C'est ma vie

A Fair-Weather Intellectual?

For most of you who know E, you know that he's pretty brilliant. He has always read and read and read and been able to get through most of his academic endeavors without working too much because he is already so knowledgeable on many subjects. He has a genuine interest in learning and we all know that motivation is the number one factor in retaining something.

I am quite the opposite. While I don't think I'm dumb by any means, I've always worked really hard at school, learned by heart what I had to, and then as soon as the test was over, my knowledge just went out the other ear because my only motivation was to get a good grade, which I did get. When I came to France in 2001, I was going through the "intellectual" phase where I was discovering what I hadn't ever discovered before in my life- that conversations involving Proust, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were actually a heck of a lot more interesting than talking about where you went shopping last weekend. So, at that time (I was working on my Master's in French), I would spend weekends at home reading about Romanticism, Cubism, Existentialism. When it came time for us to take a placement exam before starting our MA year just to see where we were in French lit. the profs were amazed that I was able to explain why the Parnassian poets were rejected by French society and why Mallarmé was not necessarily classified as a Parnassian poet etc... At the time, I didn't realize that my interest in learning wasn't fully genuine and that it was more to be able to have conversations rather than to really learn for myself but that was almost 7 years ago and I've come to realize some things about myself since then.

For one, E thought he was marrying an intellectual, which isn't completely false because at the time I thought myself to be one too, but then as time went on and I stayed in France and got out of the university crowd, I realized that perhaps I was only an intellectual when I had the time or energy. Life generally got in the way of my reading time and soon the kids were born and laundry, spit-up, and diapers took over my life and by the time that one sacred hour came at night to do what I wanted, I would read a few lines and then crash. I used to be able to read whole books within days because I would devour every word when I wanted, now it takes me months. I'm still reading a book that I started 4 years ago!

E announced to me tonight that he's getting me a book for my 30th and I didn't hesitate in showing my lack of enthusiasm. If you have seen our massive library, you know that books we are definitely not lacking. We could probably open our own public library. These past couple of months, I have really, really made an effort to get back into some of the subjects I used to adore, Cubism, the evolution of fashion, etc... because somewhere, under the mommy facade, I am genuinely interested and would love to return to work in literature one of these days, but to be honest, the idea of another book just doesn't enchant me. E is disappointed because to him, I have lost any and all ties to my old, schoolgirl self. He suggested the first volume of Proust and as beautiful as Proust's prose is, it is not something that will keep you awake if that is your bedside book after a long day at school and a long evening with two little ones. I didn't mean to shun the idea, but at the same time, perhaps it's a good idea.

One of my goals this next decade I'm entering is to find some of the things that I've lost in the course of finding myself since I came to France. No one really knows this, but as much as I love this country and the language, the transition here for the first couple years wasn't as easy as one might think. It went something like this: I was this pseudo-intellectual wanna be and then I came here and met Etienne and my whole identity as I knew it just started at ground zero and from that point, each year I picked up little pieces of my old self and also found some new things that I love to form what I feel pretty good about today. I would love to get back into French literature because it it something that I lost along the way that I need to find again, so why not start with Proust?

Success

Thank you for all of your kind thoughts today. And, thank you Tony and Beth for the e-card! That was so sweet to wake up to a nice word of encouragement because I also woke up to an e-mail containing many words that could have thrown me off balance, but they didn't.

The evaluation was a success! My students actually weren't on their best behavior today, but I did manage to get through it and get almost everything done. One of the pieces of advice the person who came to evaluate me gave was to really find a way to sanction them, which is what I need to work on after Xmas. Now, that I've gotten my classroom strategy down, it's time to focus on the details. He brought up some very good points and ways to help me improve and I am looking forward to putting his advice into practice. It felt good after all this negativity going around among the student teachers to hear something positive and I can now rest and feel good about the Xmas vacation because I'm on the right track.

