addendum to what I said yesterday

I've been thinking a lot about what I said yesterday, and I've gotten a lot of responses on the subject. I wanted to maintain that what I said was purely conjecture, as I truly have not made up any opinion about the two countries yet. I love my country, and I think that in a lot of ways, countries like France are able to "care so little," maybe, about things like technological advances or the development of new things because other countries like America and Japan, highly capitalistic countries, do it for them. I mean, when was the last time a good invention came out of Europe? I can't think of any off the top of my head. So, because of the cultural atmosphere in the United States, the "gold medal or bronze medal" approach, the "make it or fall flat" approach, yes there is a lot more stress, yes there is a highly materialistic (in general) mindset, but it also allows us to kind of... see humanity to its fullest. We invented Google, Apple, Microsoft, a lot of modern medical technology, scientific discoveries and social initiatives, and I think still, and probably always will, that our government, in theory, run for the people and by the people, is by far the best system out there. My only big point in yesterday's blog was to address all of the things about European lifestyle that I really liked, and how, maybe if I don't want to live in a society that is "either gold medal or bronze," with very little room for someone to have a silver medal and be content with that, I could always move to a country where the bulk of people had silver medals, and everyone was okay with that.

I hope this clears some stuff up. I have come to the conclusion that both societies work for their respective citizens, and I think, if nothing else, I have found that there are a lot of points of view in French culture that I hope I keep with me for the remainder of my life, things that I think will benefit me a lot in the long run, things that I hope to take back with me and incorporate into my life because I think ultimately that Europe is too european and American is too american, and maybe the best person is the one who finds the balance in both.

Happy Happy France

I enjoy commas.

I realized today that I will soon be leaving France.  I have had this realization before, but this time it's real.  I'm sure it will also be more real in a few weeks when it's closer to my leave date, but at least for now, I'm really starting to reflect upon all that I've learned since getting here.

I remember getting here, after taking French for two semesters, a sordid mix between someone who was running away from something, (though the thing he thought he was originally running away from wasn't, in the end, what he found he was running from,) and someone who really was excited about the opportunity of living in France, the land of wine, bread, cheese, and l'amour.  I guess, what I found in the end, was, in many ways, what I had come here looking for in the first place, but what I failed to understand was that in order to enjoy that which I wanted to enjoy before I left, I had to first understand so many things about not only myself, but the country of France as well.  I wanted to experience a dream - a vision of a country that I'd had through old friends, movies, American culture, the past, maybe a book or a commercial or the way the French were portrayed in Monthy Python's Holy Grail sketch. (I faart in your generaal die-rek-shawnnn)  Even the videos that I watched in French 1 and 2 about a fake set of friends who went to cafés and spoke French while having dinner parties and sampling wines and talking about old French artists was somehow in my head as "the France" that I would experience too.  And I guess in some ways I have, but in order to realize that, I first had to spend 6 months getting over it.

When I came to France, I automatically realized how American I was.  I never though this before, since I have always tried to be myself, and always found that that self was almost always different from everyone else around me.  I know everyone says that, but... I was always the odd one out.  Whether it was in a bad way, at school, or a good way, at church, whether I was made the center of attention for the purpose of ridicule, at school, or the purpose of jest, at church, I was always, at least I felt so, looked upon as being "different" from all the other kids.  So I naturally came to believe that I was, indeed, not as American as my American counterparts, but instead I enjoyed a very brianpowellesque way of life, which turned out, to be a very brianpowellesque way of life with a heavy dose of Americanism in it.

My inability to be French, or maybe to become French, is partially a fault of the circumstances in which I find myself.  I am a teacher, brought to teach not English, but ME; I am the subject.  My culture, my views, my accent - everything, I am here to teach that one thing that I have that their teachers do not - authentic americanisms.  For this reason, I started really looking at what my culture was, at what it taught, at who it made us out to be.  I spent hours talking with French people, whether it was "what do you think about [            ]," or "what do you desire from [         ]?"  From my students, to my teachers, to my roommates, to random people I've met of all ages, I embarked on a quest to understand France, and it has taken me six months to realize that in all this time, I have come much closer to understanding them, but have failed to relish in them as well.  I spent six months with a microscope to their culture, their way of life, often critiquing how mine was better, how one is more free where I come from, where one can have a better life, which made me think about freedom and life all the more.

