school's out.

well… that’s that. today was my last day of work here in excideuil, because the kids have spring break for the next two weeks and i won’t be coming back afterwards. i genuinely cannot believe my job is finished. it doesn’t seem real, to be honest. but come sunday, i’ll be moving out of my apartment and kicking off five solid weeks of traveling before i head back to the states in mid-may… and i suppose it will feel real enough at that point. le sigh.

this week of school was bittersweet. i progressively said goodbye to my students, as our final class ended, and it was harder than i expected! i wrote them a little note, thanking them for such a lovely year and passing along my contact information… but i also did it so that i wouldn’t have to talk in front of my classes and get emotional. i’m terrible at goodbyes. each set of kids has been so precious – i received several going-away presents, and we had two separate mini-parties. the best part, though, has been the flurry of friend requests on social media, because now i know that i can stay in touch with these students as they (hopefully) continue their english studies! because that’s truly the best part of teaching – seeing the progress your students make, and then seeing their delight in recognizing that progress. i hope facebook will serve as a decent substitute, because i know some of these kids will go far!

as my final week of teaching draws to a close, i’m (unsurprisingly) getting more and more nostalgic. already. i can’t help but think about how much i’ve grown to love this place! my students are wonderful, despite their adolescent antics. the teachers are fantastic, and have really made me feel so welcomed and appreciated. i have grown to love this sleepy little village, with its joyful bells and quaint streets. i think what i’ll miss most of all, though, is just the feeling i have when i wake up every day – in france. i’ve been here for ages, it seems, but in reality… hardly any time at all. the novelty of knowing that i’ve had the rare opportunity to live out this dream – living in france, for real – still hasn’t worn off. and while i’m definitely excited to come home next month and see all my friends and family… i’m not looking forward to leaving this place behind. but, as tolkien said, the road goes ever on and on. and while i may be finishing this beautiful, albeit short, chapter in my story, i’m looking forward to seeing what the next page has to offer.

in the interest of brevity, and because i love lists, here is a collection of things i will miss desperately about this year:

- foie gras snack time. i never thought i’d say this, but i love foie gras. and i will miss it so, so much.

- going up to paris for the weekend, just because i can, and enjoying the sunshine in the most beautiful city in the world.

- being greeted by a chorus of “hello!” and “hi jill!” every time i walk into the courtyard at school and honestly, the consistently kind “bonjour” you get from basically everyone.

- the café downstairs, and all the smiling faces i get to see there every day.

- walking through the market on thursday mornings, and seeing all the locals going about their daily lives. and then walking back through the plaza afterwards, and smelling the slightly fishy, slightly earthy smell of the freshly-rinsed asphalt

-traveling like a crazy woman. it has become my favourite thing... can't imagine life without it.

- hearing a mildly out-of-tune ‘ode to joy’ ring out from the church every hour

- my bench by the fountain

- being able to throw a stone from my window and hit buildings from the 14^th century

- pilates with the ladies of excideuil

- seeing my students every day. love those kids.

- my sweet, cozy studio

- speaking french. that goes without saying.

the reason i’m so terrible at goodbyes is because i am so sensitive to finality… something amazing is coming to an end, and i want to be sure that i acknowledge the significance of this moment appropriately because it deserves the attention. unfortunately, i honestly don’t think i could do this experience justice. suffice it to say, i am so very grateful for this place, for these people, for this year as a whole. i feel like my heart has grown through becoming a part of this community… which is good, because i’ll be leaving a good chunk of it behind me when i go. 

lost in translation

i just realized that i only feel the need to share something on this blog when i’m preparing for or have just returned from a trip… which is probably unfair of me, because this whole year is a trip, in many ways.

i’m finally feeling settled in here in excideuil - both a blessing and a curse. christmas break starts next week, which will bring my longest stretch of work (two and a half weeks straight with only my 3.5 day weekends to comfort me) to an end. with a job that’s only 12 hours a week, i’ve had loads of time… to go on walks, to watch tv, to skype, to think. and as someone who spends the vast majority of her time lost deep in her own mind, my thoughts have strayed all over the map (literally and figuratively). i find myself planning trips often; several i intend on carrying out, and many others that i’ll probably never take, just out of curiosity to see if it’s a feasible plan. i imagine where i’ll move next, and then the next place after that, and the next… the “what-if” part of me has had a serious work-out here the last few weeks.

