(Originally written on March 16, 2012)
Today is Friday. Fridays are awesome for a multitude of reasons. Let's see, I have no class, stores are actually open (Paris is pretty much dead on Sundays and Mondays), I have no class, I can sleep in, and I have no class. I try to do something fun in the city on Fridays so that I can, as the French would say, profitez-en.
Today I went and sat on the edge of the wall above the Seine. In the sun. With about 20 bazillion other tourists and Parisians. It's like the beach of Paris. The sun is out in Paris and no one stays inside (hey, it's like PLU, but I don't have to worry about getting beamed in the head by a frisbee....). In other words, it's finally starting to feel like Spring in the city. No more heavy jackets and scarves wrapped all the way up to your nose. Now is the time of flow-y, flowey scarves and light, airy trench coats.Gone is the hoard of black trench coats flowing through the metro, only to be replaced by the lively colors of.....that's right, you guessed it....grey and beige!
Anyway, back to the people watching and my wonderful afternoon. I met a few friends at Odeon (right by where I go to school at la Sorbonne) and people watched right outside of the metro exits white my two friends sketched. There are a lot of college students in that area as well as a lot of amazing crepe, candy, chocolate, and bakery food shops. Soooo much amazing chocolate! Yummmmmm! Eventually we grabbed a few paninis and slowly wandered to the river. Once we had picked out a spot we just sat and enjoyed our food and the fresh air.
The river itself is more of a canal. Boats full of tourists pass by like clockwork; there seems to be an endless stream of Les bateaux mouches. They are predictable (tourists with cameras pointed in every direction while the tour guide's voice--muffled due to distance--can be heard as it gives some interesting fact about Notre Dame) and amusing (making a sign that said "Wave if you can read English" would not be appropriate.....right?). Cameras constantly flashing, hoping to capture the late-afternoon sunlight slowly fading down the front facade of Notre Dame. Sometimes the tourists would wave to us (no sign necessary...) and we'd wave back, provoking a giant grin or two (or twenty). They even took a picture of me and my friends. Do they realize I'm not actually French hahaha? I can just picture it now, three years from now, some woman will be telling her grand kids about her trip to Paris and showing them her pictures: "Here's one of the Parisians laughing along the Seine, sketching and writing in the late-afternoon hours." Well, I'm just glad someone captured that moment...I don't want to forget it...
Eventually my two friends left and it was just me sitting alone among the crowds surrounding me, tourists or otherwise. It was really the first time I'd been along in the city when I wasn't moving to get somewhere. Gogogogogo this city screams at times. It's hard when there's always something new and exciting to explore, to see, to experience. I don't want to leave this city. I love it here.
Speaking of experiences, yesterday is definitely a day I'll remember. But also one I want to forget. I'm pretty sure it would't be overkill to say that hier, c'etait la plus pire journee de ma vie parisienne. Ummmm...where to begin? Oh, right, how about with the fact that group projects in France are just as annoying, problematic, and difficult in Paris/France as they are in the States. Drat. Not everything, it turns out, is better in Paris lol! Anyway, I had this presentation for a group project yesterday afternoon that, due to extreme lack of means of communication between students and professors in the French higher educational system, I was assigned my partner and project topic three weeks later than everyone else in the class and given a week to complete the project. Funsies with a capital F. Basically, after a few sleepless nights and a lot of stress, I gave the most nerve wracking and worst presentation of my academic career. Awesome opossum. Hey, at least I did it in French at a well-known, respected French institution. If I'm going to make a fool of myself, it might as well be there then, right? No, in all seriousness, I do not regret my decision to take this class, but I would be lying if I said I felt comfortable with or even capable of handling this class. Yet, I'm still proud of myself for taking advantage of this opportunity. It's not everyday you can take a class at a French university...
Yesterday was also yucky or a few other reasons A professor changed the syllabus and for some reason I didn't notice it so I hadn't done the right homework. This sort of thing just doesn't happen to me. I do not NOT do homework. So, while I was kicking myself pretty metaphorically hard, I realized I had scheduled an interview for an internship back at school for the same time that I have to attend a conference or my literature class,. Well, after explaining to my professor that rescheduling the EXTREMELY important interview would be EXTREMELY difficult, she told me that she would have to count me as absent for one class period if I missed this conference--which I want to point out is an extra, irregular even OUTSIDE OF and IN ADDITION TO our regular class schedule--as an absence. Awesome sauce. So now I don't do homework and I skip class. This is soooo not me. On top of all that, my internet connection at my hots family's house decided to not work again jut when I really needed Skype so I could at least talk to someone about my crappy day. Great. After a nap, my host mom came home and I went out to help her make dinner and she and I had a good talk. She really is a very smart woman. She and I sat on the couch and vented, laughed, and just all around had a great talk about our day/week. It was nice.
