Without further ado…

... I would like to suggest some possible new slogans for the French tourism board.

“Life in France - making life everywhere else seem so much easier.”

“Why get paid when you can lose weight on your new starvation diet?”

“What, you mean you needed this contract two weeks ago?”

“For sufferers of low blood pressure, we offer Life In France (tm).  Guaranteed to send your blood pressure through the roof in two weeks or less!”

“The French Postal Service - happily utilizing the latest in 18th century technology!”

“Too tranquil?  Come to France!  We induce rage in even the calmest of individuals!”

“Starvation is the key to genius.  Look at us - we invented the baguette centuries ago because we were starving.  A stroke of brilliance!  Since then, we’ve… hmmm.  Well, we *did* invent the baguette, did we mention that?”

I’m sorry.  As you may have guessed I’ve been having a bad day’s… two days’… week’s… two… no, three weeks’ relation with the French.  I have two hours tomorrow morning with which to sort it out before I set off for a week in Paris.  I’m very tired right now because on top of getting over the big bout of fury that I experienced about an hour ago, I haven’t eaten anything other than a hard-boiled egg since 8:30 this morning, because just as I was starting to make my lunch at 2 pm (having waited for the other assistants to get back for lunch in an ill-conceived bid for politeness), I got a call asking if I could take a class of twelve RIGHT NOW.  (My teachers last week said that I didn’t have any classes today.) So instead of eating, I had to run to the bank (normally a 20-minute walk roundtrip) to try to withdraw money - it was closed - and then run back to the school and give a class for two hours.  Then I called to see if I’m all set to get paid, found out that I’m not and had to run to the high school that is my administrative center to sign something.  The reason that I had to run was that the office closes at 5 pm, the school is a 25 minute walk away, and it was 4:45 pm.  I got there, signed the blasted form, discovered that the contract that I have been waiting for for two weeks has been sitting in their office for who knows how long…

It’s been a heck of a day.  I really, really hope that things get better.  On the upside, after all of this, I should be able to overcome any problem and successfully apply for any planning/coordination job that I want.  To get the job, all I have to do is tell them that I lived for two years in France.  “Would you like to start immediately, please?  We need someone of your obvious skill and perserverance.” (Yes, I know that I mispelled that, and I don’t care.)

At least I get to see Angus tomorrow.  I may not get to eat while I’m in Paris, or indeed until the first week of December, but at least I get to see Angus.

I’ll be out of radio contact for the next week.  I look forward to reading all the emails that I’m sure my wonderful friends will send me in the interim!

Update, update, who wants an update?

I’m in France now!  Finally!  And believe me, after overcoming the mind-boggling complication that is the French bureaucracy, I feel that I can do anything.  Well, I say that I’ve overcome it; I still have one more major thing to get before I can feel completely secure.  I still need to go to the Prefecture (which isn’t in town this year, as it was last year in Laon) and get my residency permit.  But I feel confident that that will work out.

These past two weeks have been interesting.  I arrived in Draguignan on Thursday the 4th, had a perfectly horrendous afternoon and evening of frustration after frustration after frustration.  The next day was better, and the day after that better still.  Then the other assistants returned from vacation.  I’m living in a hallway with three other girls: one from Venezuela, one from Sicily and one from Austria.  Things are… okay.  The truth is that I don’t really know where I stand with them.  Sometimes it seems like everything is fine with all of them, other times it feels like one or the other of them dislikes me or doesn’t want me there or something.  It’s probably just me; as you well know, I am rather sensitive to feeling disliked.  I think things will get better.  In fact, they already have a great deal.  We all rented a car (the Austrian’s mom is in town) and went for a drive in the Gorges of Verdon Sunday.  The weather was fantastic, there was no one else on the road except for the hunters out after deer and boar, and by and large the day passed in cordiality, if not outright friendship.  But hey, I’ll take that!

