Introduction

After studying in Paris for six months my junior year I am once again living in France, now as a college graduate. It seems to matter little how and why I came to be here. To say "I am living abroad," is a phrase that comes charged with a host of romantic and adventurous notions and while my descriptions of being an American ex-pat are taken up mainly by dispelling these enchanting rumors, to say I am living abroad remains the best way to describe this experience.  One of the cliché notions as to why someone may move to a foreign country is to go on that so-called existential journey to "finding oneself." Personally, I have found that discovering "who you are" mainly arrives from the realization of those cultural influences you have left behind in your home country.  To live abroad is to become more fully aware of your place in the world as an "American," -- or "Canadian," or "Frenchman," or what-have-you -- first through the realization of who you are not, and only secondly by the realization of who you are.

While I've taken on blogging mainly as a form of intellectual and literary woodshedding I also hope to share my insights into the already surcharged world of opinions on French and American cultural differences.  Adam Gopnik wrote in Paris to the Moon that, "The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped." It is indeed a freeing feeling to know you can pick up and move anywhere you like and you can make it work.  You wonder why more Americans don't do this half the time and the other half you wonder why Americans do this at all.  Like Gopnik writes, though there is a monumental sense of freedom, of escape, the feeling of loneliness is also inescapable.  For the expatriate solitude becomes another kind of invisible chain weighing you down.  This is why I believe there are so many books written about the relationship between French and American cultures.  To discuss the ups and downs of both frustration, loneliness, misunderstanding, as well as our admiration and romantic fascination with French culture is to participate in a community that can lift the sometimes suffocating feeling of solitude.

I should note that I am here with many other Americans participating in a program known as TAPIF -- Teaching Assistant Program in France.  This is the means by which I came to be living abroad. We work twelve hours a week in a French collège (middle school) or lycée (high school) -- in my case both -- teaching English and generally not knowing what we are doing.  For me this was a means to an end though many assistants do wish to continue with the teaching profession at the high school and/or middle school level after this program.  But I, like so many others, left my experience of studying abroad with a craving for more travel, for more discovery and decided TAPIF was the best way to get here.  With the intention of honing my French skills and seeing more of Europe I accepted a position at a school in Rouen, the capital of Normandy.  Gladly, I have come in with no expectations and I would urge anyone contemplating moving abroad to do the same. Without expectations you can fully experience the freedom of travel and perhaps begin to understand why Americans move to France in the first place.