Mastery and mille mercis

Tomorrow is the day that I have been both dreading and busting my butt for : my Master's exam.

Yup. In six hours and who-knows-how-many essays, I will have to prove to the grading committee that I have a Master's mastery of more than eight centuries' worth of authors and their works, and the literary/cultural/historical context that shaped them.

The intensive review process this month has been both stressful and rewarding, and has made me realize how much better my speed-reading and my written French have become this year, and how much I now know. On the right, I have reposted the picture I showed at the beginning of this year, of the Master's book shelf (although, once again, I point out that there are a few doubles mixed into the collection). Guess what? I READ THESE.

I'm not really sure who follows this blog anymore, but just in case, I would like to offer a preemptive thank you to all of my St. Mary's and CMRS lit professors, who I think did more to prepare me for the critical thinking/analysis parts of this exam than any of my "read! read more!" coaches at NYU. As part of my review process, I made myself a 150-page study guide of notes pertaining to context and significance of the works, and for source material I relied heavily on seemingly-ancient hand-written notes from classes I took with some of the brainiest women I know: Gantz, Doggett, Adams, and Wooley. Despite what the popular (and trite) saying suggests, I did NOT learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten; however, I just might have learned everything I needed to know in my college survey courses.

Esoteric Intellectualism

The class taught by aging Algerian writer Assia Djebar that I had last semester has been replaced this semester with a course by another writer/professor, X. X is more on the ball than Djebar was, although I've had an unusually hard time getting a feel for X as a teacher, much less as a person.

Like one of my other professors, X is a graduate of École Normale Supérieure (ENS), one of the "Grandes Écoles", which is about the closest France comes to having "Ivy League" schools. However, there is a definite difference between the two. While financial/educational resources or a lack thereof definitely keep the Ivies pretty WASPy, there's a general understanding that if a student has competitive enough test scores, GPA and drive, she can get accepted at an Ivy. This is particularly true for graduate school when undergraduate performance and full fellowships tend to even the playing field a bit. In France, however, you're groomed to go to a Grande École from a young age and generally only if your social status fits the mold. Another difference is public perception of the degree. In the States, a degree from Harvard Law or Yale is somewhat of a prerequisite for the rich and powerful--you need the degree to give you a credible base upon which to build the platform of opinions and experience that will earn you respect. In France, the degree itself commands respect and IS the power/wealth--it represents an instant "in" for pretty much any career. Case in point: the French are fairly blasé about the fact that I'm dating an English physicist until they hear that he's a student at the prestigious "École Polytechnique": "ooooh! C'est pas mal, ça." Similarly, each time one of us students questions the pedagogy of one of our ENS professors our concerns are immediately dismissed by the French NYU administrators: "well, he DID study and work at ENS...he must, of course, be right." To an Américaine it seems to be a small detail, but it's one that completely changes the direction of the conversation.

X's apparent genius as an ENS professor is enhanced by X's literary career, which I have to admit is pretty impressive (it includes several collections of poetry and a handful of novels, one of which won the prix Goncourt for first novel). I've now been to two extra-curricular presentations of X's newest novel which have been enlightening in terms of the mix of well-educated attendees and the panel of intellectuals (poets, artists, writers) that served as discussion leaders/moderators. It's cool to see that the novel-as-art is still valued in an age of cheap pulp fictions, and also that the centuries-old insular community of French intellectuals surrounding it is still intact.

And then there's X as a teacher. I'll give X this: X is a smart cookie. X speaks several languages, lapsing easily into English to find the idiom that better fits the situation (albeit in smug sort of way). X also, like me, is prone to make connections between our French texts and other works, especially English literature and old black-and-white movies (although I can rarely relate to the esoteric allusions X makes). With a paper due every week to be read aloud and picked apart in front of the class, the class pushes me to read more critically and write well, even as it terrifies me. And as was the case with Djebar, it's interesting to see how X's role as a writer influences X's author-centric approach to a text: X focuses on small passages to highlight style, word choice, voice, etc. and has us do the same in our "commentaire composée" assignments, making X's class seem almost like a creative writing workshop at times.

However, like Professor Slughorn from Harry Potter, there's something slightly guarded about X, and X's almost bipolar--swinging from an energetic high one week to a vengeful, scornful low the next in a pattern that I'm beginning to think correlates with the success X had (or didn't have) writing that morning. Like Slughorn, X's also interested in the "high flyer" students and creating X's own manner of elite slugclub. During the first few weeks of class X would hold us back two at a time to grill us about our ambition while obviously sizing us up, determining if we were worth interest. Those who aren't are overlooked during class, while those who might be have their essays picked apart more viciously.

