Carmelo comes to France

Warning: This is long. Very long. Entertaining, but you might want a snack for intermission. Also, I am aware of the run on sentences I have created.

My school has nine English teachers, and no one can decide when I should be helping them. Today I went back to school after a week off thanks to the French greve (that, ps, is still affecting some trains – since last Thursday!) I had classes (as far as I knew, because my schedule seems to change by the minute) at 1030, 1130, 2, and 3. So I had made the hour and fifteen minute commute to Taverny this morning armed with silly Halloween-themed activities for the day. It was the most prepared I’ve been for anything since I arrived in France.

As soon as I entered the school, I ran into M. Herpin (the teacher with who I’d emailed before leaving Colorado and whose first name is Dominique and who I, up until the day I met him, had assumed falsely was a woman). M. Herpin told me that he will not be here Friday and thus I won’t have to work those hours. So far so good – I am prepared for today and informed for the future.

Then at approximately 10:28, Mme Burnside (whose class is at 10:30) tells me that her students are finishing a film and thus will not need me. Fine by me. I slapped through some emails and then waited for the teacher of the 11:30 class (Mme. Pallin) to tell me what was going on for today. No sign of her at 11:35, I made my way to the assistant’s room anyhow to learn that students were there waiting for me, having been told their teacher was gone today but they were to still meet with me. So fine, I don’t need a teacher to hold my hand obviously but since my schedule changes so much I do like to confirm the hours I’m supposed to be working.

Anyhow, that hour went fine and then I broke to the teacher’s lounge to rest for lunch. I still haven’t figured out how or where to buy meal tickets so I don’t eat unless invited by colleagues – which usually happens but not today. I was to wait from 12:30 til 2 for my next class. D called at 1 to frantically tell me that he was locked inside my apartment. I had locked it from the outside while he was still inside and apparently France is so safe because it allows for the criminals to be locked INSIDE the apt – yeah I don’t know either. In horribly broken French (il est ferme dans l’appartement!) I called the landlord who said I have the only keys and maybe if D has a key he can throw it to someone outside on the ground. I was just about to get my courage up to ask my teachers if I could leave early to help him out, when he called me and said that he had found some English tourists who were willing to help a strange guy locked inside an apartment leaning out a third floor window and open the door for him. Problem solved. Humorously.

At 1:45 I ran downstairs at school to make some more copies for my class and on my way back was stopped by a Spanish teacher (who speaks better English than most of the English teachers do but apparently doesn’t “feel qualified” to teach the language) and she tells me she sent her Spanish assistant home because the language teachers all have an orientation of sorts in the afternoon. I corner M. Herpin, whose class I was to have at 3 (and who, I may remind you, had ample opportunity in the morning when he told me I wasn’t needed Friday for his class that I also wasn’t needed for this afternoon) who informed me that, why no, I wasn’t needed for the afternoon. I was “free to go!” He was sitting with about six other English teachers (4 of whom I knew, 2 of whom I still hadn’t met) and this exchange led them to all shout at the same time the days and hours in which they would need me, and also to lecture me about the importance of speaking French so I can learn. I might add here that many times I do pass English teachers in the hallways and I always say “bonjour” and nine of ten times they respond with “hi” and then continue in English. So then there’s some halfhearted joking about how disorganized the English teachers are, and a new acquaintance by the name of Mme. Northram (who reeks horribly of cigarette smoke, and thus was also very difficult to talk with for the sake of my own respiratory system) says “Oh, let’s give you our email addresses so if there’s a problem you can let us know. Because, you know, we do count on you to be here and we plan your days into our lessons and so if you’re not here….”

I kind of stopped listening because I was thinking, ‘Is this some sort of passive aggressive attack on my absences during the greve?’

I responded with “Yeah I wanted to ask you all for them because of what happened last week with the greve – I called the secretary and she said she’d tell you I’d be out – Did she tell you?”

Mme. Northram shook her head, so, yes, it was some sort of passive aggressive attack on my absences during the greve.

So whatever, all that is cleared up, and another English teacher I can’t seem to remember asks me where my housing is. I tell her, everybody breathes in deeply, one says “oh that’s an expensive area,” and suddenly I have 7 French faces staring at me judging me and 7 French accents asking “how much? How much?” repeating it over and over like those dodos in Ice Age.

There’s an English teacher, Mme Pausz, who I originally thought was the nicest little thing. She met me and immediately began introducing me to people, offering me her phone number, saying she’d invite me over for dinner and showing me around Taverny. But the more I get to know her the less I believe she’s genuine. There was the other day, when she argued with me because I said I didn’t like a cartoon they had given me to discuss with the students. This cartoon is a teacher who says “What does the USA stand for?” and the students who respond “Unlimited semi automatics.” Of any American stereotype, this one bothers me the most. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I can fit most of the American stereotypes – only fluent in one language, lazy, like to eat big greasy meals, can be demanding. But I don’t fit this one, and I don’t like that, to foreigners (or at least the French) guns seem to be an integral part of understanding American culture. I know a lot of Americans have guns, and yes I know we’re one of the, if not the, most heavily armed countries in the world. So anyhow I’m trying to explain this to Mme Pausz, who exclaims “But it’s true!” (Which by the way is why I hate stereotypes – people don’t seem to see the difference between a stereotype and a truth). She went on to say, “Have you been to Virginia? No? I’ve been to Virginia. We stayed with people who had guns and they said they had them in case those n*ggers came around.”

