The Fuckits

I worked with a guy at MJH named Matt. Matt frequently had a disease he dubbed the "fuckits." You know you have the fuckits when you just don't care about the issues before you. The big issue before me is that my French sucks ass. I would put it more delicately, but really, it's best to just be honest about the situation. It's pretty bad. I can say more than I understand, but if you can't understand anyone, then it is hard to know what to say. We don't qualify to take French classes due to visa status, and we can't afford a tutor, so the majority of our French learning comes from metro posters. The other hard part is that there's a sort of constant feeling of being unwelcome. We don't speak the language, we don't know how the system works for things like health care and taxes, we don't get most cultural references, and the worst part is that because so many people here are from Quebec or at least Canada, there are very few people who understand what we are going through. They say really unhelpful things like, "Can't you take a French class?" And we're like, "A class! What a brilliant idea! It never occurred to us!" At first, we really wanted to try to assimilate ourselves and blend in. But now, we're feeling kind of worn down. We have definitely gone through moments where we feel like getting out of Quebec at all costs. In short, we've got the fuckits.


Anyway, this conundrum plus the adoption plus the financial crisis have all lead us to consider our options. Alex applied for jobs back in the US. But the real question is where do we want to be? We can't really decide what we want to do. Luckily, committees make these decisions, and we are basically stuck with whatever is offered. Staying here means not having to do another international move so soon. It means finishing our adoption faster. It means getting to spend more time with our new friends. But it also means a bigger day-to-day struggle. Getting out of here would mean being closer to friends and/or family. It would mean going back to a system--flawed as it may be--that we know how to navigate. We'd be back amidst cultural references that we understand. But maybe more significantly, it would end this Franglais experience. We'd be living in a country where we know how to communicate. And when you've got a bad case of the fuckits, that sounds awfully appealing.