Week before CHRISTMAS VACATION!!!

So not much has happened that is all that exciting.  (I’m just counting down the days until Jordan comes…6 days as of today)!

Last weekend I went to a Christmas concert with a friend…turns out it was more concert than Christmas.  There were two groups that played, a local group that some of my students played in,  (Random Fact: regular public French schools do not have band/chorus or sports.  If you want to play an instrument, sport or sing, you have to join an outside group/club/team that normally costs $$$$), and a Big Band (like jazz) with a talented singer.  In all there were only two Christmas songs but regardless I am glad I went.  It really made me miss playing my instruments…haven’t picked up an instrument since high school.

Friday night my friend slept over and Saturday morning we were picked up by our French friend and went to a macaroon museum. We learned everything there is to know about almonds.  (Another Random Fact of the Day: there is a type of almost called a ‘bitter almond.’  If you eat 20 or more you will die of poison.  If you eat one before you drink, you will not get drunk because the poison stops the alcohol from being absorbed into the blood stream).  And of course there was a tasting involved as well…of the macaroons not the crazy bitter almonds.  We then went to a really lame Christmas market and only one thing caught my eye.  I passed it by though.   Go Me.

This week has been ok.  The kids are pretty crazy because it is the week before vacation.  I totally get it but at the same time it is really annoying.  I think everyone is in need of a break right now.  Need to recharge my batteries and get away from these crazy kids who have no respect and don’t know how to keep their dang mouths closed!  I gave 2 classes lectures (one of which in French) telling them that I try to plan fun activities that are different from what they do in the rest of their classes and that I do not have to.  If I wanted to I could give them books to read and questions to answer and I should doing that seeing as they aren’t cooperating and are being impolite and disrespectful.  Basically threatened them with boring lessons rather than fun things (ex. Listening to a Christmas song in English and filling in the missing lyrics).  The lectures worked for approximately 2.5 seconds and then they went back to being rowdy, annoying, sophomores (except it’s their first year in high school, so they are basically freshman, just a year older). 

So that has been my week thus far…almost done, thank God!  I am ready for my vacation to Rome, Italy, and Paris with the boyfriend.  6 days and counting!

Arts and Crafts

No turkey and stuffing for me at Thanksgiving.  Instead, I taught about Thanksgiving a million and a half times to all of my classes.  We read a short reading giving the basics about Thanksgiving that most students didn’t really understand…to help them, I played story time and told the story by acting and drawing pictures.  This is what the board looked like each time.

After the reading, each student was asked to write 3 sentences about what they are thankful for.  I was even nice and told them they could work in groups of two!  So they had to write 3 sentences, I would read and correct their mistakes and then they made a final copy.  After I did this a billion and a half times and bought markers at the store, my project began.  This was what I made this morning.

Here are some examples of my favorite ones!  Either because they nice, interesting, ridiculous, or funny.

"I am thankful for religion because we have public holdays"

"I am thankful for Delee because she teaches English and it's fun."

"I am thankful for Bob Marley because he was the greatest singer of "smoke to join."  I am thankful for Coca Cola because it mixes well with whiskey.  I am thankful for Jamaica because it's a beautiful country."

"I am thankful for rugby because of the beauty, simplicity, and purity of the sport through every left pass, harring run (?), with every kick, scream, and line-cut.  "A hooligan's game played by genllemen (meaning gentlemen)."

"I am thankful for Delee because she is a very good teacher."  With a backwards American flag...Perfect :-)

Hope you enjoyed arts and crafts because my students did...and I definitely did too!

Oradour-sur-Glane, WWII, and an Unjustified Massacre

Another weekend closer to Christmas break and Jordan and my vacation in Italy!  Can’t wait.

Friday night I stayed in and cooked dinner and watched some Gossip Girl.  AKA my newest obsession, especially because Jessi (friend from HWS) introduced me to a new website to watch American TV shows…this one doesn’t have any limits and doesn’t freeze up unlike the site I was using!  It’s a great time-killer and I am often bored so it’s perfect!

