Guard Dog: Marseilles

Little doggie sitting in front 

Of the door to the fur coat shop

So sad

And yet so vicious!

Who needs a fur coat in Marseilles, anyway?

New Job

As I mentioned earlier, I got a new job!

I've had it for a while, so it's not exactly new...but it remains a second job. Basically, my landlord has a friend who teaches English to adults as part of a job training or self-improvement course set up by the French government. The goal is to take an ESL test at the end of a six-week intensive immersion training course (called the TOEIC) which will make these candidates who participated more employable, and (one would hope) more fluent in English. It is particularly geared toward the unemployed (like everywhere else at the moment, France has a pretty high unemployment rate) or those looking to switch careers--either completely or in the form of a promotion. . It happened very spontaneously because my landlord is friends with the woman who runs the program. Basically, they were desperate. I happen to be a native English speaker. As they say, et voilà!

Anyway, I talked to the woman who runs the operation here in La Ciotat. They were basically desperate for an English speaker, so I was hired without an interview. Though I'm technically not allowed to have a second job here, an exception has been made: provided I don't shirk my high school English teaching responsibilities. Which I wouldn't (I consider myself very conscientious) and besides, there's not much to the high school responsibilities, and there's not much difference between the two jobs. I'm basically putting in more hours, that's all.

The course is a benefit of the French social security system, and my salary is paid for by the French government  Sometimes the students are grouped by their professions, i.e. all secretaries in one group, all flight attendants in another, but my group was quite varied: three med techs, a nurse, a real estate agent, a press agent, a couple of international businessmen, a high-end fashion salesperson, a flight attendant, a tour guide and a dental hygienist.

I'm not really busier than I was in Austria. I've been reusing lesson plans to the hilt (hoping it doesn't show and come off as lazy...) but I've also been tailoring them to a French audience. Since my students started coming, we've been having a lot of fun in class (I think). I'm trying to be as supportive (i.e. as uncritical) as possible to let them embrace learning English, even if they make lots of mistakes. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all, and I think they get enough disparagement from their teachers. If they get more from a native speaker, they'll probably never learn English!

Besides, I must always remember that I myself am a learner of languages. My French is pretty good, but I'm not a native speaker by any means, and I make plenty of mistakes myself. The coolest part of teaching is when I can give the kids slang or regionalisms, and then translate them. I think it catches them by surprise because they're led to believe I don't know any French.

My best example is from yesterday. We were talking about stereotypes of the French vs. stereotypes of Americans. I hinted around about the French being more "romantic" but they didn't get it until I spelled it out. One boy said, "Oh, no. That's more the Italians." I and I said, "Sure. But there are plenty of pick-up artists in France." They stared at me blankly until I intoned, "A pick-up artist is a dragueur, by the way," which sent them rolling in the aisles.

My compliments to French in Action for teaching me that word in the first place!

Thanksgiving in France

This is coming a little late, but I've been busy!

I got a new job...a post on that will come...and my students have (finally) actually been showing up! Which means I have to actually do lesson plans--it's not all fun and games in the South of France! Also, I've had to clean my studio and go to the laundromat and...and...

MAKE THANKSGIVING DINNER!

Yes, I decided to celebrate it this year with my gals--fellow teaching assistants and Europeans all--who had never eaten Thanksgiving dinner before. I made all the fixin's to be as authentic as possible: turkey (just cutlets), stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes and black beans, and pumpkin pie! The only thing I couldn't get was cranberry sauce. So, I bought red currant preserves and warmed them up...good enough for me, though I'm sure purists are gnashing their teeth. 

The best compliment I got was the admission that American food can be tasty and is not just McDonald's! Vindication! It's probably not going to get much better than that by way of compliments here in France...

I've noticed myself become slowly more patriotic the longer I live abroad. I would like to examine why, but that probably also deserves its own blog post. It might be homesickness, or re-forging an identity after forging an anti-identity as an "ex-pat" wannabe. I haven't lived abroad that long, but I feel as if I'm more accepting of my "American" moniker than I was when I was a student, for example. It might be in part that the American image abroad is improving, or that I'm becoming more mature and thus more accepting of my roots, culture, etc. I don't particularly identify with what is "typically American" but in a way, I don't have a choice when I'm seen as "the American."

