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Friday, February 28, 2014

Friday Round-Up

With each passing week, it's more evident that Spring is on the way.. but where was our winter?! While my Texan body is happy for the reprieve from the intense cold we normally have, I'm also a bit disappointed. But now I get to enjoy warmer days and the quick-approaching Easter break when I get to go home for a week!
Here's to ice cream and picnics and summer breezes:)


Finally a totally positive tale- my summer adventures! Read them over at Andrea's blog.


It's lovely to have local farmlife:) 2 horses, 7 donkeys, and 3 cows.



You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the world, or the person you loved. 
-Stewart O'Nan

There are some dramatic changes going on in my life right now that sometimes make me want to just go home, but then I remind myself that I've been through worse and I just have to stay strong. When time goes on, the troubles I have now will become insignificant and I will be all the stronger for them. I have the support of many friends and family, and just the thought of that makes me laugh and cry with joy. I know God is watching over me and will deliver me as he has before; I need only to trust him.



 Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4)Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at WarTwenty in Paris: A Young American Perspective of Studying Abroad in Paris

Inheritance: I'm becoming addicted to my audiobooks! I can't believe I've been commuting in Geneva for months without having listened to them before. This is definitely one of my favorite series, and listening brings it to life.

Duty: I will not fall asleep. I will not fall asleep.

Twenty in Paris: I'm doing a read&review for Andrea, on whose blog I post once a week. I also got to read the first half of her soon-to-publish sequel, which was an honest look into the experience of studying abroad. I definitely think this book is the first of its kind, as it explores both the technical and emotional aspects of studying abroad, which I have yet to see on the market. It's a must-read for those young people looking to travel abroad for 3 or more months.


Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Bookmash No.3 : The Nanny Diaries

The Nanny Diaries

The wild girls, le temps des amours.
Unfortunate English...
Cross roads, les misérables.
The friendship factor!
Coming Home.

Thanks to the authors: Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Ursula K. Le Guin, Marcel Pagnol, Bill Brohaugh, Wm. Paul Young, Victor Hugo, Alan Loy McGinnis, and Rosamunde Pilcher.

I got this idea from Stan Carey (who does these much more brilliantly than I do! His last one is here), who was inspired by Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project.


Friday, February 21, 2014

Friday Round-Up

My school finally started back this week! And this semester, half of my classes are with native French speakers in a bachelors program, so I get a bit more diversity. Those upper classes are mostly about the science of learning and teaching languages, so it falls perfectly into my interests in linguistics!


Here's this week's post on Andrea's blog. It covers the last bit of my first year abroad in France:)


I went to Lucerne last weekend and I fell in love with their old town. Most of the buildings had murals like this, the streets were clean, there's a lovely historic bridge, there's the famous Lion Monument memorializing the Swiss Army's deaths in the French Revolution, and of course, there's a great view of the Alps. If only I could speak Swiss German, I would be tempted to move there! It will now be a favorite vacation spot:)



"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book."

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

I just finished this book a few days ago, and a quote from it perfectly sums up how I feel about it! It was amazing and it's a book that I will have to revisit regularly.




Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at WarInheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4)

Duty- I'll finish this one eventually... lolz.

Inheritance- Finally on the last book of this series! Ah! This is one of my favorite series, but for some reason never got around to finishing it when the final two books came out years ago. There's nothing like a good fantasy to distract you from reality:)


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Making Habits


I recently finished three 30 day challenges for my 101 in 1001 list, and they have served to instill good habits in me. They were to post on Instagram, to work on duolingo, and to read at least three news articles.

Instagram has been a kind of middle ground between my desire to share pictures from my life and my lack of time to organize full albums on Facebook. This way, I can share beautiful tidbits from abroad, and discover beautiful things from other people as well. My favorites to follow are usually landscape photographers, and this one amazing ballet instagram-er, who pulls images and videos from ballerinas in ordinary locations. I've easily kept up this habit since the goal's end, with the exception of a few days, and I enjoy it greatly.

