Quickie

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know (12 days since my last post) that I made it back to France just fine and am settling in quite well. I came in late Tuesday night much to the surprise of my host family, who thought I was coming back on the 20th! Serves them right for not reading the sheet I gave them with my itinerary! hahaha!

Classes started today, but there's not much to say about that; the stress of negotiating schedules and meeting requirements can't be new to you.

I went to Saint Emilion on Saturday afternoon with the brand new set of UC students. It was a sunny, relatively warm day, and everyone was in good spirits. Nothing gets positive energy like fresh faces on a sunny day. This town is absolutely gorgeous - I will without a doubt return, either before or after the coming of Spring. I love old buildings and this town is it.

Leaving from Paris on the 20th of December, I lost my Carte de Sejour, France's equivalent of a 'green card', which extends my visa to a full-year stay in France. Besides being infuriated with the staff (who may have in fact stolen it, considering the time between my losing it and noticing that it was lost), I was very worried about being able to come back into the country safely. Fortunately, all went well on re-entry and I only suffered a mild 4-hour slog through child-infested bureaucracy swamp in the process of obtaining approval for a new copy. Kafka came to mind as I looked at the immigrants who didn't seem to like waiting any more than I did, and I'm sure had much better things to do with their time. It did hurt quite a bit to see so many children; I can only imagine it is out of necessity that these mothers drag their toddlers to this linoleum hell, and not out of some kind of masochistic pleasure they get from calming tantrums before throngs of strangers.

It made me feel very grateful to be in the (privileged, white, middle-class, french/english-speaking, childless) position I currently find myself in.

I made dinner for the family tonight; I had volunteered this last weekend to make pasta rigatoni with sauteed onion, zucchini and bell pepper. I usually toss a couple sausages in there, but was unable to find anything suitable and opted instead for the vegetarian approach; no harm there! It went over very well, and I was happy to see the host mom so effusively praise my cooking. Little does she know I simply stole a recipe from mama Ganino. Thanks, mama!!!

I have been religiously practicing 5 Chinese characters a day since I got back, which I'm hoping will (if maintained) keep my level of written Chinese where it is for a little bit longer. I'm also trying to make plans with the (increasing number) of Chinese friends I have here for the New Year, which is coming up on the 26th! Hoping to put that mahjong (麻將, pronounced ma-jian) set I got to use... I've been trying to get people to play dominoes with me (I brought my set from the US), but according to just about everyone, it's an old man's game. Little do they know how gangsta it is... hahaha.

We have a president to inaugurate tomorrow! Here's to hoping all goes well and that I'm able to slip out of the first day of my lit section an hour and a half early so I can go watch the ceremony! Not to mention the birthday of my little sister Oriana! ;-) Happy Birthday, sis! By the way, the exchange rate is currently $1.3149 to the euro. I'm hoping that by this time tomorrow they'll be on par. Harharhar.

More to come, albeit probably not soon...

Ben