1. I started teaching! It's lovely so far--I really like my colleagues, who for the most part speak English so well I am ashamed to try out my French. The kids themselves are generally sweet (with a few exceptions...), if a little shy. The only drawback to this job is that I have been spending far too much time searching for things in English to work on my French (I went through the entire archives of xkcd.com today to look for interesting comics for them to describe and consider the humor of). Thankfully most of my social interactions are in French, but that means that I notice I don't know a word at the time, talk around it, then forget to look it up. Sigh.
2. I have wanted to CUT whoever is in charge of organisation in France (or at least in government/education). I have been trying to get something called an "autorisation de cumul", essentially a document which allows me to have a second job. However, when I initially asked about this, both the lycée and the rectorat pointed fingers at each other insisting that the OTHER was responsible for procuring the document. The burden finally fell to my lycée, but it turns out no one is really sure how many hours per week I would be able to work at a second job, or how much I could legally get paid. I suggested we just submit a demand with the max my lab wants to pay me, because that might actually be the easiest way to find out--if my request is denied, they should at least give a reason, right? Wrong. The secretary is pretty sure they won't bother to do that, which I think is pretty ridiculous, because it would save them time in the future because then I won't continue to submit unacceptable requests. And in general I just feel pretty bad about this, because the lab wanted to hire me for October 1, but it has just taken SO LONG. All for a stupid formality, as I will BE at the lab for however long they need me ANYWAY, I just may not be allowed to be paid as much. So in a way, the French government is getting me to work for free. Probably not something the Libertarians would like.
3. I don't have (m)any exciting social stories because the first weekend I was living in actual Paris (or "on Paris", as they say in French), I was lying in bed unable to move due to some awful cold/flu/stomach virus thingy. I did manage to go out yesterday, though, and saw what appeared to be something like a marching band playing in the middle of the street around midnight. They really had the whole works: trombone, clarinet, saxophone, two snare drums, a piccolo...it was certainly not something I had expected to see, and although my initial thought was "ca doit être chiant si on veut dormir" (that's got to be annoying if you want to sleep), I ultimately thought it was quite cool, especially since they were not bad.
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