Today marks my 3 month anniversary of living in La Roche, which sadly means only three months left, time is whizzing by. However as much as I am enjoying life here, I can't wait to head home for a holiday, and some proper British food. As great as French food may well be, I do miss milk that isn't UHT and many other things: pork pies, real sausages, roast potatoes (in fact all potatoes!), mince pies...all things that are unhealthy or that the French just don't cook as they should be cooked ("mashed" potato springs to mind here!).
The temperatures here have suddenly dropped very dramatically, 2 weekends ago we went to the beach for the afternoon and it was really mild, the boys were just wearing t-shirts, but now it is absolutely freezing. Many people seem to be catching colds and flu, although thankfully I seem to be immune thus far. What is amusing is how the French seem to over react to a simple cold, Marion went to the doctor for hers and came back armed with FIVE prescriptions! A throat spray, a nose inhaler, a liquid medicine and 2 types of tablets, all for a cold. And she's not the only one. I now feel very hard done by that when I went to the doctor about my knee I came out with only two types of pill! The family whose house I went to last night even have a bag, in which they keep their daily medicines, hanging on each member of the family's chair at the kitchen table, they're crammed full!
Last weekend all of us assistants had a meal together as some were leaving this week. We realised that we had lots to celebrate so during the course of the evening we progressed through the traditions of all our countries. We started wth Miguel's birthday (next week), followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve finishing up with the 6th of January. We ate food themed for each event in that order, starting with a birthday cake and finishing with a Spanish "King's cake", which had a small toy hidden inside. The best tradition was probably the Spanish New Year's Eve, where we did a countdown and then had to put a grape in our mouth for each month of the coming year for good luck! Very funny! Apparently it makes the kissing of relatives and friends to bid them a happy new year very difficult!
It is always interesting spending time with the assistants and I have come to notice that I seem to have much more in common with the Spaniards and French than the Americans. Living closer geographically seems to have more of a meaning that sharing the same mother tongue. I feel more European than I have ever felt before! On memorable quote from this week was Kendra (an American) who exclaimed "What on earth do they use these miniature wooden goblets for?" while holding an egg cup! We all collapsed with laughter!
At school it's been more of the same, in my IDD class we're certainly running out of ideas for things which are 100% English (ie. not practiced in another country in the world), we've come up with no sports but this week I had the bright idea of getting them to research wassailing! This is the same group of pupils who thought Morris Men were a bit batty and I think they have finally arrived at the conclusion that the English are mad, hanging toast on trees is pushing it a bit, I suppose! What was also quite amusing is that the pupils tend to forget that I speak French, so quite often talk among one another forgetting that I understand, "I think she's got her French wrong, she can't mean toast!" type comments!
Talking of pupils, I am feeling particularly old at the moment, I have come to realise that some of them were born in 1998. That feels like yesterday, I can't quite believe it!
I only have one day left of school this year, yay! Today we had the school Christmas lunch, and later I have the Christmas supper at the foyer, so I think I will be rolling into school tomorrow, feeling very full after a day of stuffing myself with more delicious French food than usual! The school Christmas lunch was particularly merry, wine was in full flow and we had a full cheese platter rather than our usual small selection (by small I mean 4 or 5!). The only thing missing was crackers and poor jokes!
It won't be a good thing if I am still full tomorrow, as in the afternoon we have a staff vs pupils handball match, preceeded by a mini performance by the members of staff, including me. They have chosen that this year's performance is to be circus and acrobatics, I really don't know why, as none of us are really very capable! (Which to be fair makes it all the more funny, the pupils will love it!). So every lunch time this week we've been rehearsing and now have a full act prepared. I'll have to see if I can get someone to film it tomorrow, I can't quite put into words what we're doing, you'll have to ask me about it in person! But it should be good fun though! The teachers keep saying to me that it's an excellent representation of typical French education, I'm not so convinced!
My assistant friend who are still here have been really lucky this week, they all work in lycees (sort of 6th form colleges) and their pupils are all demonstrating against an education reform, so haven't been going to lessons. They're really quite active with their demonstrations, they've fully blockaded the entrances to the lycees. The barricades are pretty impressive, and utterly impassable, I watched one teacher climb a fence further down to try and get in! They have megaphones, banners and have been marching around. Police have even turned up to keep everyone in order, there really are hundreds of them here. The reaction of the teachers at my college (where we're not demonstrating) seems to be mixed, some who have children who should be going to school are not pleased, while the others seem positively proud to see ex-pupils of ours demonstrating and keeping up French traditions! If you ask me it's just an excuse to not go to school for the last week of term and they all look rather cold sitting on the barricade all day!
School apart, I've been trying to get in a bit of Christmas shopping, but what with the current value of the euro, shopping in France has become much more expensive. However, on the occasion where I have made it to the till, I have been met with extortionately long waits: many of the French still pay for things by cheque and this takes quite some time, they really do need to get the hang of chip and pin. Then there is the extravagant process of gift wrapping, which is free in all the shops, and involves all sorts of papers, ribbons etc etc!
Our Christmas outing with the foyer was on Tuesday and we went to a laser quest, which was really good fun, and something that I turned out to be rather skilled at, surprisingly! My team won all 3 rounds and I was the top scorer overall, even beating the boss of the laser centre! He was not pleased to be beaten by an English girl! Maybe I was only good because I had my black netball hoodie on, with the hood up, no-one could see me at all in the dark!
Yesterday the classroom helper from the UPI class invited me to her apartment for the afternoon to do some French cooking with her and her sons. This was great fun, we made some iced French biscuits and the boys were really sweet. The little one, Victor, was extremely keen to learn English and dragged me to his room where he had a mini blackboard and sat himself down in front of it very expectantly! I thought I had succeeded in teaching him the colours, but as soon as his Dad asked him them he promptly forgot every single one. Probably a good thing I'm not actually a language assistant, judging by that experience I'm probably not very good! The Dad is a policeman here, so they live in the police headquarters, so I can officially say that I've spent the evening in a French police station!
So there you have it, my last entry in France of 2008. One day of school left, and then it's the Christmas holidays, yipeeeeeeee!!!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Unwillingly living life at a slower pace
The major event of the last few weeks, which has had impact on everything else, would be the bike accident I had last Wednesday. I was pedalling manically up hill as fast as I possibly could as I was late for a train, when I cycled smack bang into the back of a parked car! Woops, I simply didn't see it, I had my head down and my helmet on (always necessary when cycling abroad!) and the first thing I knew was everything was white. I'd hit a white car and gone over all 6 handlebars that my bike is conveniently equipped with! In doing so I hit my knee on one of them (not difficult when there are so many!) and really hurt it. Fortunately neither the car nor bike was damaged so I pedalled one footed to the station and caught my train. My knee caned but I thought I might have just been overreacting from shock rather than actual pain. Oh no, when I arrived in Les Sables I couldn't walk, so went straight to the doctors. He has given me various medicines but has warned me not to do any handball or cycling for at least 2 weeks. Not that I would be anyway, I could hardly walk all of last week and I still can't manage stairs, or any real bending. He also informed me that I ought to remember that the French drive on the left, what a joker! The knee is a real pain though (in both senses of the word), it's cut my social calendar down rather!
However I was still able to make it in high spirits to our Thanksgiving party last week, which was great fun. Kendra's parents and sister came over from the states, so we (the Spaniards and Claire, an American friend of Kendra's) celebrated together. It was certainly unique: for us, as none of us had celebrated Thanksgiving before; and for them, as I don't think they've ever had a Thanksgiving quite like it...! Between the 7 of us who live in La Roche, we hardly have any possessions, so supper, cooked in a Baby Belling, was served on an ironing board and eaten with the best crockery and finest silverware: paper plates, plastic cutlery and cups, whilst crowded round a make shift table and perched on whatever we could find! It was some picnic and we all really enjoyed ourselves. The best bit was definitely the pumpkin pies for pudding, yum yum, who knew that the inside of a pumpkin is so scrumptious? (Well, Americans, obviously!). We served it with squirty cream, which unfortunately ended up everywhere, and certainly very little in our mouths! A really fun evening!
Staying with the food theme, I genuinely had no idea how mayonnaise was made until recently, it's always just been something in a jar in the fridge. However the Spaniards don't buy mayonnaise, they make it themselves, I've never seen anything like it! And on a less positive note, at supper we all steal the butter to use for our breakfast, as we can't keep a block in our rooms as we have no fridge. I then put mine outside my window on the sill to keep cold, although it has been known to disappear (and get very wet)! Anyway, one day last week, I thought I'd forgotten mine, no big deal. A few days later, I took a load of washing out of the machine only to discover butter everywhere! I must have left it in my pocket! Grrr!
At school the Comenius project has finally started, two teachers went to a meeting in Italy last week (lucky them!) and were surprised to discover there that the other schools started work in September, so this has knocked us into gear. They couldn't believe that the Italians and Spanish had been organised enough to start before them, I, on the other hand, knowing the disorganisation of the school, was not surprised! La maitrise was there and I think she's expecting me to take part in most things, which is good as I will probably be running out of tasks to do in the library soon, there's only so many displays that can be done, plus the real librarian is returning from maternity leave on Monday, so the one I've been working with is sadly leaving.
Thinking about la Maitrise and also the doctor earlier, an observation that I have made during my time here is how formal the French are. La Maitrise shakes my hand every time I bump into her; the doctor shook my hand on arrival and when I left; and whenever you meet someone in a shop, you greet them formally, for example, "Bonjour Madame/Monsieur". And of course there's the endless kissing!
Back to the topic of school, I had my third newspaper appearance/mention this week, they love dropping in that there's a Comenius assistant at the school, whatever the occasion! I've got a nice little collection of cuttings coming along. Lessons are ticking along fine, although I did have an awful lesson with one of the European groups, we had to listen to one Beatles song ("She's leaving") on repeat for the entire hour so they could write down the lyrics. I'm not adverse to Beatles music, quite the contrary I like quite a bit of it, but this really was not a good choice of song, it was like an hour's torture! Keeping on the music theme, some pupils in my other Euro group were rather confused, they thought Madonna's song "Hung up" was all about a telephone! Oh and that reminds me, I was reading their English magazine, and there was an article on Peter Ash (a boy who I was at school with) and his hamster mobile phone charger. I couldn't believe it when I saw his photo there, such a small world!
There are certainly a couple of downfalls of not being able to cycle, firstly there's the speed, I've been late for school twice this week, completely underestimating how long it takes by foot. Secondly on the times I have been on time, I arrive at the same time as all the pupils and therefore get mixed in with their rabble, I've even been part of a group told off by the lollipop lady, who is usually very friendly towards me! And thirdly, following on from the problems I had when I arrived, I'm always very careful about letting the pupils know where I live, so this means that I have been taking complicated and lengthy detours home! Also, I had a scary walk back from Manu and Marta's the other night. I was walking along the pavement at about 1 am and there was absolutely no-one around (La Roche is dead at 10, let alone 1!) when suddenly I realised that there was a large Alsatian sitting on the verge, eeeek! I made a large circle right round him, luckily he just lifted his head and stared at me and I marched on rather quickly. Absolutely bizarre, I have no idea what he was doing there!
I had a tap at the door the other night from Florien, a German who lives here, he'd heard about my knee and kindly brought me a cream to rub on it. However the cream is meant for horses! How strange! I went to a circus evening on Monday, I spent 2 hours practicing juggling, as I was unable to do any of the activities because of my knee, I can now just about manage 4 balls. Florien also knows how to juggle so he has promised to teach me some tricks, they all look really hard though!
Life at the foyer has been eventful this week, 2 guys have been told to leave over separate incidents, we had a security guard in our corridor consistently all of last night regarding one of them, where the boy 3 doors down from me punched a security guard and smashed up his room and the CCTV camera. I don't think anyone on my corridor got much sleep that night! Otherwise all is well here, we had a yoga session last night which was nice and relaxing and did my knee some good, I hope! It is so frustrating being injured.
Only 2 weeks left of term until Christmas holidays! Things are getting more Christmassy, on the first of December decorations suddenly sprung up everywhere and classes are becoming more relaxed at school, which is nice. Reports of heavy snow in Britain are making me jealous, we've had nothing but rain here (for a change!). Hope you're out enjoying it all on my behalf!
However I was still able to make it in high spirits to our Thanksgiving party last week, which was great fun. Kendra's parents and sister came over from the states, so we (the Spaniards and Claire, an American friend of Kendra's) celebrated together. It was certainly unique: for us, as none of us had celebrated Thanksgiving before; and for them, as I don't think they've ever had a Thanksgiving quite like it...! Between the 7 of us who live in La Roche, we hardly have any possessions, so supper, cooked in a Baby Belling, was served on an ironing board and eaten with the best crockery and finest silverware: paper plates, plastic cutlery and cups, whilst crowded round a make shift table and perched on whatever we could find! It was some picnic and we all really enjoyed ourselves. The best bit was definitely the pumpkin pies for pudding, yum yum, who knew that the inside of a pumpkin is so scrumptious? (Well, Americans, obviously!). We served it with squirty cream, which unfortunately ended up everywhere, and certainly very little in our mouths! A really fun evening!
Staying with the food theme, I genuinely had no idea how mayonnaise was made until recently, it's always just been something in a jar in the fridge. However the Spaniards don't buy mayonnaise, they make it themselves, I've never seen anything like it! And on a less positive note, at supper we all steal the butter to use for our breakfast, as we can't keep a block in our rooms as we have no fridge. I then put mine outside my window on the sill to keep cold, although it has been known to disappear (and get very wet)! Anyway, one day last week, I thought I'd forgotten mine, no big deal. A few days later, I took a load of washing out of the machine only to discover butter everywhere! I must have left it in my pocket! Grrr!
At school the Comenius project has finally started, two teachers went to a meeting in Italy last week (lucky them!) and were surprised to discover there that the other schools started work in September, so this has knocked us into gear. They couldn't believe that the Italians and Spanish had been organised enough to start before them, I, on the other hand, knowing the disorganisation of the school, was not surprised! La maitrise was there and I think she's expecting me to take part in most things, which is good as I will probably be running out of tasks to do in the library soon, there's only so many displays that can be done, plus the real librarian is returning from maternity leave on Monday, so the one I've been working with is sadly leaving.
