filtered particles

I have a thing for "squares of sunlight" in stories. The squares of sunlight that fall in through windows onto beige carpets where cats crawl into them and bask for hours as if there's nothing they'd rather be doing than lying there. I always write them in, the squares, not necessarily the cats, and I stopped to wonder why today.

When I was growing up, I lived on the Oregon coast, which anyone can tell you, does not get a lot of sun. It's known for being rainy and dark, cloudy and windy and cold. Our house faced north-south so on those rare occasions when it was sunny, it always started in my parent's bedroom on the east side of the house. As a child, I was convinced that Sunday was the day of sun because I can't remember a single rainy Sunday. I'm sure there were, there had to be given the location, but I can't recall a single one.

On those days, especially in the summer, sometimes my mom would be in her room sewing something (and uselessly trying to encourage me to be crafty in my own sense). Their room had this light yellow curtain on the east-facing window and the sun would always stream in in big, bright patches on the carpet (it was grey not beige, but who's counting. The beige comes from living in Arizona where sun was all too plentiful). All those mornings were lovely and have apparently ingrained themselves in my memory.

So when I write them into stories, I'm writing in a moment of happiness. It might be obvious, what with the sun being metaphorical for happiness, but it's really more than that. We haven't had many sunny days lately and I should add that I've never been a huge fan but I like the rare bursts of happiness it always seemed to bring.

I think I'll go write one into the story I'm working on, as this post was all just a huge procrastination on my part.

if you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious

I have an issue. I like to travel. I like seeing new places and learning new things. I like meeting new people I'll never see again and for one brief period of time sharing something with them. The time period is meant to be brief, though. 

I'm writing this entry not from a cafe or a cool little river-side bench or any of those picturesque locations that just evoke Europe in your mind and make you wish you were there, but I'm writing this entry from inside a hostel as two Spanish-speaking girls pack up their bags and probably prepare to leave tomorrow. I'm sitting on my little bed with its red sheets and dark blue lockers next to it, listening to the song I want playing when I die (or at the end of a particularly tragic movie), and wishing I was back in France.

il faisait beau aujourd'hui

Things the train window told me today: Je suis sale, Douai, 59, and je t'aime. If there'd been a "nettoie-moi" it would have been perfect.

Otherwise, it was a pretty good day anyway. The weather has been absolutely amazing the past couple days, sunny, no clouds, 75 degrees. Kevin keeps telling me it's not normal for this time of year but it seems normal to me. Then again, I'm coming from Arizona where it's sunny 340 days of the year.

I had another complete and un-simplified conversation with a French person - actually two: one with Kevin and one with Sebastien. You'd think after all this time that I'd do that all the time, but I really don't, and they're lovely days when I get to.

Maybe it was such a good day because I know the end is imminent which also makes me a little sad because I've finally gotten everything down and feel comfortable enough to talk to people on my own, and the kids like me, and I know what I'm teaching. And now it's all about to be over.

I've only got two more days of teaching left. Where did all the time go?! Beuf. I'm not ready for it to be over yet.

Side note: I wrote 26 pages for script frenzy yesterday so I'm up to 51 pages total. I'll try to write another 3-10 tonight if I can figure out what's going on in the episode... Then I need to finalize plans for the next month, like hostels and flights and stuff. Ugh. Not looking forward to packing or closing my bank account. What a chore that's going to be.

la vie en rose

I spend too much time on the Assistants Forum and I'll be glad to delete it off my favorites list once France is done. Why? Because half the people on there only complain. "I hate my town. My teachers are mean to me. The weather sucks." Blah blah blah.

Since I booked my plane ticket home the other day, I've been wondering if I'm going home too soon. I know logically it makes sense to go home when I am because I probably can't fiscally afford to stay in Europe much longer, but that doesn't mean I'm not still questioning my decision.

I came to France with this wild idea that I would somehow make much more out of it than I did with China. I told myself I would talk to people, join a group of something, I don't know, take a cooking class. Granted, I've talked to people. My French has improved - I think after the last break, it somehow got a boost. Maybe it was just the time away I needed.

I'm still left wondering, though, if I did everything I could to make my time here memorable and useful. I suppose we always have regrets when things end but the level of the regret varies person to person and thing to thing. When I go back, I still don't know what I'm doing. Someone wrote to me the other day, "What is on your agenda for next year?  Something exciting, I hope." The real answer to that question is that I have no idea, and whatever it is, it probably won't be exciting. 


