Oh bureaucracy, how fun you are!

I am finding that it takes quite a while to get things done in Paris. I realize that whenever you are a foreigner in new environs and you do not speak the native language with fluidity and confidence then yes, it of course takes more time than usual to get even seemingly “simple” tasks accomplished.

Fortunately for a food-obsessed being such as myself, this turn of events is not particularly debilitating where it concerns ordering a sandwich, selecting a breakfast pastry, or buying a piece of cheese. I thank the high heavens that the language of food seems to have some universal threads at its base.

However, where this frustration really hits a high note is when it comes to things like opening a bank account, setting up an internet account, or buying a portable phone.

Frankly, it is just not simple to set these basic human rights up when you are a foreigner in France. This is the case even when you are a foreigner who speaks marginally decent French, have asked around about procedures, conducted some research on your own as to how you could “expect” things to go, and have arrived at each and every appointment with a bulging folder of the listed possible “required” documentation that you might be asked to present.

For example, I was told by several seasoned frenchies that I ought to go set up a bank account ASAP upon arriving in France. Without a local bank account, the list of things that you will be unable to accomplish is alarmingly lengthy; it involves everything from being able buy a mobile phone to being able to rent an apartment to being able to drink a cappuccino (not really, but sometimes it feels as though that is the case). Also, without the French bank account, it would not be possible for me to get paid from my new job, so there was significant personal incentive from the get-go to have this thing up and running STAT.

So, on my second day in Paris, I go to the bank armed with a copy of my work contract, a copy of my lease for an apartment, my passport, my visa, and a signed and notarized letter from my bank in America. I also was prepared to part with one of my limbs, if that turned out to be a requirement.

The bank was empty in terms of clientele. As in totally, completely, empty. It was around 10:30 am on a Tuesday, so I figured things would go great guns from there. (Banks are closed on Sundays and Mondays, and only open for part of the day on Saturday. Additionally, people tend to leave for lunch for an hour or two in the middle of the day and they may or may not decide to close early or tell you that they cannot help you if it is near closing time. Like within an hour or so of closing time.) So the woman at the front desk was charming and fabulously cheery, and was very complimentary of how prepared I seemed. She then told me she could make me an appointment for Thursday.

Let me repeat that it was Tuesday, the bank was empty and she had just verified that I had all the necessary documentation with me already.

I suggested perhaps sometime that very day. Or maybe Wednesday?

She, chipper as ever, again repeated that Thursday was the day!

Come Thursday, it was an approximately 4 hour affair. We may have signed away the rights to our own minds, I am not really sure as I was able to grasp about 60% of what transpired. Afterwards we were told we needed to wait for our bank cards for 10 days, but we were given account verification.

We took our account verification to the internet place. They were delighted at our fat folder of documentation. After an hour, we were all signed up and ready—or so we thought. She said someone would call on Friday.

Us: “Oh great, so someone will call on Friday and come that day to hook up the internet.”

Her (with a look of shock): “NO, no NOOOOOOO! Someone will call on Friday to set up an appointment for sometime in the next two weeks.”

So what were we doing there, exactly, at that very moment? This is where fluency would be really handy.

And then we went through this whole procedure where I was able to pick out a new portable phone. We talked about the phone, examined the phone, and discussed the plan on the phone.

The kicker is that I was then told we could not actually have the phone until our bank cards arrived. I repeated that we had shown bank account verification, but our cards might not arrive for 10 days.

Her: “Yes! Thank you! As soon as your card arrives, come back, we will change your plan from internet to internet and phone and you can have a phone.”

Uhh, okay.

So then the letter arrives from the bank, like clockwork, on day nine: oh the joy!! A slight sinking sensation ensues when we see that the letter does not contain our actual cards. But, on a happier note, it does say: “Come pick up your bank cards, they are available this afternoon!” Great. Will do.

Back to the chipper woman at the bank: “Hi, we are here to pick up our bank cards.” And we show the letter.

Chipper woman: “You will not be able to pick them up until Wednesday. First another letter will arrive verifying your address, and you must sign it and then come back. Probably we will send that letter tomorrow and then you will receive it next Wednesday.” It was Thursday, so that meant another week.

Just to be sure, I tried to break down the details a bit: “Okay, but we received these letters saying that the cards were here and we could come pick them up this afternoon. There was no mention of the a letter to follow that we would have to sign verifying addresses.”

CW: “Yes, the cards are here! But we need the letter, so go home and wait until you receive it and then come back. Probably next Wednesday. Thank you!!”

WHAT?

So we wait until Wednesday. No letter. As if you did not guess that would be the case.

We go back to the bank on Thursday and I explain that the letter has not yet arrived, and what should we do?

CW: “No letter?” Her chipper demeanor was suddenly marred by suspicion. She seriously seemed to think I was lying.

I started to wonder if I was lying, and if I did sign some letter and had somehow forgotten. But I stood my ground: “No letter.”

CW: “Oh, okay, then it is at the post office. Thank you!! Good bye!”

Me: “Wait, I do not understand? What post office?” No one had EVER mentioned anything about a post office.

CW: “The one closest to you. Thank you!! Good bye!"

So we run around to two post offices where the people are notably irritated that we do not have the official number of this official (and possibly mythical) letter. CW did not mention that we would need to provide an official number when seeking out this letter. Finally a woman who looks like she is willing to put about as much effort into the hunt for this letter as I would put into searching the world for a talking cat, finds the letter.

Euphorically, we sign the cards attached to it, hand them to the postal worker and run out with the treasured letter.

