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One person told me that we criticize society a lot, so “society does this” and “society does that,” and you criticize until you find out that you’re part of society.
And when she told me that I was like, “Yeah, I’m part of it! And I can change anything I want.”
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- I’m always surprised when I buy apple juice and I see that it comes from Lebanon. I’m like “Why does it come from so far? We can have apple juice from here. I don’t understand…” I know that some people check their things to see how many calories they have, but for me, it’s about where it comes from.
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- People are touched by different things, so if art can touch a lot of people about the environment, that’s perfect.
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- In one year like I’ll maybe, maybe I’ll be in Spain, whatever, we never know what could happen in life.
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- I talked about “multipotentiate” because this women was a punk rock singer I think, she was a teacher, she was an artist, she was a scientific stuff (I don’t know what). So if I could have all of those careers in one life I would be so happy. But it’s difficult for it to be accepted by everyone. If there are two things in my work that I want to have, I want to be useful and be happy. I really want to have those two things, but I also want to learn a lot.
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- With our friends we don’t have to always talk about actualité, stars, all the costumes. No, environment has to also be an issue, it has to be a conversation with our friends. Now when I go to a coffee with you and the first question that I ask you is “What are your concerns about the environment?” You’d be like “Uh, ok?” It’s not a normal topic now, so we need to start thinking that it’s normal, it’s something that’s happening and it will affect you, me, everyone.
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- Just be interested by anything; accept that when your grandmother tells you a story like from 1940-something, take it like a present and think “Ok, I’m going to note this. I’m going to save this in my memory.” And if you see a documentary about how the brain works – just, the more you’re interested by other things, the more you care about the world around you; the best way to get interesting is to be a fan of knowledge and to want to learn and relearn and relearn again.
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- If you want to make change in the world the first thing you have to change is yourself. And I think it’s really difficult for me, I consider that I changed a lot in the last two years. But it’s hard for me to consider that ok, I have to change more more more more in the later years, and not like for a few years, all my life I want to progress.
I wanted to speak with young women environmental leaders about their experience organizing COY 11 Montreal (a climate change conference for youth). What resulted was tons of laughter and a fascinating conversation not just on how to change the world, but also “multipotentiates,” French words with no proper translation in English, and so much more.
You have to have your own trigger, your own thing, and the day I found this out, I was like, “Ok, so if I have to work on something, I have to work on triggers in people.”
But even this, this is saying that, “Oh, I can give you triggers.” That’s not true.
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The past few months have been full of moments where I’ve thought to myself, “I really wished I’d thought of/known about that last year!”
You, my friends, get to profit off of my missed opportunities.
Or hiking up mountains of coal waste!
Aside from climbing beffrois and taking long walks across town to Auchan, here are a few ideas for staying fit while living abroad, with little to no equipment, and from least to most expensive:Read more
For a while now, I’ve been wanting to “act like a tourist” in Sleepy Hollow. Partly because it seemed silly that I’ve lived here most of my life without seeing a lot of its attractions, partly to do more local/low-impact travel, and partly to reclaim this space as my own.
I’ve been questioned a lot over the past week about “Where I’m really from,” and I always staunchly answer “Sleepy Hollow,” perhaps in the hopes that discussing the headless horsemen will stave off thinly veiled (or pretty blatant) questions about my ethnicity. I remember one of my professors in college wondering with us, well, when does your “history” start if you’re the child of immigrants? Isn’t the history of this land also your own? So out of some kind of defiance – and the fact that a lot of tours end this week – I decided to finally go for it and explore.
Helloooooo
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I thought that opening a bank account was going to be no big deal; after all, my host teacher was kind enough to make an appointment for me at her bank and was going to be coming with me, and the last assistant had successfully opened an account there as well. I had plenty of time before the deadline to turn in my paperwork so that I would get paid for the first month.
Or so I thought.Read more
While everyone’s experiences at their schools were pretty different, one fairly common experience was being grilled by students the first “observation week.” Some of the questions I got included:
“Do you have children?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
And my personal favorite: “Are you a vegetable?” (The student was trying to say “vegetarian.”)Read more
One of the things that seemed the most daunting about moving to France was finding a place to live, especially since I kept hearing that I should just wait until I got there to figure it out. I ended up lucking out and had to do pretty much no work, but here are some ways that other assistants I know have found housing, roughly in order from easiest to hardest:
As you might be able to tell, I have this weird, fierce loyalty to Bethune, but when I was first going to France, I had a tough time deciding whether to live in a town or city. I was seriously considering living in Lille, the closest big city to where I was assigned. I’d always lived in the suburbs or in small towns in the past and didn’t want to keep relying on friends in the city for a couch to crash on. I fully expected that if I was living in a smaller town, I’d be bored and would want to keep commuting into the city.
We were very attached to our beffroi numerique
I was so wrong. Here are the reasons why:Read more
I know I keep saying that I got really lucky with my TAPIF experience, but once again, I was fortunate to be able to stay with my host teacher’s family when I first got to France, and they were really understanding when I could barely understand French and passed out for something like fourteen hours on my first day (maybe my second too…). For people who don’t have that option or really prefer their own space, here are some alternatives, from cheapest to more expensive:
The view out of my window my first day in France!
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Update: Check out “Every single item on my packing list” for…(wait for it) every single item on my TAPIF packing list!
Just wrote a nice long version of this post and it was deleted, so here’s a quick rundown of some learned-the-hard-way things I wish I’d known a year ago, for anyone who’s doing some last-minute packing for TAPIF:
Just gonna recycle this photo of me, a year ago, with everything I took with me to France
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