By Emily Sloan, ‘05
Fourth in a series about daily life in a small French village

Greetings from the Vosges! As I mentioned, the first few weeks of any new experience always seem to be the hardest for me, as my doubts about the entire situation overwhelm reason, and I wonder if I was too rash in deciding to come, what on earth I am really accomplishing here, and so forth.

I get this way almost every time one of these gigs begins, and experiences about which I was initially very dubious have almost always turned out to be wonderful. Now that I know this, I am working on developing patience. Fortunately for you, I’ve already gone through a lot of this uncertainty here in France and am starting to relax into my current situation.

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By Emily Sloan
Third in a series about daily life in a small French village

As promised, a few observations on the French relationship to the environment (based on a short stay as an ignorant American in one very small and possibly non-representative town in northeastern France). What the French seem to have down:

• Households tote their own garbage and recycling to public drop-off points located around the town.
• Grocery stores don’t give out plastic bags of any sort. They sometimes have heavy-duty plastic or canvas bags for sale, but most people either bring their own bags or transfer their groceries directly from the shopping cart to their cars.

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by Emily Sloan, ‘05
This is the second in a series about daily life in a small French village.

After living in a place for nine months, it’s almost impossible to recollect your initial impressions of it–what disappointed, amused, excited, differed from your expectations. So let me record mine, now that I’ve been in France a whopping 48 hours. Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport was chaotic. No one stamped my passport, or even looked at it, for that matter. I followed the general flow of passenger traffic and found myself at an information desk asking how to get to the train station on the east side of Paris. I usually pack light, but this time wanted to make myself comfortable in my new home for nine months, plus I brought camping, rock climbing and mountaineering gear. My huge backpacking bag rode on my back, of course. Then I hoisted my hefty duffel onto my knee and wrapped it around the back of my neck. Finally, I perched my little carry-on on top of the duffel. I’d guess the total weight was around 120 pounds (I weigh about 115).

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By Emily Sloan, ‘05
This is the first in a series about daily life in a small French village.

I’m flying to France this evening. Not for a two-week jaunt around the country, but for the entire school year. Not as a tourist, but as a bona-fide worker, complete with a visa stamped by the French embassy in Boston. This is the way I prefer to “travel.” Like most Americans, I sometimes take vacations, but I seem to be more frustrated than most people by the unavoidably superficial nature of tourist experiences. I always find myself wanting to get to know real people who live in an area, what they think, how they live, what they eat, what they value, and have found through a variety of experiences during the past few years that living and working in a place is a pretty good way to gain that insight.

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Original Post by Elli Caldwell, Nov. 22, 2006

• $138 billion in annual cost to the U.S. economy
• 30 million acres of federal land infested
• Two-thirds of all endangered species threatened by invasive species
• One of the most significant threats to global biodiversity

Clearly, invasive species have become one of the world’s most pressing environmental concerns. While SCA’s Native Plant Corps is working to combat this threat on our nation’s public lands, they can’t do it alone. So what can you do to help?

Stewardship starts in your own backyard. Compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists, here is a list of easy steps you can take to combat the spread of invasive species.

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