It’s been a hectic few weeks, hasn’t it? Revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, the devastating Japan earthquake and tsunami, heated budget/educational/union debates and votes in the US, and just a few hours ago, France began enforcing the no-fly zone in Libya, also planning to attack any tanks that target civilians.

On a personal level, I’ve been working on an urgent project at my job, so I haven’t had the time or energy to post here. I am still working on my Masters thesis as well. It’s coming along, currently I’m in the stage where I’ve gathered the majority of my references and am taking notes from them. My favorite part, really – reading, noting what interests me, seeing what links together, and getting new insights.

My French voter’s card arrived in the mail two weeks ago. The first round of élections cantonales is tomorrow, with the second round next Sunday (the 27th). I’m excited to vote in them. I’ve voted by mail in US elections for the last 16 years, so I haven’t seen a ballot booth or box for quite a while, and of course, I’ve never seen a French voting area in person.

Last weekend, notice arrived in the mail for my French citizenship ceremony, which is something that Sarkozy started. Before, new French citizens were just given our papers on an individual basis. Now, a ceremony is held for groups, we sing La Marseillaise, and our new papers are handed out. My ceremony is to be held on April 1st. No joke, a ceremony on April Fools’ Day.

In France there’s still quite the mix of old and new locks. This key isn’t very old, comparatively speaking, as one of the originals in our 1953 apartment building. We have the same modern developments in door security as anywhere else, but you do still come across these beautiful keys anywhere that there are older buildings. My previous apartment had a very similar key for its entry; using it daily felt very retro, I kind of miss it, despite its bulk.

This key is to a rather unimportant door (shown behind my hand), to the shared building débarras. A débarras is an area where things you don’t necessarily need any more are put. The verb se débarasser (de quelquechose) means “to get rid (of something)”. Technically the room isn’t supposed to be a débarras in our building, so once a year it gets purged and people try to store their bicycles in it, but eventually the cast-away furniture, bits of extra carpentry, leftover tiles and such find their way back inside.

I do my grocery shopping at a small shop in Nice called Diététique Malausséna, located on the avenue of the same name (Malausséna). Having gone there for seven years now, I know the owners and employees well — they’re really nice people, and very helpful, which is great when you have food allergies and/or intolerances. In addition to foods for those with special dietary requirements, they carry a lot of delicious organic foods that I rarely, if ever, see in larger stores here.

Last week they brought in red and rosé wines from Bellet, for instance. Bellet is part of Nice. All the Bellet wines I’ve tasted have been wonderful, quite unique compared to other areas, even those from nearby Provençal vineyards. The store also had olive oil from Bellet, which I’d never seen before. I didn’t even know olive oil was produced in Nice, but one of the shop owners told me it was hard to come by. The color was stunning, and it smelled good, so I bought a bottle today.

This olive oil is from Saint-Roman-de-Bellet. You can see it’s a very green part of the city:

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While the Riviera is generally known for its sun and warmth, this winter has been exceptionally wet and dark. We went nearly two months without seeing blue skies or dry ground. This week it’s gotten better, and today was chilly but clear. While walking to a store this morning, I passed our Notre Dame, which was recently renovated for Nice’s 150th anniversary as part of France. There was a protest in front of it, not sure what for, but with my cameraphone’s blocky colors, it made for an interesting play of contrasts with the sun, sky, cream church, bronze-windowed shop building and black-winter-coat crowd.

The fact that I have French citizenship has finally been sinking in these past two weeks. No more yearly visits to the prefecture to renew residence; no more need to declare changes of address with them; no more running every decision through the filter of “as a non-EU citizen, do I have the right to do this, will it be more complicated, will it cause any problems”; and, I finally have the right to vote in national elections. I registered just in the nick of the time — there are only élections cantonales this year, but at least that way it’s done and I’ll be able to vote in les présidentielles de 2012. Kind of a funny coincidence in 2012, since the US presidential elections will also be held (I plan to vote in those too). French presidential elections are currently every 5 years, previously every 7, whereas US presidents are elected every 4, so it’s not common that they overlap. On the whole, I feel much more empowered and free — no longer having to worry about my non-EU-citizen status is more of a relief than I had expected.

Kanoko, as you’ve often seen, likes to stick his curious self into otherwise-still lifes. These are some of the treats I’ll be having to ring in the New Year, with egg and pine cone added for symbolism (the New Year being associated with rebirth). Pine cones are also neat for their math: their scales are arranged in Fibonacci number sequences, as are shell spirals and many other things. As for Kanoko, I’m pretty sure his mathematical basis is most closely related to chaos theory.

