All Posts Tagged With: "France"
Être et avoir (or not)
My first update blog from France took two weeks to write. When in France right?
I’ve been in France for a little more than two weeks now. As perpetual foreign student (until now), France has been a stark contrast to the immediate and non-stop party of the Netherlands and Taiwan. The past two weeks have been an endless tirade of unexciting essential stuff–searching for an apartment, opening a bank account, trying to figure out how to get internet in my apartment. (I’m not there yet so I’m writing from the teacher’s lounge at the lycée.)
In the end, I chose to live in Strasbourg. Sélestat was actually bigger than I thought it would be. In my head I envisioned a main street full of shops that sell nothing of interest to anyone under the age of 65 (like the “downtown” in every small town in Canada.) The downtown, if you will, is small but decent-sized with a number of bars and cafés. I particularly enjoyed the internet café with a sign boasting “The only internet café in Sélestat.” However, there was no real moment of revelation. As soon as I got to Strasbourg, I decided to look for an apartment and if I found one in time, I would take it.
I live near the train station, a neighbourhood my coworkers tell me is kind of seedy. My building looks like the typical French apartment building, which is to say romantic and historic by Canadian standards. The stairways banisters are wrought-iron and the ceilings are high. My room is almost the size of my room in my parents’ house, except here I have a walk-in closet. My favourite part of the room is the ivy growing outside that covers the side of the building completely and surrounds my windows.
My roommates consist of one Spanish girl, who is doing a year of exchange, and one ghost. We have another roommate who had living in the apartment before us but whom we have never since we moved in. We have pieced together a few theories and life stories about her based on what we heard from our landlord and the former tenant and are waiting to see who will win the bet.
As for the job that I came here to do, I feel completely overwhelmed. I have 12 classes spread out over four days. Each hour I work a different teacher (nine in total this semester) and each with a different class of about 30 students. The teachers generally have paired me up with their weakest classes in hopes of giving those students more practice, so they can pass their exams. They have given me brief explanations about my responsibilities for each class. Many of these involve me taking half the class and teaching them a lesson I came up with. The whole thing sounds awkward and terrifying.
All I did this week was introduce myself to each class. The teacher then told the students come up with questions for me, which yielded one week of very siliar crops. How old are you? Are you homesick? What are your ‘obbies? (They never fail to ask that last question yet always fail to pronounce the “h.”) Some of the better questions include: Are you married? How much money do you make teaching here? Do you want to stay in France forever? Do they eat snakes in China?
Originally, I wondered if I would be the only Asian in Sélestat. In one of my classes there are two Vietnamese girls, so I’m not a complete oddity. Still, the students are curious about my ethnicity. I have had several requests to speak and write Chinese so far. They’re a bit intrigued at hearing the same sentence in two types of Chinese. One student also requested that I speak some French, just to hear what I sounded like I suppose.
I’ve never changed schools in all my years in the Canadian public education system. After spending all eight years in the same elementary school, I was shipped off to the high school where all my other classmates went. For the first time I feel like the new kid in school both with the students and the teachers. In the teacher’s lunch room, I fear the day I go in without an English teacher and have to try to start a conversation in French with a 40-year-old math teacher.
My Spanish roommate told me last night that it feels like the days are really long here. I would have to agree. It feels like I’ve been here for much longer than two weeks. I’ve been busy everyday trying to get things together and I’m wondering the day will come when all the annoyances of moving to a new country are finished. I feel a little frustrated that there are so many more things I need to do before I feel I have my life set up here, or at least a comfortable habit. Socially and linguistically, I’m nowhere near where I want to be. The former can’t seem to happen without the latter. It requires almost no effort to make friends as a foreign student. It’s not hard when everyone else has no friends or responsibilities. It helps that the international party language is English. Waking up at seven most mornings is not conducive to wanting to go out at night alone to try to meet and befriend people in broken French.
The German assistant at my school quit before classes started and before we ever met. The teacher in charge of the language assistants told me her father called to tell the school his daughter would not be doing the job after all. After two weeks in the country and one week on the job, I can’t say there that idea doesn’t have any appeal for me. This is, without a doubt, the most difficult time I have had abroad. The hardest thing for me right now is to remember just because I’m in a foreign country, doesn’t mean I’m on vacation. My previous idea of life abroad was a bit of a bubble existence that I can’t deny that I miss. I thought France was a way to avoid the real world for a little while longer but, apparently, it comes with its own set of problems. This, it seems, is the time to master a brave face and learn the meaning of sticking it out.
France targets schools in fight against swine flu
If three students in a class or social group fall ill, entire school will be closed for six days
France will launch a huge swine flu information and prevention campaign once schools begin reopening at the end of the month, authorities said Tuesday.
