Bon soir from France!
I arrived here in Pontault-Combault Saturday, and thus far, I'm lovin' it. It's all a little different than I expected: there's not any heat, because the heater is broken and we're having an entirely new heating system installed. This morning, I heard this awful noise, and I thought my roommate, Margret, was having some bad gas, but then, the sound kept coming and coming, and I realized it was more than her (or rather, in case she reads this, I should say that it wasn't her at all...). There were men down in the basement, drilling a hole in the wall underneath Margaret and my bedroom. And besides that, the water's off, so I'm busy deciding whether to use Coca Cola or contact solution to brush my teeth. I'm happy, though. All these factors come together and make me feel like I'm in the middle of an adventure.
Typically, we have classes at two different locations--one in a place called La Corneuve and one in another place, Aisnieres. This week, someone broke into the church where we have our classes at La Corneuve, so this week, no classes there. I was at Aisnieres yesterday, however, and everything's going well there, so I'll be teaching my first class this Thursday. I'm starting a little sooner than I expected, but the material is also a little more basic than I anticipated, so I think it'll turn out all right. But there are rumors that there'll be a strike on Thursday, and it looks like it could be schools, transportation, and nearly everyone on strike, so if that's the case, I won't be teaching classes Thursday afterall.
But how's my French going?
Not so well. I'm speaking like a three year old--pointing at things and saying, "I want!" It's frustrating. My vocabulary needs some help. So, I went out today and got a book for teenagers, thinking that I'll start there, and try learning something...even if I'm learning things like "June has a crush on Jake" or "That's super cool".
But anyway, here's my newest method of communicating in French: I repeat the same word over and over again. You might think that sounds really awkward, and I can't possibly be doing what you're imagining, but most likely, you have it exactly right in your head. Someone will ask me how I'm doing and I'll say in response, "I'm doing well....well, well, well, well, well." Or the other day, someone asked if I liked cakes, and I replied, "Yes, I love cakes a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot!" Part of me thinks that sounding like an imbecile is a million times more polite than staying completely silent. But I'm not altogether sure...
Speaking of language difficulties, I went to have dinner with a couple working here on Saturday night. They asked me over along with a woman from their church and also along with a guest speaker who'd be speaking that Sunday at church. The woman, Sophie, asked me (I thought) if I planned to attend the church in Pontault-Combault, and I said, "I think so." She gave me a very confused look and said, "You don't know?" and I said, "No, I'm not sure." She looked around at everyone else who also looked confused. And she whispered, "She doesn't know?" About then, I started wondering what she'd really asked me, so I asked her to repeat the question. Very slowly, she said, "Are you attending the church in Pontault-Combault?" I quickly added that I'd only arrived that afternoon, and that's why I wasn't sure, but after that blunder, she didn't say much anymore. It's a little frustrating to be the person at the table who kills the conversation.
For example, here's my life at present:
Sam: Here's dinner! This is a lovely dish that I learned to make in China.
Bob: Wow, that's great, Sam. It smells great. What do you think, Katie?
Katie: Me happy!
Sam: Uh....okay. Well, Bob, I'm so excited about church tomorrow. What's the sermon going to be about?
Bob: The Tower of Babel. (Looking at me) It's probably a very important story for our time.
Sam: True. Katie, how's your dinner?
Katie: Me like it a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot!
(Dead silence...)
But like I said, this is still very much exciting for me, and I'm confident that I'll either learn French soon...or I'll give up on the French and pray for an instantaneous ability to use sign language to make my silence more acceptable.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Heidelberg
Sunday, we had a day of rest and went into Heidelberg for the evening.
In the background of this picture, you can see the castle in Heidelberg. This is going to sound ignorant, but I didn't take the tour of Heidelberg, so I can't really tell you any historical facts about the place.
So, I didn't stop at the castle, but the good news is....
I stopped at this cafe near the castle in Heidelberg. We went in and had coffee and....rested.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Training
Here are just a few pictures of Mosbach, Germany where I'll be for the next few weeks.
This little house is Mosbach's smallest house. Apparently, it's quite a tourist destination. For our first adventure here, we were sent out on a scavenger hunt, and had a list of things we needed to find: a Viking fleet, the smallest house, dates of an upcoming music festival, etc.
My friend, Emily, tells me that we women especially like small things (like this small house), because it reminds us of the babies we'll have in the future, and babies, when they come out, are small. I think she wishes she'd studied psychology in school. Instead, she'll be living on a boat for the next 2 years, teaching fourth graders.
Below is the youth hostel where I'm living at the moment until I get to France. It's a
cute place, and it's a nice walk between here and the conference center. All my friends live right across the hall, so we have fun.