Those people who complain on the forums, I wonder if they've done everything they can for themselves. I'm not a real go-getter myself, so everything I'm lacking is my own fault. But I wonder how hard they tried or if they're just content to think the past six months have been a waste of their time. Even if you hated it, at least it taught you something. That's how I prefer to look at it, although I've far from hated my time here. A part of me wishes it would go on longer and another part is ready for it to be over. I honestly don't know which side is winning at the moment.

falling right into the denouement

In one week, I'll be on February break. In a month and a half, I'll be on April break. In two months, I'll be done.

I feel like there is always a point you reach when you live abroad where you just get annoyed. Or maybe it's just me. Or maybe it was just today.

Today, there was yet another strike which meant four of my six teachers wouldn't be at school, so there was really no point in me being there. Instead, I went with Carole to the CPAM to inquire after my social security number. Guess what we found out? They've done absolutely nothing since the first time I was there. Yep, glorious French bureaucracy who can do nothing in a timely manner.

And then there's the matter of the CAF who keeps asking for more paperwork that I don't have, and Carole told me today that her son applied in October and didn't get reimbursed until July last year. And he's a French citizen. Beuf.

At times I find myself considering staying abroad for another few months or years or wondering if I could do it forever, and I know the answer. I know the answer is no. But I still find myself considering it - looking up ways to stay, places I could go/work. But then you think about what's really waiting for you at home and the honest answer is not much. If I had anything worthwhile there, I might not have left.

It's like being in a big hurry to go nowhere. I would like to go home, but I know I'd be bored within two weeks. All my friends live so spread out and none are in the town I would be living in. Why should I go home? What's there? Maybe I should just pick up and move as soon as I get back. Where? No one knows. I could fulfill my childhood dream of living in Vermont. Why Vermont, you ask? I couldn't tell you. I just wanted to.

On a brighter note, on Tuesday, this adorable little boy in CE1 asked if he could write a story about me. I wanted to hug the little writer. He's so cute. I just wish I knew his name...

Paris, the city of... pigeons

So I didn't go to Germany, and no, I don't want to talk about it. I've waxed poetic enough (read: rationalized myself) enough to my personal journal. If I want to go to Germany for real, I will get there someday.

I went to Paris (again) this weekend. Turns out that as a resident of France, I can now get into a lot of monuments and museums for free. I did not know this, but it is a very handy thing. I went with two other assistants from the Lille academie, and we climbed to the top of Notre Dame, something I've never done in five trips to Paris.

It's over 400 steps in a tight, twisting, claustrophobic staircase with just two real places for a short respite. From one watch tower to another on the Great Wall, it's over 2,000 stairs that vary in size from small to a jump and stopping every five-ten stairs is expected. This felt similar except there was no place to rest.

The view was lovely, though, despite the clouds.

We also went inside the Pantheon, which I'd never done, and went down to check out some of the graves of famous French people. I still don't know who Leon Gambetta is exactly, despite having read his Wikipedia page and the little panel in French that tried to (badly) explain it. But all the high schools and streets are named after him, so he must have been important. 

As we walked to the Pantheon, we passed the Eglise de Sorbonne, and the little cafe where, almost exactly two years ago, I met Abdel. He was some guy who randomly started talking to me on the streets of Paris, asking if I knew if Sorbonne had canceled classes due to strikes. I had no idea, being that 1) I'm not French, and 2) I didn't go to Sorbonne. But we ended up prendre une verre (getting a drink) for about two hours at this little cafe near the Eglise. 

I remember that conversation vividly, mostly because afterwards, he gave me his number and told me to call him. I did not call him. Why? Well, because (let's do a list again) 1) at that point, I was terrified of speaking French on the phone, 2) I was in a foreign country alone and calling up a random, older guy seemed like a bad idea, and 3) I had very little interest in doing anything more than having a drink at a cafe with him. As I'd told him I was a writer (I use the term loosely), he told me that I was not adventurous enough to be a real writer.

That comment has stuck with me over the past two years and sometimes I wonder if he's right. If you ask any of my friends, they would balk at the idea that I'm not adventurous enough. I mean, I moved to China just because I could, and I spent a year having absolutely no idea what I was doing, and now I'm in France, and to them it's just incredible. To me, though, it's not. It's just what I did. I don't feel like I was being adventurous. At times, I felt like I was being stupid and crazy. Why? Because I still don't go out with people I randomly meet on the street (not that I meet that many), and I still say no to things I should say yes to, and I still chicken out when it comes to stupid things like calling people. It's just part of my overly-cautious personality that I can't get rid of.