For duolingo, I wished to instill a habit of practicing my French other than doing my necessary homework, and it was successful, but I've since fallen out of the habit. With a busy schedule and some annoyance with the site, I stopped after the goal's end, but I intend to start it back up.

With news, I have never been an avid reader, but I recognize more and more how irresponsible it is to be an adult and not follow the basic news of the world. I only ever read headlines before, but this goal founded the love of reading the news in me. I now have no hesitation to jump on a news site and scroll through the top news, reading several articles at leisure. I still feel behind, as I don't know the backstory of things currently going on, but I'm working through it.




Therefore, I highly recommend committing to a 30 day goal if there's something you aim to be better at, because it's very effective. Forcing yourself to do it everyday for a month puts you in a positive habit that is easy to continue. I also have several more things I plan to do 30 day goals with, like keeping my inbox clear and not drinking soda. 

Create good habits! I believe in you!




Tuesday, February 18, 2014

A closer look at the legal and psychological aspects of being an au pair

I’d like to respond to some great comments I had on last week’s posts concerning the negative aspects of being an au pair. To start with, I’ll talk about the impossibility of legal representation as an au pair, and then with the daily psychological reality.


Legal Representation

One reader, Bérénice, brought up the idea of starting an au pair labor union to preserve their rights, or at least finding free legal advice to deal with some basic situations. But this is largely impossible for several reasons:

1. Most au pairs come to the area with the goal of learning or perfecting their use of the local language, and therefore don’t know it well enough to either fight for their rights or explain their issues to someone in that language. Orders from the family were accepted without question because we didn’t know how to negotiate, or more importantly, what would happen if we refused or argued at all. And a lawyer will hardly have patience for a young foreigner who can barely explain the problem.

2. Coming from vastly different countries, we were totally unaware of the government hierarchy, what help was available to us, or how to find such help. If there was free legal aid available, we certainly didn’t know where to find it or even that it existed, and there is no existing labor union for au pairs, as it’s not a full-time or typically recognized job.

3. It’s extremely difficult to find the legal means against psychological abuse. Evidence of physical abuse or lack of nourishment or proper living arrangements is one thing, but moral and language and psychological bullying is hard to define and quantify, and even harder to defend. And any received legal advice for such a situation would probably be to leave, as there isn’t much else that can be done.



Psychological Harassment

It’s very difficult to describe what happens in a home as an au pair unless you’ve been one yourself; even hearing it described from multiple sources doesn’t quite do it justice. So, there are some things to take into consideration regarding the daily difficulties:

1. Your maternal tongue may not be spoken regularly at the house, leading to many miscommunications, unintentionally offensive responses, and misconstrued attitudes. A frequent saying with one of my friends was, “Yeah, my host mom told me to do this, but I don’t really know if it’s right cuz it was all in French and I don’t speak French.” Even though we did “speak French,” we would joke that we couldn’t at all because of our daily difficulties in understanding basic instructions and getting them horribly wrong.

2. When you do something wrong, you’re yelled at like a child, not the 20-something adult you are. Ok, so 20-something is very young, I get it, but it’s not so young that you deserve to be yelled at with your tail tucked between your legs. We are adults, but we rarely got such acknowledgement from our employers. To them, we were old babysitters looking for a free ride to Europe and incapable of basic life functions.

3. You have to live with your employer. Everyone has bad days at work- days when something goes wrong with the boss and you can’t wait to go home. But what if your workplace is your home? You can go in your room and close the door, but they are still there. You can run into them in the hallway on the way to the bathroom. They could unexpectedly knock on your door with instructions for the next day. Which means that you never really stop working, or at least that’s what it feels like. In your free time, you can get a text with a new task at any moment of the day, and you’re usually always woken early on the weekends by loud children. Your ringtone becomes the bane of your existence, and the family taking a weekend away is cause for endless celebration.

