sewing->knitting->blogging->Paris->teaching

So I have been reading a lot of blogs lately. It all sort of just fell into my lap, really. I was the victim here. It all started when I was researching dressmaker dummies on google. One of the hits was for a girl in England who happened to include the words “dressmaker dummy” on her blog on a day when she had draped a near-completed hand-knit sweater on her dressmaker dummy. I was intrigued. I read her blog from the first post in her archives to the current ones one at a time. When I was done, I looked around a bit and found another one. This was the prolific blogger. Korean-American girl who knit the most beautiful creations and wrote really well. That one took a little longer, but soon I was through those archives and up to date waiting for my next installment. I even got a feedreader so I could one-click-read through them at the drop of a hat. Er. So to speak. And then I found another one and another one. I am hooked. It almost feels like reading someone’s diary (with their permission) or getting a letter from a friend. And at the expense of sounding a little loony, yes, I consider these gals my friends. They don’t know me (yet) but I feel like I know them and root for them in their particular endeavors.

So after clicking through different people’s blogs I found a handful of ones from American ex-pats living in Paris(!). Oh the fun of reading through those all-familiar first few months of acclimation. The nostalgia of reading about the great food, the charming frenchy idiosyncracies, the daily life in a beautiful city (the first city I ever fell in love with), I can’t get enough. Here’s an example from someone’s blog that tickled me (I hope she doesn’t mind that I borrowed from it):

Learning French

The following is a story from earlier this autumn…

P was working on her piano.

I was trying to help.

She was getting frustrated.

“Tu m’énerve!*” she said.

C was horrified.

“You can’t say that to her! P! That’s like saying that to MOM!!!”

P looked worried.

I asked what it meant, exactly.

(I seemed to sort of remember something about the… and the context…and it sort of sounds like…

OK, yeah, I wasn’t sure.)

C tried to explain. Repeatedly. However, she sensed that I wasn’t quite getting the gist of what she was trying to tell me.

She walked out of the room, and P looked at me sideways, a look of fear in her eyes.

I was handed a large, heavy English-French dictionary. This one is about 7 times bigger than any we have, and is considered the “Petit Larousse.”

It was open to the page.

I looked at the definition. Then, I looked at P.

She looked scared.

“C’est d’accord, P. Quelquefois, tu m’énerve aussi.”**

*Tu m’énerve. You irritate me. (drive me nuts, bother)
**C’est d’accord…” That’s OK, P. Sometimes, you irritate me, too.

Have I mentioned how particularly cute french kids are?

I confess, since reading these americans-in-Paris blogs I have been scheming of ways to get back there. m is a writer so his job is pretty portable. We wouldn’t have to move there on a permanent basis or anything. I would be perfectly content with spending my summers in a sublet loft in Paris. But in order to have my summers free, I would need a portable sort of job too. Okay, so m is a yet-to-be-discovered writer, but this is my fantasy so deal. In my fantasy I would either be a very well paid freelancer who could telecommute from Paris in the summers. Or, OR, OR!! I could be a teacher! YES a TEACHER! Teachers have summers off, right? They earn a reasonable income and have free summers to spend as they please. In Paris living it up, or teaching summer schools to pay off the never ending debt supplement their incomes. We’re going to have kids one day soon and teachers have good working hours so that they can raise their children without relying on day-care. Summers in Paris would only enrich our childrens’ lives. They would become bilingual naturally growing up in Boston and Paris. Yes. This is definitely the way to go. Now let’s try and figure out how to get my credentials to become a teacher. Don’t I just have to take a few classes and pass a few tests? I am sadly lacking in this information even though I have a lot of friends who are teachers (who are probably smacking their foreheads while reading this at how simplified I present the life of a teacher). Two of them got their masters degree along with their teaching credentials but I don’t need to commit to an advanced degree, just enough papers and coursework to get me a job…

Now what age level and/or subjects should I teach?