Verdun in Pictures

I'm not sure why, but I've been really bad at facebooking all my photos. But I have been. And I have some sweet pictures from this weekend that need internet recognition. So...
This weekend the LC kids from Nancy and Strasbourg went to Verdun. It was one of the biggest battle sites of WWI, and thus incredibly depressing. (The battle had an incredibly high death toll [nearly a quarter of a million deaths] before the French eventually lost to the Germans).

This is the inside of the fortress. Could you imagine living here for all those months?


This is a memorial inside the fortress:


This is Evan looking incredibly French. and angry. and French.


This is us adventuring:


This is the view overlooking the town of Verdun, as seen from the (ironically situated?) World Center of Peace, which we randomly found. Obviously, good things come from hiking any and all hills one can find.

Expats and Identity

On Being An American:
There's a quote by Bob Shacochis that sums up pretty much everything I want to say here. (Really, I'm not very eloquent). It's called "Become an Expat" - and I'm extracting the most relevant parts - but if you want to hear a snobbish rant on why living abroad in Western Europe isn't hardcore enough, feel free to google the entire quote for yourself.


"Sink into an otherness that reflects a reverse image of yourself, wherein lies your identity, or lack of one. Teach English in Japan, aquaculture in the South Pacific, accounting in Brazil. Join the Peace Corps, work in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, set up a fishing camp on the beach of Uruguay, become a foreign correspondent, study architecture in Istanbul, sell cigarettes in China.
...
You’ll learn to engage the world, not fear it, or at least not to be paralyzed by your fear of it. You’ll find out, to your surprise, how American you are — 100-percent, and you can never be anything but — and that is worth knowing. You’ll discover that going native is self-deluding, a type of perversion. Whatever gender or race you are, you’ll find out how much you are eternally hated and conditionally loved and thoroughly envied, based on the evidence of your passport."

I never feel more American than when I am abroad, and I never really knew being American actually meant until I left. It's kind of like when I moved to Oregon, and I realized how ridiculously New England I am. I'll get around to recording observations / actually writing something interesting one of these days.



On Expatriating:

When I was in Italy, we were all very caught up in the idea of our ex-patriot identity, and our all around badass-ness. This might be because we were reading too much Hemingway (but really, can you ever read too much Hemingway?) - or, more likely, it probably had something to do with the fact that we were cocky 16 year olds.

I've noticed though, that none of the Americans that I know here in France seem to think of themselves as ex-pats, or at least none of them are so pretentious as to talk about it. More fundamentally however, I think its because most of them seem to think of studying abroad as a "trip", a "short" term adventure that they'll come back from with stories of drinking and fumbling around with the language, rather than a real living and immersion experience. I think the word "trip" embodies a fundamental underlying attitude attitude, one that SYA trained me to avoid at all costs. That being said, in reality I'm just as much of a non-permanent American as everyone else I know here, but I'm working on it.



Up next... French Identity.

Greve-ing

Greve is the French word for "strike". And striking (or "greving" in Franglais) is certainly something that the French know how to do well.

AND I AM SICK OF IT!

My first or second week here, there was a huge greve in town, with something like 30,000 people out on the streets of our fairly small city - and proportionate turnout throughout the rest of France. Me, in my naivete thought it was so exceptional and exciting.

It's not exceptional. And its not exciting.
In fact, the French greve all the time, and over pretty much anything. There's another big greve this Thursday. But don't go thinking that the French actually went two months in between greves. No.

The university has been intermittently greving pretty much all semester. This means that sometimes you will show up to class to find that the teacher isn't coming in that day, because they are "on strike". There doesn't seem to be any sort of consistent pattern or reasoning to who strikes or when, and professors can pretty much strike whenever they want to. And if/when there is a formal greve organized by a union - members or that union are not required to strike. They are perfectly capable to going to work that day without being considered to have "crossed the picket line". I don't know how this is supposed to accomplish anything - but that doesn't seem to bother the French.

There are students who greve too. Especially at the university. Two weeks ago they took to the streets and marched in the middle of the afternoon - trouble was everyone else was at work/school, so I don't know exactly who they were demonstrating FOR. Last week they took the chairs out of the classrooms and stacked them all over campus, and in the middle of a rotary down the street. And today? ALL THE DOORS to the academic buildings were locked. NO ONE had classes.
Well, no one except for us lucky DeFLE students (French as a second language). Apparently the DeFLE is under a different statute - so (un)fortunately the teachers aren't allowed to strike. Today was interesting though, because one of my DeFLE classes takes place in the university proper (which was locked) - so we had to hold class in the DeFLE teacher's lounge.
Interestingly, the other university in Nancy (Science Po), is like the DeFLE, in that it is not allowed to strike either. This is because it is technically considered a grand-ecole (elite but accessible university system established by Napoleon in an attempt to abolish aristocratic privilege after the revolution) - and therefore under a different statute/set of laws as well. Cohesive, right?

