metro adventure

remember that time i sprained my ankle running to catch the metro as it was leaving? yeahh that was me yesterday afternoon, crawling on all fours to make it into the train after i fell down since i was wearing boots and stepped on not-so-flat ground. i actually really wish there had been a video camera, and i think in a few days i will be able to laugh at myself more (i'm giggling a little now). the only problem now is that my ankle is sprained, i did not go to Paris this weekend as planned, and I am now in Marseille, living on a hill with a bajillion steps to get home, on crutches. All righttt.
but hey, makes life interesting right? i learned some new vocab words to describe my injury, and i'm experimenting with European anti-inflammatory medications. my only huge concern right now apart from getting to and from school is how to get my ankle stable enough before heading to Morocco in a week. I think it's not a terrible sprain - I'm gonna classify it as a "medium" sprain, since i know i've had worse. i'm hoping and praying that it heals very quickly!
nora was really awesome, and i was so happy she was there with me when i hurt myself. besides the fact that we completely cracked up about how ridiculous i looked crawling into the metro in France, she helped me limp around downtown and buy a cheap pair of flat shoes (i was still wearing heels at that point) and then she was "mommy nora" and gave me money to take a taxi and all of that. it was very sweet! also, camille was so sweet when i got home and i was really disappointed about Paris and worried about losing all my money for the weekend and stuff. she exchanged my ticket for me, which was awesome, and helped me get all my stuff downstairs and put ice on my ankle and stuff. my host mom and dad came home and called their son, who is a doctor, to ask what we should do, and then they gave me medicine and crutches.
aside from all that, i got back some midterm grades this week, and i'm happy. i also looked up all of my stuff for my schedule when i get back to Muhlenberg, and i should be all set with credits and requirements and stuff. i'll be taking two dance classes in the fall to fulfill my art credit, which i'm excited for, and also taking intro Spanish classes! i'm going to try to test into an elementary II spanish class if I can, but i think I will have to talk to the professor to figure all of that out.
so maybe it's good that i have a weekend in my bed? i filled out an application for AmeriCorps volunteer work next year - it's a program where you do 300 hours of community service during a year and get awarded some money to help pay for "educational expenses" which is great news for me. i also am looking into/applying for internships, so that's a good thing for me to be doing right now too. maybe this is just a good break for me to kind-of get things in order instead of sightseeing in Paris. it was also supposed to be very rainy in Paris this weekend, so i'm hoping for better weather in May.

people get ready, there's a train a coming...

Bonsoir tout le monde! so I've been going a little crazy since midterms week with work, especially since I'm heading to Paris this weekend. I got back my Arabic midterm and got an A on it, and I got an A on my journalistic portrait for French Linguistics. Still waiting back on the other 4 midterms - hopefully I'll know tomorrow.
Let's see...I went to see a WWII movie with Camille, my host sister, last weekend. It was wicked fun, and it was actually one of the better WWII movies I've seen. I'm going to recommend it to Madame Wixon when I get back to use for her 20th Century french course. I went to see another part of the Callanques with my host dad yesterday (he took me in his car) and also this really cool park. I think I'll try to get my friend Nora to go there with me sometime - there was this island you could swim to, which just seems perfect and picturesque to me.
I've been struggling with some of the generalizations made in class by the professors here, especially the director, so we had a whole discussion today about the difference between stereotypes and generalizations and which ones require context and which ones can move and be more flexible and change with more points of view. It was interesting, and I think I understand more now the "French" way to look at generalizations, which is to imply context and understand that it's all just tenancies and that it doesn't apply to everyone. The American style, which I definitely prefer, is to add qualifiers, like "MOST people do this" or "People OFTEN do this" or "IN GENERAL, this". I prefer that to just an inference in my head, and I find it intriguing that a culture that is so rooted in structure and language wouldn't value precision of words as much in this case. I guess it's more of a precision of the definition of a generalization, and the precision of how the word "generalization" is internalized and conceptualized by the French. Anyways, it was a little bit of a tense discussion since all we American students have been struggling with the generalizations proposed to us, so I'm glad that discussion cleared things up a little bit, and I hope that it makes the class discussions more fruitful.
I did a presentation this morning on everyday life in Israel during the Gaza War from Dec 2008-Jan 2009. I've never really studied the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and we started a 3-week unit today in my Middle Eastern Political Developments. My preliminary analysis says both sides are crazy, but I'm pretty sure we're studying this in a really neutral fashion, which I'm very grateful for. We're studying both sides, so another student did a presentation on everyday life in Palestine during the same time period, and it was amazing how different the information was. There's so much emotion and energy surrounding both sides that I imagine it's difficult to sift through, but our professor is awesome with staying neutral and explaining complicated situations, so I'm excited.
Anyways, heading to Paris by TGV (train) tomorrow night - leaving Marseille at almost midnight, arriving in Paris at 7:30 am. I'll be spending all day Saturday and all day Sunday, then taking another night train to come back Sunday evening, arriving at 5am Monday morning and hopefully sleeping and showering before class at 9. Woo! Should be NUTS, I'll update with pictures and everything!

