The best way to be a better writer is to write, right? So that's why I just made a French blog! If you are French/speak French follow me! Let's see where this goes.
http://belleayrer.wordpress.com/
Hey, did you get that super awesome 90s wordplay I did in the title there?
30 April, 2012
29 April, 2012
Best Week (and week-end) Ever, the assistants are leaving (but that's not why it was awesome) edition
On Monday I had a feeling this week was going to fly by. My last week of work, first week of University classes back from the Easter holidays, and worst of all, the last week for the majority of the assistants I know.
I think I had forgotten from the last time how sad it is when the contract comes to an end. And this year I had some absolutely fabulous students. It was hard to say goodbye to them, but even harder to share my last lessons and coffee breaks with my AMAZING colleagues.
There were only two times that I almost cried, first in my class de 1L, when four of my students presented me with this:
It's a beautiful picture frame and inside little notes from my students thanking me for the things that I taught them. In the left corner is a postcard another two students gave me with a Normand Hamburger on it: An apple cut in half stuffed with Camembert, tripes, teurgeule, and crème. Yum!
And the second time I almost let a few teardrops fall was when some terminales (seniors) had a few last questions to ask me about my favorite memories in France, what stereotypes I have come to realize are not true, what the first thing is I want to do when I get home (that one made me super happy because I got to say I will kiss my boyfriend!!) But the thought of not having these students next year, not working with these professors, was overwhelmingly sad. That's what happens when you create a whole nother life somewhere else though. After that, wherever you are, you are going to miss someone.
In other news, I am proud to say I am rocking the face off of my classes at the University. I got all my grades back from before the break and I killed it! Some of the best grades I have ever gotten in France!
National Poetry Month came to a grinding halt before vacation in Rome. I have ideas for all my poems, even some lines worked out, but I simply don't have the time to write them. I think I'll give myself an extension, write them when I can, and still post them here.
So, OK, let's talk about food. Because I have eaten SO. MUCH OF IT. this week! The assistants leaving has sort of inspired everyone to have going away evenings, last meals and all of that.
Wednesday night Bing and I were invited one last time chez Yolande, a professor at Malherbe who went to great lengths to reunite everyone who is lodged here. So she had us over for crepes a la Bretonne and they were even better than the last time. Plus, she showed me her technique for making the perfect egg.
Friday night was oh-my-moussaka Greek wonder (seriously, look at that picture. I am so overwhelmed). The Greek professor from my lycée invited me, the Spanish assistant (who is leaving tomorrow), a Spanish teacher, two French teachers, and the Swedish teacher over to send us away, and we also turned it into a birthday celebration for her. I cannot tell you enough how much I love this cast of characters. Spanish S with his love of dogs and cats, Spanish C with her glittering eyeshadow and a super colorful personality that makes you want to have fun, O, E and S, the French and Swedish teachers, with their soft speech and super interesting insights, and our host Athan, whose personality in all of its stereotypical Greek wonder is as spiced as the dishes she made. She speaks loud and she doesn't take any shit. I love being with all of them - what a diverse group we are!
Athan prepared an amazing full-course Greek meal. We started with a huge bowl of tzatziki and some baguettes to spread it on. You could smell the garlic from a mile away. Then, these amazing little spinach and feta cheese fritters. I don't know what she did with the feta but it almost tasted like paneer somehow. Then, a big Greek salad, and for the main course an enormous moussaka for everyone else and a dish of eggplant, potato, tomatoes and cheese for me. And then to finishe we had a sublime orange cake, and the chocolate cake Sam and I brought from our favorite boulangerie. And someone else brought macarons! I couldn't even eat one, I was so stuffed! Every single dish was super yummy and as I told Athan later that night, I was surprised that she went out of her way to ensure that I could eat everything on the table. My fellow vegetarians in FR know that is something you can say very rarely, and I appreciate the friends who actually get it.
I got dropped off at home in the rain on Friday, slept very little, and woke up for a full Saturday of things to do. Uni work/laundry in the morning followed by Sam and Yann's birthday lunch. I suggested pizza (wtf when I already had pizza planned for dinner?! Ashley, come on really). So we ate pizza in the salle commune, laughed at Youtube clips and joked together. Then ate this incredible gateau aux fraises that Violeta bought as a gift for the two guys.
