Je Suis Charlie...Partout

Some random snapshots of various "Je Suis Charlie" signs around the area. They're absolutely everywhere....

In the library

I passed by a few magazine stores the other day and ALL of them had signs like this: no more Charlie Hebdo, referring to the most recent issue published right after the attack

With one of my private students I read My Weekly, a weekly English newspaper for French tweens, this whole issue was about Charlie Hebdo and reactions in the Anglophone world

You can hardly see them, but walking around the mall there were six militaires with machine guns, they're in the train station as well, according to the conversation I heard between a kid and his dad on the tram

Coverage of the Paris march

St. Laurent du Pont

The five of us went on an impromptu trip to St. Laurent du Pont, a little village at the foot of the Chartreuse Mountains to visit Pierre's sister. Finally stuck my shoes in some real snow.

Le Retour

A few days ago I finally started to look for tickets back home to Seattle. I was surprised at how nervous it made me.

I've gotten used to my life here: I know how the public transportation system works, I have my favorite places to run/wander, I finally have something of a system when it comes to planning lessons, I feel completely normal kissing strangers on the cheek, I have my favorite brand of cereal, I've even managed to find a group of people I hang out with, etc. It'll be weird going back after all the work I did to adjust.

But it's more than that. In fact, giving up French crackers and running trails are the least of my worries. When I chose to do this program I had two big reasons: I wanted to travel and I wanted to give myself time to seriously reflect on what I want to pursue in life after college. I've been here for nearly four months and I'm ashamed to admit I haven't really made much progress in that latter area. I've had many nights of lost sleep because of this, and they seem to be getting more frequent as I think more about going home. I put my head on my pillow and try to sleep, but my brain refuses to shut off, so I relent and search for jobs, I browse random graduate programs, I wonder if I should teach English somewhere else...

I'm scared I'll go back and stop progressing. I'm going to be honest, my life of 20-hour work weeks and frequent two-week breaks is pretty lax, and by normal standards my life is pretty stationary. But progress here isn't the same as progress back home. Every time I have a remotely fluent conversation with somebody I feel like I've had a small success, when I learn new words and plug them into a sentence, that's success, when I manage to navigate French bureaucracy, well...for that I deserve a medal. You can't really help but progress when you're in a different country, whether you take notice of it or not.

I really really like being in situations where "success" is very well defined. Here it's getting over the language barrier and learning to effectively plan lessons, in college it was getting good grades and internships, in high school it was getting into college, when I did sports it was about winning... What I'm realizing is that one of the hardest things about "real life" is that you really have to define success yourself, whether that means doing good in the world, making money, traveling, etc.

And that, to a large extent, is why I am nervous to go home, because being here creates the sort of safety bubble I had in college. And the moment I get off that plane the bubble bursts.

At the same time there's always a bit of...disappointment, I would call it, upon returning somewhere you've been missing for a while. Somehow that thing that you couldn't wait to eat doesn't quite taste the way you had been imagining it for months.

All that being said, lately I have been finding myself thinking about the things I miss from home. The coffee, the coffee made by that beautiful machine that stands in my kitchen. Almond milk. It exists here but it tastes like water, I guess there aren't enough hippies here to create a large enough demand for the good stuff. My dog. Lounging around my house like a hobo without judgement. Costco and Trader Joes. Stores being open on Sunday. Good crackers.

So I'm a bit torn, as you can see.

Poland for Christmas

This year I finally got to spend Christmas with my family in Poland. Overall it was really relaxed and relatively uneventful and filled with lots of cake. I talked with my grandma a lot, filled up on good tea and food, watched TV, missed WiFi, got groceries, etc.

Getting to Poland was quite the journey. I took a tram to Grenoble, train to Paris, bus to airport, flight to Modlin, bus to Warsaw, and then a train to Bydgoszcz. Overall I think it was something like 19 hours. And then coming home I had to do it all over again. At some point on the first train I put instant coffee in my yogurt because I was so tired and had no hot water. That was a low point. And yes, that does mean I brought my own instant coffee. It's an addiction, leave me alone.

I spent the first couple of days with my cousin and his wife in Warsaw, where we ordered the biggest pizza known to man, visited Stalin's gift to Poland (the Palace of Culture), and hung around drawing family trees and talking a lot. It was really great, not only because these are literally the two nicest people I know, but because I was able to speak my native language with them: mostly-Polish-with-random-English-thrown-in (they both lived in England for 10 years), not many people speak it. Although for the first few days my brain kept trying to say things in French, I kept popping out random pardons, d'accords and ouais. It took a few days before I didn't have to consciously think of what I was going to say before I said it.

