Strike, Navigo: Money comes back ?

The good news after the long and exhausting public transport strike is: we, the ordinary citizens and residents of Paris, may demand our navigo compensation for December 2019. And you know what? I am very lazy in everything that concerns procedures and papers, and knowing how long, chronophagic and exhausting the French bureau-crazy and paperasse is, was rather skeptic about the fact of making the request itself. Though, I was really curious and intrigued: what if it works and I’ll get my 75.20 euros back, paid for my monthly pass navigo just the day before the great strike, la Grande Grève, bursted out?

So I put my skepticism on pause. If you’re a fighter, you fight like a Homeric hero. It took me only a couple of minutes right now to fill in the form and send the demand. If you’re in Paris too, and bought your monthly or week or whatever pass the last December, leave your request here. The site functions well now, but just a few days before it was down as it was overloaded with demands. They’ll decide if you are eligible for recompense, and you’ll receive it on your bank account max in three weeks.

So good luck everybody living and struggling for every penny – sorry! – centime in Parisian jungle!

Tropical Landscape, American Indian Struggling with a Gorilla, 1910 by Henri Rousseau (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond VA) Ренуар, Тропическое Озеленение, История Искусства, Импрессионизм, Сюрреалистическое Искусство, Фрида Кало, Книга Художника, Масло На Холсте, Изобразительное Искусство

Penelope

Penelope is, in fact, a theatrical name of one lady I met yesterday and whose name is Penelope. She is an actress of a theater, and her profession has an evident impact on her being and appearance. She is very nice, welcoming, attentive, mother of – soon – two kids. At the same time, I noticed she behaves and especially talks as if she were on the stage: her voice is loud, articulated, as if addressed towards the audience far in the gallery. So the name Penelope perfectly suits her.

Tired

4 apartments per week to clean, it’s too much for me. I’m tired. It’s a hard physical work that should be paid double. Instead, the intellectual work has a priority to be paid five times more. I don’t have enough time and energy for me and my private needs such as doing nothing, dreaming, walking, being bored, writing… Right now I’ve come back home completely exhausted after 3 hours of cleaning and 2 hours in transport.

A lazy mathematician

I made an nice acquaintance this Saturday. It’s a guy from Algeria. He looks completely like a French, at least not like a Muslim. His slight accent, though, betrays his foreign origin. He’s a painter but he cannot make money as an artist so he, mathematician, works at the same time at a famous French gas company. He loves blue colors and all the time makes jokes about his ‘manias’ and about everything around reacting vividly to any comment or phrase of mine. His and our manias concern everything in our everyday life; I think the way we organize space we inhabit is marked to a great extant by our phobias and manias.
I came to his perfectly clean flat in a close South Parisian suburb, and my mission was to clean it even better. “Don’t you regret of coming here?” he asked. “Of course not. I’ll always find what to do even when there’s nothing to do”. He explained meanwhile his philosophy of the “fainéant”, of a lazy man: “I hate doing a lot of job, so I prefer to do it gradually, in small portions. For example, it’s better to wash a cup of coffee right away, as soon as I finish my coffee. I never leave an unwashed dish for the next day, I can’t sleep if I know there’s something not done. I wash it, only then I go to bed and my mind is zen. I iron all of my chemises in advance because in the morning I only have 30 seconds to put one on.”
When I came he first made me coffee, natural, strong, tasty, not in a capsule coffee machine, offered some chocolate fait maison. As it took some time I wondered, “Am I going to work today at all?”
His womanish manners (is he gay?), his laughter, his jokes… I had an impression to have met a very educated person, generous, attentive, with his mind open… So this visit was not really cleaning someone’s apartment but like a good friends’ meeting.
I also learnt something important: amour, love in French, is in singular a masculine noun, but mes amours (plural) becomes feminine…

Parisian manners

Interesting observations about how Parisian children become gentlemen (and -ladies) are brilliantly written by Byron Tully.

As an inside outsider (“nounou”, “babysitteur”), I could confirm that it’s generally true but in some cases (hope they are really exceptional) the Parisian children do throw food. Literally and figuratively. And when they do it, it is a disaster that no one is able to manage.

Ancient Greeks on a visit

Wow, gods, I appreciate your sense of humour! Are you kidding me??)) How come that Penelope calls me as Ariadne has recommended me to her? Ariadne, Ariane, the Cretan princess and – a comic actress. What a ridiculous, divine comedy: a comic actress who’s name is Ariadne and who lives in Montreuil passes a word about me (a house-lady, a servant) to her friend Penelope living in Montreuil too!

I live in a Greek mythic and comic world. Thank you so much, this made my day!

Eternal return

On my favorite French site, leboncoin, I post the same announcements. And – what can I expect? – all the same people are responding! The freak who lives in the 18th arrondissement, the one who wishes that a serious lady cleaned his 2 rooms flat while he’s naked, wrote me again. A Macedonian father of twins wrote me again as I propose “creative babysitting”! The eternal return, greetings to Nietzsche!

Hi, I’m back

Hi, I’m back to Paris from my Ukrainian winter holidays. There’s no winter this year in Kyiv and elsewhere: seems like Ukraine has become Europe, as there’s no snow in Europe too.

I’m back to my search for a better – financially – life. Got an annual stay permission allowing to look for a job during one year and to start working full-time but according to my education, or to create an enterprise (be self-employed). Got some ideas, but too lazy to start working on them… I also have to prepare my post-doc thesis for publication, but I’m not capable yet to return to the text. If they say I’ll not obtain my diploma if I don’t make the necessary corrections, there’ll be a good stimulus.

Meanwhile, I continue cleaning houses 🙂 I wish I had more work to do. Absence of work is demoralizing.

End of Studies

One week ago I defended my diploma. My studies are thus officially over. The defense procedure took place at Sorbonne, just in the middle of severe strike with heavy public transport disruptions. The procedure was hard, unfriendly, kind of a Kafkian process. The people engaged were rather from two different planets. One can merely imagine  h o w   d i f f i c u l t  life and studies can be for an ultimate foreigner in Paris.

I still haven’t any job. I’ve got only 35 euros earned yesterday cleaning a house of an Azerbaïdjan family in Enghien-les-Bains, 15 minutes from Gare du Nord.

The good news is that my diploma is ready in several months and that I’ll be in a regular situation in a few days as I managed to visit Prefecture de Police these days. There’s also a chance to visit Kyiv and see my beloved.