In Medias "Race"
Laptop case slung over shoulder and backpack firmly secured, I stand centimeters away from the green and white doors of Nantes' Line 1 tram and try to avoid elbowing any of the 8 Nantais within breathing distance. Through the Plexiglass windows I track my Line 2 connecting tram as it glides towards its platform across the way and can't help but mumble "shit."The phonetically immaculate female voice chimes "Commerce," and I prepare to charge. Ten seconds left....I sweep my gaze over my fellow commuters, and our shared situation is unspoken but wholly understood; each of us must make it to that connecting train or arrive late to our respective jobs.
Zero. I look to the French student directly next to me, smile, and say "rock and roll" as her thumb mashes the orange door control button. The doors open, and we leap forth like horses out of the starting gate. I clutch my bulky laptop to my chest like a square-shaped rifle and sprint the 200 meters to the Line 2 platform. 40 seconds later, I'm sweating before class and missing Sewanee cross country, but at least I'm on time and on the correct tram. Most of my fellow sprinters make it, but this time there's also the last place finisher, le pauvre who desperately presses the door control button only to find that his efforts were in vain; sacrifices must be made in the world of mass transit...his only consolation prizes are a ride on the next tram and a 20 minute wait. (Makes me think of the ending of Von Ryan's Express, and no, I don't believe it's possible to spoil a movie from 1965, haha: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCqHfqhoMqo)
That's the average Wednesday and Friday rush for me. My imagination always seems to turn things as mundane as morning commutes into epic struggles, but it does make for a better story (I have, for the record, witnessed a drug deal on the tram; oddly enough, it's a rather boring tale). Speaking of epic transit stories, seeing ticket-less people flee from the conductors is always perversely entertaining (I've only fled from them once; now I have my papers "en règle" as the French say). Still, when I see the ominous pack of trench coats board the tram---agents of TAN's bizarrely named "Greeting and Notification Service"---I secretly pretend that they are Gestapo officers hunting for Resistance operatives or escaped Allied POW's (and my heart sure as hell pounded during my one and only getaway from them...there's a scene from the Great Escape that comes to mind).
All that said, I still laugh when I imagine myself on the tram, a Mobile kid packed in with the dozens of assorted French folk, "stuck like a duck in a pen." Smells range from unspeakably vile to oddly pleasant, but I won't waste any more time on stereotypes. Suffice it to say that people are people; "C'est la vie" say the French and Chuck Berry. Still, the fact that I'm now a rush hour tram commuter does indeed go to show you never can tell, haha. Now if anyone can't already tell, I settled on Chuck Berry's iconic tune for my third "song of the week," and seeing several of my students imitate the Travolta-Thurman dance in their chairs at the beginning of class confirmed that it was a worthy selection. I'm not sure if I'll continue the "song of the week" tradition indefinitely, but I think I'll try to find at least a couple more good ones for the semester. I'm thinking I'll play "Homecoming King" for one advanced class whose questions about Homecoming became a minor infatuation when I told them I had been a Homecoming King myself. Nothing like a good satirical song about the whole process to confound stereotypes, haha. I think Sewanee's is at least a bit more dignified than a high school affair, and I look forward to seeing which 2013'er's will ascend to the Prom Queen-Throne this year.
Anyway, there have been some issues with my classes, most notably when a pair of guys announced that they wanted to choose "sex with a condom" vs. "sex without a condom" as their "serious" debate project. I almost publicly executed their grades, but I managed to retract my claws and instead gave them a disgusted glare and a warning to "drop what you're saying immediately." No one in the class laughed, so they aren't even passing as class clowns. I hope that I don't have to make good on my original plan to kick them out, but I'm not wholly convinced that this will be the last I hear from those two. Fortunately, incidents like that represent a statistically insignificant portion of my time teaching. Things are going rather well, and, as I realized last Wednesday, I've already begun to grow into my role.
Last Wednesday was our monthly "English Night," a gathering at a local bar called "Délirium" where the only rule is that everyone make an effort to speak English (it sells the whole line of those high-powered Delirium beers...Tee, if you're reading this, you'd probably think the owner was Willy---Guillaume?---Wonka). It was on the Délirium porch---where I'd escaped from the mass of people crammed in the sweltering interior--- that I abandoned the "Am I a teacher?" attitude in favor of "No, I'm definitely a teacher." About 10 of my (drunk) students surrounded me (just when I thought I knew no one there but my coworkers), and soon I had met boyfriends, girlfriends, and other members of their respective entourages after the introduction: "This is our teacher! He's the one from Alabama!" It's a tricky task being both an educator and a friend, especially considering we are almost all the same age (+ or - 3 years), but I think I've built my "authority wall" high enough to last a semester before it's worn down by all this fraternizing (It's hard not to be be friends with the girl in one of my advanced classes who wants to do her cultural presentation on the Walking Dead or American survivalist culture--she couldn't decide---a student after my own heart). That said, I made sure to assert myself intellectually (lest they stop treating me with academic respect) by challenging them to French history duels. They quickly accepted that I was indeed a better student of their history than them somewhere between Vercingetorix and the Eiffel Tower; "Honi soit qui mal pense" à French Studies at Sewanee, haha.
I'm getting around to venturing out of Nantes and will surely post about any interesting travel-adventures. In lieu of my actual pictures (which I promise are coming!), please accept a Fictional one as an IOU:
Cordialement,
John
P.S: I recently learned that the product "Velcro" is a hybrid (portmanteau) of "velours" and "crochet," "velvet" and "hook" in French. Cute little trivia fact for you...I reckon that cute little trivia facts represent something like 90% of my total knowledge.
No comments:
Post a Comment