teachable moments.

This was a week of teachable moments, for me, for my students.

First of all, I will say this. The French may do a lot of things in odd ways, but having a 10-day vacation after only a few weeks of work is nothing that I will complain about. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first visitor in Paris; I look forward to being a tour guide and a tourist for a week, and getting to show off the city that I love with more than a few weekly words on a blog.

In school on Thursday, I showed up ready to teach once-and-for-all one more lesson on French and American stereotypes. Because my classes vary in their level of ability, not only by class but within the classes themselves, I spent the first two weeks teaching the same lesson over and over and over and over again, trying to determine what level of vocabulary was appropriate for each class and what each class could handle. I thought that, in this way, I could give a similar message to all (hey! stereotyping is natural but let's not do it in my classroom, okay? great.) and give the students an idea about my ideal classroom environment (everyone should feel as though they can talk). The lesson went well every single time but by the last time (I had to teach this 20 times in all) I was rather sick of it and worried that that might come through. The class was a fairly quiet one. They had to be coaxed out of their shells a bit to share such answers as, "All Americans have guns?" and "All Americans...drive Hummers?" when the last classes had been nearly shouting, "All Americans love violence!" "All Americans are racist!" This was a class that needed a little prodding but, in the end, they seemed to understand and I wished them a happy vacation on their way out the door. I locked the room behind me and went to go get Andy at his school down the street. On my way out of the building, I was stopped by a student from the class that I had just led.

"Can I talk to you in French for a moment?"

I said sure.

She replied (translated here), "It can be hard to express myself in English, that's why I asked if I could say this in French because I know you can understand anyways. I just wanted to let you know that I really liked what you were doing with our class today. I get the message that you're going for, that we have to treat each other right if we're going to actually learn to look past the stereotypes, and I'm impressed. The Teaching Assistants in the past have been terrible. You're really good and I'm glad you're here."

I was flustered and taken aback by the comment but thanked her in return for sharing that with me and told her that I looked forward to the year.

What struck me was not only the feeling of, "Wow. A student just thanked me for the first class that I taught her," but also, "I completely understand why she wanted to say that to me in French." There are times when I am so filled with love and energy here that I want to express it and can find it so frustrating that, in searching for words, some of that natural joy that comes from living here disappears in translation. I hope that I can get to a point in my level of French where immediate emotions - joy, frustration, excitement - can come through with the same ease as it does in English. In that moment, I saw myself as so similar to my student, and so thankful for her openness, and promised myself I'd be as open in return.

This week I also took the opportunity to go again to the Other Writers' Workshop. This was the third consecutive time that I went and I'm enjoying getting a routine of seeing certain faces, hearing new parts of familiar pieces, and entering into a community of aspiring writers. For the first time, I shared some of my writing from my thesis and the response was great. I thoroughly appreciated being in a forum again where I could think about my writing and whether or not it has any impact on others (in particular, people who do not know me very well). Afterwards, the writing group's leader approached me and asked me if I might consider coming to read at an open mic that he runs on a twice-a-month basis at a bar in the 20th. It is mostly poetry, sometimes prose, sometimes song, and always a good time, he says, and he's been running it since 2006. I told him that I would consider attending but that since my prose tends to be longer than 5 minutes worth, it might not be so coherent. He then invited me to be the featured writer for the next open mic so that I could read three times throughout the night. Another moment in which I was taken aback. I took some time to think about it and agreed. So if any of you reading this happen to be in Paris on November 2nd and want to check it out, send me an email and I'll give you the location details. It should be an adventure.

Perhaps, though, the biggest moment of the week was in the classroom on Friday. My new lesson, on Philadelphia and restaurants in Philadelphia (this is, after all, a culinary school) failed as the materials that I had chosen to share were way. too. hard. I asked the students to read a couple of restaurant reviews and to write down any vocabulary words that they had so that we could all go over them together. The students were writing down almost every word. I scrambled to make the lesson work. I slowed it down, showed them each word one by one (many of them look very much like their English translations and I thought they would notice that...they only did after seeing it many times), and told them it was really OK that they didn't understand. I tried to make it seem like I had planned it to be hard (I hadn't) and told them I had wanted to push them (I hadn't). In the hour break that I had before my next class, I completely rewrote the reviews into the simplest English for my most advanced class and created an entirely new lesson for the classes that would follow after. My teaching mentor noticed me scrambling a bit and asked me if everything was alright. I explained that the last lesson had flopped and that I was working to make something more appropriate for the next few classes.