And then last night, dinner for all the English colleagues from Lycee Victor Hugo. We meet for drinks, walk into a bar and are faced with a dude entirely dressed in a sub leather dress with a ballgag around his neck, a skimask over his face, and a flogger in his hand. Thank god my profs are not uptight! We all had a great laugh and headed over to the pizzeria where I got the best pizza I have tasted yet in Caen, I kid you not. Artichokes, mushrooms, olives, onions and lots of cheese. Que la vie est belle!
After another round of beers we were all on our way home, me laughing out loud down the street about all the things we saw and joked about that night. Oh, how we laugh together. I hope that wherever I end up teaching, the ambiance between the profs is as amazing as it is between them at Victor Hugo.
So now it is Sunday morning. I have lots of work to do, tidying up, letters of recommendation to write, University work to prepare, and CVs to send out as I am starting the job search process in the USA. Plus, a Sunday market to visit and a coffee to be had with one of my best pals.
Oh yeah, and one of the best parts of this week, I bought my plane ticket home. New York, baby, here I come! I think on June 8th when I finally get to New Jersey and am in the arms of my baby, the state will explode from the sheer power of my happiness.
I think I had forgotten from the last time how sad it is when the contract comes to an end. And this year I had some absolutely fabulous students. It was hard to say goodbye to them, but even harder to share my last lessons and coffee breaks with my AMAZING colleagues.
There were only two times that I almost cried, first in my class de 1L, when four of my students presented me with this:
It's a beautiful picture frame and inside little notes from my students thanking me for the things that I taught them. In the left corner is a postcard another two students gave me with a Normand Hamburger on it: An apple cut in half stuffed with Camembert, tripes, teurgeule, and crème. Yum!
And the second time I almost let a few teardrops fall was when some terminales (seniors) had a few last questions to ask me about my favorite memories in France, what stereotypes I have come to realize are not true, what the first thing is I want to do when I get home (that one made me super happy because I got to say I will kiss my boyfriend!!) But the thought of not having these students next year, not working with these professors, was overwhelmingly sad. That's what happens when you create a whole nother life somewhere else though. After that, wherever you are, you are going to miss someone.
In other news, I am proud to say I am rocking the face off of my classes at the University. I got all my grades back from before the break and I killed it! Some of the best grades I have ever gotten in France!
National Poetry Month came to a grinding halt before vacation in Rome. I have ideas for all my poems, even some lines worked out, but I simply don't have the time to write them. I think I'll give myself an extension, write them when I can, and still post them here.
So, OK, let's talk about food. Because I have eaten SO. MUCH OF IT. this week! The assistants leaving has sort of inspired everyone to have going away evenings, last meals and all of that.
Wednesday night Bing and I were invited one last time chez Yolande, a professor at Malherbe who went to great lengths to reunite everyone who is lodged here. So she had us over for crepes a la Bretonne and they were even better than the last time. Plus, she showed me her technique for making the perfect egg.
Friday night was oh-my-moussaka Greek wonder (seriously, look at that picture. I am so overwhelmed). The Greek professor from my lycée invited me, the Spanish assistant (who is leaving tomorrow), a Spanish teacher, two French teachers, and the Swedish teacher over to send us away, and we also turned it into a birthday celebration for her. I cannot tell you enough how much I love this cast of characters. Spanish S with his love of dogs and cats, Spanish C with her glittering eyeshadow and a super colorful personality that makes you want to have fun, O, E and S, the French and Swedish teachers, with their soft speech and super interesting insights, and our host Athan, whose personality in all of its stereotypical Greek wonder is as spiced as the dishes she made. She speaks loud and she doesn't take any shit. I love being with all of them - what a diverse group we are!
I got dropped off at home in the rain on Friday, slept very little, and woke up for a full Saturday of things to do. Uni work/laundry in the morning followed by Sam and Yann's birthday lunch. I suggested pizza (wtf when I already had pizza planned for dinner?! Ashley, come on really). So we ate pizza in the salle commune, laughed at Youtube clips and joked together. Then ate this incredible gateau aux fraises that Violeta bought as a gift for the two guys.