I ran into the problem of missing my girlfriend in San Diego, and spending more and more time thinking about her and talking to her, going to whatever lengths I could - walking a mile, (or some-odd kilometres,) just to find a phone booth at 3am so i could call her, and I never lost touch with America, whether it was because of facebook, AIM, WoW, American news, American music, my constant love for other countries too, my sudden increased interest in Spanish again now that my language center was being stimulated, I guess I just found an inability to truly lose myself in the culture, although i was trying to, or not trying to, depending on the day and my approach to how to best enjoy myself here.

Regardless, the last few weeks I have started to do what I came here for.  I've started walking around town, going into a café for a quick cup of coffee, and sitting there at the bar talking for thirty minutes to the bartender, for no reason - just to talk.  I've started trying to use frenchisms - words that mean nothing but still convey meaning.  Like how we say "like" all the time.  I've spent a lot of time listening, listening to accents, to words, trying to learn new things, new roads, new people, trying to get out of France what I thought i would get out when I decided to come here, and it has been working.  I have felt, for the first time since coming here, a sense of sadness that I will be leaving.  And not just a sadness of leaving, but the sadness of losing something that I enjoy.  There are many, many pieces of French culture I enjoy, but it's so hard to put down in words, because I feel like they are a conflict in my head.  

• I enjoy having big houses, lawns and fences, but I like what small, compact houses, everywhere, does for community, how everyone walks everywhere because - well, driving here is kind of a hassle, and they have amazing mass transit, (a simple system of buses that hold to them no socioeconomic ties as I think our buses do,) and everything is close because everything is compact.
  
• I enjoy the freedom to be who you are in America, the idea that I, above all people, could be exactly who i want, that even though me and John Smith are both Americans, we resemble each other only slightly, in that maybe we both hold the ideals of our parents' parents' generations important, that freedom, progress, and free expression are important, however, sometimes having everyone be in the same boat is really nice.  
• I know a few of you reading this think of me and see the bp that you knew whenever you knew me, but I have changed, as people do, in many ways, and yet I remain the same, as they do as well, in many others.  I do not really pride myself on my arrogance anymore; I do not like to argue really, or prove points by shoving my answer so deep down someone's throat that they can no longer argue back.  People argue so much less here, they get along, they take their time with everything - as though LIFE, and the living of it, really mattered.  They don't see this of course because for them it's normal, daily life, but there is so much less stress about money, about the future, about good colleges or retirement funds or what their neighbors have or what car they drive.... the best way I can say is that people, by and by, seem much more content with life than those I see in the United States, and I live in a pretty crappy town which most people want to leave.
• This next one is tough, because I have seen, truly, only a small part of European culture, or French culture, or to be more specific, northern-French culture, but from what I've seen of youth, while they seem to lack what American youth have in terms of a desire to invent, be rich and famous, make the "next big thing," they make up for in being more well rounded and happier.  I don't see that kids here have as much a problem obeying authority.  They seem to understand that teachers are there to help them, that they're smarter, that adults should be listened to, and that they should try to be normal and fit into society.  While this doesn't give them the freedom of expression and freedom to be "who they are," as we have in the States, it makes everyone a lot nicer, and makes everyone fit into society a lot easier.  I don't see any kids who want to kill themselves, who cut their wrists, who dress in all black and hate the world; and while I would not say that these things are common in the US, there is definitely a big subculture of high school kids that feel lost, feel like they will never amount to anything, that they can't follow their dreams, and are kind of depressed.  I mean, I was never like that in high school, but I knew a lot of kids who were, and I know that a lot of kids NOW are, at an every increasing rate.  Maybe the freedom we give to our youth backfires in a way, giving them too much freedom to "be themselves" as they go through life,  and these ideas, propagated by our media, our television shows that are all about sex, violence, kids disobeying parents, our music, especially rap and hip-hop, that is all about sex, making money, fulfilling sensual and carnal pleasures, and our movies, which always tell stories about people who spent 95% of their lives completely screwing up, then work hard for a thirty-minute music scene and seem to have everything figured out - I can't help but feel like that leaves a vast majority of kids feeling like they've failed when they figure out that they're not like those stars in the films, that they will never become a famous music star, or a basketball player, or come up with the next Google or Apple.  I don't know, maybe resigning your kids to just "be content with having less than everything makes your society better in the end... who knows?  That leads me onto my next point
• I came here thinking that capitalism was better than socialism.  Coffee black and egg white, right?  I spent several months here thinking that, finding allllll the myriad problems that socialism creates, and spent hours telling my students why their economic and political systems left them in the dust.   Last week, something finally dawned on me - that I hadn't asked the original question, ever.  To what end does an economic system perpetuate itself? Does it exist to foster a country where someone has the greatest possibility of becoming rich if they work hard, is its aim that consumers always have the latest and greatest products regardless of who is put out of work to get it, or is the GOAL of the system to make as many people in society have "good enough lives," and to assure that most of your society has its basic needs met?  
  