Draguignan is a nice town.  It’s larger than Laon by about 10,000, I think.  I know that it’s in the upper 30s, whereas Laon was only about 29,000.  It is also somewhat more lively, although not a great deal.  That’s okay, though.  I’m not all that much of one for nightlife usually, so as long as I have a warm room, a place to cook, and some of my creature comforts – my computer, the internet, and English-language books – I’m okay.  I do miss my friends and family, but I know that I’ll be seeing them again before much longer.  I also know, having already passed one year abroad, that this separation won’t affect our friendship all that much, if at all.  So I’m not worried.

I’ve gone walking for long rambles several times since arriving.  The weather is still gorgeous, if tending towards the cold side of “brisk.” There’s a mountain – well, more of a large hill, à la the hills in the Texas Hill Country – that the town backs up onto.  It is named the Malmont, which translates to “Bad Mountain,” more or less.  One of the English professors with whom I work gave me this warning: if something in France has the words “mal” in its name, take it seriously.  In the case of Draguignan’s Malmont, he told me this story:

He has a friend whose house is on the Malmont.  One morning, she carried her basket of laundry out back to hang on the line to dry.  She couldn’t see her feet, carrying the basket as she was, but something inside her warned her not to take another step.  She stopped, moved the basket, looked down, and discovered that a large hole had opened up overnight in her backyard, to a depth of can’t-hear-a-dropped-stone-hit.

It turns out that the Malmont consists primarily of bauxite.  Bauxite, as you may or may not know, is extremely water-soluble.  Most of the time, the mountain is fine, deals okay with the water that flows through it underground.  Sometimes, however, the water manages to dissolve a crucial piece of bauxite and entire sections of the mountain just collapse.  I think that the prof’s friend was lucky that the hole didn’t open up in her house!

So, anyway, that’s the news for now.  I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to update (as always).  I will try to be better in the future (as always).

And some photos to go with it…

The Tour de l’Horloge in Draguignan

The Lac de Sainte Croix, in the Gorges of Verdon.

My “artsy shot” of the day, on the shores of the lake.

The Lac de Sainte Croix, from a higher viewpoint.

Part of the Gorges of Verdon.

The river Verdon.  Amazing, isn’t it, that a river that is now so small once cut the massive gorges that surround it?

The view from the Point Sublime.

Someone you might know…

Politics, from the other side of the pond

Yesterday I sent off my fully-filled-out-in-number-2-pencil absentee ballot.  Of course, as a Democrat in Republican Texas, it is unlikely that my vote will do anything other than register amongst a a small minority of other wishful thinkers.  But I couldn’t just give in to apathy and the easily-overwhelming feeling that there is nothing that I can do.  Too many people give in to that already.

It has been interesting perusing the newspapers over here in England and reading their takes on the state of the upcoming election.  According to these papers, the election is pretty much neck-in-neck right now.  Is this the case?  When I was in the US I felt that it was prety much certainly a Bush win.  Was I just being overly pessimistic, or are the papers over here too optimistic?

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that it’s not a question for any of you guys, but if you haven’t already, register to vote.  Even if your person doesn’t win, the voter turnout rate in the US is appalling.  How can we call ourselves a democracy when not even 50% of those eligible to vote bother to? 

A quick update

It looks like I will be going to France after all!  The academie of Nice (Cote d’Azur, here I come) offered me a position in the town of Draguigan and is willing to go through the necessary paperwork to get me there.  AND I managed to get through to someone at the French consulate in London - the head of immigration, in point of fact - who was very nice and helpful and, after having heard my difficulties, says that she will be able to issue me the necessary visa here in England!  Hip hip hooray! 

And I know that it’s jumping the gun a bit, but there are already so many plans running through my head… I will have a vacation at the end of the month, so Angus will probably come down to visit me during that week, and we can explore the Cote d’Azur together.  Then Aunt Suse and a couple of her friends are coming to Europe for Thanksgiving, so I will meet her in Paris and spend a couple of days with her, which will be lovely.  And she wants to meet Angus, so he will probably come down to Paris for those couple of days as well.  I’m really looking forward to them meeting each other - two of the people that I love most in the world! 