We keep hearing about being "en difficulté" or being a student teacher with difficulty (basically not able to keep up). Some of my colleagues who have been evaluated recently have heard these words and my mentor teacher asked the evaluator (he's really another teacher assigned to come and observe us) if I was "en difficulté", and he responded "not at all". That was a relief!

There's still lots of stuff to improve on but the good thing is that I have a lot of help from a lot of great people.

P.S. We're headed to KFC in the ghetto tonight. The tradition started 6 years ago when E got inspected for the first time and we said that from now on when there's an inspection, we'll go eat KFC. I am also going to try and steal away with the other student teachers for a happy hour drink- Etienne has offered to watch the kids. I am looking forward to this weekend!

Interruption in the Program

We now interrupt this program of stress, anxiety and nervousness to announce that Miss L. now walks! She took 5 steps tonight and now gets up and tries to take more. I say in a week she'll be walking for good....stay tuned.

Lesson Plan. check. Flashcards. check. Anxiety. check.

I've been over my lesson plan over and over again in my mind for tomorrow. I even dream about myself in front of the class. The only thing left to do tonight is 'act it out'. Teaching is half about staging and having the right things in the right place, if not, the audience will laugh and the rest of the production can take a bad turn.

For both of our evaluations, we are required to do an oral comprehension. Basically, the students need to listen to a dialogue and together we try and figure out what is going on in the dialogue. Etienne had the idea at the beginning of the year to upload the CDs onto my Ipod because not only is it less heavy than carrying around a CD player to your classroom, but it's also helps the students to become more interested in listening because it's "cooler" and something they can identify with. Up until this point, the only thing I've not liked about the Ipod is that you can't go back precisely to one point so if you want to go back to a word, it goes back further than you want. Well, silly me has waited until two nights before the inspection to bring this up to Etienne and of course he found a mode where you can indeed go back to precise seconds! So, this morning I spent a lot of time manipulating the thing and imagining every scenario possible in my class that could happen and tried to get myself back to the same place. I am still going to bring a back up CD tomorrow in case the Ipod decides to up and quit or freeze or my speakers don't work.

I keep telling myself that everything will go as planned and that things will be fine tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed!

Finally, some good news

I've talked about our daycare battles here on my blog. We've been lucky to barely scrape by up until now, quickly changing hands while I rush home and Etienne rushes to work and having several babysitters come and watch Louise on the days when we really can't work around our schedules. Finally, about a month ago, we hired someone to come in on Thursdays the whole day and Friday mornings and the other days we got by. But, it wasn't a solution that was working for us. We were never at ease. The time we both should have been spending getting tasks done at our respective schools we spent rushing so that we could be at home watching Louise. Monday mornings when I should be using that time to prepare school work or grade papers, we had Louise and as adorable and sage as she is, it's true that in my own stress and need for concentration, it was becoming difficult to manage her and work in the same room. We kept saying to ourselves "hopefully, we'll get a place in the daycare so that we have some time to work!" because getting up at 5 am every morning so that we could work just wasn't cutting it for us anymore. But, we had kind of put the possibility of having the daycare at the back of our minds.

The letter came today. We officially have a place in the daycare starting in January. Wow, it feels surreal. I think both Etienne and I are in so much shock that we can't even believe it ourselves. Is this true? We had become so accustomed to rushing rushing and stressing about who was watching Louise when or what solution did we have for the next day that it became such a routine to never be relaxed and at peace. Once, Etienne even had to leave her during her nap for 10 min. so he wouldn't be late for school while I was on my way home from school. This was during the strikes. (We did tell the neighbor who did come to check on her so she wasn't totally alone). Finally, a solution has been found that I think will suit all of us and will alleviate some of the stress this family has been going through. And, I know for this crucial year in my teaching career, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

We did hire a babysitter on a work contract for T and F and have decided to keep her for Thursdays but cancel her Fridays. For Louise's first year in the daycare, it's best that she go only 4 days a week and stay home one of those days and honestly, we didn't want to let the babysitter go like that. She gets along really well with Louise and we feel badly hiring and then firing her.

