Welcome home.

It was a cold January morning when I woke up and got myself ready for my final celebration with two of Mr. Kapranos’ classes at Robert Gray Middle School. I’d communicated with the students via the blog and met Nick (Mr. Kapranos) on several occasions this Summer (once at the school and once a cafe near my house), but it’d be my first time meeting the students in person.

I trekked over to St. Jack Patisserie to pick up an order of macarons (vanilla, chocolate, and raspberry) and madeleines that I’d placed, so that the students could taste some real French pastries. Afterwards, I hopped on the bus to make my way to the middle school in southwest Portland. Once I arrived, I waited patiently in the front office for Nick’s first class to be ready for me. I’d been interacting with two different classes, so I’d see one before lunch, and one after.

I was nervous, but it was a lot easier than I thought. I spent a brief time talking about how it was good to be back and a little bit about study abroad and how it was something that I encouraged everyone to do. Nick gave me a list of questions that the students had prepared for me, but I never even had to look at it! I spent a solid 30 minutes with each class just answering questions from the top of their heads. Everything from my favorite/least favorite foods, to etiquette, to questions about how they dress in France, to what the French thought about my tattoos. Both of the classes were really excited, extremely polite, interested, attentive, and made me feel very welcome. The time flew by when I was there. I kept everything nice and simple, and I think that worked out for the best. I didn’t want to give a dry, boring, long lecture. I wanted this to be for the students and it worked out perfectly. I know we didn’t have enough time for all the questions (you had so many!), so if you want to ask me any more, just comment here and I’ll make sure to check for them.

The morning class.

This capstone (even outside of the study abroad) has been one of my favorite classes I’ve taken so far at Portland State University. Interacting with the students at Robert Gray has really solidified my desire, after graduating with my bachelors, to enter into a masters of education program and become a teacher. Being able to pass on knowledge, and at the same time learn from the students has really been one of the most fulfilling aspects of my educational track so far. I had a really amazing time with you guys (if you’re reading this!). I couldn’t have done it without you. I hope you enjoyed the macarons and madeleines. I was worried that someone might have an allergy to almonds (they’re in the macarons) but luckily no one did.

I want to say thank you to Nicholas Kapranos, the teacher of the two classes, for helping to make this project run so smoothly. I want to thank the two classes at Robert Gray for being such great participants and making my job so much easier by responding with such fervor to my posts and for being so inquisitive and friendly at the final celebration. Finally, I want to thank Kate Kangas for making this all possible and selecting me to be one of the premier students in what I hope will be a long lasting capstone at Portland State University.

What it’s like to be a middle school student, but in France.

Hey everyone, hope you all had a good Thanksgiving holiday. We had a big dinner for all the Oregon students at a local restaurant. There were all the traditional fixings: mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, but instead of turkey, we had chicken. Close enough.

I got all of the questions you asked to the middle school student, and here are her answers. Because some of the questions you asked she answered in other questions, I didn’t bother writing out the repeats. She wrote in French, so I’ll be translating it for you as exactly as I can. Here goes…

Agnes and her mom, Sylvie.

Hello! My name is Agnes and I am 12 years old. I live in an old house from the 19th century. I am the youngest of four children. The others are 24, 26, and 28 years old. The oldest is Alice and she lives with her sons in Peru. The next is Emmanuelle who lives in Poitiers with her daughter. The last is Grégoire and he lives near me also with his girlfriend. I have a cat and a dog who are both very nice. I love playing the piano and drawing.

When does school start and end each day?

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday it starts at 8:30am and ends at 5pm. Wednesday it starts at the same time, but ends at 12:35pm.

Do you have school buses?

Yes, I take one in the morning at 8am and I get back to my house around 5:30pm.

What time do you go to sleep?

Between 9:30 and 10:00pm. But, if I don’t have classes the next day, I go to sleep a little later.

When is your lunch time?

Between 12:30 and 1:30pm.

When do you wake up?

At 7:00am on school days, if it’s not a school day, I wake up when I want.

Do you eat desserts at school?

When they are good, yes.

Do you have lockers at school?

Yes, but I don’t use them.

Do you eat snails?

No, I have never tasted them

How big is your school?

We have 648 students in four different grades.

How many classes do you have?

I have seven hours of class a day. French, Math, History, Geography, Earth Sciences, English, Latin, Arts, Music, Physical Sciences, and Gym.

What are your favorite classes?

Those would be Art, Music, and English.

Do you watch a lot of American films?

Yes, I like them a lot.

Do you have the same teacher all day?

No, I have a bunch of teachers. One for each class.

Is the food in the cafeteria good? Do you bring your own lunch?

In France we can’t bring our own lunch to school. Yes, the food is good enough.

How many students are in each class?

We have between 25 and 31 students in each class.

Can you choose the classes that you take?

No, it’s the school director (principal?) who chooses.

Does the school have a band? Do you play an instrument?

No, there isn’t a band, but there is a choral. I was part of it last year, but not this one. I play the piano.

Do you stay in one room all day?

No, I have many rooms. One for each class.

What is the name of your school and does it have a special meaning?

