Scènes sur Seine

31 December 2020

Oh 2020….

You know, in retrospect, it’s kind of funny that I thought I would be back to semi-regular theatre reviews back when I wrote my last post.

Oh, optimistic Effie. Should have remembered what you’ve been repeating to your students ad nauseam this past trimester (and which basically underscores almost all of Greek mythology): man makes plans, and the gods laugh.

I should say, though, that it wasn’t just the reshutting of theatres at the tail end of October that put a dent in things. There’ve also been some developments at work (in short: I’ve been given more inter-department responsibilities for this year) that have made finding time to write between marking papers, squeezing in agree review (don’t even get me started on how my imposter syndrome has come roaring back with this), and lesson planning while keeping an eye out for any last-minute procedure changes by our *incredibly* competent (ha) Minister of Education incredibly tricky.

So with all that, here we are again, December 31, 2020, with another retrospective post.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about this year. Pandemic situation aside, it’s hard for me to reconcile a year of isolation and intense waves of emotional mess with the fact that I accomplished a MAJOR milestone this April. And there were other good moments too – holidays in Marseille, Greece and the South of France ; picnics and terrace dining when we got a bit of respite in the summer ; rediscovering Paris again (without the throngs of tourists) ; walks with close friends when we could finally meet up again. All of those small things were absolutely fantastic, don’t get me wrong, and I am very thankful that I and those close to me have been able to stay safe and in relative good health these past several months.

But the amount of stress that has been piling up – especially from going into work to teach in person, wearing two masks – had started to take its toll on me before the holidays started. Other than losing my voice (speaking/projecting through a mask is tiring as all hell), the constant worry about being sick while trying to survey teenagers to a degree I’m still not entirely comfortable with to make sure their masks were always on properly (spoiler: there’s always two or three in each class who seem to have trouble with this), and then going straight home without having any form of outside social-based distraction has made me feel so much like a cog in a machine that I started feeling like I had lost that sense of drive that had always propelled me through past hurdles.

I’ve been spending the holidays down south with a few friends (4 of us in total), who’ve also basically been isolating prior to this. Can one make arguments about the ‘selfishness’ or not of this? Yes. But quite frankly, I’m tired of that. I’ve spent the better part of the last year in isolation, and these past few days out of my apartment have been the most restorative I’ve had in a while. If this is what I need to make it through the next few months of what is bound to be incredible shit, so be it.

With all that, what else is there to say about 2020 other than good riddance? Maybe that my friendships were strengthened, that I survived it, that I can now officially buy a plane ticket under the title of “Dr. Gonis”.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the theatres will be open again soon (side note / rant: I find it absolutely hilarious/hypocritical that France, a secular country, caved and allowed houses of worship to reopen under limited capacity, but would not consider the same for theatre houses/cinemas. The official justification was that the government wanted to limit instances of intermingling, but anyone who has ever witnessed a religious service will tell you that is absolute nonsense, as evidenced by the mingling that happens pre and post-service). I may even predict that they will reopen before bars/restaurants do (although, dear god, I want those back as well). And who knows, maybe we will start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

But for now, I, we, survived. And we keep on surviving.

So long, 2020. Here’s to an average 2021.

28 September 2020

Theatre reviews are back!

I sometimes find writing introductions for a new post a bit difficult, so let’s not waste any time and get right to it.

I’m back seeing shows again (finally).

I’ve got two short commentaries to write here, but first, a note on how theatre-going in the time of COVID has felt so far:

To date, I have only revisited 2 out of my usual 4 theatres (yes, again, creature of habit / don’t much feel like changing too many things around right now / this could be good for comparative purposes). I originally wanted to make it so that I would start things off with a show at Bastille (the favorite), but performance scheduling deprived me of that symbolic moment. In any case, starting things off at Nanterre was a pretty fine substitute.

Based on my experience at Nanterre and then at the MC93, I can say that, generally, it almost feels as though things have gotten back to normal, the most visible exceptions being that everyone is masked and that completely sold out shows with every seat filled are a thing of the past (for now). The bar/canteens in the lobbies of the respective theatres were also open when I visited (contrary to what I had originally thought might happen), as were their bookstores. As for seating, the general rule was to have one seat between each party of spectators in a given row. The result was something like this (s = spectator ; x = empty):

Row 1: s s x s x s s s x s s x s

Row 2: s x s s s s x s s x s s s

Row 3: s s s x s s x s s x s s x

As you can see, front to back spacing isn’t being factored in (because otherwise this nightmare jigsaw puzzle nonsense would only get worse). My guess is that for seated performances that adhere to a more traditional frontal dynamic, there is some sort of algorithm being used to determine how many seats could be sold to account for most possible seating configurations. At Nanterre, for instance, the ushers mentioned that the performance was sold out, so there is definitely some kind of a cap in place. I’ll also be heading back there tomorrow to see another piece whose staging/seating arrangements involve a takeover of the plateau of the main stage—similar to how Dying Together was staged a couple years ago—, and I am curious to see how seating or spatial restrictions will be applied to a piece that, based on what I know of the director, leans more towards a loosening of restrictions and a blurring of spectator/spectacle barriers.