Saturday morning I went with some friends to another town called Ouradour-sur-Glane.  During WWII the Nazis massacred 642 people…and they weren’t even Jewish (not that it makes it any better or worse) AND this was in a town in France that wasn’t even occupied by the Nazis.  It was a free zone.  And after all of these people were shot, the town and all of the human remains were burned making mourning impossible.  The bodies couldn’t even be identified.  The worse of this whole thing was that there wasn’t even a good reason that all of these people were killed...they weren’t Jewish, gypsies, or whoever else they prosecuted…just everyday people.  Here are some pictures.  They are touching and this experience weight very heavy of my soul.

This says: 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane, of which 197 were male, 240 were women, and 205were children were savagly massacred by the Nazis, the village was set on fire and completely destroyed.

This tells people to remember these people, say a prayer for them and their families.  It also says may they rest if peace because they are living in eternity.

Self explanatory.

Remnants of bikes.

Remnants of a burned car.

This says "On this site, the population gathered."  The Nazis went from house to house and gathered all of the people in this space.  After this, the men wer sent to several different places while the women and children were sent to the church.  All of the men were shot simultaneously in the different locations.  The soldiers then went to the church and killed all of the women and children by shooting them and throwign grenades.   After everyone was shot, the bodies and town was burned.

The church

Taking a step back to look at the city.

I can’t even put into words how I felt when walking through this.  It was unreal.  In America, we don’t have things like this, and what schools teach is the watered-down version of history; it always teaches students that “America is the hero” and we always “saved the day.”  Students will never fully understand history unless they take courses in college or educate themselves by means other than text books. 

On a brighter note, we then stomached some lunch and walked around a Christmas market.  It was cute but nothing really caught my eye besides the chocolate shops.  I ended up buying a small raspberry jam just because I wanted to try it.  It was probably over priced but it’s ok, I will enjoy my over-priced raspberry jam!

La Vraie Paix.

"Pour trouver la vraie paix, il faut réfléchir à ta vie."

This is what I learned today; translation: In order to find true peace, you have to reflect upon your life.  Deep right?  I was feeling bad for myself today, this what happens when I have a day off with nothing to do.  I miss my family, my friends and just being able to 100% be myself.  And you may think, well why don’t you just start acting like yourself then?  Easier said than done.  It is border line impossible for me to be 100% myself here, not because I don’t want to, but because of the language barrier.  Many of the comments I would say at home, I don’t say here because A.) I don’t know how to say it.  B.) In the case that I do know how to say it, people may not catch my sarcastic tone C.) I don’t want to offend anyone and I haven’t really figured out what is/isn’t offensive for the French.  Besides that, I often feel bad for myself because I don’t have many friends.  At home, it’s so easy to make plans.  Here, not so much.  It normally involves a train or occasionally someone else’s car.  I can never just hop in my car and drive away.  It always involved a second party (AKA another form of transportation).  And even if I did hop in my car and drive away, a drive of 30 minutes plus would be involved to even see someone that I may or may not even consider a true friend.  Oh the complications of living in a foreign country.

I decided to go on a run because I had nothing else to do and they normally calm me down.  So I left for my run hoping to release some endorphins.  And it worked…Bellac is a very pretty town and when I stopped running and walked down 102 steps that are un-even, not the same height, and on multiple occasions I thought my knees were going to give out, I sat down on one of these so said steps and took in the beauty.  It was borderline breath taking.  I analyzed and enjoyed the architecture (which is very different from American houses), the small river flowing through my town, a bridge for trains, and a church—more or less a cathedral.  It was an amazing experience.  It is moments like these that verify my belief in God.   From the trees, to the river, to the sky and all of the amazing surroundings that surrounded me, I know that this all of this beauty cannot be sheer coincidence.   It was too perfect.  In this time I also thought about my dream.  My dream of teaching in France.  And then, if I am living my dream right now, why am I not ecstatic to be here?  After pondering these questions and many more, I concluded that life is what you make of it. It is MY choice.  Happiness is a choice.  The way I respond to life’s happenings is my decision.  I have been taking for granted all of the things that have happened in my life to help me get where I am today.  My family.  My friends.  My education.  And life—everything that happened along the way as I matured into a young woman.  I should be thankful for all of the things in my life and I was wasting time feeling bad for myself because of my lack of friends.  Instead, I should be thankful for the friends that I do have here.  So after all of this, I felt at peace with myself and was ready to start my run again. 