And boy, do they know I'm American! It's not like in Austria, where I think some of the teachers (granted, ones I didn't work with) either mixed me up with the TA from the last year or made up a history for me in their heads. One day in early December I was in the teachers' room and the snow started coming down hard. One of the math teachers was sitting next to me. He leaned over and asked, "Does it snow like this in Scotland?"

To which I said, "I wouldn't know. Never been."

I hope, in embracing my nationality in small ways like this, I'm not turning into an Ugly American. That, after all, would be counter productive to being a "cultural ambassador" or whatever the heck I am.

Calanques--Figuerolles

One of the important physical landmarks and main tourist attractions of La Ciotat are the calanques, or the coves, which are a few minutes' walk from the city center.  The calanques are jutting hills of conglomerate and metamorphic rock that line the Mediterranean coast. There are also caves within the hills which you can explore alone or with a tour guide. 

This one is particularly famous--it's on all of the post cards!

It is still possible to swim in the Figuerolles  cove because even though the outside air temperature is in the low 60s F/16-19 C, the water temperature is a nice 77 F/25 C! And here in the shelter of the coves, the wind isn't so bad.

Next, I will post pictures of the Mugel--more to come!

Dans La Maison

Around about a week ago, I went to the movies with Maria, the Spanish assistant, who is quite "cinematically" inclined. We've been sharing notes on out favorite silent-era stars. Mine, hands down, is Buster Keaton.

In the great French tradition of Maupassant, Balzac, Proust and horny teenage boys who fantasize about sleeping with their best friend's mother, Dans la maison is the new film from director François Ozon. The story of a high school French teacher encouraging a gifted writing student to explore his abilities in - rather than a novel - a mock exposé of la famille de la classe moyenne which become all too real when the feelings he wants to explore are those of his best friend's mom!

From Catherine Deneuve's role as creepy stalker-mom in Après lui to basically anything starring Isabelle Huppert, the French have a long cinematic history - and literary, but that's a different subject - of dealing with  older women and younger men, or quasi-incestuous relationships. I find those sorts of things to be ridiculous after a while.I mean, really, the 20-year-old guy is going to pursue a 50-year-old woman when he'd have an easier time sticking to girls his own age? Suuuuure. That's not to say older women are not sexy. Mesdemoiselles Deneuve and Huppert prove the contrary. But what sort of relationship potential do you have with a woman old enough to be your mother? And what does she see in you anyway? A hot bod can only do so much for rapport.

The point of Dans la maison, of course, is to parody all this by reducing the scenario to the absurd. The young boy, having finished his story with the family of his best friend (by bedding the mother, of course), moves on to his teacher's family, i.e. his wife (they have no children together). This slap in the face from a person the teacher had wished to inspire, and had so diligently mentored, is the height of the farce. And the craziest thing - the most Proustian thing - is that we never get to know whether this was all going on in the student's head, or if it really happened. French film at its finest!

Kids Today

My students have not been showing up to their scheduled meeting times.

Let me explain the system: I, unassuming language assistant, i.e. "the American" am expected to take a group of 5-10 students from various classes once per week per class to fill 10 hours of "English study." I have 10 different classes once a week. Basically, all I have to do is talk to the kids in English for an hour, they shuffle in, shuffle out and are somehow better prepared for their bac at the end of the year.

That is, if they bother to show up.

Since my hour with them is supposed to be an extra hour of English, in addition to the two that they get in regular English class (three total per week), I have not taught any English classes. I am not in the classroom with them, but in my own, separate classroom to meet with the small groups of students during gaps in their schedules, or what used to be their free time.

Some of them still think it is their free time.

I hope sincerely this will change by the end of the week. I was told it should not be a problem at all, but I am still having a hard time believing 16- to 18-year-olds will willingly wake up at 8AM to come and speak a language they're not very good at (and in every likely scenario despise) to a complete stranger who also happens to be a native speaker of that dreaded language, and is probably fat, boorish and inane like all of the stereotypes of her country suggest.

