Busy busy and Obama.

Phew.  It's nice to sit down.  I've been doing a lot these past few days to get myself situated with everything.  I've found an apartment.  I'm going tomorrow morning to put down the deposit and then get the keys on Saturday (I think) and then I can start moving in whenever.  So it's nice to have that taken care of (finally).

I went to my school and met some of my students today.  It was nice to finally see them.  I only went to three classes though.  I'm not quite sure how  many different classes I'll be going to in total, but this was a nice start.  I went to two classes of 18-20 year olds, and one class of 16-18 year olds.  The two older classes were all guys, which was weird, and then the younger group was mostly girls (or at least half and half).  But today was basically "Grill the American" day.  It was fine though.  We talked about sports, how college and university works, politics and what not.  I told them how much some universities can cost in America and they were all shocked.  I got the inevitable question, "What do you think about Obama?"  I was honest with them and just told them that I didn't vote for him and I disagree with him on a lot of political issues, but I respect him as the president.  Then they started drilling me about health care and all this other stuff.  And this was in the younger class.  They understood me better than the older kids did I think.  I was pretty impressed.  Luckily though I had the upper hand as we were all communicating in my mother tongue.  I would have been much more uncomfortable if I were speaking French with them.  Plus they would have been talking circles around me if that were the case.  But it wasn't, so I won, haha.

So that was today.  Yesterday I met up with all the assistants in my department, Créteil, and they talked to us a lot about paperwork and visas and health care and pretty much anything else you could imagine.  The visa system that France uses to complicate everyone's lives is just now changing.  So a lot of the time the ladies that were trying to help us wound up just saying, "umm...we'll check on that and get back to you."  Which...I don't really know if they even have our email addresses, so it may have just been a diversionary tactic.  It worked at any rate.

We were all in this big auditorium mixed with first and second year assistants.  When someone from the audience raised a hand, they either asked a question, or, using their past year's experience, corrected or amended what the ladies leading the program said.  This was helpful sometimes.  Sometimes it was just annoying.  Especially because there was that girl that spoke about 50 times and each time started out saying, "Last year when I was an assistant, we did this..."  So that was awesome.  What was funny though was that there was this little old lady that had the wireless mic that she was supposed to give to people who were asking questions so everyone could hear them.  Unfortunately though the auditorium was so big she could only reach the students in time to stick the mic in their face and have them say "Thanks."  It was pretty funny actually.

I had been going back and forth on the decision between taking two different apartments for the past few days.  Everything has been moving really fast since then.  I finally decided to spend a little more money and be in the 7th arrondisement than not spending as much and being waaaayyy up north in the city.  I'm very happy with this decision.  And after having taking such pains to arrive at it, I decided to celebrate a little so I made chicken nuggets with "french fries" for dinner.  And I bought heinz ketchup and it was wonderful.  I've been craving french fries lately, actually.  Rather than buy a gallon of fries though, I found a smaller box of like little potato cubes that tasted just like teeny tiny french fries.  Then of course we had some wine and cheese with baguette afterwards.  Il faut.  At any rate, it was delicious and we really enjoyed eating the little buggers.  The ketchup especially hit the spot for me.

I'm going back to school tomorrow to meet some more classes and teachers.  But I have to go first to meet the guy from the realtor and give him thousands and thousands of euro, lol.  Then!  I have to go and meet the person from whom I'm renting the property for the key.  Hopefully that works out, haha.  I don't quite have the full amount to give the guy in the morning because I can only take out so much from the ATMs per day.  So hopefully he'll be fine with that.  Wish me luck!

A demain!

Franglais.

Ok, so this time it actually has been several days.  I can't really be blamed though.  I was busy.  Busy making friends!!!

Saturday was the day that one of the English Assistants (English the language, not the people group) had arbitrarily chosen as a day that all the assistants should meet up with one another.  It was pretty cool to meet people.  The majority I would say were American, though there were a lot of British Islanders as well as some Irish and some (guessing stereotypically from their accents) Aussies/Kiwis.  There were probably 60 or so of us all there (though I'm very bad at estimating numbers in groups of people).  I probably won't hang out with them again, however.  I did meet one girl, Katy, that I might wind up sharing an apartment with though.

