We have just changed the clocks here in France, which suddenly meant that we all stayed up way too late last night, but people kept coming by for no apparent reason. And then they'd learn that it was my birthday and wish me happy birthday and ask all kinds of questions. But it was a good day despite the fact that we were all sick and/or lethargic. I made garlic mashed potatoes and fake meatballs for dinner and then later baked a cake from a plain mix to which we added cinnamon, nutmeg, and the maple syrup Aunt Mim sent. Tasty! We watched my birthday movie and then spent the rest of the evening listening to Disney music for reasons which are inexplicable.
Today is Sunday and it's after one, which means there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, but that's all right. We've all got books and more movies and things to eat and look at. Not nearly as exciting as Friday, when we took about a hundred students to Paris to go to a science museum (Palais de la Découverte) and the theatre. And of course, in my group were the only two students who have ever really given me a lot of trouble, but they actually behaved surprisingly well. They tried to escape the boring weather lecture, but everyone was trying to escape, and the girl was quite nice to me. It was the older boys who were worse behaved, and that was at the theatre. I can understand not really wanting to watch the play - it was baroque, and a bit odd - but be civilized, children. It was nice for me to get to hang out with the other teachers, as well: I know them all by sight, but I don't always know their names (because everyone knows me, so they forget to introduce themselves). We had a tasty dinner. Overall, it was still an excellent trip. We drove around the Arc de Triomphe, close enough to see the flame that marks the tomb of the unknown soldier, and we drove past the Eiffel Tower, close enough to see it from top to bottom (and the view from the theatre when it was lit up in the evening was gorgeous). Paris certainly is magical.
It's sad to think of how little time we've got left. Bit of stress in the maison blanche, but we try to work around it and not break into shouting or tears too often (only once so far, fortunately). I ought to start packing and tidying up, I suppose, or at least straightening up the things I'm going to leave for next year's assistant and writing my letter. Strange to think what I'll do without the beautiful tower of St. Gery to draw me home.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
cloudy sunny cloudy sunny
In Cambrai the weather is cloudy but clearing, sort of. It was raining, and now we get drifts of white clouds and drifts of grey clouds and glimpses of bright blue sky. Now it's clouded over again, only to go sunny half an hour later. I'm sitting in the living room writing this: the window to the left and the one in front of me show slices of blue sky and bright sunshine, and the window to the right is thick cloud. Michelle's taking her visiting friends around for the tour of Cambrai and canal in a bit, but I think I'll stay in; I have some artsy and writing projects to finish. Steffen's sister and her boyfriend are here too. It's a big weekend for visitors! St. Patrick's Day, you know, which meant that all the pubs in town were serving Guinness and whiskey, and that everything was packed when we went out dancing and we couldn't even get up without losing our seats, so we didn't end up dancing at all, but at least I got a free Guinness glass (a tiny one). And then we came home and ate chocolate pie.
Today we have big plans to make spinach and goat cheese lasagna, since Cata's not back from Spain yet, so we can still cook with goat cheese without hearing a number of complaints. Though we might get some anyway - she didn't tell us what time she'd get home, although she got cranky with me for not saying what time I'd be home from England when I went. Ah, the joys of cohabitation. It is good generally, though: our tiny house that occupies three has so many unofficial inhabitants. Yesterday we even got Steffen to vacuum for us. Actually, he volunteered while I was sweeping in preparation to mop (and believe that the kitchen floor looks so much better than it did yesterday, given that at points I was on hands and knees with a sponge). So that was pleasant, having our half-housemate actually do some tidying up when generally we can barely coax him into doing the dishes. But he still can't cook for anything.
