Jennie en France

Win a 40–euro gift basket of your favorite American treats!

Are you struggling to satisfy your cravings because you are:

-  Embarrassed to ask your family and friends for one more favor?

-  Fed up with products that melted or broke during the transatlantic trip?

-  Worn out from having to rush around Paris, search for parking spaces and drive in traffic?

-  Frustrated from having to wait until your next trip or someone’s visit?

-  Tired of bringing back heavy suitcases from your trip to the US?

Then, My American Market has been designed for you: it is a hassle-free online store for your American food and beverage staples.

My American Market’s best features:

Selection

One of the largest assortments of American food and treats in stock and ready to be shipped.

Convenience

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Easy to order

My American Market online store is very user-friendly. Find and order your favorite products in just a few clicks.

Fast Delivery

Your order will be processed within the next business day. Your shipment will be securely packaged and sent via La Poste Colissimo. In France, it will be delivered to your door within 2 business days.

Secure

My American Market uses a 128bit SSL encrypted checkout system. You can choose to process your payment online, on the phone or by check.

Community-oriented

Get connected with Europe’s American community and friends.

Great customer service

The American way, period!

It is time you do something about your cravings! Visit the online “épicerie américaine” today: www.MyAmericanMarket.com and enter coupon code “BLOG21” to get a 10% discount on your order (shipping costs not included).

To win a gift basket, follow these simple steps:

1.    Copy these pink paragraphs (include title)

2.    Post them on your personal blog or website.

3.    Then, go on the contest homepage HERE

4.    Leave a comment and the link to where you blogged about My American Market

5.    Uh that’s it!

Make sure all links work properly: the one to MyAmericanMarket.com, the contest homepage, as well as your blog’s post.

The winner will be randomly picked as soon as 50 blogs have enrolled and notified through the link they left to their post. If you have more than one blog, you can post the message several times and enter for more chances to win!

Good luck and happy blogging!

Aujourd’hui, c’est notre anniversaire de trois ans !

Je t’aime, mon prince !

A little history lesson thanks to David’s grandma who didn’t throw these newspapers away (that we just discovered in the storage space this weekend!)

Conditions of the WWI peace treaties were decided in May 1919. (Women’s suffrage is just a teaser. That wouldn’t actually happen until 1944.)

The Treaty of Versailles was signed June 28, 1919.

Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier gathered in Munich in September 1938. Hitler “accepted” to delay mobilizing troops.

The Munich Agreement was signed on September 30, 1938 and everyone proclaimed “PEACE!”

A Historic Night. Enthusiasm in Munich. And much sadness and betrayal in Czechoslovakia, who was not even invited to the conference.

270,000 refugees of the Spanish Civil War came to France in February of 1939. (The actual number is closer to 500,000.)

German troops invaded Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg (as well as northern France) on May 10, 1940 which marked the beginning of the Western Offensive, also known as the Battle of France.

Italy declared war on France and England on June 10, 1940.  France signed an armistice with Germany 12 days later and the Vichy Regime was formed.

Vichy France, run by Phillipe Pétain and Pierre Laval, urged Frenchmen to go to work in Germany in June 1942 for “the freedom of prisoners” and for “OUR COUNTRY!”

I didn’t decorate for Halloween this year, didn’t buy any candy and didn’t carve a pumpkin. It really doesn’t feel like Halloween at all. But fall is definitely here.

David & I went to the marché this morning after stopping by the optician to order my new glasses and contacts (for a grand total of 16€! Thank you new mutuelle!)

Then we walked back home through the park and enjoyed our pain bio and Tamié.

This closed shop reminded me that I need to buy some new boots for winter, but I will probably have to wait until les soldes.

Goodbye October. Hello November.

Just for (nerdy) fun, I wrote down all the Québécois words that were spoken in 3 episodes of Catherine as well as their “standard French” counterparts that appeared in the subtitles.

Of course, there were some words that I could not understand at all (and neither could David). But sometimes I understand more than he does because of the North American cultural references!

Eric Besson, France’s Minister of Immigration, said in an interview yesterday that he wants French people to be  proud of their country and their nationality. He wants young people to sing La Marseillaise at least once per year and he wants adults to take civic instruction classes. He’s going to conduct a two month national debate on what it means to be French today and will present his findings in January. This is part of Sarkozy’s plan to bring back “La Douce France” and to increase patriotism and nationalism because he also believes that the French are not patriotic enough.

Sarkozy always seems to bring up these questions of national identity before elections though, so some people think it’s just a ploy to get more votes for the conservative UMP party from the Front National (racist/anti-immigration party) supporters.  La Douce France usually refers to the early part of the 20th century when the majority of French people lived in the countryside, and before France had a large immigrant population (especially of Muslims) and before globalization added English words to the French language. But modern France is nothing like that.  Three times as many people live in cities than in the countryside in the 21st century. There are more than 5 million Muslims (more than any other Western European country). And French has definitely borrowed a lot of English words. How many “French” words end in -ing nowadays?

I see nothing wrong with patriotism as long as its sincere and it’s not a disguise for racism or intolerance. You can love your country and be proud of your nationality and/or government. I don’t necessarily like when people take it to the extreme though and plaster their houses or cars or clothes with flags. And I especially do not like when people define nationalities based on their racist ideals (i.e. all Americans must be white Christians who speak English as a native language).