4. You’re usually too young and inexperienced and too far away from home to be able to fend for yourself or leave and figure things out. Getting a job abroad is scary and challenging and in a different language, so it’s “nice” to have a family to fall back on. But that also means that you don’t know that you’re allowed to speak out against them or find a better situation. Because, after all, if all your friends are unhappy, how could you possibly find something better? As I get older, I get better at defending myself, but I could never regret my responses at the time, because I did the best that I could.

5. They almost never ask how you’re doing, if you have fun plans, encourage you to get out and do things, etc. In the first few months, I was super excited to recount a new language opportunity or ask for help, but I quickly came to see that my host parents weren’t so enthusiastic in response. As the year progressed, I think they tired of having a young adult living with them, “invading” their family space, and so they simply never asked. But those questions are 100% necessary to the comfort and ease of someone living in the house, no matter who they are.

6. One commenter suggested to make sure to recognize your own faults and then you can proceed to a conversation about a problem. But that wasn’t the issue. We were doing things “wrong” so often that we were constantly trying to figure out what exactly the problem was, simply because we didn’t want to be yelled at again. But trust me, the parents would never ever ever admit that they did something wrong. If it was even suggested, it would be swept aside and a new fault of yours would be presented. We were always changing little tasks in our routine so that things would run more smoothly, but there was consistently some new problem every week without fail.




I understand very well that all au pair/nanny situations are different, and I’m so glad that there are good situations out there that put these kinds of families to shame. I babysat on weekends for some families that were heavenly and I wished I could work for them instead and I was grateful for the short reprieve. And I don’t regret my time as an au pair, as stressful as it has been. I have learned so much about different kinds of people and different ways of life, and it has helped me make decisions for my future. If I could, I would start a union for the young people in this field. But as I can’t, I can simply say that my heart goes out to them with sincere empathy, and I hope they grow from it and find peace with all the negativity. Some people on this earth don’t know how to respect others, but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us from sharing enough love to make up for any loss, and I hope to be a part of that love-building empire.


Friday, February 14, 2014

Friday Round-Up


Happy Valentine's Day!
I hope you all find some way to share some love today, be it with a significant other, a best friend, or a relative. Or if you're feeling particularly grumpy, here's grumpy cat to sympathize with you:


And now for a summary of cool things from this week:)


If you missed it, here's yesterday's post on the blog for Twenty in Paris
continuing my summary of my time abroad thus far.


An isolated shed found while on a walk near my house



"When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write because there is some lie I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing." George Orwell

This reminds me of the posts I wrote this week on being an au pair. I've wanted to spread the word about the largely unknown treatment of au pairs for a long time, and I was delighted at the conversation it sparked on Facebook. No matter how well I write about it or what people think about it, I'm just happy to put it on the discussion table.





Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at WarThe Fault in Our Stars

Duty- I'm about 1/3 of the way through this one, and it will probably still take a few weeks to finish. It's a dense read (political memoirs aren't necessarily the most compelling reads, no matter how much you're learning, haha), and I have class starting soon, but I have to just power through:)

The Fault in Our Stars- I just started this one as an audiobook, and I am loving the reader's performance. She brings out the humor of the book perfectly, and it already seems to me that seven hours of happy listening will not be long enough. I'm also really appreciating the honest views towards cancer, especially as I'm (fortunately) never really confronted with the topic.


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

An exposé on the underestimated drama of being an au pair: Part 2

For the first half of the post, see yesterday’s submission.


Sexual Harassment: I set the percentage as very low, but it should be zero. I heard a genuine story of a girl blackmailed into sexual relations with the father (she was originally made to believe he loved her), and the affair was going on in the home while the mother was actually present. And while originally searching for a position, I saw an ad for a recently divorced father looking for an au pair... who would also be willing to go to a nude beach and give him back massages, as he was also interested in a girlfriend. As for myself, my first year as an au pair was spent with awkward situations every day. The father would come down for breakfast every morning in only his briefs, and the mother would walk around in only her underwear in the morning while she got ready. I even walked in the bathroom once to find the father on the toilet, with the door wide open. If that doesn’t make for an uncomfortable living situation, I don’t know what would. And don’t forget: where there are paper-thin walls, there are uncomfortable noises at night. Coming from your employers.

