Last 3 weeks in France

I have some major catching up to do.  I have literally been busy for the past 6 weekends and haven’t made time during the week to write my blog.  So here it goes.

April 6^th-9^th

Easter weekend I went to London to visit a friend I went to college with.  Anna and I lived on the same floor our freshman year.  She is currently doing a Masters Program there so she was the perfect tour guide.  I had a great time while I was there and was able to eat food that was American-like and was actually able to understand 95% of what was said (some of them have crazy accents that it doesn’t even sound like English).  In France I probably only understand about 80% of conversations…luckily I have good deduction and reasoning skills.

Anyways, while in London I did all the touristy things: London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace AND got to see the 2012 Olympic Stadiums!  I am sure it will be super cool this summer when I can say “hey, I’ve been there!”.  

The night before I left I met up with two of my friends/current HWS students who are studying abroad.  We went to a pub where I drank a DELICIOUS hard cider and ate some fried food that was all kinds of terrible for my body.  Don’t worry, my body punished me the next day.  I am afraid how my body is going to react when I go home!  

Overall, I had a great time and it was really nice to be able to hang out with my friend Anna!

April 14^th-16^th

Last weekend I went to the Palace of Versailles in Paris!  Friday night I spend the night at my French friend Elisa’s house and Sautrday morning at 4AM it was rise and shine so we could take our bus to Versailles.  I was afraid I was going to get bus sick so I sat in the front seat and lucky me, I was able to sleep the whole way there.  About 4 hours or so!  They all made fun of me and were like “Oh, the trip here was beautiful, don’t you think?”  Haha…they were just jealous they don’t have my napping skills!

We arrived at Versailles around 10AM and started with walking around the castle.  We picked up an audio guide to listen to the history and background information about the different rooms.  The rooms were cool but were over-crowded and the audioguide was a little boring.  Everything always says how Versailles is so cool I think my expectations were set to high.  It was cool, just not amazing.  

In other news, as I said, I went with my friend Elisa, and one of my students (who is friends with Elisa as well) and her younger sister Manon.  Manon clung (clinged?) to me because she thought I was the coolest thing in the world.  Which I think it pretty funny seeing as she didn’t always understand me when I spoke (I always didn’t understand her when she spoke either).  My student Laureline was our translater…except not a translator, just a repeater.  She repeated what I said with all the French noises I can’t make and repeated what her sister said while speaking at a normal pace!  One time I said something and Manon giggled and I asked her if she understood what I said and she was like…”ummm…no.”  It was funny because even when she couldn’t understand my French, she still thought I was the coolest thing since sliced bread.  

After seeing the inside of the castle, we saw the gardens and fountains which were pretty cool!  The bushes were beautifully pruned and shaped.  Also, everything was symmetrical!  Pictures to come.

Finally, at 5PM it was time to head back.  We stopped for dinner at a rest stop and eventually made it back to my friend’s town around 10:15PM.  THEN, José convinced me to go to a party in Limoges.  I gave in because it was going to be the last time that I could see some of the other assistants.  We talked, danced, and drank until 5:45 in the morning!!!  It was a really fun night and although I was super tired, I somehow managed to stay energized the whole night (Red Bull may have helped a little)!  We then spend the night at José’s adopted brother’s apartment and headed back to Bellac…feeling like crap of course.  

Last Week in France

This past week has been absolutely amazing.  Monday I was able to sleep in and catch up on the sleep that I missed during the past weekend and then taught my 3 courses.  All my students were very nice and enjoyed my last lesson about differences between French and American culture. They found it very interesting (and it is)…and then I bribed them to pay attention with candy.  Haha.  Works like a charm!

Tuesday my American friend Stefanie came and we hung out and said out goodbye’s.  We didn’t do anything exciting because it was raining outside, but we did watch a Disney movie and ate brownies (I haven’t eaten brownies since I’ve been here, so it was a nice treat).  Right after Stefanie left, I went to judo to say goodbye to all of the lovely, welcoming people I have met over the past few months.  After judo was over and I said my goodbye’s, I was really sad.  The people at the club are so friendly and truly make me feel comfortable to speak French.  They joke around and act goofy, and we always have a good time.  It stinks that the past month or so I couldn’t go because of my stupid foot.  Oh well, at least I took the time to say goodbye.  