When not nerding out over snail shells and pine cones while drinking French wine, I’ve been playing my new digital piano (it’s as nice as I’d hoped) and writing a paper for one of my Masters courses. Once it and a second paper are finished, the first three-fourths of 2011 will be spent focused on my thesis. (As a reminder, I’m working on a Masters in comparative literature.) My initial research has been going well, in spite of, and even thanks to, a few setbacks, because they piqued my curiosity and incited me to look places I wouldn’t have otherwise. My advisor is great as well, and has recommended works I was unfamiliar with, that are a huge boon. It’s a good foundation, and working on these two smaller papers has helped develop ideas I’ll use in my thesis too, so I’m looking forward to the challenge. Yes, I am speaking in generalities on purpose — the topics involved are things that people often feel strongly about, whether they’ve analyzed them or not, so I prioritize my own peace of mind over attracting readers to my site with something more piquant.

That said, Kanoko is quite piquant. (In French, piquant can mean “pointy; sharp” in addition to “spicy; provocative; stimulating”.)

Happy New Year to everyone, all the best for 2011!

Today I received a letter from the Ministère de l’intérieur, de l’outre-mer, des collectivités territoriales et de l’immigration that begins with: “J’ai le plaisir de vous faire savoir que vous êtes Française depuis le 13/12/2010.” Translated: “I am pleased to let you know that as of 13 December 2010, you are French.”

Nice Christmas present, eh!

I can now vote in French national elections, as well as European Union elections, and will no longer have to worry about ever-changing immigration laws for non-EU citizens (which I was, until the 13th of December). I have kept my US citizenship, mainly to continue voting and participating there as well, so I have dual nationality.

I spent a nice but chilly three and a half days in Paris, and had the chance to take some photos while exploring the city in the evenings. I didn’t have any room to pack my tripod, so some of the night shots don’t have stunning clarity, but they did turn out surprisingly well. Along with this archetypal photo of the Seine taken from a bridge that connects the 4th quarter to the Île de la Cité, my other favorites are Notre Dame against a twilight sky, the terrifically Gothic St. Jacques tower complete with spooky branches in the foreground, and Pont Alexandre III with Eiffel dressed in Christmas lights and her rotating beacon. They and other photos can be found in my photoset for the Paris trip.

The TGV rides to and from Paris were neat, as always. Timewise, it’s rather comparable to taking a plane: flight time is about an hour and a half, then you need to add an hour for check-in, plus another two or so hours for travel to and from the departure and arrival airports, as well as waiting to gather your luggage, which makes it about 4 or 5 hours in all. The TGV takes just over 5 hours, and train stations are in the city centers — no special travel or parking necessary! I prefer the train because it’s so much less tiring. It was a relief not to have to deal with luggage or security restrictions, and to be able to get up and walk around whenever I wanted. You also get beautiful views from the large windows.

I filmed two short videos with my mobile phone, the first on Monday as we travelled through Provence between Toulon and Aix-en-Provence, and the other just after we’d left Paris on Thursday afternoon — there had been a dusting of snow over the French countryside.

This afternoon I attended a performance of “Eugene Onegin”, an opera by Tchaikovsky, in Monaco. While “going to the opera in Monaco” may well seem tinged with a bit of snootiness, in reality, performances in the principality are often more reasonably priced than elsewhere.

Tomorrow I take a TGV from Nice to Marseille, up through Lyon and on to Paris. I’ll be in the city a few days on business, leaving the kitties in the capable hands of a pet sitter. If you’re interested, keep an eye on my photostream; I’ll be updating it with shots from my mobile phone while in Paris. Pictures taken with my DSLR will have to wait until my return to be uploaded.

I’m really looking forward to the long train ride — my company was sweet and got me first-class tickets. It’s 1,000km (about 620 miles) from Nice to Paris, which takes just over 5 hours by TGV. The TGV still runs “slow” (about 120kmh, or 75mph) from Nice to Marseille, but gets up to speed on the Marseille-Paris stretch, which takes only 3 hours. Marseille to Paris is 660km, or 410 miles. That makes for an average speed of 220kmh/137mph — keep in mind the TGV comes to a full stop in Lyon.

Once I stepped off the train in Nice this evening, the familiar woman’s voice announcing arrivals and departures came on with one that first caught my ear because of its very short train number: 19. I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard the train’s destination: Moscow. “Le train numéro 19 à destination de Moscou va partir.” It’s a new line that was put in place just two months ago: French Riviera train for Russia. With fares starting at about 300 euros, I’m sorely tempted to try it out some day. It’s anything but a fast trip though, at 53 hours!

Circumstances and my own reserve about uncertain plans conspired for some very last-minute news: I’ve been accepted for a Masters degree in comparative literature at the Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, starting this October.

