In the immortal words of Socrates, "...I drank what?"

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!

SO. Frustrating. Strikes drive me absolutely nuts. I have been in France for five and a half months, and have now experienced no less than three train strikes (and witnessed a hairdressers' mini-strike/protest thing in Tours). I was gonna go to Nancy again today, and so was looking for trains on the sncf website. It kept giving me a message saying that certain trains I was viewing might be delayed due to perturbations. Gah. Ok. I won't go into detail, to spare you and myself, but basically what happened is that certain train times appeared at the beginning of my search, and then disappeared and were replaced with other times during the second part of my search, and then, when I tried to click on those, it kept giving me the 'perturbations' message and telling me to pick another train, except ALL the options they were giving me just recycled the page when clicked with the perturbation messages all over the place. I checked the traffic info for the region and saw that something happened yesterday with a commercial wagon skipping the tracks (I think?) on one train line and that traffic around there would be running around 30 minutes late.

However, this didn't seem to explain the problem I was experiencing, because the area affected is quite a few kilometers southeast of where I want to travel, and not the same line at all, as far as I can tell. I thought, hm, perhaps there's a strike? Again? Sure. It's France, why not. So, I looked up sncf strike on google (grève sncf) and found that they started a strike on Wednesday the 12th (meaning it actually started on the 11th, Tuesday night vers 20h). So, great. Another strike. I think they are complaining of the same problem, the revocation of their early retirement privileges (that were put in place ages ago when constantly being on trains/conducting trains was hazardous to one's health and therefore railworkers died at an earlier age). I could be wrong, though, I don't know. Argh! So frustrating.

Anyway, one news site said I should check the TER site from SNCF. So I did, and all of a sudden all of my train options were back. I went back to the news site and they said that for the most accurate traffic info I should go to SNCF's infolignes site, where I had first been that explained the track-jumping car that shouldn't affect me at all. Further reasearch suggested that none of SNCF's traffic information could be trusted. So. I am almost back where I was when I started my search over an hour ago, except more thoroughly confused and having missed the train I was intending to take at the beginning (assuming it was running at all). So. Yeah. Awesome.

I think I may go to the station anyway, just to see if there's any info there. Except I won't use my bus pass to get there, cause if I lose a bus ride over this shit without being able to take a train, I will be mad.

Goodness gracious.

This is what Phillipe said when I spoke to him about our most recent apartment problem, which I will describe to you in a moment. His phrase means something like "shit, this is insane, huh?" --> 'putain' actually means 'whore' or 'prostitue', but is used like we use the word 'shit', as in, 'oh shit'. Or maybe 'crap', would be more accurate, because kids run around saying it. 'Oh, putain!' Hee. 'C'est la folie' is 'It's the folly/the craziness', or, less literally, 'It's/This is crazy/nuts/insane.'

And it is! Let me tell you about it. So, there is construction work being done on the apartment at the moment, and there is consequently scaffolding all around the building. The zone all around the scaffolding, and thus all around the building, is a hard hat area. There are two doors that lead directly from the outside into the apartment. One is at the front, and is blocked by scaffolding bars at about waist (actual waist) height for me, maybe a tiny bit lower. Let's say bellybutton height. We had been leaving through this door, because it is our only direct door out of the apartment. The other door comes in through the basement but it requires a key that we until very very recently did not have. One day the construction workers caught me leaving through the front door and were upset. I explained that it is our only way to leave the apartment, and they said they would talk to the administration. The next week, the same thing happened to C. Eventually, we worked it out so that we would walk through the hallway (providing the hallway door stay unlocked) and exit through the IUFM main building during business hours. If we wanted to leave or reenter the apartment after 6pm (or however early Nicole decides to lock the doors) or before 8am, we could, they supposed, duck under the scaffolding. They're so lucky we're not handicapped. Or taller. Or less bendy.