On my way to Bydgoszcz I learned that my great-uncle had died at the age of 94, and I ended up going to his funeral and seeing loads of extended family I never thought I'd see again, and a lot more I didn't know existed.

I met my baby nephew for the first time.

I caught some sort of a virus and spent nearly a week too tired to do anything besides sit and watch TV. Talking was a struggle, which was annoying since most of what I did there was talk to people. I had absolutely no appetite and anything I ate made me feel sick (but it was the holidays and I was surrounded by Polish food so naturally I still ended up gaining 6 pounds, no joke). My grandma finally made me go to the doctor. I reluctantly went. I don't like doctors.

I welcomed 2015 by drinking what tasted like sugared rubbing-alcohol with my grandma, and exchanging życzenia (basically what you wish the other person in the new year) which I don't think is a thing in the U.S. (it should be). It wasn't the most exciting of new years celebrations, but at that moment I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

Then the next day I made the long trek back home where nothing interesting happened except for the conversation I had with a Congolese man on the tram. Although I was so dead by that point it might have been a hallucination. It started at 4:00 am and I was able to flop onto my bed a bit before midnight.

We even got a little snow

Christmas in Bydgoszcz

Went to go see my cousin's band (B.O.K.) in concert. Maybe standing in front of speakers in a crowded room isn't the best way to deal with a virus, but I'm really glad I went

Yum, drugs

What?? It's hard enough to read this shiz in English

Happy New Year :) I promised I wouldn't share this post-shower photo, but I love it too much

Wigilia part 1

I swear all this kid does it eat

Wigilia Part 2

Warsaw Uprising Museum, some of the armbands of the underground movement members

Soviet "liberators," Warsaw Uprising Museum

Palace of Culture. Thanks Stalin

Our Christmas Tree. I've never decorated one of the kitchen table before, very efficient

This made up 80% of my diet

And the journey back home begins...

Christmas in Echirolles (is a confusing time)

Anyone who has ever taken any interest in French current events is well aware of it's changing demographic, but it's one thing to read about it and another to see it firsthand. The country is historically catholic, but because of the huge waves of North African immigration and the decline of catholic influence, you're more likely to see people going to the mosque than going to mass. This is especially apparent in Echirolles, where a large majority of people aren't what the French call francais de souche (literally souche means stump, and it refers to a person who is "pure" French, or whose French roots go back generations).

Case-in-point: teaching a Christmas lesson. This is the last week before the winter break so I decided to have a low-key Christmas-themed coloring activity day with my 2nd/3rd grade students (I'm just as ready for break as these kids are, and I had no desire to try to talk over a class of 20 screaming kids for 40 minutes). I started off the lesson by asking the class who celebrates Christmas, expecting maybe half the class to raise there hands. Three kids raised their hands.

"Okay, who doesn't celebrate Christmas?" Almost every hand shot up. Instead, most of them celebrate l'Aïd (explanation here). From what Wikipedia tells me, it's a celebration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son before God intervened.

(Side note: I asked the students what traditions they have, and I got a lot of the same responses I got when I asked about Christmas traditions in some of my other classes (family, food, snowmen, etc.). Then one girl bluntly said they kill a sheep. I was a little shocked., Thinking maybe I understood her wrong, I moved on to the next kid, but then I turned to her again, too curious to resist: "like...a live sheep?" A few of the kids made the knife -across-the-throat gesture and the teacher looked at me and gave a slight shake of the head. I'm not quite sure if he meant "don't get into this" or "she's bs-ing you.")

At the same time it's interesting to see the interaction between this and laicité, the French version of separation between church and state which has become something of a national obsession. For example ever since 2004 students are forbidden from wearing any sort of religious symbols, be it a cross on a necklace, a headscarf, a yamaka, etc. So often here you'll see students or, in my case teachers, take off their headscarf before entering the school, and then putting it right back on as they leave for lunch.

I'm not making any judgments, just making observations,  just want to make that clear, these subjects are always a little touchy.

Walk

Pictures of the trails behind Echirolles that go up to Haute Jarrie and beyond. I know, I know, I've already posted a bunch of photos from this place, but it's amazing and deserves more. 

Update

I realize that it's been a while since I've posted any sort of update. Two reasons for that: only like two people actually read this thing (hi mom), and, to be honest, nothing really interesting has been going on.

