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!