It was a good week at school. My classes that don't generally behave behaved pretty well, though I'm not sure they actually understood what the lesson was trying to convey. They're learning about the American west and the frontier and it's rather impossible to explain to French children what the frontier meant to the pioneers, and what it still means to the American spirit. The French have pretty much always known where their boundaries were since the time of nos ancetres les Gaulois. They've been conquered a lot more than they've been doing the conquering. I tried to explain how much hope the pioneers and the immigrants had for the wide, wild lands of the West, but the landscape is different, both physically and emotionally, from the soft rolling French countryside. So eventually we just played with the opinion cards. With the older classes, I had my favorite student show up with one of my kids from last semester whom I technically don't have anymore, but it's always nice to know that they like me enough to come to class even when they don't have to.
Next Friday I'm going to Paris with a significant number of the kids. We're going to the theatre. I'm not sure what we're seeing - some Russian or German play in French, I think - but it should be fun, and it's a nice little birthday present for me, since we won't be back until after midnight, and then it will be the 24th and I'll be 22. I've told Michelle I expect to see a frosted cake and a pile of presents on the table. And I get to go to Paris for my birthday like I wanted without having to pay for it! Nice! Although what I really wanted to do was pick up Fragile Things and take it to Neil Gaiman's book signing. I miss books in English. The French books I've found are kind of hit or miss. I read Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson in French and it was excellent, but the Discworld books are rather awful. I suppose I could get actual French books by actual French authors, but why on earth would I want to do that? They're probably all depressing. (I'm kidding, but only half.)
I've done the dishes, and I can't do any laundry until Steffen's is done, so I suppose I'll go back to futilely trying to copy my music off my iPod onto the computer. Oh, Windows Vista, you're certainly pretty, but you give me problems. Or maybe I'll attempt to perfect my Scouse accent before the Liverpudlians get back, so they can be amused.
Have an excellent Sunday!
Today we have big plans to make spinach and goat cheese lasagna, since Cata's not back from Spain yet, so we can still cook with goat cheese without hearing a number of complaints. Though we might get some anyway - she didn't tell us what time she'd get home, although she got cranky with me for not saying what time I'd be home from England when I went. Ah, the joys of cohabitation. It is good generally, though: our tiny house that occupies three has so many unofficial inhabitants. Yesterday we even got Steffen to vacuum for us. Actually, he volunteered while I was sweeping in preparation to mop (and believe that the kitchen floor looks so much better than it did yesterday, given that at points I was on hands and knees with a sponge). So that was pleasant, having our half-housemate actually do some tidying up when generally we can barely coax him into doing the dishes. But he still can't cook for anything.
It was a good week at school. My classes that don't generally behave behaved pretty well, though I'm not sure they actually understood what the lesson was trying to convey. They're learning about the American west and the frontier and it's rather impossible to explain to French children what the frontier meant to the pioneers, and what it still means to the American spirit. The French have pretty much always known where their boundaries were since the time of nos ancetres les Gaulois. They've been conquered a lot more than they've been doing the conquering. I tried to explain how much hope the pioneers and the immigrants had for the wide, wild lands of the West, but the landscape is different, both physically and emotionally, from the soft rolling French countryside. So eventually we just played with the opinion cards. With the older classes, I had my favorite student show up with one of my kids from last semester whom I technically don't have anymore, but it's always nice to know that they like me enough to come to class even when they don't have to.
Next Friday I'm going to Paris with a significant number of the kids. We're going to the theatre. I'm not sure what we're seeing - some Russian or German play in French, I think - but it should be fun, and it's a nice little birthday present for me, since we won't be back until after midnight, and then it will be the 24th and I'll be 22. I've told Michelle I expect to see a frosted cake and a pile of presents on the table. And I get to go to Paris for my birthday like I wanted without having to pay for it! Nice! Although what I really wanted to do was pick up Fragile Things and take it to Neil Gaiman's book signing. I miss books in English. The French books I've found are kind of hit or miss. I read Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson in French and it was excellent, but the Discworld books are rather awful. I suppose I could get actual French books by actual French authors, but why on earth would I want to do that? They're probably all depressing. (I'm kidding, but only half.)