My example for Abdel was Emily Dickenson, an extremely famous and talented writer who never left her house. But I think she had a fantastic imagination whereas mine is limited, which is probably why I do need to be more adventurous. But my cautious streak is still there and it's never going away. And I just have to live with that.

The Year of the Rabbit

As of tomorrow (February 3rd), the Year of the Rabbit begins. This is especially significant for me, given that I am a Rabbit. Aside from the obvious things to do this year (wear your red underwear everyday for good luck if you're a Rabbit), it's also the start of a new cycle in my life, which means I have to come to terms with certain parts of my past.

The past twelve years did not go as I expected them to. I expected to have the same friends all the way through high school, to graduate, go to Oregon State University, and become a veterinarian. That was my plan. Obviously, plans change. But part of starting the new cycle is recognizing failures/disappointments and triumphs and learning from them and creating a new plan.

One of my disappointments, I've already come to terms with and accepted as being better than I thought it would be. That would be going to the University of Arizona for college. It wasn't my first choice. In fact, it was near the bottom of the list, but lots of factors came into play, and in the end, of the three really viable choices, it was the one I chose. Four years later, however, I had plenty of good memories from UA, friends I'll have for life, and a stepping stone for the rest of my life. It's time to let go of the "what if I had gone to so-and-so college instead?" Because I didn't go, and I got a good education anyway.

Another of my disappointments, I'm not sure I've worked it all out yet, and it seems to have affected everything since then, which makes it harder. I lost a friend once, or perhaps not lost... the actual events are blurred in my memory and I'm no longer sure whose fault it really was. I'm sure now that it was both of ours. We both made mistakes and the result was a hurt, depressed teenager who was already anti-social to begin with and who then became even more so. It was hard at the time because I didn't have many friends anyway and I felt she was my best one I did have, so losing her was like having to start over except that instead of losing her, I sort of gained an enemy. It dissipated over time and I only saw her once after high school. But that incident seemed to just fuel a desire to remain anti-social and an excuse for why I had issues with making friends. It's not true, though. I've always been shy and I had troubles making friends before, which was one of the reasons I was so against moving in the first place.

As for that disappointment, I just have to accept that I can't change what happened. We were both immature at the time (age 15, horrible age), and couldn't see past ourselves to fix it. Have I gotten closure? Perhaps not, but maybe I don't need it. I need to stop using it as an excuse. I'm responsible for my actions at this point.

How about a triumph? Something good that's happened in the past twelve years? It's like that interview question where they ask what you think is your biggest accomplishment. Sometimes I say going to college, but that's not true. In fact, it's a blatant lie. I always knew I'd go to college. I always knew I'd get in. I always knew I'd probably have my pick. It wasn't necessarily an accomplishment so much as an expected step to take.

I guess I'd say publishing my novel was a triumph. Six years ago, if you'd have said I would someday write an actual novel and put it out there for people to read and buy, I would have thought you were joking. Six years ago, the only things I wrote were for class, and while I thought (read: thought - this was proven wrong several times) that I was a good writer, I really didn't know anything. I'm not saying I'm amazing right now, but I have my moments. I've still got a lot to learn, though, although now I think what I need to learn isn't something an editor can tell me. It's only something I can learn by living my life.

The point of a new year and a new cycle is to move forward and leave the past where it belongs: behind you.

I may not know where I'm going but I know what I'm leaving behind, and I'm happy to leave it there.

every mushroom cloud has a silver lining

I know I was just talking about appreciation the other day and how a lot of people in this program don't seem to, but I was just hit with a sudden urge to go home. And not because I don't like it here. It's not that at all. I just miss living in the US.

I'm looking out my window at a beautiful blue sky, and the air is crisp and clean and a little cold, but I'm hit with these memories of summertime in Oregon when everything is green and lush and pretty and warm without being too hot, and I can go to the mall and go shopping (god, I miss shopping - I miss having money to go shopping). I just saw a picture of a friend on facebook and it triggered this weird memory of us going shopping in Portland. It's weird because, of course, I see pictures of her all the time.

For some reason, memories of summer are strongest, probably because that's the only time I'm ever really at home. Since I technically (it's complicated) went to school out-of-state (see, not really. It's just, my parents moved right as I went to college), I never got to go home for weekends or short holidays like Thanksgiving or Labor Day. I only got to be home at Christmas and during the summer. So it's no wonder my memories are strongest of those times.