She was at the American Church looking for housing when these two little ladies approached her and asked if she would be interested in their apartment near the Canal St. Martin.  So she went and looked at it and apparently it's pretty cool.  We're just waiting to hear back from the ladies.  Anyway, after I met Katy, her, me and Sarah all paled around until we met up with one of Sarah's friends from study abroad, Jacqueline.  I had met her once briefly while I was studying abroad.  But anyway, we met up with her and her boyfriend, Jérôme.  He was really nice and actually invited all of us to join him and his friends for some drinks on the champs de mars.  (That's the stretch of green in front of the Eiffel Tower.)  When he suggested this, I got really really excited about the possibility of actually meeting and hanging out with French people.  I played it pretty cool though: trying not to let on to the eruption of excitement that was bubbling up inside me.  A simple "oui" sufficed and we were out the door.

We got to the champs de mars and met up with four of Jérôme's friends.  I was concentrating so hard on getting the bisous (the kiss on the cheeks) right that I didn't remember a single person's name.  Whoops.  No problem though: I deftly avoided having to use their names by simply not talking to someone if it was a situation in which I had to get their attention before starting the conversation.  Worked like a charm.

We ate junk food and drank wine and the French actually talked to us.  It was really great to just be hanging out.  After a while we moved along and went to St. Michel which is super touristy but also full of tons of fantastic and diverse restaurants.  We went to what they referred to as a "French cheese restaurant."  And boy was it.  I had raclette which is when you get a plate of "toppings" (veggies or assorted meats or some other things) and then several strips of cheese and some potatoes.  Then you get this little oven to heat up your cheese.  You put the "toppings" on the plate and then once the cheese has melted, you drip the cheese on top and then go at it.  And boy did I.  I had a veritable cheese baby by the end.  I felt really sick.  But in a good way I guess.  And I was determined to make the most of the night, so when they asked if we wanted to get some beers, I (again keeping my cool) replied with a simple "oui," and off we went.

We finally got to the bar, I had one drink, was completely filled to the top and we had to get up early for church the next morning anyway, so we called it quits and went home.  They took down our emails and we told them to find us on facebook, so we'll just have to see how it works out.

I kept having these "out of body" realizations while were hanging out.  It's kind of hard to explain, and sounds really stupid, but it's as if I was living a completely different life.  Like, I was talking, joking, eating, listening and whatever else, all in a completely different language.  And these people have grown up their entire lives doing this in the same way but differently and now I was a part of it.  It was a very "we are the world/kum-ba-ya" moment, I guess.  I hope that makes sense.

So anyway, to wrap this up, it was a great night.  We went to the American Church in Paris this morning (which was a really good service) and then walked around on the Champs-Elysées and just enjoyed the beautiful weather.

So that's it for now.  It was quite the weekend.  And this week I start going to the school.  I got my schedule though and they've done their best to keep my hours right next to each other, so I don't have to show up at like 8 am and then stay until 3 pm.  So that's awesome.  And I have every Wednesday off!  Huzzah!

And one last thing.  There was this kid with a really stupid haircut that demanded ridicule.  So here it is.  Two pictures, actually. 

Ok, that's it.

A la prochaine!

Just a bonjour.

Just a quick life update.

I feel like I haven't written in a few days.  In reality it's just been a long day.  I met the director of my school today and had to be there at 9:30.  So I got up at like 7:45.  I feel pretty lame that getting up at that time seemed such a burden, but I haven't really had any schedule since I've been here, so I've been getting the "normal" 10 hours of sleep each night.  I think I'm 80% adjusted to time on this side of the waters.

The teachers at my school are awesome.  My main contact, Madame Belaroussi, is super cool and speaks super good English.  She's been such a help to me and is very excited to have another assistant come through the school.  So far she has been very serious about making sure that people don't try and use more than the allotted 12 hours per week.  She's even told people to their face, "You are not allowed to ask him for help."  It's nice to have someone stick up for you like that, haha.  I would have a hard time saying, "No, I don't want to help you with that."  Especially in French.  So it's great that she's willing to cut out the riff-raff.

The French schooling system is very different than in America.  Duh, right?  Let me explain.  I'm in a lycée which is their version of high school.  There are the Secondes, Premieres, and Terminales.  It's seems like it's backwards....but apparently not.  Anyway, the Secondes are in like 10th grade, the Premieres in 11th grade, and the Terminales are our Seniors.  To graduate students have to take the Baccalauréat (the BAC) which basically determines if they go on to University or if they have to go to trade school.  So this one test decides what you're going to do for the rest of your life in France.  It's a little daunting, yes?