After dinner, I went out and had a drink with friends in the Latin quarter. That's always an interesting place at night. Soooo many Greek and Italian restaurant owners trying to convince you that you are in fact (miraculously!) hungry again even though you just thoroughly stuffed your face with really amazing falafel and gelato. Yeah, sorry dude, my food baby is already big enough. Thanks.
Well, the sun is no longer casting a metallic-gold light across the river, so I should probably head back home and leave the river behind for the day. I think I'll be spending a lot more time here. It's safe, sunny, and crawling with smiling, silly tourists. I'm off to find St. Michele so I can catch the 4. Maybe I'll stop by Notre Dame first for a bit...
Love from the Seine,
Sarah
Friday, March 30, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Half full or half empty?
As I sit on the 4, heading to Emmaüs to work the Saturday morning shift at the store, I start to get sad. It took me a bit to mentally pin down the sourse of this sadness, and once I found it, it wasn't really something I wanted to dwell on: I have 8 weeks left. 8. Weeks. What happened to the 4 months I had here? Key word, had.
I love life here: the 8eme is full of life all night long, slowly singing (ok, more like shouting and honking) me to sleep each night; my new Friday afternoon tradition with friends, sitting along the Seine en plein air with du soleil at Point Neuf, eating strawberries and camembert with fresh baguettes; even the dirty, fast, sometimes frustratingly annoying metro, yes, I even love you; the feeling of living in what I have actually come to learn is a small city with a "big city complex"; my inability to blend in with the Parisiens due to my inability to m'integrer into the fashion scene here no longer bothers me; I''ll miss my Emmaüs family (only to them am I "Obama", "Wahington Post", or "That one girl who should be Polish, but isn't"--hahaha gotta love culturally-based nicknames); no longer hearing the phrases "entre gimmets" or "j'ajoute une petite paranthèse" (with the appropriate hand gestures, bien sûr) in class will take some getting used to when back in the States. But you know what I'll miss the most and what I love the most about my life here? It's the confidence I've gained with my language skills. When I leave Paris, my worst fear is that my fluency will stay behind, not following me onto the plane, gone when I take that first step onto American soil, leaving me with a feeling of emptiness. I'm being selfish, I know, but I'd really just like to keep this one piece of me for always, but alas, c'est pas possible.
But should I really look at the glass half empty like that? No, I tell myself. I have some many other parts of me that will remain when I get back to the States that I have found here in Paris. I need to remember that even if the glass is half empty, that means it's also half full. I'm not quite sure what my glass is half full of at the moment, but I'm figuring it out.
Love from the city I love,
Sarah
I love life here: the 8eme is full of life all night long, slowly singing (ok, more like shouting and honking) me to sleep each night; my new Friday afternoon tradition with friends, sitting along the Seine en plein air with du soleil at Point Neuf, eating strawberries and camembert with fresh baguettes; even the dirty, fast, sometimes frustratingly annoying metro, yes, I even love you; the feeling of living in what I have actually come to learn is a small city with a "big city complex"; my inability to blend in with the Parisiens due to my inability to m'integrer into the fashion scene here no longer bothers me; I''ll miss my Emmaüs family (only to them am I "Obama", "Wahington Post", or "That one girl who should be Polish, but isn't"--hahaha gotta love culturally-based nicknames); no longer hearing the phrases "entre gimmets" or "j'ajoute une petite paranthèse" (with the appropriate hand gestures, bien sûr) in class will take some getting used to when back in the States. But you know what I'll miss the most and what I love the most about my life here? It's the confidence I've gained with my language skills. When I leave Paris, my worst fear is that my fluency will stay behind, not following me onto the plane, gone when I take that first step onto American soil, leaving me with a feeling of emptiness. I'm being selfish, I know, but I'd really just like to keep this one piece of me for always, but alas, c'est pas possible.