of course, i think about language a lot. what it means to communicate, how language forms such an integral part of our identity. it’s incredible to realize how much of yourself is ingrained in the way you express your thoughts and feelings. in some sense, that’s all you are, since people can’t read minds (maybe?). you have to get your point across somehow. this revelation shouldn’t come as a surprise, but doing it in a second language is H-A-R-D. when you’re first learning to speak as a child, you pick up mannerisms and subtleties that are almost impossible to imitate from an outsider’s perspective. i’ve been lucky in that i’ve made friends with several wonderful people who have really helped me make my french into something comfortable and colloquial – i am much more at ease speaking french than i ever have been before. that said… i still feel like a grown-up baby sometimes. there are moments when i get so frustrated because i feel like i just can’t talk. i have a firm hold on my grammar skills and vocabulary, that’s not the problem. now, the goal is not just to say the correct words – it’s to genuinely express myself. and often, i just feel like the “me” that i think i am is lost in translation. i’ll hear myself respond to a question, and i’ll think “did i just say that? do i really think that??” it’s seriously hard to be yourself in another language – you lose a lot of the humour and idiomatic expression that you never knew you relied upon to communicate. the tone of a joke, the way sarcasm comes across, the subtle wordplay of linguistic ambiguity… it’s just not the same in a second language. if i stayed here for years and years, i’m sure i would be able to get to that point… but i’ve been learning lately that it takes much, much longer than i originally thought. and as much as i honestly do love speaking french nearly every day, being here has made me appreciate english again, which is nice.

the most challenging part of this process is feeling like people here don’t know the real me… as an introvert, it’s essential that i feel known by a core group of people or i start to feel completely isolated from humanity. and i have certainly felt lonely since arriving… i can only have so many surface-level conversations before i start itching for a topic that’s a little more substantial. after all, how can you get to know someone – really know them – without asking serious questions? i feel like i haven’t had a serious, face-to-face conversation in ages. i suppose that’s why i feel like people don’t know me here. but maybe they do. even if i can’t say exactly the words i mean with exactly the right connotations, i hope that my spirit is visible to those around me – at the end of the day, i think that being genuine transcends language. as cliché as it might be, a smile is the same in every language!

aaaaanyway, this post was mostly self-indulgent. i know that i’m not alone, and i am grateful for the support i receive from family and friends on essentially a daily basis. but it’s definitely been on my mind! stay tuned for a christmas-in-excideuil post, coming soon. :)

bureaucrazy

bureaucrazy: (n) the ridiculous number of administrative hoops one must navigate in order to legally reside in a new country; the gladiator games of paperwork

they say patience is a virtue. here in france, it’s more of a condescending expectation. if you think anything is going to happen here with any sense of urgency… you’re wrong. however, if you think that anyone else is going to get your paperwork done for you… you’re even more wrong. i’ve been trying so hard to maintain a healthy combination of persistence and patience since i’ve gotten to france, because it takes both to come out of the soul-sucking, nerve-frying, catch-22-riddled machine that is french bureaucracy with any modicum of sanity intact. i’ve been dancing an exasperating tango with the bureaucrazy here – one step forward, two steps back, side-step, complete spin, forward, back…. it honestly feels like i’ve made no progress at all, and it’s starting to get overwhelming. there is always some form missing from the application packet or some mysterious bank god that needs to approve some other form before the payment can go through or another step to complete before you can get that stamp on your visa… the list goes on.

it’s exceptionally challenging for me, since i’m someone that likes to be prepared. france has thoroughly unarmed, frustrated, and humbled me in this respect.  i suppose i shouldn’t be surprised – the only reason i’m here at all is because i had the rug pulled out from under all my carefully-laid plans last year, which prompted me to apply for this grant. so, i probably could have looked at that experience as an indicator for how this adventure was going to be. when little things add up, i sometimes have the tendency to let it get to me; i’m a pretty on-the-ball kind of girl, and i do well taking care of myself and what i need to get done. but if i get too far behind, or if the inefficiency of a process is too glaringly insurmountable, i can feel the panic start to settle into the pit of my stomach. i hate when things don’t work well and i can’t make it right. but, over the last few weeks, i have had a crash course in patience, humility, and just being able to let frustration slide off of me. with the way things are here, sometimes there really is just nothing to be done but wait. ugh.

