Who's the Boss? (Madame est Servie)

So I’ve left the family I’ve been living with and I have moved into an apartment on the complete opposite side of town. Now that I’m gone I feel more comfortable going into detail about the living situation I have been dealing with for the past two weeks. Back at the beginning, it was originally agreed that I could live and eat with them for free in exchange for looking after the 12 year-old daughter between the hours that the daughter got back from school and when the mother came home from work. It was first conveyed to me that these hours would be between 5 and 7 pm Monday through Friday. Saturdays and Sundays I would have to myself. I was also asked to give the daughter some English lessons from time to time. I thought to myself, “Hey this isn’t so bad, maybe this can work.” We did a 15 day trial and it went downhill from day one.

First, the mother doesn’t come home at 7. She comes home anytime between 7:30 and 8:30. After I’d moved in the mother then told me that there might be one evening a week where she would like to maybe hang out with a friend and that I would be ‘asked’ to babysit the kid. Umm...ok. Then she told me she has Tai Chi lessons on Wednesday nights so I was ‘asked’ to stay here for that. Next, the daughter also has Judo lessons on Tuesday nights from 6:45 to 8:15 and I was ‘asked’ to drop her off and pick her up - or even bring a book if I felt so inclined to stay and watch! Yippee. Then they found out I could play guitar and the mother ‘suggested’ that I give her guitar lessons. In short the responsibilities started piling up and it didn’t take much more for me to decide that I was leaving as soon as I could. However things reached a bizarre climax last Tuesday when I was in my room working and the mother called me down for dinner. When I walked downstairs she approached me, basically cornering me, and said that she didn’t feel like I was doing my part, that I was in my room a lot, that this is not what she was expecting from me - or something like that. I wish I could remember the exact words, but all I can recall is me nervously and continuously unbuttoning and buttoning my sleeves on my shirt. I started feeling awkwardly guilty and went straight to emptying the dishwasher and setting the table.

So. Yeah. I got the fuck out.

I have now moved into a new apartment in the Debourg neighborhood in the South-Eastern side of Lyon. I feel really luck to have found the place that I did. The same night the mother had a ‘word’ with me, I went to my room and immediately started looking up ads. My 20 day paid membership to appartager.com had expired so I was forced to see what I could scrounge up on the free websites. In my experience those ads go fast and they are few and far between. I saw a couple on lyonweb.net that were a few days old and I honestly didn’t think I had a chance in hell, but I wanted to feel productive so I replied anyway. To my surprise one wrote back and we scheduled a meet-up at the apartment. Despite my tardiness due to missing a bus and getting lost on the way, she greeted me kindly, offering beer and amicable conversation. Oh and her 5 year-old daughter threw up in her bed.

A couple days later, we both agreed to living together and here I am! It is a beautiful, modern apartment in a brand new building that is actually in Lyon (unlike the last place) and is walking distance from the Gerland soccer Stadium. I also have really enjoyable roommates. First there’s the woman I’ve been talking about: Aurélie, 33, who is currently going back to school for her diplôme petite enfance (Young Childhood Diploma) and who has been nothing but kind towards me. For example, she drove me to the family’s house to pick up my suitcases and bring them back to the apartment! And then she went to Ikea and picked up furnishings and wants me to look at the catalogue and pick out a desk for myself (!!!) So there’s us two and then our half roommate in the form of her daughter, Alicia, who stays with us every other week. Unlike the last place, I have no obligations towards the care of her child. So I get to play with the little squirt until I get sick of her and shoo her away to go back to my important adult activities. Like blogging. And soccer.

In conclusion, I don’t know what I did to deserve such an incredible turn of events, but after the debacle of these past few weeks, I am not complaining. Now I need to pack my stuff, because French schools are on vacation now and I’m heading out of town!

PS: Down below is an interactive map of my neighborhood. That building you see there is my new home!

View Larger Map

Epinal Sweet Epinal

At the age of 14, I moved to France and lived there for five years. When I tell people this story, they tend to immediately ask me where it was I lived. My usual answer is simply Strasbourg. It’s a straight forward and simple answer but it’s only 3/5ths true. The other 2/5ths of the truth is Epinal. My first taste of France. What is Epinal? It’s the Lancaster, Ohio of France.

I associate that town with what was probably the worst period of my life. Had I been able to speak more than 5 words of French before I arrived, I might have developed a more favorable attitude towards that city. But alas, I was dumped in the middle of nowhere France with zero knowledge of the French language, dumped in an all-French school with French kids who spoke as little English as I do Spanish. It became clear to me in those two years how important communication is for human beings. Not only is it important logistically like ordering a drink or telling members of your tribe where a herd of elk are frolicking. It is also crucial for us on such a primitive and raw level of human social interaction. If one can’t communicate, one feels isolated, alone, frustrated. Just look at the deaf community and the frustrations they describe in dealing with a world that takes spoken language for granted. I learned this lesson the first year I was in France. In Epinal. In truth, my time there was difficult but it must be said that it was a time of self-discovery and a serious exercise in patience and appreciation. If I could go back, I would definitely have told my younger self to study his French more instead of mopping around, but I wouldn’t have told him to head back to Ohio.