I hope this is not the case--that this is what French teenagers thing of me and my country. But, I can only guess what they think. Since so few of them have decided to put in the effort of even meeting me, what else can I think?

Photo-Ciné

Because of the influence of the Lumière Brothers, La Ciotat still has a lot of cinema enthusiasts lurking here and there. Here are some pictures from the recent photography and cinematography trade show in La Ciotat, including some pretty awesome Pathé cameras and Daguerreotypes:

Chantiers Navals

Last week, I went to the old shipyards in La Ciotat as part of a tour with Maria, the Spanish assistant. 

The shipyards were once the biggest employer in La Ciotat, mainly producing naval ships, cargo ships, and big oil tankers for the French Navy, but they closed down production in 1988, due to the downsizing of the Navy, and the lower cost of producing ships in the Nord-Pas-Calais region of France, which has been a notable industrial center for hundreds of years. 

Currently, the shipyards are still in business, but privately: a yacht-building company is housed on the property, and, although they employ some Ciotadens, they do not quite have the output the French Navy had in its time. The work is mainly yacht repair, not building new ones, on commission from rich people wintering in St. Tropez or the like. They repair 500 yachts per year, according to the website.

The history of the chantiers navals in La Ciotat begins in 1851, when, shortly before the start of the Seconde Empire, Napoleon III commissioned the construction of steam ships which were destined to sail out of Marseilles as imperial freight ships. This was changed to "national" freight ships once the third republic was instated in 1870.

The area near the shipyards was designated solely for shipyard workers. A mini-town sprang up next to the docks, separated from the rest of La Ciotat. In the 1860s, it was top-of-the-line, very modern and very chic. Today, most of the housing is abandoned, since the shipyard closed its doors, and the town that once was is desolate. There are bits of the "shantytown" that have been incorporated into the rest of the downtown area, mostly housing restaurants and souvenir shops now. Some were demolitioned in 2007 when the yachting company requisitioned the old shipyard, and the only nightclub in La Ciotat (Sur les Quais - On the Docks) is found in the new building.

In 1916, the dock workers unionized, creating the Société provençale de constructions navales, or the Provence Shipworkers' Union, taking part in the global movement of Socialism and the working man's rights. This really helped morale during World War I, when there was a huge rush in business. There was another big uptick in workload again during World War II. The Société was replaced by the Chantiers navals de La Ciotat in 1940, which is what some locals still call it. The name was changed again in 1982, but I don't remeber what they changed it to. 

Now, during the off-season, they give tours of the shipyard to those interested.On our tour, there were a lot of little old ladies who seemed to know more than the tour guide and kept interrupting him every six seconds. Our coordinator, Mme. R, signed us up for the tour, as something to do during the long vacances de Toussaint.  Unfortunately, it rained cats and dogs all morning during the tour, and even though I was wearing a heavy-duty camping rain jacket, I was completely soaked from head to foot--even my hair got wet through the hood! 

As you can see, I got some photos in, but I was terrified I'd break my camera by shorting out the flash or the battery. I did actually do that once with a different camera in Dresden. I took pictures while it was raining and slid the camera into my rain jacket pocket to discover later that it was trashed. NOT FUN! I guess the Le Mistral is to blame? That or plain old autumn weather. At least there is always hot cocoa and pain au chocolat to warm up with at home!

Generations: the History of America's Future

Last year, a friend of mine in Vienna suggested this book to me. We got to talking about certain stereotypes of our generation. Things like we're all a bunch of bratty mama's babies with helicopter parents, or that we don't know how to take care of ourselves.

That got my dander up, and my friend and I agreed that each of us has as specific role to play in the world, and in a funny way, we're nothing like our parents' generation, why is that? Certainly we've been influenced by them, but not necessarily because we were raised by them? What exactly is the rapport between generations, anyway?

Though a little dated (it was written in 1992), Generations: the History of America's Future by William Strauss and Neil Howe (who later expounded on the theory in The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy and Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation), is a compelling read. Don't pick it up if you're a hard-core history student. There is a lot of pop-history and pop-sociology bandied about, with not so much peer-review to back it up. For the whole Wikipedia explanation, click here.Strauss and Howe go through the entire gamut of American history, from the Puritans to the 1980s. It was pretty revolutionary when it came out, I believe.

