Waiting for the Girls at Ballet (A Story in Three Parts)

Part I: I'm waiting for the girls at ballet. The baby is asleep (well, he's probably woken up by now) at home. Maman is home as well, planning Monsieur's surprise 40th birthday party - this party takes up much of her time. I've 70% decided to tell Maman that Friday - or possibly next Monday - will be my last day, rather than next Wednesday. I'd lose 250€, yes, but I wouldn't be 70% unhappy 42 hours a week. The funny thing - not funny ha ha, but funny weird - is how much of my sense of self is tied up in being good with children. After 7 hours of being told that I'm not doing things the way they should be done (reading to the baby, disciplining the oldest, searing the lamb for dinner), when I get home at night I doubt the Betsyness of myself. I need to learn how to leave these things at the door.

(If I do stop work early, though, I'll still have things to do; I have three other families who all want 10-15 hours a week for the next several weeks. Booya.)

Part II: This past weekend has been a whirlwind of sitting and playing. Thursday was the Fête de la Musique; I think this was the inaugural year of New York's festival, so most of you know what I'm talking about. If not, in brief, the Fête de la Musique is a huge party that is held on the equinox and takes place in the streets and concert venues of Paris; bands and DJs camp out on street corners and bridges, and more established groups play at the Louvre and in all the churches. It's kind of like Mardi Gras in New Orleans - everyone is out, carousing and singing and laughing and if you get seperated from your friends you'll never see them again. Harry and I met up with a bunch of his French friends (okay, by this point I suppose some of them are my French friends, as well) at St. Michel, near where I used to live. We were both zonked after a week of work, and I was in an infectiously bad mood, so we only stayed out until 11:30 or so, but I had a great time wandering around and soaking up everything.

On Friday I babysat and tutored and babysat again until 1am, so that was that day gone.

Saturday, though, was a blast; Harry and I slept in for like the first time ever, which was so wonderfully unstressful, and then I spent the afternoon with K because I needed to take a shower. Let me explain myself: in the way that karma works, God decided that it was my turn to leak. On Friday morning I was woken up by a neighbor banging on my door and explaining that I was ruining his bottom-floor apartment. I turned of the water, and, since the landlady's plumber couldn't come until Monday, resigned myself to a few days of serious deoderant use. I had a party to go to on Saturday night, though, so I galivanted gaily up to K's apartment (only a 10 minute walk from chez moi) to use his shower. We ended up frolicking away the entire afternoon; after eating lunch at his apartment we walked back down to mine, stopping in a pharmacy to buy pacifiers (not for me, for la famille, obvi!) and in a supermarket so I could restock my fridge. (Funny supermarket story: A guy was standing with a tray of dessert nibbles, and we tried the madeleines and absolutely loved them. I said no to the big bag, explaining that if we got a bag of twelve madeleines I'd eat eleven, but that I'd only eat seven if we got the bag of eight. The guy smiled knowningly and said, "Ah, yes, Madame, but the madeleines in the big bag are packaged individually - perfect for the children!" K and I exclaimed, "Ah, yes, the children!" and took the big bag from his hands. It was fantastic.) K and I parted ways at about 5:30, after spending 45 minutes on clips of the Daily Show (watch them!), and I headed off to babysit. That eneded around 12:30, at which point I raced home, changed into my new (and terribly trendy) dress, and headed off to a housewarming party with Harry. By the time we got there, the party was begining to wind down, and so the remaining partyers were pretty hardcore. Also, incidentally - or not, as the couple throwing the party were 28 and 29 and gay - older and way more flamboyantly homosexual than my 19 year old English boarding school boyfriend is used to. I had a lot of fun, but Harry, I think, was a little uncomfortable.

Sunday was kind of unbearable, as I had to sing 5 hours after I had gone to bed, but it was my last AmCath service and we did lovely music (Purcell and Byrd), so I tried semi-successfully to will away my hangover. After the service, Harry, Imogen (a school friend of Harry's who's been living in Paris for the year as well) went out to lunch, and then I grabbed a lousy nap. I hate lousy naps - they're so unproductive! I then, shockingly enough, had to tutor for an hour. The weekend ended in the best way possible: dinner in the suburbs with K's family. K, you see, had bought a bottle of really good champagne for his sister because she was accepted to Columbia, and we finally drank it last night. I made it out there (40 minutes away on the RER - you can see stars and everything!) by 8, and we apero'd (drinkey-poo'd to you, Li) until nearly 10. We didn't sit down to the actual dinner until 10:30, and so I was beginning to crash, but the yumminess perked me up neatly. Also, it's difficult to fall asleep when your waistband is digging into your tummy. (When K asked if anyone was going to say grace at the beginning of the meal, his father and I chorused in unison, "Grace!") K's sister made a wonderful "gaspacho" of puréed raspberrys and strawberries and mint, and we had brownies and coconut cake and I told myself that I'd never eat again. (Ha!) Finally crawled into bed ariund 2. Up early this morning to babysit. What happened to summer vacation.

