Bonjour! Again, sorry for the delay, but I think I've talked to a good many people individually since the last update, and it's getting easier now that most of the background info has been covered. So, today started off fairly well when I checked the score this morning and saw that the Red Sox killed in game 1! It's awful because the games start at 2 am in France, so I have to agonize over it all night, and then read about all the plays the next morning. And it's not descriptive enough... if someone flies out, it could have been a routine catch or an amazing dive into a wall, you know? (I've been watching the Rugby World Cup as a substitute, but it ended with South Africa winning last weekend. France was in the top four, but lost to England so everyone here was depressed.) Anyways, ESPN now lets you download individual games afterwards for $2, so let me know which ones were incredible to watch. 13-1? They are out of control... hell yeah!
I also woke up today to a sore throat, so that was less exciting! I have not been able to shake a stuffy nose for a week and a half either, because I'm not really resting enough. I'm working on it! But they have this amazing numbing throat spray here, I have three boxes of tea, and no classes today. I have a full day tomorrow, but then we have a vacation! I finally bought all my train tickets and coordinated everything. I will be leaving Saturday night for Paris on the TGV, and staying in the 13th arrondissement near the Latin Quarter, Place d'Italie, and Chinatown for a few days. Then Tuesday morning I get to ride the very expensive Eurostar to London to visit my friend Mike! He is living and working in Brighton for the next few years, so I will be staying with him until the following Tuesday. Then I start working again on Thursday Nov. 8. I've only worked 4 weeks, and I get a 12 day vacation! France is awesome...
Yet I am missing quite a bit from home, too. It goes without saying that I miss my family and all my friends; it's hard to go from talking almost daily to very rarely. But I did thankfully get in touch with a lot of people these last two weeks! Thank you to everyone who emailed and sent pictures. It's great to hear about little things from home, and to see cute babies, the dog, or Kyle with a gun (oh my god!). It's too bad you can't send food through email— it's delicious here, but I miss Kowloon and pizza without goat cheese, ha ha. I am also really missing your yoga class, Mary! I did find a class at a YMCA type-place, so I will be trying it out after vacation. I haven't seen any yoga mats yet, and you can't really do it on a linoleum floor... though I did try! I also would kill for a dryer right now, no one really uses them here. It's not so bad (it is very good for the environment!) except that my jeans are now all stretched out, and my clothes don't have that dryer-sheet smell. Sigh...
I may also be moving into an apartment downtown, but like everything else, it's up in the air. I've requested to see it today, but have been waiting for the agency to contact the proprietor and get back to me. I would be living with Pamela and Brady (see my last post), and a French guy named Pierre who is studying in Nancy. The apartment is for November 1st, though, when we're on break, so I'm not sure how it will go down.
Ian, the teacher from Scotland, invited the whole English department for dinner last night. There were 10 of us altogether, and sooo much food. We had olives, bread with tapenade (and cheese?), and some kind of flaky pastry tart for appetizers while we chatted and played with his two adorable little sons. Dinner was Indian inspired, with some super-spicy pork dish I avoided, rice, korma, a cashew dish, a tomato chutney, stuffed eggplant, lentils, bread.... and I was sadly mistaken for thinking that was it. Then we had salad and a selection of cheeses, and then dessert with a chocolate mousse, an apple tart, and coffee. Everyone also insisted I try the champagne, white wine, AND red wine, then accused me of coming to France for their alcohol, and threatened to tell my parents! They are all really sweet, I am so glad that I am working with such great people. And then, with stomachs full of wine and great food, everyone started singing traditional English and Scottish songs, and asked me what we sang at dinner at home. Ha! So to throw in something American for me, they sang Yankee Doodle. Hmmm... we are actually starting up a choir at the school, so hopefully I can redeem myself with some better American songs for Christmas!
Well, it's noon so I should probably shower. I slept so late because the teachers kept me out until 1 am! This afternoon I have to run more errands downtown, and get organized for my trip. Tonight I am going to see a circus with some of the other assistants! I've never been to one, I'm a bit skeptical, but it should be fun. I will be sure to post pictures of it, and my trip to Paris and London! I will now be putting all my photos on sizzicupo.shutterfly.com, so it's a lot easier and more organized. I will be taking my laptop on vacation, too, so feel free to send me your thoughts whenever! Stay well, everyone!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
More craziness
Hello everyone! A bit overdue for an update, I know, I hope people weren't too worried or desperate for reading material. I have plenty of stories, though! First off, they found my backpack! I couldn't believe it, but it was eleven days without clothes! But at least it is here. Coincidentally, they found it right when Janet called and harassed them, but supposedly they had already found it in Boston underneath one of the belts. Hmmm.
This week I started observing classes, although I still had to introduce myself and answer all sorts of questions. "Do you have a husband?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Do you have children?" (and in that order, too!) They also asked me if I liked President Bush, what I thought about Sarkozy's election, and whether I liked French men. They are quite the inquisitive group of kids! I got my tentative schedule, which has two alternating weeks. One week I will have Tuesday and Thursday off, the other week I get to go in much later on Friday. It's not really balanced at all, and I have a single one-hour class every Wednesday, essentially ruining an extra long break every second week, but I like everyone I am working with. I am working primarily with students in their last two years of high school, and just a few who are sophomore age, and one class of post-grad business students. It should be interesting!
I also met many more language assistants this week. There is a guy Brady who is from Arizona, who I had talked online about the trip before I even left. He and I went out with a few of the girls I live with, and he has introduced us to other people in the program too. After dinner together that first night, the other girls went home very early, so Brady and I grabbed a drink at an Irish bar. This girl overheard us talking English in the bar, and it turns out that she was also an English assistant in Nancy! (This has happened to us so many times, because people get very excited to hear English in a sea of French.) Her name was Pamela, and she kept saying that I looked familiar, but I get that a lot, and she's from Ohio so it seemed unlikely. The very next day, we had another English assistant move in... and it was her! So we were telling everyone about our coincidental meeting, but the story actually got even better.
