French Toast calling T-Dot. Can you read me T-Dot?

Flight was très normale— totally Dullsville, as per Air Canada standard. Settling in fine, though I though I was going to kill myself and many people around me trying to lug my 80lb suitcase through the many ups and downs of the Paris Métro. The neighbourhood is nice, quite convenient and the apartment is all old-school Parisian mouldings and marble fireplace, which is swank. The roomie seems a bit kooky, but I think it'll be doable for sure. I didn't wake up to him watching me sleep last night, so I guess things are on the right track.

BranTom were in town yesterday and today as they made a train connexion in Paris en route to a friend's wedding in northern Italy. It was so nice to see them and have them around to help me acclimatise a bit. Then it seems as though R&R will make a continental jaunt la semain prochaine and Madame Sly is perhaps hot on their heels. Seems as though I'll be spending more time with Toronto peeps now that I live in Paris than I ever did when we actually lived on the same continent. Strange since virtually no one showed even the slightest interest in coming to visit me in Tokyo...

But I digress. I do have to say that things haven't been all pâtisseries and poodles since I arrived. Ever since I found out that this was going to be a three year deal, I've felt a lot of trepidation about pulling myself up again after so long away and after settling into a really stellar and great bunch of people. While the city is beautiful, it feels very isolating in a way that Tokyo never did (clearly bizarre since Tokyo is definitely the more alien of the two). Perhaps it's because of the shared language that everything seems so tantalisingly close in Paris , but just beyond the surface I can see that I'm still culturally a continent away. So much history and tradition that I just know nothing about (which strangely enough was not the case when I went to Tokyo).

Also I need to find a job toute suite as the lack of cash flow is giving me heart palpitations every time I have to pay for something in this très, très expensive city. I have two weeks now before classes start so hopefully I'll be able to sort something out soon.

Trusting that all is well in Toronto, Japan, or where ever you are reading this.

À bientôt !

Apartment Found!

After much stress and hair-pulling, worry, baguettes and Gaulois cigarettes, I finally managed to secure an apartment! The religious gay finally got back to me to offer me the apartment and I figured at this point beggars can’t be choosy, so I decided to take it. I’m still weirded out by the religious gayness, and am concerned about waking up in the middle of the night with the guy watching me sleep —but he seemed nice enough on the telephone and the apartment looked alright in photos. It’s close to hip Bastille and Ménilmontant, not far from gay Marais, and conveniently walking distance from ‘Nation’ express RER station.

Now I can stop panicking about that and start panicking about all the other things I have to do in the week and a half before I leave.

Still no apartment

This is starting to make me really anxious. The other day I sent out about 30 emails to prospective apartments and only got one answer back — and that was to say that the apartment was no longer available. Ack!

Apparently nothing gets done in France while people are on holiday for the month of August, then it's a mad scramble for apartments come September. This is bad news for me because I'll still be in Canada at the beginning of September and unable to line up to view apartments or to meet roommates in person. I decided that desperate times call for desperate measures and contacted the religious gay about his apartment and he hasn't gotten back to me. I also contacted the first-bedroom-through-the-second-bedroom guy and he hasn't gotten back to me either. Then a ray of hope appeared when one of my friends in Paris said her coworker was looking for a roommate – but then when I spoke to her on the phone, she had said that her situation had changed and she wouldn't be looking until later in October. Le blah. The search continues at frenetic pace.

In the interests of taking my mind off more serious and pressing matters, here are two Youtubes about one of my favourite topics: The People's Republic of China!


Loves it! My favourite English names that I came across when I lived there were "Cinderella" and a boy called "Apples."


Ha-ha! It's funny 'cause it's true. Spongebob is both educational and hilarious.

Vive la bureaucratie!

bureaucracy
1818, from Fr. bureaucratie, from bureau "office," lit. "desk" (see bureau) + Gk. suffix -kratia denoting "power of;" coined by Fr. economist Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712-59). Bureaucrat is from 1842; bureaucratic is from 1836.

So basically, what that is all saying is that the French basically invented bureacracy a long long time ago and have perfecting it ever since. — Today was my visa interview at the French consulate and I have to say I can't wait to plunge right into the labrythine details of France's bureaucratic system! Yeay morose paperpushers getting fat of government largesse!

