Entries tagged with getting to france

Current Mood: scared
Current Music: Superman, Five For Fighting

Entry tags:

Somewhere He opens a window...

What will this day be like, I wonder?
What will my future be, I wonder?
It could be so exciting
to be out in the world, to be free.
My heart should be wildly rejoicing.
Oh, what's the matter with me?
I've always longed for adventure,
to do the things I've never dared.
Now here I'm facing adventure.
Then why am I so scared?

This will be the last entry I make before I leave for France, and all day my emotions have been on a roller-coaster. I'm alternately excited, terrified, and depressed -- the way I feel when I'm reading a Harry Potter book for the first time, but of course this is bigger than any book. I've been running errands and packing all day, trying to make sure I'm ready to go, which has actually made me feel worse, not better. It just seems like I've left everything waiting until the last minute, which is very bad, because if I'm unprepared now, what is it going to be like when I get on the plane? When I get to France? But some good news is that while I was driving Mom's car earlier, I heard the song "Superman (It's Not Easy)" on one of her CDs, and for whatever reason, it made me feel a lot better about everything. I'm adding it to my iPod right now.

I have said goodbye to all the family, which of course was very sad. Aunt Connie and Eva actually interrupted me in the middle of typing this entry by driving over just to say goodbye to me, which was incredibly sweet of them. I think Uncle John almost came close to crying when I said goodbye to him, but he didn't (which is good, because I've never seen him cry and it would have been weird). And tomorrow, the day I'm leaving, is the third anniversary of Aunt Carolyn's death, which makes it even worse. Mom, Sara, and Adam will be coming to the airport with me, so I'll be saying goodbye to them last. I actually think leaving Sable will be the hardest part of all; it causes me real physical pain to imagine that Sable will think I don't love him, or that it's his fault I'm gone. I just love that dog so much.

I'm worried about so many things. Even with all the classes I've taken on French, I don't feel prepared, and I don't know what to expect. What will the school be like? What will the students be like? Last May, when I had to do a presentation on ten different film adaptations of Peter Pan for screenwriting class, I was nervous about talking in front of the class, even about a subject that I knew so well. What the hell makes me think I can be a teacher? Last August, when I moved into my new apartment, I didn't have any idea what to expect either, and of course moving in with three strange girls is scary for a shy person like me, but it doesn't even compare to moving to a new country where everyone is a stranger. In 2003, I was so terrifed to start college in a new town, but even then, I knew it wasn't as scary as it could be, because Sara was with me. I'm doing this all alone. But I should probably stop this now before I make myself even more worried.

I like to think of "Defying Gravity" as my personal theme song, and last November, while I was filling out the application to have this little adventure, I rewrote the song to fit my situation. It's not quite correct anymore, because when I wrote it, I thought I would be going to Lille, not Amiens. But Amiens doesn't rhyme with anything, and Lille does. Here are the lyrics to the original song, and the ones that I wrote.

So if you care to find me, / So if you care to find me,
look to the western sky. / look south of la manche.
As someone told me lately, / As my professors told me,
everyone deserves a chance to fly. / you deserve a chance to go to France.
And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free. / And if I'm going solo, at least I'm going now.
To those who'd ground me, / To those who'd ground me,
take a message back from me. / take a message back from me.
Tell them how I am defying gravity. / Tell them how I am becoming fluent.
I'm flying high, defying gravity. / Listen to me talk, I'm becoming fluent.
And soon I'm match them in renown. / And soon I'll speak just I'm French.
And nobody, in all of Oz, / And nobody, in all of Lille,
no wizard that there is or was, / in les banlieues or la centre-ville,
is ever gonna bring me down! / is ever gonna bring me down!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Standing Outside the Fire, Garth Brooks

Entry tags:

Rebecca has to admit it's getting better all the time!

It seems like today and yesterday have contained a year's worth of good times and good news.

Yesterday I went right over to Grandma's house after I got off work. She was serving dinner of shrimp gumbo, crawfish pie, and pizza, as well as several different desserts. Connie, Athena, Eva, and Karla Ann were there visiting, and Josh, Jacob, Cathy, and Mackenzie were in town from Alabama. So Grandma's house was full of people talking, laughing, and eating delicious food, which is exactly the way it should be. I hadn't seen Mackenzie since she was a baby, and at first I almost didn't recognize the big walking, talking 2-year-old. Although I usually tolerate young children at best, I found her extremely cute. Several people asked me about my plans to go to France during dinner, but I wasn't able to tell them much, since I was still waiting on pins and needles to get a letter from the school where I will be teaching.