Anyway, this was working fine until when I arrived back from vacation. Apparently, someone had gotten through an unlocked door somewhere and had stolen something (having to do with coffee, I think, in one of the school buildings? It was very fast, I didn't understand what she was saying) and so they re-did the lock on the basement door and gave us keys. Two keys. There are three of us. C and I are going to make another copy this afternoon, and they said they would reimburse her. We'll see if that actually happens. It had better. I still haven't received any reimbursement for my pointless trip to Longwy, despite four emails. So, now we have a key to get in through the front, and a key to get in through the basement. Which, incidentally, is also a hard hat area. The last time I tried to exit through there, the workers said I should go through the hallway, which I tried to do, but it was locked because of the theft. I ended up sneaking out under the scaffolding at the front of the house. I visited Phillipe today to ask about the door, and told him that the workers suggested we use the hallway. He got a little upset and said that the workers couldn't tell them what to do, and that we can leave through the front door. I replied that that was fine with me, as long as the workers stop yelling at us when we try to leave the house. He said that he would talk to them upon his next opportunity. Excellent.

So, instead of trusting us with keys to the hallway (which was often left unlocked, even before the construction), we get to duck under scaffolding and walk around in hard hat areas with no protection. C (jokingly) thinks we should keep sets of hard hats by both doors.

I'm half waiting for a worker to be assigned to sit above one door or the other with a brick, watching to drop it on our heads when we try to leave the apartment, just to say, 'ha! and that's why you shouldn't screw around in hard hat areas!'

Oy. In other news, I may go to Nancy tomorrow. Or Friday. This weekend will be the weekend of massive cleaning and sorting of papers. I'm excited.

Yay! Was on vacation in Paris, in and around Tours, and for two days in Metz (where I checked my email once, but that was about it) with Mom. It was fantastic! We saw so much! I feel like I have great stories, but I'm actually sick at the moment, so you only get two, and neither of them actually have anything to do with the vacation.

Number 1:
I got into UBC! Yay! Woohoooo! I am excited. And relieved. And I feel oh so validated. But now I am also facing a dilemma - UCSD, or UBC? What shall I do?? I've been back and forth over and over, making one decision then the other, then reversing them again. I don't know. Both schools have amazing programs, faculty, resources, etc., I think I could be truly happy at either place. I've always wanted to live in the Northwest, and, who knows, may never get a chance to again. But, being in San Diego has definite perks as well - I've got lots of friends and family in California, my grandmother lives in San Diego, and I'll never have an opportunity to live so close to her again, most likely. We're very close, cause I lived with her and my mother and my great-grandmother for nearly five years when I was little. And she would be so ecstatic if I came to live there. But I can't make my decision that way, or, I could, but I don't want to. Either way, I will be closer to that part of my family than I've been in a long time, so I could look at it as a win-win situation.

I think it will probably come down to financial assistance. I have a guesstimate from UCSD, and no info from UBC, but in either case nothing is concrete yet, they are still waiting for financial information themselves, seeing if they were awarded the money they expected, etc. So, that may give me a hand in deciding.

I'm so lucky, and so happy to have a choice. The hard part is that it needs to be made. I shall keep you updated on my inner turmoil regarding this situation. If anybody has any suggestions, tell me? Thanks!

Number 2:

This is perhaps the most ironically funny picture I have ever taken, and I am in love with it:




This is a photo taken in Strasbourg, walking around Petite France. We (we meaning me, roommate C, and C's friend from the US who is living in France for a semester) went on a walkway over the water behind some stores, and I noticed an old, sad, discarded Christmas tree wrapped in netting in the canal, underneath a store. What makes this so funny is that the store is a Christmas store. I will now translate the writing on the door for you.

From top to bottom, in French:
Un Noël en Alsace
Venez retrouver l'Authenticité des Traditionnels "Marché de Noel" d'Alsace
Une visite s'impose!
Entrée Libre au 10, rue des Dentelles
Par La Place Benjamin Six <-- à 50 m
Par Le Pont St Martin <-- à 70 m

And, in English, for the most part:
(A) Christmas in Alsace
Come rediscover the authenticity of the traditional 'Christmas Market' of Alsace
You must visit! (Literally, A visit imposes itself!)
Free/Open entry at 10 Lace(s) Road (Road of Laces, Lace, like, the material)
50 meters by Benjamin 6 Place (probably a square)
70 meters by the St Martin Bridge

I think it's hilarious. It made my morning.

Well, that's all for now, folks, cause I'm sick and my head's a little swimmy at the moment. I'm going to watch something until I fall asleep. Goodnight!

