I am desperately jealous of anyone and everyone who was able to be in DC for the inauguration. My good Colby friend Eric did his best with a photo cutout of me, which he posed in front of the crowds, the screens showing Obama, and the Capitol building. (see below) He wins big big points. Considering CNN told me that there were some 2 million people in attendance, it seems incredible that Eric also ran into another old friend of mine, this one from Lexington. I guess that goes to show the extent to which my generation is mobilized by Obamadoration. My students and friends here all asked me if I would have gone had I been home, and I like to think I would have, if there were any couchspace left to be had in the city.
We did have a lovely soirée here in France, where for once the time difference worked in my favor, making it an even more socially acceptable time of the day to consume alcohol and cookies (a match made in heaven, to be sure, or in an ex-pat's kitchen, in my case). In a related story, one of my French friends was mystified that the televised coverage of the banquet lunch showed many people drinking water and not champagne. When I explained that it was lunch and not dinner in DC, and thus perhaps there would be work still to do later in the day, she gave me a look that said plainly, "Yes, and so what?" Inconceivable from the French point of view. Sometimes I think the French still half consider us to live under Prohibition. From the standpoint of someone who was not so long ago under 21, I can't say this is so far from the truth.
We enjoyed a large crowd for our Obamafest, considerably more than we had for the election, which took place around 4am our time. Many of our friends are still gone, thanks to the absurd system here, which grants 2 weeks for Christmas and New Year's, followed by a week of normal school, a week of exams, then two weeks of intersemester break, followed by two weeks of classes, and a week of February break. Not that I'm complaining, exactly, but it would have been easier for some of us if the numerous vacations had been consolidated into one month of glorious stateside revelry. We're not all from 20 minutes outside Paris (sadly enough). Still, we were a good bunch present at the ENS, including all my roommates, and we did it up in semi-American style with peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies (thank you imported chips and brown sugar, and peanut butter), pizza, beer, and of course bleu cheese and Brie. Everyone was nearly silent for his speech, we all commented on Michelle's outfit, and had a raucously good time.
Obama is of course wildly popular here in Europe as well, although I am not sure everyone shares my wild enthusiasm. I went into a store the other day to ask if I could buy their poster advertising Le Monde (huge French newspaper), because it had a picture of George Washington with an Obama cap on... He told me he would do his best to snag if for me when they took it down, I'll let you know how it goes.
Other than that, things have been good in France. Fairly calm for a while, after the flurry of finals and correcting, which suits me well. I had a lovely vacation in Boston (and RI, and Maine, and NYC...), but it was a little hectic, and it was nice to relax for a while back in Lyon. I am catching up on my extensive reading of short stories, and have discovered James Thurber with great joy.
At the moment, I am surveilling a guy taking my final (looks like it's hard, oops) while on lunch break from a really good three-day workshop on teaching french as a foreign language. The profs have been really amazing so far, although I wish I could have had a workshop like this before starting teaching. They have been presenting on pedagogical theory, French phonetics (as if I have it all right myself...) and how to structure and plan a foreign language class. It has been really interesting, but it has been almost five years since I have undergone 7 straight hours of class instruction in a single day, and I think my grey matter (or attention span) has suffered a little in the interim. Tomorrow, our last day, each group of three students has to give a mini-lesson in a "rare language" to the rest of the class. The course should be conducted to the rest of us (true and total beginners in this language) in complete immersion style. A Chinese, a Janapanese, an ArabEnglish and Spanish were declared too common, as all the French have already learned at least a little. Which of course leaves me with little to choose from. Jacquie, my lectrice friend, and Julia our German friend, had a similar problem. It has been almost five years, and I probably shouldn't have mentioned it at all, but I said I had no other languages other than a paltry knowledge of ASL. My teacher leaped upon this with incredible excitement and declared I would lead the class in that. So that's the current challenge, coupled with trying to finish up grading for the first semester and getting some applications in for scholarships that I may or may not really want for next year, in the case that I do a Master's.
As far as future plans go, I am currently planning to stay in France, either teaching again, or getting a masters. Maybe, if I am insanely lucky, I will also be a paid researcher of the national library of France, with special access to their photographical archives. I would kill for the last possibility, but they tell me it won't help my dossier. They pick one person a year, and considering I am young, American, and unpublished, I think my chances are slim at best. But who knows. So that's the news from Lyon. Happy new year to all!