Thinking about la Maitrise and also the doctor earlier, an observation that I have made during my time here is how formal the French are. La Maitrise shakes my hand every time I bump into her; the doctor shook my hand on arrival and when I left; and whenever you meet someone in a shop, you greet them formally, for example, "Bonjour Madame/Monsieur". And of course there's the endless kissing!
Back to the topic of school, I had my third newspaper appearance/mention this week, they love dropping in that there's a Comenius assistant at the school, whatever the occasion! I've got a nice little collection of cuttings coming along. Lessons are ticking along fine, although I did have an awful lesson with one of the European groups, we had to listen to one Beatles song ("She's leaving") on repeat for the entire hour so they could write down the lyrics. I'm not adverse to Beatles music, quite the contrary I like quite a bit of it, but this really was not a good choice of song, it was like an hour's torture! Keeping on the music theme, some pupils in my other Euro group were rather confused, they thought Madonna's song "Hung up" was all about a telephone! Oh and that reminds me, I was reading their English magazine, and there was an article on Peter Ash (a boy who I was at school with) and his hamster mobile phone charger. I couldn't believe it when I saw his photo there, such a small world!
There are certainly a couple of downfalls of not being able to cycle, firstly there's the speed, I've been late for school twice this week, completely underestimating how long it takes by foot. Secondly on the times I have been on time, I arrive at the same time as all the pupils and therefore get mixed in with their rabble, I've even been part of a group told off by the lollipop lady, who is usually very friendly towards me! And thirdly, following on from the problems I had when I arrived, I'm always very careful about letting the pupils know where I live, so this means that I have been taking complicated and lengthy detours home! Also, I had a scary walk back from Manu and Marta's the other night. I was walking along the pavement at about 1 am and there was absolutely no-one around (La Roche is dead at 10, let alone 1!) when suddenly I realised that there was a large Alsatian sitting on the verge, eeeek! I made a large circle right round him, luckily he just lifted his head and stared at me and I marched on rather quickly. Absolutely bizarre, I have no idea what he was doing there!
I had a tap at the door the other night from Florien, a German who lives here, he'd heard about my knee and kindly brought me a cream to rub on it. However the cream is meant for horses! How strange! I went to a circus evening on Monday, I spent 2 hours practicing juggling, as I was unable to do any of the activities because of my knee, I can now just about manage 4 balls. Florien also knows how to juggle so he has promised to teach me some tricks, they all look really hard though!
Life at the foyer has been eventful this week, 2 guys have been told to leave over separate incidents, we had a security guard in our corridor consistently all of last night regarding one of them, where the boy 3 doors down from me punched a security guard and smashed up his room and the CCTV camera. I don't think anyone on my corridor got much sleep that night! Otherwise all is well here, we had a yoga session last night which was nice and relaxing and did my knee some good, I hope! It is so frustrating being injured.
Only 2 weeks left of term until Christmas holidays! Things are getting more Christmassy, on the first of December decorations suddenly sprung up everywhere and classes are becoming more relaxed at school, which is nice. Reports of heavy snow in Britain are making me jealous, we've had nothing but rain here (for a change!). Hope you're out enjoying it all on my behalf!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A weekend in Paris
Last weekend Dad popped over the channel and I met him in Paris for the weekend. Paris was the same as ever, beautiful and freezing! The past 2 times I've been there have been in January and February, and it has always been so cold, this trip was no exception, although the cold was a bit more worthwhile this time, as we did get to enjoy snow on Sunday afternoon, yay!
I took a train after school on Friday (I still laugh whenever I say that phrase, I feel like I'm 12 again!!) and arrived in Paris that evening. I hopped on the metro and was serenaded by a tuneless busker, nice! When I arrived Dad and I headed straight out for something to eat, and ended up in a small restaurant down some side street. It turned out that we'd gate-crashed some poetry night, where a few locals gather together and recite their works! This was hilarious, for starters they were an odd bunch, a complete mixture of French characters (there were twiddly moustaches in abundance!) and secondly I'm pretty sure most what they'd written was a load of rubbish (here's where I find out I actually went to a private recital of a famous French poet!). But they took it very seriously and we were shushed many a time!
Talking of moustaches, on my way home I captured probably my best photo yet of a typical French moustache! I may post it on here at a later date!
On Saturday we left the hotel early and headed for what my guide book described as a flea market. The goods were more what I'd expect to find on the White Elephant stall at the village fete, but it was fun rooting through the junk and we stumbled on a few interesting old bits and pieces. Nothing worth paying the extortionate prices for though. We then headed straight to the centre of Paris and visited all the usual tourist hot spots: we climbed the Arc de Triomphe, from which the view was amazing and I enjoyed watching a car circulate round twice before the driver eventually pulled in and seemed to have given up hope of getting anywhere! We then walked down the Champs-Elysees to the Louvre. Then on from the Louvre we walked all the way across Paris to the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre. This was the early afternoon and, like La Roche, Paris was surprisingly empty, there really was practically no-one about in the back streets.
On arrival at Sacre Coeur, however, we were met by the crowds! It was a beautiful, clear day and everyone had come to take photos. We walked on beyond Montmartre, away from the masses, to what is claimed to be the world's largest flea market. We browsed through all the goods, lots of interesting and bizarre pieces, mainly very overpriced. I can well imagine lots of American tourists buying token French pieces, an ugly bit of furniture can look a lot better when accompanied by "I picked that piece up at a flea market in a quartier of Paris!" We rooted round boxes of all sorts of things, the funniest being a 2p piece that we found, they were trying to sell it for a few euros!!! Last thing I knew the exchange rate wasn't that high!
We then headed back and had supper in a restaurant called "The Frog and the British Library", great name! Although incidentally, during my time here I've come across many French people who don't know that our nickname for them is frogs. How many of us know we're called Rosbif, I wonder?! They played the France-Australia rugby game, so that was fun to watch surrounded by the French, all very angry with the result!
On Sunday morning we hired bicycles and cycled right along the length of the Seine, from the far east to the Eiffel Tower, taking photos of many sights, including Notre Dame etc en route. Many a beautiful view, although it was bitterly cold, the snow was coming! On arrival at the Eiffel Tower we stopped to take a photo and I was accosted by the Chinese for photos! I couldn't believe it, in China I could (sort of) understand their obsession, there were simply no Westerners in some areas. But in Paris?! We were surrounded by them, why on earth they pounced on me I don't know! I am officially declaring myself as a Chinese pin-up!
We then cycled extremely hazardously round the Arc de Triomphe, I was beeped at a few times, but we both made it off the roundabout scratch free! We then left our bikes at the top of the Champs-Elysees and walked down, until I remembered that I'd left my camera in the basket, yikes! So I absolutely sprinted all the way back up (it's actually up-hill, and I've just googled it, it's 2km in length!) and down the side street where we'd left them, and unbelievably it will still there. Thank goodness for quiet Parisian side streets. I may well moan about how quiet France is on a Sunday, but in this instance I was very thankful, it must have been there for about half an hour. Phew!
We then walked all the way back down the avenue and surprise surprise I bumped into a Hannah, one of my old netball friends from York, we couldn't believe it, what are the chances of that?! Such a small world! We then moved on to the Pompidou Centre, so that I could get a photo of supposedly the ugliest building in Paris, I didn't really think it was that bad, perhaps it was a bit modern for its time, but it doesn't look to out of place nowadays.
So that pretty much sums up my whistle stop trip to Paris, as I had to head back early so as to avoid the strike. Today there is a strike of TV reporters, so that means we've seen 3 strikes in the past week, not bad going! According to Cecile, French teachers are really the professionals when it comes to strikes, so I can hope for a few more this year!! Apparently a proposition has been made for all workers in France to go on strike in the new year, this just strikes me (ha what a pun!) as an opportunity for a public holiday, how can everyone strike at once?! We will see!
I took a train after school on Friday (I still laugh whenever I say that phrase, I feel like I'm 12 again!!) and arrived in Paris that evening. I hopped on the metro and was serenaded by a tuneless busker, nice! When I arrived Dad and I headed straight out for something to eat, and ended up in a small restaurant down some side street. It turned out that we'd gate-crashed some poetry night, where a few locals gather together and recite their works! This was hilarious, for starters they were an odd bunch, a complete mixture of French characters (there were twiddly moustaches in abundance!) and secondly I'm pretty sure most what they'd written was a load of rubbish (here's where I find out I actually went to a private recital of a famous French poet!). But they took it very seriously and we were shushed many a time!
Talking of moustaches, on my way home I captured probably my best photo yet of a typical French moustache! I may post it on here at a later date!
On Saturday we left the hotel early and headed for what my guide book described as a flea market. The goods were more what I'd expect to find on the White Elephant stall at the village fete, but it was fun rooting through the junk and we stumbled on a few interesting old bits and pieces. Nothing worth paying the extortionate prices for though. We then headed straight to the centre of Paris and visited all the usual tourist hot spots: we climbed the Arc de Triomphe, from which the view was amazing and I enjoyed watching a car circulate round twice before the driver eventually pulled in and seemed to have given up hope of getting anywhere! We then walked down the Champs-Elysees to the Louvre. Then on from the Louvre we walked all the way across Paris to the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre. This was the early afternoon and, like La Roche, Paris was surprisingly empty, there really was practically no-one about in the back streets.
On arrival at Sacre Coeur, however, we were met by the crowds! It was a beautiful, clear day and everyone had come to take photos. We walked on beyond Montmartre, away from the masses, to what is claimed to be the world's largest flea market. We browsed through all the goods, lots of interesting and bizarre pieces, mainly very overpriced. I can well imagine lots of American tourists buying token French pieces, an ugly bit of furniture can look a lot better when accompanied by "I picked that piece up at a flea market in a quartier of Paris!" We rooted round boxes of all sorts of things, the funniest being a 2p piece that we found, they were trying to sell it for a few euros!!! Last thing I knew the exchange rate wasn't that high!
We then headed back and had supper in a restaurant called "The Frog and the British Library", great name! Although incidentally, during my time here I've come across many French people who don't know that our nickname for them is frogs. How many of us know we're called Rosbif, I wonder?! They played the France-Australia rugby game, so that was fun to watch surrounded by the French, all very angry with the result!
On Sunday morning we hired bicycles and cycled right along the length of the Seine, from the far east to the Eiffel Tower, taking photos of many sights, including Notre Dame etc en route. Many a beautiful view, although it was bitterly cold, the snow was coming! On arrival at the Eiffel Tower we stopped to take a photo and I was accosted by the Chinese for photos! I couldn't believe it, in China I could (sort of) understand their obsession, there were simply no Westerners in some areas. But in Paris?! We were surrounded by them, why on earth they pounced on me I don't know! I am officially declaring myself as a Chinese pin-up!
We then cycled extremely hazardously round the Arc de Triomphe, I was beeped at a few times, but we both made it off the roundabout scratch free! We then left our bikes at the top of the Champs-Elysees and walked down, until I remembered that I'd left my camera in the basket, yikes! So I absolutely sprinted all the way back up (it's actually up-hill, and I've just googled it, it's 2km in length!) and down the side street where we'd left them, and unbelievably it will still there. Thank goodness for quiet Parisian side streets. I may well moan about how quiet France is on a Sunday, but in this instance I was very thankful, it must have been there for about half an hour. Phew!
We then walked all the way back down the avenue and surprise surprise I bumped into a Hannah, one of my old netball friends from York, we couldn't believe it, what are the chances of that?! Such a small world! We then moved on to the Pompidou Centre, so that I could get a photo of supposedly the ugliest building in Paris, I didn't really think it was that bad, perhaps it was a bit modern for its time, but it doesn't look to out of place nowadays.
So that pretty much sums up my whistle stop trip to Paris, as I had to head back early so as to avoid the strike. Today there is a strike of TV reporters, so that means we've seen 3 strikes in the past week, not bad going! According to Cecile, French teachers are really the professionals when it comes to strikes, so I can hope for a few more this year!! Apparently a proposition has been made for all workers in France to go on strike in the new year, this just strikes me (ha what a pun!) as an opportunity for a public holiday, how can everyone strike at once?! We will see!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Only In La Roche!
I've now hit the two month mark! On the one hand it feels like time's ticking by very slowly and that I've been here since forever, I've passed the stage where things are new and exciting and French is a novelty (although having said that some things never cease to amaze me, I still have enough material for a regular blog!). However, on the other hand, yikes a third of the way through, I don't want the easy life to end, Germany is going to be hardcore (I've hardly spoken a word of German since June) and I have a mammoth essay to write before then, which I haven't even started contemplating. Eeeek! I shan't let that get in the way of my fun though, it's not assessed!
I actually had some school at the end of last week and it was very hard to get back into, I just don't suit 8am starts! On Friday in my IDD class an interesting point came up, some pupils wanted to do some work at home for their project (which lasts until February) and they were actually forbidden by the teacher, I couldn't believe it. The reason being that according to the teacher this would be unfair on those who don't have a computer at home. The French principle of equality taken too far if you ask me. If the pupils want to do extra work, let them, it's not often that pupils are so keen! Plus those that don't have a computer are perfectly capable of going to the mediatheque if they like.
On Friday I also went to a sort of history club, there's a nationwide competition that the children are going to enter and I am hoping to help them with their work. Fortunately it just so happens that the subject is the Resistance, which I actually studied myself at A Level, what are the chances! All that work might actually come in useful, not that I can remember any of it. Think I might be spending my Christmas holidays swatting up on my old notes! They're also hoping that I might be able to translate any German that they come across into French, hmmm not so sure about that!
In my European studies class we were discussing mobile phones and I was highly surprised that only 12 out of the class actually had one, these pupils are 15 years old. I can't decide whether that would be the same in the UK (I don't think so), or if the French are less inclined than us to use technology. They're certainly not as open as us about giving their telephone number out and there's practically no technology at school, not even OHPs in all classrooms! And they've only just got a network installed on the computers.
One other note from school is that in English on Monday we were discussing personalities and I mentioned "organiser" and the pupils misheard and thought that I described myself as a "womaniser". That was pretty funny!
The rest of my days at work have been fine, all is ticking along as normal there, although we do have inspectors in this week which is stirring things up a bit! We also have a strike tomorrow, so I will get another day off! I do love it when the French go on strike! It's practically the national sport! However I may eat my words later in the week, I'm going to Paris for the weekend and apparently there's a train strike on Sunday, so I might not be able to get back, fingers crossed all will be ok.