And then last night, dinner for all the English colleagues from Lycee Victor Hugo. We meet for drinks, walk into a bar and are faced with a dude entirely dressed in a sub leather dress with a ballgag around his neck, a skimask over his face, and a flogger in his hand. Thank god my profs are not uptight! We all had a great laugh and headed over to the pizzeria where I got the best pizza I have tasted yet in Caen, I kid you not. Artichokes, mushrooms, olives, onions and lots of cheese. Que la vie est belle!
So now it is Sunday morning. I have lots of work to do, tidying up, letters of recommendation to write, University work to prepare, and CVs to send out as I am starting the job search process in the USA. Plus, a Sunday market to visit and a coffee to be had with one of my best pals.
Oh yeah, and one of the best parts of this week, I bought my plane ticket home. New York, baby, here I come! I think on June 8th when I finally get to New Jersey and am in the arms of my baby, the state will explode from the sheer power of my happiness.
10 April, 2012
NaPoMo Day 7-10 Poems
It's day 10 of NaPoMo, and I'm writing away but this year, I'm not entirely stoked about my work.
Last year around this time I was breathing poetry. Newly in love, it felt like everything I touched in the supermarket, every conversation I heard on the street, every person I saw in the park could be a new poem. Plus, I had this really amazing project to work on, my black and wtf poems. In 30 days I pumped out some of the best, most surreal stuff I've ever written, and I loved every single line. Poems about goats on slides, elephants trying to stuff themselves into cars, comforting bears, men making Snooki giant pickles, etc. When I re-read these poems, I feel like they could really go somewhere. I'm newly inspired right now to rework and submit them. I like the commentaries they make, they way they talk about our world.
But this year, I'm pretty much just journaling. And, that's OK too. I'm happy to be writing, but the result is that I feel like these poems are just for me, and maybe my little group of friends. At the end of the day, I don't think anyone on a larger scale will want to read me pontificating about the differences between France and the USA, or how much I hated my job back home, or my personal struggles. To be short and sweet, I don't think I'm writing anything that anyone hasn't already written.
Again, this is not a complaint. I've been so busy with school and work and taking up running again and planning voyages around Europe, I didn't even think I'd get past day one of NaPoMo. And I certainly haven't made any time for journaling. So these poems will someday be a nice little thread for me to hold on to my April 2012 days.
Oh, and for the record, I am still crazy in love, but we've been doing the long distance thing, so the physical electricity that lets me tranform everything I touch into a poem is on vacay for now.
Here's some of what I wrote this week:
Day 7 I rehash an old prompt from poetry workshop years ago.
I Sold my Virginity on Ebay
Today, a search for virgin turns
up 58,653 results. I stand
out among the virgin neem
oil, the barely legal videos,
the virgin mother statues,
the CDs from Virgin Records.
For 10,000 bidders, I assure
the eBay buyer protection
and the certificate of authenticity.
Yeah, Ebay has a rule about nudity,
but this bidder wants more than a bare
ass or tits anyway. My photo gallery shows
my parts separately: sharp elbow, jawline,
above upper lip, upper thigh. The winning bidder
is a polite businessmen. We agree, my virginity
will arrive in 5-7 business days. But how can I
package it?
Day 8 I visit the Easter market in Caen
Au marche de Pacques a Caen
I walk through the market to find
some Normand apples. But it's late
Easter afternoon and probably
everyone wants to go hunt
for eggs and play
with whatever the French
play with on Easter. The marche
is wrapping up. I get the apples.
On the way, I pass a bald man
being followed by an enormous
bubble. It pops and I am surprised
the little rainbow inside doesn't slick
his skin. Ah, Caen, qu'est-ce que tu me
satisfait, et bien je ne suis jamais satisfaite.
Day 9 I put together a Facebook found poem. I am only posting a few lines of this one.
Today it's market
research. I check my feed, see that a friend wants
to know why boys these days want the cake
but not the whole thing. I learn he doesn't give
pieces. 40 hours a week for three years, where
did you go? Every one of you was raw, unbridled
evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons
and ribbons. Let's hope we don't get blown away
by the wind.
Today, my poem is "At 25 years old I feel my breasts for the first time." And it probably won't go public yet, just so you know in advance.
