another year older, another year wiser.

I got home from work and collapsed into my bed. I took off my shoes, awkwardly flopped around like a fish till I managed to get my jacket off. It was 5:30 p.m. The day was cloudy and my room was almost cold. I slid into the covers. Jeans still on and loosened my tie. I didn’t have the energy to unknot it. There had been a strike that morning and it took me what usually takes 35 minutes to get to work into almost 2 hours. I had missed my first class of students and I had had a stressful morning to say the least.
Most of the unions were striking and that included the train workers and teachers.

Why had I tried so hard to be at work today when no one else had given a shit?

Oh yeah, that’s what Americans do, they work. If you “strike” in the states you get fired. Here, they strike and chatter about it like it’s just another item on the To Do list.
“Yeah, I have to go the Boulangerie and pick up a baguette to nibble on while I walk over to the Bank . I can’t forget to pick up some cheese and then I have to make sure I strike.”

I had given one of my colleagues a hard time about the French stereotype of striking and of course she acted like I told her to euthanize her poodle.

She told me that you have the legal right to strike but the state cuts that day off of your pay.  Fair enough I thought. It was like an unpaid day of vacation.
Then, we led into the area of salary for teachers in France.

In the name of our dear friend from Beauty and the Beast, Lumiere, “Sacre-Blur!”

You think we have it bad in the States? Which, I agree we do when it comes to teacher’s pay and rights. They pay the head teachers over here like we pay a shitty assistant football coach who substitute teaches every blue moon.

Literally, I did the math and a teacher starts off with a salary of $12,000 in France. I cannot even begin to tell you how impossible that is to live on here.

I made sure I understood my colleague and sat across from her in the teachers work room with my mouth open, letting out a boisterous laugh.  I could not believe it.
“You need a second job!” I half jokingly said. And she agreed.

However, the p.p.’s as they are called here (prof principale) have many more hours than I do.  And they have no idea how self fulfilling their titles actually. Everytime I hear “p.p.” I can’t help but thinking how they are getting pissed on here by the government.  

Luckily, I have the ability to have a second job. I honestly could not survive Paris without one.

I am giving private tutoring to a 15 year old girl and it is giving me an extra 500 or so euro a month. Phew…I can finally breathe.


***
I was browsing, detoxing from the workday on my computer when I got a knock on my door.

I answered the door and it was Michele.  Michele lives on the top floor and has the kindest spirit. He is in his mid to late 40s and has the biggest smile I have ever seen. Which is pretty ironic since he only has three teeth. I’m not joking. He is balding some one the very top of his head. I have only ever seen him wear French soccer jerseys. Very tight jerseys that hug him like a prodigal lover’s return. He apparently just recently divorced since his wife left him and he is transitioning into the single life and decided to move into this apartment.  I imagine he wishes for that prodigal lover’s return.

He said “JOSH” with the thickest French accent.  Kind of like “JOE-SHHH” “Me and Dr. Woolid,”  a middle eastern doctor who lives on the same floor as Michele,  “have bought you a dinner for your birthday. In an hour I will come back to get you.”

And with that he pulled a comic book he had bought me from behind his back and said “Happy Birthday” in English and turned around.

I started to smile as big as Michele and said “MERCI michele!!!” 

I closed the door and sat on my bed overwhelmed by his kindness. I barely knew this man and he was making such an effort for me.
Within the hour, Michele returned to get me and I climbed the two flights of stairs to the top floor. As I got to the top of the stairs, I smelled something delicious. I walked over to the table and he had invited everyone in the apartment to take part of the festivities. 11 others were around the table and one chair was open for me. The table was full of mussels and fries ( moules et frites is a very popular French meal), salmon and crab for Dalal who is Muslim, cheese and bread, Fanta, and coke.

Emma from England, Judith from Scotland, Woolid from Syria, Dalal from Morocco, Stefan and his friend from Guadalupe, Miao from China, William and Michele from France, Mme Baraut from Algeria, and Gabee from Senegal.

I had a birthday dinner at the United Nations.

We ate and talked and laughed and as soon as everyone got all they could eat of the Moules et Frites, Michele scurried over to the kitchen and ran back with two black forest cakes. I forgot tell you that he works at a Pastry Shop.  He set down the two cakes and then brought over a bottle of champagne. Everyone got poured a glass and we stood up and toasted for my birthday. Our glasses all clinked and I couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I flew on a plane thousands of miles to a new continent and honestly dreaded feeling alone on my birthday and here I was with 11 new friends who had thrown me a party.

It was a pure joy that flowed throughout the room. We all come from different countries and cultures and languages.  We all have different stories how we ended up renting a room above a restaurant where Claude Monet ate—a student, an intern at an engineering firm, a newly divorced man, a chef, a doctor, an English teacher, or a mother wanting to move closer to her son.

We all celebrated a birthday like a family.

I have a family here.

A bunch of Misfits, yes. But I don’t know of another definition for a “family” :)