Reflections on life

I have been quiet for a while, for a reason. I've started writing about three different times, but decided that the things I was feeling would probably pass, so I didn't want to post them up as though they were static reflections. I guess everything you post online can be looked at a sort of "timeline" of how you're doing and what you're thinking, but unless I posted every single day there'd be no way to get out what I was thinking or feeling here and the bits and pieces that you all read would be only a snippet of what was going on here. So I've decided to wait, and do a lot of thinking and try to sum up some feelings now - now that I have had some REAL time in France, about five months, to really reflect on their culture, their lifestyle, my job, what I do in my free time, the language, and the feeling that I am no longer "new" here - that things are starting to make sense.

So, the last two posts I was going to publish, but didn't, were entitled:

• Why did I come here?
  

and

• I think I'm about 90% ready to come home
  

Coming here was such an easy decision for me. My life, when I started taking French, was a complete mess. I mean, the entire reason why I took French in the first place was to get away from spending all day thinking about what a wreck my life had become. So, after the first semester and my ability to find that I could completely immerse myself into studying, I thought "well, why not just go there for a year or two. It can't be that hard, and I sure as hell won't miss anything here." So I applied to the program, got accepted, (and later found out that way more qualified candidates didn't get in... weird!) and got stationed here in cold-as-hell Calais - a skip, hop and a jump away from pretty Belgium, but far away from the sun and culture of Spain and Italy.

Getting here was enormous. I came to realize that without the help of my mom and dad I probably wouldn't have been prepared in coming, but I tried my best to prepare for this HUGE life change, this thing that I thought would "make me better inside," but... the thing is.. by the time I left, my life had already sorted itself out and I had lost the initial reasoning behind why I wanted to come. I met Rebecca, and started a relationship three months before moving out of the country for eight months, and when I got here, the dreary skies and not-knowing-what-to-do-or-being-able-to-understand-anything-ness of my life day in and day out was pretty discomforting. I had no internet access, so I couldn't talk to anyone that I cared about, and talking on the cell phone was incredibly expensive, (40e a month for 200 minutes?!?!), so I kind of tried to meet people and make new friends, but that didn't go very well. I think my first few months in France, at least the end of September to the end of December, were pretty bad. Things just seemed to keep going wrong at every turn, and I didn't feel comfortable here. I liked my job, teaching was fun, and all the people I worked with were great, but I didn't understand this culture, this society, this life-style... and I was completely alone here. The thing that I thought would be a breeze and a breath of fresh air from California turned into being something way harder than anything I could have imagined.

The little things, like being looked at weird because the French seem to understand only one thing: you either speak French, or you don't; and I don't. It doesn't matter how much I've learned and changed, I am still not French, and I'm treated exactly the same by most random people on the streets and in stores. Europeans complain about how closed-minded we are "over there" in America, but I never realized that we really aren't. We think a certain way, and we like to be right, but we're pretty accepting of people who are different - no, not everyone, but a lot of us are. I'm used to having mostly non-white friends, working with a lot of people whose parents are first generations, or having teachers or bosses who aren't American. Here though, that idea, that mentality of having anyone in your country that's not like you is just foreign. Of course, I am in a pretty small part of France, in the north, where the only immigrants seem to be "bad immigrants," I still found the same thing when I was in Paris, Marseille, Nice, or really anywhere. This has been a hard thing to come to grips with, but I'm starting to see that in a lot of people, it's not... racism, or that I'm not as good as them, it's just that they are French, and I am not. There's a level of French culture that, let's say, I don't get to have access to because I am a foreigner, and although I see this everywhere, it bugs me less and less as the days go by.  I guess I can't change another culture, or their ways of doing things.  They're not used to people who aren't French living in France - I get it finally.  I mean, I asked six of my different classes post-election if they thought there was ANY chance of a black person ever becoming president of France, and in all six classes, the overwhelming majority of students said no.  I even got two kids, in different classes, say, "no, because they're not REALLY French," I assume meaning that only white people can really be French.  Even if a lot of the others kids didn't say it, I think there is a general feeling that the true French people are the white-skinned ones.  It's too bad...

I feel a lot like France is living with half of its foot in the door of the novel 1984.  In talking both with my students, my teachers, and other people I've met here, I feel like I can assert this to be true.  What do you think of when you think of France?  Personally, before I came, I thought about its culture, its music, its passion for art, creativity, its amazing authors and novelists of the past, its wine and cheese, its film and overtly-sexual movies.  When I thought of France, I thought "wow, they have a lot of culture," that indescribable thing that we just never have enough of in the States.  What I found however, is something quite different.  I feel in many ways that France is living in the shadow of its former self.  I hear, quite often actually, that when people talk about France's accomplishments versus those of the United States, they never mention anything modern - regardless of whether I am in Calais, Paris, or Nice - but they talk at length about what France IS, solely because of what it did in the past.  They talk about France's long history, its art, its music, but when I ask them to name things that are going on right now, in modern times, that showcase France's talent and world class culture, they tell me it doesn't exist anymore.  I sadly, sadly agree.  I feel that the massively socialistic system is really failing the people of France.  Pardon if you're French as you're reading this, but I feel that socialism has destroyed the French.  

One of my teachers quite recently told me that the drive that we have in America to grow, succeed and be free (not just have freedom, but actually be able to exercise that freedom) doesn't exist anymore in France.  Sure they have many of the freedoms that we do, but he said that he feels that after World War II, France was so destroyed, mentally and physically, that it wanted to make sure nothing like that ever happened again, that it wanted to make sure everyone was okay and taken care no matter the cost.  He said he understands that he pays high taxes, that everything is more expensive, that a lot of people don't have dreams about what they want out of life because, frankly, they can't really get it in France - but he said "everyone is okay here, and that is what's important to us."