My friend, Emily, tells me that we women especially like small things (like this small house), because it reminds us of the babies we'll have in the future, and babies, when they come out, are small. I think she wishes she'd studied psychology in school. Instead, she'll be living on a boat for the next 2 years, teaching fourth graders.
Below is the youth hostel where I'm living at the moment until I get to France. It's a
cute place, and it's a nice walk between here and the conference center. All my friends live right across the hall, so we have fun.Anyway, so far this week, we've been in training sessions. How do I live on a team? How do I live in a cross-cultural environment? How do I share with others? Who am I? and Who is God? and such things like that. So far, I've not recovered from jet lag, so I seem to fall asleep at any given moment. It's frustrating, because I'll think I'm listening really well, and then, all the sudden, strange things start happening...like midgets start dancing around or the ceiling caves in, and then, I realize that I've fallen asleep. I think I've even begun sleeping with my eyes open. Great talent. Besides that, nothing really new. Just meetings, meetings, meetings. It's fun, but I'm excited for a day off on Sunday. So, I'll update you then...when things get exciting.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mosbach
So, I finally made it to Germany, and I wasn't ever lost for any substantial amount of time. But now, I'm here and safe and extremely tired.
I boarded the plane from Indianapolis to Boston, and I sat next to this guy from Canada. He was about 28 years old, and when we took off, he kept mumbling, "Blissfully unaware," and I thought, "He's a little strange..." Anyway, so we started talking, and I learned that he works as a technical writer at Lilly and was headed to Boston on business. I started telling him how I hated to fly, and I said, "Every time I get on a plane, I look around and think 'These are the people I'll die with...'" and he said, "Oh yeah, I think the same thing." He said that when they read off the flight number in the airport when the plane is boarding, he thinks, "Soon that number will be all over the news." After a while, the stewardess was headed down the aisle, handing out pretzels, and the guy beside me leaned over and said, "This is the part of the movie where they zoom in on the stewardess' face. Everything is normal. She's blissfully unaware." I laughed and said, "And then, the camera focuses on a bolt on the plane wing and how it's only beginning to loosen itself?" It was so strange meeting someone quite as morbid as me. But he was nice, and he gave me a John Grisham book he'd read during the flight, so I could have something to read when I got to France. Nice gesture. I did fine during this flight, probably because I had someone to distract me, but the other two were a little harder. I got to Boston, and it occured to me how I wasn't going home for a long time. About the time I boarded my flight for Dublin, Ireland, there was another flight boarding for Indianapolis, and I kept thinking, "This is it. I can't go home." I thought about trying to run to the Indianapolis plane and just fly right back home, because people board flights last minute all the time in the movies, but I knew I'd regret trying that, so I didn't. I can't really remember much of any other flights...during the other two, I sat alone, which was actually very nice considering the extra leg room. I listened to that Mayday Parade song that starts with "Katie, don't cry..." over and over again. I don't think it helped me to stop crying, because I sat there for a few hours with my blanket pulled over my head sobbing my eyes out.
But I'm in Germany now and things are morphing into some new kind of normal. I'm living in a youth hostel that's a 25 minute walk away from the OM Germany headquarters in Mosbach. I have three roommates--one from Holland, one from Switzerland and one from Germany. They speak German to each other all the time, and I've considered asking if any of them know any French so I could be inclued in the conversations, but I never have. Maybe later. They seem like they're nice, though.
We have conferences pretty much one after the other all day every day for the next 10 days. And speaking of that, I'd better go. Our first meeting of the day is "Why are we here," and that starts in about 15 minutes, so I'll get going.
I miss you all at home.
I boarded the plane from Indianapolis to Boston, and I sat next to this guy from Canada. He was about 28 years old, and when we took off, he kept mumbling, "Blissfully unaware," and I thought, "He's a little strange..." Anyway, so we started talking, and I learned that he works as a technical writer at Lilly and was headed to Boston on business. I started telling him how I hated to fly, and I said, "Every time I get on a plane, I look around and think 'These are the people I'll die with...'" and he said, "Oh yeah, I think the same thing." He said that when they read off the flight number in the airport when the plane is boarding, he thinks, "Soon that number will be all over the news." After a while, the stewardess was headed down the aisle, handing out pretzels, and the guy beside me leaned over and said, "This is the part of the movie where they zoom in on the stewardess' face. Everything is normal. She's blissfully unaware." I laughed and said, "And then, the camera focuses on a bolt on the plane wing and how it's only beginning to loosen itself?" It was so strange meeting someone quite as morbid as me. But he was nice, and he gave me a John Grisham book he'd read during the flight, so I could have something to read when I got to France. Nice gesture. I did fine during this flight, probably because I had someone to distract me, but the other two were a little harder. I got to Boston, and it occured to me how I wasn't going home for a long time. About the time I boarded my flight for Dublin, Ireland, there was another flight boarding for Indianapolis, and I kept thinking, "This is it. I can't go home." I thought about trying to run to the Indianapolis plane and just fly right back home, because people board flights last minute all the time in the movies, but I knew I'd regret trying that, so I didn't. I can't really remember much of any other flights...during the other two, I sat alone, which was actually very nice considering the extra leg room. I listened to that Mayday Parade song that starts with "Katie, don't cry..." over and over again. I don't think it helped me to stop crying, because I sat there for a few hours with my blanket pulled over my head sobbing my eyes out.
