Jonathan is grading student exams (hence the title). Lisa flew home today.
She tried to fly home on Tuesday, when her flight was scheduled, but all flights out of CDG were cancelled that morning due to crazy wind, and they couldn't get her on another one till this morning. Actually we've had a lot of crazy weather. It's spring on a Mediterranean/Californian schedule, but with the insane wind, temperature changes, snow and hail of the middle of the country.
We did lots. We went to Chinatown. (Well, Asiatown--it seems that in France it's very difficult to find any restaurant, let alone section of town or even street, that is faithful to one Asian nationality. It's very strange for someone from CA to see.) We went to the catacombs, and Tristram learned to say "bones." He also says "wow" now after he hears anyone say it, so he was expressing great amazement in the catacombs. It's our favorite statement of his because it's so drawn out and emphasized. We went to Montmartre, and as lovely as Sacre Coeur is, St. Pierre really is my favorite church. It's the much, much older one right across the way, built on an old Roman temple, with tombstones from the 12th century.
I have been knitting a lot, and I now have about 3 inches of skirt and cramps in my hands.
Tristram has had a sign explosion; he knows a LOT of animals now. His new favorite is "hippopotamus," though he's also quite fond of "frog." More usefully, he's learned "eat," "more," "no," "want," and "all done," all of which makes it much easier to tell what he's after.
I have been applying for jobs nonstop, in addition to picking up some editing to go with my translating. I bounce back and forth between confident and discouraged. Right now I am discouraged to tears; I just got tipped off to a government fellowship program that is pretty much a guaranteed career-opener; it's a paid training program to transition academics into government work. The catch? You can only apply if you're ABOUT to graduate. Six months too late, and that leaves me out in the cold. They're not the least bit interested in those who've just graduated. Maybe it'll do Jonathan some good.
In the meantime, we've been budgeting today; we have $50 maximum to spend per week on food for the rest of our stay. More than that and we don't have enough left in our account to pay for my ticket back. We're only out about $500 on Jonathan's ticket over after the university's reimbursement, but we're out by quite a lot on his car, and on his not getting paid for overtime. Maybe we'll get a nice bump in June when they reimburse that, but who knows...they haven't been real on top of things so far. I finally got my carte de sejour (another 275 euro for that), so we're headed to CAF tomorrow to see if these French government disbursements really are all they're cracked up to be. And now to sort through the paperwork for that.
2 comments:
That picture is amazing.
The catacombs are awe-inspiring for reasons you don't often find in Paris.
I know how it is to fret about overtime pay they say will come but never looks like it will.. when I taught in Clermont, mine finally came at the end of the spring semester. It was a hefty sum-- a year's worth of overtime--- and came just in time. It sure would have made life easier, though, if it was put in with the monthly pay.
Best of luck with the bureaucracie
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