Yes, it’s called The School of Saint Expuéry. It’s the name of a famous author, Antoine Saint Expuéry. He wrote The Little Prince.

Do you play chess?

Yes, sometimes.

What are the ages of the kids at your school?

They are between 11 and 15 years old.

What sports do you play?

At the moment, I’m taking judo. Last year I played basketball, took swimming, gymnastics, and dance.

What languages have you learned?

At the moment I’m learning English and Latin. Last year I took Spanish.

Is the homework difficult?

Yes, but some days it’s worse than others!

Ok, it’s John again. That was a lot of questions. Good practice for my translation work though. Do you know in France, middle school is called “College”? So, you can tell people, that in France, you’d be in college. High school is called “Lycée” and college is called “Université” like our “University”.

If you want to read more, before I left for France, I got a chance to chat with an American middle school student who had just returned from studying in France. I asked her a few questions, and if you want to see them, click on the “Continue Reading” button right below. I think it’s a great look from the other side. An American girl your age in France!

Jeanne d’Arc

A statue of Jeanne d'Arc in Poitiers.

I bet a lot of you have heard of Joan of Arc, but probably don’t know anything about her. Well, Joan is what native speakers of English call her. Her real name was Jeanne d’Arc and in Poitiers there was a very important event surrounding her.To keep it brief, she was born to a poor family and when she was 12 she claimed to have had visions from God who told her to lead the French army to victory during The 100 Years War in the early 1400′s. The French were doing very poorly at this time and decided that this just might be what they needed.  But this would turn the war into a religious one, and to make sure that they were in the right, she was taken to Poitiers and put before an examination of priests to make sure she was indeed holy. The room where she was examined is still there today and you can see it at certain times of the year.

A painting in the Louvre of Jeanne at her trial.

They decided to send her to battle to test her claims. They fitted her out in the armor of a knight (which she requested) and amazingly she began to lead the French armies to victory after victory! Unfortunately, a year later she was captured by the English, put on trial, and subsequently burned at the stake for heresy. They burned her body three times to make sure she was truly dead and to prevent people from collecting parts of her or her clothing to use as holy relics. They then cast the ashes into the river Seine which just shows how scared the English really were of her. Many centuries later, in 1920 she was canonized as a saint and is without a doubt one of the most popular.

I love being in the same city where a major event for one of the most popular characters in history took place. Especially one so long ago. What are some of your favorite famous sites?

La Chasse.

Myself and one of the pheasants. Slightly terrified.

This weekend my host family took me along on an excursion that I never thought I’d find myself on. We went pheasant hunting. The word for “hunt” in French is “Chasse”, which is where we get the word “chase” from. There’re all sorts of things like that in the French language. The French have a very elegant and organized way of conducting their hunts which stem from traditions that are hundreds of years old, so here’s how it all happened.

The lodge.

Luckily, the French aren’t big on doing things too early in the morning, so there was not getting up at the crack of dawn to go out to the woods. We left the house around 10:30am, Patrice and Genevieve both dressed up in their hunting best. They lent me a waterproof jacket (in case it rained) and a pair of high rubber boots for when we were out and about. We got in the car and drove about 25 minutes outside of the city to a hunting lodge set in the middle of a vast network of fields and forests, set up specifically for just these sorts of occasions.

At lunch. The man in the bolo tie is the brother of a former French president.

The stereotypical view of American hunters is that they get in their pickups, down a bunch of beer, and then go off into the woods. Well, the French do this, but in a much more refined manner.Before the hunt, of course, there had to be lunch and drinks. When we arrived there were about 30 others already there. All friends of my host family. Most of these people were very well off, there was even some nobility (a few counts and countesses) and the brother of a former president of France! Before lunch, there was socializing, cocktails, and appetizers. Then we all sat down to a grand meal with wine, cheese, and dessert. After lunch, everyone threw on their coats, put on their outdoor boots, and set off down a wide trail.

Les Chasseurs (The Hunters)

We weren’t just going into the woods in a large group and hoping to find the pheasants. No, there was a method to this. We would be going to five different hunting grounds and setting up at numbered places along the trail. Then as the hunters stood surveying the brush, a group leading the hunt would be out in there yelling, blowing horns, and generally making a lot of noise to try and flush out the birds.

Patrice and Genevieve patiently wait.

As the birds became frightened and flew out, they would fly right over the heads of the hunters, thus giving them an opportunity to try and shoot them. It still wasn’t easy for the hunters. For every pheasant they shot, at least two made it to safety. They had dogs with them as well to help with the retrieval of the downed birds. All sorts, from dachshunds to goldens. All in all though, they shot one-hundred and sixty birds, and at the end, they were divided up amongst the hunters to take home and eat. We had to leave right after the hunt, as Patrice and Genevieve had a dinner to go to, but there was another grand dinner for the hunters afterwards!

It’s not something I’d normally do (and no, I didn’t actually fire a gun, I was just there to watch) and probably not something I’d do again, but it really was quite an experience. From almost getting hit in the head by a falling pheasant, to hearing the buckshot from a hunter’s shotgun fall from the sky into the trees behind me, it was pretty intense. How many people can say they’ve been on a proper French hunting trip? Not too many in the States I imagine.