But more on that (hopefully) later. For now, some brief thoughts on what I’ve seen so far.

Jamais labour n’est trop profond created by Thomas Scimeca, Anne-Élodie Sorlin and Maxence Tual. Nanterre-Amandiers, September 22, 2020.

It seems almost appropriate to have started things off with a comedy.

Even more so one that touches on everything from environmentalism, climate change, collapsology, theatre in general and its former, current and perhaps future status.

There’s quite a lot in there, but this is not necessarily to say that the piece itself was cluttered (there are some other nits I have to pick with it). In terms of plot, it’s actually quite simple. It centers on four actors living in what appears to be some kind of post-civilizational collapse commune. One of these actors apparently still gets offers for work or new projects (and the salary that comes with them), but at the start of the piece, his phone is taken and smashed by another actor, who persuades him to focus on what is more important: a machine they have invented that will help make their little community more self-sufficient.

A shit-powered generator.

In fact, in this piece that revolves around the after-effects of the disappearance of nature, the most present “organic” element is quite literally a tub of hazardous, bacteria-ridden human waste. And yet, it is also this waste that, the staging suggests, allows for the lights to stay on, and the actors to engage in what they do best: perform. Extracts of Prométhée are interwoven with references to Hamlet (notably a reworking of the “Alas, poor Yorick” scene from Act V.1), a sequence reminiscent of the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey (only this time, instead of monkeys on a beach, it’s a monkey in a dumpster playing with trash) and an extended scene involving an attempt to film (with a stage light standing in for a camera and a broom as a boom mic) a scene suggesting a period piece, only with reused costumes and the bare skeleton of a set. Through all this, a small outhouse-like structure (whose fourth wall is missing so that, when it is rotated, the audience comes face-to-face with the outhouse’s occupant relieving themselves) remains slightly up stage right, with that, plus intermittent trips up to the shit-generator as well as periodic moments in which the lights go out for want of power, serving as a reminder for why we are all able to watch this in the first place.

Beauty in shit.

But with this also comes one of my primary criticisms on this piece, and no, it doesn’t directly have to do with the prevalence of scatological humor. To preface this, I should note that the creators of this piece were all formerly members of the Chiens de Navarre theatre troupe, known for its light, almost improvisational style and bent of humor, and whose work I had seen before (both times at the MC93…I even almost opted on writing on Jusque dans vos bras for my dissertation). The troupe is also known for the frequency with which they make reference to the fact that they are in a theatre and/or directly (attempt to) incite an audience to act supposedly against the bounds of what it is they are supposed to be doing while in the theatre space (an example: in Jusque dans vos bras, imploring audience members to come up and pull a boat of struggling migrants to shore, sarcastically admonishing them when no one crosses the barrier onto the stage, and then finally “attacking” the helpers via two actors dressed in silly shark costumes). This performance retained many of the elements that the performers no doubt honed during their time with the Chiens…, though it’s this question of audience participation and the veneer of disobedience that I want to focus on.

I mentioned earlier that one of the primary set pieces on the stage was an outhouse. Well, this outhouse also had a bucket in which shit and the like could be collected. At one point during the opening third of the show, two of the actors made an announcement that they would repeat periodically throughout the course of the play: any audience member who wished to relieve themselves was more than welcome to come on the stage and do their business in the bucket. If nothing else, it would aid in the running of the very necessary generator, and thus of the show itself. And this wasn’t just a quick announcement. In fact, the actors spent a good amount of time either singling out individual audience members and asking them directly if they wouldn’t like to help, or otherwise posing the possibility and waiting patiently for something to happen, for someone on our side of the space to act against what its normalized codes dictate.

(Side note: in the spirit of situational presence—and in the improv-esq spirit of Chiens…—, at one point during the initial plea, the actors went on a short tangent about how much better it would be for us as spectators, especially those of a certain age, to use the bucket since the toilets at Nanterre are located at the basement level, requiring several stairs and almost a tour of the building to get to. Despite my critics of this sequence, I will grant that they are right on this point. The toilets at Nanterre are somewhat of an inconvenience to get to).

