French Integration Day

Well, the week ended not so badly after all. I (of course) made a few mistakes, but nothing life threatening. Maybe job threatening, but not life threatening.

After thinking more and more about the conversation with my Small School supervisor I ended up sending her an email. I let her know that since the end of our semester is in two weeks I really thought it might be better for the students to get their new professor at the start of the semester as opposed to half way through it. Changing teachers half way through in such an unorganized place leads to incredible difficulties with grading. I didn't say this but it's true. There are no standards as to what a 10 is or what a 15 is. (All grading in France is done on a 1-20 scale.) All I know is that "no one gets an 18, 19 or 20." So why have them? Why set grades that are not attainable? This drives me friggin nuts. But enough...bottom line is that I asked to be let go early from my contract and we are meeting Tuesday to talk about it.

One a good note, I went to my Big School Thursday to check in and they found my key under the desk. Yeah! I looked all over that classroom but apparently I missed it. Whew. Too bad I alerted my boss about the whole situation. If I would have kept my mouth shut no one else would have known other than the receptionist, the technician who found it, and me. Grrrr...Drat my need to communicate!

On Friday Cyr went with me to my day of French Integration. This whole process started last July 16th when Cyr and I went to the Marie. Only 6 months to get my card. Huh...so we were running a little late (how very French of me) but we got there before anything started. The day was scheduled from 9-5 (break into song! what a way to make a livin', barely get-ting by...) which seemed pretty long to me. Apparently it seemed long to the instructor too. Here is how the day went:

9:05 - Instructor enters but does not say hello. He untangles wires from projector and laptop to plug in.
9:15ish - All wires in, role is taken. He asks us all to say our names and what country we are from. I'm the only American and the only one who needed a translator.
9:25ish - He begins a presentation about the history of France, it's symbols and government. It was actually kind of interesting.
10am - Let's take a 30 minutes for a break. My thoughts "let's not and get out early." Ah! Here is my fatal flaw of liking to end things early...it has followed me here I see and has reared it's ugly head.
10:45 - Class resumes, more history. I had no idea Clovis was the first King of France in 481 AD. Damn...this country is old.
12:00 - We break for lunch. He gives us 1 hour and 50 minutes. Again...could we just take an hour and get our early? It's Friday man! Already I have counted almost an hour and a half we could lop off this day. They brought lunch in but Cyr and I decided that with almost two hours it might be nice to get outside.
2:10 - Class starts up again, he tells us we get out at 4:00. It's actually all the interesting stuff now though. We talk about where we can work and all that jazz. Here is what I learned about the Titre de Sejour:

• Turns out I can only work in France, I thought I could work in the Schengen Countries, but nope, just France. Well pooper...it's going to be hard to find an English speaking job in France other than English teacher.
• It's only good for a year from the date of first application, which means mine expires November 11, 2009.
  
• You must renew your TDS 3 months prior to it's expiration. So basically you are doing something every 3 months almost because of all the receipts and crap.
• I can renew my 1 year TDS 3 times, then after the third time I can request a 10 year TDS.
• If I want to have French citizenship we need to live in France for 4 consecutive years, then apply and it takes 18 months to process. So that would total 5 and a half years in France total consecutively to be a French citizen. We won't live here that long because of the business Cyr is in, but our instructor said that "everything has an exception" That sounds very similar to "everything is negotiable." Hmmm...ok. But the laws change all the time and by the time we get back they will be different.
  
• France allows duel, tripple even quadruple citizenship.
  
• Our kids will be French no matter where they are born (an American too of course).

3:00 - Take a break, he fills out paperwork and starts up again about 3:30.
4:00 - He let's us go right on time!

And there you go. Now I have a shiny new Titre de Sejour and am integrated! Now we will probably move in 3 months...ha...you have to laugh really.

Happy Birthday Dad! (plus the quest for a Carte de Sejour)

First things first...Happy Birthday Dad!! I'm over here in Lille thinking about you! I just got off the phone with my Dad and told him Happy Birthday...but I just love birthdays so much I thought I would say it again. Miss you!

UHHHHH....I JUST LOST A WHOLE POST!! Apparently there is a magic button that erases everything. How irritating. Ok...so now round two of typing my trip to the Prefecture. I don't know if I can spill out the magnificent prose that was flowing forth from my fingers...so here is an overview:

I asked Cyr many, many times if we are prepared for our meeting. Almost to a point that begins to annoy him. I remind him I don't speak or read French well so he has to be the responsible one for this thing. I also tell him I have not read the list, because I can't read French. On Saturday, after a visit to the Marie, he is able to tell me that we have everything except my passport: photos. Yeah!!

