A complaint and a thankful

Complaint:

I started my day today by waiting on hold for an hour and a half on an international call. I needed to set an appointment to renew my NIE card. (NIE = Numero de Identidad de Extranjeros = a card with an identity number for foreigners in Spain) Possibly the worst way to start a day.

If you're interested in hearing the music I had the privilege of listening to for 90 minutes, call +34 902 56 57 01. International phone call charges may apply.


Thankful:

After getting my appointment set, I went outside with a mug of coffee and sat on the back porch and remembered how much I love Indiana in the fall. The leaves haven't changed yet, but the stems of one or two have turned red, which means the rest of the tree will be following suit soon. It's chilly in the shade and warm in the sun, and there are tons of hummingbirds flitting about (my mom has two hummingbird feeders up on the back porch.) It's a beautiful day, and it's nice to be back in Indiana.

An beautiful day and afternoon adventure with Charise at
Flowing Well Park in Carmel, Indiana

Reflections on a Smoothie Purchase.

I had one layover between Paris and Indianapolis yesterday -- in Atlanta. After a nine hour flight, I was a little sleepy and REALLY thirsty, so Freshens smoothies caught my attention. It was a huge disappointment. I had two options: regular or large. I thought of going for the large since I was REALLY thirsty, but thankfully asked to see the cup sizes first. The large size must have held at least a gallon. Ridiculous. So I went with the regular, which was also huge. I don't remember noticing the difference in portion sizes when I arrived in Spain, but I've definitely already noticed the difference now that I'm back.

At this point my mouth started watering, anticipating my delicious, fresh, fruity treat. It stopped watering when I saw the Freshens guy pick up one of the cups and start the smoothie by squirting in at least a cup of Crayola orange liquid called "Peach mix -- Sugar Added!" Then there were two little scoops of frozen fruit, some ice, probably some more sugar, and some water. He blended it all up, and it looked more natural than it did back when it was just "Peach mix -- Sugar Added!" so I hoped for the best and opened up my purse to pay. $5.53. I double checked the menu since the price was more than I thought it was to make sure he didn't accidentally give me the large size and then I remembered: Sales tax.

(In Spain, the tax is included in the price, so you pay the price that's listed. It's simpler that way, I think.)

So I pulled out the right amount of USD and noticed that the bills seemed longer than I remembered them. (Euros aren't as long and are shaped more like Monopoly money. Apparently I'd gotten accustomed to their shape in the course of 11 months. It's normal, I think.)

I went back to my gate, sat down, and had a hugely unsatisfying gulp of peach flavored sugar goop. It was so sweet that it didn't quench my thirst at all, and after I had finished a third of it, my stomach started grumbling about it. I was too stubborn to throw away the rest after paying airport prices for it, so I finished another third of it before I was too sugared-out to continue and gave up. Yuck.


Thankfully when I arrived in Indy, I came home to my mom, dog, a back porch with a hummingbird feeder, a drying machine, and a refrigerator full of good things like salsa, hummus with cilantro, tomatoes from the tomato plant growing in the front lawn, yogurt, cheddar cheese, Bumbleberry Jam from Paul's Michigan Fruit Market, wholegrain English muffins, peanut butter, sour cream, plums, tortillas, and Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. MUCH better than Freshens.

It's good to be back.

All the world's a stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts

--William Shakespeare's As You Like It



This has been quite literally the case for me this past month. Although I have no real acting experience or training, in the summer camp where I'm working right now, acting is required all the time. There are different levels of acting; acting like the host of an all-camp game of clue, playing the part of an English teacher for two hours in the morning, acting like I care whether or not kids sit against the wall and enforcing it because the camp director cares even though I don't mind at all, acting like I'm enthusiastic about singing the song Ring of Fire for the 50th time in a month, pretending that I am awake when I want nothing more than to be in my bed, presenting the day's schedule (and then eating lunch afterwards) as a mime, acting like a narrator/marshmellow tree in a skit about cavemen teaching fire safety, playing the part of a superhero's love interest, and acting like Babe the blue ox for 15 minutes during a skit about American history and folklore are fairly different. But they are all acting.

Which is a small part of why I've been thinking about As You Like It (the rest of the scene is also quite good. Google it if you have the chance.)

It seems like everyone is acting in some way or another. I wonder how much of belonging to a certain profession or social class, how many relationships, how much of any social interaction or personal habit is really some type of acting. Acting out what is expected by others; doing what is required by a situation not because of personal interest, skill, or desire, but because of necessity; repeating behaviors seen in other people, adapting to a social or professional role in terms of behavior, attitude, vocabulary......

I also like the image of people entering and exiting stage. Some people are only in a place for a season. Others for longer, but never forever. But there is a constant coming in and exiting of characters as time goes on, and an expected shifting of roles.

I wish I had time to read more this summer.

The third session begins today. One more month of skits. One month until I fly home.

"Days off are like gold"

Molly and I during a day off last session

"Days off are like gold."

-Molly H. (aka Spit)


And today is one of mine. I've been working at camp now for just about 3 weeks near a little town called Venansault in NW France. And even though I've had 2 days off and one free day between sessions already, this is the first time I've gotten around to updating my blog. In the course of 3 weeks, answering to Shades, my camp name, has become as natural as responding to Kristen.

Hopefully I will have a chance retroblog a bit later today, but in case my nap runs longer than I anticipate or I just don't feel like it, here's a quick post to confirm that I'm still alive and still in France.

