Moving Day at the Foyer: Sept 29th

furnished with twin bed, table, chair,
wardrobe and shelves. 

My new room

Saturday, Sept 29th

So today I moved into my new “home” at the Foyer.  Basically this place is a kind of like a college dorm, but it’s not affiliated with any school or program.  It’s a private business.  There are students who live here, other assistants like me, people working for school, or just working in general who don’t want to hassle with renting a full apartment.  You get your own room (pictures above) and there is a canteen where you eat during the week days and then it closes on the weekend and you can cook for yourself on the weekends.  I thought this would be a nice place to start and then maybe find a better place later.  That way I’m not rushed to find something like if I were staying with someone from the school.  I’m surprise at how not very helpful school seem to be to help you find a place.  At the very least if they don’t pay for it I would think they would know the good places to look or have an apartment or even a family who likes to have assistants that they work with.  Once again I’m pretty much on my own to fend for myself.  Hopefully I won’t stay here more than a month.  It’s ok, but defiantly not the nicest place.  I got one of the cheaper rooms in the older part of the building.  They are smaller and don’t have there own bathrooms.  You have your own little sink and then you share toilet and some showers with about 7 other people.  They do provide sheets and covers (though very scratchy ones) and change the sheets every 2 weeks which is nice.  The bigger rooms are more expensive of course and have nicer furniture and you get your own full bathroom. 

Since I arrived on a Saturday it was fend for yourself time for food so I check out the kitchen.  It’s kinda crappy. I’m gonna half to buy my own stuff to cook with and we can’t even keep things in the fridge since they clean it out every Sunday.  Until I get a pot and pan I  guess I’ll stick to microwave stuff and sandwiches. 

When I got there I was also horrified to find out there is no elevator for my building so once again I had to lug 3 suit cases up 3 flights of stairs (shown left). Thankfully the woman working the office was very nice and helped me take my heaviest bag up.  She was also very good at explaining all the stuff slowly in French since she didn’t really speak English and as usual Sophie was too busy to help me with anything. 

The main thing that made my first day so hard was the fact that their free Internet decided to not be working on the day that I moved in (just my luck).  I don’t know if it was the fact that I wasn't able to talk to Matt, but I wanted to talk to him more than anything and couldn’t.  I still didn’t have a French phone and couldn’t use Skye and didn’t know where else to find wifi.  I later found out you can get it at McDonald's and the local library, but at the time I was freaking out.  I was all alone and all I wanted to do was feel connected to the world.  I actually got so desperate that I used the 3G on my phone to try and tell Matt I had no Internet and I would talk to him as soon as I could (sorry again for that mom).  I really hope there is a way for me to just use my own phone here because now that I have a smart phone I don’t want to go back to a dumb phone.  Somehow I need to unlock my phone, but I don’t really know how to do that so I’ll be looking into it.  I tried asking the guy at the office when the Internet would be working and he was of no help at all.  He just quickly said something in French I didn’t understand and I think I heard something about being fixed Monday.  I can not wait that long.

 Finally when I had gone crazy enough in my room (view from my room shown right) I decided to go to a grocery store for something for lunch and to try to calm my nerves.  For some reason grocery stores have a calming effect on me.  Just ask Matt, when we were traveling in Ireland and I was freaking out because the drive over was terrible. We just went into a grocery store and I was instantly better.  I especially love going to grocery stores in other countries.  I find seeing all the different foods interesting.   I decided to grab a jambon beurre sandwich since I had never tried one (ham and butter) and was kind of glad I never did.  They’re pretty blah.  The premade store sandwiches are always disappointing I find, but so much cheaper than ones from stands.  So if all you need is something quick to tied you over till later, they do the trick. 

That evening I went to the kitchen just to see if anyone was around and too my luck there was a big group of people cooking.  Most of them were assistants, but a few were people who had just moved here who were working, either in general or for school.  Little did I know these would be the guys I would hang out with quite a bit in the foyer.   I remember there was JJ, Mark, Keeton, and Alexandra,  then one other person who I can’t quite recall.  I still hang out with all these guys for dinner at the foyer.  They had a friend coming over who was bringing lasagna and they had made garlic bread and salad and stuff as well.  I didn’t want to intrude on there dinner, I just felt like talking to someone.  I just brought down some cheese and bread and some meat and that was my dinner since I wasn’t too hungry.  It was nice to finally start to meet some other people in my program, though most of these people were teaching primary school and I had high school.  If there is one thing the foyer seems to be good at it’s letting you meet people. 

