long time

It's been a long time since my last entry. I just got back from 2 wonderful weeks in Portugal, where internet access was not as widespread as I'd imagined. And, in all honesty, I am experiencing a bit of reverse culture shock back in France. Two weeks is long enough to feel REALLY long. I guess this also attests to how comfortably homey I've become about France. I'm already thinking about the next time I can go back, hopefully to learn language. The language is beautiful, the wine is the best I've ever had, and the prices are cheap. And come on, you have to respect a people who know over 500 ways to cook salt cod.

I wanted to kill my students today. Sitting with a group of 10 French girls in their mid-twenties, all staring at the floor drives me up the wall. This teaching is so much easier than any other teaching job, supposedly. Lesson planning, materials development, course development--all that is out the window. All I'm expected to do is bring photocopied articles to class and facilitate a discussion. So why is it so awful?? I'm largely working against my students' 20 or so years in a backwards education system, where speaking another language is a priority only on paper. Because, I mean really, why would you make your children learn another language, when they already speak something so superior? This mentality is quite simply evidenced in the cheese and wine sections of the grocery store. 20 variations on Camembert and Brie, and wines from all over France, but you have to go to Paris to buy Cheddar or a bottle of Malbec.

Tomorrow I am going to Bordeaux after work to see Devendra Banhart and Hairy Fairy, an incarnation of Vetiver. Andy Cabic put me on the guest list, so I'll get in for free. Don't I feel special. . .

I imagine the riots in Paris, and now other urban areas, are getting media attention stateside. Nothing has happened in Angouleme, and won't. This story is nothing new, though, as unhappy teens in the suburbs have been burning Renaults since the eighties.

This entry will be short, as I'm still trying to get adjusted to being back home in Angouleme. More later.