I was running in Parc Montsouris a few weeks ago when I saw X, positioned in front of a forested backdrop and looking poetically into the distance as a camera crew went to work. I stopped, of course, and waited for the camera to stop rolling to approach. Out of context it took X a minute to place me, and once X did X was completely disinterested. "What are you doing here?" X demanded, as if I had followed. "Running," I replied, thinking "duh" as I indicated my clothes, my iPod, my red face. "I live right there." Eyes still angry, X suddenly broke into a wide smile, telling the camera crew that I was one of X's students and explaining that the arts channel was doing a special. "Well, see you next week!" X said.

I can tell when I'm not wanted. I put my ear buds back in, waved, then proceeded to take another route for the remainder of my run. I can't deny that I'm benefiting academically from X's genius, but I'll limit my X quality time to class time. I'm hard enough on myself without being made to feel like a Weasley.

Song of sixpence surprise

My Mondays are hell this semester. One class in the morning, then a brief break to haul my butt across the city and grab lunch before a grammar tutorial and a literature tutorial. I then have half an hour to incorporate edits from the earlier grammar tutorial into the mini-paper for my last course before reading it out loud in front of the class, to be picked apart by the prof. It's an incredibly stressful day, but in a way it's nice to have some of my schedule concentrated; it makes the rest of the week a little easier. Additionally, that last class of the day with the out-loud reading is definitely going to be my most challenging this term, and it's actually really ideal timing. At the end of a long day of French immersion, my speaking abilities are at their peak, and seeing as how I'm naturally at my sharpest, intellectually, in the evenings, it should all turn out alright (with a little help from espresso, of course).

The problem is that this 8am-8pm Monday means I have to reform my procrastinating ways and be disciplined about getting a lot of work done in advance. I also have to make sure I get enough sleep Sunday night to function, which can be difficult to do after adjusting to a late night/late morning weekend sleep schedule. I failed at the latter goal this week, which meant that I worked about three times as long as I had slept and was super strung out when I finally got home.

Luckily, there's Tom. In one of our many Oxford conversations I mentioned to Tom that I really miss my favorite pub dinner: steak and ale pie. When I got home he had pie surprises (surPIESes?) waiting for me--complete with pastry monograms and minty "mushy peas"! (Feel free to go "awwwww"). I couldn't resist a few photos before digging in.

last boring post for a while, I promise

Good news on the bureaucracy front: I have a French bank account with 150 euros in at, and a beautiful, beautiful debit card with the European “puce” (chip). All of my CAF forms, my residency card crap and my student metro pass forms are officially in and connected to said bank account, so it’s only a matter of time before the rent refund comes rolling in (…only to roll back out again to fund my transportation, of course, but c’est la vie.)

I had my last official class today (I will also have tutorials and participate in themed colloquiums, but those aren’t graded). It was a textual analysis class with the Oxford-esque professor Gengembre from orientation, whom I now love even more. He is absolutely brilliant: one of those people that seems to know at least a little bit about everything but somehow still treats us like educational peers. I realized today that I must be developing some sort of unconscious sense of the tu/vous divide, because when Gengembre's response to me having a question was "je vous écoute," (I'm listening to you, formal) I felt inexplicably flattered.

What I have learned about myself this week: 1) I’m too old to be afraid of teachers any more (in awe of the great ones, always, but even those were where I am now at some point) 2) I’m too smart to be intimidated by other smart students—it’s a blessing to have classmates you can actually talk to and that contribute to class. 3) My French ia not as good as I want it to be, but it will get better (and in all honesty it will probably never be as perfect as I’d like) and in the meantime I have a good command of the language and a decent accent in spite of the occasional misconjugation or mangled “R”. 4) This is my life, my degree, completely my choice to be here. Undergrad never felt this liberated and self-directed. My actual time spent in class isn’t that much, and this year is really dependent on me investing myself as I see fit reading/experiencing Paris to develop a decent “big picture” of the history of French literature. Wow.

That may all seem obvious, but it wasn’t to me a few weeks ago.

Tomorrow: free day trip/lunch with the undergrads to Vaux-le-Vicomte, a Chateau. Next post should hopefully include pictures of that, as well as more info on the “fun” things I’ve been doing (since I realize not everyone defines French lit as “fun.” Your loss, really).

Classes and meeting an idol at long last...