Here’s my critique, though (and this comes from having thought about this through my research on audience participation-based theatre, and especially some thoughts I had while writing on Re-Paradise): based on other instances of similar calls for spectator action, I am beginning to come to the conclusion that arguably one of the most direct ways to enforce a traditional spectator/spectacle dynamic is to draw attention to it via an impossible request. In other words, the only way that question could have been asked of an audience is if it was done so on the assumption that no one would actually follow through. Would it have been an interesting experiment if someone had? Yes. But it also risked destroying the theatricality of the experience by bringing in an unavoidable (stinking) reminder of the real onto the constructed/imaginary playing space. Of course we know that the actors aren’t actually sloshing around in shit when they go and examine the generator, but we can suspend our disbelief enough so that, after they step out of the tank, the mud caking their boots takes on the symbolic association with shit in our minds, hence reactions of disgust. Bringing in the possibility of real human waste into this risks breaking the illusion.

What I find still more pressing, however, is the fact that often requests like this are made with an air of potential rebellion, of upending a status quo in order to open the possibilities for something different. Yet, rather than creating possibilities, calling for action while likely anticipating the exact opposite (that is, for spectators to behave as they more or less normally do) not only draws a distinct line between actors (those who do) and spectators (those who observe), increasing the distance between the two primary bodies both spatially and temporally. In other words, it becomes an act that re-enforces a traditional dynamic rather than one that works to poke holes in it and thus imagine possibilities outside its paradigms.

Now, this might not always be such a bad thing. In fact, one could read it in this case as a way of highlighting a return to a more “skeletal” (“primitive” is a word that popped in my head also, but it’s not quite the right term, and also I have some reservations using it in general) relationship to theatre, one that brings it back to its pre post-post-modern roots. Often, however (and I would argue that this is what is happening here), this is not the case. Instead, you get the illusion of rebellion while maintaining an already established relational structure.

And speaking of audience/spectacle relations…

Watch: “voyages diverses” created by Oliviere Fredj, Shani Diluka, Matias Aguayo and the Paris Chamber Orchestra, MC93, September 25, 2020

I feel like one of the most frustrating things about the MC93 is how much some of the programming visibly tries to be out of the box innovative and just comes up a little bit short.

Case in point: this show.

In brief: this piece is composed of loosely connected vignettes, each one centered on the theme of “Time”. Time as a linear progression, Time as notions of past/memory, present and possible futures, Time as measured, Time as a commodity (lost time, borrowed time), Time as in dual temporalities on stage and in the house. It was this last one that the show opened with, with a direct address to the audience via asking someone what time it was and then noting the time on the back wall in chalk (the show started about 15min late, which was a fun surprise…). From that point, we (as in those of us in the house) were supposedly absorbed in the “stage time”, spatial union merging with temporal union.

As to the texts, these were composed following a series of various workshops the creators held in hospitals, retirement homes and prisons in the nearby area; in other words, in spaces occupied by folks for whom time takes on a significant weight. It’s a communal effort and judging by the presence of several participants/their friends in the audience that evening, a highly successful one. Which is fine. Honestly, I have no gripes with this when it’s done well (see Ils n’avaient pas prévu qu’on allait gagner for when it’s not…), and I don’t want to discount the effort put in by the volunteer participants to collaborate and create something.

But why, seriously why, does it still seem to be the thing to do to try and address “high concept” things in a “meaningful / deep” way that more often than not results in a mess of meh?

To get back to the beginning of the show, the asking of the hour (which happened periodically throughout the production, each time with the hour being noted on the timeline along the back wall) could have been an interesting avenue in order to explore the passage and marking of time, had it have been accompanied by conscious control of rhythm and pacing on the part of the actors (I think some of them were beginners or amateurs, but cannot say for certain). As it was, the pacing veered from the overtly artificial / theatrical, to rushed, to steady but sometimes with mumbling. Consequently, all this served to do was throw into stark relief the reality that, as spectators, one of the key elements that defines the distinction of our temporality from that on stage was almost denied us:

The liberty of being bored.

If time is constantly marked, and there is a pattern of constantly marking it, the risk is that instead of then creating a new rhythm to “bleed into” (so to speak) the one that otherwise marks the temporality in the house, the result is one in which the most present thing is the eventual possibility of an end to all this and a return to a more autonomous sense of control over one’s temporality. It becomes, in other words, a process of disengagement rather than immersion.

Again, though, this is not to discount the collaborative work that went into this—nor the feeling in the room when the piece finally (yeah, they did one of those fake-out endings where they announce that it’s going to end and then spend another ten minutes talking about how to end things/Time and endings) came to a close. There could have been a way to tackle this subject without resorting to cliché or even documentary-style theatre. What it needs is honesty.

But that will be for the next post.

24 July 2020

Hello again…

So. It’s been a while.

I honestly could count the number of times I found myself thinking ‘Hey, maybe I should sit down and write something today’ before once again putting it off. It’s not that nothing has happened (quite the contrary). It’s more that I’ve really just needed to take the time away to re-center myself, as well as think about what the immediate future of this blog is going to look like, particularly given the current state of the world (merci COVID-19).