On Friday night all of us assistants went round to Manu and Marta's for a typical Spanish meal that they made for us all. We had a bit of a fright the night before when we misheard Marta saying that she'd "started cooking" for "started cocaine" but all was well! In fact, it was absolutely delicious, we had tortillas, a gazpacho-like soup, croquetas, a delicious chocolate pudding and some nice salads. Am definitely going to have to get the recipes and learn to make all of that!
The weekend was pretty quiet, just generally hanging out, I've been playing lots of cards and watching "Qui veut gagner des millions", no prizes for guessing that show (incidentally, they have 4 life lines, the slackers!) and Pop Idol (notoriously bad!). Things got more exciting on Monday night, I had a hilarious time! I will explain all...There is a serious problem with birds in town, there are quite simply thousands and thousands of starlings, everywhere. They swoop around in hoards of several hundred, make an absolute racket and really, really smell. So admittedly they are a bit of a local pest and problem for the council. However I don't think that the solution proposed by the council is the best! They've held annual "bird scaring" nights for the past 2 years (the fact they've had them before probably shows the inefficiency of this solution!). We got a leaflet informing us that twice a day, at specific times, all residents should leave their houses and make as much noise as possible! The first of these sessions was on Monday, so of course we went along, keen to join in the fun! And what fun it was! I took a couple of bottles to bash together, but we saw and heard everything from whistles to saucepans to cymbals to metal watering cans to drums and tap taps, provided free by the council. There was also an industrial wind blower driving up and down the street, a man with a megaphone playing a recording of some sort of predator bird and to cap it off fireworks being set off in the street aimed straight at the trees or generally anywhere, talk about lack of health and safety regulations! It was just a mad racket, and of course the birds were very disturbed and flew around wildly, adding to the pandemonium! To think that the council workers were paid to do this! It can only have taken place in La Roche, France! Mind you, it will be interesting to see the consequences, I will keep you informed. On another note, what also interested me, was that there were absolutely know protesters, surely in England there would be RSPB supporters out?
Here at my residence we are making a calendar to sell to raise money for a charity fund we have. Every month there is a themed photo with the residents who have a birthday in that month. So Tuesday night was the turn of August, and me of course. Unsurprisingly (as females are extremely outnumbered here), I am the only girl with an August birthday. So we decided that for our shot (which is beach themed) we should all wear beach clothes and the boys would hold me lying across their arms, we'll then photoshop the picture onto a beach scene. We shot the photos last night, which was really funny, fortunately they were strong enough to carry me! It was also outrageously cold, it is nearly December after all. Hopefully I'll be able to buy a copy of the finished product!
It is also "International Solidarity" week here at the residence, so this evening our meal was themed by country (they do love this sort of thing, it's rather like our European week at school was!). The starter was British...it was "Cornish Pasties"! Now firstly, I'm pretty sure it's not normal to have pasties as a starter, very weird concept if you ask me! But secondly, they weren't Cornish Pasties at all! Rather more like a squashed square sausage roll, the filling was just meat (no potato, carrot or swede!) and not even the sort you find in a pasty normally. So I was disappointed (although in retrospect, I don't know why I was actually expecting a genuine pasty, they were bound to get it wrong, especially serving it as a starter!), but it was funny none the less, I just wonder where on earth they got the recipe from!
Well that's the lot for now, I'm just wondering what to do with the rest of my evening, it still feels very odd not to be out on a netball social on a Wednesday night, my body clock is actually set to arrive at Ziggy's in 3 minutes time....!
I actually had some school at the end of last week and it was very hard to get back into, I just don't suit 8am starts! On Friday in my IDD class an interesting point came up, some pupils wanted to do some work at home for their project (which lasts until February) and they were actually forbidden by the teacher, I couldn't believe it. The reason being that according to the teacher this would be unfair on those who don't have a computer at home. The French principle of equality taken too far if you ask me. If the pupils want to do extra work, let them, it's not often that pupils are so keen! Plus those that don't have a computer are perfectly capable of going to the mediatheque if they like.
On Friday I also went to a sort of history club, there's a nationwide competition that the children are going to enter and I am hoping to help them with their work. Fortunately it just so happens that the subject is the Resistance, which I actually studied myself at A Level, what are the chances! All that work might actually come in useful, not that I can remember any of it. Think I might be spending my Christmas holidays swatting up on my old notes! They're also hoping that I might be able to translate any German that they come across into French, hmmm not so sure about that!
In my European studies class we were discussing mobile phones and I was highly surprised that only 12 out of the class actually had one, these pupils are 15 years old. I can't decide whether that would be the same in the UK (I don't think so), or if the French are less inclined than us to use technology. They're certainly not as open as us about giving their telephone number out and there's practically no technology at school, not even OHPs in all classrooms! And they've only just got a network installed on the computers.
One other note from school is that in English on Monday we were discussing personalities and I mentioned "organiser" and the pupils misheard and thought that I described myself as a "womaniser". That was pretty funny!
The rest of my days at work have been fine, all is ticking along as normal there, although we do have inspectors in this week which is stirring things up a bit! We also have a strike tomorrow, so I will get another day off! I do love it when the French go on strike! It's practically the national sport! However I may eat my words later in the week, I'm going to Paris for the weekend and apparently there's a train strike on Sunday, so I might not be able to get back, fingers crossed all will be ok.
On Friday night all of us assistants went round to Manu and Marta's for a typical Spanish meal that they made for us all. We had a bit of a fright the night before when we misheard Marta saying that she'd "started cooking" for "started cocaine" but all was well! In fact, it was absolutely delicious, we had tortillas, a gazpacho-like soup, croquetas, a delicious chocolate pudding and some nice salads. Am definitely going to have to get the recipes and learn to make all of that!
The weekend was pretty quiet, just generally hanging out, I've been playing lots of cards and watching "Qui veut gagner des millions", no prizes for guessing that show (incidentally, they have 4 life lines, the slackers!) and Pop Idol (notoriously bad!). Things got more exciting on Monday night, I had a hilarious time! I will explain all...There is a serious problem with birds in town, there are quite simply thousands and thousands of starlings, everywhere. They swoop around in hoards of several hundred, make an absolute racket and really, really smell. So admittedly they are a bit of a local pest and problem for the council. However I don't think that the solution proposed by the council is the best! They've held annual "bird scaring" nights for the past 2 years (the fact they've had them before probably shows the inefficiency of this solution!). We got a leaflet informing us that twice a day, at specific times, all residents should leave their houses and make as much noise as possible! The first of these sessions was on Monday, so of course we went along, keen to join in the fun! And what fun it was! I took a couple of bottles to bash together, but we saw and heard everything from whistles to saucepans to cymbals to metal watering cans to drums and tap taps, provided free by the council. There was also an industrial wind blower driving up and down the street, a man with a megaphone playing a recording of some sort of predator bird and to cap it off fireworks being set off in the street aimed straight at the trees or generally anywhere, talk about lack of health and safety regulations! It was just a mad racket, and of course the birds were very disturbed and flew around wildly, adding to the pandemonium! To think that the council workers were paid to do this! It can only have taken place in La Roche, France! Mind you, it will be interesting to see the consequences, I will keep you informed. On another note, what also interested me, was that there were absolutely know protesters, surely in England there would be RSPB supporters out?
Here at my residence we are making a calendar to sell to raise money for a charity fund we have. Every month there is a themed photo with the residents who have a birthday in that month. So Tuesday night was the turn of August, and me of course. Unsurprisingly (as females are extremely outnumbered here), I am the only girl with an August birthday. So we decided that for our shot (which is beach themed) we should all wear beach clothes and the boys would hold me lying across their arms, we'll then photoshop the picture onto a beach scene. We shot the photos last night, which was really funny, fortunately they were strong enough to carry me! It was also outrageously cold, it is nearly December after all. Hopefully I'll be able to buy a copy of the finished product!
It is also "International Solidarity" week here at the residence, so this evening our meal was themed by country (they do love this sort of thing, it's rather like our European week at school was!). The starter was British...it was "Cornish Pasties"! Now firstly, I'm pretty sure it's not normal to have pasties as a starter, very weird concept if you ask me! But secondly, they weren't Cornish Pasties at all! Rather more like a squashed square sausage roll, the filling was just meat (no potato, carrot or swede!) and not even the sort you find in a pasty normally. So I was disappointed (although in retrospect, I don't know why I was actually expecting a genuine pasty, they were bound to get it wrong, especially serving it as a starter!), but it was funny none the less, I just wonder where on earth they got the recipe from!
Well that's the lot for now, I'm just wondering what to do with the rest of my evening, it still feels very odd not to be out on a netball social on a Wednesday night, my body clock is actually set to arrive at Ziggy's in 3 minutes time....!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Time flies while you're having fun
Can't believe it's been another 2 weeks since I last wrote and that I'm nearly 2 months in. The holidays flew by, as they always do. So I spent the first part in York which was just great, really great. I shan't go into much detail but I will share some advice with you that I learnt en route. Ryanair only permit one item of hand luggage, and that includes anything bought in duty free. I didn't realise this, so bought a couple of bottles of wine as presents plus some lunch while waiting for my flight to the UK. I then read the sign. Eeeek, my suitcase was already jam packed full, what to do? There was no way I was leaving the wine behind. So I headed to the baby changing room (a practical choice, it had a table and I could lock the door so no-one would see the contents of my suitcase!). There I took out various items of clothing and put them on, thus creating more space, although making me rather hot and much larger! There still wasn't quite enough space, so I started stuffing my coat pockets with all manner of things, wash bag, phone charger...! Success! Although I must have looked an absolute picture especially when I removed everything into a plastic bag as soon as I'd boarded!
I missed York massively for my first few days back here, especially as most people here were either working or also on holiday elsewhere. But then I made contact with the Spanish assistants and we met up to play afternoons of poker and a German dice game (Knoeffel?!). I've been hanging out with them lots ever since and we've been having great fun. It's not doing my French any good, but my Spanish is coming along a treat! I've also recently met a collection of interesting Americans, a couple of whom also live in La Roche so we've also met up for a night of card games, I taught them Irish snap which went down a treat, although Marta believes she may have broken her finger in doing so!
I also spent a lot of the holiday hiring films and books from the "mediatheque" (sorry for lack of accents, blog won't permit them!). A mediatheque is basically a glorified library, where you can hire almost anything: books (more comic books than I've ever seen in my life!), films, cds, magazines, newspapers, and even paintings and sculptures, all for free! The staff there are starting to get to know me rather too well (as are those in the post office and tourist information centre!) and are extremely lax about when things must be brought back, they don't renew items, rather wave their hands and say next week will be fine!
As you may have gathered I've hardly been at school recently, I had 12 days off, then 2 days back, and then another 5 days off for Armistice, they created a long weekend out of it! So in 3 weeks I'll have been at school for 4 days, and always Thursdays and Fridays, I won't have had my Tuesday classes for a month. Crazy! This is the life, and it'll be even better when the strike starts! Talking of Armistice, I've had a poppy on this past week and I keep being complimented on my pretty brooch, the French don't wear the poppy as a symbol so think it's a new fashion accessory of mine!
My days back at school have been fine, in my European class they've been doing restaurant roleplays and we had one 14 year old boy dressed up in a pinny as the English waitress, extremely funny! And in my IDD class, where they're doing profiles of traditions of English speaking countries, I showed 2 girls a video of some maypole and Morris dancing on the internet. They found it absolutely hilarious and before I knew it half the class were watching and laughing! Admittedly the video was rather funny, jolly accordion music; lots of women wearing outrageous dresses made out of curtain material, smiling a little too much; men waving hankies with jangly bells on socks..., but I was surprised at the popularity of it amongst my pupils none the less. I suppose taken out of context it does look like a rather eccentric British custom! Thank goodness there's no video of me in my "Merry Maid" days, I think my pupils would lose all the respect they have for me! Another pair were studying Scottish food, apparently the "deep friend man bar" is popular in Glasgow, an absolutely brilliant mistake I thought!
Just an additional note, as a follow up to the entry where I mentioned funny names my pupils have, I have met a Muriel, a Margot a Pauline and an Ingrid this week at school!
Lessons apart, I'm still filling the other hours in the library, now that European week is over we've now moved on to Science week, which is at the end of this month, so I'm trying to think of fun displays on energy and transport. The European week was a great success, it even had a write up in the paper, and I got a mention! I'll be keeping a copy of that one. Plus the deputy has asked us to leave up all the displays for next week as we have inspectors coming and he wants to impress them!
Out of school, I've finally started playing handball! I returned to the leisure club and have joined in the training sessions, the men have all been really nice and I even went for a beer with them all in the club house after last week's session! I was still the only female, out numbered 12:1! However, I also went to the women's last week for the first time, they were really nice, a bit like a rowdy hockey club! Interestingly at least 50% of them wear knee supports, so I fit in well, even if it does mean that it's probably a high risk sport for knees, then again I don't think I'm quite at the level where I will be scoring goals by jumping into the air and sliding across the floor just yet! They've also taken to shouting random words at me in English whenever possible, for example when we stop for a water break someone will shout "DRINK LAURA DRINK" at me across the room even though I understand perfectly well what's going on! Very funny! They're all very good, I think it will take a long time for me to get up to a decent level but it's something to do, and of course I need to exercise to burn off all the delicious French food I'm still enjoying!
Talking of food, I sampled both snails and frogs' legs for supper last week! After the conversation class with Quentin, his mum (Marie, the science teacher from school) served them up, it's been a long standing joke that I must try them while in France, so now I have. And they actually weren't that bad! Well the snails weren't, I didn't take so well to the frogs' legs, particularly as we'd got onto the topic of all the dissections she'd had to do while training to be a science teacher! I polished off about 15 snails as my starter, they were in their shells and she'd filled the top with a sort of garlic butter, and I then had to use a cocktail stick to spike them out. It was rather fun, I just didn't think too much about what I was eating! I was a lot more squeamish with the frogs' legs; for starters there wasn't much meat so I had to nibble around the bones and quite often snap them at the knee joint, which I didn't like at all! They too were covered in garlic and I absolutely stank afterwards, and still the next day, I certainally know why the French have a reputation of eating garlic! Ah well, another thing ticked off my "Things to do in France" list! She took some photos and so hopefully she'll give them to me soon and I can put them up.