Then I’ll go back to Texas for a couple of weeks for Christmas, which will be wonderful.  Yay family!  Yay Mom’s cooking!  Yay kitties!  After that, I’ll fly back to the UK for New Year’s, then go back to France.  I will probably have a vacation at the end of February, and then my contract is up at the end of March (short, I know).  Angus has friends just over the border in Italy, so he’s suggested that maybe we go visit them sometime in the spring.  :-)

I’m not letting myself entirely believe that it’s all going to work out, though.  I don’t have the visa yet, and things can still go wrong.  But it looks like it’s all going to be fine!

::impolite grumbles::

So, I have an academie that is willing to give me all the necessary documents with which to obtain my work visa in France, but now it’s looking like I won’t be able to get the visa unless I apply - in person - to a consulate in America.  I’m still exploring options, though… I emailed the consulate in Houston, hoping that I could talk them into letting me have Mom take my application in for me.  Last time, the person at the consulate didn’t even LOOK at me when she took my application, and the visa appeared two hours later. Or maybe I can just mail everything straight to the consulate…

Anyway, still trying, still trying.

Oh yes.  And trying - fruitlessly - for over an hour this morning to get through to someone at the French consulate in London, during their hours of operation, and with about 40 minutes of that time being spent listening to the phone ringing for 50...100...200 rings in an office where I knew DARN well that there was someone… didn’t help my state of mind.

Ah yes, the joys of the French.

I have been exchanging emails with a number of the French academies (the school districts) over the past few days, attempting to persuade one of them to let me come work for them.  It is intensely frustrating, as the gist of a number of these conversations has gone as follows:

me: I would really like to come work for you.
them: We have a position open; do you have a visa?
me: No, I do not.  It’s not possible for me to get a visa without several papers that can only be provided by a potential employer, such as you.
them: Oh, that’s too bad.  We can’t employ you without a visa.
me: Did you hear what I said?  I can’t GET a visa unless you are willing to send me a few papers.  If you send me these papers, I’ll gladly come and work for you!
them:  Well, that’s life.  We go in circles, but what can anyone do about it? ::cyber-Gallic-shrug and puff of cigarette smoke::

At this point, I generally either stifle a scream or punch a pillow very hard.  It appears that they would rather not have a position filled than exert themselves the tiniest bit.  Argh!!!!

Off again

Well, gosh.  The summer went by so quickly, and all of the sudden I am departing Portland (and the US) again.  I leave Portland tomorrow, spend a week in a half total in Seattle and Boston, and then fly over to England.  I’m sure that I’ve spent enough time this summer talking about my various hopes and fears for this move - for I consider it a move, not a visit - so I won’t spend any more time on them.

One thing I will say, however: saying goodbye to various friends and family has actually been surprisingly comforting.  It has been wonderful to be able to say goodbye so calmly, secure in the knowledge that the friends that I have now are true friends and will not stop being so.

Thank you to all of my friends and family for making me feel like the luckiest, most blessed girl on Earth.  I love you.

(P.S. Despite the “final” tone of this entry, I do intend to keep updating on a hopefully-regular basis.  It will just be from a different continent.)

Woo hoo!

Anybody else cheering about this?

Anybody else a bit scared by the majority of this?

I am (or have been)…

- a daughter
- a UPCC kid (University Presbyterian Children’s Center)
- a Wilshire Wildcat (Wilshire Elementary)
- a two-time school spelling bee champion
- a TestBuster
- an ELP student (Extended Learning Program - also known as Gifted and Talented)
- a gymnast
- a 100-meter-dasher
- a long-jumper
- a Garner Brahma (Garner Middle School)
- a Heights Mule (Alamo Heights Junior and High Schools)
- a violist
- an All-Region violist for 7 straight years
- an All-State violist once
- a member of YOSA for 6 years (Youth Orchestras of San Antonio)
- a pianist
- a violinist
- a 300-meter-hurdler
- a 1-meter springboard diver
- a Reedie (Reed College)
- a member of the Honor Council for three and a half years
- an intern with the Portland Youth Philharmonic
- a history major
- a tour guide and admissions office intern
- a soloist
- a Portland Parks & Recreation Playground Director for two summers
- an assistant English teacher in France

Now what am I going to be?  With all this background in so many things, why can I not figure out what to do in the future?