So how is that like 1984?  In the book, you see a vision of a society, at least in my opinion, that used to be great.  You can tell this because there are certain characters in the book who know, at their core, that there is more to life, and some of them try to attain that, like the main character, and a few others who try to join his movement.  The society around them, however, stopped complaining a long time ago.  They stopped wanting more, they stopped thinking about how life could be better, whether the decisions their government was making were the ones that would benefit them the most, and slowly they grew complacent.  They figured "as long as we have enough to survive, that is enough," and I feel that that is the attitude that a lot of French people have.  I recently have been discussing an article in class that I found on the Washington Post about medical marijuana, and the fact that California has declared it legal, while the Federal government still is declaring it illegal, and the problems that that is causing.  I've found only one French student that thinks it's a good thing for states to be able to have different laws than the federal government, because, (literally in every class) it causes conflict.  When I ask them why conflict is bad, and how people's rights can be guaranteed if the people aren't fighting for them, most students say "well we trust the government will do a good enough job."  Because I like to get a balanced opinion, (read: not just kids between 15-18), I talked to some older people about this as well, and again, I've mostly gotten the same opinions, that conflict, in and of its own accord, is a bad thing.  That the path of least resistance is usually the best one when it comes to politics - yet France is the home of the strike!  People here strike every frickin week about something new, but I see that a lot of that is just smoke and mirrors, nothing ever really changes, and they know that.  I feel that France is slowly slipping into this society where they don't care about anything, where they expect that their entire entity will be taken care of, from the cradle to the grave, by the government, that if everyone pays a lot of money in taxes, everything will be okay and they won't ever have another World War 2 or another huge crisis that hurts them.  I think their country chose to become weak instead of become strong after they were devestated by the war - and I know that sounds really harsh.  It's meant to.

As harsh of a critic as I've become on French culture, society, economy, and prospects, I feel that as a people, they are wonderful.  I know my last post (and the two almost-posts since then) wreaked of me wanting to leave as soon as I could get a flight, but as my French improves, as I get to learn more about the culture - positively AND negatively - and as I reflect more, the more I am accepting the things that I don't like, and enjoying the things I do.  I really like how warm and caring the French are.  You know ALL of my students are respectful, they're ALL nice, I may ding them for being lazy and not working, but they are wonderful people.  ALL of my teachers, my landlord, my roommates, my banker - I haven't met a single person here that has been MEAN to me.  I've been 'racicstized' against, but again, i don't think that's mean, I think it's just not being familiar with a different culture and not really liking the intrusion. 

The lady at the fruit stand gives me free fruit, like.. ALL the time.  The guy at the Tabac (cigarette store) always shakes my hand and asks me how I'm doing, and not like "hi/hi", but really like "hey how are you?  how's your girlfriend?  i saw you walking the other day and you looked cold," like - WOW-I-would-never-get-this-in-the-US kind of nice.  Even the bus drivers are nice.  I mean, one really great thing about France's non-competitive behaviour and high level of socialism is that everyone pretty much feels like they are the same - they are in this together, this game of life.  They're not at war with each other.  People don't look at the car their neighbor is driving and want one better, people don't need huge houses, they're pretty... happy and content just... being.  When i walk into a cafe that I went to ONCE, a month ago, and the guy behind the counter comes out to shake my hand and asks me how I'm doing since last time - that really makes an impact.  I've though, on several occasions, "wow, these are... really nice people," and so I hope that their complacency with governmental issues and their drive for "everyone to be alright" doesn't end up hurting them in the end, because I slowly see it happening.  Their radios are filled with American music, they all watch American TV and American movies, they read books from America that are translated into French - their culture is slowly disappearing, maybe one reason why you have certain high up people in the government who are trying to stop the spread of Americanism, and certain crazy people who are bombing McDonalds all over France.  I think some of the older generation sees it, but the younger seems to not care.  Several of my students have said "well, American culture is better than ours, so we embrace it," and I was like "yeah but don't you want to be proud of who you are, and make movies and music that reflects YOU, not listen to something that reflects another culture?"  and... when I ask questions like that (either in French or English) I normally just get people saying "I don't know" in response.  

Again, being here for 5/6 months, versus living in the US for 26, has brought me a continual amount of new learning and education about the world I live in.  I've learned so many things about France, and my opinions of the country and its people have changed since two months ago, so who's to say they won't change again in another 3 months when I leave? 

-- new topic --

So, Rebecca came out here for Christmas break, (thanks mom and dad for helping us with the trip!) and we went down to Marseille, and Nice, Monaco and Eze Village, and saw Cannes and several other beautiful places.  We went to Brugges and Brussels, and just had a wonderful time.  I think that that single event, seeing the woman I love, changed my happiness meter a lot.  It's hard to say, because right around the time she came I was already starting to feel a lot better about living here, about fitting in, speaking a lot more, having conversations with my roommates, teachers, students on facebook, and just BEING French, to the best of my ability, than I had two months prior.  I'm looking forward to the next three months here, I know that.  I do miss her incredibly, I don't think there's a way not to, but I'm happy again about France.  It's never been what I thought it would be, from the moment I signed up to the moment i got here to now - maybe the only thing that was better than I had imagined was the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower, and apart from that, Calais has been, in many ways, disappointing, but I was faced with a constant problem of not liking it here, and I decided to make a choice:  BEING here was not part of that choice.  I either would choose to be unhappy, or I would choose to be happy.  I think choosing to be happy, and realizing that while this may not be the absolute most bestest thing evar, it's still a great experience, and I'm going to squeeze every last drop of happy that I can out of this trip.

That's me for now :)