Time's Fun When You're Having Flies

[NOTE: This should've gone up yesterday. I don't have internet where I'm staying yet.]

Today was our semi-official first day of work. It’s hard to describe the French method of doing things in any word other than “disorganized.” They seem to lack the need for efficiency that drives the United States, and a schedule tends to mean less concrete things to them than it does to us.

This morning, at Mme. Trotman’s instruction, I walked over to College Campra, stopping to get a (DELICIOUS) pain au chocolate en route. I had a considerably hard time finding the entrance, although I found the school with no problem at all. After walking down the two streets that seemed to have the school buildings facing them and encountering nothing but “Construction Barrier – Do not enter!” walls, I walked across the street and into the “Bureau de Jeunesse.”

I may have already mentioned this place, but it’s the office for the youth in Aix. They have a pretty cool spread of things from dance and art classes for little children to housing opportunities for those of us a bit older than six. We had been by there the other day on our house hunt and the lady at the receptionist’s desk had given us several places to look that we hadn’t had previously. So, I wandered in looking both American and lost (an easy set of things to do together), and asked about where the junior high was. (College is roughly the French equivalent of Junior High school.) The lady pointed me in the right direction, and I found the place within several more minutes of looking.

Mme. Trotman told me this morning that the team at College Campra is very well organized and very good. I was pleased to hear this, and I was pleased to hear that, and I was also very pleased to meet the English teacher there who very nicely gave me her phone number in case I was still lacking somewhere to live. She hadn’t been expecting me, however, and told me to meet her Monday at 5, when I would, we assume, know my schedule for my 9 hours a week at Vauvenargues.

From there, I headed over to Vauvenargues where I spoke with one of the secretaries who handles our paperwork. She helped me out, told me that I needed to go back and get all of my paperwork, fill it out and bring it to her. So, I said I would, and I went back up to Mme. Trotman’s to get all of my things. I spent several minutes making up a French birth certificate in Microsoft Word, since we were required to have one in translation (If you want to see my fairly good translation, send me a message or leave a comment and I’ll e-mail it to you.)

I put it on my jump-drive, filled out all the blanks I was positive about, shoved everything into my accordion folder, and went back to Vauvenargues.

I’m walking all the time; my heels hurt. It’s about a 15-minute walk from Mme. Trotman’s house to Vauvenargues, which is good, but I’m always thirsty when I show up at school.

So, I went back and met with the secretary, who informed me that I had missed a schedule email and that I had an appointment with the other Aix assistants at 1:30 at a bank branch out from town to open my bank account. I mused this over for a bit, debating what I should do about a 1:30 bank appointment and a 2:00 p.m. apartment rendezvous (rdv for short– the French LOVE acronyms). I walked down to café Eqwi for lack of something else to do, and ran into a handful of us assistants about to go in for lunch. It’s good to have a base.

We went in and I had a sandwich and some pasta salad. The man who works there daily is beginning to recognize us, which I suspect has some advantages. After sitting for a while, I called the lady (Mme. Tei, we wondered for a bit how to pronounce such a name and decided on “Teh-ee,” but subtly). She said that she could move the meeting to 18h00, or 6:00 p.m., which seemed fine with me. So, we rescheduled.

So something that happens when you’re not on a day-of-the-week-specific schedule is that you lose track of when it is. It is the case that those who work at Vauvenargues leave around 5:00 p.m., and I had been promised a room today in the case that an apartment didn’t work out. While I’m sure that with some reflection you would be able to see the problem here, I’ll come right out and say it: If I don’t want the apartment that I go to see at 6:00 p.m., it will be Monday before I am able to move into Vauvenargues because all of the people who work at the school will be gone at 5. But, it’s absolutely necessary that I open my bank account at 1:30, since that’s when the meeting is scheduled.

So, I stew around about it for a bit and we hop on a bus en masse to go down to the bank. I was among the first few to open my account, and standing around afterwards, it was suggested that I call Mme. Tei back and ask her if the studio had an oven, which was the main reason for wanting a studio instead of a school apartment in the first place.

Yes, I’m willing to pay almost twice as much to be able to cook at home.

So, I walked outside of the bank and called Mme. Tei again. It took less than a minute to learn that the apartment did not, in fact, have an oven, although it did have two stove eyes, which would be nice, but you can buy an electric stove eye pretty cheaply if need be. I told her that without an oven I would not be able to rent it, and cancelled our meeting.

After that, I called the lady who had been rather rude to the exhausted version of me on Tuesday (with some hesitation, I might add), and she said to come by her office before 5 and she would give me my keys. So, I deposited some money into the bank – now I have a French account with Euros in it, although it will take 10-15 days to get a debit card – and went back to town.

It was a short walk back across town to Vauvenargues, and quite an experience watching this lady waddle around with her keys and locks trying to decide which room was vacant. I’ve ended up in room number 15, which faces the street and gets direct sunlight in the afternoon. I suppose that means it faces west-ish. She changed the locks and got me to go deal with some money-related things like rent and how much they charge for meals at the cafeteria (2€20 each – REALLY cheap!)

After that, I went back up to Mme. Trotman’s to get my bags. Michelle and Chris very kindly came and helped me carry them across town (again), and I unpacked a few things like my sheets into my bedroom. We hung around for a bit and then went over to the cafeteria to eat dinner. It was really not bad, and it was certainly not something you could complain about for having only payed 2€20.

So, I have a room in the school and I’m really glad to be living with people nearby. I suspect that tomorrow I will go to the store – le Monoprix, perhaps – and get a handful of essentials that I need for functioning in a bedroom like this. I’ll post pictures when I get it all fixed up.

We went from dinner out to a party that one of the assistants’ friends was having. It was a costume party, although everyone wasn’t told that, so we showed up in our normal clothing (which was fine, about half the people there were in street clothes). It was fun, but by the time they decided to leave the apartment and go into town, I was pretty much over it. Not too terribly much later, three of us returned to Lycee Vauvenargues where bedtime cannot come soon enough.