As a side note, the French still love Napoleon. Jokes about a “small man complex” aside, he is revered for the systems he imposed after the revolution, and helping to re-unite the French public. They still can’t understand why those damn English wanted to go and stop him.

Oh France.



EDIT: I just re-read this post and it sounds really pissed off. It's not supposed to be. More like, "humorously annoyed while giving a fairly accurate picture of French universities?" - but I'm not sure I'm that eloquent

- also I feel the need to brag that I'm finally (kind of) getting my life together, and will hopefully write a bragging post soon if/when things are finalized.

Random gratuitous ramblings

Despite how my tricky back-dating skillZ make it appear, this is actually a new blog, with all previous entries being copied from the emails I've sent my friends and family since I arrived here in France. That being said, I feel the narcissistic desire to have somewhere to post the things I don't consider (interesting//) important enough to send home.

Learning a new language is frustrating. Especially French. I constantly feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall. I recently a remembered a speech that the director of SYA (the program with which I studied in Italy during my junior year of high school) about how the 4 extra years that studying abroad in high school gives you are so important in terms of language learning skills and your attitude towards the experience. I have to say I kind of agree. I love France but nothing will ever match the naive arrogance that comes with ex-patriating at 17.

I finally an affirmation about my French progress this weekend. My host parents mentioned at dinner last night about how much progress I've made since I've been here. (YES!) It was really reassuring, because its difficult to notice any changes on a day to day basis.

The stress of it all has even pushed me to start doing some strange things. Well, not strange by normal American standards, but certainly strange for me.
I've started running.
And journaling on a regular basis. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely HATE both of these things. I have tried to pick them up over the years, but they never stuck. Especially the running thing. But I've begun doing both here. I think its due to a lack of any other outlets. Without my friends to listen (or ignore) as I over-analyze every silly detail of my life in easy English, I find myself scribbling in any notebooks that are laying around, just to be able to express myself in a language that I have a comprehensive grasp on. And the running thing. I don't have any other outlet for activity (for very complicated logistical reasons including not having my student ID card yet), so I started running as my only option to get my endorphin fix (something that anyone struggling with a language definitely needs!). It's oddly satisfying, slightly addicting, and extremely painful.

That being said. I love butchering the French language. Well, I'm sure I would love speaking it properly even more, but I'm working on that. Sometimes when I'm listening to French people chatting at the speed of light, I'm overcome with a jealous desire to be able to do what they are doing. And then of course, I look around and realize that's exactly what I'm in the process of learning. Talk about an affirmation. And while there is nothing quite as exhausting as carrying on conversation for several hours in French, there's nothing quite as elating either.

A few of my favorite things

So let’s talk food. I don’t know how I haven’t managed to bring this up yet, because food is very central to life in France, and is also pretty much all that us American’s talk about. Let’s just say, the food in France is awesome. Except for breakfast, which is very light and definitely not substantive enough by my American standards, all meals are multiple courses. This was a very hard adjustment for me to make at first, because I never knew how many courses we were going to eat, and I was always full before the end of the meal. Now that I’m used to it though, I don’t feel like I’ve had a proper meal, if I don’t at least have a yogurt or an orange for dessert. This is a big change for a girl who pretty much lives off of Luna bars and cappuccinos back in the states. I actually bought some granola bars the other day, and was surprised to find that my love affair with granola bars has ended. After all the fresh, good food here, I just couldn’t handle how processed and chemically the granola bars tasted. I guess I'll just have to live off chocolate croissants instead. What a shame.
I also feel like it is worth mentioning that I am not allowed to leave the house in the morning without drinking a coffee first. (Which, by the way, are drank out of bowls, not mugs.) I actually tried to do this once (I know, I don't know what I was thinking either), and got stared at like I was even more foreign than I already am. Woe is me, I'm just going to have to drink my coffee each morning.

On another note. Last night I went to a Gala put on by my host sister’s school. It was a very upscale event in the Hotel de Ville; the nicest location in town. My host sister is in a very elite academic program, and this Gala is a very big annual event; kind of their version of prom, except that parents and families are invited as well. The coolest part about the event (well, in my opinion anyway), was the dancing. Dancing at any event that I have ever been to, especially high school ones, is always a bunch of kids awkwardly shaking it on the dance floor. Not here. Nobody dances inappropriately, everyone does what they call “danse rock”. “Danse rock” is basically a mix of all popular types of ballroom, lots of moves borrowed from swing and salsa, but also very much its own dance.
A professor I was introduced to asked me if I was going to dance with everyone. When I tried to explain that I had NO idea how to dance like that, he reassured me that I’d still get a chance to dance, because there was going to be a waltz later. The implication of this being that obviously, everyone knows how to waltz. Wait... what?! Waltz? I have no idea how to waltz, neither does any other American that I know. But apparently, I was very much in the minority last night with my lack of dancing skills.
After the Gala, we went out to a normal discotheque (still in our formal dresses!) and danced like normal drunk kids. It was nice to be so uninhibited by the language for once.

And I just like shaking my booty.