A visitor from NJ

bonjour! This week is midterms week, so I took half of one yesterday and my first real French midterm exam this morning. Both were pretty straight-forward, but I expect the final 3 to be tougher. I have a French culture one on Thursday and an advanced grammar one on Friday, so those will be a challenge for sure.
Dave was here last week! It was completely fantastic; we had such a good time. We went out in the harbor and saw the islands that are right off the coast, but unfortunately the Chateau d'If was closed...I'll have to go back another time for sure. But Dave and I walked around on the other islands, and we explored this huge old fort with absolutely INCREDIBLE views of Marseille. I would hate to be a ship trying to attack anything within 50 miles of the city, haha. Pretty intense view, and lots of remnants of cannons, so I imagine the city was well-protected.
We also went out to eat at two fantastic restaurants - one on Monday and one on Friday. The one on Monday night was great because we got to sit on the second floor right next to the window, so we had a nice view of the Vieux Port area. The food was also really delicious; except stupid little French student here ordered her steak medium because she got the vocab wrong- haha. The Moroccan restaurant on Friday night was equally fantastic, since I'd already been there before and knew exactly what was good to order. We were ridiculously stuffed afterwards, so we walked around and then went to see Ghost Writer with my host sister, Camille.
Speaking of Camille, she proved herself to be an adequate english speaker, since she's been studying it in school and getting good grades. She practiced with Dave, which was funny for me to be on the other side of learning a language, since Camille is always helping me with French or making fun of me for silly errors. Dave also spoke some Italian with my host parents, and he picked up a surprising amount of French while he was here (I was so proud!).
Overall it was pretty amazing to be in another country with him, but it definitely made me homesick since it was so nice not only to spend time with him, but to speak in English and feel like myself again. I have a good enough handle on the French language to have a personality and joke around, but truly, the culture is different enough that there are a few things each day that remind you that you aren't in the US, and you're not quite acting like yourself in order to fit into the culture.
I'm having some issues with the administration here, since they are seeming to control more and more things, including how we perceive our own country and France. I think at the beginning I just listened to everything that was taught without questioning it, but now that I've lived here and experienced the culture, I'm finding many of the generalizations made not only about France but about the US rather "genant" (frustrating, irritating). I'm trying to let things go and just concentrate on learning and taking what is said with a grain of salt, but there are definitely some things that I'm struggling to brush aside.
Other that the University, I honestly really enjoy living here. My host family is very nice, I love my host sister Camille (we're all watching House tonight together - haha never watched it in the US but I'm watching it every week here). This weekend I'm supposed to help my host mom out with her garden, which I'm excited about. I like Marseille a lot; it's so beautiful. Right now there's a garbage strike (oh the French with their strikes), so there's lots of piled up trash and the streets are pretty dirty, but even with that, I don't mind it. It's cool to be able to walk lots of places and see all sorts of different people and stores and everything. This morning I went for a nice long run next to the Mediterranean Sea - whatttt!? I feel so lucky to be able to do exciting things like that.
Anyways I'm getting really hungry so I think it's time for baguette and mozzarella (tell me i can't mix French and Italian culture at lunchtime)!
Miss you guys!

Anyone ever heard of harassment laws?

