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i first came across the question living in the mission in san francisco, where english is not the primary language on the street for most people. the question shows up all over the place, often phrased like "how come they sneak into texas and won't speak american?" or "why do they insist the girls wear head scarves to school?" (which we got to talk to missy's school contact corinne about for perspective. maybe talk about it later.)

well, first, it's the easiest, most natural thing to do, to avoid friction. but it always bugged me because it seems to imply a lack of respect for your new home. i think for a lot of people, the answer is simply that culture is not the primary motivator to relocate. spoiled me, economics isn't first on my list of worries, so it took me a while to see the obvious. at that point it's all you can do just to make good in a new situation. any help would naturally come from similar people going through the same thing. but a language assistant is choosing to be here, explicitly for the culture.

at this point for me, if i have three interactions in french in a day, i'm exhausted. and that includes low-stress things like buying bread. i'm loathing having to talk to france telecom about our phone line being crappy. that's going to be an extremely non-templated conversation with technical terms that i've already confused three agents with when trying to explain our atypical situation in a language i can barely navigate. i'll chalk it up to exhaustion and commisseration and give the assistants the temporary benefit of the doubt that they'll get over it. it is pretty weak though. i'm trying my best despite all that to suck in what i can of food, music, and literature (graphic novels at this point). for nonconfrontational me, yes these are all things i don't need to talk with someone to do. we all know corey's a little more on the social side, so walking into a bar and talking to a random person is not the horrifying thought for him as it is for me

aside: if any of them ever mention going to mcdonalds i'd throw them out of the country. i felt awful enough going to an irish pub until i realized a large portion of the restaurants here are "foreign" anyway -- italian, german, moroccan,... -- just not from a country where i knew the language. as it was in portland. most of our diet there was thai, vietnamese, italian, etc. and there's not that much that americans normally eat that's american food anyway. so culture includes the foreign elements of imported culture as well. so where does that get us? [geez, and i thought this post was going to have some point aside from rambling...]

but i told you that to tell you this: me, i'm here at least in part explicitly for the isolation. i need space out of time to think. you can't run in one direction for too long without lifting your head up and taking a look around. i'm winded and i need a rest and rethink. poets always flee for the countryside; playwrights escape to chartreuse. self-imposed isolation is important for growth, and i feel very lucky that missy's arranged this for us. i'm looking forward to it.