Family Inclusion and Paperwork: The family is legally obliged to provide medical insurance under an au pair visa and contract, but they don’t always follow through. My first family signed the contract saying that it was provided, but I didn’t realize until the end of the year that it was probably never paid at all. The proof: my friend in a neighboring town with an insurance card and the knowledge that you only have medical insurance if you have that card, which I never did. Also, it’s always advertised that you’ll be “a part of the family,” but that’s truly laughable in most cases. Besides the fact that the au pair is an employee and not a big sister/brother is enough to begin with, but then add on family moments and family trips and family meals that are not open to the au pair whatsoever. Obviously, this is expected to an extent, but to go so far as the au pair feeling uncomfortable even living in the house?... That brings us to…



Depression, Anxiety, and Stress: I felt so disconnected from my first family within a month or two of starting that I quickly fell into a constant state of depression, feeling like I was stuck with no way out, and I was very stressed, being so uncomfortable with my job. At least two of my close friends who worked in the area went through the exact same problem at an equal or worse state than I did. Some fared better, but I doubt any have escaped frequent times like this. The feeling of being stuck comes from the high desire to live in Europe, etc., competing with the inability to fend for yourself in a new environment. We didn’t come to France speaking French fluently, didn’t even leave France speaking fluently, and didn’t know the laws, so we were unable to defend ourselves. Therefore, we were forced to stay where we were if we wanted to continue living abroad, and do whatever we had to do to appease our employers. This is the biggest caveat for au pairs: you are truly alone in dealing with the family. No matter how many friends are in the same situation, the only way out is to find a better family, which is always a tricky business. Because even if you have friends from the area who know the legal system to any extent, it's a hassle to try to follow anything through. At the end of the year, I had a private French teacher who helped me look up the official rules in terms of proper wages and holiday, but in a discussion turned argument with the family, I didn't gain anything.

Job Security: My fellow au pair friend has a sage piece of advice that I’ve heard from her many times for many au pairs: “Don’t ever be afraid to look for another job if things start to go bad, because even if you’re not sure, the family will never hesitate to fire you.” There are thousands of young people out there looking for any kind of babysitting job, and older people trained and experienced in the field, so if there’s any bad blood with the employers, they will not hesitate to find someone that complains less for more work. Greed and desperation is a nasty combination of employer and employee that will quickly destroy the employee if they don’t heed the warnings. The relationship with my host mother in my second family went sour so quickly that I started looking for other jobs after one month of being there. But only a few days after that, I was fired and forced into a time-pressed search for a new job in a crazy whirlwind. I was so incredibly lucky to have had many people offer their homes to me while I found something else, and did stay with two lovely ladies for two weeks during my short and sweet time jobless.

There are laws concerning au pairs, but the importance of an au pair in the general scale of employment is so low that legal proceedings almost never occur for them. Why would a poor young student pursue a family in court for mistreatment when it’s easier to find another job? Which means that the bad families are never punished for their actions and continue to hire unsuspecting young people.

Don’t get me wrong, there are good families out there. I know two girls who have stayed with their families longer than the one year standard because they were truly happy there, and one other who stayed longer simply for the chance to remain in Geneva and didn't have any huge problems. There are some families who seem to genuinely understand the role of an au pair and they respect it, and I’m so glad that there are such honest people out there. Unfortunately, most au pairs I've met appreciate their time spent abroad simply for the chance to live in another country, and not for the actual job or living situation. I’m currently with my third family, and while it’s the best situation so far, it’s still not perfect.



