those open spaces.

A very small taste of the ridiculous-awesome light show in Lyon

I am not sure if this cow and I were falling in love or about to get in a fight, but either way, we were having a pretty serious staring competition

Lunch break halfway through a legit hike in Grenoble

After a bike ride to a waterfall in Sallanches (next town over from me), we stopped to say what up to the sheep

A very emo shot outside the Louvre in the rain

An old bookshop in Paris

Skiing at Combloux-Megeve

Lake Passy, the small lake in the town where I live. That's Mont Blanc.

Annecy

I went to Annecy today for a medical visit with the Office of Immigration. So much went wrong the first part of the day...After turning off my alarm at 9am, I slept for another unplanned 2 hours. Long story short, I missed the last train that would have made it to Annecy in time, which meant I had to take my car. Gas is really expensive and so are tolls, so it's quite a bit more to take a car alone than to take the train, especially since I am under 25 and I have a youth reduction card for the train system. Anyway, I ended up taking the non-toll road through some windy roads and ended up in Annecy with plenty of time to spare. I didn't know where to park and was about to pay for hourly parking when I asked a man about parking (it pays to ask questions!) and found a free lot not too far away. So, I managed to find my way to the Immigration Office, depsite the POS map they sent, which was mislabeled. But since apparently I'm too cool to read official documents from the Immigration Office, I failed to note that I had to get chest X-Rays before I showed up at the Immigration Office. Luckily, I was 30 minutes early, the x-ray place was only a ten minute walk, and they fit me right in. The whole thing ended up taking about 2 hours. I felt a little weird about the whole thing - I had to get undressed a couple times, which is always weird, but even more strange when you're not really sure what people are saying to you. I also felt a little bit like a dog getting a collar put on. I know all this procedure is neccesary for me to get a social security card so France can give me free medical care and whatnot :) but I did feel a little owned by the state. Oh well.

After receiving my special visa, I walked around Annecy, which boasts a nice lake with a beautiful view of the mountains, and lots of cute rowboats (Can you tell I miss the water?). There are tons of tea, coffee, chocolate, and pastry shops, all of which are overwhelmingly alluring. I stopped more than once just to stare at baked goods and other treats. I ended up buying a few caramel and salted butter-filled chocolates. They were heavenly. I also saw a beer specialty shop which I didn't stop in because I was still trying to figure out the medical stuff, but I plan to head back there some time. There are also lots of clothing shops, all of which are having their final days of "soldes" or sales. I was very tempted to buy an extremely French looking white silk shirt, but in better judgment decided against it.

It was funny how a few hours in the "city" wore me out - I use quotes b/c Annecy isn't really a city like Chicago is a city, but it's 100x different from where I live normally. I had a thought today that I must have been a farmer in another life. Being in the country really doesn't bother me, and I was happy to return to it at the end of the day. Tomorrow I have a day of relaxing (so different from my usual schedule) before a couple tutoring sessions in the evening, plus a couple more on Saturday morning.

Blank

So this post will not have a theme really; it's a general life update. I am becoming more and more French everyday. I can go to the grocery store and not have a panic attack about what to buy. I could even tell you about a lot of the different foods (see bottom of blog for some of that). I have started to think that 12 ounces is a lot for any beverage. I think it's rude when people don't say hello and goodbye, even when you don't know them. And the guilt complex I had about not working very much is pretty much completely worn off - oh, class at 9am is canceled? Okay, I'm going back to bed. I'm really curious as to what my reaction will be coming back to the US after five months here!

This past weekend I saw the World Ski Championship in a town called Les Houches, which is about 20 minutes away. I went with another professor (a young history prof) and her boyfriend, both of whom are really nice and both speak English really well. They spoke in English most of the time and I spoke in French. It was good practice for both us. It was much like any other sporting even - fans, flags, cheering, a giant TV, announcers, but a little less organized since there wasn't much planned seating. So we stood for an hour and a half to watch the Slolam. It was cold, but fun to watch. Some guy from Croatia won.

This week is a short week for me - I have Thursday and Friday off. I am going to Annecy tomorrow for my medical visit at the immigration office. On Saturday, I am thinking about going to Lyon to see a soccer match, but it's a long hike over there, so we'll see.

Traveling is a bit more difficult now that I have a handful of tutoring students. I tutor a highschool freshman on Wednesdays, and he is very quiet. They have a lovely cat who was weary of me at first, but now is very friendly. I was tutoring a boy in middle school, but his mom fired me because the kid wasn't motivated - I guess I was going too slow? Middle school is a weird time - I don't know how to interact with humans that age. Anyway, my favorite student is a woman who sells office furniture, and she wants to work in Switzerland. Then there are the three brothers waaaay up in the mountains with multiple cats - they're an interesting lot. One of them wants to move to Australia, hence the lessons. He's a tatoo artist.

There are no big adventures lately, but I am enjoying the slow pace of life most of the time. And I am definitely not missing the Thundersnow or whatever we're calling it!