That's one thing that I've always appreciated about the USA.  While I do agree that the fact that a Bachelor's degree is so accessible does diminish its value, I think it's even more important that people's lives aren't irreversibly assigned a tract that they have to follow for the rest of their days.  People should have the chance to take whatever opportunity comes their way.

I've also discovered a new website I like.  Take a look: www.itmademyday.com

And I leave you with the flying buttresses of Notre Dame (they were very revolutionary for their day, after all).

Of College Life and Belgian Chocolate.

I bought a cell phone!  It's one of the smallest ones I've ever seen.  And I love it.  The provider is Orange.  I guess they're the equivalent of AT&T in the States because they're the only service you can use with an iPhone.  Some more fascinating France info.  But anyway, they have this "pay as you go" plan that's pretty reasonable.  So it works for me.  Plus I can use this phone when I'm back in the States.  I just have to switch out the SIM cards...I think.

We went to visit the school I'm going to be teaching at yesterday.  It was cool to see where it all was.  It's not actually very far from Paris.  About 15-20 minutes by train.  But then it's about a 20 minute walk from the train station.  So that sucks a bit.  The campus was very interesting.  They have the middle school, high school and university all on the same campus.  The one side is the university, and then the other side is the other two.  That was a little weird.  I went to check what housing options they were offering at the university.  So we entered the campus and accidentally ended up surrounded by 13-16 year olds.  "This can't be right..."  So then we went to the other side of the campus and ended up right in the middle of some sort of hippie commune of (clearly unwashed) college students outside of what we assumed was the "Student Activities Center."  It looked like they had emptied their dorm rooms and were sitting on all these plush couches and chairs on the lawn just chilling in the sun smoking and drinking.  It was a little awkward.  Especially because we passed them, realized we were going the wrong direction, and then had to turn around and walk by them again two seconds later!

So anyway, long story short, I decided that even though living on campus was cheaper, I didn't really want to be surrounded by that on a daily basis.  I didn't come to France to relive college.  So I'm going today to visit an apartment (hopefully more than one actually).  It's suuuuuper small; but I can afford it...sort of.

Let me take a moment to introduce all of you to a dear friend of mine.  His name is Jeff, and he's from Bruges, Belgium.  I call him Jeff de Bruges.  Jeff makes some of the very best chocolates.  Every Friday when I was studying abroad in Avignon, my friends Kate, Leigh and I would go visit the local JdB and get a few chocolates to try.  Eventually the lady there got to know us and would give us some freebies.  Well, that didn't happen this time, lol.  But!  The few I did buy started to melt in my bag so rather than have a sticky mess I just ate them all at once and then felt a little sick afterwards.  So that's something.

Well I guess that's it for now!

Oh, and congrats to Sarah O. for the engagement.  We never thought this day would come, haha.  Jk!

Life goes on. And on. And on. And on.

I'm coming closer and closer to getting my own housing. I'm definitely enjoying my time with Sarah though. It's such a blessing to have such a good friend here. Our sleep schedules are a little different (mostly because I've needed a nap every day since we've arrived like a 4 year old), but we're getting along just splendidly.

We went for like a four hour walk today. We walked all the way from where we are near the Place de la Concorde (pictured here).

To Île-de-la-cité where Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle are located. When you see Notre Dame from where we were, it doesn't really seem that far because it's so big. But it's quite a walk. Luckily it's all flat and mostly in the shade, haha.

But we walked all over the island and saw some stuff that neither of us had seen before. So that was fun. Here's my favorite picture of the day.

It's from the façade of Notre Dame.

In other news, we also opened up our French bank accounts! That's very exciting and was

rather easy. Especially because we're both under the age of 25. I think there are more taxes and what not when you're that old. In France there's a monthly tax that's taken out of your bank account simply for having one. But there's also interest that you earn...so I'm not quite sure how it all works out. Maybe I should read the 5,000 page handout that the guy at the bank gave me....but probably not.

That's our bank. BNP Paribas. I just learned today that it's actually the largest French company. So there you go. Never say that you didn't learn anything from reading my ramblings, haha.

And now to bed!