Therefore, if you know a young girl or boy looking to live abroad, I would suggest a study program rather than an au pair contract. It’s a very sticky situation, with little to no guidance for the au pair, and can be dangerous. Under what conditions would I approve of someone taking on an au pair job? I would generally say only if the au pair knows the family from a previous connection, and is therefore guaranteed a more fair position. (However, I met a girl who was about 30 years old, working for three months as an au pair for a good friend of hers, and she testified that she was treated just as badly as anyone else, despite their previous friendship.) Also to be taken under consideration is the duration of the job. All the aforementioned actualities are based on a one-year contract, but a short three-month job on a tourist visa could easily be an entirely different experience. A three-month stint would mean no legal or educational stress, no obligation to stay in a bad situation, and it would possibly have more of a general vacation feeling, as the job would be temporary.

It truly saddens me that this job position is so tainted, as it is so ripe with possibilities. To be able to live abroad at no cost- in fact, making money, and learning a language and making new friends… the possibilities seem endless. And they are to an extent, as friends are made, lessons are learned, places are traveled to, etc. But at what cost? From what I’ve seen, the cost is stick it out through any unhealthy situations. The only real solution is repeatedly changing families or finding another study solution, in order to maintain sanity while being a young person abroad. The dream is possible, but it’s not as cozy and sparkly as it seems on the plane ride over. However, I can at least say that I don’t regret my time as an au pair, because it has taught me so incredibly much in so many ways, and I definitely wouldn’t be who I am now without the experience.


Thanks to Marina Souza Silva for reminding me of important tidbits to include and her quote of wisdom.



Tuesday, February 11, 2014

An exposé* on the underestimated drama of being an au pair

*Double entendre intended. And again. ;)



Would I ever recommend being an au pair?

No. Unless under special circumstances.

Information disclosure: All opinions set forth in this topic are based on either personal experiences or first-hand accounts from au pairs in the general Geneva area of Switzerland and bordering France. They are not necessarily applicable to au pairs in other regions of France or Switzerland, nor anywhere else in the world. They are also not necessarily applicable to every individual au pair within the specified area, as variation is expected. The opinions are solely those of the au pair perspective, and not of the employers’. The standards set forth below are also based on a typical one-year contract, and other contract lengths have different implications both legally and personally.

          I can easily say that I had no idea what I was getting into when I came to France to be an au pair. And first, let me make the distinction between an au pair and a nanny. A nanny is a career position, full-time, and is often supported by childhood education and awarded with normal job benefits. An au pair is an exchange: part-time childcare for guidance in the language and culture of the host family. According to the rulebook, an au pair is a young student who lawfully works no more than 30 hours a week*, attends language classes, and is provided with a room in the house and food. What the rulebook doesn’t tell you, however, is how complicated even those basic guidelines can be, not to mention all the other subtleties of the job.

*The number of hours per week is variable according to the country. The general au pair contract guideline for France specifies it as 30, but a lot au pairs I knew actually worked on a basis of 20 hours per week. No matter the number, it is always specified in the individual contract between the family and the au pair, and the stated number is the lawful limit for that family, with respect for the overarching structure of France's basic rules.

Let’s start with some basic numbers (which I am inventing, based on all the au pairs I’ve known):

Likelihood that the au pair works no more than mandated hrs/wk: 50%
Fair wage for hours worked: 60%
Families that pay for the language classes: 90%
A room provided fulfilling basic privacy and study needs: 50%
Enough food for a normal diet available at any given time: 70%
Likelihood of proximity to/ability to easily travel to varied social activities: 60%
Likelihood of sexual embarrassment or harassment: 10%
Likelihood of genuinely feeling like a member of the family: 10%
Likelihood the family will help you with everything concerning paperwork, insurance, money handling, and contract specificities: 30%
Likelihood of depression and/or constant high-stress levels: 90%
Job Security: 30%





Hours and Wage: Most host families tend to be somewhat wealthy (in that they can afford an au pair in the first place), yet view the job of an au pair as menial or not a job at all. They often work au pairs easily 5 hours over the specified number, without extra pay, as they seem unaware of how much the au pair is really working. When overtime is acknowledged, it may be paid but not with the correct amount, or not at all. As for language classes, they are not technically required to be paid by the family. However, considering the cost of the courses and the general knowledge that students coming abroad are unable to pay such fees, it’s common knowledge that the family will cover the cost. But then again, some families are so “cheap” that they require the au pair to pay them, even though it goes against the status quo (and fair treatment, IMHO).