After I got home that evening, I checked my e-mail, and lo and behold, there was a letter from the English teacher at my school. She seemed very polite, and she explained a lot about the town, the school, and its students; best of all, she filled me in on living arrangements. My school can provide housing for me, and no one can imagine what a huge relief it was to get that news. I will be renting a room with a bed, desk, dresser, closet, and sink, and sharing a bathroom and a kitchen down the hall with other assistants -- all for only 76 euros a month! I felt like an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. Although I'm still scared of going to a foreign country all by myself, I also think that it might just be the time of my life.

After I got off work today, Adam and I went right over to Eva's house for her 10th birthday party. Connie was serving fried shrimp and rice dressing for dinner, with a cookies, ice cream, and a delicious homemade birthday cake for dessert, and a lot of the family was there (but not Sara or Athena, who had to work). Eva's presents included a toy rifle and handcuffs, two plastic pistols and a holster, a cowboy hat, a three-pound bag of licorice, and a stuffed dog that was almost as big as her. I told everyone about the letter during dinner, and there were all very happy for me. Grandma must have felt as relieved as I did, because I think she almost cried; she seems to think that France is a third-world country, because she once asked me if they had washing machines there.

P.S. Yesterday I realized something that I should have realized when I booked my flight last week. I will be leaving the country on September 18, the three-year anniversary of the day Carolyn died, which was also the last day I spent with Dad, who died a month later. When I told Athena this, she said it was a good omen. I'm not so sure.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Fields of Gold, Eva Cassidy

Entry tags:

Rebecca's visa is in her hand!

The drive from Mark and Vickie's house to the French Consulate was only about thirty minutes, but Mom and I left two hours before my appointment, because the Consulate won't see you if you're late, and appointments have to be made so far in advance that if I didn't get my visa today, I probably wouldn't get it in time to leave for France. I almost thought that I wouldn't get it today, because the photos on my forms weren't in the correct format. The clerk who told us this got into a very loud argument with Mom because he was being extremely rude and Mom wasn't listening to what he said. We ended up having to make a mad dash to a nearby drug store (we actually drove past the same department store where Mom bought her wedding dress over 30 years ago) so that I could take new passport photos and glue them onto my forms. Thankfully when we got back to the Consulate, the mean clerk was gone, replaced by a nice old French lady who processed all my paperwork and handed me my visa. What a relief.

While we were in Houston, and we ate dinner at Star Pizza -- their goat cheese is so delicious! -- where I hadn't been since Dad took me and Sara back in 2004. We actually sat in the same room that we did back then, because I remembered the poster of David Bowie on the wall. Sara had told me and Dad that one of his pupils was permanetly dilated, and Dad had gotten up and taken a closer look to see. We also visited Candyliscious (I still don't think it can compare to the Candyland Cottage & Ice Cream Shoppe in Rayne), where I bought a jump rope with detachable, candy-filled handles for Eva's birthday. I can't believe that she'll be 10-years-old.

I'm over halfway through with Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows. As of tomorrow, I will have made it last for three weeks.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Any Old Iron, Julie Andrews

Entry tags:

Rebecca has a job!

I'm almost halfway done with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So far I've stuck to my goal of reading one chapter a day, and I'm still keeping a journal of it, which I write in almost every day (which is why I've haven't been writing in this journal so much lately).

I'm back at Mom's house for now. Moving out of Slobpartment went smoothly and certainly much better than moving out of Tarpartment, although Mom was late arriving in Baton Rouge because she'd stayed up late the night before finishing Harry Potter (every Potter fan in the world is probably done with it by now except me). Although I didn't hate living in Slobpartment, I was not sorry to see the last of it. My three roommates there were nice girls but incredibly wasteful -- hence my name for the place. One of them bought milk and let it sit in the refrigerator until it was lumpy. One of them made brownies and let them sit on the counter until they were rock-hard. One of them bought a chicken dinner, took one bite, and threw the rest away. I never said anything to them about it, but it really angered me. Wasting food like that is an insult to everyone in the world who doesn't have enough to eat.