When I tell people I moved to France for a year, they tend to think that that means my life is full of adventure and crazy stories and constant travel. True, moving abroad is an exciting adventure in itself, but in all honesty, my day-to-day life is pretty ordinary. I plan lessons, I go to work, I buy food, I eat food, I buy more food. That being said, I do meet up with other assistants regularly enough. A few weeks ago we went to a chocolate festival (where I ate my weight in chocolate), last weekend we went on a hike up the trails behind the Bastille. We celebrated one assistant's birthday by going out to Tex Mex. (Side note: I don't think you understand the significance of this, so I'm going to explain. France wins at certain things, and it fails absolutely at others. Providing me with Mexican food? That falls in the latter category. So I was very excited that this place (El Tex Mex, it's called...very original guys) existed. The food, though, was kind of a disappointment. Not awful, but not what I was hoping for. Hey, they tried. But France, in the future, just stick to crepes.)

Chocolate festival 

La Bastille, another beautiful view

The car I watched burn outside my window

But besides that...

On my week:

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday I teach at my schools. Besides my regular job, I've been lucky enough to find babysitting/tutoring gigs: Tuesday evenings I have one private student not far from where I live, and Wednesdays I go to Crolles, which is a really nice, rich neighborhood about an hour north of me. I babysit one girl for 3 hours, then I walk over to their neighbor's house where I teach her three kids, one after another, for two hours, then I go one house over to her friend's house and teach her son for an hour. Apparently they've worked out a system that they've already been using for a few years: the first family finds an assistant willing to babysit, and they they sort of "share" her among themselves. I like it, it lets me see how other French families live, they feed me free lunch that I don't have to cook for myself, and it makes it worth my while to go all the way up to Crolles.

On coffee:

Ever since Toussaints I've been downing the stuff like it's finals week all the time. I give France a lot of crap for its sub-par coffee, but even so I think it's safe to say I'm officially addicted. "Okay, I'm just going to finish this box since I've already paid for it, and then no more." Guess what I buy at the store the very next day?

On handwriting:

This has been a constant issue ever since I started teaching. In France all the kids learn cursive, and for the most part their handwriting is impeccable. Mine looks like that of a ten-year old boy who has partially lost control of his extremities... and I don't write cursive. Probably 50% of the time I write something on the board, at least one kid isn't able to read all of it. And apostrophes, they do those differently here, which has caused some confusion. Last week I went into one of my kindergarten classes while they were doing handwriting exercises and I legitimately took notes.

On teaching: 

The first few weeks of teaching were actually a lot harder than I had expected. I had no clue what I was doing and most of the teachers weren't helping much. But the last few weeks it's gotten a lot better; I see what works, what doesn't work. I've gotten better at adjusting on the spot if what I prepare doesn't fill the time or doesn't seem to be working. At the same time a handful of the teachers actually started doing their jobs and preparing things as well. There are still a few that don't do anything though, they don't seem to understand that the time I'm there isn't another coffee break for them. Yesterday I was having some trouble explaining a game to them so I asked to teacher to explain it better "oh...what? Sorry I wasn't listening." Really dude?

On the kids:

I've been there for two months, and still, every time I walk through school grounds, hoards of kids shout my name, "Ola! Regarde, c'est le prof d'anglais!" It's cute, but I don't think I'm meant for stardom. I'm not going to lie, sometimes I try to hide a bit to avoid being mobbed by little humans.

The younger ones are funny. I was doing a game which required them to first learn some food words, and I made the mistake of adding brussel sprouts to the list. Half of them didn't even know what it was when I said it in French, and I actually felt bad watching them struggle to pronounce it. One kid never got it:
"Brushel shprushle!"
"No, it's: bru-sel sp-rout."
"Brushel Shprushle"
"...yeah okay, good job kid."

I tried to teach some of the youngest ones "ice cream." I don't think they quite understand that English isn't just French pronounced differently. I showed them a picture of ice cream, "what's this?" (Ice cream in French is glace, just by the way).

"GLEES! GLOOS! GLASE! GALOOS! GLEES!" I couldn't correct them I was laughing so hard, it was like something Dr. Seuss would name his characters.

On housing:

Still slightly awkward. In order to get from my room to anywhere else in the apartment I have to walk through the living room, between the TV and the couch, and the people I live with always seem to be watching TV. I can't get used to basically announcing every time I have to go pee or get a snack. I can't complain too much though, the rent isn't high, I live really close to work, and the city isn't too far away either.