In short: as of now, I have actually gone ahead and reserved tickets for the 2020/2021 season at one theatre (the Théâtre de la Bastille…which should come as no surprise to anyone who has either read this blog or had to hear me wax poetic about how much I love that space). I’ve done this in full acknowledgement of the likelihood of many of the performances I’ve reserved for the fall/winter being postponed (if not outright cancelled), the reason being that, given that this theatre is independent rather than public, they are in a much more precarious state than some of the other venues I have frequented over the past several years here. Furthermore, in keeping in line with sanitary recommendations, they are reducing their capacity by 50%, and given how small and intimate the space is already, reserving well in advance for certain productions (notably for anything Tiago Rodrigues or TgSTAN have coming up) has become more of a necessity than usual.

But in the event performances do get cancelled, I am also prepared to donate what would otherwise be my refund back to the theatre. I already budgeted out that money for this purpose anyway, and my determination for this space to not have to risk closing is much stronger than me getting 70eur back (yeah, that’s how much I paid, total, for like, 5 shows. Affordability is a thing).

Regarding other venues, I am a creature of habit, so I will likely be renewing my subscriptions to the theatres I frequented while I was still writing/researching my dissertation. Here, though, I am going to wait a bit and see how the sanitary situation unfolds before making any kind of commitment.

That being said, given that I am no longer in dissertation-writing mode, what does that mean about the future of this blog?

Before getting into that a quick note: while I am technically done with that now, I have moved on to another, potentially more daunting/intimidating phase of this whole writing thing: publishing. That’s right, everyone, I haven’t quite finished with that document yet. Likely starting at the end of this summer/beginning of fall, I’ll be heading back to it to start the editing process, in the hopes of having a few chapters ready to send out to potential publishers once I also finish writing out my book proposal.

(Side note: if anyone has any tips/advice on this, they would be greatly appreciated).

What this could mean for the blog is—COVID situation depending—that you will likely see more posts from me trying to work through certain larger ideas I brought up in my dissertation but want to revisit for this next phase of its transformation, along with (hopefully), my usual theatre reviews. These posts will be long. They will likely be somewhat rambling and confused. But that’s how ideas work, and I like presenting the raw-ness of the process here, on this very public forum.

Besides, using this blog as a space to type out my drafts before going back and revisiting them when writing my chapters actually worked out pretty well for me in the dissertation phase.

I’ll also likely periodically interject some thoughts here and there about my process prepping for the agrégation (a prestigious civil service exam / one that, should I pass it, will mean much better pay at my job as well as hopefully other academic/educational opportunities in the future). Right now, that prep consists of reading English lit, which, to the surprise of absolutely no one, according to France, stopped in the 19^th century, and consisted mostly of white men (though they did through in George Eliot’s Middlemarch so….yay, I guess?). Once I start the prep courses in the fall (on top of teaching), said prep will also likely include some mock exams, which I will very likely have thoughts on.

But I’ve still got a bit of time before all that really gets going.

So, in the sake of brevity, I’m going to use the rest of this post to address two rather major things that happened since I last posted, then do a brief sum-up of everything else at the end (mostly for my sake because I like keeping a written record).

I’ll start with something more positive: this spring, my first class of 12^th graders, the majority of whom I had taught through all three years of high school (yeah, it’s three years instead of four here) graduated.

I honestly think one of the reasons why it took me so long to get back to writing at first was because I knew I wanted to address this, but I didn’t quite know how. I imagine anyone who has taught secondary school (high school in particular) can relate. There’s just something about that first class that you’ve seen grow into young adults, ready to go out into the world on their own that really just…sticks with you. Yet, with me, this situation carries its own particular significance because this was the class that basically also followed me in my dissertation process from prospectus to manuscript to defense to, finally, my own graduation (or commencement…because Harvard). And I don’t think I ever quite expressed to them just how much not only were they (and always will be) tied to this very significant moment in my life, but also how much my teaching them (and here I will actually stress the fact that when I say ‘them’ I mean this group in particular) influenced certain directions I ended up going in in my own writing.

Would I have liked for our last class to have been in person? Of course. But given how much I experimented with them in terms of materials I’d bring in and teaching/project strategies I’d try out, it almost seemed fitting. It’s going to be so…so weird not having this class next year, this little ‘family’ as I used to refer to them (especially relevant on the difficult days).

I had some friends ask me if I think I managed to impart anything to the students I teach—I mean, anything other than writing, listening, speaking or reading comprehension skills. I honestly couldn’t tell you. But I hope I did. Even if some of them never speak or use English again in their lives (doubtful but still), hopefully a little something else that I tried to weave into my lessons will stick.

