J'ai des arbres dans mes poumons!

Our wifi is out. Somehow it’s a lot easier to concentrate on writing a blog post in Word while the internet is not available. No wonder I got so much more written in Angers. Of course, whenever I post this, the internet will be back up. Alas, alack.

The veggie burgers last night were pretty good. Some people had seconds, including a French guy who had never even heard of a veggie burger. I don’t know if I will make them again though – it was a lot of stress and work for something that was only “pretty good.” Unlike the fajitas, which were delicious, and not as much work. But I think people were sick of chicken, so I was glad to offer something else.

Today was my “visite médicale” – the last step in obtaining my “titre de séjour” which is what legally allows me to live in France. I have a visa, but unlike people who are only staying for a semester, mine expires in November and stipulates that I get a titre de séjour. So I went to my medical visit today. The day, of course, began ominously with what sounded like a fire drill at 8 AM. It only lasted five minutes, so I went back to sleep, but this morning the internet wasn’t working and all the fire doors were closed. Hmm.

I got there at 10:30 – half an hour early. In French bureaucracy, early is usually bad, but I figured early is never bad for a doctor’s appointment. But I brought a book anyway.

They called me almost as soon as I sat down. I went in and they measured me and weighed me – even with all my clothes on as well as my shoes and a sweatshirt, I appear to have lost 5 or 10 pounds. Interesting. Must be the poverty. Then I had to go wait in line for my chest x-ray. This was very awkward and uncomfortable, as I was standing with about five other people who were also waiting to be told when they should go in and strip down in front of a stranger. Eventually it was my turn and a very kind woman showed me into a little room where I changed into a gown. The technician pushed me up against the apparatus and gave me one of those giant heavy smocks to wear around my waist, so as not to radiate my ovaries, I suppose. She grabbed my elbows and my chin and smushed me up against the machine and yelled, “Inspirez!” My brain froze for a second but my lungs remembered that that means “inhale,” so I did. Thank you, lungs. Bien joué. Then it was over and I sat in the waiting room for half an hour.

Finally the doctor called me in and we looked at my x-ray. She asked me for immunization records. I knew I was supposed to have them, but I didn’t, so I just said that my director had told us we didn’t need them, because our immunization records in the U.S. are not the same as the French “carnet de vaccination.” This is true, but both the doctor and I knew it was not an excuse. I just told her what I could remember of my vaccines. She nodded after all of my answers – I guess they were what she was expecting. Luckily I stepped on a nail in New Orleans in May (Alexis tried valiantly to carry me home that night) and got a tetanus shot, so at least one of my answers was somewhat definite. The other responses were, “A long time ago,” or, “One time…” I told her about my endoscopy and she asked some questions about family history. She did ask me if I had any serious illnesses – I just said no. They just want to make sure that I am not going to infect other French people with illnesses from South America – they don’t need to know about my anaphylaxis. It would only freak them out. If I have an actual doctor’s appointment with a doctor who is concerned with my health and not with that of the patrimoine, then I’ll bring it up.

A highlight of this meeting with Dr. Bosque was that I got to keep my chest x-ray. “Un petit souvenir!” she exclaimed to me. Whoohoo! It is now hanging on my window. There are trees in my lungs.



It's an interesting decorating choice.


As soon as that was done I could walk right down the hall to the “délivrances des titres de sejours” room. The woman looked through the same two piles of papers ten times before she found mine, which had been there all along. I would have been pissed off but she looked genuinely terrified that she had lost someone’s titre de séjour and that she was in big trouble. But she found it eventually, I signed for it, and I was off! I am now a legal resident of France! Until… September 26th 2008.



And now I am off to the computer lab downstairs to obsessively check my e-mail.

P.S. -

I am now back after Grammar and History of Language. We met up with Irish Alan and a couple of his friends before the class and all suffered together. We were the bench of sharp-shooting English speakers. Afterwards, Alan, Vaune, Donal (sp?) and I sat and had 50¢ hot coffees in the Malesherbes café. It was very nice. I do enjoy the company of the Irish, I have learned.

Also, the Fondation is in anarchy because nobody applied to be part of the Student Committee. Should I apply for president?

And as a final note: Tulane, I miss you. Specifically, I miss monsoon season: