02

May

Gone Wwoofing

Just a heads up that I won’t be able to post for the next 2 weeks because I’ll be working on a farm in the French countryside with no internet access.
I know I haven’t posted in a while, but that wasn’t because I physically couldn’t. I was just too busy going out 8 days a week with my friends in Nice (the 8th day is for afternoons spent beach drinking).

Anyway, other than backbreaking physical labor, I won’t have much to do these next few weeks except write, so at some point I’ll have some very long, detailed, probably boring posts to put up here. Or on my new blog so people start reading it.

Trying not to miss my life in Nice too much. My one comfort is that most of my good friends have left, and the town just wouldn’t be the same without them. I would have cried last night, but I was too tired.

20120502-161512.jpg

I’ll leave off with a picture from Aix, where I caught a ride this afternoon, and from where I’m writing and posting this. The city is beautiful, and so clean compared to Nice! Little squares and fountains like this are tucked around every corner.

27 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

living in france/travel and adventure

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21

Apr

It’s All Over Now, Bébé Bleu

This past Thursday was my last day of work as an English language teaching assistant. All in all, leaving was a bit anticlimactic. On my last day one of my classes sang “Blowin’ in the Wind” and gave me a big card, and the teacher took me out to lunch, which was really nice. But I think most of my students don’t even realize I won’t be coming back after their two-week vacation. Even one of my teachers forgot that I wouldn’t be coming back!

Frankly, I’m not that broken up about the end of that job. I found teaching English to mostly uninterested and unmotivated students to be boring, tedious and trying on my nerves (ew, I sound like Elizabeth Bennett’s mother). My favorite part about this job was how rarely I had to work. Maybe I would have been more interested if I worked with older, more advanced students?

That’s not to say that working as an English prof didn’t have its moments. I never got tired of my hundreds (literally, I interacted with more than 400 students) calling out my name in the hallway; I was practically a celebrity until the end. And sometimes teaching could be a real hoot; the other day, for example, I was listening to students read a dialogue in which they had to express anger. I was helping them with their intonation, trying to get them to raise the pitch of their voices at the appropriate times, but all the fifteen-year-old boys’ voices kept cracking in the higher range. Seriously, one after another, the poor things. I struggled to hide my grin all afternoon.

I hate goodbyes. Even though I wasn’t at all sad to say adieu to those two schools, I still felt a few sentimental pangs while walking to the bus (no tears though). On the other hand, this next week, as my friends slowly trickle out of Nice, I anticipate shedding buckets.

I’ll be around for another week before I begin a two-week long WWOOF adventure, somewhere north of Marseille.

37 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

uncategorized

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05

Apr

30 Reasons To Be a Teaching Assistant in France

Accepted to TAPIF? Thinking of applying next year? Already a teaching assistant and needing to be reminded of why we all came out here in the first place? These are the Reasons you’ve been looking for:
  1. You speak some French and want to improve.
  2. You want to become fluent in French—this is not easy. I suppose it’s possible, but it requires far more work than I or any of my friends were willing to dedicate.
  3. You want to live in France for 7 months.
  4. You want to live in Europe for 7 months, and you’ll settle for France.
  5. You want to drink scrumptious 4 euro wine for 7 months.
  6. You wouldn’t mind getting drunk with your friends on 2 euro bottles of hangover-inducing wine.
  7. You want to live within 25 feet of the best bakery in France for 7 months—fyi, the best bakery is always the closest or second closest one to your apartment.
  8. You like café crèmes.
  9. You want to drink café crèmes on outdoor terraces…in France.
  10. You want to buy and consume countless tubs of Nutella and call it a “cultural experience”.
  11. You wouldn’t mind becoming a regular at the local Irish/expat pub.
  12. You want to travel in Europe.
  13. You want to help support yourself while traveling in Europe.
  14. You didn’t study abroad in college and you regret it.
  15. You did study abroad in college and it was the best time ever.
  16. You only want to work 12 hours a week.
  17. You have something you want to accomplish during the 156 hours a week you’re not working (write a novel, compose a symphony, apply to grad school, etc.)
  18. You wouldn’t mind having 6 weeks paid vacation during your 7 month contract.
  19. You can survive on only 800 euros a month (and have savings, or generous parents, to supplement that).
  20. You like teaching!
  21. You think you might like teaching.
  22. You want to be a teacher, or at the very least you would consider it if you couldn’t find a different job.
  23. You don’t want a real job yet.
  24. You had a real job and you need a break.
  25. Nobody has hired you for a real job yet and you need to get out of your parents’ house.
  26. You want to beef up your résumé.
  27. You “forgot” to apply to grad school last year.
  28. You were rejected from grad school.
  29. You didn’t apply to grad school because you don’t know what you want to study.
  30. You need some time to “find yourself” and “figure out what you want”.


Basically, if a baguette-filled, Nutella-smothered, wine-soaked year in France doesn’t appeal to you, DON’T DO IT. If it does, and you think you can handle the 12 hours of work, and the even more daunting 156 hours of free time, and the thought of hanging out in a teachers’ lounge making mostly awkward small talk in French tickles your fancy, COME COME COME COME. Best job ever.