  I'm kind of at a loss for words as to which is right.   I realize that because of capitalism being so strong in the United States, I have all these possibilities ahead of me in terms of work, I know that I *could*, if I wanted to, work my ass off day and night and become super rich, but what if I don't want that?  If I only want to work 40 hours a week am I resigned to a life that my peers will deem "second-class" because I can't afford the BMW, the nice house, the authentically-made hand-carved table shipped to me from a remote village in Africa or stock my wine cellar with wines that come from grapes that you've never heard of?  
  
  Or instead would it be better for me to be like my neighbor, to not have to worry about who drives a better car, because no one seems to care about that.  To live in a society where "excess" wealth is discouraged, but since more of society is at roughly the same level, people spend less time worrying about college payments, car payments, house payments, debt, and all of the........ extra baggage that seems to go along with the American dream?
  
  See, I don't mean this as a joke against myself, but I've always been a little bit stubborn.  I've always kind of thought I knew best, and I don't think this ever stemmed from arrogance or selfishness, but of an earnest and honest attempt to discover the world around me, live the best way I could, and be smart.  So an honest look at economics and lifestyle led me to fully believe that the more capitalistic a society was, the better.  Lazy people should not get anything, and kids should be encouraged to follow their dreams - I know I was, and I know it was one of the best lectures I gave while being here in France as to why the United States was better - because people have dreams and can pursue them.  I didn't like the fact that kids in France seemed so resigned to boring lives without a lot of materialistic pleasures and couldn't really choose between all of the various paths that we can in the States, but then part of me looks back now and says "well, I know in theory my system seems SO much better - but, but..."  But people seem happier here.  Everyone seems happier here, and this is freaking CALAIS.  It's a piece of crap city.  It's cold, there's "nothing to do," there are two supermarkets, not a ton of selection when it comes to organic food or things from other countries.  There are a few token Asian restaurants, and you can get to the mall in 15 minutes on the bus, but overall, it's a very underwhelming city - or...... it should be.  This place is against everything that I thought I wanted in a city, in life.  It seems that the idea of "keeping up with the Joneses" is SO ingrained into our psyche that we can't live without constantly judging our neighbor on what they have, and judging ourselves on whether we are doing well enough, stressing constantly over it.  Everyone I know seems to be in debt, except a few people who really are doing well and making lots of money.  Everyone here in turn seems to be so much more content, even if they don't have the moon and the stars tucked under their belt.  I see people talking a lot more, people walk everywhere, going through a grocery store checkout line takes forever because everyone talks to the cashier.  Nothing is rushed, there is no one telling you that you're going to be a failure in life because you only got a 3.8 GPA in high school, and to top it off, it's cold and dreary here most of the time - so why is everyone happier?  I see it in kids, I see it in youth, I see it in adults, I see it in people who have jobs we would consider crappy in the United States.  The dude who picks up my trash is always smiling, the woman who runs the fry stand a block from my house is always in a good mood, the teachers i work with seem to be pretty happy, and my kids - a great indicator of honesty - are always polite to me, nice to me, teachers, and other kids, they come to school and they have a good attitude, even if some of them don't give a crap about school or English, and - I don't know - I feel like i am repeating myself, but my overall conscious is that the vast majority of people in a crappy, cold city are happier than almost everyone I see in beautiful sunny San Diego.  There is no debate as to whether or not this is fact - it IS, I just don't know why.
  