This is also my second year living abroad and there comes a point where you just want familiarity. You just want to do the things you've always done like go to the mall or walk to the park or just the little things like going to the local grocery store. I know I always said I hated Arizona, and I did, a lot, but even when I go back to Phoenix, I can like it because of the sense of familiarity it has for me. I know the roads. I know what street to take to get me to my old house, to the high school, to the mall. I know what it feels like to drive up Tatum Blvd at sunset in the summertime and how the sun is going to feel once I step out of the air-conditioned interior of my car. I know that, and it's comforting.

When I came back from China, granted, there was a reverse culture shock that took some adjusting, but I also didn't come back to somewhere familiar. The only bit of familiarity I got was a stopover in the Phoenix airport which was like a bit of home even though I haven't lived there in six years.

It's not like I have a lot of time left here anyway. Only four months, which seems too short and too long at the same time. I'm twenty-three. I'm tired of being directionless. I'm tired of being a twenty-something. I don't like this stage in my life all that much, that stage where I feel like I don't know what I'm doing but I also feel like I should know, like other people know. Every time I catch myself thinking about spending another year abroad (like renewing France for next year or moving to Africa), I stop and remind myself of how I feel right now. I don't know if I can take another year of this. Yes, I love traveling, and yes, I love France, but the time has come to settle down or at least try to. It's going to be hard but I want to do it. France was hard but I wanted to do it and I did. This just proves that I can.

I don't know. I've always liked traveling, but I've also always wanted something steady to come back to, which I haven't had in a while. It feels like I've been moving since I was fourteen: Oregon, Phoenix, Virginia, Tucson, Oregon, China, France. I thought by now I'd have figured out what I wanted. It was all so clear when I was thirteen and I was going to be a veterinarian. Life, why so hard? Why can't I just be five years old again? Life was so much simpler then.

I'm sure I'll look back on France with fond memories that will make me want to come back. Even now, I have those memories of China that somehow block out the bad parts of the experience. I'm sure they will come and I'll remember sitting here and staring out my window at the cloudless sky and thinking how pretty it is. I'll remember.

Appreciation

I've never felt so lost. I've never felt so much at home. Please write my folks and throw away my keys.

I've been waiting years for that song lyric to apply to me. I can't say it does yet, and I honestly don't know when it will, but I hope that someday, I'll be able to say it and mean it.

Lately, I've seen a lot of people in the program getting tired (okay, it's mainly the Brits) and I know one person (American) is leaving. He says he's gotten what he wanted out of the program. I suppose if you feel that way. There's a difference between feeling you've done what you came to do and leaving early as opposed to quitting in the middle because it's just too hard.

I never once considered quitting in China, even on those days when I just wanted to punch the next Chinese person I saw, those days where if I heard 'hallow!' yelled at me, I was going to snap, not even on those days. It never occurred to me to just say, "I quit. Send me home." Then again, I had also signed a real contract that said if I quit, I had to pay money to get out of the contract. France somehow has no real contract. I don't feel like there's anything legal keeping us here. If we picked up and left tomorrow, there isn't anything they could do.

But I still don't understand the people who quit.

Have they not gone through what the rest of us did to get here? Do they not want it as much? What were they expecting? To live in a huge city with great public transportation and super friendly French people? It's just not realistic.

I was looking at jobs in the US today because I will have to get one when I get back, but if you think about it, my qualifications for any type of professional job are very slim. I speak French. Woo. That's all. I'm qualified to live in France. On a good day. It's enough to make a girl want to think of Grad School just to have something else to do. I'm not sure I could make it another 2-3 years in school, though.

I guess this entry doesn't have a point really except people who don't want to come here, shouldn't be here. Granted, I don't love teaching and no, I don't want to be a teacher, but that's not why I'm here. I knew that long before I came here. I'm here in some vague hope that France is the culmination of something in my life, as if it was something I was working towards all those years, but essentially it may only be a stepping stone to something else. God only knows what that something else is, although I'd rather like to be let in on it, thanks.

It's 10PM now over here in France and I have to leave for work at 8AM, so I'll leave this here.

To leave you all on a lighter-hearted note, the lol-worthy moment of Tuesdays classes:

New lesson on prepositions (in, on, under, behind, in front of, next to, between). The teacher uses the kids as examples: "Sara is next to John." And Sara moves next to John. Etc. So then the teacher says, "Thomas is inside Nathan. Is it possible?" If you didn't laugh, then you have a cleaner mind than me ;] The teacher said no. My brain said yes.

Goodnight.

the year in review

The time has come for the review of the year. I usually do this on my livejournal, but since I deleted it, this year, it's going to be here.

Last year at this time, I was sitting in my apartment in China, freezing to death despite wearing a puffy coat, two layers of everything, and gloves. I was simultaneously thanking and cursing the winter for both sending the spiders in my apartment into hibernation and making everything absolutely freezing.