I finally found a temporary job, which is a huge relief. I'm working at the bookstore at the university here for the first few weeks of the fall semester; they hired me right away when I told them that I was a veteran of the LSU bookstore. My first day was today, and although it was difficult to wake up so early and stand up for so long, it feels good to be earning money again. The air conditioner in the bookstore was broken, but it wasn't as bad as you'd expect of Louisiana in August -- several were fans were on, and one them was blowing right on me. But a broken air conditioner is probably the least of that school's problems. From what I saw, there was no landscaping or custodial services, litter was everywhere, outdoor benches were covered in bird shit, and the public restrooms in the student union were filthy. Most of all, it was unbelievably small. The bookstore where I work only has one floor, and its textbook department is less than a fourth of LSU's. When I first started at LSU, I regretted not going to this college instead, but now I'm thankful that I didn't. It doesn't even have a French Department! The French education that I would have received there couldn't compare to what I learned at LSU. (Sara said that when I ring up their totals, I should add to my customers, "Getting an education, priceless," like in the MasterCard commercials.)

Speaking of my French education, my departure for France is drawing frighteningly near. We're making a trip to the Visa Consulate in Houston tomorrow to apply for my visa, and I'll probably be buying my airplane ticket soon. More on that as it develops.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: Mandolin Rain, Bruce Hornsby

Entry tags:

getting to france

What has Rebecca gotten herself into?

My paperwork has arrived from France. I have taken a cue from Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher who divided life into units of pleasure and pain, and broken things up into pieces of good and bad news.

Amiens. The first piece of bad news is that I'm going to be teaching in Amiens, not in Lille as I had hoped. The good news is that Amiens is further south, which means it won't be quite so cold. (I'm really looking forward to seeing snow, but I've lived in Louisiana all my life, so I know a French winter will be a big adjustment for me). The bad news is that since it's further south, Amiens is further from my cousin Laura and the JM Barrie sites in London. More bad news is that it's closer to big, noisy, smelly Paris. Taking the train from Charles de Gaulle airport will probably be cheaper, but frankly, Paris scares me.

Villers-Cotterets. The good news is that the town in Amiens where I'll be teaching is pretty small; the population is only ten thousand, according to its page on Wikipedia. The good news is that this should mean that rent rates in the town will be lower. The bad news is that they aren't; I browsed around at the very helpful website seloger.com and wasn't able to find any apartments cheaper than 360 Euros a month. The good news is that since the town is so small, I'll probably be able to walk everywhere. Thanks to Google maps, I've already located a bank and some apartment complexes within a mile of my school.

Le Lycee Europeen. The good news is that the school where I'm going to be teaching, Lycee Europeen, looks pretty swanky. Apparently it's a boarding school that accepts students from across Europe and trains them for the Baccalaureate. Parents all over Europe are paying the school to teach their kids, but the school is paying me to teach there – that's a pretty uplifting thought. The bad news is that I've been tardy in contacting my school, and they probably already think I'm one of those obese, obnoxious Americans who voted for Bush.

On an unrelated note, the best news is that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is coming out ... TOMORROW!

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: How to Save a Life, The Fray

Entry tags:

And yet, Rebecca is thankful...

One of my roommates cooked a huge batch of cookies early this month, and even with all four of us eating them, they lasted a pretty long time. I still don't know what kind of cookies they were, but I was able to identify chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, raisins, and oatmeal in them.

Today I discovered that I'm weaker than the wind. I was trying to ride my bike to work, but the wind was so strong that it practically knocked me over.

Pizza Hut pizzas may have gone the way of lemon meringue pies. I got sick on one once and now I think it's lost its appeal to me forever.

Today a reporter for the campus newspaper interviewed me for a story about "straight-edge students," which are students who don't drink, smoke, do drugs, or have casual sex. She told me I was the first person she'd interviewed who didn't do any of those things.

Exactly one day before it was due, I finally mailed my application for an assisstantship in France next year. I had to heckle a dollar off the price of a manilla folder and pay for stamps with a credit card, but I did it and I'm proud of myself. It may not seem like much, but just mailing the application was a big deal for me. JXB and Yeager were incredibly helpful, and I hope they'll continue to be if I actually get accepted.

Music of the Month: "White and Nerdy," by Weird Al Yankovic, "How to Save a Life," by The Fray, and "Suddenly I See," by KT Tunstall.

Shakespeare Quote of the Month: Parolles: "Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great, 'twould burst at this." -- All's Well That Ends Well.