Lodging and Food: Surprising or not, some rooms are not adequate. They can be so close to the childrens’ rooms as to provide no serenity or privacy, and be unequipped with any type of working area for the student. In one case for me, my room was the coldest in the house, and I was very uncomfortable during the very long winter. And in that same room, the walls were so thin that I was asked to always keep my phone on silent because the normal-toned text alert was disturbing the mother. As for food, the families are often lazy about providing groceries; this means that if the family leaves for the weekend, they don’t necessarily think to stock the house with basic food for the au pair while they’re gone. (A weekly occurence in my first family was for the Wednesday nanny/maid to bring food to the house herself because there was never enough food to cook for all of us.) Or more commonly, that families will simply not call the au pair down for a meal at all, and the au pair goes without food completely until the family leaves the kitchen for the night, or just resides on snacks s/he has in their room, in order to avoid the awkward confrontation of being forgotten. (Really. One such meal of mine was two small applesauce pouches, a cupful of dried bananas, and some chocolate. For a friend, her family would frequently not have the concern to notice she was home on the weekends and therefore not provide food for her at all, so she slept off the hunger.)

Transportation: This is a subject particular to each au pair, but often overlooked. In Geneva, transportation availability is not generally a problem because of the public transportation system. However, for the au pairs on the outskirts of Geneva, one can suddenly feel as if the city is in an entirely different country because of the amount of time it takes to commute there. Oh, wait; it is! ;) Au pairs in France just over the border from Geneva (from where the only sources of amusement come), have to rely on buses that may come as infrequently as once an hour, stop running at midnight, and the stops may be spaced so far apart as to warrant a 10/15 minute walk to the nearest one. So, it becomes a problem to go out when it’s cold outside, the last bus leaves Geneva at midnight to get back home, and the ride in each direction can take as much as an hour from just the edge of Geneva. That’s a serious buzzkill if you’re not provided with a car, which is commonly not considered. And even if you are provided with a car, the gas cost can ruin your already measly paycheck.


For the continuation of this piece (including the ever-juicy section on sexual harassment), tune in tomorrow. See you soon, folks!


Friday, February 7, 2014

Friday Round-Up

Hello, all! This is my first Friday Round-Up, where I'll be gathering all the little things I'm currently working on. Since I'll have a weekly guest post on twentyinparis.net, I'll be including a link to that each Friday. In addition, I'll post my favorite Instagram picture of the week, a quote that applies to my current musings, and what books I'm currently reading. And when applicable, I'll update on completed 101 in 1001 items.

Have a great weekend, folks!

In case you missed it, here's my first guest post on Andrea's blog for her book! It's the first in a series summarizing my time abroad so far. There will be a new post every Thursday:)



Gorgeous clouds over a local school and church




Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.

Langston Hughes

I'm connecting with this quote this week because of all of my reflecting back on my time so far as an au pair and living abroad. It's a good way to remember what my dreams were when I first came here and what I still need to do to accomplish them. Big dreams carried me all the way to France, and I can't wait to see where they carry me next.




Brisingr  (The Inheritance Cycle, #3)Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Brisingr- I'm actually listening to this one via Audible, as my commutes into Geneva are at least 30 minutes, so it gives me lots of time to read by ear. It's a slightly different experience to listen to a book rather than read it, which has its pros and cons, but a great joy overall. I'll be done with this installment soon, and then be on to the fourth and final book! I started this series when Eragon first came out, so I'm glad to finally get around to finishing it.

Duty- As part of my effort to finally be a news-reading adult (more on that goal next week with a 101 in 1001 update), I started this political memoir. I'm definitely learning a lot, with the main lesson being that no matter what the media reports, the real story of how the inner government deals with war is much more complicated than any of us realize.