I’m struggling with French men, culturally, so I guess it’s time to explore that. I didn’t want to write about this necessarily because it’s kind of weird, but it kind-of came to a point 2 nights ago, so I guess it’s time.
I don’t understand the part of French culture that allows men to openly speak to women in the streets the way that they do. We were told that European men in general are more forceful in their advances, and that we shouldn’t be surprised to get a few comments yelled at us or to be approached in the street. I have been yelled at from across the street, I have had a car stop to tell me I was “trop belle” (too beautiful), I have had kisses blown at me, I have had men ask me for information, as in (in my eyes) directions or something, then just turn it into saying “how is it that you’re so pretty”, and now, as of 2 days ago, I have been actually physically touched. I was walking home from a Taize church service on Monday night, and I was about 5 minutes away from my house, walking up the hill. 4 guys (probably a little drunk) came out of a bar on my street and starting walking directly towards me coming from the opposite direction. One of them broke away from the others and came towards me, rather quickly. I had seen them from a few seconds away, so I was trying to move to the other side of the sidewalk to avoid them, but he followed me and said, in English, “I love you”, which caught me off guard because it made me wonder if he knew that I was American, and how he knew that. Then he started speaking in French, calling me “ma cherie” (my darling) and all of his friends start saying it too. I was trying to just keep walking, but he came towards me as he was saying all of this and he grabbed me by my elbow, not super gently. I obviously panicked, but I just shook him off and kept walking and didn’t say anything. Looking back, I probably could’ve yelled at him in French or hit him or whipped out my mace or whatever, but my goal was just to get back to my house and get away from them as quickly as possible. I guess in my fight or flight instinct, I was definitely in flight mode. Anyways I walked the rest of the way home as quickly as possible and as soon as I got into the house I lost it. My host mom was like “what’s wrong?” and I was trying to explain to her in French as I’m freaking out. She was ready to go, asking if they were down by our house or if the bar was still open and all this stuff, haha. She was gonna go kick some ass, I think. Anyways, it shook me up a little bit because, as I tried to explain to my host mom, in the United States, I’m not used to guys coming up to me and openly talking to me or trying to get my number or stuff like that. Maybe I haven’t spent enough time in New York or in a big city, but it seems much more forceful here. I’m also culturally trained that if a guy advances like that, there’s kidnapping or rape in the back of my mind, especially since he grabbed my arm.
So I understand the basic cultural principle behind the whole thing, or I understand it as explained by the director of my program during the first week of orientation, which may or may not be accurate. In the United States, we see our bodies as solely ours, and we value independence, so we wear whatever we want on our bodies, but our space remains our own. In the United States, you get dressed in the morning for you, so if you want to get dressed up and look nice, or if you want to wear a dress or a skirt, you are wearing it for you. In France, according to Madame Sellé, when you get dressed in the morning, you get dressed for everyone else. If you want to look nice and wear nice clothes, you want to impress others, and you are wearing the clothes for others, not for you. As such, your body is not just your own, so if someone notices that you have a nice body or that you’re wearing nice clothes, they are culturally allowed to make a comment about it or try to talk to you.
I understand all of this. I’m not sure if I explained it well enough, but in my head it makes sense. My problem is that I work very hard to make sure that the clothes that I wear are very modest, but over here, with the attention I get, I feel like I must be being immodest or acting in a way that attracts attention. My whole goal in preparing for France in terms of my wardrobe was to blend in and to be conservative in my dress so as not to attract attention. As such, each time I draw attention, I worry about whether the shirt I’m wearing was too tight and that was why these guys said something to me, or whether I look like a foreigner, or whether I accidentally smiled at this guy or whatever. I’m just sick of the attention, and I feel like that sounds snotty, but it’s the truth over here.
On a lighter note, and to update on what I’ve been doing, I went to a Taize service on Monday night as well, which was really really cool. I felt so privileged to go to a real, authentic, French Taize service, since, in case you don’t know, Taize, which is a type of worship service, was started in France. We have Taize services at Muhlenberg once a week, so it was wicked cool to experience a French service, which was more similar than I expected it to be. Peter did a great job applying his knowledge of Taize to our services at Muhlenberg. I think First Lutheran should give it a try (wink wink Dad, or someone else from church reading this). So we sang songs in French, English, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, so I felt more comfortable as a foreigner, haha. There was a Scripture reading, and a time of silence, and a time of prayer. It was very nice, with all the candles and the harmonies. They used a guitar and a flute together, so it was beautiful music.
Other than that, I’ve just been going to class and trying to keep up with the sudden surge of homework. I think this is the push before mid-terms. Maybe the teachers just remembered we have tests in 2 weeks? Who knows, but I think it’s also because I have a presentation on the Crusades next week, and I’m trying to get everything done before Dave comes on Sunday!