Part III: You'll get it. Eventually.

ani lo mitaberit ivrit

A few months ago I took an four new English students. I now have Armelle (age 7), Clement and Thomas (16 year old twins), Arnaud (a 30-something lawyer), and Julia (age 12). I've been having the greatest time tutoring them!

Armelle is the little girl I've had since February. Since she's only 7, most of the English we're learning together is by rote, but we have a lot of fun anyway. Today we went over question words - who, what, where, when, why, how, and the ever important phrase "what happened?" - and played reporter. We took turns being the journalist and the policeman, and made up news stories in French, using the English question words. Now that I've discovered what an amazing imagination Armelle has, we've been doing a lot more games like this that demand creativity. In one of the rounds where I was the policeman on the scene, Armelle asked me what had happened. I replied, "Armelle fell in love with François." She shook her head gravely and said, "No, not François. Lucien!" It was the funniest thing.

Clement and Thomas, who I see individually, just meet with me for an hour of conversation a week. They have a very good grasp of the language, but are going to Andover for a summer program in July and want to practice colloquial English. They've been recommending me bands and underground concert venues - I feel like such an old lady for not having been to these places yet!

Arnaud is fantastic. As a lawyer for top European private equity firm, he does a lot of work with London, but his English fluency is pretty much limited to the written word and his grasp of complex grammar is, like mine, tenuous. An English teacher at a girls' boarding school just outside of Paris meets with him once a week and they do real grammar and vocab work together, and then I meet with him once a week and we review, do reading and reading comprehension, and practice conversation. We've been reading Frankenstein, and had an amazing discussion about the man/God, creation, nature, and goodness/evil/original sin. It was very cool.

Julia sees the same English teacher, and meets with me once a week just for conversation. She's 12 and a little shy, so sometimes it's hard to draw her out, but once she starts talking she's on fire. I feel so victorious when I get her going, when she forgets to be nervous about speaking in English and just runs with it!

Armelle, Art History, and Americans

a) Armelle. She's the little girl I tutor in English. I'm kind of obsessed with her. She's seven, and smart and very playful. We don't get as much done as her father would like, but we have a really good time. (I think she's kind of obsessed with me, too.) Today we spent quite a bit of time talking about what it means to be part of a global community. She told me that she thinks the world should be linguistically divided in two: half the world should speak French, the other half English, and that the two sides should never trespass on each other. I tried to explain to her that it was important for countries and regions and whatever to keep their languages because language is tied to culture and tradition, and that if we didn't share our cultures and traditions we'd all be the same. She replied that we'd all get along better if we were the same, and then said that when she's president, she's going to make a law that says that you can only speak French in France. "All the Americans who don't speak French - poof! - out!" She said. "This is OUR country. Poof! But you can stay, Betsie." (She spells my name like that.) "Your French gets better every time we have a lesson, so you can stay." Aw. Thanks.

b) If you need proof that I'm a baller, here it is: I had this huge medieval art dossier due on Thursday, and I really needed an extra day or two to finish it. After the exam on Wednesday, I went up to the professor and pointed out that the syllabus says it's due Friday. She asked if I needed the day, and I replied that it would absolutely help. She looked slightly taken aback (Betsy? Needing extra time? Not being on top of her game? Impossible!), but told me that she'd rather an excellent paper than one that was merely finished, and that I could take the week. Excellent!

c) No Finzi next week - the soprano exodus kind of xnayed that. But tomorrow we'll be doing the Mathais "God has gone up" and a really really pretty Nestor chant thing. In other singing news, though, I just got the music for this summer's tour with Bruce. Good stuff - a lot of Howells and Sowerby and Neswick (duh) and some Darke. Holla! Can't wait to look over it all.

Handel rocks.

Last night's outing was amazing. We were way up in the nosebleeds, and couldn't really see anything, so after the first act we moved up to the empty boxes right above our seats. We couldn't see any better - well, most of us couldn't; K, on the other hand, almost killed himself by leaning way out of the box, as did one of the Germans - but it felt like an adventure. The music was stunning. I pretty much stopped paying attention to the story as soon as we settled into the boxes and just closed my eyes and listened. There wasn't much acting, although there were some trippy interpretive dance sections where Handel wrote ballet music, so I didn't miss anything. (I know everyone else who did watch was confused, though, because the two main male parts were written for castrati but were sung by women, the result of which was that 4 out of the 7 people on stage looked exactly alike.) My favorite was Dalinda, the princess' maid; her voice was so clear and crisp. The first aria she did, "Apri le luci," was breaktaking; unfortunately for me (and all of you who'll be peer-pressured into coming to my senior recital next spring), however, the role is sung by a coloratura, which I absolutely am not. The King, a bass, was also amazing. The mezzo who played Ariodante was a little... ornmental; I wasn't a huge fan. All in all, though, it was a wonderful performance.

We then went to a Moroccan restaurant in the area; as it was nearly midnight, we had the first floor of the place to ourselves. I don't know why, but I'm kind of obsessed with North African food right now.