Now that my mind and spirit were feeling like a million bucks, I was at ease and felt lighter.  My strides were long and strong and I was running like a gazelle (ok, not quite.  I run more like an elephant on most days, but I felt like a gazelle, so that’s all that matters).  And then of course I was almost back…and had a slight problem.

I stepped on something which I thought was a leaf and then it got stuck on the back of my calf.  I was almost done with my run so I decided to ignore it and keep running  When I stopped running, I wiped the so called leaf off my calf (without looking), and when I looked at my hand…this leaf was not a leaf.  It was dog crap.  And would you like to know what I did?  I laughed out loud.  What else could I have done?  I thought it was funny.  I finally felt at peace with myself and then I step in dog poop, and even worse now it was on my hand!  And I just laughed, by myself in the street, and people probably thought I was crazy, and I didn’t care. 

So I went back to my room.  Took a shower and am now blogging about it.  Hope you liked the ending to my lovely day.

(I thought I'd share a picture because today was pretty much the epitomy of epic).

Bienvenue en France

So the title of this post translates to ‘Welcome to France.’  For those of you who haven’t read my entire blog, I use this expression when a problem occurs and the solution isn’t quick or easy and more so, it’s frustrating, complicated, and really doesn’t make sense at all.

For the past two weeks, the buildings and grounds/maintenance people have been working on completing our ‘kitchen.’  Right now, my ‘kitchen’ is in the hallway and consists of a microwave and a mini-fridge.  They are in the process of re-doing a room (painting, putting down new floor, and adding ventilation).  After two weeks, the only noticeable difference I see is that they painted and did something with the floor, buffed or sanded it or something.  There is A LOT of noises coming from the kitchen on a daily basis, but when I look, I rarely see any difference in the room. 

Yesterday, I had class from 3:30-5:30 and I saw that one man was doing something with the breaker and the electricity.  After my class at 5:30, I unlock my door and turn on the lights…well I guess I should say I flicked the light switch but the light didn’t come on.  All of the lights in the hallway were on, the fridge still worked, the light in the bathroom worked, just not my room.  I knew I was running out of time because school ends at 5:30 meaning that most of the staff leave then as well.  I went to one of the offices and told them that I didn’t have electricity.  Their solution was to move me to a different room for the night.  WHAT??  What kind of half-ass solution is that?  So then I left, stunned and semi-pissed and losing hope by the second.  As I was walking back to my room, I saw one of the ladies I eat lunch with who is in the accountant.  I told her my problem and her first word was ‘shit.’  She told me that the workers already went home and she also told me who I should go talk to.  I went and spoke with this women and after I told her my problem, she asked me to wait a few minutes so she could finish something, after walking in circles for 5 minutes, she was done.  She decided to call the worker’s home phone to ask him if he knew what the problem was…but he wasn’t home yet meaning he just left school.  Awesome.  After about 20 minutes have passed, she decides to make a visit to my room see for herself.  She didn’t know what to do but then I showed her where the breaker was and eventually she started flicking switches until the lights came on.  And violà.  Problem solved after speaking to about 5 people, one of which told me to move to a different room…quelle solution (meaning ‘what a solution’).  So that is my drama of the week.  I am lucky the problem was solved at all  I suppose.  Tomorrow I am doing some site seeing with Elisa, the French girl I went to Lacanau with, one of my students, and my friend from Montmorillon named Stefanie who is another American assistant.  Should be fun!  I will post pictures and write about it eventually!  Until then.