My Linus moments

So, I’m trying to figure out which of my four instruments to take with me to Europe, and I’m really torn.  I just got a classical guitar, which I’m really keen to learn, but that would mean leaving my viola here.  I haven’t been without my viola for more than a few months in thirteen years.  It’s not that I practice it all that much, although I’ve been much better about it this summer, what with playing at Saturday Market.  It’s just that it feels wrong to consider myself not having it within reach.

I don’t think that I can take both, because they are both too large to pack, and while the airlines turn a blind eye to carrying on one musical instrument, I don’t think that I can argue that my viola’s case is my “personal item.” A bit large for a purse.

I don’t know what to do.  Argh.

Olympics!

The Opening Ceremony of the Athens Olympics start in just a few minutes!  I’m so excited!

I know that it probably seems odd or stupid that I’m so excited about this, but… Well, it’s hard to articulate exactly why the Olympics engage me so much.  I tear up a bit if I hear just the Olympic trumpet fanfare.  I’ll try to explain:

I was fairly athletic throughout my childhood and into the first couple of years of high school.  Gymnastics for six years, track for three, diving for one… And although I was never even close to considering even trying to *begin* training for the Olympics, it still is an unfailingly inspiring thought.  Walking into a stadium filled to the brim with thousands upon thousands of people who are there to celebrate the hard work that you have done to become a member of the elite crowd marching along the track… Knowing that for at least three weeks, the world sits up a bit straighter and pays attention to the more real athletes, the ones who are in it not because there are million-dollar paychecks, but because they are truly dedicated to their sport. 

I would dearly love, before I die, to attend an opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.  Even though I know that I’d have a better view from the television at home, the television can’t convey the sheer energy emanating from a stadium like that.  I miss that.  I know that there are many more dedicated athletes than me, but even I got caught up in the adrenaline of it all.  It’s almost meditative.

Oh, I don’t think that I can explain this.  But it is incredible.  And I’m very happy that the Olympics are on again.

Home…?

I have been fortunate enough in my life only to have called two (or three or five, depending on how you count it) places home.  It is that “depending on” clause that interests me and seems extremely relevant for me right now, however.  How do we - or, more pointedly, I - create “home?”

If you ask me where home is/has been for me, I am most likely to give you the answer, “San Antonio and Portland,” or possibly the even-more-general “Texas and Portland.” But I have lived in more than one place in each of those cities - two addresses in SA, four dorm rooms, one apartment and one basement in Portland.  If you received the more general answer, that would suggest that I am including my granddad’s house and my aunt’s house in Texas in my estimation of “home,” even though I’ve never technically lived in either of those places.  And neither of my quick responses takes into account the seven months I spent living in France, which only ever became “the place where I live,” never “home.”

So my definition of home isn’t strictly physical.  That’s not too much of a surprise: “home” doesn’t necessarily equal “abode.” What else do I include, then?  Relationships, of course, romantic, familial or platonic.  Home is a place where I feel known, accepted, comfortable… safe.  Home is an emotional thing for me, even though I must couch it in physical terms.

Yes, that seems right.  And that’s why naming either “Texas” or “San Antonio” as one of my homes is equally valid for me.  My safety net and my memories are connected to more than just a particular house or even a particular city in Texas.  This relates, as well, to the emotional conflicts that I was having earlier this summer.  I wasn’t secure enough in my relationship with Angus to be certain that I would have a home with him, were I to uproot, and because I have so many happy memories and securities tied to life in Portland, it was difficult to conceive of leaving it.  It had nothing to with my living quarters, although it has a great deal to do with how well I know the city. 