But I also see nothing wrong with a lack of a patriotism. It’s fine to not love your country, especially the one to which you belong by birth, because you never had a choice regarding your nationality. Just because you were born in a certain place doesn’t mean you have to love it. If I had had a choice, I would have loved to have been born with two nationalities. But I wasn’t. And now I’m working towards gaining French citizenship by naturalization, but does that make me any less patriotic concerning France? I have equal feelings for the US and France (though I suppose it leans a little more toward France at the moment because of health care…) and I really can’t picture myself ever choosing one over the other.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing more French flags flown (especially on July 14) and hearing La Marseillaise at more than just football matches. I’m just afraid that the UMP is starting this “debate” for ulterior motives because they’ve been getting harsher on immigration (evacuating Calais and sending war refugees back to Afghanistan) and Muslim garments (the burka “runs counter to national values”).  Or perhaps I’m just letting my personal feelings for Sarkozy and his huge ego and Besson and his selfish crassness cloud my judgment.  Nevertheless, I am a liberal through and through and slightly for socialism in certain cases, which is not a bad thing even if American conservatives compare it to Nazi Germany (because they really are that stupid. Talking about you, Glenn Beck.)

Luckily Besson doesn’t have power to change rules on gaining nationality through naturalization, or I might really have to sing La Marseillaise to a fonctionnaire to prove my worth. That’s Brice Hortefeux’s job (Minister of Interior) and considering that he’s just as loyal to Sarkozy – he’s even godfather to one of his sons – and just as prone to making possibly racist remarks against immigrants, I’m a little worried. Or perhaps I’m just annoyed with Western politicians in general because they’re all rich white guys with questionable values and morals?

Anyway…

♫  Allons enfants de la Patrie ! Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie, l’étendard sanglant est levé,
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !
Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons, marchons, marchons !
Qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons !

(Just practicing!)

TF1 just did a reportage on Annecy, the lake and the possible Winter Olympics in 2018. You can watch the video at their site. It’s about 15 minutes long and even if you don’t understand French, it’s still worth it to look at all the pretty scenery.

“Le 13 heures vous emmène en balade aux bords du lac d’Annecy, la “Venise des Alpes”, comme on a coutume de la surnommer.”

It’s vacation time already! I have 11 days off thanks to Toussaint. Then there are only 7 weeks left of the semester (one of which is shortened by the jour férié on November 11) after that. Time flies when you’re having fun, eh? I wish I could do this job forever. I know my next job (whatever it will be…) will not give me nearly as many days off and the possibility of sleeping in almost everyday. But it hopefully will involve more French and less English and a higher paycheck, though I’m not too optimistic about that in the land of low salaries.

But back to my current job. At the beginning of the semester, I like to torture encourage my first year students by forcing asking them to speak spontaneously in English for a whole 60 seconds on a subject that we have already covered in class. Considering they have been learning English for 7-9 years already, this should be rather easy. However, by the looks on their faces and the dead silence that lasts for 5 minutes before one of them is brave enough to start talking into their microphone makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. It’s as if no one has ever asked them to SPEAK in English before and considering France’s current system of teaching languages, that may very well be the case.

So I will be spending my vacation listening to and grading some 50 recordings of these timid students who are afraid to talk in the language that they are majoring in. Few of them seem to understand the importance of speaking out loud when learning a new language. Not just for pronunciation, but to remember the correct phrases and to train the muscles in the mouth to get used to a new way of forming sounds and words and sentences.

Ok, they record themselves speaking English once, but then they think it ends there. No no no! You must listen to yourself speaking. Does your pronunciation sound good? Can you spot some mistakes in grammar? Are there a lot of hesitations and unclear utterances? What do you need to improve on?  Try another recording and listen again. Then do it again. And again. None of this “once is enough” attitude and doing it just for the sake of getting it done.

And the whole point is to get them speaking spontaneously, without any written preparation beforehand. They are so used to writing everything first, and then reading it. But that’s not real life. I seriously wonder how some students think they will be able to work for an Anglophone company in 3 years when they won’t even try to speak in English in class, where there is a native speaker to help them and it’s ok if they make mistakes because I will correct them. What are they going to do in the real world when they’re asked to talk to Anglophone clients or interpret at meetings or (worst of all!) answer the phone in English?

Want to work as an interpreter? The EU needs native English and French speakers!

In order to feed my Quebec obsession, I’ve been watching the Radio-Canada series “Catherine” on TV5 each evening. Luckily it’s subtitled in European French because I don’t understand all the words, but when they make cultural references to Thanksgiving, Sears or hockey, it makes me a little homesick. Sometimes I catch “Pure Laine” which is also a comedy about life in Montréal in a multi-cultural family (Quebecois mother, Haitian father, and adopted Chinese girl). Barbara has been posting her wonderful photos of a recent trip to Montréal & Québce City and David has been mentioning wanting to go there more and more lately.

Then Quebec announces that between now and 2012, it will need 700,000 immigrants to make up for the retiring population. They’re increasing their quota for French citizens as well, because of course they want people who already speak French. I’m not a French citizen (not yet anyway! I can apply after 5 years of PACS, so early 2012), but I can obviously still apply as an American citizen who speaks French. Career-wise, I don’t know what David or I would do because he works for the French government and I really don’t want to continue teaching English.  (I could be improving my Italian and German so much instead of preparing lessons…)

If the high-speed railway between Montréal and Windsor ever gets approved and built, I will so be there! It currently takes more than 9.5 hours to take the train from Montréal to Windsor (not including connection in Toronto) compared to at least a 9 hour drive from Montréal to Flint by way of Sarnia. Granted, Windsor is still a 2 hour drive to my parents’ house, but cutting down on the travel time in any way would be nice especially if I didn’t have to drive at all. The whole project would connect Québec City to Windsor (via Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto) in 3 hours and 55 minutes!