Monday is my “Stylistics and Semantics of Written French” course taught by a very down-to-business French woman who has that rare gift of really, truly loving grammar. At the orientation she seemed a little intimidating (when the question came up of addressing our tutors with the formal “vous” or the more casual “tu” she was the only one who insisted on the formality) but she knows her stuff (she actually wrote the workbooks we’re using) and her obvious passion for it actually makes it—well, not quite interesting, but close. I was happy to find out that the class is going to focus more on stylistic things, like phrasing and vocabulary, because I’m always interested in improving my writing (though as much as I dislike the grammar, I do need it…).

Tuesday is my course at the Université de Paris VII: Love in the Middle Ages. The professor is great, and the reading list that made the French students groan (they’re accustomed to spending a semester doing a close textual analysis of one or two major works) seems normal by American standards. The class is about 30 people (including a guy pushing 60) and crammed into a small, hot room for three hours, but thus is school in France. Everything she said evoked memories of courses, books and scholars from my semester in Oxford—including an apparently not-dead idea for a novel I have set in medieval France. In short, this course will be intellectually orgasmic.

Today was the one I’ve been waiting for: Assia Djebar’s class on Francophone lit. For anyone I haven’t told, Assia Djebar is a female Algerian writer whose works played a leading role in my senior thesis. Her works are generally recognized as some of the first and best examples of postcolonial North African literature, especially from a Women Studies point of view. She was also appointed to the Academie Française (an exclusive club around to regulate the French language…yeah, so it’s stupid and powerless but still a great honor) a few years back, making her the first francophone member and one of the first women. In short, she’s a big deal. From the impression I got from her novels and her accomplishments, she seemed a force to be reckoned with. The impression I got from other people after getting her was that she might be a little conceded and…well…difficult, as a teacher. The truth: my longtime literary idol has...well...been around for a long time. Assia Djebar is old.

Granted, I knew that jacket photo I had in my head must be outdated, but when I entered the class I had to squint to see the resemblance. Dressed in costume jewelry, a dress low cut enough to reveal a protruding bra underwire, a gaudy turquoise jacket,
tennis shoes and with the typically French old lady orange-red tinted hair, she looked more like a bewildered Parisian I might help out on the Métro than the defiant, sharp-tongued expat I had expected. She also wasn’t really on top of things, mentally. Although she asked for our names several times (there are only 5 of us) she couldn’t retain them, and pretty much settled on using “Laura” to address us all. Valérie, our program leader, sat-in on the class as a sort of personal secretary, reminding her several times of the attendance sheet and syllabus in front of, keeping time, keeping her on topic, and helping her find her point when she couldn’t find her way back after her frequent autobiographical tangents.

It was a little heart-breaking to watch, but I still have as much respect as ever for her accomplishments and her writing, and I can hardly hold her age against her. Also, while Djebar is getting a little senile and succumbing to the old lady tendency to blurt out observations best left as inner monologue, once she got past introductions and started talking about literature it was like her eyes lit up, her wit switched on and she was…well…brilliant. The effect of her position as an author is evident in her approach to a text, which really privileges the author and revels in specific vocabulary and the beauty of language. Plus, Djebar knows a lot of these authors, and has more or less lived these stories, and everything she says is supported with a childhood anecdote or real-life struggle. It was especially cool for me, having researched her so extensively last year, to have her in front of me, telling me things in person about her childhood and her relationship with French and Arabic that I had only read before.

After class, Valérie met up with us to touch base, saying essentially (and with an obvious, touching sense of sadness) that “we know Djebar is starting to lose her marbles, but there’s still a lot to be learned from her.” To make sure that we benefit fully from the course, Djebar will only teach every other week, and always aided by Valérie, and in the off weeks we’ll have guest lectures and discussions lead by other leading Francophone scholars in the Parisian area (including Christelle Taraud, an expert on women in the Maghreb, whose articles I read last year). All-in-all, I think it will be an intriguing, unforgettable experience, and it’s an honor to know that I will probably be among the last of NYU's students to study alongside the literary legacy that is Assia Djebar.

Riding the wave of paperwork

As many of you have no doubt seen from Facebook photo albums (ahhh, the information age…allowing us to stalk our friends in such a multitude of ways) this past weekend marked by graduate orientation at Giverny—a small country village about an hour and a half west of Paris famous for being where Monet lived and painted. After taking a look around it was easy to see why; with lush greens and beautiful flowers everywhere you looked I felt inspired to grab a brush and canvas and try my hand at impressionism.