I arrived at 8:45 for my 9:10 appointment with the Education section, all prepared for my 9:30 apointment with the Visa section afterwards. All is well and I sit and wait. And wait. 9:10 rolls around and I wait a little more. –Now keep in mind that these are appointments which must be booked weeks and weeks in advance, are cancelled immediately if you do not show up on time, and can only be booked online; no rescheduling of missed appointments is possible at the consulate. – It is now 9:29 and a woman from the Education section comes out and says "Didn't you get za messâge zat your appointmunt iz cancel?" –Um,.. no. "My collègue said she left you za messâge to not come for today's meeting." –Um,.. I never got any message, no. "Oh là là! Okay, qweekly we will meet and zen you hurray to za Visa section."

So we make haste for the Education section and run into the infamous 'collègue' of message (the same woman I met in October who didn't tell me anything I needed to know and the same woman who couldn't help me in June when I was having all my problems trying to get in touch with the school). "Why deedn't you get my messâge?!" (As though not getting her message was my fault) –Well, uh, when did you phone me? “Non non. I sent you a messâge on zee appointment booking système on zee internet.” –Uh, I didn’t know I had to check back there after I made my appointment. “Yes, of course you ‘ave to check! Eeet iz very impôrtante!”

Murderous thoughts aside, it clearly was not very important because I filled out the exact same forms and answered the exact same questions as when I met with the Education department in October!

I then make tracks over to the Visa section next door and when I get there the woman says “You are late.” (Implication: Your appointment is cancelled). –I was in Education department having my interview with them. “I see. Neext time, you mûst arrive on time.” (Right, I’ll keep that in mind when I apply for a second French student visa). So I hand in all my paperwork and wait, wait, wait. Finally my name is called and I go back up to the counter: “You need to shew us a banque statement.” –Uh, I didn’t bring one. It wasn’t on the list of documents to bring. “Non. You need to ‘ave a banque statement wiss 9000$ balânce.” –Uh,.. I don’t have that. “You need ziss for zee visa.” –Well, uh, I do have my guarantor’s letter (thanks Mum) signed by her bank manager and notarised showing proof of funds to support me. “Non. Zees is for exchange students only. You need zee banque statement.” (Then why the bloody hell was this costly and obnoxious-to-obtain document on the list of papers to bring for non-exchange students!?) “You come back tomorrow, between 12 and 1, wiss ziss document and you can get your visa.”

Aaargh! So now I have to take more time off work tomorrow, go back to consulate, and provide a document which was never asked for, but says the exact same thing as a document I already had!!!

Boo French bureaucracy!

Single, White Shallow Grave

(Alternate Title: The Hunt for Non-Crazy Roommate)

......................................

Moving is never easy, and moving continents is even harder, but the hardest thing of all is trying to find a roommate. Up to this point, I’ve been pretty lucky with my living situations. I’ve always lived with people I knew well enough to gage if cohabitating was going to result in psychotic puppy murder or burying dead bodies in forests. (The exception being of course Katie, who Jennifer had interviewed when I was on holiday in Japan and I only met once I returned with Katie already moved in. I just kept my eyes well away from her stilettos and everything worked out lovely. And at least I knew that if I ever ended up pinned to kitchen floor with a chef's knife through my shoulder, I could blame it all on Jennifer's poor judgment of character).

With my move to France, however, I'm completely in the dark; potentially moving in straight in from the airport with a person I've never even seen. It's a freaky thought (added to all my other freakouts and panic-attacks regarding my move). That added to the quote-unquote "Old-World charm" of Parisian apartments (e.g. toilet in kitchen, no kitchen at all, common bathroom only accessible through a bedroom) has made my apartment hunt a troublesome affaire. And an expensive affaire too I might add – average price for shared accommodation is around 600€ (+875$ Canadian).

I thought I had something sorted out; decent price, nice area – but then the roommate guy mentioned that going to church is a part of his Sunday routine. Now I'm sorry, but a young gay guy who goes to church is just weird, and it made me worry about spill-over weirdness into other areas of the living situation. So I kept looking and thought I found something cheap and still in a good neighbourhood and was all set to sign on the dotted line when it was mentioned that access to the first bedroom is only though the second bedroom and constant traipsing through is required. Kind of a deal-breaker (and his picture made him seem a little seedy). So I’m back on the hunt. Grumble.

Any quick and easy hints on how to judge a person in a few short emails? All advice welcome.

...............

Whoo-hoo!

I'm about 45 seconds away from handing in my letter of resignation.

Amazing!

Wonderland’s latest attraction

I apologise for the dearth of postification on the blog this past while — I’ve been riding the pre-departure emotional rollercoaster through Anxietyville and Frustrationland with stops at Apprehension-Depression-Confusion, Self-Doubt Junction and Avoidance Square.