But should I really look at the glass half empty like that? No, I tell myself. I have some many other parts of me that will remain when I get back to the States that I have found here in Paris. I need to remember that even if the glass is half empty, that means it's also half full. I'm not quite sure what my glass is half full of at the moment, but I'm figuring it out.
Love from the city I love,
Sarah
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Somewhere between a Parisian and a tourist....
...lays a student.
The other day, I was waiting for the metro at Rome on Line 2 (it is one of the nicer metro lines, as in roomier cars, not as jam packed as say the 1 or the 13 during morning or afternoon rush hour--you really don't have any concept of invasion of personal space until you've taken the 13 toward Chantillion at 6pm, funsies!) and I had a very weird, reality-enducing moment:
As I decended the stairs onto the platform, I saw a huge group of what appeared to be US high school students with a few chaperones. They were all wearing blantantly obvious nametakes which identified them, first of all, as tourists (aka easy targets for pickpockets and money scams in the metro) and second of all, as students traveling with some international travel organization. Yup. I was right; I had just stumbled upon the (not-so-) rare herd of American tourists. However, instead of feeling like I should go introduce myself and make small talk (first of all, rule number one of "Metro Riding in Paris 101" is "One must never talk to other people in the metro, even if one is sandwhiched between two adorable French guys and one of said guys makes eye contact...before mowing one down to get out at the next stop that is."), I kept my distance and just observed as I waited for the metro to pull in. Oddly enough, I found myself feeling glad that that wasn't me. I had a chance to go to France when I was in high school during my senior year, but since I knew that I wanted to study abroad in colllege, I decided to save the 3 grand and passed on the 10 day whirwind trip through France with my high school French class. So, yeah, that could have been me, but it isn't. Instead, I stood off to the side, letting them wonder if I was actually French/Parisian or not. It was kind of a moment where I realized I'm LIVING in this city; I'm not a tourist, but I'm not a parisian (Hahahaha....that would take a few more semesters in this city, that's for sure...), so I guess that puts me somewhere in between. And that liminal state, as I see it right now, is best summed up as "student". That may seem obvious since I'm studying away after all, but I ask u this, how many of you can say you studied in Paris, that you lived in an apartment in Paris? If you can, be proud of that fact--I am.
So an update on my life is probably in order, so here it goes:
I had midterms last week. They went alright, well they went pretty well actually. I think this past week was the first week where I didn't get at least 9 hours of sleep on school nights. (Not gonna lie, I really was tempted to just wear my frumpy study sweats on the metro to class after only getting a few hours of sleep, but that won't fly on the metro--well unless I throw on some high heeled boots with my sweat pants....hahaha no way, even I'm not that fashion illiterate lol!) This is definetly a change from PLU. I'm gonna miss this calmer academic lifestyle. When I say calmer, I don't mean not as hard academically, instead it has more to do with the slower pace (syllabi are non-existant here--so I guess that doesn't mean I have to read 300 bazillion pages for next class.....ummmm yes please). With all that was going on in my life last semester, this semester is a much needed break, I'll be honest. Burnout and compassion fatique are real and both of these little "friends", shall we call them, both of them had settled nicely into my frontal lobe and had full control of my mental health last semester. I can gladly say they're on leave at the moment....hopefully permanently.
My new host family is perfect. Moving was the best decision I've made. I'm very lucky. I have freedom to move around (no, literally, I can physically walk in my room, through the apartment, and sit and get off of my bed), my friends and I have movie and pizza nights in my room, my host mom is funny and nice (she even offered to let me stay with her for the summer and then offered to call the US embassy to demand they extend my non-extendable student visa when she found out I can't stay for the summer hahaha love it).
Volunteering at Emmaüs is the second best decision I've made here. Working for this organization is....well it is, in one word, simply humbling. And wonderful. And fun. And always interesting. And doing wonders for my French (fluency at last!!!! Whoo!!!). Ok, so one word doesn't suffice evidement. I just love it. I'm meeting political refugees and individuals who have been dealt a rough hand for one reason or another in their lives and hearing their stories is amazing. It makes me realize how lucky I am to be able to travel, to know that I will always have food and a place to sleep, that I can see my family easily, and that I have people who love me in my friends and family. I'm working there about 8.5 hours a week as a volunteer and I wish I could work there more. I've made sooo many new friends from all over the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. I'm interacting with French people and helping to run a store every Saturday morning and I feel like I'm really able to use my French as a means to function within a society instead of just trying to practice it. The language is there, now its time to put it to practice.
