Grève grievance

The RER, or the train lines intersecting the metro that I take to get around the city, has been “en grève” (striking) for about a week now. This follows a similar but not as extensive strike that happened two weeks ago. The first time the strike just meant that there were fewer trains running, so you might have to wait ten minutes to catch a train that, during rush hour, was packed to capacity (seriously….you haven’t seen a full train until you’ve seen one here. The entire car sucks in their collective gut so the door can close). Now the strike has evolved to mean that trains only run from the outskirts of the city (the RER’s all service the Parisian suburbs, and are big commuter trains) to the first big hub, which for me is only one stop away. The result is that I’m waiting for a full train for up to 20 minutes, which takes me exactly one stop up to where I can transfer to lines 4 or 6.

Luckily, this is all I need to get to class. But being cut off from the big hubs of Chatelet and Gare du Nord is making it particularly difficult to go just about anywhere else.

However, any frustration I may feel towards this inconvenience disappears when I witness the good-humored shrugs of my fellow passengers. Unlike in the States, where striking is disorderly, disruptive, largely unproductive and potentially volatile, here it is fairly commonplace—expected, even. Striking is a means to an end, the end being social change, and it the French can’t imagine an economy without it. A minimum level of function is ensured during all strikes, so there’s no need to panic. In the meantime, in the French mindset the inconvenience is just that—an inconvenience— that is improving someone else’s wages and life, and there are plenty of buses and metros to take to compensate. When I took a bus home the other day to avoid a rush hour sardine syndrome on the limited trains, I found the bus just as packed with people seeking the same alternative. In America, such crowds usually produce at least a base level of stress and hostility, but everyone joked about the strikes even as the elbows of strangers were digging into their chests, and when a mother needed to board, the entire bus managed to squeeze into itself to accommodate her stroller.

A night at the movies

Last night I went to a special screening of Le Petit Nicolas, a new movie based on a series of well-loved children’s books. I read a few of the stories in high school French class and love lit/films that try for a child’s perspective on the world, so I had already been planning to see the film before I heard about the opportunity. As it turns out, director Laurent Tirard is a NYU film school alum, so all of the NYU students were invited to a free screening of the film followed by a question and answer session in a cute little theater just off the Champs Elysées.

The movie was perfect, using a cast of unknown child actors (including the director’s son) and a few cartoony adults to bring a child’s view of 1950’s Paris to life. The French audience members seemed pleased with the faithfulness to the book, but as someone with only a vague sense of the characters I still fell in love with them (in particular Clotaire, the adorable class dunce, and the 50’s pre-feminist housewife mother). It reminded me a lot of a less-twisted rendition of Roald Dahl’s stories, with the schoolboy antics and their mean headmaster coming straight from Boy and the kind maîtresse a reflection of Ms. Honey in Matilda. The director himself was laid back and down-to-earth, and if it wasn’t for the microphone he would have blended in easy with the casual college crowd. I also appreciated his honesty—when asked how it was to film with children he gave the obligatory “well, children can be inspiring” response but said it was more frequently comparable to the hell of trying to plan a birthday party for a ten year old. Except for six hours at a time. Every day. For five months of filming. (Understandably, he doesn’t foresee a sequel.)

The main thing that I took away from this experience is an appreciation for France’s cinema scene. France is big enough to have a rich cultural/literary/film history to draw on, but small enough that it’s easy for an inspired writer/director to get in contact with the people he needs to realize his dream…in this case, an illustrator from the original books for the opening credits and Renée Goscinny’s family (the writer who wrote Petit Nicolas, as well as Asterix, Lucky Luke and others) for permission, blessing, and advice. France is small enough to produce art for art’s sake, but its budget is big enough (the government helps fund a lot of film projects) to make sure they don’t suck. It’s big enough to produce 800 boys trying out for the role of Nicolas, but small enough that the chosen actors all remain friends post-filming and come over to the director’s house once a month to play video games with his son.

Well except the little girl actor, of course, who's not invited: “I mean, we only have video games at my house, not dolls.”

Cultured but sexist. Oh France.

fake update

I had a fabulous weekend, but between my trip East and the party I was dragged to immediately after my late return to Paris last night, very little of my work got done. The result is that I don't have time for a full post right now, although I promise details and photos on Wednesday (which is a national holiday of some sort).

