Return to Paris

As usual, it has been awhile since I've posted. First I went to the US for visa reasons, then we went to India for vacation and the wedding of two friends, and now we've been back a month and I've begun two jobs and my PhD, plus I'm once again taking my writing projects more seriously (good timing, right?)--so there's a lot of news. We'll take it one part at a time.

The visa applications went more easily than expected, given the effort required to arrange appointments, gather paperwork, and even get information. The tourist visa for India took one day to get, and that was only because I missed the morning deadline for same-day processing. The French long-stay student visa took all of thirty-five minutes, of which twenty were spent waiting to be called to present my paperwork and only fifteen were spent processing my dossier and producing the visa. W00t for efficient administration! (I've written a more detailed description of the process, but I am considering creating a separate blog for my foreign PhD experiences so that I can offer help and entertainment for others interested in the situation or hoping to pursue the same sort of path.)

India was a crazy experience, about which I wrote daily journal entries while there. I'll be posting revisions of these in the days to come.

Having returned to Paris, V has begun work at UPMC (Paris VI) again, this time as a tenured, full-time teacher. (Last year, she was a temporary, full-time teacher.) I got my carte de sejour (another story), which allows me to live and work in France, and I began work as a sort of adjunct teacher of English (language) at UPMC. I teach one class a week, and will get paid sometime early next year. I've also begun working for a company called YES (Your English Solution), which teaches English to businesses in the Paris area.

Additionally, my classes have started up. I'm taking my advisor's poetry and poetics course, which so far is interesting, and a short translation course he's teaching as well, so I can practice my French.

V had Lasik eye surgery at the beginning of September, which means that now she can see pretty much as well without glasses as she once could with glasses. There are some small side effects, some of which seem to have faded, but she and I both wish the doctor had informed us more about them, as they may have influenced the decision. (On the plus side, she's very happy to be able to snuggle without removing and protecting her glasses.)

V and I got a PACS (Pacte Civil de Solidarit&eaccute;, or French civil union) on the 2nd of September, so now we're officially living together and supporting each other. Pretty cool. It's such a potentially small thing (the document needs only contain one line about how the two of you agree to support each other, but can have more) that we weren't going to do anything for it, but our friends wanted to have a party, so we threw a small fête and got lots of wine. We don't drink much at all, so typically this means we hold onto bottles for weeks or months, until we have guests over.

I've also found a dojo that teaches Ki Aikido, and I had begun going, but our finances were low this month and last due to India+French admin fees+Lasik, so I'm holding off for now. But once things get underway a bit more and I get my paycheck, it's back on the mat for me!

I'm also learning how to better organize myself so that I can do everything I want to. I've made myself very busy, which is fun, and now I'm learning how to manage it all. I'm also teaching myself a bit of Ashtanga Yoga.

That's pretty much the update for now.

On French Words and Their English Cousins

Translation, I'm learning, is a funny art. It's not a matter of looking up the appropriate cross-language synonyms in a dictionary; even intellectually knowing this in advance, though, the fact of it comes as an enjoyable surprise.

I've been working on various short translation and editing projects--mostly tests--that may lead to regular freelance employment, which would be really nice. In the process, I've stumbled across a few of those little gems you may have read about, the sort that seem especially common on the border between English and Chinese or Japanese.

One of my favorites is a possible translation given to me for "Il n'y a pas de reponse a votre recherche," which, I gather, was supposed to be the default no-match response to a search-engine query.
The translation that I was provided with by the software I'm using (and which I wasn't supposed to change) was, I thought, startlingly philosophical:

"There is no answer to your search."

Seeking Work

I've returned to freelance writing and editing again to make money. I'm mentioning this because I'm seeking to put my name out in the world in as many ways as I can so as to attract more business. I realize this blog may not be the most prolific or effective way to advertise, but every little bit can help. So if any of you who read this blog (the few, the proud, my relatives and friends) hear of people looking for an editor or a writer, I would be extremely grateful if you were to pass my name along or refer them my way. Interested parties can check out my iFreelance portfolio here (thank you, Dad, for referring me there) and my LinkedIn profile here.

Or if you have ideas for resources that might be helpful, I'd love to know about them. Ditto for suggestions to improve my profiles, etc.

Thanks three million times.

Update: For whatever reason, the links I provided above for my LinkedIn profile don't work properly. However, you can find the same links in the sidebars of this blog (---->), where they do work properly. Or you can search for my profile in the People directory. (When sifting through the hundreds of David Clarks on LinkedIn, look for one who's a writer and writing teacher in New York. I know I'm in Paris--I even updated my profile to say so--but LinkedIn hasn't recognized this in the directory, apparently.)