Alas, our orientation schedule left little time for artsy frivolities. It did, however, provide us with some really nice furnished houses to sleep in, each with our own rooms and as much bread, nutella, jam, cheese and coffee as a Francophile could ask for. We also had classy three-course French meals the entire weekend, which had the disadvantage of being attended by all the profs (meaning we had to speak in French and sound intelligent at the same time) but the advantage of good espresso and wine to accompany them. We had a guided tour of the Joan Mitchell exhibit at the local art museum (ironically, there are almost no Monets in the area, as they are all in the collections of famous art museums the world over) and got the opportunity to bike around the area a little bit in between workshops and meetings. Even the “boring” parts weren’t so bad…we had a really interesting lecture on the history of the French language from an old, very Oxford-esque (awkward vest, portly figure, nose hair and all!) French professor who I will soon have for textual analysis. We also had two very fun “gymnastics of phonetics” workshops with a phonetics expert that incorporated motion into pronunciation and made me realize how many subtleties of French I’ve been glossing over. In between lectures, I popped outside to pick a fresh apple in the apple orchard (I brought home a HUGE bag of them, too) or gave some attention to the aggressively cuddly resident cat, who would often curl up on my lap during lectures.

Before we left on Sunday we had the opportunity to explore Monet’s gardens, including the famous lily pad pond with its Japanese bridges, as well as his house (which was crowded and not so great: the garden was much more interesting). I took a deep breath as I got back on the bus, inhaling all the green that I could and stockpiling a dose of nature that will hopefully last me through the winter.

Since being back, I have been tackling French bureaucracy. On Monday, it only took me an hour waiting and about 50 signatures to open a BNP account, which means by next Monday I will finally have a debit card with the chip that is required by all machines here (next hurdle: transferring money into said account). I also applied for my student metro “ImaginR” pass (after exchanging my services as a computer techie for paper to print documents on with my new German friend down the hall), made a doctor’s appointment to get French prescriptions, bought a drying rack from a girl from Latvia (and FINALLY did laundry), and am in the process of applying for the CAF (state aid that most students are eligible for…supposedly it could knock 100 euro off of my rent! Yay France and socialism). Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day here with temperatures close to 80 by the afternoon. I met up with Brittany from the Tunisia program for a picnic in the Luxembourg Gardens before heading over to the Université de Paris IV for my first lit class…only to have the teacher not show. Not entirely surprising--more on the French education system to come later. After waiting around for a while, Laura and I opted to go find a sunny, street side brasserie near Les Halles for a demi (half pint) and a pastry, which I believe was ultimately a much better use of our time.

Introductions and a free dinner

Today was day one of graduate orientation—in other words, a short session in which we were introduced to all of the staff members that really mattered, had a lot of papers thrust at us, and were forced to (nervously, in my case) talk about ourselves for a few minutes in French in front of our future classmates and profs, etc. I also had the opportunity to get a concrete sense of how much reading I’m going to be doing this year. The picture is the “library” of books that the lit students are expected to know and be tested on (there are a few multiple copies in there, but not many). Merde.

I will be taking two courses through NYU—Assia Djebar’s francophone lit class and a grammar/semantics course, and then two through the French University system. I’m going to investigate whether or not I can somehow squeeze an Arabic class in there, too, because my Arabic is disappearing at an alarming rate. I feel pretty good about the group of graduate students—it’s certainly an accomplished, well-travelled group, most of whom are older than me, but everyone seems friendly and my French falls somewhere in the middle. After the session I got a café with one of the other lit students, a girl named Laura, who I’m in total awe of. She has been living in France for the last four years (since she graduated) with the French boyfriend she made on her undergraduate study abroad, and in the meantime has worked a little and earned a Women’s Studies MA. She’s now picking up a second MA on her way to a PhD through NYU. She wrote her thesis on Hèlène Cixous (a French feminist that I cited in my SMP) and is overall a very down-to-earth, unassuming feminist bookworm intellectual. Both she and the program director have made me a little wary of meeting Assia Djebar (the Algerian writer that featured prominently in my SMP who I will now have as a teacher)—she’s apparently very stubborn and particular, to put it nicely. I have to admit, I found it a little odd that she wasn’t at our session today. On the other hand, she’s an accomplished writer, a sort of a feminist refugee and an old lady…I suppose she’s entitled to be a bit persnickety. Here’s hoping that even if we don’t get along her bitchiness doesn’t ruin her books for me.