I've done the dishes, and I can't do any laundry until Steffen's is done, so I suppose I'll go back to futilely trying to copy my music off my iPod onto the computer. Oh, Windows Vista, you're certainly pretty, but you give me problems. Or maybe I'll attempt to perfect my Scouse accent before the Liverpudlians get back, so they can be amused.
Have an excellent Sunday!
Sunday, March 11, 2007
springtime in Cambrai
When I left for Sweden, I stopped at Odéon on the 4 Metro Line for a lot of coffee. Paris in the early morning light was curled into itself like a snail shell found in a garden, each arrondissement pearly under the weak sun of the end of winter. Paris, city of love, city of lovers. I have not found love in Paris. For me, it is a city of bridges and of keys. I do find keys in Paris: a tiny anonymous key to one of ten thousand interchangeable locks on diaries with pasteboard covers. Someone's house key, which I left on the curb where I found it, though I took the small one. There are a million others just like it.
When I left for Sweden, Paris was shading towards spring and Stockholm was still locked into winter, snowy and slushy and chilly. Not as cold as Iowa, certainly. Stockholm lacked some of the bone-chilling cold of Iowa, certainly: it never really got below freezing. It was like home, really, about as cold as Arkansas, with considerably more snow. And it was pleasant. Fewer blond people than one would expect, but cobblestones and twisty streets like France. And to me, the Swedish subtitles looked a bit like German, at least enough that I could recognize some words. But it was a wintery place, and we ate wintery food, like the goat cheese with walnuts and honey and lingon jam that I had in the vegetarian restaurant, and the roasted veggies Angie made.
When we landed at Beauvais, outside of Paris, it was spring. The fields were greener under the brighter sun, and the sides of the road were touched with color: white from the snowdrops and the shrubs and trees like popcorn and the daisies buttoning down the grass, pink from some other sort of blossoming tree, and yellow from dandelions and daffodils and the forsythia. The light has gone from winter silver to spring white gold, and outside the maison blanche, there are violets. We've started taking long walks by the canal on the more and more frequent sunny days, just because we want to bask in the sunshine (and hey, Mom, I'm wearing my sunscreen that smells like India and everything). Cata has a photo of me standing under one of the trees that's just exploding into blossom, and none of us can stop smiling. Even though it's still a bit chilly, we have the windows open to let in the fresh air, and it's warm enough to go out without a coat.
There's an organic market today across town, but we're not going, because it sounds more fun to sit on the Grand Place and eat ice cream. If that isn't a spring and summer food, it's hard to say what is. We keep buying fruit for the house as well, a sure sign that winter's slipping away. I may make a fruit salad later: we've got a can of lychees and a can of mangos and a couple of yellow plums and nectarines that need using and I've got my trusty shaker full of ginger. Plus, I've started drinking coffee (with cardamom and cream, generally) instead of tea. Change of season.
Work starts again on Monday and I'll be glad enough to go back. I miss my students, and I like having a little more structure to my day than "Wake up, stumble downstairs, eat some yogurt, and argue peaceably about what we're going to do for the rest of the day, which ends up being sit around with our various computers". Although on Wednesday, we did go to Valenciennes to teach Cata how to bowl, and to play pool and air hockey and dance on the Dance Dance Revolution machine and wow some schoolchildren with our impressive skills. I've lost three fingernails this week: right thumb and ring finger to the bowling ball, and then right index at random. I also cut partway through my left index fingernail while I was slicing up (vicious! Lethal!) stale bread to make a vegetarian loaf. Been a bad week for my hands.
After this, only a few weeks of school left! Tragic. But for now I'll just try to enjoy the moment. Some of the old German assistants from a few years ago are visiting, and they've shown us some of their old favorite places around town, which are our new favorite places. So we're off to bask in the sunshine and chatter away in our patois, and it'll be lovely.