if each governmental system in the world were to be represented by a famous architectural icon, france would be the coliseum. it’s renowned for the unbelievable detail and complexity of its structure; it’s run by a network of state officials that all take great pride in acting completely unconcerned with the needs of the plebeians they serve; it looks nice and pretty and organized from the outside, and the inside is a vicious labyrinth of dead-end websites, incomprehensible hours of operation, enough forms and paperwork to redecorate versailles, and a few man-eating beasts (probably). you can only do so much to be prepared – you can have every single form listed on the website (multiple copies), your passport, extra passport photos (the french need a passport photo for everything), your work contract, your lease, your bank account identification information, your second grade report cards, your dog’s immunization records….. it doesn’t matter. they’re going to need something you don’t have on the first visit. and then, once you do have everything they need, you have to mail it to them. and then they mail you something back saying they received it. and then, later, they mail you another form which tells you when your next appointment will be. and then, after that appointment, you get a stamp which allows you to move onto the next step. my point is, the process is literally never-ending. sometimes, i use that word as emphasis (and not in its original sense) – but this time, i mean that i’m pretty sure this process has no endpoint. there will always be something else. always. (i’ve had this confirmed by french friends, so i’m confident. and thoroughly disheartened at the thought.)

when i take a mental step back and look at the last few weeks, i can see that i’ve definitely have made some progress. i opened my bank account and received my card. i submitted all my forms for the immigration office and my dossier for my insurance. i’m on my way to having all my accommodation paperwork done (damn you, electric company) and my paychecks are set up for direct deposit. so, yay! i keep reminding myself that i am not the first person to ever go through this process – it can be done, it just takes time. and, ironically, time is what i have the most of here. today was the first day that i really felt the downswing of expatriation – the part of the process where the nice, shiny veneer of novelty is wearing off, and everything is just kind of wrong and annoying. but, those feelings are all part of the game, and having them means that i’m doing it right. so, instead of crying to the woman in the post office (who saw me three separate times today) like i wanted to do this evening, i just ate half a pan of apple cake and watched french game shows. that’s productive, right?

back to school

let’s talk about school a little bit, shall we?

first, the basics. the school where i’m working is called cité scolaire girault de borneil. it’s a combination lycée (high school) and collège (middle school) - the equivalent of grades 7-12 in the states, or ages 12-18. there are about 600 kids in the school, many of whom get bussed in from neighboring villages/hamlets/bumps in the road. i’m still kind of unclear on how many teachers there are… but i’d guestimate about 40. maybe. anyway, out of those teachers, there are maybe 7 or 8 who teach foreign language, and i’m working directly with 4 of them. the school building itself is pretty complicated, with lots of corridors that branch out into random directions, and some split-level action. thankfully, most of the english classes are in the same hallway, so i don’t have to move around too much. there is a small library and a nice, bright cafeteria, and a really big courtyard where the kids hang out during breaks.

the class structure and schedule is mad confusing. kids are separated into paths (focusing on literature, or science, etc), and then grades, and then sections. so, for example, on monday afternoon and thursday morning, i work with a class of 1ère ses  - essentially, they are in 11^th grade, on a track that focuses on sciences and economics. so… not too keen on the foreign language. but i digress. so, there are different groups of kids, and they all circulate around together during the day. each class is about 30 kids, and each class period is 55 minutes long. so, that’s exhausting. these kids go to school from 8:15am to like 5:15 every day. imagine! and some of them have to travel into town and then home again on the bus…so they end up pulling 12 hours a day for school. meh.

my schedule is SIGNIFICANTLY less arduous…. like, criminally so. actually, let me break it down. 

          i have a 7 month job contract (october 1 – april 30), during which i cannot be 
          asked to work more than 12 hours a week (yes, twelve). i have four separate
          two-week-long breaks (so, that’s 8 weeks of paid vacation) – and i’m getting 
          paid preeeetty well, considering the amount of work i'm actually doing. 