Charlotte and I had fun the other night, we made 31 crepes, the volume of pancakes reminded me distinctly of one of my favourite children's books, "There's no such thing as a dragon!". It was Yooshy's birthday so we had a mini party in the kitchen with plenty of French food and wine. After making so many I think I can declare that I now know how to make the perfect French crepe, Pancake Day round mine next year!
On Sunday I went with the Spaniards and Americans to Vendee Globe, which is the round the world boat race that leaves from here, it's the one that Ellen MacArthur is famous for doing. It is probably the biggest event of the year here, there were over half a million people expected, and my goodness, it was mad! There were people standing on cars, post boxes, telephone boxes and goodness knows what else in order to get a good view of the boats leaving the port. This year (it runs every 4 years) there are only 2 women entering the race and both of them are British. After the departure we went round the American's apartment and ended up staying the night too, as it was a Sunday trains back (as ever in Frnace) were next to impossible, plus there was a good party in swing! We somehow convinced one of the American's that I am Spanish, I do not know how we pulled that one off, maybe it was my pale skin and West Country accent that really convinced him...! So from now on I am officially known as the honorary Spaniard by everyone here! Incidentally, as a follow up to a previous comment on the carpeted walls found throughout France, his apartment was infuriating, the floor on which we slept was wooden, while the walls were covered in some luxury, thick carpet. I wanted to sleep standing up leaning on it, it would have been more comfortable!
So all is excellent here, so much so that I'm beginning to wish I was able to take two years abroad, or maybe I'll just spend my life flittering around Europe pretending to be Spanish! I now know why you're only allowed to take part in the Comenius programme once in your life, if not we'd all be doing it every year. I would recommend it to absolutely anyone and everyone, it's just simply brilliant, more than brilliant :) I've never met so many interesting and fun people from all over the globe nor had so much time to enjoy life. It's just great.
I missed York massively for my first few days back here, especially as most people here were either working or also on holiday elsewhere. But then I made contact with the Spanish assistants and we met up to play afternoons of poker and a German dice game (Knoeffel?!). I've been hanging out with them lots ever since and we've been having great fun. It's not doing my French any good, but my Spanish is coming along a treat! I've also recently met a collection of interesting Americans, a couple of whom also live in La Roche so we've also met up for a night of card games, I taught them Irish snap which went down a treat, although Marta believes she may have broken her finger in doing so!
I also spent a lot of the holiday hiring films and books from the "mediatheque" (sorry for lack of accents, blog won't permit them!). A mediatheque is basically a glorified library, where you can hire almost anything: books (more comic books than I've ever seen in my life!), films, cds, magazines, newspapers, and even paintings and sculptures, all for free! The staff there are starting to get to know me rather too well (as are those in the post office and tourist information centre!) and are extremely lax about when things must be brought back, they don't renew items, rather wave their hands and say next week will be fine!
As you may have gathered I've hardly been at school recently, I had 12 days off, then 2 days back, and then another 5 days off for Armistice, they created a long weekend out of it! So in 3 weeks I'll have been at school for 4 days, and always Thursdays and Fridays, I won't have had my Tuesday classes for a month. Crazy! This is the life, and it'll be even better when the strike starts! Talking of Armistice, I've had a poppy on this past week and I keep being complimented on my pretty brooch, the French don't wear the poppy as a symbol so think it's a new fashion accessory of mine!
My days back at school have been fine, in my European class they've been doing restaurant roleplays and we had one 14 year old boy dressed up in a pinny as the English waitress, extremely funny! And in my IDD class, where they're doing profiles of traditions of English speaking countries, I showed 2 girls a video of some maypole and Morris dancing on the internet. They found it absolutely hilarious and before I knew it half the class were watching and laughing! Admittedly the video was rather funny, jolly accordion music; lots of women wearing outrageous dresses made out of curtain material, smiling a little too much; men waving hankies with jangly bells on socks..., but I was surprised at the popularity of it amongst my pupils none the less. I suppose taken out of context it does look like a rather eccentric British custom! Thank goodness there's no video of me in my "Merry Maid" days, I think my pupils would lose all the respect they have for me! Another pair were studying Scottish food, apparently the "deep friend man bar" is popular in Glasgow, an absolutely brilliant mistake I thought!
Just an additional note, as a follow up to the entry where I mentioned funny names my pupils have, I have met a Muriel, a Margot a Pauline and an Ingrid this week at school!
Lessons apart, I'm still filling the other hours in the library, now that European week is over we've now moved on to Science week, which is at the end of this month, so I'm trying to think of fun displays on energy and transport. The European week was a great success, it even had a write up in the paper, and I got a mention! I'll be keeping a copy of that one. Plus the deputy has asked us to leave up all the displays for next week as we have inspectors coming and he wants to impress them!
Out of school, I've finally started playing handball! I returned to the leisure club and have joined in the training sessions, the men have all been really nice and I even went for a beer with them all in the club house after last week's session! I was still the only female, out numbered 12:1! However, I also went to the women's last week for the first time, they were really nice, a bit like a rowdy hockey club! Interestingly at least 50% of them wear knee supports, so I fit in well, even if it does mean that it's probably a high risk sport for knees, then again I don't think I'm quite at the level where I will be scoring goals by jumping into the air and sliding across the floor just yet! They've also taken to shouting random words at me in English whenever possible, for example when we stop for a water break someone will shout "DRINK LAURA DRINK" at me across the room even though I understand perfectly well what's going on! Very funny! They're all very good, I think it will take a long time for me to get up to a decent level but it's something to do, and of course I need to exercise to burn off all the delicious French food I'm still enjoying!
Talking of food, I sampled both snails and frogs' legs for supper last week! After the conversation class with Quentin, his mum (Marie, the science teacher from school) served them up, it's been a long standing joke that I must try them while in France, so now I have. And they actually weren't that bad! Well the snails weren't, I didn't take so well to the frogs' legs, particularly as we'd got onto the topic of all the dissections she'd had to do while training to be a science teacher! I polished off about 15 snails as my starter, they were in their shells and she'd filled the top with a sort of garlic butter, and I then had to use a cocktail stick to spike them out. It was rather fun, I just didn't think too much about what I was eating! I was a lot more squeamish with the frogs' legs; for starters there wasn't much meat so I had to nibble around the bones and quite often snap them at the knee joint, which I didn't like at all! They too were covered in garlic and I absolutely stank afterwards, and still the next day, I certainally know why the French have a reputation of eating garlic! Ah well, another thing ticked off my "Things to do in France" list! She took some photos and so hopefully she'll give them to me soon and I can put them up.
Charlotte and I had fun the other night, we made 31 crepes, the volume of pancakes reminded me distinctly of one of my favourite children's books, "There's no such thing as a dragon!". It was Yooshy's birthday so we had a mini party in the kitchen with plenty of French food and wine. After making so many I think I can declare that I now know how to make the perfect French crepe, Pancake Day round mine next year!
On Sunday I went with the Spaniards and Americans to Vendee Globe, which is the round the world boat race that leaves from here, it's the one that Ellen MacArthur is famous for doing. It is probably the biggest event of the year here, there were over half a million people expected, and my goodness, it was mad! There were people standing on cars, post boxes, telephone boxes and goodness knows what else in order to get a good view of the boats leaving the port. This year (it runs every 4 years) there are only 2 women entering the race and both of them are British. After the departure we went round the American's apartment and ended up staying the night too, as it was a Sunday trains back (as ever in Frnace) were next to impossible, plus there was a good party in swing! We somehow convinced one of the American's that I am Spanish, I do not know how we pulled that one off, maybe it was my pale skin and West Country accent that really convinced him...! So from now on I am officially known as the honorary Spaniard by everyone here! Incidentally, as a follow up to a previous comment on the carpeted walls found throughout France, his apartment was infuriating, the floor on which we slept was wooden, while the walls were covered in some luxury, thick carpet. I wanted to sleep standing up leaning on it, it would have been more comfortable!
So all is excellent here, so much so that I'm beginning to wish I was able to take two years abroad, or maybe I'll just spend my life flittering around Europe pretending to be Spanish! I now know why you're only allowed to take part in the Comenius programme once in your life, if not we'd all be doing it every year. I would recommend it to absolutely anyone and everyone, it's just simply brilliant, more than brilliant :) I've never met so many interesting and fun people from all over the globe nor had so much time to enjoy life. It's just great.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Photo update!
So as I mentioned in the other post, I did in fact not put up the photo of me but of someone else! Here's one of me, note how I'm smiling despite having been thrown onto my back!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Time Spent in Court!
An update from York for you! I'm thankfully on half term now and have popped across the channel for a quick visit, yay! Have got rather behind with the blog so will do my best to give a good round up of life in France (which seems very distant from freezing cold York!).
As indicated by the "thankfully" I am rather pleased to be on half term, the last few weeks have been pretty busy and the 8 am classes have been taking their toll! But they've been fun too. All the assistants in our town were given free tickets to both the opening and closing ceremonies of the film festival that took place over the last week. So I went along to the opening ceremony with the Columbian, Lorna, who lives with me (in case you were wondering, she's a Spanish assistant). When we got there we met some others, Kendra, an American; Janelle, from Barbados; Iliana, a Mexican and 3 Spaniards: Manu, Miguel and Marta. They were all really nice and one of the Spaniards, Marta, is also a Comenius assistant, so it's great to have someone else who can sympathise with my job! She had a rather eventful application, she'd applied to go to either Great Britain or Ireland as a Spanish assistant, but has ended up in France as an English assistant, and she doesn't speak French! So in fact the only language that we all speak is English, although Spanish is used a lot, so I'm picking up a lot of new words, plus a funny accent! We also went to the closing ceremony the following week and ended up going to the afterparty which was a red carpet affair! We fraternized with the directors and actors and enjoyed an awful lot of free food and wine! Excellent!
In order to finish all the flags, I had had the help of what is called SEGPA (I have absolutely no idea what these letters stand for, just like all the other codes the teachers use every day, IDD, UPI, DECOU, EPS...!), they're the pupils who are in a special class, because they're generally too badly behaved to join the others. What I didn't know was that they have their own block of classrooms, so when I put up all the flags I didn't put any up there. Later in the day I got a message to say that the SEGPA were up in arms and extremely angry about this, woops, I had no idea! Not sure that I would like to be chased by angry SEGPA pupils I hastily did a few more and put them up!
So all the preparations were finally over for la Semaine de l'Europe and I had a good weekend generally pottering about town on Saturday and at the beach with Charlotte and her friends from college on Sunday (the weather is STILL great, although I have to say it is getting a bit monotonous having blue sky and sunshine every day, I pine for rain!). On Sunday evening I had my conversation class with Quentin and after supper I was invited to the cinema with him and some friends. The film was really good, an Agatha Christie I believe, called "Le crime est notre affaire" and I could actually follow most of it! Quentin's friends were nice, and one of them is the older brother of one of the girls in my class at school. So of course the next day I had a whole group of them come up to see if I really had gone out with her brother, they couldn't believe it! Such a small town, I can't do anything without bumping into someone! This statement is reiterated again in that when I went to handball on Wednesday one of the men is the dad of another pupil.
As indicated by the "thankfully" I am rather pleased to be on half term, the last few weeks have been pretty busy and the 8 am classes have been taking their toll! But they've been fun too. All the assistants in our town were given free tickets to both the opening and closing ceremonies of the film festival that took place over the last week. So I went along to the opening ceremony with the Columbian, Lorna, who lives with me (in case you were wondering, she's a Spanish assistant). When we got there we met some others, Kendra, an American; Janelle, from Barbados; Iliana, a Mexican and 3 Spaniards: Manu, Miguel and Marta. They were all really nice and one of the Spaniards, Marta, is also a Comenius assistant, so it's great to have someone else who can sympathise with my job! She had a rather eventful application, she'd applied to go to either Great Britain or Ireland as a Spanish assistant, but has ended up in France as an English assistant, and she doesn't speak French! So in fact the only language that we all speak is English, although Spanish is used a lot, so I'm picking up a lot of new words, plus a funny accent! We also went to the closing ceremony the following week and ended up going to the afterparty which was a red carpet affair! We fraternized with the directors and actors and enjoyed an awful lot of free food and wine! Excellent!
Now to explain the title, which really isn't as exciting as it sounds! The day after my last update I was invited by one teacher on the school trip to the courts, which was really good fun. We walked with a group of children to the rather imposing building and went on in. There were lots and lots of cases that afternoon, but interestingly only 2 out of about 15 were women. It was generally exceptionally difficult for me to understand but I was able to read the notes the teacher was taking. The cases ranged from typical speeding fines to two lads who'd stolen some chickens from their next door neighbour! It felt rather like I was in a court room in the 18th century, a really bizarre crime! After the trip I went home by bike and the next day I was approached by the teacher, she wanted to know what sport I took part in to need such an interesting bike!
At school I had a very busy few days, on the Friday before la Semaine de l'Europe I spent the whole day getting things ready. I put up all the flags down the corridor, which had many a funny moment... Along the corridor there are windows up high (no-one can see through them, they're far too high, just small panels running along the top of the classroom wall) and we thought that they'd be a good place to affix the flags, so they wouldn't remove paint when removed. So I took a chair and affixed the flags to the windows, much to the pupils' delight, who'd look up and see me peeping through the window! The teachers, who often couldn't see what on earth the children were looking at, were not so amused by the interruption! On one occasion I was standing on my chair in front of a door, no-one had noticed me, but I could see through the window. Suddenly, before I could react, the teacher needed to leave the room and marched over to open the door. What a shock they all go to see me standing on a chair with my arms in the air about to affix a flag! The pupils were in hysterics and even the teacher found it funny!In order to finish all the flags, I had had the help of what is called SEGPA (I have absolutely no idea what these letters stand for, just like all the other codes the teachers use every day, IDD, UPI, DECOU, EPS...!), they're the pupils who are in a special class, because they're generally too badly behaved to join the others. What I didn't know was that they have their own block of classrooms, so when I put up all the flags I didn't put any up there. Later in the day I got a message to say that the SEGPA were up in arms and extremely angry about this, woops, I had no idea! Not sure that I would like to be chased by angry SEGPA pupils I hastily did a few more and put them up!
