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!