Now on to Wednesday.  Wednesday I closed my bank account, a process that was much easier than I expected.  My normal bank counselor lady (I forget the English word for this) is on maternity leave so I was a little nervous to meet with someone else.  It went fine and I understood everything she said.  I forget sometimes that I actually know, understand, and can speak French.  Silly me.  After that, I took a nap and then José and I headed off to the pool!  When we got there, they informed us they were clothing an hour early and we only had 45 minutes.  We both worked the hardest/quickest we ever have at the pool and even made time to go in the hammam and sauna at the end of the workout!  José has definitely become a much better swimmer since the beginning because now he can keep up with me and in the beginning he couldn’t.  Good for him.  After the pool, we went to an assistant’s apartment who was having a get together/soirée.  We ate dinner, chatted, and listened to one of our friends play guitar while the people who knew the song sang along.  It was nice to see a few of them one last time.

Thursday… Thursdays are always my busy day.  I have 2 classes in the morning, my 2 hour French class, and then teach 2 hours after my 2 hour French class.  Busy busy busy!  My first class went well and the class gave me nice card.  My second class was amazing.  They are my favorite group at the middle school.  They are both polite (most days) and intelligent.  I feel like that a class like that is hard to come by.  There teacher was absent because he said some kind of training in Limoges (of course he couldn’t warn me), so I took the whole class for an hour. Technically that isn’t allowed, but they are such a nice class that I don’t mind.  We started with differences between French and American culture and ended with a game.  At the end of class, they gave me a present.  It is the cutest thing I have ever seen.  It has all of their pictures on it and says things like “We will miss you” or “we miss you already” or “we love you” or “we are sad because now we will have Monsieur Bordes all the time.”  They told me to fire their teacher so I could be their teacher.  I told them I can’t teach English because I don’t know the grammar rules and they told me they didn’t care.  At the end of class we took some pictures, I had a girl hanging onto my leg telling me I can’t leave, and they all gave me a huge group hug (hugs are weird for them just like their kisses/bisous are weird for me).  They loved it and love me.  I truly will miss them.  They really didn’t want me to leave.  So much that 3 of them lined up in front on the door so I couldn’t get out!

I then had my French class that went well.  It was only me and a new guy so I was the only one who did my homework writing about what I think about French politics.  So the teacher corrected my homework on the board, I LOVE individual attention and being corrected!  It’s the best way for me to learn.  At the end I said goodbye, gave kisses, and walked home in between the rain showers (lucky me).  I then had my 2 classes left for the day. When my first class never showed up, I went to the office and the lady told me it was normal because they had an equivalent of a practice SAT (or course no one could tell me this in advance).  I already set up the projector to show a PowerPoint so during that hour, I watched the show Private Practice on the projector.  It was like a personal movie theatre.  Haha.  It was great.  I then had my last class with 12 girls and it went really well again (partially because I bribed them with candy)!  After my classes, I packed my things (mostly everything fit), and waited for José and our Mexican friend Daniela to come to make us tacos for dinner!  They were delicious (and not at all similar to the tacos we have at home).  

And then it was Friday.  I said all of my final goodbye’s to the important people…the principal ,English teachers, nice office ladies, etc.  The worst was saying goodbye to José.  He gave me a photo album (it just took me a solid minute to remember how to say photo album…I could only come up with the word photobook).  It was really nice and he commented on the photos.  Remind me to show it to you the next time I see you.  He then helped me carry my things out to my friend Elisa’s car where we hugged and I started crying...and José teared up as well.  Of course 4 of my students were outside smoking and saw me crying. I really am going to miss him.  He has been my closest friend for the past 7 months.  He will just have to keep it touch!  

