Une grande fille

Last week, I had quite the time with Arianne. She became very upset as we got her ready to take a bath, and it took me 15 minutes of hearing her screaming and crying to figure out that it was the removal of her chaussures that incited the riot. It was, of course, because I slipped them off without a thought...and she is 3. Une grande fille. Discovering this, I put her shoes back on. She then stomped into the bathroom and demanded that I "fermer la porte!" I shut the door, proud of my comprehension skills. After a good 3 minutes or so of patting myself on the back, I was jolted back into the reality of an unsupervised 3-year-old in a bathroom with a bathtub full of water, and swung open the door to find her still sniffling but completely undressed and ready to go. It was a pretty comical situation, but made me realize this whole babysitting with the language barrier may be a little harder than I initially thought.
I know how she feels. My love of independence can only be exceeded by my desire for more. This week has been one of great revelations. (The thought that this is the first month, and I have nearly three full months left makes my heart skip beats.) I have learned so many new words, read and heard loads of historical facts, and seen massive amounts of work by incredible artists. Just in the past 5 days I saw an amazing exhibit by Richard Avedon at the Jeu de Paume, explored the small space that is the Musée de l'Orangerie, and went through nearly the entire Centre Pompidou.
Last night after a history class in Bastille, I began to think about France and its people with their countless revolutions. Their protests. Their quests for independence. After class, I was having a drink with one of my teachers, and he said he thought the director of our program was too hard on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. This woman has had more patience than me with the pair, but there's definitely a cultural divide. She is shocked by there lack of independence. I see this in my language classes as well. The divide in the educational systems that I was talking about. French educators are not going to hold your hand and show you how to get to the answer. They give you the questions and provide you with facts, and the rest is up to you.
I was embarrassed at how passionately I shot down his remark, but I truly felt what I said to be true. Basically, I believe America is in the state it is now because there are millions of people who have never been taught how to think for themselves. How wasted is the independence we claim to value so dearly? They have their prescriptions and their religious doctrines that they don't dare question, and then they need Fox News or some other group of greedy, manipulative assholes to take them by the hand and tell them exactly what to think. Or do. Don't stop shopping!
One thing that has also been completely eye-opening is how sustainable the French seem to be. I recently watched The Story of Stuff, which I highly recommend everyone see and show their children (www.thestoryofstuff.com--the narrator can seem a bit cheesy, but she's bearable), and I've become a great fan of this: frenchtoastfrance.blogspot.com.
But the real question has come with the role of creativity in all of this. It came up first as a question Zoe posed (at around 4am, après beaucoup de boissons) about synthesizing compassion and selling your work as an artist. How is it possible to sell yourself (your goods, your arts, your services) when you want to fight consumerism and be a compassionate, independent being? The very next day after she asked this type of question, I was assigned an article about Manet that you can read here: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3046078.
I then read (on Facebook of all places) that a friend of mine's mother said, "Education is what remains when all the facts are forgotten." So, I'm not entirely sure what I'll do next in this life, but I'm starting to get a clearer idea. And just because I'm not sure how I'll independently crawl out of this hole of debt doesn't mean it wasn't worth every penny.