"You learn as you go," he replied with a smile.

I am most definitely learning.

elle est trop marrante.

This is a sentence that I heard three times this week, spoken about me, in front of me, as if I couldn't hear it or perhaps it was merely that the people who said it didn't know me well enough to believe that they could just tell me directly. But I heard it anyways.

"Elle est trop marrante," a student of mine said, as I stood up at the front of the classroom, wildly gesturing. I was explaining the word "cheerleader" and how, even though in French they are known more casually as "pom-pom girls," that in fact in English we call them "cheerleaders" and they are a reality of (some) American high schools. "Not all," I said, explaining that some schools don't have cheerleaders, and some schools don't have footballs teams, and some schools certainly don't have students singing and dancing in the halls like "High School Musical." It is amazing how much Disney has created the image of the American public and the American dream. The lessons this week were on stereotypes. Using my fantastic (read: terrible) drawing skills, I crafted pictures on the board of the stereotypical American family, based on the students' ideas. Then we collected ideas on stereotypes of the French and compared what we found. The students were offended that Americans believe that the French are baguette-toting, smelly/dirty intellectuals with a hatred for tourists. The students were surprised that I was offended that they thought that all Americans were gun-toting, geographically inept dolts with a love of patriotism. But at the front of the classroom, gesturing wildly, showing them that the ideas we might have of each other are completely absurd, a student said it again, "Elle est trop marrante." And the thing was that I was trying to be funny. Because if they got that I was trying to be silly with them, I'd know they were listening.

Andy was the second one to say it, at dinner, to his mother, as he made me tell a new round of scary stories. "Maman, ecoute! Elle est trop marrante," he said as I told the new versions of the same story. Scary/mysterious noise + lots of build up + turns out to be a family member = successful not-too-scary story for Andy. The problem for me now is that I've told the story five different times and I've run out of family members. I'm going to have to start repeating family members with new scary noises or we're going to have to pick a new genre.

The third time was in the writing workshop that I've started to attend at Shakespeare Book Company. This was the second time that I have gone and I am hoping to attend regularly. The group meets on the second floor of the bookstore, in a small reading room that is packed floor-to-ceiling with old books and the smells of aging pages. At the beginning of the workshop, the teacher asked us to say our names and whether or not we had brought anything to share with the group this week. "Hello, my name is Kate and I did not bring any pages with me this week." The teacher quickly replied, "That was generous of you," despite the fact that only 5 of the 15 people in the room had brought work. Slightly miffed but knowing it was in good fun, I waited to hear the rest of the introductions and when we arrived at the teacher, he said, "Hello, my name is David and I did not bring any work with me this week." "That was generous of you," I replied immediately and the group laughed. "Elle est trop marrante" one of the women said and I smiled.

But the thing is that I have never felt terribly funny. I believe that any funny comments that come out of me are a product of the people that I have grown closest to over the years. In high school, I learned that among my friends I had to keep up with quick comments of my own or I'd never get a word in at all. When I think of funny in my family, I try to channel my sister, who is so funny and so quick that it has only been from spending time with her that I think I've found my sense of humor. Walking through Paris, I get passing glances of things that remind me of my family, my friends, and I feel better about being so far away. On a walk yesterday, I saw a West-highland terrier and thought of my stepfamily, who raised the sweetest one there ever was and who remains to this day annoyed that he has gone. In the past week, I've seen two cocker spaniels. How could I not think of home? When I tell stories at the dinner table, I think of the way that my father tells stories and I try to channel him. When I talk to my fellow assistants about art that I've seen, I think of how my father might look at it and how I never know with him if he's going to think it's absolutely brilliant or total crap (it could easily be either). And when I hear music anywhere, ever, I think of my mother.

All of this seems to add up to very little, but what I mean is that not a day goes by when I don't think of how I am living this life in Paris only because of all of the people who have helped me to become who I am. From my sassy friends to my wonderful family, I feel that here I notice how I am a little bit of each of you. I catch myself thinking, "This is something my mother would say" or "This is a movie that Nora would love" but I am thinking these things and saying these things in another language, another place, because these people have helped me get here. I suppose I am simply grateful this week for the wonderful people I have back home. This process of living and learning and becoming a teacher is only getting better by the day. And, what's more, I'm getting used to appreciating solitude, those moments at the end of the day where I am not a babysitter or a teacher or a college student or a camp counselor, but I am just myself, in my tiny apartment, with my big Parisian thoughts and my little coffee cup. Because when I'm experiencing this new independence (I'm not in a dorm, a cabin, etc. for the first time in years), the last thing that I feel is alone. I feel that I am quite funny (and wonderful) company, thinking of all of you.

the babysitter's here.