When I left for Sweden, Paris was shading towards spring and Stockholm was still locked into winter, snowy and slushy and chilly. Not as cold as Iowa, certainly. Stockholm lacked some of the bone-chilling cold of Iowa, certainly: it never really got below freezing. It was like home, really, about as cold as Arkansas, with considerably more snow. And it was pleasant. Fewer blond people than one would expect, but cobblestones and twisty streets like France. And to me, the Swedish subtitles looked a bit like German, at least enough that I could recognize some words. But it was a wintery place, and we ate wintery food, like the goat cheese with walnuts and honey and lingon jam that I had in the vegetarian restaurant, and the roasted veggies Angie made.
When we landed at Beauvais, outside of Paris, it was spring. The fields were greener under the brighter sun, and the sides of the road were touched with color: white from the snowdrops and the shrubs and trees like popcorn and the daisies buttoning down the grass, pink from some other sort of blossoming tree, and yellow from dandelions and daffodils and the forsythia. The light has gone from winter silver to spring white gold, and outside the maison blanche, there are violets. We've started taking long walks by the canal on the more and more frequent sunny days, just because we want to bask in the sunshine (and hey, Mom, I'm wearing my sunscreen that smells like India and everything). Cata has a photo of me standing under one of the trees that's just exploding into blossom, and none of us can stop smiling. Even though it's still a bit chilly, we have the windows open to let in the fresh air, and it's warm enough to go out without a coat.
There's an organic market today across town, but we're not going, because it sounds more fun to sit on the Grand Place and eat ice cream. If that isn't a spring and summer food, it's hard to say what is. We keep buying fruit for the house as well, a sure sign that winter's slipping away. I may make a fruit salad later: we've got a can of lychees and a can of mangos and a couple of yellow plums and nectarines that need using and I've got my trusty shaker full of ginger. Plus, I've started drinking coffee (with cardamom and cream, generally) instead of tea. Change of season.
Work starts again on Monday and I'll be glad enough to go back. I miss my students, and I like having a little more structure to my day than "Wake up, stumble downstairs, eat some yogurt, and argue peaceably about what we're going to do for the rest of the day, which ends up being sit around with our various computers". Although on Wednesday, we did go to Valenciennes to teach Cata how to bowl, and to play pool and air hockey and dance on the Dance Dance Revolution machine and wow some schoolchildren with our impressive skills. I've lost three fingernails this week: right thumb and ring finger to the bowling ball, and then right index at random. I also cut partway through my left index fingernail while I was slicing up (vicious! Lethal!) stale bread to make a vegetarian loaf. Been a bad week for my hands.
After this, only a few weeks of school left! Tragic. But for now I'll just try to enjoy the moment. Some of the old German assistants from a few years ago are visiting, and they've shown us some of their old favorite places around town, which are our new favorite places. So we're off to bask in the sunshine and chatter away in our patois, and it'll be lovely.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
not France but Sweden!
Hello, all!
This is my last day in Stockholm with Angie! It's been a great vacation. Extremely relaxing. We've just been wandering around the city, eating vegetarian food, talking about our favorite tv shows, and comparing the various countries we've visited. Last night we went out to a sports bar to watch some song competition having to do with Eurovision and free slots left. There was a lot of cheering and a lot of hissing going on. The place was packed! And then we did karaoke. I have learned some important Swedish phrases from watching this and some random television, such as "jag måste kyssa dig" (I must kiss you) and the words for "naked", "wonderful", and "for king and country". So that will serve me well. But I can also say "I don't speak Swedish!" and "Do you speak English?" so that's all right.
