Catching Up

As much as I love to write, I now remember why I didn't do it while I was working in Baltimore. Teaching full time is really time consuming and even when I have a few extra minutes here and there, I a so tired, all I want to do is watch Mot de Passe and nap on the couch. I am only semi-conscious as we speak but it's about time I did a little update.

October:
After some initial inconsistencies in my schedule, things settled into a regular groove and that has helped my sanity tremendously. Glad that got sorted out. My classes are 90% awesome. I have one group that is not super bright and yet there is this handful of guys that think they can just chit chat and giggle to themselves the whole class. Umm... you're sophomores in college. Why are you behaving like my high school students? It's annoying. Otherwise, I am really impressed by my students and I am very much enjoying my job. I have a purpose! And money. Money is nice to have, too.

Jason and I took advantage of the wine harvest season to do some touring around a couple area vineyards. The tour to the Médoc region was just okay, and we learned that their wines are not our favorites, but the harvest day in the Blaye region was wonderful. It was just the two of us and our guide coming up from Bordeaux and we met up with a group of 30ish locals to pick grapes in the field inside the 17th century citadel. No big deal. The rain this year was catastrophic for the grapes so our job was pretty easy. Our day also included a wine tasting, followed by a delicious lunch (including wine), and then a tour of a bottling facility, followed by more wine tasting. And as payment for our work in the fields in the morning, we both got to take home... wait for it.... a bottle of wine. Best value tour EVER.

 

 

My mom came to visit, making her our first real guest, and it was a lovely time. Originally, she had only planned to come for a week but then decided to make it two and do some traveling: four days in Bordeaux, three in Edinburgh/Glasgow, two in London, and back to Bordeaux for four more. It was right during my fall break so the timing couldn't have been more ideal. We did all the good stuff: Dune du Pyla/Arcachon, visited some chateaux in the Graves region, St. Emilion, le petit train tour of the city... Good times! But I think the truly notable part of this whole visit was that my dear mother was able to get around Scotland and England all by herself. My dad has been dragging his feet getting a passport and my mom just couldn't wait any longer. I am immensely proud of her for building this adventure for herself. She came back from the UK with that glow that people get when they travel for the first time and it was wonderful.

 

 


I didn't have much time to break during fall break because as soon as my mom left, I had a weekend full of TFA phone interviews to conduct. Even though it was a bit intense, I feel like I really learned a lot from doing them. Some of the questions made me really think about my own answers and it just reminds me why I got into teaching in the first place. TFA is always good for giving me a little inspiration when I need it.

And now here we are in November.

The weather is getting colder and the rain is back. I'm not sure it ever really left, actually. It was just less intense for a couple months and now it's back to raining almost everyday. Why didn't anyone tell me it was so wet here? I was promised that the constant rain was completely atypical and that it would be better soon. Lies. I suppose I shouldn't complain because it didn't rain this weekend and it is neither unbearably cold nor insufferably hot. On the bright side, if we ever need some sun, Spain is right around the corner.

This past weekend we were in Brussels, which was really fun. Good beer, good food, good people. It was cold and raining (we brought the weather from Bordeaux) but it was a nice time all the same. Look at all this neat stuff we saw!

Classes are winding down quickly (these semesters are so short!) and my course load is looking a little bit lighter for the spring. Hopefully, that will mean that I can pick up some classes at the CEL, which are much smaller and a lot closer to home. I am happy to take whatever work I can get. This weekend was very social: Had a new friend for dinner on Friday night, went out to watch the rugby game last night and had our buddies over for football this evening. I keep telling myself I am going to use my weekends to get ahead for school but it's hard when you have people that you want to spend time with. This is a good problem to have.

Consciousness is leaving me so I will be on my way. À la prochaine!

Bon Anniversaire

A little over a year ago, I was moving out of the Red Door Inn, the home I had made for myself for the last 4 years. As I was leaving my keys with the new roommate, I felt this pang of sadness, much like you feel at the end a book that you were really enjoying. You're glad to have read it and it had to come to end eventually, but you're going to miss the story. And what stories the walls of that house could tell...

But it was onward up and upward (or just around the corner) for a few months before the big move to France. That summer was a difficult one. There were so many unanswered questions about when we would be leaving and what I was going to do when I got there. Jason wasn't exactly helping the situation with his indecision, though some of it was out of his control, and we fought. He didn't want me to go, and I didn't necessarily want to be in France all on my own but I couldn't stay in Baltimore with nothing to do for an unknown amount of time. I had to go.

A year ago, I was packing all of my worldly possessions into boxes and bags, some to be put aside for later, some to be given away and a special select few got to make the trip across the ocean with me. Those last few days at my parents' house were bizarre, this strange sort of limbo where we were all waiting for what was sure to be something big but we didn't really know what it would be. Looking back on it, I'm not really sure I was excited at that point. I had spent all of my emotions in the weeks leading up to that day and I mostly felt numb. Just get there in one piece.

364 days ago, I had never been to Bordeaux. I had forgotten most of the French I learned once upon a time and it had been years since I had stepped foot inside of a classroom where I wasn't the one giving instruction. I lived in a dorm room in Mérignac and I didn't know a soul in the entire country of France. The whole country! Maybe that's why I wasn't excited. Because I knew what lay ahead would be immensely stressful, lonely and just plain hard.

Fast forward to today. So much has changed since those first moments in France. I am fluent in the French language. I live in a cool apartment right in the heart of Bordeaux with the man I love. I know great places to get good wines for good prices. I have a favorite type of cheese that isn't Swiss or cheddar. I could tell you the best way to get across town from wherever you are (but only if you're taking public transit). I have a job that I enjoy and friends to hang out with on the weekends. I am fairly knowledgeable about French cuisine.

I don't quite know how to explain the intangible changes within me, though. So much about my identity has been shifted this year. I am not French but I don't know if I'm really American anymore, either. I am reading a book whose title translates to "How I Became French" and I can identify with each one of the stories. I no longer fit into nice boxes. In order to integrate into French society, do I have to give up a bit of my American-ness? Am I less like those who share a common birthplace because of my time masquerading as another nationality? Can I ever truly assimilate? Do I have the right to be here and pretend I belong?

What I have found in this last year is that I don't know the answer to any of those questions any better than when I came. The longer I'm here, the more complicated it gets. Bordeaux is my home, the home Jason and I have made together. The US is where I was born and my family and friends are there but it doesn't feel like the same place it once was to me. It has become the place I visit once a year for the holidays. Of course I look forward to going there but I feel like a stranger now. I have to be conscious of how much I talk about France for fear of being that obnoxious ex-pat who can't shut up about their fabulous new life abroad.

But what else do I have to talk about? It's my life. I'm not on vacation, I'm at home. That's the hardest part: A year later, I am still trying to explain that I am not just a tourist, both to the French and to my family and friends back in the US. A year later, I am in another limbo where again, I  am waiting. I am waiting to figure out who I am, who I have become. But, unlike a year ago, I am not numb. I am alive.

Happy anniversary, Bordeaux.