SGA 4x17 ( Midway )

On a separate, completely unrelated note, I have found mint liqueur. I think it's crème de menthe? It is yum. It's called Get31, I had never heard of it, but it was in the ATAC, and I put it in a hot chocolate last night, and tonight I put it in some milk on ice. It was pretty darn tasty. The bottle promises 'menthe intense', or, yes, intense mint flavor. Hm. Can't find it online, so I'll have to take a picture. The bottle's nice, aside from the tacky name portion. Will photograph/upload something after the vacation. Tomorrow I leave for Paris! Yay!

Oh my. So. I'm taking a moment to be a terribly judgmental bitch. I may not completely finish this post cause I'm using a French keyboard and that slows down my typing, lots.

I'm doing exam simulations with the students right now, and, when they show up (more on this later, I promise you), they are almost frighteningly inept. The exercise goes like this: they read an article and take notes during 30 minutes of prep time. They come in, and I am friendly and smiley to try and help them feel better/more comfortable. I tell them that they will talk for 5 minutes about what they read, and that then we will discuss the article for about 10 minutes during which I will ask them general or specific questions. They will then read a few sentences of my choosing from the article. So far I've had one really good simulation, one pretty good, three mediocre to bad, and one absolutely terrible. I've got a couple minutes until the next one, I'll tell you how it goes. The one I just had was really good, meaning that the student was shy but spoke anyway and obviously understood the main points of the article. She used words correctly for the most part, and displayed only two major instances of mispronunciation, both for the root verb 'to study'...

oops. gotta go. back later :)

ETA:
So. Yes. Simulations. The good speaker, with the 'study' problem. This is a common, common problem, at least among my students here. They often try to say the 'y' as it is in 'my', so it sounds like 'studai', 'stu-die/dye'. Anyway, this one did it right once and wrong twice, but we discussed it and it is fixed, I think.

The student I had right after her had a problem with c's, like in the words "produce" and "reduce" - he would say 'prodooch' and 'ridcooch', and "production" was 'prodoochon'. There were LOTS of pronunciation problems, some minor misunderstandings, but he still said things, he spoke, and presented an opinion on what he did understand, and that is good.

After him, there was another awful simulation, for the same reasons as before. I don't know if they were embarrassed, or if they just really didn't understand, but these girls said next to nothing. They spoke for maybe two minutes, and when I asked them to say more, it was all, 'ben, euh .... euh... enfin, euh... bah, chais pas, chais pas, chais pas quoi dire' (translates to something like: well, um ... uuhhh ... well uuuh ... yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what to say') for another 30 seconds until I put them out of their respective miseries and said we'd just get on with it. When I asked questions it was more of the same, um-ing and uh-ing and saying 'I don't know' until I a different question. I got them each to answer one very very general question, in both cases it was after my having described in very small sentences using very small words what was happening in the article, and both questions where basically the same thing (although about different subjects): 'Do you think this is a problem in France?/Tell me some general French opinions about this.' Basically. One article was on global warming and its possible future effects on crops in developing countries (a bit of a scary article), and the other was a poorly written article on how apparently British schools have gotten worse because they aren't providing students with real-life experience for entering the work force. Yup.

Gaaaah. I just, I guess I just feel bad for them, because it's so late, I haven't met any of them before, scratch that, I've met one of them, the guy with the 'c' problem. But the point is that it's a bit late to help them now, so really I'm just trying to make them feel less nervous. I've recommended to everyone that they use bbc.co.uk or some similar site to read articles and practice, and I have encouraged them to find other speakers, perhaps others in their classes who also want to practice, and spend some time speaking. Apparently, in high schools, in a year of taking English, a student may spend, maybe, 10 minutes speaking. No wonder they're uncomfortable! So, I'm thinking this is a good time to start offering private lessons. Which may mean a very busy March, but I could really use the money. Goodness could I ever. We'll see what happens.