Last year around this time I was breathing poetry. Newly in love, it felt like everything I touched in the supermarket, every conversation I heard on the street, every person I saw in the park could be a new poem. Plus, I had this really amazing project to work on, my black and wtf poems. In 30 days I pumped out some of the best, most surreal stuff I've ever written, and I loved every single line. Poems about goats on slides, elephants trying to stuff themselves into cars, comforting bears, men making Snooki giant pickles, etc. When I re-read these poems, I feel like they could really go somewhere. I'm newly inspired right now to rework and submit them. I like the commentaries they make, they way they talk about our world.
But this year, I'm pretty much just journaling. And, that's OK too. I'm happy to be writing, but the result is that I feel like these poems are just for me, and maybe my little group of friends. At the end of the day, I don't think anyone on a larger scale will want to read me pontificating about the differences between France and the USA, or how much I hated my job back home, or my personal struggles. To be short and sweet, I don't think I'm writing anything that anyone hasn't already written.
Again, this is not a complaint. I've been so busy with school and work and taking up running again and planning voyages around Europe, I didn't even think I'd get past day one of NaPoMo. And I certainly haven't made any time for journaling. So these poems will someday be a nice little thread for me to hold on to my April 2012 days.
Oh, and for the record, I am still crazy in love, but we've been doing the long distance thing, so the physical electricity that lets me tranform everything I touch into a poem is on vacay for now.
Here's some of what I wrote this week:
Day 7 I rehash an old prompt from poetry workshop years ago.
I Sold my Virginity on Ebay
Today, a search for virgin turns
up 58,653 results. I stand
out among the virgin neem
oil, the barely legal videos,
the virgin mother statues,
the CDs from Virgin Records.
For 10,000 bidders, I assure
the eBay buyer protection
and the certificate of authenticity.
Yeah, Ebay has a rule about nudity,
but this bidder wants more than a bare
ass or tits anyway. My photo gallery shows
my parts separately: sharp elbow, jawline,
above upper lip, upper thigh. The winning bidder
is a polite businessmen. We agree, my virginity
will arrive in 5-7 business days. But how can I
package it?
Day 8 I visit the Easter market in Caen
Au marche de Pacques a Caen
I walk through the market to find
some Normand apples. But it's late
Easter afternoon and probably
everyone wants to go hunt
for eggs and play
with whatever the French
play with on Easter. The marche
is wrapping up. I get the apples.
On the way, I pass a bald man
being followed by an enormous
bubble. It pops and I am surprised
the little rainbow inside doesn't slick
his skin. Ah, Caen, qu'est-ce que tu me
satisfait, et bien je ne suis jamais satisfaite.
Day 9 I put together a Facebook found poem. I am only posting a few lines of this one.
Today it's market
research. I check my feed, see that a friend wants
to know why boys these days want the cake
but not the whole thing. I learn he doesn't give
pieces. 40 hours a week for three years, where
did you go? Every one of you was raw, unbridled
evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons
and ribbons. Let's hope we don't get blown away
by the wind.
Today, my poem is "At 25 years old I feel my breasts for the first time." And it probably won't go public yet, just so you know in advance.
09 April, 2012
NaPoMo Day 6 Poem
One touched up, the other catch-ups coming soon.
Some girls made brownies in their toy ovens. I baked little women. Every day in the back room, Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters, me and my army of dolls. My trays could make six women at a time. [To make a plastic woman: 1. drip eye and lip dye into grooves of the metal tray. 2. Fill body with flesh color (peach available now; more colors coming soon). 3. Choose brown, yellow, or red, cipher hair dye into the depressions of her squared bob. 4. Insert silicon handled tray into oven. Bake women until mom shouts about burnt plastic smell. 5. Using other trays, cook separately the sarongs, sneakers, skirts and shirts to wrap around your women.] How I loved the peel of them from metal, their cling to those round grooves. If you want to bake a woman, be careful. Pull her out too quick and an eye could tear. Too slow and she may mangle. Just remember, no matter how many plastic women you have made, they never stand unless propped.
