stereotypes, vrai ou non

so one of the strange parts of living in a foreign country is constantly being confronted by stereotypes, whether about france, the us or even other countries. jane had a teacher tell her class "see, not all americans are fat! look at jane!" my kids ask me all the time if a) i only eat at mcdonalds; b) how many celebrities do i know and c) if gossip girl/desperate housewives/any other american show are actually true to life. i want to be like "guys. we are not all fat. and stupid. and lazy. and sleep around." except that last part is probably not appropriate to tell 13 year olds.
but the other side of it is the stereotypes about france. there are three main ones that i have been pondering this week.

1) french people smell bad.
okay at first i thought this was true. but then i realized i work in a middle school. and middle schoolers do smell bad. but as far as i can tell, french adults do not smell any worse than american ones so deal with that! especially because the next two stereotypes are totally true.

2) french people are always on strike.
this is just true. period. i think its one of those things you cant ever really understand unless you come from a place or live there for a long time, because i spend about half my time here asking people why they are going on strike and then they give me all the reasons, but i really mean "but why are you on STRIKE? not "WHY are you on strike" aka why a one day strike every month or so as opposed to a massive one once a year. but from what i can gather, its a national pastime/tradition/sport. today there is a strike that originates from the primary schools but the train workers, all the other levels of schools and PUBLIC RADIO are on strike. can you imagine if npr went on strike? anyways this means that about half the kids are here and maybe a fourth of the teachers- and since i only have class when teachers are here, i have one class from 9-10 and one from 4-5. lame. but despite the fact i dont really understand, it is pretty cool to see people actually getting involved in governmental decisions and protesting what is important to them- this time, it has to do with closing lots of preschools and getting rid of support staff in schools. so im all for it even if i dont really get what is going on.

3) french people love food.
this is the most true thing that has ever been said. french people love eating food, they love talking about it, they love recipes and ingredients and open air markets and chocolate and coffee and beef and cheese and bread. coincidentally, this is something we have in common. except the beef. but i have found this to be rather useful because if im in the teachers room and im sort of awkward because im about 10 years younger than any of the teachers and the only foreigner, plus i dont have kids and am not married and therefore this isnt always a ton in common that i can discuss with teachers, ill say "sooooo whats the difference between a chataigne and a marron?" which are two different kinds of chestnuts. then i will get an amazing discussion all about which is better for what and how to cook them and promises of recipes and then someone brings in examples the next day and all is right with the world. there are often homemade pastries and treats in the teachers' room, but i had never thought about the fact that maybe i could make something. until this week, when a class asked me to make a cinnamon twist recipe that i had been describing to them because my family makes it every year for christmas. so i brought in some extras for the teachers and all of a sudden, we were all best friends. everyone wanted the recipe and wanted to say something to me about them and teachers stopped me in the halls to tell me how much they liked them. if id known that was the way to their hearts, i would have done it months ago.

beyond all of that, everything is good in france- i went to strasbourg last weekend with jane and it was glorious and weirdly german/french. shes coming this weekend to angers, then the next weekend we are meeting up with molly in paris and then MOROCCO AND SPAIN FOR TWO WEEKS. estoy lista para viajar!

ps- the picture is the class post cinnamon twists