Love from Paris,
Sarah
The other day, I was waiting for the metro at Rome on Line 2 (it is one of the nicer metro lines, as in roomier cars, not as jam packed as say the 1 or the 13 during morning or afternoon rush hour--you really don't have any concept of invasion of personal space until you've taken the 13 toward Chantillion at 6pm, funsies!) and I had a very weird, reality-enducing moment:
As I decended the stairs onto the platform, I saw a huge group of what appeared to be US high school students with a few chaperones. They were all wearing blantantly obvious nametakes which identified them, first of all, as tourists (aka easy targets for pickpockets and money scams in the metro) and second of all, as students traveling with some international travel organization. Yup. I was right; I had just stumbled upon the (not-so-) rare herd of American tourists. However, instead of feeling like I should go introduce myself and make small talk (first of all, rule number one of "Metro Riding in Paris 101" is "One must never talk to other people in the metro, even if one is sandwhiched between two adorable French guys and one of said guys makes eye contact...before mowing one down to get out at the next stop that is."), I kept my distance and just observed as I waited for the metro to pull in. Oddly enough, I found myself feeling glad that that wasn't me. I had a chance to go to France when I was in high school during my senior year, but since I knew that I wanted to study abroad in colllege, I decided to save the 3 grand and passed on the 10 day whirwind trip through France with my high school French class. So, yeah, that could have been me, but it isn't. Instead, I stood off to the side, letting them wonder if I was actually French/Parisian or not. It was kind of a moment where I realized I'm LIVING in this city; I'm not a tourist, but I'm not a parisian (Hahahaha....that would take a few more semesters in this city, that's for sure...), so I guess that puts me somewhere in between. And that liminal state, as I see it right now, is best summed up as "student". That may seem obvious since I'm studying away after all, but I ask u this, how many of you can say you studied in Paris, that you lived in an apartment in Paris? If you can, be proud of that fact--I am.
So an update on my life is probably in order, so here it goes:
I had midterms last week. They went alright, well they went pretty well actually. I think this past week was the first week where I didn't get at least 9 hours of sleep on school nights. (Not gonna lie, I really was tempted to just wear my frumpy study sweats on the metro to class after only getting a few hours of sleep, but that won't fly on the metro--well unless I throw on some high heeled boots with my sweat pants....hahaha no way, even I'm not that fashion illiterate lol!) This is definetly a change from PLU. I'm gonna miss this calmer academic lifestyle. When I say calmer, I don't mean not as hard academically, instead it has more to do with the slower pace (syllabi are non-existant here--so I guess that doesn't mean I have to read 300 bazillion pages for next class.....ummmm yes please). With all that was going on in my life last semester, this semester is a much needed break, I'll be honest. Burnout and compassion fatique are real and both of these little "friends", shall we call them, both of them had settled nicely into my frontal lobe and had full control of my mental health last semester. I can gladly say they're on leave at the moment....hopefully permanently.
My new host family is perfect. Moving was the best decision I've made. I'm very lucky. I have freedom to move around (no, literally, I can physically walk in my room, through the apartment, and sit and get off of my bed), my friends and I have movie and pizza nights in my room, my host mom is funny and nice (she even offered to let me stay with her for the summer and then offered to call the US embassy to demand they extend my non-extendable student visa when she found out I can't stay for the summer hahaha love it).
Volunteering at Emmaüs is the second best decision I've made here. Working for this organization is....well it is, in one word, simply humbling. And wonderful. And fun. And always interesting. And doing wonders for my French (fluency at last!!!! Whoo!!!). Ok, so one word doesn't suffice evidement. I just love it. I'm meeting political refugees and individuals who have been dealt a rough hand for one reason or another in their lives and hearing their stories is amazing. It makes me realize how lucky I am to be able to travel, to know that I will always have food and a place to sleep, that I can see my family easily, and that I have people who love me in my friends and family. I'm working there about 8.5 hours a week as a volunteer and I wish I could work there more. I've made sooo many new friends from all over the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. I'm interacting with French people and helping to run a store every Saturday morning and I feel like I'm really able to use my French as a means to function within a society instead of just trying to practice it. The language is there, now its time to put it to practice.
Love from Paris,
Sarah
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