Antics in Angers

Hey all,

Aaah... where to start? I finished my reading of Mark Twain for the moment, which I'm taking as a good and bad thing; it's good in that I can now begin something else (I've started a collection of Robert Frost's poems, Jane Eyre, and maybe some good French stuff... La Rochefoucauld?), but it's bad in that the ride through Missouri English is over. I really enjoyed Twain's critical spirit and impeccable wit. I would consider it a lifetime achievement to write something worthy of dedication to his generous legacy.

Things are going well. I am becoming more and more comfortable teaching, developing lesson plans that are supple and relatively dynamic. I'm becoming more flexible, using a bit more French with the classes

that have a lower level and pumping up my general spontaneity. It will take some time, but I am going to have to accept that certain students simply don't care in the least for English, while others find it captivating (much in the way that French and Chinese captivate me). Playing 21 Questions with my classes was genius; the French love George Clooney and Twilight, for whoever asks.

Often times the classes that struggle with the subject will be extremely resistant to speaking English. On Thursday, a student struck a sick kind of middle ground and had me in stitches for about five minutes on end. She adopted one of the most absurd American accents, speaking the French equivalent of fake nails exfoliating a chalkboard. I admit I enjoyed my laugh before trying to continue with the class.

Hopefully this weakness of mine won't be exploited.

I caught the flu during my Halloween weekend in Paris (not the swine flu, mind you: my buddy Florent, who kindly put me up for the weekend, had a colleague fall ill with the swine flu during my visit, which was quite scary). I think my falling ill was due to a bit of stress the week before (see: Graduate School Applications), a late night on Halloween, and pushing myself to see the Renoir exhibit at the Grand Palais the following Sunday. The Renoir exhibit was well worth the two-hour wait in the rain, and perhaps even the flu. Warmth and humanity ooze from his paintings as does honey butter from cornbread slabs at T-Rex.

Paris was excellent, by the way: I ate some delicious pasta chez les di Meglio, tried to go to a graffiti exhibit and ended up in a Senate session, and generally let loose. It was fun.

In any case, I gave myself a good two weeks to fully recover from a debilitating fever, fatigue and cough. Mind you, I taught every class - didn't miss a single one! In this week or two, I got fairly lazy and heavy. It was time to start running again! I went for a jog in the park near the high school last night around 5:45. It was really interesting to see this park - tranquil and innocent during the day - transform into a menagerie of shadows, hosting foreboding sculptures of Greek gods and goddesses, fleeting silhouettes, and mystery floating upon warm breezes in the late autumn dusk. I finished my jog, approaching one of the looming gates. It then dawned on me that the park closing at 18h00 was no joke. In Bordeaux, the park closing was a thoroughly open affair, park attendants zipping by on scooters to make sure they weren't locking anyone in. Apparently, things are done a little differently here in Angers. I was locked in with nothing but my keys to the high school. No cell phone, no ID, no wallet, no flares, no rape whistle.

I went around to another gate, thinking perhaps the attendant was still in the process of closing the park. Nope. Only a band of tweens gossiping on the other side of my gilded cage. They suggested I jump, so I began to scale the relatively tame gate heavy with footholds. At the top, sheltered white boy from a California suburb notices pointy arrowhead-type devices decorating the top of the gate. Sheltered white boy remembers how little practice he has had scaling fences. Sheltered white boy then reflects on the children he has yet to have and the equipment needed to bring them into existence. "Perhaps there are other, friendlier gates," he said to himself as he slid down the gate and slithered away in retreat.

Sure enough, I found a nine-foot tall stone wall not far away with a kind of chain-link fence box at its foot. I cautiously stepped up on to the trailer cage, making sure of my footing and judging the feat conceivable. Preparing my cowardly soul for the leap, I sprang off the trailer to get a hold on the top of the wall and boost myself over.

That's when I realized the trailer had wheels.

Laughing at my own foolishness, I drag the cart back against the wall and wedge some nearby chopped wood under the wheels, scaling the wall without much trouble. Triumphant, pride relatively intact, I strutted past the tweens, who were relieved and amused to see their new friend had ben victorious. Ben 1, Park 0.

In other news, I have more or less finished with Graduate School Applications. I look forward to hearing back from the institutions sometime in May, and am greatly relieved to have the whole process behind me. I applied to both Comparative Literature and French departments across the US. Comparative Literature is an academic field that permits a study of texts in their original form: I would study French, Chinese and English texts and compare them. All this operating under the belief that analysis is deepened by a working knowledge of the language and culture in question. In French Literature, I would more or less adhere to seventeenth and eighteenth century French theatre, promoting awareness of lesser-known texts in the States and furthering research in the field, working hand-in-hand with French colleagues. Needless to say, I'd be happy to do both! I've applied to Columbia, Duke, Princeton, NYU, and UW-Madison.

My newly obtained guitar should be out of the shop (don't ask...) in a few days. If I'm feeling inspired I might just post a morceau of something that vaguely resembles music. You can hold a wabisabibanjo accountable for that.

I love speaking French oh so much. It makes me terribly happy to be given the opportunity to do so on a day-to-day basis with intellectuals and beautiful women. Less on that later.

Best,
Ben