The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

I...

... have been up to my ass in the effing French subjunctive tense. And sinking fast. Doubting whether I will pass this course at all. Had a serious melt-down in class on Friday (forcing me to get up and leave the room before anyone noticed I was having said melt-down) when asked to write something using "beaucoup de subjonctif" -- and being able to write NOTHING. I was absolutely NUL. Blank. Vide. Still have to send email to my prof to apologize for that. And did I mention, my grade on my second weekly grammar test was... 3/20. BAD. So very bad. But I won't quit the class; quitting is not the answer. And I don't want to switch to a lower level at this point, 4 weeks in. So I will tough it out. I dropped about 60 euros on more grammar books and exercises that I can do on my own to hopefully narrow the gap between what this prof seems to expect of us at "avancé" level, and where I actually AM. FYI I don't think I'm the only one having difficulty in the class; I just think that some of the young students don't CARE as... Read more →

8/20

That was the grade on my first weekly grammar test. I was both proud and appalled: appalled that I didn't score at least 10 out of 20 and that on the last 2 sections (where I thought I had done pretty well) I got NONE right at all (some of my mistakes were very minor but enough to count against me, while others were pretty big mistakes). And proud because on the first two sections, I managed to get most of them RIGHT, despite thinking I had totally fucked up. I even correctly conjugated three verbes in tenses that have been unfamiliar to me before the past two weeks, so THAT was a minor miracle in itself. Georges says 8/20 isn't so bad, and I guess it's not failing. But, clearly -- there is room for improvement. No surprise to me. Memorisation and tests are not my strength in life. Happily, I have 2 hours this afternoon (starting as soon as I finish this quick post) to WORK ON MY BOOK in a café called L'Ecritoire (The Writing Desk) -- how perfect, yes? So, let me go and make the most of it. P.S. A happy little wave to Melinda... Read more →

Three years later, the fireworks are still flying

Georges and I have been together just over three years now (I know, I know) and just in case you were wondering, yes, we still see fireworks when we're alone together. Especially when the City of Paris stages a huge fireworks display just outside our balcony! (Ha! Gotcha!) Slightly obscured by trees but still quite beautiful with the Basilica lit up to the right. The camera in this little iPhone4 continues to amaze me with the quality images I can get, even at night. And of course, I got some live action video of the very end: And we didn't even have to fight the crowds to see that. I love living here. Read more →

Also neglected

My blog and book aren't the only thing being neglected right now, in favor of getting a stronger grasp on the French language. The piano is getting awfully dusty from lack of use. Fortunately, Georges is making an effort to play more (which I love) and the Little Guy started piano lessons recently... so maybe the piano won't feel so lonely. P.S. I totally kicked that French presentation's ASS on Friday! My topic? "Le Mariage en France: Où est la romance?" about how the over-focus on bureaucratic red tape in this country has sucked the romance right out of the wedding ceremony. I was the first in my class to do an exposé (and probably the only one with such extensive experience standing up in front of a life audience, with Powerpoint slides and everything, so on that level I sort of have an advantage) but it was my first-ever oral presentation in French. The professor told me afterward what a good job I did, that it was very interesting and well-planned-out, and that it was "the best he'd heard in a very long time". And while I was speaking, he didn't correct me nearly as much as I'd expected.... Read more →

More snippets

The torture French course continues and has been taking up way more of my time than I had anticipated. It's very nearly turning into a full-time job, if you count the daily commute across town to the 5th and the 3-5 hours a day of homework. And I haven't even started phonetics lab yet; that's tomorrow. On Friday I have to give what I hope will be my only oral presentation during the course (not counting that part of the final exam is oral). I have no idea whether or not I'll do a good job on this "exposé" but at least I'll get the damn thing over with. I'm also getting tired of making trips to the bookstore every other day, as I try to get the "right" grammar books to help me catch up on my deficient past education in French. About every other day, I'm having a horrible day where I melt down, and then on alternate days it seems not so bad and I feel like I'm actually learning something, or at least I feel less stupid. Suffice to say, the French work is sucking my brain out through a straw. Time for writing MY book?... Read more →

In which our heroine faces the very real possibility that her brain may explode from an overdose of French

Well, I've really done it this time. And it's going to be my own fault if my head explodes because of it. The "it" being the 4-month intensive French course I signed up for at the famous Sorbonne... where, according to my new professor, such luminaries as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and Hillary Rodham Clinton came to study French. However, I am not a congenital overachiever; I just want to have an easier life in France. Some months ago, I decided I really did need to commit some serious time and effort to studying French. You might assume that living in Paris would automatically make it easy to accelerate one's competency in the language, but you'd be dead wrong. As an Anglophone living in France, at least in a major city like Paris where there are at least 100,000 English-speakers living here (not counting tourists), you quickly discover how easy it is to stay mired down in your comfortable little social clique, so that you really don't need to develop your French beyond a standard set of situational phrases designed to get you in and out of the supermarket, pharmacy or doctor's office without much trouble. Other than that, you... Read more →

A picture IS worth a thousand words

I just did the math, and discovered that during the past 37 days, Georges and I have actually been together in the same room for only ELEVEN of them. That just makes me want to cry. Between my 16 days in New Jersey at the beginning of September, and then Georges being in Vietnam since September 27 through this Wednesday morning, this is the absolute longest amount of time we have been apart since we met... three years ago this coming Saturday, October 9th. The only thing that has helped us during these unavoidable separations has been the technology that allows us not only to talk, but to SEE each other. We have never been big phone talkers, we're more visual people... even in the early days of our relationship, we preferred the written word to a voice on the phone whenever we couldn't be together in person. So even if we have to keep our little Skype or FaceTime conversations short, just being able to look into each others' eyes, to see the love and joy reflected there... it makes all the difference in the world, and gets us through the long days apart. How could I NOT want... Read more →

Yum!

Having afternoon tea at L'Oisive Thé (http://loisivethe.com) and the place is packed. And THIS is why: Read more →

You are never alone

So Georges is away on business for 9 days, in Vietnam of all places. For an American, it just feels so strange to say "My husband is in Vietnam this week" as casually as I might say that he went to London or Rome -- which would actually be very cool, although he never has to go to those places on business because they aren't connected with la francophonie. Instead, his work has taken him to some rather unusual places since I've known him: Dakar, Armenia, Moldova, Haiti... and now Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon). Well, at least it's interesting and he's not stuck in an office all year long. Fortunately, these trips only come up maybe twice a year. I don't mind the ones that take him to Montreal because we can piggy-back a trip to New Jersey when that happens, but otherwise I don't much like the time away from each other, since it's usually always for at least a week. Plus we were just apart for more than two weeks when I had to go back to New Jersey to take care of my mother. When I found out he was going,... Read more →

Serene, and fit for a Queen

The lovely and very peaceful Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens. A wonderful place to sit and read on a September afternoon... if you can find a chair, and avoid the pigeons in the trees above. Read more →