My first night all alone I couldn’t sleep at all.  I don’t know if it was due to the quiet since I usually sleep with a fan on, or just the fact that I felt so disconnected with everything.  I once again got so desperate for human contact I used my 3G at about 2am to message Matt on Skye.  And once again my emotions got the better of me and the tears started flowing.  I don’t think I cried hardly once when I was in France last.   I remember missing the guy I was dating at the time, but not like this.  This trip is defiantly going to more stressful than the last.  But I’m not a quitter and I plan to finish what I started.  I am still happy to be here, it’s just going to be harder than I would like being so far from home and not having all the comforts I was use to in my house.  I basically do feel like I’m back in college and it’s really hard to go back to that life style when you’ve gotten use to having a big place of your own with a nice kitchen , big bed, and you own friggin bathroom.  It’s only day 3 so I just need to give it a while.  But I can tell this is going to be one long first week. 

Visitng my School: Sept 28th

Friday, Sept 28th. 

I went to my school on Friday to meet some of the teachers and get tour. I was a bit annoyed at the fact that, once again, Sophie spoke very quickly in French to explain everything. She didn’t even ask if I would prefer French or English. Usually I try to understand as much French as I can and not worry about understanding everything, but today since I have never been here and want to know exactly whats going on it would have been best to do it all in English for the first day or two. And I was thinking maybe Sophie would be able to help me with some things like set up a bank account and maybe understand some paperwork...nope. She couldn’t be bothered to do such things. She made it very clear she is way to busy to help me. Pretty much the only really nice thing she did for me is she let me download Game of Thrones on my hard drive. They had it in English with French subtitles, so I at least had something to watch while I stayed at her place.

Not one of my real lunches, but looks pretty much exactly like
what my school would serve (same plates and cups even)

So while I didn’t understand most of the people or what was really going on, I did learn one very important thing…the lunch at my school is pretty good. I ate lunch with Sophie on and they actually served salmon with a Hollindase sauce. You would never find anything like that in the US. Or even a real fish fillet for that matter. Maybe a fish sandwich or fish sticks, but I’m not sure how much real fish are in those. For only 3.10€ (which I believe is a special price they give just to assistants.  I don't think even student lunches are that cheap) I got an appetizer (to be refereed to as an Entrée from now on, as the French do) a main plat that comes with a meat and 1-2 sides, cheese or yogurt, and a dessert or fruit (which they eat as dessert a lot), plus bread. I was totally stuffed after lunch and couldn’t even finish it all. I’ll be eating lunch here quite often. You can barely get a sandwich at some of the restaurants around here for less than 4€. If there is one thing I love about the French it’s they love to have lots of courses with a meal. And the students here get an hour for lunch, so they don’t have to scarf everything down like we do back home. Only thing I didn't like is when they don't serve ketchup or give extra salt at all.  They say it's too unhealthy.  Thankfully they alway tend to salt stuff enough.  However I think the food is one of the only things I like more about French schools than US schools.

Many things don’t make sense to me, mostly their schedules.  They have about the same amount of hours of classes as we do, but they don't have the same classes at the same times all through the week.  They mix them around and maybe Monday they have Math at 9am then again on Thursday at 2pm for example.  They also can have classes way longer than we do, but they might get an hour break some days or finish earlier or start later on others.  It's not like in the Us where everyone goes to school all day from 8-3.  They can have their classes anywhere from 8am-5pm.  Some classes are 1 hour, some are 2 hours long.  Some only meet every other week (weeks A and B) they call it.  Plus the thing I just don't get most of all is the fact that teacher don't have 1 room they stay in all day and the students come to them like we do in the US.  The teachers have to drag all their stuff with them to different rooms all day.  They don't even get their own office like a college professor might, they have to keep all their stuff with them or in their tiny little mail box in the teacher lounge.  There is a computer lab for teachers and they use those computers only.  There isn't really even wifi for a teacher to bring their own laptop to work on.  They aren't provided with any office supplies either at my school, so they buy all their own post-its, pens, tap, scissors, etc.  The only thing out school give out is dry erase markers.  Though I have heard of other school giving out stuff, so mine just might be cheap.  Pretty much it seems like my school just gives teachers a room, a board, desks and chairs, and maybe a working computer (not always) and they expect them to just work with that.  No wonder teacher strike so much over hear. 

