21 February 06
In the French (Alsace) News
My ability to post articles here in recent weeks has been…well, it speaks for itself. I guess that’s what happens when you have a lot on your plate like;
- running two Web sites (this one and that one),
- keeping a freelance design operation afloat (which is more mind-numbing paperwork than anything else),
- leading an open-source documentation effort (more),
- contributing your time and expertise to an international society, (in this case the STC, serving on the STC’s Dynamic Web Services Team ), and
- studying a foreign language 35 hours per week.
That last one is a recent addition to my activities, and it’s a killer. More French classes. This time it’s intensive French classes running 5 months, 5 days per week, 5 hours per day. That 10-hour discrepancy, in case you’re wondering, is about what I put in for practice outside of class time.
In any case, it’s because of this latest round of French lessons that I ended up on French television tonight. The clip was about 20 seconds worth of an interview I did earlier today while at class. I’ll explain, but you’ll have to let me build up to it.
Background
This is my third go around with the French language courses since arriving in France about 15 months ago. The first was a 8-month informal university course that met twice a week for about an hour. I’ve talked about that one before; there were a total of 5 people in my class, and none of us knew enough French words between us to order le plat du jour (the plate of the day), and since the whole course was conversational French, you can imagine the months went slowly and not much was accomplished.
My second stretch of French courses, 300 hours worth, were compliments of the French government, in particular, l’Office des Migrations Internationales (OMI); something they give all foreigners establishing residence in France. This was very beneficial with respect to helping me with some basic dialogue, but merely a stratch on the surface.
At the end of the second series, and by only a chance conversation with one of my instructors, I learned of a another government program offered through an organisation called FASILD. The program is actually in a three-year pilot phase, if I’m not mistaken, and this is the second or third year. I qualified for four reasons: 1) I was a foreigner with the right paperwork looking to stay in France, 2) I had an advanced degree, 3) I was over 25 years old (that part was easy), and 4) I was unemployed (as far as France was concerned).
I followed the motions to get involved, which meant lots of French paperwork, of course, and a couple of interviews to see how I might handle a simple interview process in French. For reasons beyond me, I qualified with the language at the highest level for beginners, and thus made it past the first hurdle. I was told to go on about my life and wait for a letter to come in the mail for more instructions.
I waited for about 2 months before I saw the letter, and typical to French administration, it demanded that I show up for another interview the very next day at another place with a variety of documents in hand. With Hanane’s help, as usual (God bless her), I managed to get it together and make the interview. It was basically another question-and-answer session to get a feel for my professional qualifications. The interview lasted about 30 minutes, and afterwards I was asked if I was still interested. I only understood half of what was explained to me, and hence didn’t really know what the hell was going on, but I said yes anyway. I was then told to return to my normal routines and wait for a letter with further instructions.
I waited for another month or more before I saw the second letter, and true to form it demanded that I show up for my first class the very next Monday (it was a Saturday when I got the letter).
As I came to find out in the first week, the courses were actually oriented around preparing des stagiaires (recipients of training) like me for finding work in the French rat race, and it would include such objectives as building a work dossier, learning about the French employment system, understanding what resources are available for help, etc. French lessons would be peppered into this, but the effort to find work is really what seems to be the point of it all. Furthermore, I was going to get paid for this 5 months (pocket change, really) as it’s treated like a stipend of sorts. Finally, I am required to find two actual stages (internships) in French businesses before the 5 months is up; the whole point of which is practical experience in the French work environment. My first stageis to begin the 13 March, and I have yet to even send out any letters; nobody in the class has.
The Full Circle
So back to the news. We were told in class last week the ministre déléguée à la Cohésion sociale et à la Parité, Catherine Vautrin, was going to be visiting our class session today, as it is a program under her office’s responsibility. Not only was it her that showed up, but about 30 people all together, most of which were her staff no doubt, but about a third of them were reporters and camera folk from various media offices—one being France 3 [fr], the news channel I appeard on. The whole point of it, seemingly, was to make a press appearance and put good light on what is no doubt a pretty good program for strangers like me.
Before Catherine actually arrived with her caravan of cars, the France 3 media team arrived early and did their filming of us while working in the computer center. The cameraman had people doing staged movements so nothing on video was actually real behavior by any of us, except for the interviews.
I don’t know why, but I had this feeling they were going to ask me for an interview, maybe because I’m so striking. In any case, I thought I would try and get in some free advertising so before they came around to me, I wrote up a sign that read “Web designer: Employer les services de moi! WION.COM” I didn’t think I had the French part right, as I quickly pulled it out of my dictionary, and Hanane later informed me I did not (and now that I read it without pressure the bad French grammar is blatantly obvious), but the message was clear enough anyway—I was looking for a job in Web design and there was my Web site for contacting me.
They actually interviewed two of us, me and another guy from one of the east block countries, but which one escapes me. He actually was interviewed first, and the interview was conducted in French. I am the least able to speak French in the class, so I made it clear that if I was doing an interview it would have to be English or I wouldn’t be saying much. The cameraman liked that idea, and he even made sure to get my sign in the shooting.
None of us really had any idea what would actually make it on the news. Most of what the media shoots is cut anyway, and I especially didn’t think they would want my American English. I was wrong, they selected my interview over the other guy’s, and gave my Web sign a good 4 or 5 second solo shot as well. Awesome! One thing that really ticked me off, though, is the media people misspelled my first name, even after I clearly wrote it down for them.
As for a surge of visitors to my Web site, according to my Web logs, that’s not happening, though there was a couple of hits from two google.fr searches for “wion.com.”
Nathalie Salih :: 21 February 06 :: #
Happy to see you on french tv yesterday night; we hope it will be helpful to find a job in Strasbourg.
Best regards.
Nathalie Salih
isabelle :: 21 February 06 :: #
hi there ! Just waking up in Virginia and time to get the children ready but will find a moment over the next few days to look at your site and get a glimpse of you on French TV …. Am SO INTERRESTED by all your comments about your experience in France (I’m in YOUR country, trying to cope with the cultural shock !!!) & have been curious to know more about you ever since I had a look at your wedding video (on which you just looked SO contented ; it was a pleasure to watch such a happy groom !)... Isabelle (Nathalie’s little sister !)
Destry :: 21 February 06 :: #
Hi Nathalie. I caution you to read this Weblog with an open and understanding mind. Thanks for the luck with the work, it seems I really need it.
Hi Isabelle, thanks for reading. Yes, many changes in my life. All good. Sometimes it’s hard and frustrating, but mostly because of the language. Who knows what the future holds.
Jérémie :: 28 February 06 :: #
Well, it takes a lot of guts to really learn a langugage that difficult. Especially when you come from a language quite simple. Good luck to you :)
If you need answers or advices, don’t hesitate.
Destry :: 1 March 06 :: #
Thanks, Jérémie. I’ll be posting articles in French at wion.com in the near future; not all articles but a select few. I’ll have editing assistance for grammar and such, but you can keep me honest with the technical terminology. Judging from what I read on French Web sites, there’s a lot of inconsistent use of technical terms, which makes it confusing when I’m trying to learn how to discuss such concepts.