Bonjour à tous! (Hello, everyone!)
I am currently sitting in my room, surrounded by clothing, shoes, children's books, flashcards, towels, pictures, my twin comforter from my college dorm days, European converters, maps, toiletries--I am drowning in France preparation. As expected, my deadline has snuck up on me. As many "to-do" lists as I've made, here I am, 32 hours from the time that I will begin my four-day sojourn to France, wondering where the time went and scrambling to get everything done in time.
Things checked off my "To-Do" list(s):
-All major clothing items, including shoes, present and accounted for, almost all washed, and ready to be vacuum-sealed
-Rainy day funds secure so I don't have to worry about running out of money the first month
-Super nice French landlord willing to work with me on my down-payment for my studio (went down from the first three months to only one month until I get paid at the end of October)--in other words, I can now afford to feed myself
-All living arrangements and important appointments (like setting up a French bank account) arranged by my contact in Blois, also super nice
-Official French translation of my birth certificate set up (though I'm still smarting from its 100 euro price tag--approx $130)
-SNCF (French transportation system, pronounced as one consonant sound morph: "essensayeff") youth discount card and train ticket from Paris to Blois bought (though not without some battling with the ever-vigilant Wells Fargo and the SNCF website crash fiesta)
-Exploring the magic of Google Maps that allows me to tour Blois before I even get there (check out the link in my previous post; simply move the little yellow man on the left-hand side of the map to a location on the map to walk the street of Blois yourself from the comfort of your favorite over-stuffed arm chair)
-iTunes discovery--I think I was the last person under 30 to get an iTunes account
-Teaching aids found and/or purchased; I've got phonics and vocab flashcards, coloring books, children's books (titles include Dr. Seuss's classic Green Eggs and Ham, the ever-popular If You Give a Moose a Muffin, and a Berenstein Bears fall double feature about Halloween and Thanksgiving, two holidays not celebrated in France), postcards, and a collection of photos of me doing American-y things
Things still lingering on my list(s):
-PACKING (as of now, there's still nothing in my suitcase). My pact to pack light may be a fading fantasy--I've doubled the amount of clothes I'm taking (I will be there for eight months and three seasons) and I'm bringing linens, bedding, and pillows so I don't have to spend the money when I get there--thank goodness for vacuum-seal bags!
-Replacing my computer battery that chose this week to die on me (some of you may remember that last time I went to France, my Dell met an untimely end two weeks before my departure--my computers evidently don't play well with European adventures)
-Downloading Christmas music on my new iTunes account to see me through my first holiday season away from my family
-Bidding my family and friends farewell. This hard process began tonight with a wonderful dinner with the Dave Iverson clan (my uncle, aunt, and cousins who live close by) and will continue with a two-day stint in Minneapolis saying goodbye to my family and friends in the cities before I board the plane on Monday.
Most recently checked item: Making this blog post!
On a serious note, I want to address a concern about my safety that many of my family members have raised due to the recent protests in the Middle East.
First and foremost, I want to remind everyone that I will be living in Blois, a small community miles away from Paris that would have a very small chance of being the target of any kind of violence. While there is conflict between the French state and its Arab immigrants, I doubt I will come into much contact with this cultural tension as most immigrants live in major cities where jobs and low-income housing abound. (However, I hope to have some contact with this cultural tension as I find it fascinating and yet another way to broaden my understanding of people and cultures different from my own.) I am also very good at blending in as a French person with my olive skin, dark hair, and purposefully French-looking wardrobe, so it is unlikely that an observer will be able to tell that I'm American. I am smart, vigilant, and careful. I walk with confidence and a straight face, and my dad the Boy Scout has armed me with a military-grade aluminum flashlight that can be used to blind and/or bludgeon an attacker. So yeah, I think I'm good on the safety front.
That being said, safety is a concern whenever you travel, whether that be to a US city or a foreign one. You can never know what will happen or prepare for every situation. I inherited the Iverson worry gene and suffer from anxiety. However, I decided a long time ago that if I allowed my fears control my life, I would never have any adventures or discover new things about myself and the world around me. That's what propelled me to move away for college at St. Olaf, and it's what drives me now to take this next step in my life journey.
When I tell people that I'm moving to France to teach for the year, the typical reaction involves tittering about how cool that is, swiftly followed by a comment like, "Wow, you're so brave." I have never thought of myself as brave, and I don't think what I'm doing is particularly courageous. Frankly, I am pretty nervous and terrified. The last time I flew the nine hours from Minneapolis to Paris, I threw up twice and was so exhausted I couldn't think straight. Getting from the Charles de Gaulle airport to the center of Paris is no picnic, and lugging your entire life (all 50 lbs of it) around in an over-sized suitcase through bustling streets and onto impatient trains is not particularly entertaining. Starting a life away from everything you know and everyone you love probably won't be a blast either. I will endure these things in order to gain something that I think is worthy of the sacrifice. I'm not sure what that something is yet, but I got a taste of it when I studied abroad last year, and I've been yearning to try it again ever since.
Maybe what I'm doing is brave, but the thing is, the more I do it, the less scary it becomes. I know Paris, having spent a month there last January. I've made the trip from the airport to Paris-centre and back a few times. I know how the train system works. I recognize French signs and understand the layout of French cities. And most importantly, I speak French--when I'm on my A-game (or slightly tipsy), a French person can't determine where I'm from or even that I'm a foreigner.
The scariest parts for me are not the France-specific challenges that await me, but rather the adult things that I would be doing in the US anyway if I wasn't going to be in France: getting an apartment, feeding myself, balancing a budget, finding friends in a new place, starting a new job, putting down roots in a community. These are the things that keep me up at night. But they are also the things that I am most excited about doing.
Returning to my original point before my rambling: yes, there is turmoil in the Middle East right now. But that's nothing new--in fact, it's a fact that out dates the United States, France, Europe at-large, several major world religions, and all of the world's greatest empires. The human condition is chaos, uncertainty, fear. And at this point, I feel that life is about accepting that chaos and overcoming that fear. Isn't this how one breaches that mysterious barrier between childhood and adulthood? We are never certain that we can handle something until we've handled it, and the human race being as resilient as it is, there are few situations that we can't handle. Life goes on, and we adapt accordingly. So, I can't control what's going on in the world, or be certain of what my experience in France will be like, but I can control what I do. And I choose to accept the chaos and take a risk. After all, if I waited for the world to be at peace, I would never go--and that's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
No comments:
Post a Comment