And here I am, a car ride, train ride, and shuttle ride later…sitting in my hotel.  Today I woke up at 4AM said “No Delee, go back to sleep” and gave up at 5AM and got up.  Keep in mind that my alarm wasn’t set to go off until 7:30!  I showered, got dressed, and breakfast and after that, STILL had 3 hours to week before it was time to head to the airport!  So, here I am writing this blog.  It’s probably a good thing that I woke up so early because I was able to catch up on my blog and will be able to sleep better on the plane!  Guess it wasn’t so bad after all.  

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog.  At some point after I proofread my blog for my many grammar and spelling mistakes, I am going to make it into a book.  Should be interesting to read it and keep track of my “Exploration of France Part 2.” 

BIRTHDAY FUN/CRAZINESS

1.)    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

So, it was Friday morning at 10AM on my birthday and I had the day off.  Naturally, I was sleeping.  In my dream, someone was knocking on my door.  Except, I shortly realized that I wasn’t dreaming and there was someone at my door.  And not just anyone, it was the principal saying “Delee, vous etes là?(Delee are you there?)”  I mumble “Je viens, un moment,” (“I’m coming, one moment.”) throw on a shirt and answer my door. No one is there.  I figured that maybe he wanted to wish me a happy birthday.  So I get dressed, go to the bathroom, throw on a pair of jeans and a shirt and go looking for the principal.  I went past his office and the door was shut so I kept walking into the school.  I saw someone who worked in the office walking around and he approached me and told me the principal needed me to be a translator.  So I knock on his door and who do I see?  One of my English students, his parents, and the principal.  The principal asks me to translate an incident report for his parents who don’t speak French (at least not well).  So I begin translating into English that the student, who lives at the boarding school, was shaving his face at 9PM (which is against the rules, apparently they have to be in their room at 8:45) and when asked what he was doing, he told the surveillant that “you never stop pissing me off.”  What a cute phrase to translate to a set of parents.  The punishment was that he was expelled from the boarding school for a week.  So, I finished translating the paper and thought to my myself, PHEW—I’m off the hook and can go back to bed.  NOPE.  After about 20 minutes of conversation and translating between French and English (everything the parents and principal said), the conversation was finished and the punishment was reduced to 2 detentions.  This was quite the interesting morning, but I will say that it was pretty fun and nerve-wracking all at the same time.

2.)    Birthday Continued

So last week was “La semaine des arts”…AKA Art Week and on Friday it was the big finale and students sang, danced, played the guitar, etc.  It was awesome and the students did amazing, I was definitely impressed. At one point I thought the students were going to sing to me and the WHOLE school was there!  Luckily it didn’t happen.  BUT the story doesn’t end there.  José offered to take me to the train station because I was going to the beach for the weekend with a friend (more to come on this).  And I was really happy he offered to take me because of my stress fracture in my foot.  So José and I were going to leave around 2 to take me to the train station.  So at 1:45 José says Delee are you ready?  And I’m like yah I can be ready.  He then tells me he has a meeting at 2 in town so we have to leave early.  Whatever, it was better than walking to the train station!  So we start our walk and he tells me we have to go see the Spanish teacher first, not sure why I had to come but whatever,  I went nonetheless.  Next thing I know, I am getting sung Happy Birthday by my favorite class of seniors and there is a cake in front of me.  Apparently José planned this to happen in front of the whole school but they ran out of time.  THANK GOD.  It was still very nice of him to plan this (of course after I called him a liar, he didn’t have any meeting to go to)!

3.)    Birthday Dinner with a Friend

I went to my friend’s house (we were going to leave for the beach the following day) and we went out for pizza!  It was delicious.  It was a pizza with a cream sauce, onions, potatoes, a specific type of cheese called Raclette, sausage, and ham.  DELICIOUS!  She also made me a cake so of course I had to eat some of her cake too!  I am spoiled

 

4.)    Weekend in La Rochelle AKA the BEACH!