I repeatedly ask him. He repeatedly says "yes".

We show up for our meeting 10 minutes early. We see a sea of people waiting in the same room looking at the monitor for their number to be called. We get ready to settle in for a long wait.

We are the first ones called at 13:01!! (1:00) No way...

We sit down and the woman starts asking for things. Oh...there is a form we had. It's not filled out. I raise an eyebrow at Cyr but he apologizes and begins to fill it out. She asks for our photocopies. Cyr shoots a glance my way. Eyes dart to the woman.

We have no photo copies. I look at the yellow sheet and at the top, in BOLD LETTERED CAPS UNDERLINED is a word that looks like PHOTOCOPY.

Susan; jaw drops, eyes widen, head tilts to the side, one eyebrow finds it's way much higher than the other. Daggers then begin shooting out of my eyes.

Cyr begins to be very charming in French. Apologizing also because apparently there is a SECOND form in our packet (which we had, we just didn't fill out) that is not complete. He asks if there is a copy machine in the building. Yes there is. He runs to find it. He leaves behind a document. I think I actually began to show my teeth at this point.

I run to catch him. Through the crowd in the waiting room, up stairs, past the entrance, into another crowded room. I tap (ok, maybe it was a bit more than a tap) him on the back and shove hand the other document to him. He smiles sheepishly and finds the machine. We make copies. Meanwhile I am telling him of stories I know of people being sent home for the no copy thing. Having to wait weeks for another appointment.

We run back through the room, past the entrance, down the stairs, through another group past the guards and to our lady. Cyr again becomes this charming French speaking person repeatedly telling her "C'est ma faute, c'est ma faute." Translated "It's my fault, it's my fault." Uh. Yeah. Meanwhile she sees me trying to inflict mass amounts of pain in him with my stare. I think she understands, the amazement and anger in my stare must translate well in French.

This is where things get really crazy.

She accepts all of our paperwork and then tells us all about everything. She answers all of our questions and we are out in under 20 minutes. WITH my temporary CDS.

No...friggin...way.

Once out of the office Cyr immediately does the right thing and invites my scorn. But how mad can I be? We actually got my temporary Carte de Sejour and I can now have health care and a legal working paycheck. I am mostly in shock. I try to bark at him but mostly just can't believe it worked out. Then he bought me lunch with warm mauled wine, three new hats and we have moved on. He is so lucky things worked out...It's like I told him; "the execution was horrible and you get a D- on that, but the result was an A so I guess you pass."

Thank goodness yesterday was a holiday for this lady. I think she got some sleep. And maybe she felt sorry for Cyr when she saw that I could not take my eyes off him with my Death Ray Stare. Maybe she wanted us out of her office because she was worried I would actually succeed in making his head explode. Either way...I'm legal baby...

Week Number 2....

So I had my second class with...well maybe I was too harsh...how about Zee Class? (Read: someone from the school might find this blog) :-)

So I had Zee Class last night. I went in an hour early to make sure I had everything prepared. I even typed out an agenda to follow as a sort of lesson plan guide. I had more than enough things for the two hour lesson. Side note: I find it odd that one week the class is 2 hours and the next week it is 2 hours and 30 minutes. It changes every week. It also changes rooms and sometimes the time. Why not have a set schedule? Every week the kids have new schedules to follow. They also change things around if the kids don't like something thing. I don't know if I have mentioned this, but it is VERY different from American universities. They are with the same group all day long and take every class together. So my 35 kids are with each other in every class, all day long. It sounds a lot like high school but the classes are very intense and they take way more class time than normal college hours. They are in class 8 hours a day every day.

But back to the changing things around part...The kids in one of the classes didn't want a Friday 2-4 class because on Friday they feel they should be able to go on vacation for the weekend and they want to be able to get out of town early. The kids bring this to the attention half way through the semester mind you. So what happens? The administration changed the class to Wednesdays. You have got to be kidding me. I really just have too many thoughts about why I disagree with this action. A few would be: they knew from the start the time of this class, not to mention all the time that has gone into scheduling a professor and a room not to mention that if they do end up getting real jobs, can they just tell their boss they don't want to work Friday? Is this mirroring real life? Plus...I thought the weekend was your vacation? Did they start implementing Friday as a day off here too? Well, I guess if that 35 hour work week thing sticks then maybe the previous questions are all answered "Uh...maybe. Yes."