Um ok a. France is probably 3 times more racist than the US and b. yes there are pockets of Americans who are racist and who do arm themselves in case a race of the wrong color shows up on their doorstep. Still, I just do not like the stereotype, I do not like guns, and I don’t own, nor do I know of anyone who owns, a gun. (Although since this post, my crusader for the truth -D- has listed a number of people I know who do in fact have guns - but the point is, I don.) I think another reason I’m aggravated by this stereotype is people seem to love Bowling for Columbine here, and referencing to it as one of the reasons why they think it’s *true* that all Americans have guns. (Case in point: Mme Pausz, in middle of our argument, said “Did you see what Michael Moore did? Did you see that movie?”) Yes, I did see that movie, and I saw that it made my hometown look like a place where a n*gger-hating redneck would live, toting rifles around to shoot up the next high school.

Anyway off that subject. Pausz was also the one who corrected me in front of her class, saying I should enunciate the two t’s in “better.”

SO, back to the original story, which was the English teachers hounding me to know my financial situation. Pausz had already hounded me last week, and I had already quaked under the pressure, and therefore she already knew what I was paying and apparently had already judged me because she remembered this conversation and therefore she answered their question for me.

Okay, now here’s where most of my rage in this post stems from. Here’s why:

A. These teachers don’t know anything about me. They don’t know my financial situation. Do they know that I saved up quite a bit of money the last year and a half by working full time and before that by working 60 hours a week the summer after college graduation? Do they realize I’m only here seven months and even 100€ a month makes a world of a difference of living standards here in Paris and really if it’s only for seven months why not? Do they know I have budgeted ways for me to handle the rent and still return home with a good chunk of change? Do they know I have parents who are incredibly supportive and are willing to help out when needed to assure I’m not living under le pont alexandre III? (Although there are worse bridges than alexandre to live under. Alexandre’s very nice, and actually I’d probably even have to pay rent there.)

B. Don’t they know I spent almost a full month searching, responding, visiting apartments in Paris? (Not to mention the few weeks before leaving Colorado I spent responding to ads.) Don’t they realize I felt lucky to even receive a simple response? I felt lucky even to hear the apartment had been rented! Don’t they know they each apartment (even the ones in the 300€/month range and basically are the size of my closet) elicited a list of 20, average, wannabe renters, many of whom are French and therefore are much more likely to be desired as a tenant?

C. Most importantly, why on earth is it any of their business? Are they paying me out of their own pocket? Am I stealing from them and giving to my housing fund?

Frankly I was very unhappy in my living situation in Strasbourg and this time around if I’m already spending several thousand on a 8 month exchange to France I might as well spend just a bit more and enjoy it, dammit. I have the money, I have the support, so why can’t I do what I’d like and why do I feel like I have to justify it to the teachers with whom my housing shouldn’t even be a concern in the first place. Now before you go thinking I have a mansion, I don’t. I have a nice apartment for a decent price. It’s expensive for my budget yes, but is doable. I love it, I love the neighborhood, and really, considering the endless search I was on just a matter of days ago, I feel incredibly lucky just to have found something.

That’s it for justifying my apartment. Maybe I should print out this post and hang it in the teacher’s room. Jerks.

Today in my one class I actually did teach, I had the kids read a story about Halloween, went over some of the vocab, and had them create an ending of their own. (Though I forgot how limited you can get in a different language, so the endings weren’t all that creative. Except one did make everyone laugh – “We saw a light walking down the hallway, so we left, because we had fear.”)

The kids enjoyed it all right, but really came alive at the end of the class when we had five minutes to spare. (Aside: these kids are amazing. A couple of times I’ve finished just a few minutes before the bell and I tell them they can go ahead and leave because all the teachers have said that’s okay to do, several times, in several down phrases so I’m sure they understand, but they still won’t leave until they hear the bell ring.) They barraged me as usual, with questions about TV shows. And by questions, I mean they just constantly yell out names of TV shows to see if I know any of them. Among them were Prison Break (of course), 24, Lost, Malcolm (which after a long discussion of them trying to explain what it is, they finally explained to me that it’s Malcolm in the middle), and Desperate Housewives. They all suffered from the usual shock they display when I say I don’t watch any of them. Then (this exact situation happened the other day too) the girl in the class spoke up and squeaked “Friends?!?!” and when I said “oh yeah, I love Friends!” she leaned back in her seat, completely validated, as if I had just confirmed my status as an American because I like “Friends.”

Anyway this one kid whose name I can’t remember was quiet most of the class, mostly I think because he was years behind the other kids’ English and couldn’t really understand everything, looked at me and asked, “Do you know the Denver Nuggets?” I might add here that I had not told them where I am from - only that I'm American.

I don’t think I can explain in words the level of astonishment I had for being asked this question. A kid in the back explained he loves the Denver Nuggets because of Carmelo Anthony. It made my day. So instead of leaving you on the indignant note of dealing with judgmental teachers, I’ll leave you with the discussion of the one Denverite who has an international footprint.