By the way, this letter says nothing about protocol, procedure or otherwise. In sum it says nothing period. The contents are basically as follows: “Dear Customer 4,112, Thank you for your business, We are happy to have you on board and will help you in every way possible with all your banking needs. Blah, blah, blah. Love, The bank.”

We go back to Chipper Woman, who is still, persistently and undauntingly, perky.

Us: “We found the letter! We signed the cards! Can we pick up our bank cards?”

CW: “Oh, good. Now we wait until the post office sends your signature cards here and then we can give you your cards. Probably the middle of next week. Thank you!! Good bye”

What?

So we have no bank cards and no portable phone, and you try living in these modern times without having access to money or a mobile. In effect, it DOES feel like I sacrificed a limb to that incomprehensible bank. The irony, I am telling you.

Sometimes I wonder if I am being punkd.

Bienvenue...to yet another vocational twist

Well, I now live in Paris. This is a fact that I am still having trouble wrapping my head around, despite some very strong evidence that it is, indeed an actuality. For example, fashionable people have been regularly and inexplicably glaring at me as they shove by me with nary a “pardon”, I see the Eiffel Tower on my walk to work, I observe dogs prancing around like they own the world, and I smell delicious bread products emanating from bakeries on virtually every street. Life is tres Parisien, indeed, and yet it still feels like a dream of sorts.

However, I am admittedly having an easier time grasping my move to Paris than I am with the fact that I am now a college professor. I am not specifically trained to be a college professor, in case you were wondering. As in, I have no degree, or certificate, or “Dr.” before my name that would indicate my capabilities as a professor for the university level.

But if I have learned any professional secrets from my long and questionably distinguished list of past vocational pursuits, it is that very company, conglomeration, and country (in my current case) obviously abides by different sets of protocols and standards when it comes to filling positions. And, since I was hired as a teacher here in Paris, I have to believe that those who have hired me, at least, believe my qualifications to be adequate for the position.

Frankly, there is something even more bizarre for me than either the fact that I now live in Paris, or the fact that I am a university professor: it is the fact that my students are all science students. We are talking chemistry, biology, math, and something called “infotique,” for which I was really having trouble nailing down a definition, until I was finally told that it is the equivalent of data-processing.

“Data-processing” is truly a subject which I have never, and undoubtedly never will, actually grasp on any level. No matter what language in which it might be explained.

Just to give you a sense of my level of comfortability with the other aforementioned science subjects: my grade in “Chem for Citizens” in college is still a thorn in my side with regards to how detrimental it was to my overall undergraduate GPA. The results of the class would indicate that I am fit to be neither a chemist, nor a citizen—the latter revelation being a touch disheartening.

As for biology: I experienced that special embarrassment that is crying in class in front of your peers in 4th grade when we had to dissect frogs. My second foray into biology was in high school, and I remember nothing of that experience except that the class met around lunchtime and it was an excruciating exercise in not having my stomach audibly growl each and every class. My final biologic experience was a course in college where we made sauerkraut and the professor inexplicably brought his guitar to class and strummed “Love the One Your With” to the entire class.

In terms of math, I have no idea how or why anyone could or would major in “Math.” I honestly do not fathom how one could pass an entire day doing equations, and I am basically a Flinstone whose alacrity with technological advancements is deplorable and would make any self-respecting 5th -grader roll his or her eyes in disbelief at my general ineptness in modern day technological pursuits. In fact, I only very recently purchased an IPOD, and I do not have any idea of what my IPOD is capable of actually doing, save playing music. Essentially, I use it in the exact same manner that I used my walkman in 8th grade—minus the cassette tapes.

So there you have it. Not only do I not speak the same language as my students, but I do not speak the same LANGUAGE as my students. They speak French-Science. I speak English-Literature. I specialize in emoting, feelings, and over-analyzing. They are concentrating in numbers, calculations, and experiments. My not speaking French very well actually pales in comparison to the fact that I could never hope to learn even the basics of the language of science.

Yet, thus far, things are actually going quite well. My classes are sort of a strange monologue where I make jokes and bluther about trying to explain the nuances of the English language, and they look at me with boredom, confusion, and/or shock.

These are looks I am accustomed to garnering from each and every audience I have ever addressed, so things are quite par for the course when you think about it.

But sometimes they smile, they laugh, or their faces light up with recognition or triumph. I find that I really care that they care; I want to make them smile, to make them loosen up, or just to make them show a sign of life, which in some cases seems to require a Herculean effort.

As I fumble through everyday life in Paris, I am all too aware of the embarrassment, confusion, and fear involved with trying to negotiate even the simplest interactions when a language barrier sits between me and my end-goal. It is sort of like being a dog with one of those electric fence collars. I see where I want to get to, but the journey itself will either jolt me back to my starting point, or require a rather painful passageway to the other side. Either way, the electric shock treatment is inevitable.

My point is that I get that it is hard to learn another language. Even if I will never understand science (or maybe even French in a complete sense), I want to be able to communicate on some level with my students. As such, I am really happy to be teaching them English (or “teaching” them English. Or providing comic relief. Or contributing to further apprehensions about Americans in general—whatever it may be at any given time). At the risk of being unbearably cheesy, communication is so vital to life; how exciting to be adding to individuals’ arsenals to do so.

At the very least, and as it seems with much of my life, the whole enterprise of me as a teacher to science students is somewhat hilarious from afar. I would pay money to watch someone navigate/flounder through the position.

Well, voila people. Since I cannot sit around with a tub of buttered Jiffy Pop and watch my professional life take yet another perplexing turn, you will have the ability to do so—or at least read about it. Enjoy.