Come with me and imagine, if you will, walking down a street in suburban France, thirty minutes north of Paris. As you approach what looks to be a school, you notice a large basketball court to your left and a few kids leaning against the fences. Past them is a wall completely covered in various forms of graffiti. A sign ahead notes that a visitor's entrance is the second gate so you past the first one, a very solid white gate seemingly preventing anyone from ever leaving. Next is the visitor's gate, surrounded by several loitering French high schoolers, all dressed in thug-type clothing a la 1995, smoking cigarettes, and chatting furiously before classes resume. Oh and imagine being in inner city Philadelphia b/c that's what it felt like. Now quit imagining yourself and imagine me and my infinite American suburban wisdom trying to weasel past ethnicities of all types and voluntarily past the gigantic gate closing all from humanity, simultaneously attempting unsuccessfully to ignore the graffiti to my left and the probable dozens of eyes staring curiously at the back of my head. I present to you, my very own "Dangerous Minds" experience.
Ok this might be an exaggeration (but really, only a very slight one). I went to my school today to see what in the heck I was to be doing. I was completely out of my element. As soon as I said I was an assistante, I was thrown to the no-English-speaking-not-even-hello secretary. Which was fine except that even as I repeatedly reminded her my French was very bad, she kept speaking at the speed of sound. Though most of it was her constantly berating me for having no apartment yet, it was overwhelming. And the hardest part to swallow was that I spent a good 20 minutes in her office, staring at her running at the mouth in the last ditch effort to understand what she was saying and formulating sentences and then spitting them out in horrible American fashion - but we got by. Papers were signed, the lack of apartment was discussed (to no end), and I was informed of what else I need to bring her before I can get paid. And yet, when she took me to who I like to call 'god', she proceeded to berate me even more.
God said: "Elle a bien compris le francais?" (She understood French?)
Angry secretary: "Pas du tout! Je repete et je repete..." (Not at all! I repeat and I repeat...)
Sigh. Luckily I did prove to god that I do speak a few words of French (frankly, much better than god herself speaks English) to which god replied "Ah, tu comprends francais." Validated.
On to god. Before meeting her, angry secretary took me up to the teacher's lounge to find an English speaker. English speakers be many at this school. But most of them expressed shock at the lack of apartment and relayed this to angry secretary who then reititerated that she too was shocked I have no apartment. I mean, really. Happily, the English teachers all seem very nice, which makes it seem alright to overlook they're blatant lack of organization skills.
Anyhow, like I said, on to god. Why do I call her this? In the midst of these English teachers, one after the other kept saying "Oh you need to see Madame Autefeuil" (or something like that.) Then when angry secretary lady asked if I had any questions, I asked, hey do I have some kind of schedule? To which she replied "ah oui, on va visiter Mme Autefeuil." God did not provide with me said schedule and instead asked if I could stay til 4 to meet some more English professeurs, and then in horribly punctuated English, declared, "Ok. We wait. In room...with....teachers? We wait. Upstair. Right. We wait." I said ok I'll wait, and she ushered me upstairs, never to be seen again. God works in mysterious ways. I still have no idea what she does. And she doesn't always have all the answers. Quite thematic, aren't I?
So, basically, not much at all has been accomplished. One teacher gave me a pseudo-schedule, but then kept shrugging everytime I asked her questions about it, which makes me think she just drew it up because she was bored. But it looks like they're keen to put most of my hours in to only a few days so that's good.
And now back to my housing search.
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