Language

Lately I've been feeling a little self-conscious about speaking English with Sylvain in French settings. We met through a French friend that left us on our our own for a few hours while we sat at a bar nursing Southern Comfort, we hardly knew each other and Sylvain's English was barely conversational, so I resorted to drawing pictures on cocktail napkins to help get my point across. We celebrated our second anniversary this past weekend and I asked him what his first impression was that night, his response: I thought you were good at drawing stuff...

We've talked to a lot of bilingual couples like ourselves many of whom have relocated to France, all of them say it's impossible to switch languages- meaning, if you initially spoke English, it's impossible to switch to French. Of course in our case my French isn't nearly as good as Sylvain's English is now, but I've noticed despite my French having improved significantly, I still switch to English when speaking with Sylvain even in French situations. Apparently this is the general case for bilingual couples, a friend of mine would love to switch to English with her boyfriend, but it just doesn't work because they started in French, and even when I consciously try to practice my French with Sylvain he responds in English out of habit, even if two seconds earlier I reminded him to speak French.

Still it reminds me of when I was younger and bilingual folks would speak their language amongst each other while we who spoke only English knew naught of what was being said. That feeling that they are talking about you in front of you instead of behind your back, or simply of being excluded. Why didn't they speak English in front of you when they knew how to. What were they saying to each other that you didn't understand. This never really made me feel too uncomfortable, but I know for some it does. Having lived in a foreign language country for a year it was sometimes nice to be able tune it all out, not to have to listen to the conversation next to me because it was being conducted in a foreign language it was easy to do so.

I have an Indian cousin who speaks her native language with her children, but she has very good reason to, she wants them to be bilingual and they aren't going to be if they aren't exposed to the language. Living in an English speaking country, this is crucial to their language development and appreciation. Moreover it's pretty obvious when the conversation includes me that I'm included and it's conducted in English, if on the other hand she's telling her son to put on his seatbelt, I'm not really missing much and I trust that what she's saying is for their ears and would be rather dull: tie your shoes, stop running around, it's your bedtime... Trust me sometimes I think we're better off not understanding, after being a nanny for a year I would get so bored of telling A to sit down in her chair or she'd get hurt and for S to stop talking and start eating if there were other's in the room who didn't speak English they'd have been lucky not to have understood the same banal commands over and over.

Language is a really complex thing, the way we express our desires needs and feelings with each other is often done through the spoken word. However in can be exclusive and hurtful too. In some situations it's a basic need. When I speak with Sylvain who is my other half I want to be understood in the clearest terms possible, for us that is in English. People often develop close relationships with other's because they feel that the other person understands them best. There are various other forms of communication; art, body language, but when it comes down to it, we connect to others based on shared ideas which are more often than not transmitted through the spoken language.

Not Smart

A few months ago we saw a lawyer to advice us on how to get married. This week she finally emailed us back... I guess that's what you can expect when you use legal aid.

It takes a flow chart to consider our future... Ultimately our first choice is to settle in London, when we get married if Sylvain gains employment there, this will (according to our information and the freedom of movement EU law, this is possible) allow me to work in the UK too.

From now until then our plans are rather bizarre... I'm not sure anything would have changed if we knew then what we know now but we are headed back to the states for something like 8 months... Why? Well, the only really solid reason is that Sylvain's internship ends at the end of the month, thus he has the choice of trying to get a job or trying to get an internship in the states: a job would keep us here for 2 or 3 years and an internship in the states although potentially really difficult to get, will give his resume more diversity and a move back to the states will allow me to try and work in my field even if that means being a substitute teacher.

We did a fairly decent job on the research end of getting married in France, the carte de sejours and the rest, when we looked into getting married in the states, we for some reason neglected to look into the greencard issue and only looked into the actual getting married... So, of course, it seemed cheaper and easier to get married in the states... From our current understanding of the situation, a carte de sejour and getting married in France might end up costing about 500 euros- according to a friend who just went through the process this year, and as far as we can tell if I enter with a longterm visa because we plan to marry I can get my papers in within a few months (although or American friend who just got married is still waiting so who knows), or at least have a titre de sejour which should allow me to work while I wait for my carte de sejour... France is notoriously finicky about these things, often one clerk will say one thing and another something entirely different regarding paperwork, and filing processes, so this is in part why getting married in France seemed like the headache of all headaches.

However after consulting the greencard process, we're looking at spending 4-6k dollars and Sylvain wouldn't be able to work during the filing process which our estimate gleaned from the internet would be 7-12 months... Since we want to live in Europe, we just figured, why bother with the greencard, its expensive and the economy is awful.

So I'm not sure any of our grand plans would have changed in the long run, but it feels a little stupid to have neglected to research the greencard more extensively in a post 9-11 America...

Winter Wonderland

It's been really cold this week and neither our heat nor the heat where I work is sufficient. I'm happy to wear layers inside, but this week I've been leaving my hat and scarf on inside, which, I think, is a bit much... Yesterday however the temp went up a little and my little charge and I had to go to Picard to get some frozen meatballs, which are, her favorite... On our way home we ran into the concierge at her apartment and this woman, whom I like, but generally shares her opinion more often then necessary. She is a typical concierge: she makes it her business to know everything about everyone who passes through her front door. For the most part, this keeps everyone safer and I can see no harm, however there are days... One day she brought the plombier up to inspect a leak, she followed him around while he worked, which in some ways, is fine, however she made it her concern that the dryer was hot and that whoever put the clothes in for an hour was crazy, totalement fou! and it needed to be turned off toute suite! See, in France, clothes get dried on low-heat and when they're almost dry, they're dry... It's great for the environment (although not as great as a clothes line would be) but it's obviously not American... (other things that are American but not European: anti-biotics).

Anyway, yesterday the concierge asked if my wee one was wearing collants (leggings) due to the cold (the same woman who was just sweeping the sidewalk without a coat). She was upset because A had on some flannel pants and they weren't (and I had to agree with her) seemingly very warm. But of course she wasn't wearing collants, and neither was I she complained, and I heard a three minute lecture about how Americans were crazy, JUST CRAZY... I left this tete a tete annoyed, but by the time we reached the 3rd floor I remembered that as a child I wore tights everyday during the winter, even my cousin Joey who was my daily companion and a dude wore his older sisters old tights under his pants... And my annoyance melted away at this memory, because we were awesome in our cable-knit balling and fuzzy tights.

Other news this week- I gave my months notice! Yay, for la fin de ce chapitre de ma vie!