So all the preparations were finally over for la Semaine de l'Europe and I had a good weekend generally pottering about town on Saturday and at the beach with Charlotte and her friends from college on Sunday (the weather is STILL great, although I have to say it is getting a bit monotonous having blue sky and sunshine every day, I pine for rain!). On Sunday evening I had my conversation class with Quentin and after supper I was invited to the cinema with him and some friends. The film was really good, an Agatha Christie I believe, called "Le crime est notre affaire" and I could actually follow most of it! Quentin's friends were nice, and one of them is the older brother of one of the girls in my class at school. So of course the next day I had a whole group of them come up to see if I really had gone out with her brother, they couldn't believe it! Such a small town, I can't do anything without bumping into someone! This statement is reiterated again in that when I went to handball on Wednesday one of the men is the dad of another pupil.
The handball situation is still not resolved! Following the two trips to get the certificate (and a wait of over 2 hours in the waiting room!) I was finally able to go to the leisure club on Wednesday. This was not as successful as had been hoped for two reasons! Firstly, they had a match so I wasn't actually able to take part this week and secondly, every member is male and over 40! How very surprised they were when I turned up! They have said that I can come back next week, and if I'm good enough I'll be allowed to train with the women's team, if not, I'll have to stick with this group! Ho hum!
The Semaine de l'Europe was pretty successful, I think, although I am now going to have to find new things to do to fill up the time. I'm thinking maybe I'll set up an English club or something, all ideas for activities welcome! As part of the Semaine de l'Europe the librarian and I went to Nantes together on some trip for teachers, we met up with about 30 teachers from around the region. I have no idea why we went! The morning was good fun, it was a tour around the city and all the interesting sights were pointed out, I think it is so that teachers can then organise a trip there for their pupils. Of course neither the librarian nor I will ever be organising such a visit! One very funny moment was when our group was stopped by several students, they were on a challenge and one of their tasks was to take a photo of a group of 15 strangers together. Of course we were absolutely ideal for them and they couldn't believe their luck when we dutifully lined up. However we were then stopped by several more groups throughout the course of the trip, we were not as friendly with these and flatly refused!
We had a yummy lunch together and then in the afternoon we had to go to a workshop on how to present a project. We were asked to introduce ourselves and talk about the project we had in mind for our children! I, of course, have no such project going on, so had to bluff something about thinking that it would be an excellent idea to gain ideas from others in the profession to introduce to my pupils! It went down surprisingly well!!! Afterwards we had to have our photo taken for the local paper! A great shame that I don't live in the area and can't buy it! Maybe I'll try googling it! Anyway it was a fun day, I absolutely loved Nantes and will definitely be returning.
On returning from Nantes that evening I had to pack, as on Thursday Marta and I were to go to Bordeaux. We had a meeting for Comenius assistants on Friday, but needed to go down the night before as we couldn't get there early enough the next day. Luckily it was an all expenses paid trip so we could book ourselves into a nice hotel! We had a wonderful time. Bordeaux is absolutely beautiful and there is currently a big fair there, so we spent the evening looking round. We had a go on a very scary (but absolutely brilliant!) ride and ate some gaufres (I got absolutely covered in chocolate!). We then explored the city a bit by night, it's just stunning, and somewhere else I'll have to visit again!
The next day we went to the meeting, which was really useful, I had been beginning to wonder if I ought to be doing more language work and if the disorganisation of the school meant that I wasn't fulfilling my contract. But in fact, according to the chap running the meeting I can do whatever I like at school, as long as they're happy, so that's a relief! I was the only British person there but we met another nice Spaniard and a Portuguese girl. There were assistants from all over Europe and it really was funny to see just how well people fitted the stereotypes, the Germans really did start to work as soon as the task was set (while the rest of us milled around drinking coffee and chatting) and there was an Italian girl who spoke and spoke and spoke, with many flying arms! After the meeting we had time to do a bit more sight seeing and so we revisited the sights we'd seen by night. Then it was time to catch a train back, our flying visit over. The train journey was really interesting, Marta and I chatted to a Bulgarian woman who was an opera singer who'd travelled all over Europe and can speak 8 European languages! Just incredible!
I will leave you with a couple of random other observations/anecdotes. Firstly, the bridge to the train station has been shut until April, which is really annoying as it means we have to walk an extra 20 minutes to get into town or to the railway station. I have decided that I seem to attract closed bridges following on from the closure of Goodricke bridge last year, this is 5 times more annoying! Secondly, I have noted that French names are either typically French (we all know about Jean and Pierre) or something I didn't know, some are also extremely old fashioned, I have a Maude in one of my classes! I have christened my bike Maude following on from this observation! The final anecdote comes from my special needs class where the children were using a code breaker to work out words associated with Halloween. One of the children was very excited at having cracked the first word and gleefully shouted out "bitch!" at the teacher, he'd mistaken the w for a b, woops! He was blissfully unaware of what he'd said but I had to stifle a giggle!
And just something to end on, did anyone realise that I accidentally uploaded the wrong picture for Aikido? It's not actually me that I've labelled! Will do my best to upload the right one (and some of Bordeaux) soon!Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Fitting in with the French...new haircut!
Another busy week! Last Thursday I went to the hairdressers. This was quite the experience, he knew I was English as when I made the appointment I couldn't remember the French word for appointment and got rather flustered so just ended up saying "cut!" So when I arrived he gave me a few brochures and said to point out what I wanted, there was nothing whatsoever that I liked (think typical French bad hair!), so in the end I just pointed at pictures of things I didn't want (such as an awful fringe) and said "non!" I crossed my fingers! His own hair was interesting, he had sideburns coming down to between his nose and mouth and then sideburns/a beard/a moustache coming across his face thus joining the sideburns to each other! No typical twiddly French moustache but funny nonetheless! He took ages to do it, they do like to take their time with things: 2 hours over lunch, 2 and a half hours cutting my hair...! Then with gusto he whipped off the towel and said voila! And it's actually not bad, it ranks pretty highly on my list of previous haircuts, but then again considering the awful cuts I've had in the past (think the "page boy bowl cut") that's not exactly hard!
On Thursday night we had a party to celebrate the official start of the academic year (despite the fact that everyone went back at the start of September!). It was great fun, we played various games and they had a DJ in. I have to say I witnessed possibly the funniest thing yet that night, the French equivalent to the Macarena is outrageously bad! Indescribably so! Although I will admit to quickly trying to learn the moves and attempting to join in, very badly! They also played Coton-Eye Joe and the French don't dance to it like I'm accustomed to, their version involves a bridge and lots of promenading, good times!
On the music theme, I heard Robbie Williams on the radio this morning, yet it was in French! He sings "Supreme" completely translated into French, very impressive. Again I was caught out as I tried to sing a long!
I have finally found out a bit more about this Comenius project that people keep harping on about, that I'm supposed to be involved in. There was a meeting with la maitrise and various teachers, so I headed along too. It turns out to be a project between a school in France (our school), Italy, Spain, Romania, Greece and Bulgaria on "stone", be it in it's natural form, architecture, whatever. They have to do a project on it together other the next 2 and a half years. I am still bewildered as to how I'm supposed to fit into this, I don't speak any of the languages (except limited French), nor do I have any knowledge of stone! Plus I will be leaving before they really do much. We will see...! At one point during the meeting I had to stop myself from bursting out into laughter, la maitrise and another teacher were complaining about how disorganised and difficult to get in touch with the Italians are, talk about hypocrisy! It wasn't so long ago that I was complaining about how impossible it is to maintain contact with her!
Otherwise I've had a good week at school, more of the same regards lessons (they're still utterly obsessed with Ireland and leprechauns, I think they'll all be mightily disappointed when they one day go to Ireland and realise there are none!); I'm getting the hang of having the privileges of staff and am revelling in being able to jump the dinner queue; I've translated some recipes for the chef ready for Semaine d'Europe; I've been asked how to pronounce "once upon a time" in Welsh (absolutely clueless, much to the disappointment of the teacher!) and am still debating whether I ought to correct the teachers when they make errors in English!
The students are on the whole really nice, although I don't like it when they see me out of school, I simply cannot go into town/to the supermarket/for a run without bumping into one of them, it's like having 600 stalkers. At least it's more of a jovial "hello" they shout across the street to me rather than some abuse in French! Thinking about clothes and shopping, firstly I can't believe I've started shopping in Etam, it's a popular shop here, despite the fact it must have gone out of fashion in the UK about 10 years ago. Secondly, the current fashion for trousers is very funny, they're about the length of ankle swingers, with an elastic bottom and commonly worn in orange, hot pink and turquoise, all my pupils wear them, as do half of France. If you ask me they're more like something a pantomime Aladdin would wear!
We had another really hot weekend, I actually wore the suncream Mum has sent me, can't believe it, it's the middle of October and I'm needing sun protection. On Sunday I went for a bike ride, I traced a route on the map which I thought would take me out of town a bit and into the countryside. Well I was sort of right. I did get out of town, but found myself on a massive highway, with cars doing 90kph and signs to Paris, eeek! So there I was pedalling furiously (there is only so fast you can go on my bike, the wheels are tiny) in the midday sun, wondering where on earth I was going and hoping for some way of the road, I'm not even sure if it's legal to take a bike on such a big road! After about 20 minutes we (me and my bike, who is yet to be named, but commonly referred to as though it's alive) finally got to a roundabout and I was able to get onto a small road back to town, phew! But at least I did get out of town, all be it not in the way I expected. I have also learnt that a D preceding a road number probably means it's a major road, not a country lane like I had assumed!
I went to Carrefour yesterday and bought a huge bunch of grapes for a bargainous 55 cents (about 40p), very pleased! Some things here are really cheap in comparison to the UK and others, such as chewing gum, far more expensive, I found one small box for 3 euros, ouch! It's surprising really as the French seem to chew masses of gum, from the pupils at school to my bank manager, everybody is permanently chewing. Another discover at the supermarket was the "World Foods" section and there, sandwiched between Fajhitas and Thai rice, I found a little pocket of English cuisine. Heinz baked beans, Jacob's crackers, lemon curd, marmalade and mint sauce, all typically English foods that don't appeal to the majority of the French. The baked beans were outrageously expensive though, 2 euros 79 for a single tin.
On Sunday afternoon a whole group of us went to watch to of the boys from the foyer play a basketball match, it was a really tight game and so exciting to watch. I did want to get out of my seat and join in though, am really missing netball. Am still trying to join a club myself, have had some luck with a handball club, but I need a medical certificate in order to be allowed to play. This has led to one unsuccessful trip to the doctors, am going to try again today. So for the meantime I'm just playing sport on Monday night. Last Monday and again next week we have Aikido! I did not understand a word of what the instructor said (there's only so much you can do by following his actions), so of course that meant that I was often picked on as the demo as he could catch me 100% of guard. Next thing I knew I'd be lying flat out on my back, very funny! I quite enjoyed it, although it is a little scary to have a wooden sword at your neck!
Will add some photos at the end of this post, in no particular order, they're of La Rochelle, you can see the port, me enjoying a croque monsieur, Charlotte and me with our gaufres, the shoppig streets and the railway station. Plus there's one of me at Aikido, having just been thrown over his shoulder! Hope that you like them and that all is well in the UK.
On Thursday night we had a party to celebrate the official start of the academic year (despite the fact that everyone went back at the start of September!). It was great fun, we played various games and they had a DJ in. I have to say I witnessed possibly the funniest thing yet that night, the French equivalent to the Macarena is outrageously bad! Indescribably so! Although I will admit to quickly trying to learn the moves and attempting to join in, very badly! They also played Coton-Eye Joe and the French don't dance to it like I'm accustomed to, their version involves a bridge and lots of promenading, good times!
On the music theme, I heard Robbie Williams on the radio this morning, yet it was in French! He sings "Supreme" completely translated into French, very impressive. Again I was caught out as I tried to sing a long!
I have finally found out a bit more about this Comenius project that people keep harping on about, that I'm supposed to be involved in. There was a meeting with la maitrise and various teachers, so I headed along too. It turns out to be a project between a school in France (our school), Italy, Spain, Romania, Greece and Bulgaria on "stone", be it in it's natural form, architecture, whatever. They have to do a project on it together other the next 2 and a half years. I am still bewildered as to how I'm supposed to fit into this, I don't speak any of the languages (except limited French), nor do I have any knowledge of stone! Plus I will be leaving before they really do much. We will see...! At one point during the meeting I had to stop myself from bursting out into laughter, la maitrise and another teacher were complaining about how disorganised and difficult to get in touch with the Italians are, talk about hypocrisy! It wasn't so long ago that I was complaining about how impossible it is to maintain contact with her!
Otherwise I've had a good week at school, more of the same regards lessons (they're still utterly obsessed with Ireland and leprechauns, I think they'll all be mightily disappointed when they one day go to Ireland and realise there are none!); I'm getting the hang of having the privileges of staff and am revelling in being able to jump the dinner queue; I've translated some recipes for the chef ready for Semaine d'Europe; I've been asked how to pronounce "once upon a time" in Welsh (absolutely clueless, much to the disappointment of the teacher!) and am still debating whether I ought to correct the teachers when they make errors in English!
The students are on the whole really nice, although I don't like it when they see me out of school, I simply cannot go into town/to the supermarket/for a run without bumping into one of them, it's like having 600 stalkers. At least it's more of a jovial "hello" they shout across the street to me rather than some abuse in French! Thinking about clothes and shopping, firstly I can't believe I've started shopping in Etam, it's a popular shop here, despite the fact it must have gone out of fashion in the UK about 10 years ago. Secondly, the current fashion for trousers is very funny, they're about the length of ankle swingers, with an elastic bottom and commonly worn in orange, hot pink and turquoise, all my pupils wear them, as do half of France. If you ask me they're more like something a pantomime Aladdin would wear!
We had another really hot weekend, I actually wore the suncream Mum has sent me, can't believe it, it's the middle of October and I'm needing sun protection. On Sunday I went for a bike ride, I traced a route on the map which I thought would take me out of town a bit and into the countryside. Well I was sort of right. I did get out of town, but found myself on a massive highway, with cars doing 90kph and signs to Paris, eeek! So there I was pedalling furiously (there is only so fast you can go on my bike, the wheels are tiny) in the midday sun, wondering where on earth I was going and hoping for some way of the road, I'm not even sure if it's legal to take a bike on such a big road! After about 20 minutes we (me and my bike, who is yet to be named, but commonly referred to as though it's alive) finally got to a roundabout and I was able to get onto a small road back to town, phew! But at least I did get out of town, all be it not in the way I expected. I have also learnt that a D preceding a road number probably means it's a major road, not a country lane like I had assumed!
