Fiche sur l'integration francaise d'une etudiante

In the style of a good old French plan, here is how I will present my arguments to sketch out the last two weeks or so. (Humor me.) There have been a few important recent developments: 1) a babysitting job; 2) academics; 3) the Socialist party primary; 4) my recent trip to London and Oxford to visit my cousin Ann Klibaner. How have these developments contributed to a sense of growing integration into French society?

1) The babysitting job. After calling maybe 10 job opportunities, I got two responses, and after an interview, decided in favor of taking card of one precocious, strong-willed child instead of three. Chiara, who's 7, is the daughter of an American jazz singer and a French lawyer; I heard about this job through AYA- the assistant directrice, Sarah, is friends with the American mom, and used to babysit Chiara. I just started today, although the parents were around, and helped make dinner, gave Chiara a bath, and helped her with her relatively hard French homework. She's sort of bossy, but funny and smart: we had a great time singing songs from "West Side Story" together (I explained to her what the word "pity", from "I Feel Pretty", means.) I had spent the money I knew I would earn earlier today on a shopping spree with Amanda from AYA, and I finally bought some essentials like gloves, stockings and a beret. So when I was watching political debates on TV tonight, I felt I could identify with all the talk about pouvoir des achats (purchasing power).

2) I am actually getting a lot of work now; I discovered the wonder of the library at the Centre Pompidou yesterday, especially its music collection, when I went there to research the stained glass windows of Chartres for an Art History paper. Also, I got my first test, in my Literature class, back yesterday. And I have no idea how, but I did very well- I got the best grade in the class of 50 people (French and foreign). Too bad this year doesn't count for anything.

3) Politics! It's always an interesting subject, especially now. Today was the primary election to decide on the socialist candidate for president. The three candidates were: Segolene Royal, the relatively centrist woman; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the sensible Jewish guy with some political experience; and Laurent Fabius, the most left-wing Jewish guy with a less interesting delivery and the most political experience. As of a half-hour ago, Segolene Royal won, a step forward in a country which has never had a woman as a major presidential candidate. She's predicted to have a chance of winning against the main right-wing (UMP) candidate, Nicholas Sarkozy. I think she was a good debater, but from my ignorant position I think I preferred DSK (she made some mistakes in her arguments about international politics). But I hope she does well in the general elections. For the first time, I feel au courant de (on top of) the political situation here.

4) Merry Old England. I took an overnight bus there and back (for economy's sake), and together with the bus from London to Oxford and back spent about 19 hours on the bus over four days, which let me meet some interesting people--that's what public transportation is good for--including a French Cambridge/Paris II law student from Algeria named Hanaa who was very nice, and an Oxford carpenter (20 years old). Once in London at 6 AM, I wandered around the city, saw the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery (with a stunning Velasquez exhibit), had a picturesque picnic in the park near Buckingham Palace, and saw the Queen driving out of Buckingham Palace in her car, although I couldn't get a picture because my camera ran out of batteries.

I had some issues meeting up with Ann in Oxford, because I went to the wrong bus stop, but once we worked that out I settled down for a lovely Shabbat with her and the Oxford JSOC (Hillel equivalent). We sang late into the night with awesome people, played English Trivial Pursuit (never a good idea if you don't know the names of any cricket players), said a prayer for the Queen, had a moment of silence for Remembrance Sunday, the day after Armistice Day, and talked about the Oxford system of education, which sounds very rigorous but very personalized with lots of one-on-one feedback. Saturday night, I saw "Casablanca" at the French/Israeli rabbi's house. On Sunday, Ann and I did touristy things in Oxford which she hadn't gotten around to doing yet, including visiting the 1000-year-old castle that's right next to her dorm building. She has an ancient moat outside her dorm window. We also went on a ride called the Oxford Story where we sat in moving desks and rolled past dioramas of interesting events in Oxford's history, complete with moving figurines of Lewis Carroll and Alice Littel, the Town vs. Gown riot, Halley and his comet, and J.R.R. Tolkien. And we looked around the Botanical Gardens, which were beautiful, and I finally got to see some real fall color. It turns out that Oxford was founded by dissenting professors from the Sorbonne, and then dissenting professors from Oxford founded Cambridge; John Harvard went to Oxford. The town is beautiful; each of the 35 colleges has its own little quad, and the gothic architecture, "dreamy towers", pastures with cows, winding rivers with little rowboats, and peculiar gargoyles create a unique ambiance. It was also nice to be able to speak English for a bit, but I found myself missing Paris- a sign that it's becoming my home.

Other notes: "Borat" was shocking and hilarious, and was attended by a mostly American audience; the Comedie Francaise theatre Richelieu is as luxurious as I expected it to be; Shakespeare and Company, a haven of Anglophone books and writers, is truly paradise; and Halloween is not for Parisians, but only for Americans in Paris.

O cher lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere, I will leave it to you to draw my conclusion.

FIN