Back to the class. So I was waiting for the class. And waiting. It was time for class and no kids. It was 5 past and not one student. I know I was in the right place at the right time because I actually checked two different times in the office to make sure I had the correct room, time and day. Did they all decide to skip? I walk into the hall and see my kids in the room next to mine. They slowly begin to file in about 10-15 minutes late. The computer teacher kept them. Oh. How thoughtful of him. Of course why would English class be important right? I know I should have been upset, but part of me thought "oh well, now I don't have to fall back on the stupid vocabulary thing if we finish early."

It was a bit of a rowdy crew at first. I put together a marketing lesson and had a few fun things prepared. I cut the lights and showed a Top 10 Commercials from one of the Super Bowls. They all stopped as if they were hypnotized. Crazy...they calmed down and I was able to talk to them between clips. They then created campaigns and presented them. There was a lot of talking, but they actually delivered. Some very well even! I feel much better about the class now. I know they are bright, they just need a little herding in the right direction.

I also got a call from the teacher that is taking The Class over. (That was the 2nd class I was subbing in that was a bit easier to control.) She said the kids didn't like having such a late class and were going to go to the Dean to see if they could reschedule the class. (See paragraph 3.) She asked if I could teach that class if it moved. Heck yeah!! Well how about that, the power of the student worked in my favor. Huh. With the extra class I can now start putting a little money back in my US bank account (which has not seen any action since January). I have not gotten the official word, but I might pick up the second class next week. I'll keep you posted!

Tomorrow Cyr and I have our appointment with the Prefecture to present my paperwork for my Carte de Sejour. Crossing my fingers it goes well and she accepts everything we have. It seems to me that many times the government folks here decided what happens depending on what mood they are in and how they feel about you. I know people that have presented exactly the same paperwork I have for a certain thing, but their papers were rejected and they were asked to supply additional things. I guess I caught the person on a good day. Hope our nice government worker is having a good day tomorrow. I want to be able to travel back home without too much trouble. Cross your fingers!!

Egypt will have to wait...

...for a little while at least.

Oh the joys of trying to be legal in France! So...I won't bore you all with the details of trying to gain a long stay marriage visa thingy in France. It takes quite a large amount of paperwork for a French person to marry a person who is not French in France. One would hope that by completing this task you would then be able to stay in this wonderful country. Oh contraire mon frere! I knew most of this going into this thing so it was no surprise that after you are married in the Marie (town hall) you have to then take your Livre de Famille (proof of marriage) to your home country to get your long stay visa stamped. Once you have done this then you need to return to France and schedule a meeting with the prefecture.

Our meeting is scheduled for November 12th. During this meeting I am supposed to get a temporary something that will allow me to work, but it's not my actual carte de sejour (work permit if you will). That will arrive in about 3 months after that. During the time I am waiting for my CDS to arrive I am not allowed to leave France except for one visit to any other schengen country . I'm not sure why they allow you one visit, and if you drive or take a train they don't check at the boarders any longer so there is no one to stamp the passport. Anyway, all this adds up to no Egypt in November. I was a little upset about this at first, but I know that we will go eventually, just not now. I think I am mostly upset because we used TravelersJoy.com as a wedding site and many people have donated to our honeymoon. We still get to use this for our trip next year, it's not like we loose anything, I just really wanted to be able to post a followup web site to everyone who gave. Guess that can wait until next year when I can legally leave and return. Thank goodness TravelersJoy has no expiration date! (I highly recomend this site to anyone getting married, very easy to use and a great deal when compared to similar sites.)

This also means that I am not allowed to make a trip home for Thanksgiving which makes me a little sad. I have a friend who is about a month ahead of me in this process, that really helps. She also told me that the government will grant each person one emergency trip home if needed. So if something happens and I need to leave I can, but only to my home country. Now I'm getting a little frustrated because I want to plan our trip and book things and I can't because I don't friggin know when I will get this stuff. I am hoping I will know more after November 12th, but that's just a hope...after that meeting I will most likely just start planning for March I guess. Oh well, c'est la vie.

I actually wrote this post prior to leaving for Paris and scheduled it to post on Tuesday. I feel so techie...