Also, I know (because they told me, ha!) that some of them have found this blog, so for those of you former students who may be reading this: you guys were a blast to teach. Thank you for those three years, and for making me a better teacher.

And now to some decidedly more difficult news

I’m not going to spend as much time on this because, first, of how destabilizing this news was, and second, how many others could probably speak more eloquently about this than I could. But on July 13, I received news that one of my committee members (basically my secondary advisor) passed away from an accident (non-COVID-related). The news was made even more shocking by the fact that just over a week prior, myself as well as several other colleagues and former/current doctoral students had met up at a restaurant to celebrate this professor’s retirement, as well as his long career (I’m not sure how much of his work has gotten translated in the States, but those in theatre studies, Christian Biet is someone whose work you should look up…like, now). During the farewells, he made a point to say he’d schedule a meeting at the rentrée to touch base on how my manuscript editing is going. I received an email with general notes to look over in the interim.

Yet, life is cruel sometimes.

It’s hard when someone like this, someone who represents an intellectual curiosity and thirst for the collaborative spirit, encounters and inclusivity that seem to be fading from some academic circles in favor of competition, profit, airs of ‘superiority’ and doubling-down on a gatekeeping that has always existed but must be eroded away rather than reinforced. I’ve been very fortunate in that my advising team was composed of professors who not only encouraged exploration and creative thinking, but also never made me feel as though I were less-than, despite the fact that—and this blog can attest to this—at times my ‘imposter syndrome’ made it so that I was very nervous before sending in any pages because I didn’t want to risk disappointing them. In any case, one thing I’ve tried to focus on these past few days is the fact that I was so lucky to have role models like this—people who I knew I wanted to be like as an educator at the university or secondary level. Prof. Biet is among these role models.

That’s part of what a legacy is, right? Knowing that something of yourself, tangible or otherwise, will go on ‘being in the world’ after you’re dead.

Anyway, I’ll round this out now on a more positive note. Tonight, I’m flying out to Greece for two weeks with some girlfriends. There will be plenty of mornings at the beach, island exploring (I’m going back to Sifnos, and yes, I am incredibly excited), and eating all the things. Of course, all of this will be done incredibly responsibly, in line with current public health measures/recommendations. Regardless, I will be glad to be out of the country for a bit, as well as glad that I am not breaking my streak of spending at least some time in Greece every summer.

Besides, I’ve already made some progress on my tan. I would like to thank a girls’ weekend in Marseille, a couple of visits down to Oppède (including a birthday surprise visit for a dear friend on July 14^th), and many afternoons spent sunbathing with a book at Buttes Chaumont because it’s hot and as much as I like my fan, sometimes it just doesn’t cut it.

Until next time (hopefully sooner rather than later…)

The sea is calling me back (yeah, yeah I know this is from Marseille and not Greece, but whatever…the sentiment still holds).

4 May 20204 May 2020

Confinement, day…48?

So, I know there’s a typo in the title of my last post, but honestly, I don’t really feel like correcting it because sometimes it really does feel like we’ve been stuck in this mess for 250 days.

That being said, given that the situation has not changed much here yet (though deconfinement will slowly–hopefully–be starting on May 11), anyone who is reading this right now is probably wondering “Effie? Why are you writing right now if your life has basically been one endless string of sameness for the past seven/going on eight weeks?”

Good question, hypothetical/invisible reader.

The short answer: I had a mild anxiety attack last night.

The longer answer: I haven’t been sleeping super well these past few weeks, and frankly, the mounting stress from being inside all the time has a lot to do with it. Don’t worry, I’m not about to go parading in the streets, demanding that hair salons and restaurants and bars open up so other people can put themselves at risk for my illusion of “comfort”. But I will be honest here and say that it is getting increasingly difficult to stick to the rigidity I imposed on myself when I first went into confinement.

To give an example: a couple weeks ago, I added a trip to Mamiche, a boulangerie just shy of 1km from my apartment, to my usual grocery run. The walk there took me and the two friends I was doing my socially distant shopping with all the way down to the bottom of rue Faubourg du Temple, right up to where it crosses boulevard Jules Ferry and then ends at Place de la République.

This is a walk that I normally take very regularly. It’s part of my usual early Monday morning walks to the gym, my excursions to the library, the main artery through which I access the rest of the city (well, for the most part, anyway). I could feel the muscle memory in my legs pulling me forward as we reached the bottom of the road that day, and then, at the same time, it hit me that it had been almost two months since I had last walked that far, since I had last extended my spatial radius beyond my now-routine grocery stops. The city has become smaller for me, in a way (and there are some potentially good things about this, but I’ll probably get to those another time), and I don’t think I realized the extent through which I would have to go about “taking it back”, re-appropriating this manner of existing or walking in an urban space I had come to know almost like the back of my hand until that moment when I both wanted to freeze and turn back and also drop my groceries and keep. Fucking. Walking.