If you need me in the meantime I can be found in the study room in the basement of my building, staring blankly at books and contemplating smacking them against my forehead in hopes that their wisdom would then transfer to my brain more efficiently. I just got a laugh when I looked over and saw that the girl next to me was on a webpage called "Aargh.com" or something similar, and then, a minute later on "Why am I so stupid?"

Glad to know I'm not the only one that uses Google to voice random phrases of procrastination frustration (and then procrastinate further by browsing the hits that echo my mindset).

cloudy days, chevaliers and cowboys

Feeling better about the world today despite the fact that very little has changed. It's a rule of life, or at least of my outlook on it, that a down day is almost always followed by a better one. It's still rainy but my go-to Parisian veteran, Laura, says to get used to it. Apparently this is "winter" à la francais and I can expect it to last until about April. If this is true I'm not sure why wellies haven't caught on here yet. I'm tempted to bring my loud, red polka-dotted pair back with me after Christmas break just to stop the bottom of my jeans from clinging to my legs and to stick it to European fashion. Although I suppose to stick it to fashion I would have to have been fashionable to begin with...*sigh* In reality, I will probably end up buying some fashionable but more hazardous "bottes" (boots, pronounced like "butt"...the third-grader living inside my head still snickers whenever I hear it).

This morning I went on an optional "field trip" with my medieval lit class to the Musée National du Moyen-Age. The museum is housed in the 15th century residence of the abbots of Cluny, and the Gothic/renaissance architecture is a perfect compliment to the works inside that gave me a pang of nostalgia for my Oxford days. Our museum guide was perfect, pointing out tapestries, ivory carved chests, and painted glass panels that illuminated the courtly love stories we've been reading in class. The tapestries were incredible--much more detailed and dynamic than others I've seen. We spent the last half hour or so in the room that holds the collection of the "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries, and the guide gave us a great rundown of all the different critical interpretations of the story behind the art. At one point she mentioned that an American had written a book about the tapestries but blanked on the author's name, and when I supplied it (Tracy Chevalier--the same woman who wrote the story-turned-movie about Vermeer's "Girl with the Pearl Earring") my professor was really impressed. I had to laugh--it's hardly a scholarly book, but I suppose that with as much as I'm struggling with my grammar I should take all the outside credit I can get.

Non sequitur : I had a hilarious Orangina sighting today. Anyone unfamiliar with this delicious, orange juice-based soda should get their butt to a Trader Joes/Potbelly's/some other yuppie store and try it out. It's ubiquitous here, and up there with wine and nutella in terms of the major perks of being in France. The other great thing about it is its advertising campaigns. The last time I was in France Orangina launched a limited edition mango/tropical flavor (which was delicious!) as well as a truly bizarre sexual ad campaign centered on anthropomorphic animal pin-up girls. This time around they have a cowboy/Indian theme going. The theme itself isn't as culturally anachronistic as one might think--the French have long been obsessed with the idea of "le cowboy" and one of the biggest movies in theaters right now is Lucky Luke, a French Western based on a popular comic strip. No, the more bizarre aspect is the flavors Schwepps chose to assign to these stereotypical characters--grenadine for the Indian, and MINT for the cowboy. Gross. I'm not exactly sure what I imagine cowboy SHOULD taste like (beef jerky? BBQ? whiskey?) but whatever it is, mint is about the furthest from it you could get. Plus, have Schwepps employees never brushed their teeth before they drank some orange juice? It's a gross flavor combination. And at least in those unfortunate cases my orange juice is still orange, not alien green.

And finally, your moment of zen:

quarter-life crisis

So I'm feeling kind of down today (and a little sick, too, which doesn't help). If you don't want to read a complaining post I advise you to either scroll (waay) down and read about zombies or wait a few days, because I have a weekend excursion coming up that will hopefully yield some fruitful happy bloggage.

You've been warned. Things are about to get Debbie Downer in here (*womp womp WOMP*).

I've been trying to be positive so far, but to be perfectly honest at this point grad school is a little disappointing. I'm starting to get this nagging feeling that the NYU-in-Paris program isn't taken that seriously by NYU, and that all of us grad students are an afterthought in comparison to the 190 paying undergrads. There's no automatic "in" for me to get into the PhD program next year, which means I would have to be reapplying right now, and my heart just isn't in it. I keep telling myself to see this as a blessing (all of this is free after all, and seeing as how I'm not sure I have the stamina right now to jump right into the PhD, maybe it's a good thing to not be locked in) but really I'm just baffled--if NYU isn't trying to encourage me to stay with them, and if they're definitely not giving me opportunities to publish/go to conferences, what exactly are they getting out of me here that merits giving me this fellowship?