I guess it's just because things are so much different this time than the last time I was in France, but I found myself already crying and wanting to be back home after Sophie showed me around.  She had a class to teach so we said we'd meet for lunch and I went for a walk in the park by the school called Parc Pasteur.  I just started to feel very lonely, I guess also since Sophie hadn't been too welcoming.  I just started to tear up because I wanted to to be there so bad. Things are completely different this time than last and I have already found myself getting overwhelmed.  I have to do everything myself, where as last time I was in France my school organized any big meetings for me, I didn't have to have a French bank, I had a loving host family to go home to and eat dinners with.  Even though I didn't have many friends and I mostly kept to myself I still left less lonely than this time so far.  I just really need to meet the other assistants and hopefully make some friends.  It's going to be a long lonely weekend once I move into the Foyer, then hopefully I'll meet some people when we have our orientation on Monday.  For now I guess I try to talk to Matt more to keep from missing him as much.  I would have never guess home sickness would  have started this soon.

Time to go...The Journey Over: Sept 26th-27th

Bags are packed, it's time to go

And away I go to France once again…Hello, my name is Mary and this is my attempt at actually trying to write about my experience being an English Language teaching assistant in France.   I’m not a professional writer by any means so don’t expect thought provoking stories that make you want to laugh and cry at the same time, or even perfect grammar.  I simply want to recount my adventures so that maybe one day when I’m too old to remember them on my own, I will have this to remind me of the good times. 

I have been to France before for an extended about of time.  Last time was in the Spring of 2010.  I lived in Avignon for 4 months, from Jan until about April, studying French language while in College.  One reason I am super excited to be coming back to France is I feel it gives me the chance to do all the things I wasn’t able to do, or maybe was too afraid to do last time I was here.  In particular, some of my goals are

1.       Try more new food:  I tended to stick to the same things I knew I liked when I was in Avignon.  This time I want to try new restaurants, new pastries, new cooking, everything. 

2.       Speak more French:  I was in a study program with all Americans last time, so we tended to not speak French very much.  I don’t have too many English speaking friends here so far I want to try speaking more French, even if the person knows English, and I especially want to learn more informal speech and slang. 

3.       Travel more:  I didn’t have that much time due to studying, nor too much money to go to a bunch of different cities in France or countries.  Last time I only went to Paris, Nice, and some small cities around Avignon, plus I went to Ireland for Spring break.  This year I want to go see more of France, as well as places like Italy and Spain.  I already have plans to go to Amsterdam with a friend from my college who is also an assistant near Grenoble. 

4.       Not watch as much TV: I tended to keep myself hold up in my room watching my favorite TV shows in English since it was too much work to watch TV in French.  This time I was to get off my ass and go out exploring or out with friends.  I will inevitable watch quite a bit a TV some days, like Sunday, since nothing is open in France on Sunday, 

So now that we have reviewed my past and my new goals for this year, lets get started with how my journey started…with many tears and goodbyes. 

Thursday Sept 26th: Saying Goodbye

So today was the big day, the day I left for France for over 7 months.  My flight left at 12:55pm and Matt of course came to the airport to see my off.  I guess airports aren’t as bad as they use to be because I arrived 3 hours early as usual for international flights and could have done with just 2.  There was literally no one in line for the security check.  I had already said goodbye to Matt when I got to the line, and when I saw how quick it would take and I just wanted to run back out just to be with him for 30 more mins.  We had already spend a good 15 mins hugging each other saying goodbye, and of course plenty of crying, on both our ends. 

I know me leaving will be way worse on him than me.  It’s always easier being the one to go off on a new adventure and experience new things than it is to the be the one who is left behind to go on with life.  He’ll be alone for a coupe weeks before his new room mate Erick arrives.  Hopefully then the house won’t feel so lonely, but until them he only has the rats to keep him company.  It’s always hard enough for me to be alone when he travels for work for a few days, I can’t imagine how he felt when he came home after work only to realize I really wasn’t coming back for a long time.  If Erick wasn't moving in I would have encouraged him to get a dog or something to keep him company.  Being alone is the worse, especially being in a new town with not many friends.  At least when he was alone in Bloomington he had the people at school who he was pretty good friends with.  Heck I wish I could have a cat or something to cuddle with while I'm gone. 

After I got to the waiting area for the plane and Matt had left he still called me within a few minutes, saying he already missed me.  I wanted to start crying all over again.  I’m leaving my best friend behind.  Even though I know I will enjoy my trip and get to do tons of cool stuff, I would much rather be doing it with him.  He’s been my best friend for the past two years, the person I tell everything and do everything with.  I really do feel we chose the right song for our first dance at the wedding when we chose Lucky by Jason Mraz.  I always thought it was so sweet and wished I could have the same thing when people would say I married my best friend and now I honestly can say it too (well soon I can: )  I know there will be many lonely nights where I cry because he’s not laying next to me, but he’ll be coming for Christmas and we can have fun adventures together.  I just hope I don’t want to jump back on the plane with him and come home early.  Hopefully I’ll make some friends that will make my time without him a bit easier.   