I didn’t do either, obviously. I settled on a very large cinnamon bun instead. But that moment has been eating at me lately, and that destabilizing feeling of confronting the unfamiliar in what should be familiar ended up coming back again last week when those same friends and I coordinated a taco run to El Nopal (the first time I had grabbed food that someone else made to-go rather than making it myself in…about as long as this quarantine had lasted). In both cases, the necessary adaptations and limitations to our social interactions didn’t necessarily help things: say hello from a distance, no hugs of greetings or goodbyes, orbit around each other while walking down the street as though there’s an invisible wall (or alligator, if you’re in Florida) separating us.

Sometimes, I wonder if these in-person yet very limited interactions are helping or hurting things. I want to say the former, but I am also someone who (as my dissertation, and literally almost anything else I have worked on will attest) is very intuitively aware of limits/rules/regulations/structures intended to orient or impede natural and sometimes instinctive behavior. I don’t want to hug my friends because I don’t want to put them at risk in case I somehow am an asymptomatic carrier, but this mental reminder to not enter into contact has its own darker side: it reminds me of how solitary I am now, and how long it’s been since I last felt the pressure of physical contact with someone else.

This solitude came to a head last night. I was scrolling through my instagram and noticed so many posts about the New York Times’ Cooking section sponsored “Big Lasagna Night”. Basically, everyone makes an absolutely epic looking lasagna following a particular recipe, and then at 7pm Eastern Time (yesterday), all the lasagna makers and their creations would gather together on a live stream and feast…together but apart.

And I wanted a lasagna. But the only thing that I could think of, the one thing that was just nagging me was that I didn’t want to make a whole lasagna for myself. I wanted to share my lasagna. Hell, I don’t have nearly enough fridge space to store a leftover lasagna, even if I had made one. Sure, maybe I could have strategized and somehow planned things out to make a perfect little lasagna for one, but that’s not the point of a lasagna. A lasagna is ultimate comfort food, yes, but part of the joy in making it is knowing that you’re about to share in that comfort with others, that you will all dig into the same groaning baking dish, and that a little bit of the love you put into making this incredibly involved dish will get passed on to someone else.

And that’s when I cracked.

I managed to get to sleep last night eventually (mental exhaustion post-crisis tends to help with that), so I was at least able to convincingly pull myself back up to teach again this morning. If nothing else, at least that’s a break in the monotony of the everyday now (though the stress of needing to be ON IT, mentally, hasn’t been helping much).

Before I drifted off though, I did have a small moment of clarity, and that was that I missed writing here. Even though my thoughts are more ramble-y than usual, there is something therapeutic about writing all this down and shooting it off into a very public online platform for who knows how many (ok, like…4?) people to read. And on that note, I think maybe in the next few days, I’ll finally get around to doing what I told myself I would do, and kept coming back to last night: write posts about my dissertation, about the unanswered questions in my dissertation, basically, anything to keep at least some part of myself back in the theatre (at least until they reopen again).

Oh, and hopefully my next entry will be less morose.

11 April 2020

Confinement, day 20 – 25O

I wanted to write in this on Monday night / Tuesday morning.

Or at the very least, right after I finished defending (more on that in a bit).

But…then I got a bit of food poisoning from…who knows what…so I decided to take things really easy. As in doing nothing easy.

As in sunning on my floor while reading easy.

But today was one of those days where I had to read aloud to myself so I could have something resembling a conversation (or have a voice to fill the silence), hence here I am.

First thing’s first, though: yes, I successfully defended my dissertation on Monday, April 6.

And it went well. Like, really well. Like, more than I could even have imagined well.

Of course, any of the many people who have tried to talk me out of my moments of imposter syndrome-driven crisis and who was present during that Zoom call would have probably not been surprised by that. But honestly that defense was the first time I was able to get a hint of what they (and my profs) had been seeing the whole time.

Hell, I may have even finally figured out what the hell it actually was I was trying to do with this project. Funny how you have to be outside of the thing to start to see the threads of what it is you’re crafting.

Let me back up a second though. One of the main issues I came across with all this in the lead-up to the big day was the fact that nowhere on Harvard’s / my department’s website does it mention what it is that actually happens during a defense. As in, what the student should plan on preparing, and more precisely, how much time they should allot for.

Now, of course, the solution to this would have been to actually attend some of these things when I was still on campus.

Yeah.

In the end, I did get a time limit (~30min), and from there, basically drew from my many conversations with folks not in my field to craft as detailed – yet precise – a presentation of my work as possible, keeping in mind how I felt my work contributed or added something new to my field.