Next week I’ll have your questions answered by the French student and then soon after I’ll be heading home! I can’t wait to meet all of you in person. Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me about my time in France? Ask anything at all!

I almost forgot! Here’s a video of Patrice waiting for the birds to fly over. You can hear the people out in the woods trying to flush them out.

Les Macarons

My host family just got back from Paris and brought me a present. Macarons from Ladurée, the most famous manufacturer of macarons in the world. Macarons are made of egg whites, sugar, almond powder, and food coloring. The middle (which is where the different flavors come from) is made of different butter creams or jams. The flavors you see here that my host family brought me, are Lemon, Rose (like the flower!), Caramel, Coffee, and Orange Blossom. They were amazing. The packaging is ridiculously fancy as well. You have to eat them within a day or two though or they get a little weird.

If you ever get to see the movie Marie Antoinette, Ladurée made the pastries in one of the scenes and if you happen to watch Gossip Girl, Ladurée macarons are Blaire’s favorite. I think they might be mine now too.

On Armistice Day the philharmonic will play, but the songs that we sing will be sad…

I never really thought much about the 11th of November past its possibilities as a palindrome (something that reads the same way forwards and backwards), but that date here in France is one of the most important of the year. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, in Compiègne, France a peace treaty (an armistice) was signed between the Allied forces of World War I and the Germans.

In the States, you know Armistice Day as Veteran’s Day, but do you ever think much about it except as a day you get off of school? I never did, but that’s probably because I’ve never had any close relatives who have served in the military. My grandfather on my mom’s side was in the Air Force, but he died before I was born. Thus, having no close familial ties to the wars, it’s never really meant that much to me. It’s quite different here in France though, unlike in the States, pretty much everyone of a certain age has a relative they knew or know that was in one of the two World Wars and the holiday is very important to them.

At the first ceremony. There were about 20 times this many soldiers.

In France, almost every village, town, and city, no matter how big or how small, has something to commemorate Armistice Day. The night before I had had dinner with my host family and a friend of theirs who been in the War of Algeria and he stressed to me how much the day meant to him. I’m lucky enough to actually live a thirty-second  walk from the memorial here in Poitiers. I woke up early on Friday and went to the square in front of the Hotel de Ville where they were holding the ceremonies for the day. There were already several hundred people there when I arrived! I didn’t understand much of the speeches as the sound system was a bit hard to hear, but it seemed to be a combination of an awards ceremony and a display of various military units from the Poitou-Charentes region.

Overlooking the Boulevard de Verdun from the second story of my house.

After all of the pomp and circumstance, everyone began to head down to the memorial and I raced ahead of them. I wanted to get to my house (which has four stories) so I could overlook the route of the parade and get some video (it’s at the end of this post). I made myself an espresso and stood out on one of the balconies. Sure enough, I could soon hear the sound of the band and a moment later they rounded the corner and turned down my street, followed by a group of veterans bearing French flags, and then a large mob of spectators who were headed to see the final ceremony. After taking a few pictures and a video, I sprinted downstairs so that I could make sure to get a decent view of the ceremony that was about to take place.

A student reads a speech for the flower ceremony at Poitiers' monument to fallen soldiers.

The ceremony at the monument was quite a solemn occasion. There were several more speeches of which I was able to understand bits and pieces of, the laying of flowers by children who had lost parents in recent wars, and finally the posing of giant wreaths by who I assume were local officials of Poitiers. As this all finished, the band started back up again and everyone began to walk back the way they came, again following the band and flag carrying veterans.

I think the French pay so much more importance to this day than we do in the States because these wars happened right on their home soil. There isn’t a place in France that doesn’t show some sort of scar from a battle waged during those years. It’s something that everyone comes out for, not like in America where most of us don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to it at all. In Paris, there’s a huge parade which ends at the Arc de Triomphe where the president, the prime minister, and for the first time the prime minister of Germany lay flowers on the tomb of the unknown soldier there. So, obviously, holidays in different countries are observed in much different ways. Does your family have traditions at the holidays that are a bit different? Do you celebrate anything that others don’t?

L’Halloween.

They don’t really do much here in France for Halloween. Sure, some places put up a pumpkin or two in the window, but there’s no trick or treating, no haunted houses to visit, and no zombie walks (did you see the one in Portland?). But, for the months of October and November, a local film magazine called Cinezine has been showing horror films all over town. Everything from classics like The Invisible Man and Dracula to more modern films.

So, last week, me and my friend Gemma (she’s from England) went to the médiathèque (remember the place with the car inside?) to see a Swedish vampire film called Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In). They have a room there just for screening films. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any popcorn, candy, or sodas, but I had just eaten a huge cheeseburger with goat cheese on it so I was pretty stuffed anyway. They gave us these cool little sticker books that talked about all the movies they’d be showing and a sheet of stickers with cartoon drawings of pictures from the movies. You had to guess which sticker went with which page in the book and then put them in. Pretty cool, right? What did you do on Halloween?