Friday, Sept 27th:  Finally Here

All in all, my flight wasn't too bad.  I sat next to some very nice people (I forget where they were from) who were going to France for vacation.  They were going on a cruise in the Mediterranean and then going to Paris, so I was telling them all my favorite places to go.  I really do feel I would make a great travel agent or guide, or a writer like Rick Steves.  I so want his job.  I would love to plan vacations for people who have a lot of money to spend so I don’t have to find all the best deals.  I dream of the day I can go on vacation and not feel the need to stay in a hostel for the savings and track everything I spend to make sure we’re on budget.   Hopefully Matt and I can do something less budget conscious for out honeymoon.  Plus once I get back and have a job we’ll have some more money and can hopefully save up plenty for both the wedding and honeymoon. 

The plane ride wasn't too rough either, only a few times did I feel the need to grip the seat arms for dear life, convinced we were all going to die or end up like the people in Lost.  I took some Tylenol PM and managed to maybe get 2-3 hours of sleep, which is a record for me. 

I arrived at about 9am and had a fun filled day of dragging 3 bags around the airport and numerous metro and train station.  Thankfully, and quite luckily, when I got to the baggage claim I actually met another assistant who was going to be in my region named Megan.  We was very nice and we traveled together to Gare Austerlitz in Paris.  I had to take a metro from Charles de Gaulle, which is way outside Paris city centre, to the middle of the city to Austerlitz (about a 45 min metro ride) where my train was leaving, but there was also one station change as well.  I have to find a way to mail one of my bags back home because there is no way I can drag all my stuff that far again.  If it weren’t for Megan and some very nice French people helping me get my bags up the escalecators and on and off the trains I would have never made it alive.  When you’re just taking the TGV directly from Charles de Gaulle to whatever city you it’s not too bad.  But taking the metros as well is murder.  If all else fails Megan was saying there is also a shuttle that goes from Austerlitz to De Gaulle as well, so that would at least be a bit easier than take all those metros.  When the French say a station is handicap accessible, they don’t mean elevators, they mean escalators only.  Not sure what people in wheelchairs do. 

Once I finally got to Austerlitz's Megan and I had lunch together.  I got to have 2 of my favorite thing in France: Fanta and a pain au chocolate.   The wrap I had was pretty tasteless but everything else was good.  Then she caught a train around 1pm to her city.  I however had to sit around until 6pm for mine, because the person from my school who was picking me up wasn't free until after then.  I tried catching some sleep in the station waiting room, but those had to be the hardest seats ever.  I think I maybe dosed off for about 20 mins at a time before I was forced to wake up due to neck pain and choose a different position.  I actually avoided using the bathroom just because I didn’t feel like dragging my bags other there with me.  I would have just left them, but knowing my luck someone would have thought I was a terrorist. 

Once I got on my train I knocked out.  I can always sleep on trains like a baby, but planes never work for me.  Not sure what the difference is because the seats aren’t much better on trains.  Maybe it’s the smooth swaying of the train versus the heart wrenching turbulence of planes.  And might I just say, terrible as it may be, that I will never understand why more terrorist don’t bomb trains instead of planes.  There is no security, no real people watching for suspicious behavior or anything.  Heck you don’t even have to do a suicide bomb, just walk on a train, leave a suitcase in it, and walk away.  I started thinking this when a woman asked me to watch her bag on the train when she forgot to stamp her ticket.  Why are planes so popular to bomb when trains are just as effective and much easier to get away with.  Even when there is an attack, like I think there was when I was in Germany visiting my dad when I was in high school, they don’t do like Americans and never forget what happened and have crazy extravagant security systems installed and do “random” searches.  They might crack down on security for a while, but when nothing else happens they go back to the way things were.  The French, and actually all of Europe, are just too trusting when it comes to trains. 

Once I arrived I was greeted by one of the English teachers at my school, Sophie.  When I first communicated with her via email she seemed very nice and helpful.  But once I had arrived and tried talking with her (though my French was terrible at this point) my overall impression of her is someone who is somewhat cold, and finds me more of a bother than anything.  Her accent was very hard to understand and she spoke very fast.  I asked if she could speak slower and she tended to forget and go back to talking fast.  I think people tend to think I’m fluent in French since I got a degree in it.  I guess they don’t realize that in the US, just because you have a degree in something, doesn’t make you an expert in it.  I understand much more than the last time I was in France, but I’m still not fluent and people need to speak a bit slower with me or at least enunciate more.  I stayed with Sophie for a couple days before I moved into the Foyer de Jeune Travilleur du Colombier on Saturday.  I got that feeling once again of being an annoyance for someone, as I did when I stayed with my host family in Avignon.  Only difference is my host family never did anything to make me feel unwelcome, I just wanted to give them their space.  Sophie, however always had this air of interacting with me like it was a chore.  