It’s this last part that I am convinced no one in the humanities really grasps the full extent of. When you’re working with data/numbers, it’s a bit easier to step back and see the bigger picture. But when. you’re working with ideas or concepts, it can be hard to pull yourself away enough from everything to see how it all really fits. And yet, there I was.

And I reread my dissertation one last time. On the advice of a friend, I took page-by-page notes as a means of keeping track of everything (honestly, a pretty good idea in all, even though I barely referenced my document), as well as to try and anticipate any questions on my methodology, on elements that were unclear or potentially polemical, on why I made the choices I did, etc. I think I maybe over prepared a bit.

And then the day / time arrived. I put on makeup and earrings for the first time in three weeks. I wore a black turtleneck (of course), and leggings because only the upper half of me needed to look professional (not going to lie, I was tempted to wear heels, but I test-drove that idea the day before and it was…quickly scrapped). I opened the call, people started logging in. I saw my advisor’s face for the first time in a year. I saw other folks’ faces for the first time in longer than that.

I saw in a virtual space for the first time people I cared about from my family, to my university friends, to my grad school / Harvard friends, to my Paris friends gathered together to listen to what I had to say. It was like the ultimate stage performance, only separated by many miles and connected via cables and wifi signals (and mine was surprisingly stable…well…for the most part).

And I presented. And it felt good (though also really weird because, again, as with my teaching, I could not read the room as I spoke, and there were moments in there where I thought I really was speaking into the void).

And then the comments from my advisor started.

And I felt really good. Like a meteor shooting through the sky good.

For the first time, I actually looked at my work and assumed it for what it was. And it was a triumph. Hell, one other committee member gave me unofficial “Felicitations”, which, for those unfamiliar with the French system, is a pretty big deal.

And yes, I am going to toot my own horn. I’ll toot it to the fucking moon and back again all night long, for all I care. This was six years of my life. Six years of success, but six of moments of absolute rock bottom shit and self-doubt as well. And fuck I loved the validation. I reveled in it. To think this thing that I wrote and that I still can’t help but nitpick at may be worth something.

And I don’t want this to be the last thing that I write that brings something new to the table, that adds to the academic conversation. I want to keep going.

I want to publish the damn thing.

And then write and publish more things.

Fuck it is so crazy the roller coaster that happens when you’re at the end of the PhD.

Speaking of which, I suppose I should change the heading of this blog at some point (because yeah, no, I’m not going to stop writing here). I’ll get to that eventually.

It’s funny, writing about all this really boosted my mood. I’m still holding on more or less well, but the silence was hard today. And there are still moments that I really wish I could just have a moment of physical human contact. Fuck, the weather’s getting warmer, and all I want to do is cuddle someone. Ha!

As I said during my talkback, though, I am full of contradictions. I live in contradictions. Contradictions are what make things interesting.

5 April 2020

Confinement, day 16 – 19

As of April 2 (last Thursday), 15h00, I’ve officially been on “vacation”.

I was supposed to be on a plane for New York on Friday. And today was supposed to be a drive up from Connecticut to Boston. But, of course, that is not happening.

It’s strange, I never thought I’d see the day where I wished I wasn’t on vacation, but here we are.

And a really annoying thing about it? My strategy of purposefully giving my students assignments that I would have to grade over break in order to keep myself occupied (and thus not really giving them homework over the holiday to take some of the edge of all this off) has gone completely belly-up thanks to the absolute “genius” work of the Ministry of Education.

In brief: baccalaureate exams are basically cancelled (which makes perfect sense, since no one knows when schools will open again…and yeah, that May 4 predicted reopening is basically nonsense). Instead, the baccalaureate grades will be the average of all term grades for each subject.

Now, already there are some issues here, chief of these being 1) not all schools grade the same way, and 2) the particularities of our present situation.

For the first point: I can’t speak for other schools, but I can tell you that as far as my school is concerned, we grade very hard. We don’t needlessly punish our students, but given the school’s reputation, we are very demanding of them in terms of how much effort we expect to be made when completing assignments (not necessarily that everyone must be perfect at everything, but they must at least try. We try and help those who are struggling). What this means, however, is that some of our struggling students might, on paper/just based on those marks appear to be on the cusp of failing their bac, but on the day of actually end up doing pretty alright, if not excellently.

Furthermore, and this is a more broad statement, it’s also very true that some 12th graders will literally do the bare minimum and then cram in the weeks leading up to the actual bac, and then wind up getting a decent mark. It’s a ridiculous strategy, yes, but it happens. They now have a very real chance of actually failing/scoring much lower than in a real-world scenario.