Fellow teaching assistants, what can you add to this list? Why are you over here?

53 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

living in france/observations/teaching

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03

Apr

Thought Tunnel

Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for the title of this post. Thought tunnel is a term coined by my friend, and fellow teaching assistant, Emily. It describes our state of mind when we spend too much time hanging out in our cute French apartments wondering what to do next: what to do later that night, later that day, later in life, etc. It is either a result of or a cause of inactivity, or both.

The past few weeks I’ve been in a serious thought tunnel. I haven’t been able to accomplish anything except anxiously think about think about things I either can’t or won’t accomplish now, like finding a job back in the states.

Every morning I scan a daily email of new jobs listed on the Columbia career network program, Lionshare. I silently rage about the number of unpaid internships, and think negative thoughts about my qualifications for all the paid jobs (all two of them, if you eliminate computer program-y and finance-y type jobs).

I also think about how I need to figure out where and how to live for a month in Europe once my job ends and my lease is up, but I just haven’t felt like doing it. (I think I’m going to WWOOF, but I haven’t bought the France membership yet–this is actually on tonight’s to-do list, which means I might get to it tomorrow.)

Just for the record, the anxiety I feel now far exceeds the anxiety I felt in the weeks and months leading up to my graduation last year. And that’s saying something.

How am I coping? Well, last week I tried drowning myself in sunlight. It’s pretty difficult to feel anxious on the beach. But with the partly cloudy weather this week, my anxiety returned with a vengeance, and it brought a fever-y cold with it. Talking about it with other assistants also helps, somewhat. To some extent we all feel the pressure, and it’s nice to commiserate with each other.

I’ve become absolutely shameless about picking my friends brains about what they’re doing this summer, next year, for the rest of their life, etc. I do this for several reasons: 1) I’m curious, 2) I hope one of their plans will inspire me, 3) I want to see how my future life plans stack up against theirs.

As my time in France seems to be rapidly coming to an end (only 3 more weeks in Nice!), I’ve kind of lost sight of why I came to France. Ostensibly, it was to learn French; actually, it was to live in France for 7 months. And by live I mean enjoy, savor, embrace. It’s damn hard to do that when all I can think about is post-France life, with varying degrees of excitement and paranoia.

So I hereby formally (as formal as a personal blog post can be) reaffirm my dedication to living wholly in France.

I welcome and encourage any and all suggestions as to how I can go about this. ALSO tips and ideas from anyone who has gone WWOOFing would be very much appreciated.

55 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

living in france

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25

Mar

Why I Traveled Alone

“Wow, that’s really brave of you.”

“Aren’t you nervous?”

“I could never do that.”

“I’ve always wondered what that would be like.”

“Be safe.”

Awkward pause. Then, doubtfully, “You’ll probably have so much fun.”

“Oooooh, I love traveling alone.”

People didn’t always know how to react when they found out I was traveling alone to Amsterdam and Berlin. I might be borderline paranoid, but I always saw (or felt, if it was a gchat or facebook conversation) a bit of hesitation before someone responded. I could almost see them thinking: Wow, what’s wrong with this girl. Does she deserve pity? Should I console her? Why doesn’t she have any friends?!

Guys, I have friends. I promise. You can stop pitying me now.

Traveling alone wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t a back-up plan. It was a deliberate choice.

“But you came to France alone.” Nope, it’s not the same, at least not for me. There’s something very distinctive about traveling, as opposed to moving: the process of picking cities, booking flights and hostels, visiting sites, meeting lots of new people.

Why might someone choose to travel to a foreign country alone? Independence. Solitude (not to be confused with Loneliness). Adventure. Spontaneity. Control. Power. Excitement. Adrenaline. Curiosity.

Before I even arrived in France this year, I had planned to take a solo trip sometime during my time here. It was something I felt like I needed to do, for many of the above reasons; kind of an Eat. Pray. Love.-type spiritual/self-exploratory exercise/ritual thing.* As I mentioned in an earlier post, I thought I might be a different person when alone in a foreign country. (I wasn’t.)

I actually got the idea from an OkCupid blog post last February about the best questions to ask on a first date. (It’s actually fascinating, I suggest you check it out.) According to the post, couples who successfully began relationships through OkCupid were more likely to agree on the questions “Do you like horror movies? Wouldn’t it be fun to chuck it all and go live on a sailboat? and Have you ever traveled around another country alone?” than the questions “Is God important in your life? Is sex the most important part of a relationship? and Does smoking disgust you?” Whether you have or haven’t traveled alone in a foreign country is more important than God when in comes to relationship compatibility (in general, not for individuals).

Of course I like horror movies, and who doesn’t think chucking it all and living on a sailboat would be awesome?! When I read those questions, and saw the pretty pie charts and line graphs proving correlation, I knew that I wanted to be someone (and be with someone) who had traveled alone in a foreign country. It’s just so much cooler than, well, not traveling alone in another country, if you know what I mean.

*Haven’t read the book or seen the movie, this is entirely conjecture based on the previews.

One downside to traveling alone? You ALWAYS have to ask strangers to take your picture.

64 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

travel and adventure

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