Since I hard pretty much been up for over 24 hours straight I didn't stay up too late on Thursday.  I ate dinner with Sophie and her children (though she didn't make it very obvious I was welcome to eat with them).  Then I used their wifi for a bit to check Facebook so I could let me parent know I made it over alive.  And finally I chatted with Matt for a bit on Skype.  I can tell the time difference is going to make things interesting.  I ended up passing out at about 10:00 and slept awesome even though the bed wasn't too comfy and I didn't have my fan to make noise like I always do.  usually I have trouble sleeping in weird places, but my body was so tired sleeping under a bridge would seem nice.  So long as I could lay down instead of sit up.  But I don't get to sleep in long.  I had to meet Sophie at the school to be showed around and introduced.   

Let's Get This Started.

Ok, blog time.  And this time let's see if I can not only get one started, but also keep it going.  My last attempt kinda went nowhere.  So Ladies and Gentalmen, let me introduce you to....

The Working Housewife
Travel, cooking, home and wedding advice and experiences froma woman who works just as hard at home as she does at the office. 

Intro...

Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck between two worlds.  On one hand I want to be a hardworking, do whatever it takes professional and have huge dreams and goals for my career and get paid the big bucks to do it.  I want to be that person people always rely on and without me all hell breaks loose because what I do and how I do it is just too importante for them to go on without me.  Mind you this has never been the case with any job I have had, but it's a dream of mine.  basically I just want to feel like I'm an essetial person at my work place, someone who is not easily replaced.

On the other hand...

I love my home life and want to be able to spend time turning the new house my fiance, Matt, and I just bought into a home and take care of everything myself.  I would love to be just like Bree from Desperate Housewives, but without the gourmet cooking maybe. I prefer yummy traditional comfort food to cuisine all the time.  I want nothing more than to spend all day everyday at home, planting flowers and gardens, decorating rooms, cooking homemade meals, and attempting the far too numerous DIY projects I have pinned on Pinterest.  I want to plan my wedding for Sept 2013 and make everything myself and find all the perfect vendors and items I want to make it a beautiful event. 

But then there is real life...

Sadly I am stuck between two worlds.  I can't be a homemaker, mostly due to this undying need to pay off student loans. And I can't be a man eating business women because Matt might starve if he needed to cook for himself all the time.  That or eat waaay too many Hot pockets, just like in grad school.  For now I'll do my best to balance both lives.  Really I think I do a better job at being a homemaker than being a professional just because I can't seem to find a job that will let me be a professional.  All the places I want to work seem to have this thing about their emplyees having "experience", whatever that means. 

But you wanna know a secret? 

If I had to choose, I think I would prefer housewife to fulltime pro (don't tell my parents, they would hate to think they wasted all that money on my education).  I just think I have a natural nack for organizing things, cooking great food, taking care of people, and someday will be great at taking care of kids.  Plus even if I were "unemployed"  it doesn't mean I would do some part time work or volunteering.  I love tutoring in French since that's what one of my degrees is in.  I also would love to do more things like host people on Couch Surfer and Airbnb.  Airbnb is even a way to make some extra money and with both I would get to meet super cool people from all over the place.  I also love working at animal shelters and would love to be a foster parent for animals, which requires a lot of time. 

So don't knock it till you try it. 

So while I'm not solely a homemaker by any means right now, I did do it for a whole summer when Matt and I first moved to Kansas City for his job in the summer of 2012 and I had trouble finding work. A lot of people hear the word homemaker and it makes them cringe thinking of the days back when wives were only meant to stay in the kitchen and take care of kids, relying on their man for everything.  Feminist get in an up roar when a woman says they want to be a stay at home mom, or just take care of their family, saying people like you are what makes men not respect women.  They say staying at home is demeaning and pointless; we should be doing something more meaningful with our time.  Many people think being a housewife is just an excuse to be lazy and sleep till noon and then spend the day shopping and getting mani pedis.  But I'm not any of these things. To me being a housewife means caring for others above yourself, working like crazy to make their lives better simply because you love them. And my personal favorite part...It means making lots of awesome food : )

So now that I'm off my soapbox, please enjoy my blog.  I hope you find my experences interesting and possibly entertaiing, my recipes delicous, and my projects fun inventive.   Happy blogging!