In other news, today I went to Montigny to do simulations. I took a 7h45 bus, got there at 8AM, got the subject, went to search for names, and found that all the morning people had crossed themselves out and written themselves back down for later in the afternoon. Fine. Whatever. I'm upset, cause I now have five hours before my next simulation, and this means I will have wasted two trips on my 10 trip bus pass. So, I take the bus back to the apartment and hang out, do a little of this a little of that (read: I took a nap and watched Stargate), and then it's time to go. I take the bus back to Montigny and look for students. None. I get the room, tell the secretary where I am, and go wait. No one. I look around. Nobody is there. I talk to the wife on gchat and we insult people, I go to look for people, still no one. I double check in the office, nobody has come. I try to buy a coffee, but find that the machines are set to not work during class hours. Clever, but juvenile. Can you not trust people to not skip class to use the machine? I mean, we're all adults, maybe... Anyway, bottom line is no one showed up, and I checked to make sure they hadn't come and just gotten confused - there were 7 subjects after I took one in the morning, and there were seven when I returned the key in the afternoon.

Gaaaaha;lejra aow;eira we;ljf!!! Fuckers.

Well. Their loss. My loss of bus passes and therefore money, but, you know, no use crying over someone else taking your milk and pouring it on you. I was gonna say 'cry over spilled milk', but this is someone else doing it. Albeit in a passive aggressive manner.

I'm so done caring about this.

The end.

So. I was planning a trip with my mom, who is coming to visit me in France, and at first we were thinking of going to Provence/Côte d'Azur, cause it's winter, and Provence/C d'A is a little warmer. And I found this:

La Fête du Citron, or Lemon Fesitval, in which the city of Menton celebrates citrus fruit. My first thought? ( Click here if you won't judge me for being a huge dork )

Yup.

But really, it looks like a lot of fun. I am sad that we are not going. I'm tempted to try and go myself, anyway. It's just that the train times are kind of horrendous, and I don't want for us to spend our vacation in a moving vehicle. Hmmm... Thinking Vallée de la Loire. Tours is 70 minutes by TGV from Paris, and as far as I have read, the chateaux are relatively easy to get to by train/bus. hm hm hm.

Another reason why bureaucracy sucks a big fat one:

My mom sent me a package, and sent it priority so that it would get here before the vacation, when the IUFM shuts down completely until the 7th. She sent it last Tuesday, the ... 11th. Plenty of time, especially as it was supposed to get here in *3 or 4 days*. But, of course, it is not that easy. I've gone to reception every single day the school is open, twice or three times a day most recently because the receptionists are like 'yeah, we have no idea what time the postman comes, it depends. you just have to come in every so often to check', to check and see if it's there. Nothing. Today, I went to the main post office because it's been a week and a half and I haven't received the package that was supposed to be here within 4 days. I waited in a line for 45 minutes, presented my situation to the woman, and she was like, 'oh, well, I'm sorry, but we don't handle packages here anymore. That's over at another package-center. I'll give you the number." So. I wasn't too mad because she was nice, but I was still disappointed and my confidence in post offices and organizations in general is at an all-time low, which is saying a lot, considering past experiences. I think this is a cumulative feeling, however. Anyway, I got home and called the number the woman gave me using our finally-working phone and our finally-working phone-line (long story, will share later if I don't break my fingers hitting something first) and what do I get? A message saying 'all lines of the corespondent you are trying to reach are busy. Please try your call again at a later time.' So I waited an hour. Same. F-ing. Message.

Seriously. Seriously!!!! WTF????

I'm really pissed off at the moment. I may write something else later. For now, I am giving whoever screwed up my package, and all the obstacles in the way of my finding it, the mental finger.

So. Something real special happened to me today when I went to the local ‘Laverie’, or Laundromat. One of the great things about our apartment is that it has no washing machine or dryer. Still, could be worse. I just kind of hate Laundromats. A lot.

Anyway, so, I came by myself to do a load of laundry, and it’s the middle of the day, maybe 1:30? I walk up the big, long, steep hill on the other street into center city and turn to enter into the slightly sketchy but a least well-lit Laundromat with its broken-glass door. I stop short for a moment because the door is propped open (it’s *freezing*) and there are three men occupying the upper right corner of the room, right next to the door. I look at the machines and see that, no, they don’t have any laundry with them. They are hanging out in the Laundromat in the middle of the day, sharing a mostly-gone bottle of red wine. One of them has a superb goose egg on his forehead, and what looks like a gash on the side of his face. I didn’t look too closely/carefully, cause I didn’t want to attract attention. Kind of hard not to do when you are in a Laundromat by yourself. It’s not like there’s a lot else for them to be occupied with.