Today I think we're going to visit some gardeny place and I'll teach Angie how to use the newly augmented contents of her spice collection. The weather hasn't really been the best for sightseeing - rather slushy and cloudy - but it's been pretty mild. The girls were afraid I would freeze, but it's so much warmer than Iowa was. Colder than Cambrai, but often enough above freezing, so I am toasty as a little piece of toast in my coat and scarf. No problems. But their concern was cute. It's so nice to actually find vegetarian food in Sweden. In the restaurants, in the grocery stores, wherever you go, there's always some vegetarian option, and it isn't a salad with the meat hastily taken off. Plus, there's lingon jam everywhere, and that's almost as tasty as cranberry sauce. Mmmmm. I approve of Sweden, yes, I do. It is clean and fairly friendly and easy to navigate. Expensive, though. I keep trying to divide kronor by rupees instead of Euro, and that's bad news for my bank account. But! In general everything is lovely.
It's been strange to come to a place where it's dark at six again. In Cambrai it's been so light that I don't wake up to church bells anymore: starting at 3.30 or so, I can wake up to the chirrup of birds in the trees and on the theatre, and some of the trees are budding and blooming. Hopefully the frost won't kill the blossoms. But here in Stockholm, it's still brown and bare, except for the snow and slush. This is the farthest north I've ever been! How exciting.
I had some more things to relate, but they've slipped my mind for now. The rest of vacation looks to be incredibly relaxing. The girls and I have been cleaning the house and cooking a lot. There's fruit in the maison blanche again, which is good, and we've all been paid, which is excellent. I have some writing to do when I get home. It's so strange to think that after break, there are only five more weeks of school and then it's over. I can't believe it's March already. At least I've got birthday plans to distract me. Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, is having a book signing in Paris on the 24th, so I think I'll play the birthday card until someone comes with me. It'll be great.
This is my last day in Stockholm with Angie! It's been a great vacation. Extremely relaxing. We've just been wandering around the city, eating vegetarian food, talking about our favorite tv shows, and comparing the various countries we've visited. Last night we went out to a sports bar to watch some song competition having to do with Eurovision and free slots left. There was a lot of cheering and a lot of hissing going on. The place was packed! And then we did karaoke. I have learned some important Swedish phrases from watching this and some random television, such as "jag måste kyssa dig" (I must kiss you) and the words for "naked", "wonderful", and "for king and country". So that will serve me well. But I can also say "I don't speak Swedish!" and "Do you speak English?" so that's all right.
Today I think we're going to visit some gardeny place and I'll teach Angie how to use the newly augmented contents of her spice collection. The weather hasn't really been the best for sightseeing - rather slushy and cloudy - but it's been pretty mild. The girls were afraid I would freeze, but it's so much warmer than Iowa was. Colder than Cambrai, but often enough above freezing, so I am toasty as a little piece of toast in my coat and scarf. No problems. But their concern was cute. It's so nice to actually find vegetarian food in Sweden. In the restaurants, in the grocery stores, wherever you go, there's always some vegetarian option, and it isn't a salad with the meat hastily taken off. Plus, there's lingon jam everywhere, and that's almost as tasty as cranberry sauce. Mmmmm. I approve of Sweden, yes, I do. It is clean and fairly friendly and easy to navigate. Expensive, though. I keep trying to divide kronor by rupees instead of Euro, and that's bad news for my bank account. But! In general everything is lovely.
It's been strange to come to a place where it's dark at six again. In Cambrai it's been so light that I don't wake up to church bells anymore: starting at 3.30 or so, I can wake up to the chirrup of birds in the trees and on the theatre, and some of the trees are budding and blooming. Hopefully the frost won't kill the blossoms. But here in Stockholm, it's still brown and bare, except for the snow and slush. This is the farthest north I've ever been! How exciting.
I had some more things to relate, but they've slipped my mind for now. The rest of vacation looks to be incredibly relaxing. The girls and I have been cleaning the house and cooking a lot. There's fruit in the maison blanche again, which is good, and we've all been paid, which is excellent. I have some writing to do when I get home. It's so strange to think that after break, there are only five more weeks of school and then it's over. I can't believe it's March already. At least I've got birthday plans to distract me. Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, is having a book signing in Paris on the 24th, so I think I'll play the birthday card until someone comes with me. It'll be great.
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