Saturday morning we left for the beach, a 2 hour train ride away.  We were a little late getting to the train station and literally RAN the last .25 mile or so to the train station.  We JUST made the train, we got on and the train’s doors closed and we left immediately.  It was crazy but we are very lucky that we made the train!  When we got there, we checked into the hotel and went straight to the beach.  It was nice to enjoy the beach and get a bit of a tan!  The rest of the weekend I was a glutton and ate like a fatty…2 amazing homemade ice creams and 2 kebabs!  Yum!   Sunday morning we went to the aquarium, apparently the best aquarium in France.  It was really cool and I got some good pictures.  We then went to the beach and spent the rest of the day there until our train.  It was definitely a successful birthday weekend!

Long Overdue Updates

So this week in called “La Semaine des Arts.”  In other words, Art Week.  It has been quite a cool week if you ask me.  On Monday there was a photo expo that Jose did a lot of work for.  Tuesday there were some student performances…playing instruments and also some acting/storytelling and it was also a dress-up day with a Spanish theme.  I don’t think anything happened on Wednesday but if it did, I totally missed it.  Today there was a short film made by four students, one of which is my student.  Apparently in October they won some kind of competition with it.  I was pretty impressed with the filming and acting.  Then, Jose made a slideshow with music of a trip to Spain he went on with some of the students.  Basically I am a slacker assistant.  No, not really, but this week it seems like it.  This week was pretty cool considering that it has been around 70 degrees every day and the Art Week is pretty cool too.  AND 3 classes were cancelled this week.  Woohoo.

In other news, last weekend I went to Bordeaux to visit a girl I studied abroad with in Avignon.  

 When stepping outside the train station I could already tell that I was going to like the city. And I did.  It is the perfect size city, not too big and not too small…just right.  The first night, Friday, we went out for dinner, drinks, and then went to a club.  Well technically, it was an Eramus party.  (Erasmus is the program that Europeans go through to study abroad).  It was really fun and I got to know some of Lauren’s friends.  Plus, I don’t go out very often so it was a nice treat.  We didn’t get home until 5:30AM!  WAY past my bed time! 

  We eventually got to bed and woke up around 11 and got ready and went shopping.  I got 2 pairs of shoes and a purse.  All of the shopping was on 1 road…and it was PACKED with people.  

 Apparently it is the longest pedestrian street in the world (at least that’s what Wikipedia says).  Saturday we were pretty tired so we met up with some friends and called it an early night.  Sunday I went home on the train with no complications.  I had a really good weekend.

As for teaching, I really enjoyed this week.  I am learning more of my students names and forming connections with them week by week.  Some of my students are finally realizing that I am not quite so bad after all and some even said they will miss me.  My middle school students are the cutest.  They literally cheer when they see me and never want to leave my lesson and go back to their teacher.  The way it works is that I see half the class for 25 minutes and then I get the other half of the class for the next 25 minutes.  It is so cute when they are like please, don’t make us go…let us stay…PLEASE!!!!  On a side note, today I was showing a PowerPoint with pictures of Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and my house and one picture was of Beaver Island Beach.  One student says “The word bitch is written on a desk in the German classroom.”  The rest of the students were like “SHHHH, don’t say that.  That’s a different word.”  In general, French people have a very difficult time with the difference between beach and bitch.  They sound very similar…so I made it a teaching lesson, explained the difference in meanings and pronunciation.  And then made them promise not to tell their teacher.  Last week I also explained to a class of Terminal AKA Seniors the difference between being pissed off and being pissed on.  Very subtle difference, but very important as well.  They thought that was funny. 

 I am going to miss some of my students but at the same time I am ready to go home.  I am glad I came to France for the past 7 months but I am ready to get back to ‘normal’ life.

Sorry I have been sucking at writing in my Blog lately, at least I wrote a long post today!  Enjoy and see you soon!  23 days!!!!

The End is Near...

So my time here is slowly running out.  5 weeks left.  17 days of teaching left.  It is crazy how time flies.  In October and November I felt like this time was never going to come. 

