Le Travail.........vraiment???

So, despite interning for an awesome organization in Paris, I have made some observations about working in France.

It truly is very different from working in the United States. I don't want to say that the French are inefficient...OK, maybe I do. They simply have a mentality about working that is extremely different from ours.

My day is never very stressful in terms of being overloaded with work. I come into the office around 9:30, or 9:45, make myself a cafe, read the newspaper, check my mail and wait for the rest of the office to stroll in around the same time or after 10. I get a few tasks from my maitre de stage and work on them until 1pm we all take a one hour lunch. After lunch, I will make myself another cafe or a tea and get back to work. If I finish my stuff early, there isn't normally anything else for me to do so I can leave early. Or, if there are more things for me to do, I stay until around 6pm.

One of the hardest things about interning is not the work-load itself, but the socializing aspect of it. It is very hard to keep up with the day to day conversation, like during lunch time. Everyone speaks so so so so fast! Sometimes (or more often than not) I have no idea what they are talking about. It is exhausting to sit at a table or sit in our office and either pretend to know what they are saying and laugh along, or ask questions and interrupt people every two minutes in order to get the gist of it. Its truly exhausting either way.

The most frustrating part is the fact that I am 22 years old, I am out-going, intelligent and I can articulate myself.....but it's hard to be that same person in French. It's hard to show your personality in a different language. It's hard to make jokes and laugh along with everyone when you don't know exactly what they are saying (and pretending like you understand gets old very fast). I find myself just sitting back and listening more often than I ever would, if I was in the United States.

This is something that I was not expecting to experience. I have studied French for over 9 years, and four of those years was college level French. So far, this had made me realize truly how long it takes to become fluent in a language. Of course, I am learning a lot and my French is improving, but I thought I was going to return to the States semi-fluent. Now, I'm just realizing that that takes a lot longer than three months!

Despite the difficulty, my ear is starting to get accustomed to how fast they speak and I think I am slowly finding my way. I'm starting to ask more questions, and I'm trying to teach myself how to listen. Really, listen. It sounds silly, but it takes a LOT of concentration to truly listen to what they are saying in French. I'm working on it...slowly but surely. It helps that the people at my work are extremely understanding and encouraging. Haha..even though sometimes they laugh at me...they are very very kind.