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!

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!

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.

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!