After all the problems I had being able to get in touch with anyone in France , I was so excited two Wednesdays ago when I got home and the package was finally sitting in my mailbox. That Kodak moment came to a rapid conclusion when I actually opened the envelope and realised that it contained more problems and no answers. My admissions letter said that I was accepted into the prep year programme (not the Masters programme). Was it a mistake? Was it because my score wasn’t high enough? In typical French fashion there was no explanation and no information given. –And off we go on the emotional rollercoaster… This meant more hair-pulling and 4AM wake-ups to call numbers in France that no one would answer.

The prep year programme adds another year to the whole process, and while three years in Paris might not seem like such a bad thing à la vision of Carrie Bradshaw, it means three more years of not making money and three more years of living away from home (added on to my four years in Tokyo making for a big chunk of time far from family and friends).

Then a few days after that mini-calamity I got my notice of assessment from OSAP. I was granted a wonderful 652$. Gee thanks government of Ontario, what the hell am I supposed to do with that — rent out a post office box and live in there?! How am I meant to finance my higher education if I you haven't given me enough money to even get to the same continent as the school, much less pay for tuition, food, books, rent, insurance, etc?

Problems on top of fiascos on top of crises and I kind of reached a freak-out breaking point. If even one thing, just one, could go right with this whole process I would feel much better about leaving. Instead I'm presented with an endless quagmire of problems sucking me down and am constantly forced to reassess my committment to this whole operation.

—Eventually I was able to get in touch with someone in France by email who confirmed that I was not admitted into the Masters programme — almost no one is. Out of a couple hundred applicants, she said that only four people passed directly into the Masters programme (which is a small comfort, but still leaves me with an extra year away). Rather frustrating to be finding this out just now since it is too late to apply to any Canadian university for the fall. It makes me a year behind anyway you slice it.

So I thought about what to do. And thought and thought and thought. As I turned over every facet and option and obcessed over every detail I came to the realisation that I am sort of on a one-way street at this point. I'm not going to stay at my job a minute longer than I have to, it's too late to apply for school here, and what the hell else am I going to do? –So I guess that means I'm still going and I guess I'm pretty okay about it.

Fretful Frenchie Frustration

After being accepted to school in Paris in May, I was told I would be receiving a information package in the mail in June with all the necessary info about the school and moving to France. So I waited and I waited and I waited (because it's only uprooting my whole life and moving to a different continent, so I'm sure the less time I have, the easier it will be to: find an apartment, buy a plane ticket, arrange my student visa, move my stuff, get insurance, etc.).

Why did I keep waiting so long, you might ask? Why not just send them an email or call the school? Great idea — only they don't answer emails and they only take calls between ten and twelve, Monday, Wednesday and Friday (which is three to five a.m. Toronto time). This Wednesday I decided that I had waited patiently long enough and it was time to suck it up and set my alarm for the evil hours of the morning. Three A.M. shrieks from my alarm clock and I grumble out of bed to call the school. And it rings. And it rings. And it rings and rings and rings and no one answers! I set my alarm for 20 minutes later, half-slept and tried to call again – and again there was no answer! Alarm after alarm, more tossing and turning, and more not-answering-of-the-telephone. So frustrating!

And again this morning; alarms, grumbling, ringing & not-answering! AAAaargh! How does anything ever get done in France!? I should be looking at this experience a kind of birth by fire since I'm going to have to get used to these kind of lovely peculiarities of French living – but still, I need to get this package like, yesterday! I'm giving the school one more chance on Monday before calling in the big guns at the Canadian Embassy in Paris and the French Consulate in Toronto to see if they can help me at all.

Let's all keep our doits croisés for me.

Happy Canada Day!

Did I Get In?

Is my name on the 'in' list? Oh Gawd the suspense is killing me! I can't look — But I have to! AAaaaagh.

Here we go: L'École supérieure d'interprètes et de traducteurs

It’s the Final Countdown

Only six days left until admissions results for Paris are posted on the internet. The antici... pa-tion is killing me! I want to know yesterday, and I especially want to know because I don’t have a very satisfactory back-up plan formulated at the moment.

At present, my much less glamorous plan B involves a year-long Masters programme at McGill which, although being shorter, is actually more expensive than Paris (500€×2 years for France versus ±5000$ at McGill). And while I’m sure living in Montreal is nice, it’s certainly not Paris (and winters à la montréalaise suck icy donkey balls). Also McGill– while being the closest programme in Canada to what I want to do – still only focuses on French to English translation and not the other way around, which would definitely be an important skill to have.

I could wait and apply again to Paris next year — but what would I do in the mean time? I certainly can’t stay where I am now. (I'd rather kill myself and everyone around me). I could go to Paris on a working holiday visa in anticipation of getting accepted in 2008, but I feel that’s not really the most responsible life choice. I should be worrying about my career, future, etcetera, and I’m kind of feeling that a year goofing off in Paris is going to get me a whole lotta nuthin’ at this point.

Anyone got any brilliant life counselling advice to impart on me?

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

...........

No doubt you’ve all been desperately wondering how my exams in Paris went and have been sitting on tenterhooks this whole time, straining with burstant anticipation — but I’ll make you read to the end to find out. There’s no easy shortcuts for loyal WTTMB readers I'm afraid.

The trip started off with a highly unglamorous Air Canada night flight to London, featuring frayed upholstery seats and haggard battleaxe flight attendants asking “chicken or beef?”, “chicken or beef?”, “chicken or beef?” — Hey Air Canada; I’ve been answering that same bloody question since I was seven! Why not try something different for a change; curry or fish?, stir-fry or lamb? Christ, anything really! I know that decent airline food is within the realm of the possible, as I had it on Lufthansa in November. Would it kill you to actually make an effort (even though you're a monopoly and can do as you please), couldn't you at least pretend to care about the customer experience a little?

I landed in Londinium all bleary-eyed for a weekend of limey English fun with Madame Sly and The Boys (BranTom, and the rare and elusive David). I also met Sly’s manfriend and I must say that I thumbsupingly approve with wholeheartitude.

I rode some giant slides and saw the Gilbert & George exhibit (which was a tad repetitive) at the Tate Modern, and saw Harry Potter’s magic wand in Equus (which was excellent). I also partook in some shopping, but rather little buying except socks and underpants at Topshop, the underpants of which were sadly rather lacklustre.

Also rather lacking in lustre was the fact that a single “tube” ride now costs 4£!! Absolutely ridiculous! And in keeping in the expensive transport vein, it was soon time to hop on the pricey Eurostar for a quick jaunt through the Chunnel. Annoyingly, some dippy airhead blonde from an American tour group interrupted my fervent studying while the train was waiting to pull out of Waterloo Station: “Uuuh, you’re like, in my seat.” “No. I’m not.” —But actually I was! Whether the fault of the travel agent or my own, I was booked on the train departing half hour previous to the train I was on! After some freaky-deaky panicking and running around in the five minutes before the train left, I managed to track down a conductor who said I could take any empty seat. Thank god.

Arrival in Paris; lovely, coupled with some massive high-grade anxiety vis-à-vis Monday’s do-or-die French language test. Said test written Monday afternoon. Outcome: not horrible, but not great. The answer to one question was clearly “choquer” (to be shocked), but I was convinced that this was a French-Canadian anglicism and didn’t want to loose points for a wrong answer so I answered nothing. (For inquiring minds, choquer, origin English, is a world used in France French). Glad I know that tidbit now.

The next few days were characterised by lots of wandering and walking. Paris is so almost impossibly lovely that it feels like a Disney version of what Paris should look like rather than the real deal, which it actually is. I kept having to remind myself that people actually live in these buildings, and soon I could too. Exciting. Louvre: Mona Lisa (bigger than I thought, since everyone goes on about how small it is – I was expecting a postage stamp); famous statues (didn’t really get what made them more famous than the hundreds of other similar-looking classical statues); fat American tourists (overheard in the Oriental antiquities section: “Oh Herb, look, this is for them Orien-tails”).

Moment of reckoning; checked first stage test results on the internet: I passed to stage two. Yeay moi! That means I got to spend five hours on beautiful, sunny Good Friday writing stage two of the entrance exam, hurray! Second part of the exam, consisting of translations, went pretty well I felt. Only snafu was an inability to translate the word ‘compelling,’ but otherwise good. Results will be posted in mid-May. Doits croisés!

Madame Sly, with manfriend in tow, came to the City of Light subsequent to exams so that we could celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ together. Because of Easter and various crossed wires, we had quite the time trying to secure accommodation and ended up having numerous hijinx sorting everything out (part of which involved a night squished onto the narrowest beds in the world, and considerable bleeding from the head after cracking my noggin on a window-frame attempting to gain access to a hotel balcony. Hours of Parisian head-bleeding fun for the whole family!).