I went to Carrefour yesterday and bought a huge bunch of grapes for a bargainous 55 cents (about 40p), very pleased! Some things here are really cheap in comparison to the UK and others, such as chewing gum, far more expensive, I found one small box for 3 euros, ouch! It's surprising really as the French seem to chew masses of gum, from the pupils at school to my bank manager, everybody is permanently chewing. Another discover at the supermarket was the "World Foods" section and there, sandwiched between Fajhitas and Thai rice, I found a little pocket of English cuisine. Heinz baked beans, Jacob's crackers, lemon curd, marmalade and mint sauce, all typically English foods that don't appeal to the majority of the French. The baked beans were outrageously expensive though, 2 euros 79 for a single tin.
On Sunday afternoon a whole group of us went to watch to of the boys from the foyer play a basketball match, it was a really tight game and so exciting to watch. I did want to get out of my seat and join in though, am really missing netball. Am still trying to join a club myself, have had some luck with a handball club, but I need a medical certificate in order to be allowed to play. This has led to one unsuccessful trip to the doctors, am going to try again today. So for the meantime I'm just playing sport on Monday night. Last Monday and again next week we have Aikido! I did not understand a word of what the instructor said (there's only so much you can do by following his actions), so of course that meant that I was often picked on as the demo as he could catch me 100% of guard. Next thing I knew I'd be lying flat out on my back, very funny! I quite enjoyed it, although it is a little scary to have a wooden sword at your neck!
Will add some photos at the end of this post, in no particular order, they're of La Rochelle, you can see the port, me enjoying a croque monsieur, Charlotte and me with our gaufres, the shoppig streets and the railway station. Plus there's one of me at Aikido, having just been thrown over his shoulder! Hope that you like them and that all is well in the UK.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
One too many visits to the bank
As the title suggests, I've been having banking problems, I've had my card swallowed twice and a mini debate with the bank manager, during which he said that England should just join the Euro and then I'd have no problems, which did nothing to ease my mood! It's been quite a challenge trying to understand French banking terms, whose English translations probably mean nothing to me anyway. Fortunately all is now sorted, fingers crossed.
I was invited out to dinner on Wednesday with a biology teacher, who would like me to give conversation classes to her 19 year old son, who is to spend 2 months next year in an English speaking country. I decided I needed a gift to take, so decided to buy some flowers. I think it was possibly the first time in my life I've actually been into a florist and had absolutely no idea what to choose, so overwhelming! I eventually chose some but then realised that I had to get the bouquet home on my bike...I balanced them precariously on the front and had a hazardorous cycle ride home, I think I must have looked an absolute picture! In a German class this week one of the pupils asked the teacher, much to her bemusement, how to say that I have a "beau velo" (beautiful bicycle), it's still very popular with the pupils!
I googled French dinner manners quickly before I left (realising that I've been breaking many French dining rules all month!) and went over. I had a really nice evening, with far too much delicious French food! However we did eat lots of asparagus, and I had a bit of a fright when I went to the loo later that evening! I have organised to speak English with Quentin (her son) and Cecilia (his girlfriend) every Friday evening. I went this Friday and passed a very easy hour chatting in English, being paid to do something that simple is great! And they gave me supper again. They were very excited about what we were eating that evening, but when I found out that it was mussels, my heart sank, I generally stay as far away from seafood as possible. However I figured I'd better be polite so I smiled and said yum! And in fact they were fine! I'm gradually broadening my eating habits. That evening was the first time I've properly spoken English since I got here and it was actually really difficult to get back into the French afterwards.
On Thursday I had a really interesting day at school, I spent the afternoon with the special needs class. It's comprised of about 10 pupils from all the years who simply would not cope if they were in the normal school system. At the start of the afternoon they could ask me questions, which was useful as it made me realise just how hard it is for them to grasp that I'm not French and I could gauge their level of understanding. Once they'd exhausted all the questions they could possibly think of I helped them with their work. I spent some time helping a 12 year old girl adding up numbers, she could only manage numbers under ten, with my help. It was such an enlightening experience, I never knew that I'd enjoy doing that sort of work, nor did I know that I'd have the patience to do so, but I think we both felt like she'd achieved something when she completed her number square. The teacher would like me to go back at some point later this term and run a lesson on something that interests me, to do with England. Not sure what to do yet (all suggestions welcome!), it's going to be hard to organise work of a suitable level for them, as they can all manage different things. Plus the school has almost no resources: no classrooms have OHPs, let alone a computer projector; I can't remember the last time that I did a presentation without powerpoint, eeek!
On Thursday evening we went to the cinema to watch "Entre les Murs", a French film set in a school in Paris. It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and is brilliant, really funny, although it was rather like paying to watch what I can usually see for free at school! Go and see it if you get the chance.
On Friday we had a meeting about the Semaine d'Europe (European week) that I am helping to organise and which I think I have mentioned before. Friday's meeting was with a variety of teachers and the chef of the school refectory. We have decided that we want each day to be themed with food from a different country, so we brainstormed many ideas. I think for England we are having a soup starter (no-one, including me, could think of a traditionally English starter), followed by a choice of either fish and chips or a meat pie with potatoes and vegetables. I'll be interested to see how that turns out, I think the chips will be of the French variety, rather than the bigger chips that we have. English pudding was hotly debated, Christmas pudding was suggested (of course!), but they were worried that we do not have enough weeks to leave it to gain its true flavour (although I think that this is just an excuse so they don't have to serve it!. So I think that we've settled on jelly (another pudding which they believe to be a typically English inedible dish!) and apple pie and custard. They never eat custard (creme aglaise) warm, but I am insisting that it has to be hot, their response to this is that they'll all sit and wait for it to cool down!
I'm currently making flags to be put up along the corridor during the Semaine d'Europe and reckon I can now name all 27 countries of the EU off by heart, plus match the appropriate flag to the country, it's taking me so long...it's a long corridor! Next I have to translate "welcome" into each language...!
On Saturday, Charlotte and I took the train to La Rochelle for the day, which is absolutely beautiful, I wish I'd been placed there instead! It's got a wonderful old port with a castle guarding the entrance and the area surrounding consists of typically Frenh buildings, all very striking. A lot of the streets are cobbled (not like Dunster, but French style!) and we meandered round the shops, which had some seriously espensive items, think handbags starting at 300 euros, a little bit out of my student load budget! We had some delicious crepes and gaufres (pancakes and waffles), I could easily fall into the habit of going to a French bakery/patisserie every meal time, yum yum. I know I rant about it all the time, but yes food here really is just amazing!
The French really do have a different approach to weekends to us, even on Saturdays the towns are quiet, and on Sundays absolutely everything shuts down. Not a chance of finding a shop open (I have to actually plan my food for the weekend, no popping out to Carrefour) and there are absolutely no busses. In fact, public transport in France seems to be pretty bad in that respect, there are no trains or busses after 7pm any day of the week and taxis are always hard to come across. I do wish I had Vivien here sometimes.
This week I am doing yet more observation (when will I actually start work?!), so have already been to a few PE classes, chiefly basketball and gymnastics, the latter being really popular here. There was absolute carnage when one class of 11 year olds were putting out the mats, they're so small and the mats so big and heavy. They were supposed to be standing in a line and passing them along to the sports hall, but there were more pupils at the start enthusiastically grabbing mats from the pile and not enough pupils at the other end. The poor pupils couldn't keep up with the rate at which the mats were arriving and they were literally being dropped on top of their heads, so funny to watch! And the pupils have to do the plank! One teacher was really harsh, she was counting the 20 seconds they had to do it for, and once she got to 15 she started counting really slowly, any netballer will sympathise with the pupils' pain! The gymnastics they do is pretty spectacular though, especially compared to all I ever did at school, a couple of roly polys (is that actually a word?!) and a twirl! The French word of the week has to be "saute mouton" which literally means jump sheep and is French for leap frog...since when die sheep jump, I think our description is much better!
Today I went to a really interesting lesson, where someone from a different career will come in and be interviewed by the class, so that they get an idea of what different jobs are out there. Today's guest was the chef of the school refectory, and it was actually fascinating to hear about what he does, they start preparing our school dinners at 6:30 am! He has a budget of 1 euro 67 per person per day and he explained all about how he has to do about 3 hours of admin a day: preparing menus, budgeting, ordering food and doing hygiene checks etc, I'd never considered the amount of work that goes into it. What was funny was that earlier at lunch I'd been a bit put out because the choice was fish, or fish (so I had to eat fish...and admittedly enjoyed it!). Then in the lesson 2 hours later he explained how he deliberately writes the menu so that the children have to try new things and eat foods they would normally avoid, just like I had had to! It really is so different to school lunches in the UK, when I consider how at WSCC we could eat chips and chocolate cake everyday if we wanted to; Jamie Oliver is definitely on the right track/ 3 courses they may well eat, but at least they're healthy.
Goodness, I do waffle, sorry! I will now eave you with a couple of my quotes from the week:
Charlotte: "So what exactly is Wales?" She genuinely didn't know that it's a country!
Teacher: "Why is X away today?"
Pupil: "She's eaten so much she's now too fat to fit through the door into school!"
I know the pupil and can confirm she's certainly not overweight, even the teacher laughed at this one.
Teacher: Towards a boy who was playing up "You're an idiot"
Pupil: "I know, it's my greatest quality"
Well yes, you could put it that way!
I was invited out to dinner on Wednesday with a biology teacher, who would like me to give conversation classes to her 19 year old son, who is to spend 2 months next year in an English speaking country. I decided I needed a gift to take, so decided to buy some flowers. I think it was possibly the first time in my life I've actually been into a florist and had absolutely no idea what to choose, so overwhelming! I eventually chose some but then realised that I had to get the bouquet home on my bike...I balanced them precariously on the front and had a hazardorous cycle ride home, I think I must have looked an absolute picture! In a German class this week one of the pupils asked the teacher, much to her bemusement, how to say that I have a "beau velo" (beautiful bicycle), it's still very popular with the pupils!
I googled French dinner manners quickly before I left (realising that I've been breaking many French dining rules all month!) and went over. I had a really nice evening, with far too much delicious French food! However we did eat lots of asparagus, and I had a bit of a fright when I went to the loo later that evening! I have organised to speak English with Quentin (her son) and Cecilia (his girlfriend) every Friday evening. I went this Friday and passed a very easy hour chatting in English, being paid to do something that simple is great! And they gave me supper again. They were very excited about what we were eating that evening, but when I found out that it was mussels, my heart sank, I generally stay as far away from seafood as possible. However I figured I'd better be polite so I smiled and said yum! And in fact they were fine! I'm gradually broadening my eating habits. That evening was the first time I've properly spoken English since I got here and it was actually really difficult to get back into the French afterwards.
On Thursday I had a really interesting day at school, I spent the afternoon with the special needs class. It's comprised of about 10 pupils from all the years who simply would not cope if they were in the normal school system. At the start of the afternoon they could ask me questions, which was useful as it made me realise just how hard it is for them to grasp that I'm not French and I could gauge their level of understanding. Once they'd exhausted all the questions they could possibly think of I helped them with their work. I spent some time helping a 12 year old girl adding up numbers, she could only manage numbers under ten, with my help. It was such an enlightening experience, I never knew that I'd enjoy doing that sort of work, nor did I know that I'd have the patience to do so, but I think we both felt like she'd achieved something when she completed her number square. The teacher would like me to go back at some point later this term and run a lesson on something that interests me, to do with England. Not sure what to do yet (all suggestions welcome!), it's going to be hard to organise work of a suitable level for them, as they can all manage different things. Plus the school has almost no resources: no classrooms have OHPs, let alone a computer projector; I can't remember the last time that I did a presentation without powerpoint, eeek!
On Thursday evening we went to the cinema to watch "Entre les Murs", a French film set in a school in Paris. It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and is brilliant, really funny, although it was rather like paying to watch what I can usually see for free at school! Go and see it if you get the chance.
On Friday we had a meeting about the Semaine d'Europe (European week) that I am helping to organise and which I think I have mentioned before. Friday's meeting was with a variety of teachers and the chef of the school refectory. We have decided that we want each day to be themed with food from a different country, so we brainstormed many ideas. I think for England we are having a soup starter (no-one, including me, could think of a traditionally English starter), followed by a choice of either fish and chips or a meat pie with potatoes and vegetables. I'll be interested to see how that turns out, I think the chips will be of the French variety, rather than the bigger chips that we have. English pudding was hotly debated, Christmas pudding was suggested (of course!), but they were worried that we do not have enough weeks to leave it to gain its true flavour (although I think that this is just an excuse so they don't have to serve it!. So I think that we've settled on jelly (another pudding which they believe to be a typically English inedible dish!) and apple pie and custard. They never eat custard (creme aglaise) warm, but I am insisting that it has to be hot, their response to this is that they'll all sit and wait for it to cool down!
I'm currently making flags to be put up along the corridor during the Semaine d'Europe and reckon I can now name all 27 countries of the EU off by heart, plus match the appropriate flag to the country, it's taking me so long...it's a long corridor! Next I have to translate "welcome" into each language...!
On Saturday, Charlotte and I took the train to La Rochelle for the day, which is absolutely beautiful, I wish I'd been placed there instead! It's got a wonderful old port with a castle guarding the entrance and the area surrounding consists of typically Frenh buildings, all very striking. A lot of the streets are cobbled (not like Dunster, but French style!) and we meandered round the shops, which had some seriously espensive items, think handbags starting at 300 euros, a little bit out of my student load budget! We had some delicious crepes and gaufres (pancakes and waffles), I could easily fall into the habit of going to a French bakery/patisserie every meal time, yum yum. I know I rant about it all the time, but yes food here really is just amazing!
The French really do have a different approach to weekends to us, even on Saturdays the towns are quiet, and on Sundays absolutely everything shuts down. Not a chance of finding a shop open (I have to actually plan my food for the weekend, no popping out to Carrefour) and there are absolutely no busses. In fact, public transport in France seems to be pretty bad in that respect, there are no trains or busses after 7pm any day of the week and taxis are always hard to come across. I do wish I had Vivien here sometimes.
