"Dans le SCELV, on se tutoye."  was the first sentence that my boss ever said to me in person.  This was a rather confusing sentence to start off with, and it took me a minute to realize that she was telling me that in our department we use the informal form of "you" with everyone.  This, I think, illustrates how opening and welcoming the people in my department are.

On Monday we have a lunch bunch.  I got the invitation immediately upon my arrival in Nancy.  The members of my department all get together every week, and someone brings the main dish, and someone brings the dessert, and it's nice because we have one of the more diverse departments of the university, yet we are one of the more close knit groups.  My department includes teachers in several languages, and we are the ones that teach languages to the language non-specialists.  All of the teachers are spread pretty thin in teaching English oriented to so many different subjects and on campuses so spread out all over the city so everyone's nice about helping everyone else out.  

The first time I went to lunch, the other teachers told me it was in a kitchen behind a "secret door" in an academic records building and down some dark stairs.  It is truly strange that there is somewhere on campus so removed because every other inch of the fac de lettres (the humanities campus) is packed, and there are not enough classrooms or anything.  (The other campuses are better equipped, especially the law campus--I think you can see the government's general attitude towards humanities students in the terrible state of the fac de lettres...)  I slipped away to go to the bathroom on Monday while they were heating up lunch, and as I tried to leave the stall, I made a horrible realization.  The door wouldn't open.  It wasn't locked.  

Don't panic, I told myself.  Just bang on the door and scream at the top of your lungs, and someone will hear you, and it will be ok.  After ten minutes of screaming and banging I started to lose hope, and the movie that Carlos and I watched this summer about a boy who is accidentally locked in a closet and never escapes came rushing back to my memory.  These were evidentally bathrooms that no one cleaned on a regular basis, and I knew that my colleagues were down the hall, but they apparently couldn't hear me, even though I was saying their names.  Voice nearly gone and hands red, it was tempting to stop, but I knew that if I didn't get someone's attention during lunch, then they'd all leave, and then no one would be on this floor of the building.  After about twenty minutes I was discovered by a German teacher (the same German teacher I went with to Trier), and one of the lunch bunch members went and got a screwdriver and got me out.  Apparently this is not the first time that this has happened.  The rest of the day was kind of hard.  I was shaky and nervous.  But well I have learned my lesson.  I will never go anywhere without my cellphone again.

In my pre-moving to France reading rampage of memoirs of American and British expats in France, I stumbled upon Almost French by Sarah Turnbull in which she warns about how letters written in French are full of formal and fluffy expressions, and I didn't pay too much attention to this until I started having to correspond with many French administrators in the universities, and I started encountering emails addressed to "My dear distinguished colleague" and signed "with all of my appreciation for your help and attention. I am at your disposition for any other information that you may require."  I've even seen fluffier--it is like an art form.  This is contrary to my own person email template:

Dear (person),

(Stating what I need or what I need to know)

Thanks!

Kate

I am working on the fluff, but it's hard, and I'm not sure how thick to lay it on?  Anyway, I've started just making sure that there is a grammatical error or two in the email just so that the people realize that I am not French, and I probably don't know any better.  (Actually I rely on this excuse in many different situtations...)  

The thing is that I have had to send a lot of emails like that lately.  Working at three campuses is tough because I am dealing with three sets of administrators, and simply finding out when my exams are/what classrooms they are in is unbelievably complicated.  And then there is the emails I keep getting from the students.  I have a new sympathy for teachers.  Every student has some sort of situation that requires special attention.  I am not unsympathetic to actual problems, but you just wouldn't believe the triviality of a lot of this stuff.  So I've been spending a lot of time emailing students and trying to figure out how to accommodate whatever situation.  

Yesterday I had a meeting at the hospital.  I had received an email asking if anyone wanted to tutor doctors in English over the telephone.  Tutoring without having to leave the house sounded too good to be true so I had an interview with some official head of medicine doctor yesterday, and I'll be starting next week.  My courseload for next semester so I should have time for this tutoring and hopefully some more. 

In thanking you my esteemed readers for your gracious attention.  I rest at your disposal for any input or questions that you ma require.