Here Comes the Sun In My New Notebook

I just got home from work, exhausted and cold, a sketchbook and a notebook richer, with some obscene opera on Arte and a demi-baguette in my stomach. Yum. Today was ordinary, but I made a great discovery -- Gibert Jeune. Gibert Jeune is like Powell's, but French, and bigger than a city block. I went there today on the way home from work, because my moleskine's full up and I am very much dependent on tiny notebooks. It's right outside the Notre Dame/Saint Michel metro stop (where I get the RER) and I love it. Just floors and floors and piles and piles of books and notebooks and art supplies. I wanna live there, but my sweet new 14th arrondissement apartment is pretty okay too.

Something occurred to me this week -- well, a lot of things did -- but one that I should have noticed before is that I don't really like my job. I mean, when teaching is going well, I love teaching, but a lot of it is struggling against shitacular bureaucracy, attempting to make sense of a colossally disorganized system, dealing with bratty children and cranky teachers, and commuting an hour and a half to and from Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. It's not like I don't have good days, but this is definitely not something I would want to do in the long term. Part of what I'm grappling with right now is that awful question people ask you daily when you're a senior in college -- whatcha gonna do after you graduate? When I graduate from my year of working as an English assistant here, I hope that I'll be going to grad school, but the grad school gods may disagree. They might want me to have more life experience or something. I think back to my time at 826 this summer a lot, and hindsight is 20/20, as per usual. That's the kind of teaching I could see myself doing in the long term. It's meaningful and fun and generous teaching, it's really something that those kids can't get anywhere else. It's an offering. It's something I wish they had for grown-ups. Suffice it to say that I don't get the same validation from saying Myyyyyyyyyyy. Naaaaaaayyyyyyy-muh. Izzzzzzzzzzzz. repeatedly.

Although having the kids sing Beatles songs on Monday was a nice change. They actually had fun, I think. And tried to sing "Here Comes the Sun," which I translated as, "Ummm...le printemps arrive et on est content. Le soleil arrive."

Any you know what? Spring is coming. It's slow to arrive, obviously, especially given Paris's cold snap of the century. But there was a little blue sky peeking out today. And things felt almost indetectably lighter, the way they do when winter starts to give way to spring. There's this tentative warmth that calls attention to everybody's hunched shoulders and itchy wool hats, and you begin to unpeel your winter mask without even noticing. I like this time of year. Although now that I rely on public transportation, I kind of wish it would hurry up.

A lot went on this week. I wandered around the Latin Quarter, played Risk with a bunch of hashish-smoking French boys until the wee hours of the morning, went running at night in my quartier because I could, and explained what the word "riot" means to the guy I tutor in business English. I finally started reading Kurt Vonnegut and it turns out I love him. I made a date to visit one of my friends in England, and realized that I have to start planning a European adventure with one of my very best friends from home. We leave at the end of February.

So in other words, I guess it's good I got a new notebook.

Pictures, because, come on, it's about time:

The fam at Jane and Fred's apartment.

 Me + elles@centrepompidou. Taken by Mom. Get it? Gotta love feminist art.