This week I am doing yet more observation (when will I actually start work?!), so have already been to a few PE classes, chiefly basketball and gymnastics, the latter being really popular here. There was absolute carnage when one class of 11 year olds were putting out the mats, they're so small and the mats so big and heavy. They were supposed to be standing in a line and passing them along to the sports hall, but there were more pupils at the start enthusiastically grabbing mats from the pile and not enough pupils at the other end. The poor pupils couldn't keep up with the rate at which the mats were arriving and they were literally being dropped on top of their heads, so funny to watch! And the pupils have to do the plank! One teacher was really harsh, she was counting the 20 seconds they had to do it for, and once she got to 15 she started counting really slowly, any netballer will sympathise with the pupils' pain! The gymnastics they do is pretty spectacular though, especially compared to all I ever did at school, a couple of roly polys (is that actually a word?!) and a twirl! The French word of the week has to be "saute mouton" which literally means jump sheep and is French for leap frog...since when die sheep jump, I think our description is much better!
Today I went to a really interesting lesson, where someone from a different career will come in and be interviewed by the class, so that they get an idea of what different jobs are out there. Today's guest was the chef of the school refectory, and it was actually fascinating to hear about what he does, they start preparing our school dinners at 6:30 am! He has a budget of 1 euro 67 per person per day and he explained all about how he has to do about 3 hours of admin a day: preparing menus, budgeting, ordering food and doing hygiene checks etc, I'd never considered the amount of work that goes into it. What was funny was that earlier at lunch I'd been a bit put out because the choice was fish, or fish (so I had to eat fish...and admittedly enjoyed it!). Then in the lesson 2 hours later he explained how he deliberately writes the menu so that the children have to try new things and eat foods they would normally avoid, just like I had had to! It really is so different to school lunches in the UK, when I consider how at WSCC we could eat chips and chocolate cake everyday if we wanted to; Jamie Oliver is definitely on the right track/ 3 courses they may well eat, but at least they're healthy.
Goodness, I do waffle, sorry! I will now eave you with a couple of my quotes from the week:
Charlotte: "So what exactly is Wales?" She genuinely didn't know that it's a country!
Teacher: "Why is X away today?"
Pupil: "She's eaten so much she's now too fat to fit through the door into school!"
I know the pupil and can confirm she's certainly not overweight, even the teacher laughed at this one.
Teacher: Towards a boy who was playing up "You're an idiot"
Pupil: "I know, it's my greatest quality"
Well yes, you could put it that way!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
A week of bizarre questions!
Just grabbing a few moments before going for a welcome drink with everyone who's recently arrived here, there are quite a few of us who have arrived in the last week or so, including a couple of other assistants, an American and a Spaniard I think, although I haven't met either yet.
It's been another busy week since I last wrote, have been at school for a few hours everyday. Still just observing classes, and answering their questions, as the title to this post suggests, there have been yet more weird ones! I've been asked out of the blue if I'll be teaching them to swim (little do they know I'm probably the most incompetent swimming instructor they'll ever meet!) and if I've ever seen a leprechaun, of all things! That one really threw me, I thought I'd misheard, as I often do, today I misheard Zinedine Zidane for Lady Diana! They do study the strangest cross section of things in the English classes, one group's textbook is 100% focused on Brighton. They also asked me if my sister had a nickname, so I said that I call her Bean, to which they fell about laughing when the teacher told them this is translated to haricot. Apparently they think the English are obsessed with baked beans, something that they find a very odd idea.
The pupils are generally really nice and friendly towards me, although I did have a group jump out on me from behind the lockers as I was walking down the corridor, which gave me a bit of a fright and amused them no end! I have started spotting some when I'm out of school (I generally dart off quickly in the other direction!) and one girl came up to me today and said she'd seen me in Carrefour at the weekend, it's a bit strange to think that I can run into pupils wherever I go.
Another funny thing they've picked up is that the English don't like to swear and generally say "sugar" instead, quite true, but it's very funny to hear them come out with it, they just don't quite have the right intonation and it sounds very odd!
So in brief, other school related news is that I've started working on organising the "Semaine d'Europe" (European week) with the librarian, we're looking at putting displays up down the main corridor, getting the chef to focus his menus on different foods etc, that week is to be at the
October. I have made posters for a lunchtime meeting with interested pupils, it will be interesting to see how many show up! I've also been asked out to supper with a science teacher tomorrow night, who has a son who needs English conversation classes, so we might set something up, it'd be great to be paid to do something as easy as chatting in English! Teachers also keeping mentioning some Comenius project I'm supposed to be doing...I have no idea what this is, as far as I knew I was an English language assistant, but we shall see! I'm doing the inevitable putting off discussing what it is until it's absolutely necessary!
Apart from school I've been busy, on Thursday evening we had a party at another of the hostels owned by the same company as this one. We went there in cars, the journey alone was hilarious, two guys in the front, and Charlotte, Pauline and me crammed in the back. We got very lost, although Pauline and I had seen the sign for the foyer, we went round one roundabout 6 times while they debated where to go, completely ignoring Pauline and me. And all this was taking place to the tune of the Titanic soundtrack which we had blasting out at full volume! Needless to say, I felt very travel sick when we finally arrived! The event itself was a sort of buffet, followed by a really crazy band (see the photo!), who played French modernised nursery rhymes! There was lots of jolly French dancing! For the buffet, everyone brought something typical from their home town. I had no idea what to take, it's very hard to find any vaguely English food here, and don't have a kitchen in which to cook anything. Eventually I found some Scottish Millionaire's Shortbread, so that was ok, thank you for everyone who offered suggestions! It was such an amazing spread, the French really do know how to cook, most people had brought some homemade dish, absolutely delicious. Particularly considering most people are in their teens or early twenties, it was really impressive, I don't think most English young people could (or would) produce such a yummy selection of goods. I'm slowly but surely getting bigger!!! Particularly as I'm currently eating brioche and nutella for breakfast, and then two 3 course meals, with ample bread. I do not know why the French are not all obese and suffering from lung cancer.
For the first few days, people kept mentioning pudding to me, and I couldn't understand what they were so interested in: I explained to them that after lunch, we'll have something sweet, just as they do in France, I didn't see what was so special. Then I realised, it's Christmas pudding that they're on about, the French are absolutely captivated by the thought of it, they find the thought of it really weird and can't believe that it actually tastes nice. I may have to bring some back after Christmas, my excuse for not making my own is that it's too late to make it now, they find the idea that you make it months in advance equally strange. I have also tried what the French believe is custard, what they call creme anglaise, it rather different to my custard, so I'm calling it creme anglaise a la francaise!
On Friday night we stayed in and watched a film on TV and the French equivalent to Popstars (which, despite my dislike of such shows, I will admit it was funny). It's so nice to have no stress of work and to think that by spending an evening watching TV I am actually "working/learning"! The funniest moment of the evening was when the boys came in and poured a saucepan of water over Charlotte and me, for absolutely no reason! They really do play loads of practical jokes here, I'm really watching my back.
On Saturday we went shopping (and no, I haven't yet found myself some red ankle swingers!) and in the evening we went to a electroguitarre type concert, which was quite good. We then went on to what was called an Irish bar (having never been to Ireland I'm not one to judge...but it certainly didn't seem Irish to me!) so we had a dance there, and stayed until nearly 4, French discotheques tend not to open until 12/1 and stay open until at least 5, something I'm going to have to get used to! It was really good fun to have a boogie to some crazy French music, with some English bit thrown into the mix.
Once we'd got up on Sunday we went to the beach again, we have had 10 days of non stop hot sun (except one grey morning) and I'm sorry to day that my nose has taken another battering! The people here have never known me without a red nose, and the current joke is that I am in fact an alcoholic who came to France simply because red wine is cheaper and I have a large supply in my room! Apart from my nose, I'm also still rather bruised from ice skating last week, some bruises came up a real treat!
Yesterday I finally braved doing some washing. As anyone who as ever lived with me will know, I absolutely hate doing the laundry and will do anything at all to put it off. So I headed down to the laundry room to try and work it all out (I'm possibly the first person ever to visit a laundrette equipped with a dictionary in hand!). These things absolutely baffle me, plus I've never used a tumble dryer before, so I really didn't stand a chance! It was almost a success, I only shrank 4 socks and 1 t-shirt, I aim to improve next time otherwise by then end of the year I'll have nothing left. Then again that might not be a bad thing, it'll make transporting things home easier, especially now I've got my bike!
I hope you like the photo of my bike, I'm still besotted with it! The flag has had to be returned (apparently it was "borrowed" from a bank, I'm asking no questions!) but it is still looking pretty fit!
The final observation of this post is that the French tend to leave much less space between themselves, when they're talking or just standing next to each other, I'm finding it really unnerving having someone right in my personal space. Plus you have to kiss everyone, even those you'd rather stay well away from!
It's been another busy week since I last wrote, have been at school for a few hours everyday. Still just observing classes, and answering their questions, as the title to this post suggests, there have been yet more weird ones! I've been asked out of the blue if I'll be teaching them to swim (little do they know I'm probably the most incompetent swimming instructor they'll ever meet!) and if I've ever seen a leprechaun, of all things! That one really threw me, I thought I'd misheard, as I often do, today I misheard Zinedine Zidane for Lady Diana! They do study the strangest cross section of things in the English classes, one group's textbook is 100% focused on Brighton. They also asked me if my sister had a nickname, so I said that I call her Bean, to which they fell about laughing when the teacher told them this is translated to haricot. Apparently they think the English are obsessed with baked beans, something that they find a very odd idea.
The pupils are generally really nice and friendly towards me, although I did have a group jump out on me from behind the lockers as I was walking down the corridor, which gave me a bit of a fright and amused them no end! I have started spotting some when I'm out of school (I generally dart off quickly in the other direction!) and one girl came up to me today and said she'd seen me in Carrefour at the weekend, it's a bit strange to think that I can run into pupils wherever I go.
Another funny thing they've picked up is that the English don't like to swear and generally say "sugar" instead, quite true, but it's very funny to hear them come out with it, they just don't quite have the right intonation and it sounds very odd!
So in brief, other school related news is that I've started working on organising the "Semaine d'Europe" (European week) with the librarian, we're looking at putting displays up down the main corridor, getting the chef to focus his menus on different foods etc, that week is to be at the
October. I have made posters for a lunchtime meeting with interested pupils, it will be interesting to see how many show up! I've also been asked out to supper with a science teacher tomorrow night, who has a son who needs English conversation classes, so we might set something up, it'd be great to be paid to do something as easy as chatting in English! Teachers also keeping mentioning some Comenius project I'm supposed to be doing...I have no idea what this is, as far as I knew I was an English language assistant, but we shall see! I'm doing the inevitable putting off discussing what it is until it's absolutely necessary!
Apart from school I've been busy, on Thursday evening we had a party at another of the hostels owned by the same company as this one. We went there in cars, the journey alone was hilarious, two guys in the front, and Charlotte, Pauline and me crammed in the back. We got very lost, although Pauline and I had seen the sign for the foyer, we went round one roundabout 6 times while they debated where to go, completely ignoring Pauline and me. And all this was taking place to the tune of the Titanic soundtrack which we had blasting out at full volume! Needless to say, I felt very travel sick when we finally arrived! The event itself was a sort of buffet, followed by a really crazy band (see the photo!), who played French modernised nursery rhymes! There was lots of jolly French dancing! For the buffet, everyone brought something typical from their home town. I had no idea what to take, it's very hard to find any vaguely English food here, and don't have a kitchen in which to cook anything. Eventually I found some Scottish Millionaire's Shortbread, so that was ok, thank you for everyone who offered suggestions! It was such an amazing spread, the French really do know how to cook, most people had brought some homemade dish, absolutely delicious. Particularly considering most people are in their teens or early twenties, it was really impressive, I don't think most English young people could (or would) produce such a yummy selection of goods. I'm slowly but surely getting bigger!!! Particularly as I'm currently eating brioche and nutella for breakfast, and then two 3 course meals, with ample bread. I do not know why the French are not all obese and suffering from lung cancer.
For the first few days, people kept mentioning pudding to me, and I couldn't understand what they were so interested in: I explained to them that after lunch, we'll have something sweet, just as they do in France, I didn't see what was so special. Then I realised, it's Christmas pudding that they're on about, the French are absolutely captivated by the thought of it, they find the thought of it really weird and can't believe that it actually tastes nice. I may have to bring some back after Christmas, my excuse for not making my own is that it's too late to make it now, they find the idea that you make it months in advance equally strange. I have also tried what the French believe is custard, what they call creme anglaise, it rather different to my custard, so I'm calling it creme anglaise a la francaise!
On Friday night we stayed in and watched a film on TV and the French equivalent to Popstars (which, despite my dislike of such shows, I will admit it was funny). It's so nice to have no stress of work and to think that by spending an evening watching TV I am actually "working/learning"! The funniest moment of the evening was when the boys came in and poured a saucepan of water over Charlotte and me, for absolutely no reason! They really do play loads of practical jokes here, I'm really watching my back.
On Saturday we went shopping (and no, I haven't yet found myself some red ankle swingers!) and in the evening we went to a electroguitarre type concert, which was quite good. We then went on to what was called an Irish bar (having never been to Ireland I'm not one to judge...but it certainly didn't seem Irish to me!) so we had a dance there, and stayed until nearly 4, French discotheques tend not to open until 12/1 and stay open until at least 5, something I'm going to have to get used to! It was really good fun to have a boogie to some crazy French music, with some English bit thrown into the mix.
Once we'd got up on Sunday we went to the beach again, we have had 10 days of non stop hot sun (except one grey morning) and I'm sorry to day that my nose has taken another battering! The people here have never known me without a red nose, and the current joke is that I am in fact an alcoholic who came to France simply because red wine is cheaper and I have a large supply in my room! Apart from my nose, I'm also still rather bruised from ice skating last week, some bruises came up a real treat!