We were talking for a while about our colleges, and what study abroad programs we had done, and we realized we both had done the Quebec summer program at Laval. So I showed her some pictures on my computer, and the very first one I pull up, she is IN IT. We were in the same exact class!!! Only she had long hair two years ago, and now it is very short, so I didn't recognize her. Yeah, we spent five weeks in Canada in the same classroom together. How crazy is that?! So now people have heard us tell the story to everyone we meet, and they keep rolling their eyes at us.
I also met a crazy drunk woman from Ohio, and her friend Cesar, when we were talking English at another restaurant. She seemed cool, but then she was wasted an hour later, and was being the stereotypical obnoxious American in Europe. She kept saying "good evening" to our waitress over and over, and the woman had no idea what to do. Then the other night, we bumped into a bunch of guys from England who are here working for a few months. When we walked by, they actually said "Bonjour, Madame" to each of us, which was strange because everyone in France has been calling us Mademoiselle. So I thought that some French guy thought I looked like an older married woman. Turns out, they were just British and spoke literally no French. So we hung out with them since no French people will talk with us (I can't imagine why), and we all decided to meet the next day. For whatever reason, everyone kept backing out one by one, so it ended up that it was just me and Charlie, one of the British guys. Some of the other assistants stayed with me for a little bit in case he suddenly seemed dangerous or something, but then he and I walked around to find someplace for dinner. We ended up at some Italian place, and it was really weird because it felt so much like a date, even though it wasn't supposed to be a date. It was a little awkward, but he is super nice and super British. Today, we bumped into them in another Irish restaurant, while trying to meet up with yet another assistant. Either there are a lot of English people here, or Nancy is a really small city.
Well, that's not even the half of it really, but I will have to give more specific stories about the students and the other assistants and teachers later. I'm still alive though, and promise I'll be better at updating. Also! I won't be putting any more pictures on this site because it is too annoying. I have been using Shutterfly, but I can't figure out how other people look at it yet. I will post the link with my next update. Have a good couple of days everyone!
This week I started observing classes, although I still had to introduce myself and answer all sorts of questions. "Do you have a husband?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Do you have children?" (and in that order, too!) They also asked me if I liked President Bush, what I thought about Sarkozy's election, and whether I liked French men. They are quite the inquisitive group of kids! I got my tentative schedule, which has two alternating weeks. One week I will have Tuesday and Thursday off, the other week I get to go in much later on Friday. It's not really balanced at all, and I have a single one-hour class every Wednesday, essentially ruining an extra long break every second week, but I like everyone I am working with. I am working primarily with students in their last two years of high school, and just a few who are sophomore age, and one class of post-grad business students. It should be interesting!
I also met many more language assistants this week. There is a guy Brady who is from Arizona, who I had talked online about the trip before I even left. He and I went out with a few of the girls I live with, and he has introduced us to other people in the program too. After dinner together that first night, the other girls went home very early, so Brady and I grabbed a drink at an Irish bar. This girl overheard us talking English in the bar, and it turns out that she was also an English assistant in Nancy! (This has happened to us so many times, because people get very excited to hear English in a sea of French.) Her name was Pamela, and she kept saying that I looked familiar, but I get that a lot, and she's from Ohio so it seemed unlikely. The very next day, we had another English assistant move in... and it was her! So we were telling everyone about our coincidental meeting, but the story actually got even better.
We were talking for a while about our colleges, and what study abroad programs we had done, and we realized we both had done the Quebec summer program at Laval. So I showed her some pictures on my computer, and the very first one I pull up, she is IN IT. We were in the same exact class!!! Only she had long hair two years ago, and now it is very short, so I didn't recognize her. Yeah, we spent five weeks in Canada in the same classroom together. How crazy is that?! So now people have heard us tell the story to everyone we meet, and they keep rolling their eyes at us.
I also met a crazy drunk woman from Ohio, and her friend Cesar, when we were talking English at another restaurant. She seemed cool, but then she was wasted an hour later, and was being the stereotypical obnoxious American in Europe. She kept saying "good evening" to our waitress over and over, and the woman had no idea what to do. Then the other night, we bumped into a bunch of guys from England who are here working for a few months. When we walked by, they actually said "Bonjour, Madame" to each of us, which was strange because everyone in France has been calling us Mademoiselle. So I thought that some French guy thought I looked like an older married woman. Turns out, they were just British and spoke literally no French. So we hung out with them since no French people will talk with us (I can't imagine why), and we all decided to meet the next day. For whatever reason, everyone kept backing out one by one, so it ended up that it was just me and Charlie, one of the British guys. Some of the other assistants stayed with me for a little bit in case he suddenly seemed dangerous or something, but then he and I walked around to find someplace for dinner. We ended up at some Italian place, and it was really weird because it felt so much like a date, even though it wasn't supposed to be a date. It was a little awkward, but he is super nice and super British. Today, we bumped into them in another Irish restaurant, while trying to meet up with yet another assistant. Either there are a lot of English people here, or Nancy is a really small city.
Well, that's not even the half of it really, but I will have to give more specific stories about the students and the other assistants and teachers later. I'm still alive though, and promise I'll be better at updating. Also! I won't be putting any more pictures on this site because it is too annoying. I have been using Shutterfly, but I can't figure out how other people look at it yet. I will post the link with my next update. Have a good couple of days everyone!
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