On feelings:

For a couple of weeks I was feeling kind of crappy. It wasn't homesickness, and it wasn't really loneliness. It was two things: I felt very isolated, for one. I'm an awkward person as it is and it takes me a long time to feel comfortable around others, it doesn't help much when they all speak French. At home, at work, even going out with assistants, I constantly felt... closed off. At the same time, a few weeks ago I made the mistake of realizing how quickly this is going by, and that I needed to start thinking of some sort of a post-TAPIF, big-girl, real-life plan, which is always a dangerous road for me to go down. Long story short, I had something of a quarter-life crisis. And I dealt with all of this by sitting in my room and binge watching Suits on Netflix. It all peaked on Thanksgiving. It was the second year in a row I wasn't home for it and I was feeling a little down. We didn't do anything to celebrate it here, so it passed quietly.

Looking back, I feel unappreciative. I'm living abroad, fully supporting myself working half-time, I was able to find side jobs, I can travel. Feeling isolated... quite frankly that's my own fault, personal demons I have to deal with that have nothing to do with France. As for my future, I'll give myself a few weeks before I open that box up again (so basically sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting "la la la, I can't hear you.")

Alright, there you go mom and the odd person or two who find themselves reading this. Consider yourself updated.

It's funny how things turn out...

I was working on lesson plans and listening to Spotify when Edith Piaf's Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien came on, and I had a little flashback to high school french where we learned this song during one of our units. I still find it funny, thinking about where I am today considering how much I detested French for the first few years I took it. I was convinced Madame hated me (but then again, at that point in my life I was convinced everyone hated me... ah, adolescence), I was annoyed by almost everyone else in the class, and what I hated most of all was putting effort into a subject I was "never going to use." Well...you can eat your words, past self.

I often wonder what Madame Hallenbeck would say if she found out I not only kept up with French, but I'm living here, doing this.

It's funny how things turn out, what I thought would be the most useless class was the one that eventually let me travel and led to my first post-college job.

The time I ran to a castle

I've said this before, but I swear, every time I go out and explore this area a little I fall more and more in love with it. It's not everywhere that a simple run can lead you to a chateau. 

Behind my apartment there is a big hill which takes you out of the city and into the countryside. If you go a little further you get to a little nature reserve (which has become my favorite spot) where you can sit on the dock over the small lake and watch the birds (Skribbles flies here! Only my mom and Kerry will get that though...). I had never gone past there before, but today curiosity got the better of me and I kept going...and going and going. I ended up in a little town, and I kept seeing signs for Chateau de Bon Repos, so I followed those and a little farther up, there it was, a 15th century chateau, just chillin' a few hundred meters from some peoples' houses, overlooking the mountains, with some donkeys right next to it just to add some extra charm. I just stood there smiling at it like an idiot (and pet the donkey, of course).

Not a bad find, for a morning run...

On the way back I ran on a gorgeous trail I had never been on before. More donkeys. And horses. And cows. I stopped and stared at a cow for a while, it stared back at me... I don't think it  liked me much, so I left. 

Remember a week or two ago when I published a post about finding miles and miles of trails behind that park five minutes away from my place? Well somehow I ended up there again, and from there I went back home.

I was gone for hours, and when I got back I was muddy and starving. It was amazing.

And to think I almost decided to live in the city, I would have never discovered this if I did. It's one of those places you would never find on TripAdvisor. That's what I love about Grenoble (and Echirolles), the longer I live here the more hidden gems I find. 

Hidden Trails

This morning was unintentionally awesome. I decided to go on one of my increasingly rare "runs" (i.e. glorified walks) to a park I had passed by about a week before. Turns out there's a trail that runs behind it and keeps  going and going out into the countryside where it forks out into several other trails. No roads, barely any houses,  horses and donkeys, no people. Back home I would have to drive an hour for trails like this, here, it's a ten-minute walk away. How have I lived here for two months without finding this??

On my way back I was running behind this middle-aged man, and as I was passing him he said something to me. I took out my earbud, "what was that?"

I thought he asked me if we could run together until the end of the trail, which seemed a little strange, but I said why not, we were almost there anyways. Then he sped up, so I sped up to keep up with him, then he sped up again, so I sped up, etc., until we were full-on sprinting. Looking back on it I think he was asking me to race. (And I realize how creepy this sounds, but trust me, it was fine).

"Ah, ca fait du bien"

Turns out he had been a serious runner in his youth and he ran those trails all the time, usually at a leisurely pace but every once in a while he liked to push it. He explained more or less how the trails are laid out, gave me the name of some local running club, and then we parted ways. Thanks, kind stranger.

I really wish I had brought my camera, it was really gorgeous.

I've been feeling sort of crummy this last week, and this was just what I needed, a hit of endorphins and a forest.

Bastille: Take #3

I had (yet another) day off today, so I decided to climb up the Bastille again. This time I wandered around for about two hours on the trails that continue up past the main Bastille hike. It was gorgeous. I still can't believe all this is just a half hour tram ride away.