Dragged two girls from the program and a random German girl who lives two doors down from me to the opposite side of the city tonight for dinner. We ended up in a rather colorful Arab neighborhood not far from Gare du Nord, but we each scored a free platter of authentic North African couscous for the price of a Stella Artois (2 euro!). The deal definitely warranted the travel time, and apparently this place is only one of several that does a similar couscous promotion once a week. I sense a pilgrimage in the making.

Off to Giverny tomorrow morning for a weekend orientation retreat! Back on Sunday evening with photos, information, and hopefully some new friends...

Paris, je t'aime

By the time you read this I will have officially been here a week. And what a week it has been. I still don’t feel like I will ever be rich, stylish or elegant enough to quite fit in here, but I love it nonetheless. There’s always something to see, always a market, a festival, a concert, or just interesting people to watch on the metro. I spent most of this weekend out and around with no company but my iPod, and as I browsed the antiques market, the used bookstore, the camera store (currently on my 4th lens cap for this Nikon), the transportation festival (weird, I know, but I saw some Seussian bicycles and the world’s first hydrogen-powered plane) I had that wonderful “all is right with the world” feeling. And now, grab-bag tidbits…

*Dorm life is still going pretty well. My only complaint continues to be the lack of soundproofing; I would be sleeping now if my neighbor weren’t watching TV. The showers aren’t bad but remind me of camping (push button, and no control over temperature, although it’s the perfect level of warmth anyway). I’ve seen a few other people’s rooms now and there’s a surprising amount of variation in size and furnishings—I have even more appreciation for my new, huge desk and shelves.

*I hear the Canadian house has en-suite bathrooms in the bedrooms and a gym. By my previous logic, this would mean France loves Canada more than anyone.

*I attended a director’s “screening” of an independent Zombie movie called “Zombies of Eureka,” composed entirely of no-budget music videos strung together from the local music scene of Eurka, CA. Strange but oddly amazing—you can find the full length thing on imdb if you’re curious. Why did I go? It was the first of many student activities in the “rectangle”—a room with a ping pong table, couches and a flatscreen in the basement, which apparently hosts weekly movie nights, open mics, and bar nights. Yummy. Can’t wait for the French semester to start and everyone to move in.

*I caught a glimpse of my mysterious musician neighbor in action in one of the basement practice rooms. Apparently he’s a she, and it’s a clarinet, not a bassoon.

*I used the kitchens for the first time this past weekend to make dinner with some GA Tech undergrads. They contributed most of the food, I brought the wine and cheese (because when I had to limit myself at the grocery store, those were, naturally, my priority items).

*One of the other grad students, Stephine (pronounced Stephanie, but she goes by Phinn) also lives here, about a floor below me. She showed up at my door this morning at the ungodly hour of 11am, beaming enthusiasm as I struggled to shrug off grogginess enough to be social. Morning people sicken me.

*I’m “auditing” the undergraduate preliminary language course (although still fully participating, oddly). The course itself is pretty useless, but I’m learning about the center and meeting a few people. Everyone has had as much trouble with housing as me, and we’re all equally frustrated with the lack of communication/organization, and impatient for formal introductions when orientation starts this Thursday.

*There are approx 200 students at the (adorable) NYU center, in the heart of the chic 16th arrondissement. 150 are (really impressive) undergrads doing a study abroad semester. 30 are Freshman in this intensive international liberal arts program they have going, of which many seem to be from diplomatic families. 18 are in the graduate program—4 in my literature track, 4 in the language and civ track, and 10 in the education track. 2 are boys. It remains to be seen if either of them are straight, but if the undergrads are any judge, signs point to No. I think the idea of France must be threatening to American masculinity somehow (not that I have any objection to the happy mélange of strong women and queers that my field seems to consist of).

*I love my iPod, and listen to it on the metro and sometimes while I walk. I have songs from the Amélie soundtrack on every playlist now, and when they come up on shuffle as I’m strolling across cobblestones my heart flutters a little (and I feel like a total dork, and am glad none of the French know what I’m listening to).

*Yesterday I met up with a friend from the Tunisia program, Brittany, for dinner in the Latin Quarter (9 euro three-course menu!) and today I went out for a Kir aperitif with a few girls from the program. Ahhh, living in a city.

*It takes me 40 minutes to get from my door to the NYU center, including walking and metro time. Not bad. The route, line 6, takes me across the bridge for the best possible view of the Eiffel tower...you know, just in case I need a reminder of how awesome my life is on the way to school.