Anyway, they say Bonjour, and I say Bonjour in a clipped sort of ‘I don’t want you to talk to me’ tone. They don’t, until the youngest one, maybe 33, asks for a cigarette. I say I don’t smoke, and he says ok. He goes out a few minutes later and comes back with cigarettes. The most drunk of the three, I believe, is the guy who looks like he got in a fight. He’s maybe 35, maybe a little older. The third is the oldest , maybe 45, maybe more. The youngest one talks to me again, saying that his buddy, the middle one, is an admirable young man with a good family background. I don’t say anything, just give him a sort of ‘that’s nice’ nod. I don’t say anything else for quite a while.

The three of them continue talking, their language getting more and more foul the more I fail to react. Eventually the middle guy asks if it’s possible to put his shoes in the washing machine. It seems ambiguous to me as to whether he’s asking just in general, or whether he’s asking to put them in with my clothes. I say that yes, in general, it’s possible to wash your shoes by putting them in the washing machine. One could do it, but then one would be shoeless while they waited. I continued to write my lists and ignore them. They keep talking in a really vulgar manner (I keep catching the word ‘ass’ a lot, ‘cul’ in French), and at one point the really drunk middle guy gets up and pretends to rape the younger friend against the thanks-to-god wide open door of the Laundromat. I continue to ignore them, but from what I caught, they were discussing the dynamics of anal sex. ‘Great,’ I think, ‘fuck. I’m alone in a Laundromat with three drunken Frenchmen who are thinking about sex and have a hard glass bottle good for hitting people over the head. At least I’m in a semi-busy pedestrian area.’ I get pretty tense, just as a sort of precaution, ready to fight and scream if necessary, but thankfully I guess they decided that Laundromats were no longer a la mode, and moved on to something bigger and better.

So now I’m in here, watching my clothes circle in the dryer and typing, thanking whatever powers may be that I didn’t have to try to break someone’s nose. And that is the story of the time I didn’t get attacked in a French Laundromat. Fin.

Yet another strike...


For December 20th. Seriously.

I promise I'll post something soon...

They play this song all the freakin time here. I like it, though, so that's ok. Also, she's pretty smokin', in my opinion. Kind of a weird dancer, but I will give that she's supposed to be on a ledge however many feet above the ground which would somewhat restrict movement. Still. I like.



Off to take a practice GRE...

wish me luck!

to be detailed after I have actually done something about them.

I will say for the moment that I am ... angry.

On a happy note, I was just emailing with one of my students who was asking if I was free for a couple of things coming up (yay social life! also yay possibly visiting a mosque!), and I told her that I am taking the GRE the 13th in Paris so I'd be free after then. She ended her reply with "and may the force be with you!"
I. that is priceless. sweet, but also so funny! It probably seems funnier to me cause I read the rest of the email which was in pretty good but still obviously 2nd language English first. That makes me happy. *smiles*

Also, are those construction workers outside the window speaking ... German? What is that? It's like German, but not. Also, I think I heard some French words. I am confused. But intrigued.

Also, still mad.

More musing on potential computer names:

Yeah, so I promised continuations of the TBC stuff from last post, but I'm too frustrated about the internet situation to write anything at the moment, so I'm leaving it for later still. This was already on my computer, so, read, if you wish, while I wait for the fuming-ness to be over for now.

Isaac instead of Boris? Andy? Gary? All of my inanimate objects have always had guy names. Why is that? Someone psychoanalyze me? Except my cars… first car was ‘Joe’, just because that was its name. Joe was a ’92 oldsmobile POS, and oh-so-much fun. I loved that car. It was the perfect first car. There was so much wrong with it! It was a hand-me-down from my father, who had driven it into the ground. It was a gray cutlass ciera, I got it over the 275,000 mile mark. The passenger side front seat window would roll down but not up, and so sometimes I would have to cover the space with a garbage bag between trips to the mechanic when someone forgot not to touch the window button. The window button on the driver’s side, well, the window button console, if you will, hung by the wires from the door. There was a crack all along the front windshield. My seatbelt buckle didn’t work, so I used the middle buckle instead. It died on me once on the interstate between home and work, this was before I had a cell phone. That was a fun day. But I still loved that car. I typed all its specs into an online car site once, and apparently it was worth about $60. Hot.