I can't say 2010 was a year of changes because I still don't feel as though much has changed. Perhaps outwardly, there was a lot of change, but inwardly, I feel basically the same as I always have, which annoys me to no end. At some point, you're supposed to change, right?

What did I do in 2010 that I haven't done before?

In 2010, I climbed the Great Wall in the snow in Beijing, saw Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an, ate way too much amazing food for Chinese new year, pet cats in Japan, visited 20 year old prisons in South Korea (literally everything was rebuilt in the 80s), sweated in the middle of February in Hong Kong, ate waffles and fries in Belgium, and had the best night ever in England.

One of my best friends got married to a guy I'd never met. I spent over 18 hours on planes to go to the wedding and spent entirely too much time collecting things for the outfit I wore (hair clip from Japan, dress from China, tights from Japan, shoes from America). I nearly kissed the ground when I finally got to the US. I spent 3 glorious weeks visiting friends and family, including two weeks in LA with my best friend where we spent lots of time watching Harry Potter and even making a Twilight parody for youtube.

My time in China was interesting and people constantly ask me about it and I always have to stop and think before I answer. I'm not the kind of person who can just spout the same answer every time without thinking. Granted, my answer is usually the same, but it takes a minute. China was... an experience, that's for sure. Am I glad I went? Of course. Would I go back? Well.... I don't know. To visit, yes, not necessarily to live. China is a very odd place that a lot of people don't understand at all, and when I read news reports about it or people just giving their opinions, it takes a lot of restraint not to correct them about some of the things they say. Chinese society and culture is so different than ours that simple assumptions are just wrong.

Of course, the most recent change in my life has been France. I applied for the TAPIF program in November of last year and spent the next five months anxiously waiting for the answer. I don't know when I decided I wanted to move to France, because if you'd have told me nine years ago when I first started learning French that I would be living in France, I would have said you were crazy. Then again, I never thought I'd end up majoring in French either, but when it came time to pick a college, the answer was obvious. Even a few years ago, I told my mom that it was crazy to think that I would go abroad alone. I guess I'm eating my words now.

April 6th, 2010 I woke up (being 12-15 hours ahead of the US in China) and went to my computer, convinced that the email from TAPIF would not be there, as I'd been checking incessantly since the first of the month, but lo and behold, I opened it up and there it was, congratulating me on being accepted to the Lille academie. People had been telling me for months I was a shoe-in, but doubt always grows, especially when you take a look at the people who had been rejected who had great qualifications.

France has not been nearly as hard as China, but I think it's comparatively speaking. If I hadn't gone to China, I'm sure I would have found France much harder than I have. China taught me patience and to significantly lower my expectations for time-lines and quality, which in turn makes the French bureaucracy seem breezily efficient. It probably helps that I haven't encountered the same problems as others have with their paperwork.

2010 was also the resurgence of my huge Harry Potter nerd-ness. God. It started in the summer when I watched all the movies and started rereading the series backwards (I got to book 3 before I had to leave for France). Then I found Mark Reads Harry Potter, the blog all about HP from the viewpoint of a first time reader which rekindled the lost flame that you only have once: the first time you read. I also finally watched A Very Potter Musical and Sequel, which just exploded everything. All of a sudden, I was as obsessed with Harry Potter as I was at age 18. This all culminated in the release of Deathly Hallows part 1 movie. I decided to do something crazy; I went to London and I stayed up all night on the street like a homeless person all for the chance to see the HP actors, and of course to bond over our mutual love of Harry Potter with total strangers. It was the best 19 hours of my life.

All in all, this year has been good. There have certainly been some low points, lower than normal too for some reason, but in general, I think I'll look back on this year with a smile.

As for resolutions. Clearly, I failed last years which was to write everyday, more specifically write everyday in a story-type blog. I failed about halfway into January with that one and the blog has since been deleted. I also went nearly 5 months without writing anything, so yeah. Epic fail on my part. I think this year I'll do something simpler. My 2011 resolutions are to 1) learn to make macarons (this requires me moving home first, or to America anyway), and 2) learn to cable knit so I can finally make my perfect Ravenclaw scarf. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to do that before DH part 2 release. But those are my resolutions. Perfectly reasonable, right? I think so.

So Happy new year to you all reading this. I hope your year has been just as interesting and you've learned something from it. Joyeux nouvel an! Xin nian kuai le - 新年快乐! Next year is the year of the rabbit (my year!) so if you're a rabbit, be sure to wear your red underwear everyday for good luck ;] See you next year!