But, I don't want anything

Etienne and I are kind of weird with gifts. Not only do we not get each other gifts on a systematic basis for bdays and Xmas but we are also really bad about giving others gifts. It's not that we don't think of you, but we just don't associate gift giving with how we feel. To us, a phone call or an e-mail has the same weight as a gift. But, I know to the rest of the world, a gift is associated with how you feel and no gift= you weren't thinking about that person. Etienne's sister reminds us of this every year when E forgets his nephew's bday and since E is the godfather, he's kind of supposed to give a gift. And, it's true, for kids, it is kind of something important because culturally in our Western world, for bday and Xmas you get gifts and there's a lot of peer pressure there. Anyway, all of this brings me to my 30th bday, which is coming up soon. Etienne told me tonight that he really did want to get me something. I know this conversation sounds shocking to a lot of people. In the US it seems like "What did your husband get you, what did your wife get you?" is such a huge deal as if a woman is supposed to go brag about the fabulous gift that her husband got her (which usually involves some fancy handbag, jewelry etc...) so that she can be valued to the world. When my mom asked me, the first year we were married, what gifts we exchanged, I said, "nothing". The silence after I responded that said a lot because what I was supposed to answer was "Oh, Etienne got me the most fabulous (you fill in the blank)" Anyway, back to my point, we don't and have never cared much for giving each other gifts simply because it's not something in our own lingo that means we care for each other. But, this year, Etienne did say that he wanted to get my something for this important birthday.

All of the other years, I could have told you a million things that I wanted: gift certificates, a new coat, a purse, a wallet. But, to tell you the truth, this year I don't want anything. Really. There's nothing I can think of that I need or want. I guess it's a change in mentality. There are 6 purses sitting in my closet, I only regularly use 3 (one brown, one black, one navy). I am not a jewelry fan: my great-grandmother's pearls, the white gold bracelet from Dubai and my wedding ring are probably the only three precious pieces of jewelry I own and that is more than enough. Give me a pair of diamond earrings and honestly, I wouldn't be happier than if I had fake ones and even the fake ones I probably wouldn't wear. And it's true that lately, the shopping mentality has just left me. We already have way more than we need and I just can't see myself even using a gift certificate to accumulate more. FYI, my new winter coat I got off of ebay for 10 dollars (why spend loads on something you can get for so much cheaper?)

So, I couldn't respond to Etienne. The two ideas I gave him were to get my sewing machine fixed so that I could finally, after a year of impatience, start sewing again and to take the kids to his mom's for a weekend and let me relax, have a weekend of mommy duty off. And, he responded, "But those aren't presents for a 30th birthday!"

We'll see what he comes up with....but even I can't think of anything!

Just go back to the US, will you?

I'm slightly nervous about my teaching evaluation this Friday (the first of two that will determine my fate at the end of the year!). I say slightly because in many ways, I feel sure that it will go fine and that my students will behave that day. But, in many ways, I am still unsure that they will be on their best behavior. If they are quiet and have open ears, then the conclusion is the class usually goes fantastically.

I have one student who is especially difficult. Last week, he said that he wanted to find some type of revenge on me because I take off points if they speak in French in class. Yesterday, he said that if he was good, it meant he's depressed. Today, he took his pen and started poking holes in himself. That was two minutes before the bell rang, otherwise, he would have been excluded from class. He's already done a number of detention hours for me, a number of extra homework assignments and he still doesn't shape up. The homeroom teacher went to see the principal last week about this situation, telling her that this student causes big problems in my class. And, the principal's response was "That young woman made a choice to come to France, so she needs to adapt to the students over here, if not, she can go back to her own country".

This remark appalled me. I am a French citizen with two children who also happen to be French. There shouldn't be any distinction made between myself and the other teachers at this school who were born and raised here. I earned my teaching certification just as much as they did. She would definitely not have made the same remark to someone of French origin. And, FYI, the students are just as talkative and misbehaved in the US, so her argument has no ground. So, I am to conclude that she is discriminating against me because of my accent and my other culture.