I have an exciting 4 weekends ahead of me.  This coming weekend I am going to Bordeaux (as in Bordeaux wine, the region where it is made) to visit an American friend that I studied abroad with and now is an assistant as well.  Bordeaux is the sixth biggest city in France and from what I hear, it is a pretty cool city.  The weekend after that is my birthday and I hope to go to the beach (about 3.5 hours from here by train) and get a tan…but the weather isn’t very predictable so maybe that won’t happen.  If not, I’d like to go to Dordogne, an area I can go kayaking in and while kayaking, there are apparently some castles you can see.  I hear it is a beautiful area.  The weekend after that (The first weekend of April), Easter, I am going to visit a friend in London!  I will be staying at her flat and she can be my guide.  I also have a couple friends from college that are studying abroad there that I would really like to see as well!  So now, this brings me to my next weekend in France…I will be going to Versailles.  You know, the castle that was stormed by the French peasants during the French Revolution.  There is some fountain show that is paired with music and lights so I am told.  This is a place that I have wanted to go for a while but haven’t had the time.  It is near Paris, but not in Paris and when only in Paris for a few days, I never wanted to waste a day not enjoying the Paris city center.  So here is my time, the only part that I don’t like is that we are taking a bus…probably a 4 hour ride and I sometimes have the problem of getting motion sick.  Hopefully I will be ok though!

So as excited I am to go to all of these places, I am equally excited to come home.  7 months in a long time to not come home…I am ready for my ‘normal’ life again.  USA, here I come. 

Happy

 

So I remember the last time in France (2 years ago when I studied abroad) I just got confident in French, used to life in France and really started enjoying my time and then it was time to go home.  This time around I started really enjoying France a month or two ago and am enjoying my time here.  I no longer resent my small town I live in but actually really like it.  I am involved in my town and have met some really nice people.  On the weekends I visit friends or explore new cities or occasionally even stay here and relax.  I am really glad that this program was 7 months long and not just 4 (like abroad).  It gave me time to learn to despise my town and now time to really appreciate all it’s worth.  I am now busy three days during the week and before, the reason why I didn’t like my town is because I felt lonely, trapped, and bored.  Now, I don’t feel any of those things.  And I love it.  Don’t get me wrong, I am more than excited to go home, but I can honestly say that I have really enjoyed parts of my time here.

Middle Schoolers...oh là là!

So this past week was the closest "full week" of work that I have had in a long time (even though 2 classes were cancelled, well not really cancelled, more like I wanted a few minutes, no one showed up, and I had to go to the office just to find out the students were with other teachers or just didn't show up).  Regardless...lets get back to my story about middle schoolers.

I had a great activity planned out for my students, we were going to play a modified version of Pictionary but they had to write full (ERROR FREE) sentences about what the person in the figure was doing.  (Harder than it sounds for them).  Given the age of the students and the excitement that this game would bring, I asked my teacher if she would warn them to behave.  She gladly did so and even added her own twist saying "If you do not behave, I have these slips in my desk called detentions (students GASP) and that means 2 hours of your Wednesday afternoon will be spent at school."  The students put on their serious faces and promised they'd behave.  Well, one student must have thought that she was joking (or that I am too nice to actually give him a detention).  He decided it was acceptable to yell "putain de merde"...TRANSLATION: F***KING SH*T!  That is the exact moment I said "Leave, go back to the classroom with your teacher and you can't play the game."  I am not sure why he thought it was acceptable to yell that...it must be because either 1.)He thinks I don't understand French 2.) He thinks I am too nice to discipline him or maybe even that because I am not a real teacher, I wouldn't do anything.  I am thinking it was more #1!  He should know better, not only that you don't say that in class but also that swear words are the first words anyone learns in a language (besides hello and thank you).

After the class was over I went and spoke to the teacher and told her what happened.  Apparently he had no idea why he was sent back to the classroom AND when he came back to her classroom he opened the door and proceeded to kick his backpack all the way to the back of the classroom!  

Pretty sure I made an enemy, if the teacher allows him to come with me next time (because it truly is a privilege for the students), I guess I will see if he tries to give me crap again!  Hopefully he (as well as the rest of their class) learned their lesson.

I did the same lesson 2 times with 2 different groups.