you can all stop trying to punch me through the computer screen now. each week, i don’t have work monday or tuesday mornings, wednesday afternoons, or fridays. at all. so, that’s nice. my contract is for 12 hours a week – 9 with high schoolers and 3 with middle schoolers. i think i’ll end up being at the school for more than 12 hours a week out of sheer boredom  - i’ve kind of offered to be a tutor whenever i’m available (which is often) for one of the other teachers. i did that for an hour today, and had a great time helping two younger boys with an english worksheet. generally, though, my job entails helping the teacher of whatever class i’m working with, in whatever capacity i can. at various points this week, i’ve observed from the back of the room, been interrogated by classes, offered up as a topic of conversation, served as a floating question-answerer, led a video-viewing and discussion about environmental innovation, been taken on a tour of the village, led a discussion about modern signapore, helped a prosecution team prepare for a mock trial of edward snowden, and helped moniter an independent research session in the media room. all within about 10 hours of actual classroom time. so, versatility is the name of the game. i’m pretty sure i’ll be doing something completely different every day. yay? i don’t always love change, but i think being kept on my toes will be a good experience for me.

digression – during the edward snowden trial preparation, i tried to explain –in french – the meaning of the saying “your rights end where someone else’s begin.” talk about digging myself a hole...

anywho. as far as the kids go… there’s a wide spectrum. on a whole, i think they’re more culturally well-behaved than american students. they respect the system, and they go with it pretty much inherently. that said, there are some things that are just universal, and teenagers are a great example. i think that no matter where you go in the world, you will pretty much find that 14 is an awkward stage of a human’s life, and that 17 year old boys will always try to show off in front of their buddies (and more importantly, in front of girls). i may not have any actual teaching credentials… in fact, my only credential for this job is that i speak english. however, i am a human, and was once (much to my chagrin) a teenage human. being such, i feel like i know what to expect certain regards. the nice thing about being an authority figure in a french school is that i can act like the french teachers do.. which is much more sarcastic than i’ve ever seen an american teacher act. you can honestly just get sassy with the kids, and it mostly works. i’m looking forward to exploring that power in the coming weeks. i’ve already detected some landmarks, as far as teaching goes: the first crush on me (super sweet 10th grader who never takes his eyes off me and always helps me move chairs back at the end of the lesson), the trouble makers (mainly kids whose parents are anglophone, therefore making them bilingual and total snots in class), and the ones who feel like english is way out of their league (my favourites, in some cases). i can’t wait to get to know these kids throughout the school year and, hopefully, see how far they come!

the rest of the faculty are super nice – i’ve made friends with several of the teachers/administration already, and it’s only been 2 weeks. i’m hoping that as the year goes on, i’ll start getting invited to teacher-y things on the weekends, so i don’t sit in my apartment for 3 days straight! we’ll see with time, i suppose. the year is young. :)

all in all, after a week of total ambiguity and then another of only partial ambiguity, i think i might have an idea about how this school year is going to be. i love that i’m in a place where i can recognize kids in the hallways, and get an enthusiastic “hello!” from them, instead of some giant school where no one really knows me. i’ve got a great feeling about this year!

it's a quiet village

after a week of the country life here in excideuil, i feel like i’m starting to get the hang of it. during the week, i was forever going back and forth between my flat and the school, each time in the hope that the teachers would have a schedule for me. (no luck.. maybe tomorrow?) it's so great to live this close to my work... whenever i have a free hour, i can go home for a little snack or a catnap. love it. i also did some administrative-y stuff, like opening a bank account and filling out/mailing infinite forms. i spent most of my free time either in my apartment, watching french tv and trying to figure out how the heck the timetables are organized, or down in the café, chatting with vicki and the other patrons. there was a lot of free time…

the biggest day of my week was wednesday, when i went back into périgueux for the departmental assistant orientation day. the entire morning, we were inundated with information regarding our moves to france – how to get our visas validated, how to sign up for the social security system, how the complementary insurance system worked, how to get our rent subsidy… it was enough to make me want to give up, by the end of it. there are just so many administrative hoops… and i’m only going to be here for 8 months. ugh. but the afternoon was great – we were split up into groups, based on the languages and grades we’d be teaching, and then a teacher walked us through how to plan our lessons and gave us a bunch of tips and activity ideas. all in all, it was a great orientation… just very overwhelming. that actually kind of describes what moving abroad is like… great and overwhelming. i’ve been gone for over a month – time is flying!!