Anyway, I'm not going to do anything about it for now. Etienne says I should go and confront the principal but that's really not my personality. However, if something like this happens again, I will say something. For now, I really need to concentrate on my evaluation Friday, try to stay calm, focused and zen. If you have time, please think of my on Friday. My students are just as capable of being perfect angels as they are of being little rascals and if the latter should happen, I'm not too sure how well things will go. I told them today that a man was coming to see the class. When they asked if they were being inspected, I didn't stay anything. Let them think that! Anyway, I will not go back to the US, thank you! My life is here and I love teaching here and hopefully, the inspection Friday will be in the right direction.

And a tradition gone....

I've been feeling good lately. That first six weeks of school this year were tough, both psychologically and physically. I didn't even recognize myself at times due to the stress that was masking my life. I also think that the death of my grandmother impacted me more than I (admit to?) think. I catch myself every couple of days thinking of her, longing for our lost memories and saddened by the fact that her death also meant the end of a chapter in my life, a chapter that started from when I was Gab's age until this past September, a chapter that took place in Bartlesville. Every day, I have been wearing a piece of my grandmother's jewelry. It gives me some kind of hidden strength and it also helps me to relive those memories and now I've come to the realization that it's my turn to start making traditions for my family that I hope Gab will remember with fondness as I did my childhood.

Today as Gab and I baked and frosted Christmas cookies, I couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of sadness for a tradition that was started a couple years ago with some American friends I had met in Paris. It all started out with some bloggers forming a knitting group which met regularly for about a year. And that group started an annual Thanksgiving meet up. After the second Thanksgiving last year, the original knitting group kind of phased out and I lost touch with a few of the core members but did stay in contact with a few. Then, something happened, I don't know what really, and all of the sudden I just felt like my path was going elsewhere and that maybe I didn't fit anymore with those I did stay in touch with. I think this was about the time when I had spent 2 straight months, part of that time alone with my very young children while Etienne worked on his thesis, and I was just plain wiped out and no one but my SIL who has 4 understood that. By the end of the summer, motherhood was literally consuming me and the last thing I needed to hear was about the utopic bliss we are supposed to feel being mothers. And, stupid me had to join a mother group around that time and a majority of the topics were about the utopic bliss one encounters being a mother and in a way, it did make me feel like I didn't live up to these other mothers who were doing all these things for their children that I didn't have the energy to do but that I should be doing. Then, the school year started, a lot of emotional energy with a new job and my grandmother's death and I just blew up. And, since I had to blow up at someone, it just happened to be those who had been in my life for the shortest time.

I'm not going to say I eternally miss their presence, but there are times when I see something that reminds me of them, or I make one of their recipes and want to call them up and say how well it turned out. On the other hand, I'm not even sure if I ever really fit into their group....

Whatever the case, I am guessing that today was their annual Thanksgiving get together and I did miss being there with them. I know my place wasn't there and maybe never should have been there from the very beginning when it started 2 years ago, but as I said with old traditions dying, others begin.

My traditions this year have to do with my children and if anything all of that stress from last summer, from the first six weeks of school, from that horrible beginning of September when I lost someone very dear to me, all of that taught me to look at what I have and to be thankful for that. Since school has started again after the Fall break, I've felt rejuvenated, like life has really been restored again, like all that stress was taken away so that I could get a new beginning and although motherhood is still not a utopic bliss, I'm finding an immense happiness there again.

They just don't listen

Allow me to take a brief minute to use my blog as a forum to vent about my frustrations in class. I just walked in from school and needed some type of venting.

I just found out a couple weeks ago that I got one of the worst 6th grade classes. There are 5 students who have been held back and cause discipline problems and a handful of others who I am sure will make great candidates for being held back again next year. Unfortunately, there is only a handful that actually works and at least tries.