Although the process began in April this year, I only received confirmation yesterday evening. For a couple of years now, I’ve wanted to go back to school in order to find a career better suited to my character. While I enjoy translations, as time passed, I realized that what I most looked forward to during the day was the time I spent reading and participating in discussions on meaning, and related cross-cultural and sociological issues that any discussion of “meaning” brings up once you start going into depth. At first, given my background in IT, I thought that librarianship might be a good path — I could use my literary, technological and analytical skills to help people in their own research at a library. I looked into other possibilities as well: certifications via France’s CNED (National Distance Education Centre) and at the University of Nice, in case anything caught my eye. Which is exactly what happened!

At my US university (the U. of Oregon) and the one I attended in Lyon (Univ. Lyon II), I had taken a few comparative literature courses, which I adored for their combination of foreign languages, anthropology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, art, and, of course, literature. So when I saw that the UNice offered a Masters in comp lit that could lead to secondary school teaching certification or to a doctoral program, I read everything I could about it. Increasingly motivated by what I discovered about the UNice’s research groups and courses available, I decided to apply. Preparing my application was a test in itself!

To shorten what would be another long story, the process was complex, being 1. a non-EU-citizen foreigner 2. in France (not a foreign country) who had 3. studied at a French university 4. but never been registered in one (as an exchange student, I’d been registered at my US university while at Lyon), 5. was over the age of 28 (a cutoff age for French students who have been previously registered at a French university), and to top it all off, 6. needed to continue working full-time in order to support myself. The fact that I’d be working full time during the day wasn’t a problem, according to the program director — it’s possible to do the Masters as a “distance” program. As they say in French, je sais plutôt bien me débrouiller (I’m pretty good at sorting out chaotic situations), so I got through the maze and reached the final hurdle: I needed to prepare and submit a thesis proposal and statement of purpose along with my officially-translated transcripts.

At that point, I still didn’t know which comp lit Masters to apply for specifically. See, in France, Masters degrees can be just one year (called Master 1) or two years (Master 1 followed by Master 2). This is quite recent; the Master 1 used to be a maîtrise and the Master 2 used to be a DEA/DESS (roughly equivalent to M.A./M.S.). I thought a Master 1 would be good to start out with, to get back into the swing of university and help clarify whether I wanted to continue with an education-oriented Master 2 or a doctorate-oriented one. I was very interested in doctorate possibilities, but honestly didn’t know whether it would be for me. I decided to be honest about my uncertainty in my motivation letter, specifying nonetheless that I was excited at the possibilities available through the UNice’s research groups for doctoral candidates. I also tailored my thesis proposal for such an eventuality — for the research (doctorate-oriented) Master 2, a thesis proposal needs to have a statement for the Masters thesis, and the potential for directly-related doctoral studies; ideally even a subject area appropriate for a professoral career in comparative literature.

I sent in my letter and proposal at the end of August, knowing the evaluation committee would meet in September. They met last Friday, and I received notice in the mail yesterday: I was accepted into the Master 2 research program! The full French name, for those curious: Master 2 Recherche Lettres mention Littérature comparée. It’s really ideal: I live just a 15-minute bus ride from the campus, and it’s a public university, so will cost me only 271.36 euros for the entire year (there are no TA scholarships for Masters degrees in France, only for doctorates). Readers might be wondering if the decimal point is in the wrong spot or if I made any typos — nope, that’s two-hundred-seventy-one euros and thirty-six cents. I’m very excited to be able to do something I love!

I haven’t written in a little while, but it’s not actually because I’m on strike! Though I did participate in today’s protests in Nice, against proposed retirement changes and, more generally, against Sarkozy’s government, which is increasingly unpopular for several reasons. I wasn’t technically on strike, since I used one of my vacation days (my current employer is quite all right, nothing against them in particular), but did want to lend my voice to those who disagree with so much of what Sarkozy and his government have done. Nice is implicated more than many places, since two of Sarkozy’s right-hand men are Estrosi and Ciotti. Estrosi is France’s Minister of Industry, as well as Nice’s mayor; Ciotti represents the Alpes-Maritimes département in France’s National Assembly, and is president of the Alpes-Maritimes General Council. I took photos while at the protests, and created a photo reportage.

As for this photo in particular, I chose it for this post due to its unique Niçois character. The man’s shirt says: “Work well at Hersant and they’ll repay you with shit” in Niçois. It’s based on a relatively common saying, one that’s usually used to refer to a single person: “Be nice to X and they’ll repay you by shitting [on you]“. I adapted the translation for the company slightly; it’s a play on meanings and is supposed to be interpreted on different levels. Hersant, or GHM, Groupe Hersant Média, owns Nice-Matin newspapers.