We had some fun shopping adventures and got fat on delicious food, floating along in a kir royale haze. I noticed a penchant for excess on the manfriend’s part (he ordered a drink that came in a fishbowl and a steak that was bigger than his head), so clearly he’s a perfect match for Sly.

Despite gonging of the church-bells that went on most of Easter Sunday morning, people all seemed bemused when I wished them a ‘Joyeuses Pâques.’ A surprising amount of stuff was also open as we wandered around Montmartre . Silly secular French heathens.

Sarah and manfriend trotted off back to Jolly Ol’ Sunday evening and I headed out to Charles de Gaulle airport the next morning. Prettiness aside, the airport was terribly designed and I was constantly worried about slabs of roof falling off on my head.

All in all, I would give this trip four bowler hat-wearing poodles out of five (minus points for exam stress and severe damage to the cranium). Paris is just so beautiful it’s ridiculous. What could be better than a city where you can buy pastries on every streetcorner and expect a bottle of wine with lunch? Nuthin', that's what. So fingers crossed cause gay Paree here I come! —Oh, and in all honesty, I haven't the slightest clue where all this rude Frenchmen business comes from. For the most part, I found people almost unfailingly cheerful and terribly nice. Every transaction was a little exchange, a joke or a building of rapport. I found people on the whole entierly charming. (The real rude people were the American tourists). Bleeding heads and tourists aside, I had a fantastic time.

Did you actually skip all the way to the end, just to find out how I did? Aww, that's sweet of you. I genuinely appreciate your interest in my well-being. Now get back to paragraph two where you're supposed to be.

Reverse TOEIC

Finally, all those hours of beating my head into the wall trying to teach TOEIC and TOEFL to Japanese students is actually going to pay off!

(For those of you not in the know, TOEIC and TOEFL are standardised English tests consisting of a series of exercises in frustration where, as a teacher, you want to scream and throttle the student – "Why can't you pick the right answer stupidhead!!! The answer is so obvious!!" – interspersed with questions of such bizarre impossibilitude that even a native speaker will throw up their hands in give-uppance-ness. Here's a sample.)

My grad school admissions exam for France is structured very similarly to the TOEIC/TOEFL tests. So while I'm underwhlemingly unconfident in my ability to actually pass this ragingly-hard test, at least I know all the tricks of the trade to squeeze every point I can out of the questions.

Fingers crossed!

Dead to Me: My Job

Yeah, and here's another news flash; I like booze!

For anyone who's spent time with me in the last four months, you know that I find my job lameage to the max. —Basically I spend the day trying to solve problems; annoying, pointless problems; problems that wouldn't even exist if other people did their jobs properly in the first place. Terribly and intensely unsatisfying!

It's bland and suburban like a Wonderbread sandwich, and somewhat rather less exciting.

That is why I'm so enthusiastic about my Get-Me-the-Hell-Out-of-Here plan. While I am super-happy and lucky to know so my totally awesome people in Toronto, if I stay in this job I might as well move to Pickering right now and smother myself with oppressive mediocrity and minivans.

So, it looks like all signs point to going back to school, and those signs say "Paris." I'm in the middle of the application process for this translation school that's attached to the Sorbonne. School in France is *so* cheap, I'd be stupid to even consider going to school in Canada — about 4500$ dollars stupid since tuition in France is only about 500€ a year! Even though I'm a foreign student! And I get free national health-care! And I get a government stipend for a part of my rent! Crazy. Why doesn't everyone go to school in France?! So crazy; when I was talking to the girl who works in the education section of the French consulate, I couldn't even believe all the stuff she was telling me. So crazy cheap! It's a two year programme which gives me a masters in translation in the end, which is basically a ticket to ride, since pretty much every company in Canada needs translators.

I will have to go to Paris to write the entrance exam in April (since I missed the deadline for writing the overseas exam by a day!). Not tooo bad, Paris in springtime and all, but it's paying for the airfare that's the sticky wicket. The exams are the week before Easter, which is more expensive to fly than any other week in the spring. Boo-urns.

If I'd had any sense, I'd have stayed in Nihon, saved some yen and gone directly to Paris from there (and of course by 'sense' I mean 'ability to predict the future'). Well, I'm sure a week with hot, dirty French pédés will be good for my, uh, linguistic skills.

Now, I don't doubt that when I get accepted, my couch will become a flophouse for all my itinerant and wayward friends in search of Eurotrip hijinx, so I'll put the invite out there in preemptive anticipation; "My fromagey-mimey apartment is your fromagey-mimey apartment."

Gay Paree, here I come!