Hugs And Misses

The past few weeks have found me no longer in my hour of enchantment; rather, I've passed through some quite different phases that approach disillusionment and often result in discouragement. Of course, this is all to be expected. There is nothing that I describe here that hasn't already been researched and documented in a study or a guide somewhere; I'm ultimately just another statistic. Everyone hates everything sometimes when living in a foreign country. I'd be a fool not to.

Supplementary to my teaching job, I am now au pair. Despite its French etymology, the term au pair also exists for us in English. I speculate that its usage originates from the old French circa 1100 when the Normans were beating up the English and changing their language in the North, at which time au pair most likely denoted an Anglophone who took shit from French people for a living. Some odd centuries later, I am a live-in childcare provider who is thrust to the brink of sanity by unruly French children who recognize me as their au pair. Coincidence, I think not.

In short, these children drive me nuts. I'm simply not cut out for a life of cooking and cleaning and taking responsibility for small, needy people 5 plus days a week. My experience as a babysitter, teacher, and daycare employee in the States has evidently failed to prepare me for the love of au pairship. Lord knows I need the money, but my sanity has not gone unscathed.

On the other hand, thanks to the au pair job, I'm now speaking French better than ever. Of course, this assertion means next to nothing, considering that last evening's linguistic proceedings alone resulted in public embarrassment and the subsequent loss of respect that inevitably accompanies such spectacles of social inelegance. In my English-loving mind, a kindly waiter's recommendation to flick a light switch on the wall behind me translated into an invitation to wipe my soggy hands on a stack of clean white placemats hung up outside a restaurant bathroom. Upon the realization that this hand towel was strangely nonabsorbent and coated with plastic, I sensed the weight of my error in the server's polite but irrepressible laughter and the sight of Jessi concealing her face in shame at our table a couple of feet away. If they wanted to, Jessi and the waiter could have bonded together and fashioned a friendship founded on the entertainment that I unwillingly provided. The waiter could have then proposed that they take their friendship elsewhere and escorted Jessi out the front door as she soundlessly mouthed her apologies before treading into the night. There I would sit, hungry and alone, possessing neither friends nor curried lentils in this vacant Indian restaurant in this unsympathetic foreign country. Here was strike 1 million in my quest to live a normal embarrassment-free life in France. Well, it's natural that Parisians would laugh at me. The way I see it, this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with their inability to handle the level of cultural diversity that I bring to the table. I don't need them because I never really had them. Excommunication from Paris's North American element, however, could prove fatal.

The lightswitch/placemat fiasco aside, I do talk prettier now, even if my expanded vocabulary is antagonistic in nature and revolves around things you might have to threaten to tell someone's mother.


Aurèle, Jules, and Octave, ages 2, 6, and 8 respectively. They only appear harmless.


In other news, today marks the beginning of the return to normalcy in Paris's metropolitan transit network after almost 3 weeks of striking. During the strike, on the days where I even made it to work at all, 1 post-school day commute equaled 2 local buses, 1 regional commuter train, and 2 metro lines. Then and only then would I arrive back home where I was free to watch after and prepare dinner for 3 children. Unlike when I reprimand Aurèle at the dinner table for eating with his fingers, I didn't even feign concern over the kids' excessive TV watching; that would require too much energy. As long as they're drooling over cartoons and not porn, I have no objections. I'm only here for a month, so I prefer to leave it to the next au pair to instill good, healthy habits that don't entail hours of inactivity and irreparable optical injury .

So in the end, the syndicalists are back to work, Nicolas Sarkozy is still an asshole, and I no longer have to allot 3 hours to my morning commute. Sarkozy, right-wing president extraordinaire, still has a few enemies across this nation, among them transit, postal, and energy workers, teachers, students, etc. His government's approach to reducing fiscal spending includes pension changes, salary cuts, and plans to open up French universities to more private funding. As a native of the land of capitalism and private property, I see and fear where this may end. Therefore, my sympathies go to the syndicalists and young people who reject the American model in favor of something, anything not so merciless. Afterall, I reject it too.


Typical chaotic Paris metro scene during the strike, this one at Gare du Nord, taken from BBC News.


In closing,

I miss:

-Philly
-friends
-having clothes to wear
-vegetarian food à la Kingdom of Vegetarians
-second-hand stores
-people who get why I would shop at second-hand stores
-pizza
-Netflix
-numbered streets
-PBR
-forming coherent sentences
-Whole Foods
-cheap stuff
-sunshine and shortpants
-hoagies
-the Italian Market
-baking
-house parties (minus the cops)
-familiarity


I have:

-new everything

-Paris

-François

-new buddies

-visits from old buddies

-boulangeries/patisseries

-new apartment


-French language


-French keyboard


-pain au chocolat


-Pop In


-cafés


-Les Deux Mondes


and a newfound appreciation for all the things that I miss.