  Is it the economic system?  Is it the culture?  Is it the way of life?  The much-less-stress life, the idea that having "enough" is actually something that MOST people believe, that spending time with people and friends, having dinner parties, drinking and smoking a lot more than we do in the States, and believing that life was meant to be enjoyed something that exists all around you?  I duno.  I look at friends who work 60 hours a week, have beautiful houses and cars, but whose only end in life seems to be to have more, and I ask myself "is that what I'll become someday?  If I choose to work in a career that I feel makes me happy, but only makes $35,000 a year, will I be crushed under the guilt that I feel all around me that I've chosen the easy path, the slacker path, the lazy man's path?"  When I look around me in the US, I feel like no one even KNOWS how to be happy sometimes, because everyone is so full of stress, so full of themselves, so full of what the next hottest trend will be.  After living here I don't WANT to spend money to buy a car anymore, I don't WANT to spend $50/month for a cell phone, I spent $250 a month for rent, I MAKE $650 a month, and I live fine!  I'm not rich, but I'm happy.  I can buy food, drink with friends, play WoW, go out a few times a week and play pool, ($2 for 30 minutes?), get a beer at a pub, (another $2), I can buy some new clothes when I need to...... everything just..... seems to work here, and it frustrates me because it hurts my pride, thinking that I came here thinking that France was so much worse than the States and finding in the end that there are a ton of things here that I really LOVE, and maybe if i were to spend another year here, I would come to the conclusion that I never wanted to go back, like Amanda did.  Who knows?

I have plenty more to say, but I think I'll give it a few days of reflection and end this post just shy of a novel. :)

Rebecca

I miss her.

death, love, and walls.

So I'm feeling more comfortable in France.  I've been thinking a lot about all the people I know who moved to the States from another country, and... I guess, as it would be for anyone who goes through something they've never been through before, I feel like I understand what it must have been like for them now.  The hardships, never feeling 'at home,' missing things you never thought you'd miss, hearing your language spoken by someone who is native and like - automatically wanting to be best friends with them in the supermarket or train station...  these used to be foreign concepts to me, but now I see them so clearly.  This trip has changed me - something I rarely like to admit.  I always want to have all the answers to life, and think, since I was young, that I've got "it" figured out, whatever "it" is, but... the longer I live, the more I understand about life, the more I understand the little I truly know.

I think I've started to compile a list of things I'm going to miss about France.  As my time winds down here and the months roll to a close, I'd like to list a few things I've learned to like about France, and the European way of life, that I will miss when I come back to the Land of Debt.

7. Socialism causing people to be nicer to each other.

As much as I disagree with the economic and social policies that surround socialism, since everyone is pretty much in the same boat, they seem to share a common sense of struggle and "middle-class-ness" that you don't find in America.