This was a week of small adventures and, what ultimately felt like, little victories. It began in the classroom, with groups of 25 students staring at me, asking me questions about my opinions on Barack Obama and Les Simpson. With the teacher still in the classroom, I dodged questions about what my thoughts were of France's president and America's religious right. I focused on topics that everyone can connect with at that age: television, movies, music, Lady Gaga. My students range in age from 14-25 so yes, some of them are older than me and yes, some of them looked a little surprised about it, but all of these introductory classes were merely preparing me for what was to come on Friday: my first day of teaching alone.

Before I got to teaching alone, though, I had other small adventures. There was the trip to Rectorat of Paris, where I had various immigration paperwork to turn in and where I was certain someone was going to throw me out of the country. The problem with French bureaucracy is that it is often confusing, unclear (it being in French and all...) and slow. These three things make such a nice pairing with my personal anxieties about being tossed out of the country at any moment merely for having signed a form in the wrong place. The slow system allows me to have weeks to mull over questions such as, "What if they wanted me to write my birth city in that spot instead of my birth state?" and "What if I was supposed to write the address of my high school and not my personal address? I mean, what is personal anyways when I am simply a jeune fille au pair trying to make a small place for herself in the big cruel Parisian world?" The trip to the Rectorat was fine. My paperwork was perfect. A small victory, a small step towards having French social security, and a big step towards my peace of mind.

And after the teaching, there was the Fete des Vendages, an adventure that cannot be fully explained in any way except that it was just. so. French. Last night, the streets of Montmartre were packed with people. The Fete des Vendanges celebrates the harvesting of the wine grapes that are grown in the city (in Montmartre). Although this tiny vineyard along the back of the hill that holds up the Sacre Coeur is probably one of the smallest vineyards in France, the celebration is anything but little. Packed to the brim with vendors selling bottles of wine, crepes, cheese, ham, ciders, and more, the cobblestone streets felt more like the Metro during a strike: one barely had to lift one's feet to be pushed along, carried by the crowd with wine in hand, to watch the fireworks shooting out over the city, illuminating the sky in celebration of this city's tiny accomplishment.

That was a celebration well earned by the city but also by the teacher - Madame Fussner or to some just Kate - who stood up in front of the class on Friday all by herself to begin teaching a very important and fairly casual lesson on stereotyping. Having no idea what I was getting myself into, I prepared a lesson with about 8 activities so that no matter what I would not run out of things to do in my 55 minutes of class. My classes work in this way: I am responsible for 10 different classes each week and each class has 20-25 students. Because I am an assistant teacher and cannot be held responsible for that many students at once (according to the rules of the assistantship), the teacher takes half of the class and I take the other half. In separate rooms, we practice conversational skills on a variety of topics with the hopes that they will improve their comfort level in French. My first classes alone were fabulous. In English, we discussed stereotyping. We talked about French stereotypes about Americans and American stereotypes about the French. We watched a clip from an American tv series and discussed when stereotypes are painful and when some are merely absurd. And when the bell sounded at the end of each lesson, I was so grateful for having made it through without having any of my fears realized. (What if they hated me? What if they rioted? What if they went on strike? [talk about a French stereotype, and yet the students agreed with that one] What if they were bored? What if they refused to talk? What if, what if, what if?)

Once again, my mind was able to come up with many situations that were much scarier than the reality. The reality is that I think these first few classes actually enjoyed themselves.