But I'm in Germany now and things are morphing into some new kind of normal. I'm living in a youth hostel that's a 25 minute walk away from the OM Germany headquarters in Mosbach. I have three roommates--one from Holland, one from Switzerland and one from Germany. They speak German to each other all the time, and I've considered asking if any of them know any French so I could be inclued in the conversations, but I never have. Maybe later. They seem like they're nice, though.
We have conferences pretty much one after the other all day every day for the next 10 days. And speaking of that, I'd better go. Our first meeting of the day is "Why are we here," and that starts in about 15 minutes, so I'll get going.
I miss you all at home.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
A Night of "Lasts"
Tonight is my last night in the United States until April (when I'll return for my brother's wedding).
I'm only just now stopping to think of that--of how long it'll be until I sleep in my bed again or how long it'll be until I run out of my house in my bare feet, checking to see if I forgot to get the mail. It's kind of sad. Let me rephrase that: it's very sad.
After I had coffee with one set of friends and dinner with another set (one of the friends in this latter group gave me a card her boyfriend had signed. He thought he'd written "Remember to shave your armpits" in French, but he accidentally wrote, "I love the smell of your armpits." Funny how these mistakes happen. Maybe this is a Freudian slip!), I found myself driving around the north side of Indianapolis, reliving the last 6 months of my life. It was strange doing this, pathetic even...
"Here's where I ran over the nail on my bike and was late for work" or "Here's the park where I found that pair of men's underwear" or "Here's the street pole where I found that man's wallet last summer" or even more significantly, "Here's the intersection where I decided to call the police after finding that man's wallet" and still more significantly "Here's the stretch of road I was driving when it occured to me that if the police found the wallet on me before I had the chance to call them, they'd probably assume I'd murdered the man and stolen his wallet."
Awww...sweet memories.
And now, I'm home from the Drive of Nostalgia. I'm attempting not to sleep much tonight, because I mildly hate flying and would really like to be able to sleep the entire flight, so there's laundry to do. There are two suitcases to pack, unpack, and repack. And of course, there's that slim possibility that I'll jump ship and sleep the rest of the night. We shall see...we shall see...
In the meantime, good night.
This was a short countdown, but we might as well finish strong:
1 day.
I'm only just now stopping to think of that--of how long it'll be until I sleep in my bed again or how long it'll be until I run out of my house in my bare feet, checking to see if I forgot to get the mail. It's kind of sad. Let me rephrase that: it's very sad.
After I had coffee with one set of friends and dinner with another set (one of the friends in this latter group gave me a card her boyfriend had signed. He thought he'd written "Remember to shave your armpits" in French, but he accidentally wrote, "I love the smell of your armpits." Funny how these mistakes happen. Maybe this is a Freudian slip!), I found myself driving around the north side of Indianapolis, reliving the last 6 months of my life. It was strange doing this, pathetic even...
"Here's where I ran over the nail on my bike and was late for work" or "Here's the park where I found that pair of men's underwear" or "Here's the street pole where I found that man's wallet last summer" or even more significantly, "Here's the intersection where I decided to call the police after finding that man's wallet" and still more significantly "Here's the stretch of road I was driving when it occured to me that if the police found the wallet on me before I had the chance to call them, they'd probably assume I'd murdered the man and stolen his wallet."
Awww...sweet memories.
And now, I'm home from the Drive of Nostalgia. I'm attempting not to sleep much tonight, because I mildly hate flying and would really like to be able to sleep the entire flight, so there's laundry to do. There are two suitcases to pack, unpack, and repack. And of course, there's that slim possibility that I'll jump ship and sleep the rest of the night. We shall see...we shall see...
In the meantime, good night.
This was a short countdown, but we might as well finish strong:
1 day.
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