Two Weeks

All right. Exactly two weeks before I leave the country.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the gist of what I'm doing in France: I was hired on a seven-month contract through a program of the French government to be an English language assistant in a public school. I was (pretty much completely randomly) placed in a high school in Quimper, Brittany.

And in case for some reason you're reading this and don't know me: My name is Josh; I'm from the Boston area and just graduated college in Texas with a degree in linguistics.

Ok, with that contextualizing out of the way... When I first found out that I was being placed in Brittany, I was very excited. Brittany (or Bretagne in French) has a different heritage than the otherwise mostly Latinate cultures of France, owing to the double Celtic influence of both Gauls living there who predated the Romans, and Welsh migrants who settled there in the early Middle Ages. (Sorry if understanding of Breton history is a little muddled, I still find it a bit confusing...luckily I don't think any actual Bretons are reading this blog.) I've always been interested in the Celtic world-- to the point of taking an Irish Gaelic class when I was younger-- so I was excited to find out that I would get to experience a piece of it in France. Brittany also has its own native language, Breton, which is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic family. Similarly to its sister languages, it was repressed for a long time but is experiencing a modest revival now. Needless to say, the French language seems to be the absolute standard for public-sphere communication-- it's not like I'll need to carry around a Breton phrasebook.

Brittany is a peninsula in the Northwest of France. It's the region in red on this map. It points at the North Atlantic like an angry finger (apologies in advance if you can't see images-- I can't figure out how to put in alt text):

After I found out the region I was going to be living in, it was a while before I would receive word of where I would actually be. Talk about grueling waiting. There were so many possibilities-- in Rennes or Brest, the two big cities (by French standards) in Brittany, or in the total middle of nowhere sleeping between some cows... it was totally up in the air.

Finally I found out I had been placed in Quimper. It's pronounced pronounced like "kemp aire", or for those of you who can read IPA, [kɛmˈpeʁ]. I get lazy and like to rhyme it with "whimper", because it sounds funny that way. I'm sure the people who live there will appreciate that.

It seems like a really great town. It's in the département (smallish administrative region) of Finistère, which literally means "land's end". As you can (maybe) see from this extremely confusing map, I'll be pretty much closer to home than I would be anywhere else in France:

Quimper is the center of an area called Cornouaille (cognate to Cornwall, just as Bretagne and Britain are related), which appears to be the region in Brittany which retains the most aspects of its traditional culture. Quimper seems to be very touristy in the summer, and not so much in the winter. It's about 60,000 people, and the center of its own micropolitan region, so this will be the first time I've ever lived outside of the area of a major city.

Just wait until I actually get there and everything I learned from Wikipedia and books is totally wrong. It turns out everyone in Brittany speaks only Kannada, lives in ice-houses, and spends 23 hours a day hand-sorting Necco wafers by color.

After receiving my specific placement (at a local high school), I contacted a very nice woman at the school and she informed me that there was housing for me there. Pluses: convenience, cheapness, low-hassle. Potential minuses: ...living in a high school dorm. I get my own room, but I still didn't expect to ever live in a dorm again. That said, it should be a good experience-- I'll probably get to know my students better by living with them, and will be exposed to a lot of the language. And the price is extremely right-- 33 Euro a month. Add to that the convenience of living at the one school where I teach (whereas many language assistants on this program have to commute between multiple schools), and it looks like I will have much more time and money than I might otherwise. Score! There will be a few other assistants at different schools in Quimper, so I'm looking forward to hopefully meeting them. Also, there is a German language assistant living next door to me, who was there the previous year and decided to return (a good sign), so I'll have a fellow foreigner around.

The school is on a road called Avenue des Oiseaux, which translates literally to Bird Ave. (which is kind of punny in itself if you think about it too much). Awesome.

Anyway, I'll stop writing for now because I could ramble forever. Sorry for the nerdfest, this will get more interesting when I actually start traveling... I'm getting very restless to leave, though already sad to say goodbye to my family and friends. On my way to Brittany, I'm stopping through Paris to stay with my good friend MJ, which I'm really excited for. I have a few friends who will be scattered throughout Europe, and I'm looking forward to seeing as many of them as possible. If any of you friends reading this are going to be anywhere in Europe while I'm there, let me know!

I hope everyone reading this is doing great. If you're starting school again (WFR), have an awesome year!