Grad school is also a lot "easier" than I imagined. I put that in quotations because it's not easy, per se. The bulk of my reading is intense, and I have to retake my textual analysis midterm due to grammar mistakes and "clumsy wording," so I know what I have to work on. But after working my butt off on my senior thesis last year, I can't help but wish the depth of our analysis was more developed, or that I was being forced to write more independent papers, do more research, incorporate theory...etc. I've been hearing similar feedback from other SMCM alum, though, so maybe I should see this as a testament to my undergrad education rather than a detriment to the NYU way of things.

More than minor frustration with the academic side, I feel like I've been floundering a little in my morale. As always I turned to Wikipedia for answers, and the page on quarter-life crisis seems to describe me perfectly right now. I feel like this should be passed out at graduation with diplomas, just to warn students of what is to come. Here are some of the particularly relevant symptoms it lists, with my commentary in parentheses:

• realizing the pursuits of ones peers are useless. (No offense to my incredibly smart friends. It's just been kind of painful vicariously to watch them struggle in the recession job market, then settle for jobs that are great, I suppose, but so much less grand than we all imagined they would be.)
  
• insecurity regarding the fact that their actions are meaningless (I started to go through this this summer, when I was surrounded by more motivated Arabic students with more career-oriented, practical skills/goals. Afterward I briefly entertained the idea of moving into nonprofit or government jobs, but then I had an Office Space-esque epiphany and realized that I am too lazy and self-centered to do the sort of desk jobs I'd have to work my way up from. Result: I feel more sure about academia, but now on top of "useless academic" guilt I have a healthy dose of self-loathing. Great.)
  
• insecurity concerning ability to love themselves, let alone another person (This is really first on the list for me right now. 'Nuff said.)
  
• insecurity regarding present accomplishments (how the hell did I get into grad school? Do I deserve to be here? Do my current teachers wonder the same things? Am I good enough to get a PhD? Do I even want to? Is there anything ELSE I'm even capable of doing?)
  
• re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships (Ok, so this is the one thing on the list I actually feel good about. I'm a big believer in the power of human relationships. I've always been pretty selective with my friends, and even though I'm talking to them pretty infrequently these days I feel a deep sense of love for them and confidence that we're going to stay in touch for a long while yet, and that my life is the better for knowing them. Thanks guys.)
  
• financially-rooted stress: overwhelming loans, unanticipatedly high cost of living, etc. (I remember at the beginning of college I had an epiphany along the lines of "wow! I don't need material possessions! I can live in minimal comfort forever as long as I'm happy!" Suffice to say that the honeymoon phase of independence has worn off. This whole dorm living, eating on a budget thing is getting old, and even if I don't envy my working friend's schedules, I do envy their financial stability, etc., and the thought of being a poor student for years to come is a little chilling).

My ray of sunshine for the day: NYU booked out the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower for us to have a Thanksgiving feast. Epic. At least those 190 trust fund undergrads are good for something...

'appie 'allouine

Although Halloween has been the highpoint of fall semester since I started college I tried not to set my expectations too high this year. This was surprisingly easy to do given how completely non-existent Halloween is in France. I saw a grand total of one pumpkin in a store window all season, and while grocery stores are already beginning to stock Christmas chocolates and champagnes, there are no funsize bars, fake blood capsules or face paints to be found. With that said, my Halloween weekend ended up being pretty awesome.

Thursday was spent in the company of Aaron French: an aptly-named French student from my undergrad who is currently on break from his university in Bordeaux and needed a floor to crash on for a night. We went out for the buy-a-beer-get-free-couscous deal up at Chateau Rouge, reminisced about St. Mary’s even as we rolled our eyes at its failed presidential search and discussed when I’m going to try and make it down to Bordeaux (answer: right before Christmas). The next night Phinn and I donned our orange and black and joined a few other girls from the program to go out dancing. When you go out in Paris you have two return plans: 1) catch the last metro back at 1:45, or 2) stay out until after 5:30, when the morning metros start to run again. Tired from the night before, I left the others out and opted for the early return, which had me well-rested and ready for the ZOMBIE WALK on Saturday.

As a huge zombie movie buff, Lindsay had been prepping me for the walk ever since our afternoon of thrifting a few weeks earlier. When I arrived at the Marais around 2:30 (I followed a zombie horse from the metro to the meeting place) she was next in-line for make-up and pulled me in behind her. The make-up we got was impressively professional—a waxy facial scar putty covered with liberal quantities of sticky fake blood. Add a little dirt and teased hair and we really looked like we were out for BRAIINNNSSS. The more dedicated zombies came prepared in their own make-up and costumes, many with pieces of flesh or broken glass hanging from their faces or the edges of bones protruding through holes in their clothing. There were counter-culture, Hot Topic-esque zombies with Mohawks and piercings, zombie nuns, zombie brides, zombie babies, escaped insane asylum zombies, and zombies taking after a number of specific movies that went way over my uneducated head. There was also a class of non-zombies marked with yellow arm ties, called victims, who were dressed as members of various military branches and armed with fake guns.

The thirty or so victims assembled around 4pm and were given about a minute's head start before hundreds of zombies were dispatched after them, groaning, growling and limping in true zombie fashion. The participants took their roles very seriously, slowing their reaction times and only grunting responses to questioning observers.When we passed photographers on scaffolding the zombie crowd rushed their perch, arms outstretched and moaning for brains. When we passed cafes, we smashed hungry faces and slapped hands against the window panes, trying to get at the customers inside. This scared a few small children (and angered one ill-tempered shop keeper) but for the most part the reception of the public was great. Tourists and Parisians alike lined the parade route for pictures and offered up their children to appease us, while spectators of all ages leaned out of apartment windows to gawk at the freak show below. The victims, meanwhile, climbed (and were subsequently pulled down from) trees, barricaded themselves in phone booths, and fell screaming and firing beneath a dog-pile of zombies again and again.

I made the decision to keep my zombie make-up on for Laura's Halloween move night, and I discovered that roaming Paris with visible head wounds is a truly interesting experiment in social psychology. Separated from the context of my fellow zombies and in a city that knows little of Halloween, I was the target of countless stares and whispers in the metro tunnels of Chatelet. The effect was enhanced by the fact that I was wearing jeans, a peacoat and a scarf--in short, I looked like a typical Parisian until you looked me in the eye. In the actual car, I found the face paint acted as an icebreaker, allowing me to have French conversations with travelers usually too immersed in their bubble to interact with fellow passengers. I also scared quite a few people--a young girl in the movie store burst into tears, a woman in Montmartre gasped and grabbed my shoulder, readying her cell phone to call an ambulance, and a man who bumped into me in the metro car and turned to apologized jumped half the length of the train in shock.

I spent the evening with a few of Laura's friends, watching The Exorcist for the first time (terrifying--I can't get the stair crawl scene out of my head) followed by the mood-boosting Rocky Horror Picture Show (which, albeit not a full blown RH party, continues my annual tradition). The eerie fog that had settled into the streets by the time I made my way home at 2am provided a perfect ending to my Halloween weekend.

Attack of the mutant ladybugs

The heat in my room doesn't turn off.

I'm not complaining, mind. I can turn it down, at least, and having too much heat is preferable to having none at all (which is a problem I have heard Phinn and other residents complaining about). After all, I'm not paying for my heating bill so although I know I'm contributing to energy waste and global warming every time I open my window at least I can be happy that I'm not wasting my own money.

Except that leaving my window open lately has left me vulnerable to a sudden attack of ladybugs. I'm not sure why, but they're thronging to my room in force. Being fairly superstitious I refuse to kill these good-luck charms, which means that I find myself "freeing" them at odd hours of the night (6 yesterday, three so far today). Handling them has provided the opportunity to examine them up-close and personal, and I noticed something weird: they're backwards! Instead of red with black spots, these are black with rust-colored spots--"coccinelle" in negative. Weird, right?

And then I woke up this morning with a few mysterious bug bites on my arm and a lone ladybug crawling up the wall nearby. The only logical explanation: these aren't just lady bugs, they're a monstrous, man-eating, mutant subspecies.

And yet, I'm still to chicken to squash them.