easter weekend in caen, quiet
i made it over the last hump! last holiday in france before i come home. holidays away from home are generally bad, but easter is the worst for me. all the other holidays, i make sure i am crazy distracted so i won't think about how much i miss my family. halloween with american pals, three thanksgivings (two with americans) christmas in england, new year's in ouistreham. all of them wonderful and distracting. i was afraid easter would be different, that since i wasn't making a fuss about it, i would be mopey all day missing my family.
luckily i had a lovely day/evening with some of my closest friends here. E came to visit me from Lille and I was reminded how valuable that group flight was from DC to France because not only did i meet other assistants but also made friendships that i know are lifelong. we took a tour at the hotel de ville with a friend of mine, who even opened the salle des gardes for us outside of the tour. then coffee with the lovely Whit and Raph followed by an amazing evening of galettes and crêpes chez moi. everyone had to flip their own crêpe, and we had no fails!
loose thoughts:
-three days from now i will be in ROME!
-normandy is too windy to actually take advantage of the umbrella you always have with you. no matter what, you will get soaked.
-the woman at the saint pierre tram stop was blowing really huge bubbles over the sunday market. it was pretty.
-NaPoMo is going steadily but I need to clean up before I post.
luckily i had a lovely day/evening with some of my closest friends here. E came to visit me from Lille and I was reminded how valuable that group flight was from DC to France because not only did i meet other assistants but also made friendships that i know are lifelong. we took a tour at the hotel de ville with a friend of mine, who even opened the salle des gardes for us outside of the tour. then coffee with the lovely Whit and Raph followed by an amazing evening of galettes and crêpes chez moi. everyone had to flip their own crêpe, and we had no fails!
loose thoughts:
-three days from now i will be in ROME!
-normandy is too windy to actually take advantage of the umbrella you always have with you. no matter what, you will get soaked.
-the woman at the saint pierre tram stop was blowing really huge bubbles over the sunday market. it was pretty.
-NaPoMo is going steadily but I need to clean up before I post.
06 April, 2012
NaPoMo Day 4 & 5 Poems
Today I have two incomplete ones, but like I said in the beginning, I'm happier with some strong lines than trying to force out mediocre or bad poems.
100% American
and watching Obèses on TV. Back
home it's called Heavy, that passive
adjective, not like this obnoxious plural,
finger pointed at me. Me because
I have been heavy in all of its terminality
Yes, I've been every sort of heavy: heavy as old
books heavy as a swift rain heavy
like a bird flying or flying
into a window heavy like a goodbye.
The day I taught some poems
it rains on lycee victor hugo and there are plenty
of vocabulary questions. Each student reads a poem, plucks
word after word from the copy in his hands. They take Kinnell
and Clifton and Williams and Kenyon, swish their lines around
for the hour.
100% American
and watching Obèses on TV. Back
home it's called Heavy, that passive
adjective, not like this obnoxious plural,
finger pointed at me. Me because
I have been heavy in all of its terminality
Yes, I've been every sort of heavy: heavy as old
books heavy as a swift rain heavy
like a bird flying or flying
into a window heavy like a goodbye.
The day I taught some poems
it rains on lycee victor hugo and there are plenty
of vocabulary questions. Each student reads a poem, plucks
word after word from the copy in his hands. They take Kinnell
and Clifton and Williams and Kenyon, swish their lines around
for the hour.
03 April, 2012
NaPoMo Day 2 & 3 Poems
Today I made my students poetry editors. I made them choose 4 out of 6 poems (from Lucille Clifton, William Carlos Williams, Jane Kenyon, Langston Hughes, and Galway Kinnell) to include in their literary journals. And they rocked it. They never stop impressing me, these kids.
As for my poems, here are two. One that I've been wanting to write since it snowed in February, and one that I wrote in Litt class today.
Caen sous la neige
On the castle in Caen: to your right a pigeon
lands on, flits off the roof. Straight ahead a man
and a young girl sled down the lawn. Left
of you a boy slips, then tries to play
it off like he was bending down to collect
a snowball, lets it fall through his fingers
when he realizes none of his friends were watching.
At the market: a few vendors knit
themselves into a close circle: a Normand
verger, a boulanger, the fish man, the man
with the beads. The only ones who brave
the sludge for us loyal shoppers, who will carry
our apples and our clementines home
carefully, pointing our feet first
and landing on saltless concrete.