Tutored at the buttcrack of dawn today (okay, 9am), and wussed out of quitting. I just couldn't do it! Armelle is so sweet and so eager, I just couldn't tell her I didn't have the time to sing "head, shoulders, knees and toes," and to make paper dolls. I set up a few alternate times with her mother for the next few weeks - I'm reminding myself that I have fun when I'm actually there, it's good money, and I have spring break in three weeks.

Wait a minute... I have spring break in three weeks!

da weekend

This is going to be one of those amazing, busy, wonderful weekends. What's that? You want me to tell you about it? Well, okay!

Tonight K and I are going to the Theatre des Champs Elysées with two of his friends (whom I met last weekend at his brunch) to see Handel's "Ariodante." Handel operas are rarely performed - I doubt most people are even aware that he wrote any - so I'm really excited. We won't really be able to see from our seats, but the tickets were only 12€ and we'll be able to hear sublimely.

Tomorrow morning, at 9am (blergh), I have to tutor. Hopefully it'll be the last session - I tried to make it clear to Armelle's mother over the phone that I really don't have time to tutor now the the semester has reached its cruising altitude, but I think she thought I meant that I couldn't do the normal time anymore. I enjoy tutoring, and the girl is a total sweetheart, but my plate is just too full. Am not looking forward to clearing this up. In the afternoon, though, Nellie and I are going to go on a date. I haven't spent much time at home lately and therefore haven't seen her much, so we're going to try to grab coffee or a movie or something. Then in the evening the choir has a 3 hour dress rehearsal for our Sunday concert.

Sunday... what else would I be doing?
10-12h30: service
14h-16h: rehearsal
16h-18h: concert

Am SO EXCITED for this concert; we're doing some really amazing music. (I'll put up the program Monday or Tuesday when I report on how it went.) I've got a little solo in a Howells piece, which is nice cause I'm the newest soprano. We're doing the Allegri "Misereri Mei," too. I'm singing first soprano for most of the concert, and I was almost kept on first for that, which would have made me cry because my self-worth is totally tied up in being a second on that piece, but Ned moved me back to second, thank God. Have strong-armed some friends into coming to the concert; unfortunately, several will be out of town, but those who aren't have promised to be there. I love it when I can share this music with my friends... concerts like this usually make them understand why I've sold my soul to Jesus.

tutoring

I gave my first real tutoring session last night. It was way harder than I expected it to be. The girl is sweet; she's 7 years old and is taking English at school, so she knows some basic words and phrases as well as the alphabet. The difficulty, however, lies in the fact that a) as a first grader she's learning her own language alongside English, and b) when I see her, she's already spent 8 hours at school and is zonked. Anyway, we identified objects in her room - bed, desk, chair, etc. - and taped namecards onto them so she'll remember, went over the English pronunciation of the alphabet, and learned the personal pronouns. She lasted 45 minutes, which is respectable; I just hope she retains some of the stuff for next week!

After that, 11 Victor Cousin had a Grey's dinner party. Jed came over, I made a feuilletée with spinach, mushrooms, and goat cheese, and Alyssa and I got creative with an apple crumble. I got the recipe for the feuilletée from the cooking class I took last week; I was scared to try to make it on my own, but it actually came out really well. I'll post the recipe tomorrow. (The Grey's, obviously, was amazing.)

Tonight I'll be babysitting for the Masons for the first time... wish me luck!

Bienvenue a Paris!

Okay. So. Since I still haven't caught up on the past two weeks of blogging, and it doesn't look like that will happen any time soon, I think I'll just start from now.

Paris is so different from New York that I hadn't been spurred into anything resembling homesickness - that is, until yesterday. Yesterday I went to the American Cathedral (AmCath, from hereon out) in Paris for their 11am Eucharist. I'd been in email contact with the choirmaster there, but we've hadn't actually connected, so I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone: I could track him down and talk to him about singing, and I could see what exactly I was getting myself into. I arrived a little late (the cathedral is pretty... it's like my cathedral in that it's neo-gothic, but a lot smaller, obviously) and the choir was just finishing the psalm. I successfully fought off rising tides of home/cathedral/choir-sickness as the celebrant celebrated the Anglican service - until the offertory anthem. I totally broke down as the choir sang Mendelssohn's "How Lovely are the Messengers." First of all, I love that piece. Second off all, the anthem leads with an alto line, and they had a countertenor in the alto section. Third of all... well, third of all, it's me, and I've been going through choir withdrawal, so obviously I teared up.

After the service I staked out the choir room - not as creepy as it sounds, as the hall in which the coffee reception was held was right next to the choir room. I introduced myself to Ned Tipton, the director, and within five minutes he told me to come early to rehearsal next Thursday so we could talk more, and that I should just stay for rehearsal and start singing Sundays right away. How sweet is that? The choir's pretty good, actually; they're not professionals, but they are auditioned, and sound like they really know what they're doing. They don't really need another soprano, but whatever.

So... that's cool. Five classes, tutoring a French girl once a week, as-needed babysitting, and rehearsals and services. I think I'm pretty much set.