Officials will distribute 12 million posters to parents and students across the country of 63 million people, or roughly to every fifth person, Education Minister Luc Chatel told reporters.
Authorities will also instruct school communities on preventive hygienic measures, such as wiping one’s mouth and nose with tissue when sneezing or coughing, washing hands regularly and avoiding contact with sick people.
“My responsibility … is to inform, explain and assure the whole education community,” Chatel said. He added that that government’s goal was to make sure the public is alerted and warned about the swine flu threat, but was not panicking and “dramatizing” the issue.
Chatel reiterated the authorities’ intention to order entire schools closed if as few as three students in one class, or three students in one school who share lessons or eat lunch in the same cafeteria, fall ill with the flu. Schools will be reopened after six days and a thorough cleaning, he said. Such closures will be determined by local authorities on a case-by-case basis.
In case numerous schools are closed, lessons will be broadcast on state television and radio to help students keep up, Chatel said.
Chatel also said authorities have no plans so far to launch an obligatory, country-wide vaccination campaign for school children, saying that parents could opt to vaccinate their children individually.
France has had more than 690 confirmed cases of swine flu. One death has been linked to the virus, but authorities say the patient – a 14-year-old girl – also suffered from a number of other conditions. Experts expect more outbreaks once the school year resumes and the regular flu season starts in the fall.
Laurence Danon, spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, said France was well prepared to cope with the virus and had enough anti-viral drugs in case of a major outbreaks. She would not give more details.
The U.S. government is pushing to keep schools open, recommending earlier this month that schools only close if large numbers of students have swine flu.
- The Canadian Press
Academics on strike across France
Universities, faculty and unions across the country go on “total and unlimited” strike
Universities across France are closed today as academics take job action against the Sarkozy government’s Universities’ Freedoms and Responsibilities law which devolves responsibilities for budgets, staffing and salaries from the state to university administrations. From University World News:
University professors, lecturers and researchers have united across political divides to oppose the new decree. A national coordinating group of representatives from 46 universities and seven union federations, together with action groups and scholarly societies, met in Paris last month and voted for a “total and unlimited strike”.
More news here from Le Monde.
Ottawa lecturer and alleged Paris bomber denied bail
French authorities claim prof belonged to a terrorist group, lawyer calls it a case of mistaken identity
A university professor facing murder charges from a 1980 bombing in Paris has been denied bail as he awaits hearings for extradition to France.
Also read: Ottawa U instructor maintains innocence in Paris bombing
Hassan Diab has been in custody since his arrest Nov. 13 at the request of French authorities, who allege he was involved in the explosion that killed four people outside a synagogue in the French capital.
Canadian government lawyers had argued Diab would be a flight risk if he was allowed to go free before the extradition proceedings begin, likely next month.
The judge agreed, saying “all the ingredients exist to spur a flight in this case.”
French police affidavits claim evidence links Diab to the purchase of a motor scooter that was used to place the explosives in front of the synagogue. French authorities allege he belonged to a terrorist group backing an independent Palestinian state at the time.
But Diab’s Quebec-based lawyer, Rene Duval, argued it was a case of mistaken identity and said Diab was attending university in Beirut, Lebanon, at the time of the attack.
Diab has been a part-time sociology lecturer at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa for the last year.
His wife, who offered to put up bail and vouch for Diab’s release conditions, is a full-time professor at Carleton University.
- The Canadian Press
Ottawa U instructor maintains innocence in Paris bombing
French officials have 45 days to back up their extradition request
A publication ban has been ordered in the bail hearing for a sociology instructor facing extradition to France in connection with the fatal bombing of a Paris synagogue in 1980.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Michel Charbonneau ordered the ban at the request of federal lawyers in the case of Hassan Diab, who was arrested by RCMP officers at his Gatineau, Que., home Thursday at the request of French authorities.
Under Canadian law, French officials have 45 days to provide further legal details to back up their extradition request.
Diab’s name first surfaced in French news reports last year in connection with the 1980 attack that killed four people and injured 20 others.
Diab, who teaches part time at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, has told the Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro he is a victim of mistaken identity.
Diab, 55, is said to hold Lebanese and Canadian passports and to have lived in the U.S. for several years before moving to Canada.
The investigation traces its roots to Oct. 3, 1980, when a bomb hidden in the saddlebags of a parked motorcycle exploded outside the synagogue of the conservative U.L.I.F. group as hundreds of worshippers gathered inside for a Sabbath service.
Three French men and one Israeli woman were killed.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations was blamed at the time. Diab’s name is alleged to have been found on a list of former members of the group obtained by German intelligence.
- The Canadian Press