6. Buses

You know, driving, especially down the PCH late at night, looking at the ocean, smelling the sea, listening to music and singing alot to Jack's Mannequin trying to hit all the notes - I REALLY miss that, and I'm looking forward to being able to drive again, but... I think driving also really isolates people sometimes, and it's pretty expensive.  I've lost a lot of weight here just walking everywhere.  Walking to the bus stop, walking from the nearest stop to my destination, not having to worry about buying a car, servicing it, paying for auto insurance, parking, car washing - paying 1 euro regardless of where i need to go in the city... these are really nice things.  You also talk to people on the bus, when everyone uses it you don't feel anymore like it's just for poor people anymore, but that everyone uses them.  I think in the States busses are only for poor people, because cool people can afford cars.  I like taking the bus now, a lot.

5. Inexpensive Bread

This one's pretty self explanatory, but having entire stores dedicated to the inexpensive sale of bread, (like, 60 cents for a freshly cooked baguette?  seriously?)

4. 2 weeks of vacation for every like... 4 that I work

I think if I had more money, or friends, or car, I could do more with these long vacations - like, in the United States it would be great, but now I pretty much just them to update my facebook status and level my warrior on WoW...  but still, it's really nice that you get so much vacation.  Again, I totally disagree with this as an economic policy, but since I'm not staying in the country very long, I'll work with it.

3. Crocodiles

Pronounced craw-koe-deelz, these little gummy-worm type goodnesses are one euro per bag, and incredible.  However much weight I've lost in France, these little guys are responsible for at least a few staying on me.

2. My job

It's weird... Since I was about 4 I think I wanted to be a teacher of some sort.  I think part of me, (and anyone who knows me will probably agree,) has always liked feeling smarter than others around me.  Though I could write a novel on why this exists, (it's a long story...) a part of me also really likes teaching others things.  I like the real-ness of taking something in my head, passing it on to someone else, and having them be the better from it.  As much as I am a fan of technology and bits and bytes, people still interest me above all else, and it's from interaction with people that I get my greatest satisfaction.  I am going to miss my job, and not because it's the first time in my life I've been "cool" or the object of attention for so many, but because I feel like I am actually doing something.  Whether I am impacting a thousand students or 1, I know that I have given that spark of interest to at least a few young French minds, and that because of me coming to France, their lives will change, maybe a little, maybe a lot, but they will.

1. French

I guess this one is kind of obvious, but I almost forgot it.  These aren't in any particular order, just six random things that I will miss, but French is a big part of it.  You know, I feel that in some ways, my French has improved by leaps and bounds, mostly in my ability to understand it, but I'm not sure how much better my ability to speak has gotten.  I'm sure it has improved a lot, my roommates and students tell me so, but I'm not sure I feel it.  French is a really, really hard language to perfect, and to the French, you either speak the language, or you don't.  There doesn't seem to be any "oh-well-I'm-learning-can-you-cut-me-a-LITTLE-slack?"  But I'm getting closer and closer to being "almost French," (as the title goes...), but I'm far far far from that stage.  I just... I like the language.  It's much harder than Spanish, mainly due to pronunciation issues, and certain slang terms that are hard to pick up, but I like the fact that something is difficult, that it's not just easy to fit into, maybe like it would have been were I to have gone to Spain. 

-------

Death, love and walls.  These words translate into French as "le mort," "l'amour," and "le mur."  The sound in the middle of all of these words are pretty much the same in English, and the third, the "u" in "mur" doesn't exist in English, so when we hear it, we attribute a mixture of two sounds, kind of like the end of the "u" sound in "pure," and the actual "oo" sound in "cool." It's really hard though because these are different sounds in French.  I finally know why Asian people don't laugh at themselves for saying flied lice. :(   One of my favorite classes ever was linguistics, about how language works and is built and how phonemes are heard in different languages (and sometimes different regions,) and this is a total case where I am victim of this.  I have a totally hard time saying these 3 words, but I'm getting better.  The other night I was having a conversation with a guy while I was pretty drunk, and he was wasted, and suddenly I realized that I actually understood what he was saying, and it was SUCH a great feeling.  Feeling that my mind was parsing the individual words at the actual speed they were leaving his mouth, and that I could hear the slang and pick up on it immediately was just... incredible. 

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 :)

I'm sick again.

aGAIN.