My generation is the "new" Civic generation on the continuum, people who were born roughly between 1983 and 2003, also known as Millenials. The generation above us is the Gen-X, or Reactive generation, and then the Baby Boomers, or Idealistic generation, and the old and very old would be the Adaptive ("Silent" generation) and the "old" Civic generation, or the "Greatest Generation" who were WWII veterans.

So, something my friend and I both felt was that our generation will do great things, it's just that we're stagnating now in the aftermath of the "Great Recession" and older generations just need to give us a chance! I also extrapolated from the generational profiles that older people (ahem, Baby Boomers) staying in jobs when they should be retiring are going to have to step down at some point and let us run the show. We have plenty of ideas, and we wouldn't be so spoiled if we could just get to work doing and building!

I don't have any claim to make in conclusion, just that I enjoyed the book, and how it affected my way of looking at history.

La Toussaint: or, a Rant about Public Education

This week is the Catholic/Christian holiday All Saint's day--or, as they say in France, La Toussaint.

While I was in Austria, because the Austrians, like the French, are nominally Catholic, I got All Saint's day (Allerheiligen in German) off there, too. But, instead of, say, a four day weekend, like in Austria, I get a whole two weeks off.

I'm getting pretty used to the French way of doing things: from my ridiculous number of days off to my peripheral teaching duties--virtually no lesson planning--since I've been asked to help the student improve their speaking skills and all I have to do is show up with a topic and a vocabulary list.

The government-mandated French work week is 35 hours; the average amount of time off a year is five weeks (also government mandated) and as a teacher, I get all of the school holidays off - that's four two-week vacations a school year, not to mention summer vacation.

Before you scoff, or express your jealousy, or anything like that, I wish to mention a few things about the average French high school schedule. School starts at 8AM and can go all the way to 6PM some days, though the students are not obligated to stay in the building when they don't have class. They have 10-12 subjects each year, and are required to take a grueling school leaving exam, the baccalaureat or bac for short. If they don't pass it the first time, they repeat their final year until the do.

Most kids who don't repeat a year graduate at 18, like in the United States. But, if they do repeat a year (once, twice, or even more times), they stay until they pass the bac: I have a student who's 21. No joke. The system is relatively speaking the same throughout Europe. Students in Austria who don't pass their Matura the first time around have to stay until they do; likewise in Germany with their Abitur.

It makes me wonder: in the United States, we push kids through so virtually everyone graduates at 18, whether they've learned what they need to in high school or not. As the old saying goes, "D for Diploma--that's good enough for me!" There are no school leaving exams, at least not in Wisconsin, and though certain educational programs are implemented at the national level (the infamous "No Child Left Behind," or the equally dubious "Rise to the Top"), most decisions on public education are left up to the states to decide. And that doesn't always work.

Not to get political, but I must contribute the travesty of my home state's gubernatorial recall election in June 2012. One of the first things Governor Scott Walker put into place when he was elected--the thing, indeed, that caused riots in Madison and a call to arms to recall him in the first place--was to cut public workers' rights, including teachers', by limiting their bargaining rights.

Now, you might not see directly how this would affect education in Wisconsin. Think about it this way: if teachers are demoralized because they're getting paid less than what they're worth--or have no control over their pensions, etc.--they will not be as effective in the classroom. Fewer young people will want to go into the teaching profession, since there is little prestige and virtually no pay for lots and lots of hard work. So you see?   Policy can affect a lot of different things, and what your child learns is definitely one of them.

Though the American school system isn't perfect, it does compare favorably to the French system, which has a lot less interactive learning and a lot more lecture-based. Teaching in France has a more...um, didactic?...quality along the lines of "I talk, you listen."  In Austria, it depends, but the preferred teaching method there is of a "call and response" nature: the teacher has the answer book, and checks the students' knowledge against what it says in the book. Of course, discussion comes into play more often in Austria as well. Having an opinion is valued in both cultures, but in France, the tendency is to keep it to yourself until you're out of the classroom.

One last note: teachers in France do not get paid as well as teachers in Austria, but they certainly get more days off.