We have been doing the verb HAVE GOT for 3 days now. In class, they seem to have gotten it (no pun intended!). After we do the oral comprehension, they seem to be able to transform the questions and apply them to themselves. At the end of the hour when I spend 15 min. speaking in French, they seem to understand everything and don't ask any questions.

Then, there's today. When I ask "What have you got in your room?" I get answers like Me have is she got a bed. No. Joke. I had to go over the subjects again (I, you, etc...) and half of them didn't even know in French that 'je' was a subject, they thought it was a verb!

And, it all comes down to, they don't work, they don't listen and they slack off. There are really only 2 or 3 who are really not capable of learning, the rest just don't have an excuse.

My inspection is in a week and a half. Please pray for me. If it had been today with 'me my room her got', I would have failed miserably.

Oh, and did I mention that I changed the seating chart which created a huge drama (actually, with this class any one single thing that is out of the ordinary creates this huge drama and it's really difficult to get the rhythm of the class back) and had to exclude a kid from class today? Like I said, serious prayers are needed for the inspection.

Working, crafting, working, putting up tree, working

That's what I've been doing today. Wow, when you put your mind to it.....

Actually, the day started bright and early at 5:45 a.m. Yep, you read correctly- it is Saturday and my day started at the crack of dawn (actually it was still night). Those very lowly numbers are the precise and exact time our son has been getting up for the past 3 weeks. EVERY. DAY. We are about to go insane from sleep deprivation. And, you would think that one would learn from this pattern and adapt one's own circadian rhythmic schedule, but no. It's almost 11 p.m and I'm still here typing. (I'm secretly planning to make Etienne get up with him tomorrow since I took the kids out for 5 hours this morning, letting him have a free day and let him take a 4 hour nap this afternoon).

So, the kids and I went to Ikea to get our tree today and when we go to Ikea, we always end up getting some meatballs for lunch at the restaurant. This time, I ended up getting Louise a kids' meal instead of her usual baby food jar and the mother next to me who had a baby about L's age looked at me in horror that she was eating something other than jarred food intended for babies. I could tell it was her first. When Gab was at the same age, it was out of the question to give him real people food, but L loved it.

After some pretty raw customer service on 2 different accounts (Welcome to France!), where I literally had to remind the kind salespeople that Ikea is supposed to be a family oriented kind of place so when I come for no other purpose than to buy a Christmas tree, if they can't make it possible for someone alone with two very small children to park in close proximity to the Christmas tree stand (they suggested I park in the parking garage, haul the two kids up to the stand in the parking lot, and haul a tree, a stroller, and a 3 year old back down to the parking garage in BFE by myself), then they are kind of going against what they proclaim to be. Anyway, I let it go. We got the tree in due time, after I waited for a parking place, and we escaped getting into an accident in the parking lot because of my anger.

Came home, kids didn't want to nap, and had a pleasant afternoon putting up the tree and getting the Xmas decorations out. At 5, Etienne announces that he's taking a nap. I am thinking to myself "Who ever said life was fair?" (okay, he did clean up the kitchen today, which was a huge mess, but still....) and the kids and I played, did Gab's Xmas project, until 7 when I declared 'lights out'. It didn't take long and they were both zonked.

Worked for 2 hours tonight on school. I'm being evaluated in 2 weeks and I wanted to make sure I concretely know where I'll be in the book at that time. I had an idea because I had planned it out but nothing put to paper yet. So, I worked on that, plus grades, changing the seating chart, etc... and still have work to do! And, then, I finished some of our craft projects.

I don't know where all of this productivity came from. But, I better get to bed because that 5:45 am wake up call will be here before you know it. We're off to E's mom's tomorrow because she wants us to see her new flat screen TV that she bought last week after calling us and saying "I woke up this morning and decided that I didn't like my TV anymore. I'm almost 70, I am going to buy myself a flat screen" and then proceeding to tell us that we could never afford something like that. Sweet dreams.