Well, maybe "sick" isn't the best word to use. Remember back in my first year at SDSU when I accidentally took my contacts out of my eyes, but they were kind of dry, so I scratched my retina and Kara had to take me to urgent care where the doctor put stuff in my eyes that numbed them so that I could not move them, then proceeded to put this goop in my eyes and made me close them for four days, during which I laid in bed like a gimp? That *may* have happened again. Last night, after taking out my contacts, I felt a sharp pain in my right eye. Today, I had to leave school early and come home because my eye was just super sore, and I kept getting dizzy. Right now, it looks like a huge red blob, and I'm on 1g of paracetamol, so things aren't too bad right now, but I'm really afraid this might turn into what it did last time, which is easily the most painful thing I have ever experienced. NOT good when you're in a foreign country all alone and have a hard time with the language.

Internet and Life. French style.

For better or for worse, I grew up in the Bay Area, and ever since my parents first bought a computer I have been attached to them. I enjoy reading tech news, following the latest trends in technology, and working to get the best technological deals possible. France makes this impossible. We got internet a few days ago, and I realize most of you reading will just skip over this part, but... our internet SUCKS. I had more freedom with AOL in 1996 than I do with their "broadband." Instead of getting a DSL or Cable modem that we hook up and use to connect, France feels that is not socialistic enough, so everyone has to share their broadband too. You get a box that allows you to connect to a local hotspot, along with everyone else from your neighborhood, and I think France feels that using the internet for anything other than email is wrong, so they've blocked all other protocols other than HTTP. This means I can't download anything, play games, use skype, or use instant messenger clients. Yippee! Also, since you're connected to a hotspot, it disconnects you every... oh, half hour or so, so if I'm in the middle of a conversation with someone and all of the sudden it just stops, I have to go and reload the hotspot webpage and type in our code again. Argh. And no one thinks this is out of the ordinary either. They call it "broadband," but I can't even stream video off of youtube! Do you realize how little bandwidth it takes to stream a video off of youtube? No, you probably don't, and no one is probably still reading this.

So, I will move onto more important things.

France continues to frustrate me. I realize the reasons why I moved here. If you know them, great, if not, it's too long a story to type here, but, so much of me is just ready to call it a day and come home. I am not really enjoying myself here. There are parts of my week that I like, but for the most part I'm not DOING anything here. I thought everything would be better. I'm not trying to whine or complain, it's just that I have a girl I love back home, a career I'd like to continue, and no discernible reason why I really want to stay here. I've seen as much of Europe as I have the budget for, and I might go do a little more travel in January or February, but.. I'm just frustrated by everything. My teaching job is par at best. I get along wonderfully with the teachers who are all SO friendly and nice to me, and the students love me. It's fun being at school, because I'm the cool kid, I'm the one everyone wants to get a hello from, and that's always a great feeling, but inside the classroom it's different. I have spent a lot of time talking to the teachers about the problems I see in class, and they agree with me that they are issues.

I think what frustrates me the most is that about 90% of my students just don't care. They don't have a system of language like we do in the States, where you would take "English 1," which covered a certain set of material that you needed in order to be able to take "English 2." The idea of prerequisites also lends itself to math, where you need to know algebra 1 before you take algebra 2 and trig, but... in France, or at least here, nothing works the way it should. Kids go to class based on their age, so when they're 14, they take the english class with all the 14 year olds, then when they're 15 they move onto the 15 year old class. There is no distinction between the kid who tries really hard and the one who doesn't, and it's impossible to teach a class that is in ANY way stimulating or else I'll lose 90% of the students, and the ones who are really smart and enjoy english don't like to speak up because they're afraid of seeming out of place. Socialism is so prevalent here, and my teachers have echoed this to me, that the school believes it is better to give everyone some education rather than give some people a great education and others none. So whether or not the students try is entirely up to them, and it drives my teachers CRAZY. One of them studied in the States and has been pushing for the school to move to some sort of merit-based system so that students who try harder are more rewarded, and teachers can teach classes that are based on some sort of level of knowledge of the language. I'm not holding my breath though.