But my favorite small victory for this week that I will share is this: when I came home from school on Thursday, I picked up Andy and brought him home and he asked me to tell him a story. Video games and movies had been banned for the afternoon because of Andy's behavior at dinner the night before but I told him not to worry about it. We sat down on the couch and pulled blankets over our head and surrounded ourselves with pillows. We were in some sort of cave together and Andy held up the flashlight to my face and told me to tell him a scary story. "Not too scary," he said, "Just a little bit scary. I like stories a little bit scary." And so I invented a story on the spot about a little boy named Andy who lived in Paris and the girl named Kate who babysat for him. They were home one day and they heard a "scratch scratch scratch" upstairs. They had been playing chess downstairs and Andy had been winning many games in a row but they kept hearing a "scratch scratch scratch." They crept up the stairs to investigate, Andy with a light saber in hand, and they heard it again coming from the kitchen. "Scratch scratch scratch" they heard, and Andy thought it was a thief coming into the house. He crept into the kitchen, ready to strike since Kate the babysitter was too scared and ....It was just the hamster, Capone, scratching at his cage because he was hungry. The end.

Andy loved the story so much that he made me tell it twice more. And then again at dinner, to his parents, who were amused and also impressed that Andy was as into a made-up story as he was his Batman video games. A small success for the babysitter and living proof that victories existed before the days of technology, a fact that surprised and impressed Andy, and crushed another worry of mine, that I would never connect with an 8 year old boy and would end up resorting to living in a box on the street rather than be the jeune fille au pair. My mind, inventive as it is, was calmed this week by the slow and patient acceptance of the new life I am living.

in the garden.

In the streets of Paris, there is so much to take in. The homeless woman breast-feeding her baby as she begs for money just a block away from the homeless man who has a box of bunnies and a sign that explains that both he and the bunnies could use a break. The tourists who are lost and who hold their Paris Practiques upside down, searching for a rue that they won't find if they keep holding their map like that but no one stops to suggest a simple redirection. There are the musicians -- in the streets, on the subways -- some who carry instruments, others who carry the sounds of their own voices and, my personal favorite, those with karaoke machines. It seems to me that if all of the musicians in Paris got together and formed one single orchestra, they could sell the karaoke machines for a profit, choose a sizable and central location, and have some sort of united band that could garner money, attention, fame. Something tells me that they are not interested in this idea, but I like to imagine as I am walking to pick up 8 year old Andy from school that they could line up on the Boulevard Montparnasse and play a piece so loud and so full that the cemetery there might come alive somehow.

In the streets I also see people pissing. It isn't an important observation, to be certain, but in this past week alone I have 8 people in broad daylight (this is not even counting those I have seen at night) stopping in the street to piss. Women, men, children, adults, everyone gathers to piss in the streets of Paris. This is one of those unfortunate realities that comes from living in a city that I had forgotten about, those things that we don't want to admit, along with the catcalling/name-calling, the drug offers, and the solicitations in another language that I can understand just enough to say, "Laisse-moi tranquille." In the mall not far from my house, where I took Andy for our first outside-of-the-house adventure together (he wanted to buy The Blues Brothers and The Gremlins on DVD), I saw a man spank his crying child as crowds pushed past (totally unfazed) to get to their destinations. These are all odd things to take in and I only write them down now because I think that these observations mark for me my understanding that my romantic city of Paris is also sometimes vulgar, sometimes upsetting, sometimes confusing and often baffling. I live in a different world now and it is in some ways the same Paris that I lived in before, but I am not necessarily the same person who was here two years ago.

In the garden though, that is where I learned the most this week. In the garden, I learned how to "utiliser la force" when playing Star Wars with Leo and Andy. They taught me how to wield one or two light sabers at the same time and how it is possible to die eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve times in a single game and have it not matter at all. After all, the game can't continue if the babysitter cannot be killed yet again. In the garden, I learned middle school slang words watching Leo play badminton with his friends, inviting his little brother to join them even though he has yet to really learn how to wield the racket. I learned how to quiet down Al, the pug, who is excited by noises that no one else seems to hear and loves eating badminton birdies. I learned games can be invented and re-invented. I learned that card games which come with poor instructions in both French and English can be played nonetheless; in the garden, we sat for hours playing our version of "Miam Miam", a sort of Slamwich card game that required us to devise our own rules when the directions were too confusing.

And when their parents came home in the early evening, and they ran upstairs to say hello ahead of me, I learned that the garden (which has a full grown tree with a swing and space to run and to breathe) struck me as one of those safe spaces, those lucky finds that I am so grateful to have access to. Away from the main streets with their car horns and small daily disasters, there is a small yet spacious garden where I can see the evening coming on without having to share it with those distractions, where I can learn what it means to grow up in a city, and where I catch myself reflecting in a mix of both French and English, a small triumph or perhaps merely the exhaustion setting in from the end of another well-lived day.