As to the second point, this one more directly concerns me, and it actually makes me a bit angry. But first, some points to consider:

My school has been very lucky in that we had the funds (and our students have parents that also had the funds) to have been able to quickly set up our “virtual” classrooms via zoom almost immediately following the announcement of school closures. As such, we have been able to continue teaching our students (technical glitches notwithstanding) as more or less “normal” for the past three weeks.
Unfortunately, it is also estimated that between 5 – 8% of school-aged children in France have seen their education fully interrupted. Reasons for this range anywhere from the school not having the proper infrastructure in place, to (and the more likely) families not having available computers/tablets or even internet access at home for their kids to use to access educational material. One of the public television channels has been airing programming aimed at high school students every day in order to give them some access to material that is part of the national curriculum, but what about students whose families don’t have a television, or for whom there is no space at home to quietly study?
In light of the above, the decision was made by the Ministry that even though the final bac grades would be an average of term grades, any grading done for assignments given during quarantine would not be counted in the third term grade average.

Basically, all the work teachers not just from our school, but other schools that have been trying to get virtual classrooms set up has been for basically nothing. It’s almost like we’re working for free.

Oh, and the Ministry wants to extend the school year through July 4.

This, all this, on top of how “on it” we have to be all the time, how much we have to make sure we are there and we show up for our kids to try and bring some normalcy back into their lives. This, while at the same time there is a minister in government who openly disdains us and our job, suggests that we are “lazy”, scoffs at the thought of instituting pay raises nationally, and generally has no fucking clue what it means to be a teacher.

And I am exhausted. I am straight up dreading what’s going to happen after Monday because even though I could feel myself carrying the mental load in terms of holding back my frustrations so that my students could let out theirs, I didn’t mind it. It gave me something to do, in any case. And now, with this, what the hell is going to happen once the “break” is over? Will I even have any of my 12th graders showing up? The school is going to send an email to parents explaining why all students should still show up and put in an effort, but holy shit it’s like these decisions were only 50% (if that) thought through.

Should the bac have been cancelled this year? Oh yeah. The system–try as they might to insist they are not–is already unequal in normal conditions, and this situation just exacerbates that. But, fuck, could they take a minute to think about the implications of their decisions beyond that first one?

The inequality gap is going to get worse by this.

And now I have to design pretty much a whole new curriculum to carry my students through to the end of the year.

At least that will give me something to do.

Maybe I’ll just make them all watch Twin Peaks and then write presentations trying to explain everything. Those would make about as much sense as this nonsense.

29 March 2020

Confinement, day 13

The loneliness didn’t fully hit me until I started baking again today.

Lots of folks on social media/in general are baking nowadays (as further evidenced by the lack of flour at the markets). It makes sense, honestly. Baking is comforting, it’s warm, sometimes sweet, rich, or just so carb-y you want to keep going back for more. It’s the kind of food that turns your tummy into a soft pillow you just want to rest your hands on in satisfaction, preferably as a precursor to a nap.

But baking–at least for me–is something that’s shared.

I used to bake pretty regularly back in Boston. This was partially due to my living situation at the time, but also having a full sized oven plus a ready group of friends/fellow grad students/co-workers who I could gift some of my goods to played a rather sizable role. The last time I really baked here was when I made my (3 layered…yeah) carrot cake for my birthday back in November. Even then, though, I had an apartment full of people ready to dig into that cake with me.

Now? The first thing I thought of when I pulled my cornbread out of the oven was ‘How the fuck am I supposed to eat this by myself?’

It’s strange for me to realize how much more pragmatic my line of thinking has become lately in light of all this. As much as I want to use this time to try out a new cake recipe or revisit a favorite cookie, I would also have to be the person consuming all that afterwords. And the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t shake the thought that I didn’t want to be the only person eating those things.

It didn’t help today that I accidentally knocked a bit more baking soda into my batter than the recipe called for–but I wasn’t going to be throwing any of it out, of course–as well as slightly overfilled my skillet, causing some batter to bubble out during baking. I was stressed, for lack of a better word.

But baking isn’t supposed to be stressful, right?

And so when I took that pan out of the oven, and even after I tasted the cornbread and found it still tasted perfectly fine, the only thing I felt towards it was frustration.

Yes, it was partially because I was disappointed in my little blunders, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that part of me was also disappointed that I didn’t have someone physically in the room with me to laugh about this with. It’s one thing to post about all this on Instagram after the fact; it’s quite another thing when someone else is there to react with you in real-time, and possibly help turn your mood when you goof up a bit. And to be honest, with the way things are going, that’s what I am genuinely terrified about: being alone for so long that the possibility for shared physical presence–not to mention intimacy–with someone else becomes its own kind of fantasy. Unattainable.

I ended up cutting the cornbread up into smaller pieces and storing them in a Tupperware in my fridge. I’ll have one for breakfast with some yogurt tomorrow. And the next day, and so on until it’s all done. Moderation is key for me. I am already terrified of the ramifications of this extended alone time; I don’t need to add any fears about what all this comparative inactivity will do to my own body image to the mix.