I mean, last week I had a kid, 17 years old, 5th year student of English, ask me how to say "I don't know." And... I won't lie, part of me wanted to just smack this kid in the face! He has been taking English for FIVE years, FIVE years sitting in a classroom, and the amount asked of him, expected of him, or forced upon him has been SO little that he needs to ask me how to say THE most basic question that every single student in the world learns the first week in class. Other times, I am working with my students and I have a set of vocabulary written up on the board, or on the handout I give them, and as we're reading the story, I ask "Okay, now did everyone understand that sentence?" I get no answers, just blank stares, so I say it in French, to which they reply, (usually in French), "no, we don't understand what this word means," and I say, "well it's written at the bottom of your sheet, I've GIVEN you the translation, can someone look at the bottom of their page and tell me what it means?" Nothing. They just sit there, like effing logs, and do nothing! They are so used to not having to try at ALL, and not being forced to try, that they don't. They expect so little of themselves and are content with so little that it makes me sad. They know that once they get out of high school, life for each of them will pretty much be the same. I have asked them what they want, all 100 of my students or so, and about 95% have said they want a normal, average life. They want to get married, have a small house and a car, nothing too impressive, "whatever my neighbors have," is an answer I've commonly gotten. I come from a place where the 12 year old Asian kids at my junior high were taking classes at De Anza so they could get ahead, where SMART was respected, and where hard work paid off, and it just... as you can tell, drives me crazy to see only one or two of my classes have students that really try, and really care about doing something in life. The others know that if they make 20k a year, they can live, and that all their medical expenses and every big thing is covered in their taxes already, so all desire to try is just completely removed from them. It really pisses me off.

Other than that, I'm trying to plan my holidays! Rebecca is coming out to visit me for Christmas, and I'm overjoyed. I can't wait! I'd really like to do something around here, but there really is nothing here in the city. I'm not upset about where I've been placed, because I know that I'm here for a reason, and I've had a lot of time to think about life, and think about myself and.. just.. stuff, but I really wish I were in the south of France so I could see France in the glory that many people have talked about. I went up to Brussels last weekend, and that was beautiful, and my friends and I also took a trip to Brugge last month that was beautiful. We got to take a horse and carriage ride, and see a lot of pretty buildings and things that were a thousand years older my country - it was so interesting! I would love to go up further, into the Netherlands, (dude that SO sounds like a zone in WoW doesn't it?) and check out the cities there. I just found out that prostitution is legal in Amsterdam - not that I plan on USING it, just thought I'd point that out for those of you who didn't know that.

I think this is more of an internal struggle for me than I can express here, but I am having a hard time staying here. I don't really enjoy my job, I am not finding Europe as this "centre of culture" that everyone talks about, and I know that it's because of the part of France I am in, and not because the country lacks culture. I am not naive. I found Paris beautiful and lovely, but, since coming here, I just haven't been enjoying myself. I guess the bigger question is "Am I here to enjoy myself?" I thought i was... I thought this was supposed to be a really fun and happy time where I got to do a bunch of stuff, but I never have any money so I never travel, everything is expensive and a lot of people seem to always be... on the downside of life. People, many people, ask me why I came to Calais, that no one likes it here, that I got the worst part of France... it's tough hearing that kind of stuff everyday. So half of me is just telling me to leave, to go home after Christmas and forget the second half of this trip. I would SO much rather be back home, working in the States, starting my career back up, being home with the people I love, being comfortable again. Yet, the other half tells me I have to stick this out. This is not a series of sentences whose aim is to show that obviously I must choose the latter, that, despite all, I must stick this out, because that is the obvious answer. There is no obvious answer to me right now. I will probably stay, if nothing else, out of guilt to everyone who helped me, bought me things, encouraged me, and gave me support during the months leading up to this trip, I can't disappoint them all, you know? I duno, I'll have to wait a bit longer and see where this voyage takes me.