My days are full and very long, especially compared to my life in Spain this past year, but now that we are in the second session, preparing activities and ESL lessons and evening programs doesn't take as much planning as when we did it all for the first time. Sessions are 13 days long, and I'll be working for 4 sessions total. Even though it's draining sometimes, having so many responsibilities every day and working non-stop is in some ways a welcome change. I wouldn't want to work here for more than 2 months, but there's something exciting and challenging and even fun about such a fast-paced, non-stop, always "on" type of environment.


A few pictures of who I'm working and what we do in the few moments when we aren't with campers: walking into town to go to the grocery store (first picture), hanging out our room (second picture), and cutting people's hair (third picture).

And even though I don't have much free time to write e-mails, read books, call home, blog, or even think, I'm getting pretty good at a fake French accent, developing my ideas of education and teaching style, getting used to being on stage again, and thinking a little bit about effective (and ineffective) leadership/organization/communication as I see ways that definitely do work and others that do not. And, since the camp is an English language immersion camp, I'm continuing to dabble in ESL and (hopefully) building a bit on what I did this past year in Spain working as an Auxiliar de conversacion (language and cultural assistant) in a bilingual program in Andalucia. Plus, I really like the people that I'm working with. I'm working with Molly (whose camp name is Spit), who I met in Estepa this past year while we were both auxiliares. It's so nice to have here here. We're roommates, and our room is by far of all the rooms in the staff building.

In any case, those are the ways I justify my decision to work here this summer in the moments (sometimes several in a day) when I ask myself how I ever ended up here, running around like a crazy person, exhausted after 4 straight days of less than 6 hours of sleep a night and extremely full days, covered in green face paint (which actually ended up being a different type of paint that is MUCH more difficult to get off), or wearing a blue onesie and acting like an ox in front of 60 people, or inventing a cheer about shoes, or trying to make a lesson about the future tense "engaging", or pretending to be a marshmallow tree, or trying to explain the rules of baseball to a group of kids who get confused between "How are you?" and "How old are you?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One thing I remember wanting to think about and play with during camp this summer is controlled chaos. I like it. I want to develop my ability to create and manage it. Both by myself and with a team. And I want to be able to see the balance between chaos and control in situations.

And since a summer camp is in many ways the epitome of controlled chaos, it's not a bad place to try it out.

Now back to enjoying my day off .....

A photo of one of the buildings at Les Hermitans, the site where I am working

J'aime faire du vélo -- I like to ride bikes

Bonjour!

This post is coming to you from my friend Aline's house in a small town in Brittany (France). I arrived on the morning 17th after taking 3 different buses (total of just over 25 hours, broken up by a night in Madrid with the lovely Becca Niles.)

(For those thinking about the amount of hours that could have been saved flying: there were various reasons for choosing endless hours in a bus over a plane. And it really wasn't as painful to be on a bus for 17 hours as you might expect. :) Maybe I'll blog about it sometime. Now is not that time.)

Random house along a river in Rennes

After the rush of packing up my apartment in Estepa, traveling with my brother, saying good-byes, and tying up loose ends during my last week or two in Andalucia, my stay with Aline and her family has been nice and relaxing. Emilie, my Belgian roommate from this past year in Estepa, was visiting also and just left yesterday. I will be here until the 29th when I take a train down to La Roche Sur Yon to begin my summer camp job.

Brittany is a Celtic region in NW France and the birthplace of crepes. Generally sweet ones are referred to as crepes while salty/savory varieties are called gallettes. * After spending a day in Rennes, a large city about an hour from Aline's house, we went to Aline's parents' house. That evening we went out to this creperie (girl in the picture is Aline) with a few of Aline's friends in a town nearby. I thought of taking a picture of my food, but it didn't look nearly as impressive as it tasted, and in town of probably under 300 residents, I felt weird about taking it. I had one gallete with cheese, smoked ham, mushrooms, and egg and a crepe with chocolate, banana, and whipped cream with cidre to drink. Delicious.

Since then, my days have been filled with lots of biking, baguette sandwich picnics, lazy afternoons reading books, wandering along the coast, and listening to This American Life, Joni Mitchell, and Learn French by Podcast between nodding off on the beach. Also lots of time enjoying meals with Aline and her family at home (while mumbling out all the broken French / Frespanol / Spanish with an attempted French r / English with an attempted French r that I can muster up after eight 10-minute sessions of Learn French by Podcast and the 2 or 3 informal lessons I've had with Aline and Audrey, my other roommate from this past year, also French, over the course of this year. They're patient with me, and we all laugh after a successful - or failed - use of wild hand gestures, animal sounds, etc. to tell a story. Aline helps translating too from Spanish to French, but it's sometimes fun to bumble around in a language that you don't actually speak, right? Maybe? Sometimes I like to think that making a fool out of yourself builds character. In any case, it definitely has built up my French vocabulary a bit.)

À la prochaine! Until next time!

One of many beautiful views from the Quiberon Peninsula , where Aline, Emilie, and I spent the afternoon biking this past Saturday. This part of the peninsula is a protected coast. Several kilometers down the road, the protected area ends, the beaches are sandier, and there are homes, a few spas, one or two resorts, and lots of restaurants, cafes, clothing stores, and candy shops.

* http://www.alimentation-france.com/france/specialites/les-crepes-et-galettes-bretonnes.html

These are my friends

And this is possibly the best idea for a costume party theme that I've ever experienced. ( A dress like a scientist party my sophomore at college is the only one that has come close.) I spent this past weekend in Tarifa (a beach town in Southern Spain with crazy amounts of wind) with my a big group of my friends from Estepa celebrating Suzy's 21st birthday and starting a week full of good byes. The theme: anything beginning with the letter S. S for Suzy. (She's the star in the front row).

When in Rome ...

Post to come about my trip to Rome with my brother. Until then, here's a picture of us with the Colloseum.

In Italy with Dan