Yesterday I finally braved doing some washing. As anyone who as ever lived with me will know, I absolutely hate doing the laundry and will do anything at all to put it off. So I headed down to the laundry room to try and work it all out (I'm possibly the first person ever to visit a laundrette equipped with a dictionary in hand!). These things absolutely baffle me, plus I've never used a tumble dryer before, so I really didn't stand a chance! It was almost a success, I only shrank 4 socks and 1 t-shirt, I aim to improve next time otherwise by then end of the year I'll have nothing left. Then again that might not be a bad thing, it'll make transporting things home easier, especially now I've got my bike!
I hope you like the photo of my bike, I'm still besotted with it! The flag has had to be returned (apparently it was "borrowed" from a bank, I'm asking no questions!) but it is still looking pretty fit!
The final observation of this post is that the French tend to leave much less space between themselves, when they're talking or just standing next to each other, I'm finding it really unnerving having someone right in my personal space. Plus you have to kiss everyone, even those you'd rather stay well away from!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Just a quick post for the moment to see if I can put up some photos as promised...
I obviously haven't quite grasped how to lay out the photos nicely with captions underneath, but I'll give you a quick run down of what everything is, you'll have to guess which photo I'm describing!
1) a fit chateau just across the road
2) a boulangerie that sells the yummiest bread near the chateau
3) my accommodation,
4) Marion and Pierre at the beach last weekend
5) Yoshy, Alex, Christophe, Pierre and Sebastian at a restaurant beside the beach this weekend
6) the beach on our visit this weekend, loads and loads of sailing boats around, not sure if you can see them so clearly in this photo
7 and 8) Us at the beach last weekend
9) a crazy band that played at the event on Thursday night
10) Les Sables d'Olonne (the town with the beach), a typically deserted French town at the weekend, and finally...
The best two:
I have quite simply never seen a bike like it! I still laugh at it every morning, as do all my pupils as I ride into school! It's not so easy to get up hills on it, I must admit! We're hopefully going to decorate the white panels on the sides, watch this space!
I obviously haven't quite grasped how to lay out the photos nicely with captions underneath, but I'll give you a quick run down of what everything is, you'll have to guess which photo I'm describing!
1) a fit chateau just across the road
2) a boulangerie that sells the yummiest bread near the chateau
3) my accommodation,
4) Marion and Pierre at the beach last weekend
5) Yoshy, Alex, Christophe, Pierre and Sebastian at a restaurant beside the beach this weekend
6) the beach on our visit this weekend, loads and loads of sailing boats around, not sure if you can see them so clearly in this photo
7 and 8) Us at the beach last weekend
9) a crazy band that played at the event on Thursday night
10) Les Sables d'Olonne (the town with the beach), a typically deserted French town at the weekend, and finally...
The best two:
I have quite simply never seen a bike like it! I still laugh at it every morning, as do all my pupils as I ride into school! It's not so easy to get up hills on it, I must admit! We're hopefully going to decorate the white panels on the sides, watch this space!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
An Eventful Few Days!
So I've now started at school! I turned up on Monday morning and was met by la maitrise, who took me straight to the staff room, where I met who I think is the head of English. She is to help me sort out what I do here, by help I mean that she gave me a large wodge of timetables and told me to decide which lessons I want to observe and left me too it! I can go to anything I like, the only problem being that I have no idea who any of the teachers are, what half of the lessons actually are (they're all abbreviated on the sheets I have), where the classrooms are etc etc! So to say I was rather bewildered by all this is an understatement. Any way I finally made myself a list for the next day, left a few notes in random pidgeon holes (and I have my own!) and that was that...no work on day 1!
Monday nights are sports nights, where we go and do a random sport with the people from the other foyer owned by the same company. And this week's sport was handball, yay! It was such good fun, Charlotte and I were the only girls there and at first they never passed to us, but after I'd made a few netball style interceptions they realised I could actually play and I even scored a goal! I have to say, to those of you who witnessed college handball, it's absolutely nothing like it!!! But good fun...until a fight broke out and we all had to go home, I have absolutely no idea what happened (as usual!) but two of the guys kicked off. Luckily it was towards the end of the session so it didn't really matter that we stopped. Eventful none the less!
If I could have a euro for every time I've tried to explain what netball is to someone here, I think I'd be absolutely minted by the time I get home! I have had my hoodie on and they're all really intrigued! I'd also love count the number of times people have said to me "how do you do" as soon as they've been told/realised that I'm English, it's really funny to have a 20 year guy say it...I don't think anyone has asked me that for a very very long time in England, it gets me everytime!
So that was a really good night, fight apart, and the fact that I broke my bed! I sat down with a thud on it and one of the slats has come out, ooops! Will have to see if someone can help to fix it!
So Tuesday I returned to school, having arranged to go to German, English, PE and European studies. For the first week or so I'm just going to watch lessons then decide what I like, and what I don't. German was first, it was hilarious listening to French children trying to speak German, I couldn't for the life of me work out their accent sometimes, and my own German has got very rusty of the Summer and with all this French, eek for April! Then both English and PE were cancelled, so I just pottered about a bit before going to European studies...where they were studying the American elections....since when was America part of Europe?! I think I learnt as much as the children in that lesson!
I had lunch with the teachers in the cafeteria on Tuesday, which was really good. They were really shocked to hear that I'd had to organise everything myself and know absolutely no-one here except the people I've met at this foyer and them. They were also a little worried to hear where I'm living, it has a bit of a rep with the locals (and I can see why, I had people ringing my room at 2am this morning) and gave me their numbers for emergencies which was kind of them. The funny thing is that they all have wine with their school lunches, got to love the French!
After lunch we had a departmental meeting. I say "we", I actually mean that they had a meeting, and I sat and listened. They were going over the past paper that the students did at the end of the Summer. There was a listening component, I couldn't actually do it! I think they pupils had to say where the stress was in each word, I didn't have a clue! And the people speaking do not speak like we do, a cross between a French person and the Queen! Afterwards I sat in the staff room waiting for my next lesson. The teachers there were generally complaining about the whole French education system, I've met teachers here who obviously hate their work but also those who seem to love it, quite the mix.
Tuesday evening we went to the ice skating rink which is opposite our foyer. Had a really good evening, I think I've only been iceskating twice before, I was soon going fast...much too fast, and I didn't know how to stop! They misread the expressions of terror on my face and have been calling me the fearless anglaise ever since! One of them said that I am the exact image of the stereotypical anglaise, and when I taught them Irish snap (a rather violent card game) they said that it was the epitomy of the "le sauvage anglais" (" the wild English")!
As regards my previous comment about kissing, as I was walking to school yesterday, one of the men pulled over on his scooter, took of his helmet, kissed me good morning and whizzed off, what effort!!" This morning my lessons started at 8:10am, quel horreur! It was still dark when I left, which was really weird, and their lessons go on until 5pm, fortunately I can choose my hours so I won't be doing any days of such length myself, but I do feel sorry for the pupils, especially when I explained to them that a normal school day was 9-3:30, their response was "let's go to England!"!
I went to the low ability English class today, at school they don't have any sets at all (French principle of equality) except one group per year that really struggle. I had probably the most fun of all in their class, for the entire hour they absolutely bombarded me with questions, from the usual "do you speak French?", to the cheeky "can I have your mobile number?", to the bizarre "do you dance to mowtown?" and just down right funny "what does the Queen eat?"! A whole hour of it! To be honest though, the equivalent class of pupils in England could never manage what they manage in French. The problem is that whenever they played up (which happened a lot) I found it funny! And to think that I'm supposed to be the responsible one who tells them off!
I also popped into the library, it was probably the quietest school library that I've ever been in. Even stranger, to me, was that they were almost all reading comic books, there were simply shelves and shelves of them. And it was the same when I went to the public library later, for adults as well, I think. And not just Asterix!
I've been listening to a French radio station this past week (crikey it's already a week since I've been here, time is absolutely flying by!) and was merrily singing along to the Timberland song, The Way I Are, when the woman singer came on...but it wasn't the same, they've got their own French version! It's REALLY funny, the lyrics just don't fit in when translated into French and it's just not the same! That apart the station plays a lot of English music, althought they do play the same 5 or 6 artists again and again. And they have hilarious sounding competitions, I really do not know what they''re doing, but everyone is in hysterics!
One observation I've made here is that the majority of the men carry a handbag! Very French indeed! I also had a discussion with one man today who kept saying he wants to visit the town of Arsenal, however many times I told him, he didn't grasp that the football club Arsenal is not in a town called Arsenal but in fact in London (I think I'm right about that...?!).
The final piece of news in this entry is definitely the best, so well done if you've read this far! Today I bought simply the funniest bicycle I have ever seen in my life! I can't even begin to describe it, I will hopefully take a photo and post it here, even the French find it funny, I had people shouting "beau velo" in the street on my way here! My friends have decorated it with a French flag, and there was a crowd of about 10 round it after supper this evening. There is no way on earth that I'm leaving it here, I'll cycle it back to England if I have to. Then again, it might not make it! It was an absolute bargain at 40 euros :) Can't wait to cycle to school tomorrow!
Monday nights are sports nights, where we go and do a random sport with the people from the other foyer owned by the same company. And this week's sport was handball, yay! It was such good fun, Charlotte and I were the only girls there and at first they never passed to us, but after I'd made a few netball style interceptions they realised I could actually play and I even scored a goal! I have to say, to those of you who witnessed college handball, it's absolutely nothing like it!!! But good fun...until a fight broke out and we all had to go home, I have absolutely no idea what happened (as usual!) but two of the guys kicked off. Luckily it was towards the end of the session so it didn't really matter that we stopped. Eventful none the less!
If I could have a euro for every time I've tried to explain what netball is to someone here, I think I'd be absolutely minted by the time I get home! I have had my hoodie on and they're all really intrigued! I'd also love count the number of times people have said to me "how do you do" as soon as they've been told/realised that I'm English, it's really funny to have a 20 year guy say it...I don't think anyone has asked me that for a very very long time in England, it gets me everytime!
So that was a really good night, fight apart, and the fact that I broke my bed! I sat down with a thud on it and one of the slats has come out, ooops! Will have to see if someone can help to fix it!
So Tuesday I returned to school, having arranged to go to German, English, PE and European studies. For the first week or so I'm just going to watch lessons then decide what I like, and what I don't. German was first, it was hilarious listening to French children trying to speak German, I couldn't for the life of me work out their accent sometimes, and my own German has got very rusty of the Summer and with all this French, eek for April! Then both English and PE were cancelled, so I just pottered about a bit before going to European studies...where they were studying the American elections....since when was America part of Europe?! I think I learnt as much as the children in that lesson!
I had lunch with the teachers in the cafeteria on Tuesday, which was really good. They were really shocked to hear that I'd had to organise everything myself and know absolutely no-one here except the people I've met at this foyer and them. They were also a little worried to hear where I'm living, it has a bit of a rep with the locals (and I can see why, I had people ringing my room at 2am this morning) and gave me their numbers for emergencies which was kind of them. The funny thing is that they all have wine with their school lunches, got to love the French!
After lunch we had a departmental meeting. I say "we", I actually mean that they had a meeting, and I sat and listened. They were going over the past paper that the students did at the end of the Summer. There was a listening component, I couldn't actually do it! I think they pupils had to say where the stress was in each word, I didn't have a clue! And the people speaking do not speak like we do, a cross between a French person and the Queen! Afterwards I sat in the staff room waiting for my next lesson. The teachers there were generally complaining about the whole French education system, I've met teachers here who obviously hate their work but also those who seem to love it, quite the mix.
Tuesday evening we went to the ice skating rink which is opposite our foyer. Had a really good evening, I think I've only been iceskating twice before, I was soon going fast...much too fast, and I didn't know how to stop! They misread the expressions of terror on my face and have been calling me the fearless anglaise ever since! One of them said that I am the exact image of the stereotypical anglaise, and when I taught them Irish snap (a rather violent card game) they said that it was the epitomy of the "le sauvage anglais" (" the wild English")!
As regards my previous comment about kissing, as I was walking to school yesterday, one of the men pulled over on his scooter, took of his helmet, kissed me good morning and whizzed off, what effort!!" This morning my lessons started at 8:10am, quel horreur! It was still dark when I left, which was really weird, and their lessons go on until 5pm, fortunately I can choose my hours so I won't be doing any days of such length myself, but I do feel sorry for the pupils, especially when I explained to them that a normal school day was 9-3:30, their response was "let's go to England!"!
I went to the low ability English class today, at school they don't have any sets at all (French principle of equality) except one group per year that really struggle. I had probably the most fun of all in their class, for the entire hour they absolutely bombarded me with questions, from the usual "do you speak French?", to the cheeky "can I have your mobile number?", to the bizarre "do you dance to mowtown?" and just down right funny "what does the Queen eat?"! A whole hour of it! To be honest though, the equivalent class of pupils in England could never manage what they manage in French. The problem is that whenever they played up (which happened a lot) I found it funny! And to think that I'm supposed to be the responsible one who tells them off!
I also popped into the library, it was probably the quietest school library that I've ever been in. Even stranger, to me, was that they were almost all reading comic books, there were simply shelves and shelves of them. And it was the same when I went to the public library later, for adults as well, I think. And not just Asterix!
I've been listening to a French radio station this past week (crikey it's already a week since I've been here, time is absolutely flying by!) and was merrily singing along to the Timberland song, The Way I Are, when the woman singer came on...but it wasn't the same, they've got their own French version! It's REALLY funny, the lyrics just don't fit in when translated into French and it's just not the same! That apart the station plays a lot of English music, althought they do play the same 5 or 6 artists again and again. And they have hilarious sounding competitions, I really do not know what they''re doing, but everyone is in hysterics!
One observation I've made here is that the majority of the men carry a handbag! Very French indeed! I also had a discussion with one man today who kept saying he wants to visit the town of Arsenal, however many times I told him, he didn't grasp that the football club Arsenal is not in a town called Arsenal but in fact in London (I think I'm right about that...?!).
The final piece of news in this entry is definitely the best, so well done if you've read this far! Today I bought simply the funniest bicycle I have ever seen in my life! I can't even begin to describe it, I will hopefully take a photo and post it here, even the French find it funny, I had people shouting "beau velo" in the street on my way here! My friends have decorated it with a French flag, and there was a crowd of about 10 round it after supper this evening. There is no way on earth that I'm leaving it here, I'll cycle it back to England if I have to. Then again, it might not make it! It was an absolute bargain at 40 euros :) Can't wait to cycle to school tomorrow!
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