anyway, if the slow tempo and relative calm of the work week is any hint to you, weekends here in excideuil are verrrry peaceful. in that, unless you have a car, you can’t leave. happily for me, my upstairs neighbor / new friend mathilde does have a car, so the two of us got to escape the village for a few hours on saturday and head into a town nearby called trelissac for a little retail therapy. there’s not much happening in trelissac, but there was a nice little shopping center. i got a few things that i’d been passively needing (a pair of light tennis shoes, a clock, a yoga ball) and we browsed a few home goods stores (i’m just as obsessed with them here as i am at home). it was really nice to be able to leave excideuil (in a car!) for a few hours, just for a change of scenery. and then today, the weather was absolutely beautiful, so mathilde and i went on a walk around the village and took some pictures. we also watched a rugby match down at the little athletic center… where i learned that some things, like obnoxiously passionate fans of amateur sports teams, are universal experiences. the rest of my evening was spent skyping with my family and planning my upcoming trip to spain!

basically, the point of this post was to let the blogosphere know that i have a new facebook album, filled with photos of my apartment and the village in general. check it out!

arrival

well, i’ve passed my first week here in the countryside of southern france, and let me tell you… it’s lovely here. i’m definitely living a charmed little life here!

let me back up a little bit, just to explain how it is that i got where i am. when i was applying for the TAPIF program, i chose “small town / rural area” as my preference, because i wanted a better shot at true immersion.. sometimes, in bigger towns and definitely in the major cities, assistants will just flock to each other and you pretty much end up speaking only english. not what i was going for this time! so, when i received my placement back in june, i found out that i’d been placed in a rural village called excideuil (ex-cee-duh-yuh, sort of). all in all, there are about 2,000 people who live here… which is only slightly larger than my high school. soooo… small town. but, even with all the reservations i had about my remote placement, i knew that it would be the absolute best thing for my french to be as immersed as possible. and i was excited about the prospect of my own beauty-and-the-beast-esque village.

in researching the town, i came across the facebook page for a café in town called ‘kitsch kafé,’ owned and operated by a lovely british ex-pat named vicki. since i was curious about the village, i looked through the photos on her page and noticed that they also rented the apartments over the café… an idea that appealed greatly to me. i reached out to vicki, just wanting to introduce myself and learn a little bit about the village. we continued our correspondence over the summer, and in late july, she told me that their studio apartment was going to be available at the end of september… exactly when i would be arriving in excideuil! too perfect. having my housing worries taken care of before i even left the states was a huge weight off of my shoulders, and made my transition into france life much easier.

so, i arrived here in excideuil on monday, september 30^th. vicki even sent one of the café regulars, a philedelphia native named richard, to meet me at the bus stop and help me get my bags to the café (a whopping 200m walk down the street). when we walked in the door, vicki immediately greeted me with a smile and the bisous (the french kiss-kiss greeting) and showed me right upstairs. my apartment is TOO cute. it came totally furnished, which is an immeasurable blessing… she went above and beyond and provided bedding, towels, dishes, even hangers. pretty much everything i needed except for food. i can’t express how rare this type of accommodation is in france, and especially for the rent i’m paying, which is half of what i paid in nashville. it’s a studio, so all one room, but i have a little sleeping nook with a double bed, a decent bathroom, a kitchen with hot places and a little countertop oven, and even a couch and small tv! everything i need for a sweet life in the countryside. (pictures to come this weekend!)

i’ve spent my first few days here just settling in. i went to the supermarket down the road my first evening here and then again the next night, just to get my pantry stocked with the basics (pasta, cereal, madeleines, nutella, etc). i also stopped by the hardware store next to the market for a little plug adapter the first night, and a tv cable the next night. it’s fun to learn the little idiosyncrasies of a new place. for example, the woman at the hardware store really likes exact change… the first night, she was really short with me when i only had a 5 euro note and she had to give me change back, but the second night, i gave her exactly 3.20 for the cord, and she chatted with me about my job for about 5 minutes and wished me ‘bon courage’ as i left. i also learned that it’s way better to bring my backpack to the supermarket, instead of lugging shopping bags back home. and that’s even more true now that i have a bike!! richard, the philedelphian, is in the middle of a decade-long saga of renovation in a 15^th century home just behind the café, and he had a bike up in the attic that he’s lent to me! i used the pressure washer behind the supermarket to wash it off, and it works like a charm. so, instead of walking with giant bags like i did the first night, i can now bike with my backpack to the supermarket! much easier.

i think i’ll cut myself off here and do a separate post about my school – don’t want these suckers to get too long, or even i won’t want to reread them! :) x