Because the seating for the Pope's funeral went in alphabetical order, the leaders of the country sat in order - Iran, Ireland, Israel.
Three countries and four religions that hate each other." Once again I’m desperately trying to not die of boredom while I kill time by hanging out in the salle de profs at my school. The amount of time I spend waiting around this school is ridiculous, although I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if some of the teachers would actually, you know, show up once in a while. They handle absenteeism a bit differently here - if a student doesn’t show up to a class, they have this whole system of bitty pieces of paper that have to be submitted stating that the student wasn’t in class - and letting students leave before the class is over is illegal (or so I‘ve been told). The kids have breaks in their schedules at all sorts of different times without a specific lunch hour or anything (rather than being at school for an entire, set day), and they can do whatever they want around the school during that time.
Even more weird to me is that if a teacher isn’t here, the class just isn’t held - the students are left to their own devices, and a substitute is only called in if a teacher has missed more than 15 consecutive days. Because of this weird (to me) combination of factors, I still have yet to have held one of my classes. Their teacher has been here exactly once on Monday (the day I take half of her class) since I started, and on that day, she told me I couldn’t have my kids because she never sees them and needed her full class. Right about now you, my reader, are probably asking, why does any of this matter? It doesn’t; this is more of me babbling (complaining?) because, well, what else am I going to do? You know, I normally have to waste several hours every week while waiting around, but it’s frustrating to have three more added to that because of teachers’ inabilities to let me know what’s going on. Honestly, would a little communication and organization be THAT hard?
From my file of “Other things that I’ve been meaning to blog about”: dinner with my neighbor last Thursday. There are three studios on the fourth floor, and there’s this Irish girl living in the one that basically mirrors my own. She’s 23 and working for a vaguely governmental Irish agency. We talk occasionally, mostly about the status of some problem in our building, and it’s mostly been because she’s made a point to be friendly, knocking on my door to introduce herself or say hi or whatever. I haven’t really done that, because something about France has brought out my shyness. Anyway, so we were talking on the landing earlier, and we decided to go out to dinner. We met on Thursday evening and walked all over finding just the right place, both of us not knowing the other well enough to really make a decision.
Eventually, we decided on a place right near Bastille (which, I was surprised to learn, is incredibly close to my apartment) and had this fabulous yet (relatively) inexpensive French meal -- I even started with escargots in a spinach and garlic sauce. The companionship was no less enjoyable (I think that I just crossed over into a bad 18th-century movie script with that line; I’m gonna leave it anyway. Leave your mockery in the comments.) Honestly, she was so fun. Full of stories, and energetic, speaking so quickly in her thick Irish accent that I had to listen pretty closely so I wouldn’t get lost. As it was, I had to have her repeat a few things. Oh - and I can’t understand her French at ALL; painful as French with a thick accent is, with Irish it’s incomprehensible. Well, to me, but as we already know I don’t know French anyway. So, my point is, she’s great; it should be fun living next to her for the next year.
In other news, as of Friday I am the proud of owner of a research card to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. I think it’s the easiest thing I’ve done so far here, which was a pleasant surprise considering all the horror stories I’ve heard. The guy who granted me access to things like occidental manuscripts and the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal was even jolly about it. Going to the Arsenal on Saturday to look at a source was a bit more difficult, as I’m used to self-service libraries and no one was very good at explaining the process of requesting books (which for some reason again requires the use of little scraps of paper - what is WITH all of the paper bits everyone uses in this country?) As much as I love pouring over books from the late 17th century, I was a bit disappointed to discover that I can’t really use the source. Ahh well… at least I’ve officially begun researching for my paper. What are the odds that I can finish a decent writing sample in 24 days?
Oh - and my weekend proved to be a bit confusing and somewhat emotional. I’m sure if I were to read over everything I’ve blogged about for the last year or two I’d see patterns and be able to fix what’s wrong with me (more than just trying to change the crazy), but I don’t know what I can handle that sort of self-reflection right now. And finally… I’ve switched my daily crepe from Nutella to sugar and lemon, so hopefully I’ll really manage to quit being so fat (and no, I‘m not giving up the crepe entirely). Yes, Belledree, that’s right - “daily” crepe.