In many ways I feel that Portland is more of a home city than San Antonio is, because Portland is a home that I consciously chose and created.  I’ve worked to get to know this city; I’ve ranged more freely in it than I generally ever do in San Antonio.  I am utterly confident and at home here, even if I’m in an area that I’ve not explored before.  There is such comfort in being able to give directions to strangers!  (Perhaps that’s why I like being a tour guide so much; being able to impart little secrets of life in my school or my city to strangers reaffirms for me my belonging in the environment.) I still couldn’t do that with San Antonio, not with the ease that I can here in Portland.  And whenever I go for a walk or a bike ride or a bus ride through this city, the sense of belonging whispers into me, and I’m glad for it. 

I’m sorry - this entry is meandering more than usual.  I don’t feel that I quite have a lock on this; that’s why I started writing.  It seems important for me to know how I create “home,” as I am about to leave the US for England/Europe in what I believe (and hope) will be my next life-defining change of place.  But since I have only changed homes voluntarily once before in my life, and I didn’t really think about it then, I would like to try to understand how I came to choose so well.  Reed/Portland has ended up being one of the best things in my life, but it was chosen - well, I chose to apply to Reed - because “it felt right.” Seems like a flimsy way of going about things.

Then again, perhaps not.  If home is such an emotionally-fraught (in a good sense) idea for me, why shouldn’t going with my instincts, which are reactions to subconscious emotional or intellectual cues, be a viable way of choosing?

::sigh:: This could keep going forever.  You can probably expect sequels later on.  I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out while I could.

Back online…

Hmmm - I’ve started and deleted this posting four time already; I can’t seem to strike the right balance of style and substance.  Then again, beginnings have always been the hardest part of writing for me.  That’s why I tended to write the introductions to my academic papers last.

I will be leaving for Europe in mid-September, after spending a week in Boston with Mom and Graham.  Graham will be heading off to his sophomore year of college (good grief!), and Mom is going to drive him up there.  We’re all going to go to the Lord of the Rings exhibit that will be showing there - I’m really excited!  It will also be really good for me to go to Boston again, as I have spent the last five years thinking that it’s a city that I’d like to live in at some point in my life.  This will give me a chance to reassess my feelings about the city, taking into account the person I am now, who is quite different (in some ways) than the person I was when I went looking for colleges in the fall of 1998.

After Boston, I will fly directly to England, to spend at least a couple of weeks with Angus.  I’ll get to help him celebrate his birthday, and basically just get to enjoy being around him.  He and I both agree that I should take the job in France if it’s offered to me, but neither of us really wants me to do so.  I’ll have to figure that out once I get there, I suppose.  What we really both want is to live together, but given that I can’t get a work permit in the UK, it would be difficult to do so.  ::shrug::  Again, we’ll see.

Other than that, I will be wrapping up my summer job on the 18th of this month, photographing a wedding on the 22nd, and going through all my stuff and paring it down for the rest of the month.  The Delps have been kind enough to say that I can store my stuff in their garage, but even still, I need to get it into fewer boxes.  A lot of the stuff I had is stuff that I haven’t used or even looked at in ages, but have been hanging onto in the “maybe I’ll use it someday” frame of mind.  I need to just get rid of it.  Then perhaps someone else actually will use it!  ::grin::

All in all, I am very content, which is a welcome change from how I felt before Angus came.  Myriad worries that I had before he arrived have been laid to rest, as have many of my emotion conflicts.  I’m even okay with the idea of saying goodbye to people.  Partially this is because I had to say goodbye to Jonathan as he headed off to Indiana for grad school a week ago, and while I’m going to miss him, I know that we’ll keep in touch.  It’s the same way for everybody else.  I know that my good friends and I will keep in touch, so I’m not really worried about saying goodbye.

Okay, I’ve babbled for long enough.  Time for lunch.

P.S.

Expect a moratorium on postings for the next two weeks.  I don’t expect that I’ll be getting to my email/blog too frequently.

(I know, I know - those of you who yearn to comment “so what else is new” need not.  I’m a bad blogger...)