ok I’m in an internet café across the street from the lycée that is taking care of my paperwork for my teaching job at the IUFM (graduate school of education where I’m teaching english). To my right: rue de la pompe. to my left: 14 year olds shouting “putain! putain!” not at me, I hope. no– they’re hitting their keyboards. a bit of trivia about this street, rue de la pompe: apparently it’s nicknamed rue de la pipe (blow job street)– because both “pompe” and “pipe” are slang for, um, fellatio. so, yeah…. put that in your fodor’s and smoke it.

I met a bunch of other kids on my teaching program… I’ll be teaching at IUFM with a brit, a german, a canadian, and a venezuelan. lots of americans as well but they’re teaching at the high school and primary level. Tomorrow night is les nuits blanches– a citywide party where everything is open all night. someone was explaining the concept to me and they were, like, incredulous that things like the metro would stay open all night and I looked at them blankly. “Is that what all the fuss is about??” It’s just that, to a New Yorker, it’s not that special that the subway runs all night. I wouldn’t take it past a certain hour anyway!

but there will be free outdoor concerts and things like that and apparently the stores and museums will be open all night as well. Do I really need to shop at Monoprix and go to the Louvre at midnight? no. Will I? maybe, just for the hell of it.

Last night I went to a Julia Kristeva reading at an Anglo bookshop with a guy who’s in my progam at CUNY– quite by coincidence we’re both in Paris for the year. Kristeva was amazing to see in person– it’s like being the presence of God or something. But she didn’t have a whole lot to say. She was reading from her new book on Colette, which has just been brought out in English, and is the third book in a trilogy about female genius. Apparently, according to Kristeva, the thing about genius is that it is singular. Go know.

“mais regard le connard!” the french adolescents are pissing me off. Il faut que j’aille. A tout à l’heure, kids.