That night you find out that in the right (moon)light
the snow can look like sand shaved with diamonds. Hear
their sprakling crunch beneath your feet.
Après « Education des jeunes filles aux États-Unis »
de Tocqueville, what don't you know
about us young American
women ? In a corner room
in New York, in Philly, in Chicago,
[doesn't matter where really ;
on est tous pareilles quand même]
you lift plume from ink
well. Go ahead, you grand
harmoniste. Harness
those words like you say
we hold our own reigns.
So you need some more
research time ? Spend
years in our pounding
chest, talk to as many jeunes
femmes as you can. And when
you're done, go ahead, give our dossier
to your Europe. I can't wait to feel
its corners, sharp and n'importe ou,
ready to slice any hands
that try to straighten these pages.
As for my poems, here are two. One that I've been wanting to write since it snowed in February, and one that I wrote in Litt class today.
Caen sous la neige
On the castle in Caen: to your right a pigeon
lands on, flits off the roof. Straight ahead a man
and a young girl sled down the lawn. Left
of you a boy slips, then tries to play
it off like he was bending down to collect
a snowball, lets it fall through his fingers
when he realizes none of his friends were watching.
At the market: a few vendors knit
themselves into a close circle: a Normand
verger, a boulanger, the fish man, the man
with the beads. The only ones who brave
the sludge for us loyal shoppers, who will carry
our apples and our clementines home
carefully, pointing our feet first
and landing on saltless concrete.
That night you find out that in the right (moon)light
the snow can look like sand shaved with diamonds. Hear
their sprakling crunch beneath your feet.
Après « Education des jeunes filles aux États-Unis »
de Tocqueville, what don't you know
about us young American
women ? In a corner room
in New York, in Philly, in Chicago,
[doesn't matter where really ;
on est tous pareilles quand même]
you lift plume from ink
well. Go ahead, you grand
harmoniste. Harness
those words like you say
we hold our own reigns.
So you need some more
research time ? Spend
years in our pounding
chest, talk to as many jeunes
femmes as you can. And when
you're done, go ahead, give our dossier
to your Europe. I can't wait to feel
its corners, sharp and n'importe ou,
ready to slice any hands
that try to straighten these pages.
02 April, 2012
NaPoMo 2012 Day 1 Poem
Mourning Doves
I thought they were called morning
doves until I heard one day how their light
caw carries
carried
had carried
and I could hear
chest puffed and eyes clouding
how they mourn.
It wasn't until someone
was lost that I started to hear them
at dusk, or on a sunny after
noon above a family eating on the grass,
sometimes even in the gray night,
as I let a sharp wrap of February wind
carry me.
I thought they were called morning
doves until I heard one day how their light
caw carries
carried
had carried
and I could hear
chest puffed and eyes clouding
how they mourn.
It wasn't until someone
was lost that I started to hear them
at dusk, or on a sunny after
noon above a family eating on the grass,
sometimes even in the gray night,
as I let a sharp wrap of February wind
carry me.
Bienvenue Avril!
Wow! Is it April already? Happy National Poetry Month =)
Despite my crazy schedule and barely having any time to myself at all, I am still going to try to complete the poem-a-day challenge. I will warn you in advance: these poems will be rough and uncrafted. I will be happy if I get five could-have-been-broken-better lines down a day. Honestly, the goal for me this year is going to be to write a little every day and make sure I don't spend so long writing poems that I don't get my school work done.
No translations this year, folks. I may be better equipped to execute them, but that takes hella time, so no.
Wish me luck! And if you are playing along, Writer's Digest has some challenges up for the month.
Despite my crazy schedule and barely having any time to myself at all, I am still going to try to complete the poem-a-day challenge. I will warn you in advance: these poems will be rough and uncrafted. I will be happy if I get five could-have-been-broken-better lines down a day. Honestly, the goal for me this year is going to be to write a little every day and make sure I don't spend so long writing poems that I don't get my school work done.
No translations this year, folks. I may be better equipped to execute them, but that takes hella time, so no.
Wish me luck! And if you are playing along, Writer's Digest has some challenges up for the month.
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