Um. Yes. But not the point. So there was Joe, but after Joe there was Roxanne, who was a red two door Honda civic with a sunroof. Moonroof. What’s the difference? Anybody? So, Roxanne was great, she was a little finicky though in the summer. When it got too hot, she wouldn’t start. Some problem with the fuel intake valve, someone told me, apparently it’s sometimes a problem with Hondas. Roxanne was a salvage title, meaning that at one point she had been in a wreck, the damage from which cost more to repair than the car was actually worth. So, yes, Roxanne had been around the block. *cue immature snickering* And now, after Roxanne, we’ve got the bug. Silver VW bug with sun/moon/something roof. The bug is a little more complicated, because her name is clearly Jude, but I call her Lady sometimes. It’s because I have a poor and very easily triggered sense of humor – Lady Bug, get it? Yeah. So I guess we will say that her name is Jude. But her nickname is Lady. And I have called all my cars ‘baby’. Goodness. It’s all rather silly, isn’t it? My favorite car name is Toad, it was my aunt/uncle/cousins’ car, named for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. And it was a wild ride (like your mom, *cue more immature snickering*). Not quite as bad as Joe, but getting there near the end.

Hi. So, things are going better at the moment. My checks came from Bucks FINALLY, thank god, and my mom was able to deposit them, and that has relieved a lot of my money worries at the moment. Definitely not enough to get by, and I'm trying not to spend much at the moment cause I still owe money to the parents for the computer (would have waited to buy it, but couldn't, as was leaving the country and all...), but I don't have to worry about things like having a coffee at a café, or, you know, buying groceries. I'm still worried about getting paid, cause I still haven't gotten a medical summons and that means I'm not yet covered by social security out here, and I don't know whether or not that means they will wait to pay me until next month. I signed something that was supposed to get me 70% of my salary for October by the end of October, but I don't know now if that's actually going to happen. But with my work checks now I don't have to worry about dying in a gutter while I wait for bureaucracy to run its course. Exciting.

Have a lot to post, but might wait until tomorrow to do it, as I'm in the bar and there are a lot of people in here, and they've got the rugby on, and it's quite smoky. So, yeah, I think I'm just going to fool around with the internet for a while, and then go home and go to sleep. I am so tired...
Oh! I'm tired because I was out last night with some of my students - second years at the IUFM. It was SO much fun. And we went to a Modern Art exhibition. I'll have to post about it tomorrow because I'm currently lacking the required attention span/concentration, but for now I will tell you that it was really, really ... French. Modern. French. Something. French. Complete with nudity. Very nude. So, yes, I will tell you all about it. Just not right now. I'm a tease. Muahaha.

Oy.

Yeah. Also? Still listening to Regina Spektor. I've had a different song stuck in my head every day. Today was "Lady". Yes. Beautiful. Will post lyrics:
"Lady"

Lady sing the blues so well
As if she mean it
As if it's hell down here
In the smoke-filled world
Where the jokes are cold
They don't laugh at jokes
They laugh at tragedies

Corner street societies
But they believe her
They never leave her
While she sings she make them feel things
She says, i can sing this song so blue
That you will cry in spite of you
Little wet tears on your baby's shoulder
Little wet tears on your baby's shoulder

And I have walked these streets so long
There ain't nothing right, there ain't nothing wrong
But the little wet tears on my baby's shoulder
The little wet tears on your baby's shoulder

Lady lights a cigarette, puffs away, no regret
Takes a look around, no regrets, no regrets
Stretches out like branches of a poplar tree
She says, i'm free
Sings so soft as if she'll break, says
I can sing this song so blue
That you will cry in spite of you
Little wet tears on your baby's shoulder
Little wet tears on your baby's shoulder

I have walked these streets so long
There ain't nothing right, nothing wrong
But the little wet tears on my baby's shoulder
The little wet tears on your baby's shoulder

But on this stage
I've learned to fly
Learned to sing
And learned to cry
Little wet tears on my baby's shoulder
Little wet tears on my baby's shoulder

But now it's time
To say goodbye
Some might laugh
But I will surely cry
Little wet tears on my baby's shoulder
Little wet tears on my baby's shoulder

Lady lights a cigarette
Puffs away, and winter comes
And she forgets