Back to the present day, I returned to Epinal this past weekend to pick up the bag I’d sent with my mom back in June. She and my step-father went on vacation with some friends they’re still in contact with who live in Epinal and handed the bag to them. It was then my responsibility to come and pick it up. Looking back, I probably should have really, really, skimped down on my packing and brought both bags with me. Mais bon. Coulda woulda shoulda. The trip was short, cold, and wet, but in the end, enjoyable. I was fed until the lining of my stomach was bursting, I saw a couple old friends whom I haven’t seen in over a decade, I took a tour of a local chocolatier and stuffed myself with chocolate. I walked around and saw what had changed. What hadn’t. I was also surprised by how nice people are here. I had gotten used to the French people you experience in Paris and in Lyon and it’s easy to forget that there are people who aren’t affected by the hustle and bustle of large city living. During the tour of the chocolate shop, people would kindly move out of the way to let other people get samples. They would pass the plate samples around and excuse themselves if they didn’t see you behind them. They’d hear my accent and ask where I was from and would get excited when they heard I was American and asked what in the world I was doing there. It seemed really refreshing and it made me wish more French people would be like that.

Perhaps a trip back may be in the works. But I would need a really good reason because, quite honestly, there’s still a lot of Europe I haven’t yet seen. Epinal? Been there, done that.

PanaTechniRamaVisionScope A.O. 70

I made a few panoramas today. Enjoy.

My posse

The air is getting brisk. The leaves are turning. Autumn is upon us and my winter clothes are still in Epinal. Gotta work on that...aka I'm freezing my couilles off.

Today's update is a quick one: a photo of my fellow English and German Lyon primary school assistants taken today at our orientation.

Employed/Homeless

So there’s been a lot of stuff happening since my last update. First let’s talk about the housing situation. En gros it’s been an absolute nightmare. I’ve found plenty of people advertising spaces or looking for roommates. I’ve visited a good number of places as well. The only problem is that nothing happens after that. Either they find someone they like better or they want half my salary for a room the size of a bathroom. Hell, one man even replied to me simply with, “I’m not interested.” I’m not the only one in the boat here. I know at least a half dozen other assistants who are still looking for housing and who, at the moment, are crashing at friends’, their principals’ place or, God forbid, the youth hostel. There was one individual who sent out a message on our Facebook group asking if he could crash with someone since he was sick of the hostel.

At least the public transportation system is up and running back to normal.

Continuing on, one of the principals I work with was kind enough to put up an ad inquiring if there were any families in the area with an extra room to house a foreigner. One such family came forward and we talked and I am now in the middle of a 15 day trial to see how everything fares. Here’s the gist: I am living and eating here for free in exchange for looking after the 12 year old daughter between the hours she gets out of school and the hours the mother returns from work (between 5 and 7/8pm). How is it going? Um...I’ll tell you at the end of the trial period.

I also started my first day of teaching. This past week I was just merely observing the classrooms and getting a better feel for the students and their level of English. I was amazed how comfortable I was in up there in the classroom. I wasn’t nervous or scared or worried; it just felt natural. Some of you know that I’ve already spent 2 years of my life teaching various subjects at this grade level so I feel as though...well...I have this one in the bag.

Casse-tête

I’ve sort of started working (I’m just observing classes at the moment) but I do have a better idea of how my year is going to play out so here are the facts: I’ll be making €786.54 a month after taxes ($1,146.46). I’ll have health insurance (thank you socialized medicine!). I work 12 hours a week. Four and a half hours are spread over 3 different elementary schools - Ecole Montessuy, Ecole Albrecht and Ecole Herriot - in a little suburb north of Lyon called Caluire-et-Cuire where I’ll be teaching CE2, CM1, CM2 (respectively 3rd, 4th and 5th grade). In each school, I’m to give two 45 minute English lessons in two different classes on Mondays and Thursdays. Do the math and you find that I have 6 different classes that see me once a week for 45 minutes. In addition to that, 6 hours a week are dedicated to me working in Lyon where I’ll be creating and aiding in the creation of audio-visual adult English tools. At least I think.

The latter half of my job is rather confusing so I’ll probably be revising what I’m writing right now but as it stands I have to work 180 hours with them between now and July 2nd. 124 of these hours are steady. We meet for 3 hours each week Tuesday afternoon where I’ll be meeting with my bosses and aiding them in creating audio-visual sequences aiding in the teaching of English as a foreign language*. These meetings will add up to 90 hours total. Then 18 hours will be spent doing Linguistic workshops on the following dates: October 14th, 21st, January 6th, 13th, March 10th, and 31st. My guess is that I’ll be speaking English to a bunch of adults in a classroom... but I’m not too sure. Then for 6 hours I’ll be working in an “Internship workshop” on April 7th and 28th (whatever that means). And finally I’ll be writing a monthly one-page newsletter on whatever topic I want. They gave me one hour for each newspaper so that adds up to 9 hours.

Is you head hurting yet? Now those are the STEADY hours. There are still 57 hours that are still up in the air and my bosses aren’t even sure when I’ll need to be there nor in what capacity. On the sheet they gave me, they noted “Participation in visual communication exchanges, or the application of new technologies in foreign language classes, time needed to prepare workshops, creation of resources: recordings etc..”

In short, it’s going to be a very interesting year and I’m sure my agenda book will be saturated with ink.

In other news, I’m still looking for a place to stay but things seem to be winding down and I think that I should have a place here really soon. (crosses fingers) More on that later when I actually have my clothes out of the suitcase.

*Did John goad the ox with a poker?