So this will be one of the final posts on this blog, well at least, a post that will be related to my Year Abroad. I have 16 whole days left in this little town of Lannion and for the most part, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I would love to travel to Brest and St Malo so I will look into that.
Over the past few weeks, my life has mainly been filled with teaching and bureaucracy, so not much exciting to write about. However, last week, I did go to London on a school trip. I have a feeling I was only asked because they were short staffed, but nonetheless, it was a good week. The journey took about 13 hours in total; we travelled by coach up to Calais then crossed to Dover on the ferry. We had the same coach and the lovely driver all week, so that made things a little easier.
We arrived in London about 9am Monday morning and spent the day looking round Westminster, Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus. We finally got back to our host families late in the evening and we (myself and the 3 other teachers) collapsed into our beds. Not sure how I'm going to write the rest of this post really, I mean, I could list the places that we went to but sadly, there isn't much else to say in addition to that.
The main things that stick in my memory are that; I got to meet up with 3 friends in Covent Garden and I tried frozen yoghurt for the first time, some students we 50 minutes - to an hour late when we had given them free time on Oxford Street and that we spent 9 hours in Canterbury on the Friday, with nothing planned, on a day when it was raining. Sadly, we had to spend at least 9 hours there before getting the coach back to France because, by law, the driver needed that amount of rest. When we returned to the coach, we learnt that the driver had fallen down the coach steps earlier in the day, but after I gave her some painkilling gel, she put on her smiley face and we left for Lannion. Little did we realise that she had actually broken a rib...! The picture below was taken just before we headed back to France.
Today was my last day at the school and whilst I'll miss some colleagues and students, I'm rather glad to leave because it means I'm closer to going home and enjoying some home comforts again. As a typically British comment, I would like to say I'm glad that the weather has improved, even though it now means I stand out (even more) like a sore thumb. I walked around town today in a vest top whilst the locals continued to wear coats and scarves...
A colleague has invited me to have dinner at her house on Saturday, but as of yet, nothing has been finalised so that might not happen. As lovely as it would be, I would feel so awkward and anxious. In some ways, I'm hoping she doesn't get back to me...
I apologise for how disjointed this post seems, it's just that I thought I should update this blog but there isn't much enthusiasm for it at the minute. I am about to finish a post for my other blog though, so keep an eye out!
So, it's been a while since I last updated, but there has been a genuine reason for that, don't worry. During my time away from this blog, I went back to England for the 2-week Winter Holidays. I wasn't always planning on going all the way back home but after booking a trip to the Isle of Wight and another to London, I was left with a gap of 6 days, so I decided it would be easier to pop back up to Leicester for a bit too. I do believe it was a good decision as well because the stint between Christmas and the end of February was really quite depressing as I often found myself feeling homesick.
I started the holidays by leaving Brittany by taking a ferry (well, two actually) to the Isle of Wight to see a friend who I've known for 8 years, but this was the first time we had met. It was so unbelievable exciting but nerve-wracking at the same time. I spent 4 days on the island meeting her friends and family, having a good catch-up and getting to see the world from where she lives. To be honest, it was quite surreal, because every so often we would remember that we were not talking on Skype, that it was real! I might go back over there in the Summer, when, hopefully, it'll be a tad warmer, but I'd like her to come 'up North' first. We'll see.
Then I made a trek back up home which included a long coach, a train and walk though a place where there was a ridiculous amount of horse muck, to where I finally got to surprise my parents by just turning up on the doorstep. I would have liked to have let myself in, but sadly, the door ate my key over the Summer, but instead, I was greeted by my cat, which if you don't know already, I treat like a child. Once the door opened, I was greeted with a 'uhh, what are you doing here?' from my father and a very-close to tears mother. The next few days were nothing to write home about really, I just chilled around the house, seeing a few friends and family.
Towards the end of the holidays, I headed down to London, where, to the annoyance of my friend, I repeatedly got confused between the Underground and the Metro... I guess that's why she decided to drop a big metal frame on my foot.... (just kidding, I know it was an accident, don't worry about it). Lots of people came down (or up, or over) to London that weekend because a friend from America was visiting for the first time. There are too many stories to tell really, but one of the highlights - and hopefully something that will interest a few people - was seeing Matilda in the theatre. I was obsessed with the film as a child, so seeing Tim Minchin's version was just wonderful. There was a proper feeling of nostalgia but also awe at how well the young cast performed.
On Monday morning, I took the Eurostar back to France and within 5 minutes of leaving St Pancras, the landscape was completely white. 10 hours later, I made it back to the little town where I'm staying, later to hear that all Eurostar services had been cancelled due to the weather. Phew, that was lucky.
Nothing much exciting has happened this week, two lazy days where I had lessons but either no or few students due to the snow, a lesson based on a Murder Mystery which was fantastic and oh, more letters from the CAF demanding more documents. The same documents which I have already sent them. My cynical side says that they are delaying my application process on purpose, hoping that I'll either just give up or that it'll come to May and it'll be too late to do anything because I'm sure they'll refuse to transfer money into my UK bank account. Little buggers.
So, I have 22 days left of teaching and 49 days left in France. I have mixed feelings about that, so I'll just leave this post here. Suspense? I think not.
I've been meaning to write this post for a while and considering it is now half 11 at night, I'm not sure if I'll finish it today. We'll see. My last post left you on a bit of a downer and for that, I apologise. I'll admit that I was finding it difficult to be back in France after the Christmas holidays, but now that I'm half way through this stint of teaching, I don't feel as bad.
Many things have happened since I last posted here, but I'll talk about the things that stick out in my mind. The first, chronologically, was the Equal Rights Demonstration in my little town which happened on January 19th. We had only expected about 50-60 people to turn up to the town hall, but in the end there were about 250-300 of us. It was a really good atmosphere. We might have been a relatively small protest, but we made sure we were heard. I also managed to find my way into a local newspaper, see if you can spot me, I've found myself twice.
Apart from working, I didn't really do much else apart from going to the cinema, having hot chocolates in cafés until the Saturday which has just gone. I've realised that I need to start doing more with my weekends, especially travelling, because, let's face it, time is running out. I finish my Year Abroad on May 5th. So this Saturday, I went to Guingamp with some other assistants for the afternoon and it was lovely. I got to meet new people as well as walk round a new town under a clear blue sky. Here are just some pictures that I took:
This weekend, I think we're planning on having a party like the one we had just before Christmas and then the week after, I've been invited to someone's birthday party where there'll be lots of karaoke and bowling. Think I might just have to go, then after that, it's the holidays! Woo.
I know that I only updated my blog a few days ago, but that was all about being at home - well, it wasn't - it was a long-winded moan about my life in this house. That post was the result of returning to France feeling rather gloomy about spending the next 5 months here, no longer having a desire to teach and wishing that I had applied to a French university in a bigger city instead.
Life has ups and downs, we can't avoid them and this week has been a true reflection of that. As a side note, I remind myself on the bad days that, if I were in England right now, I'd be doing final year exams and in the middle of a dissertation, which to be honest, I'm glad I'm not doing. Or if I had applied to a French university, I would probably be doing exams there too.
The rest of this post will be set out in two a section for the highs and another sections for the lows of the week, that'll probably work better than just rambling my way through the days.
Lows
I felt rather crappy about being back here, but as the week went on, I've settled back in.
I received my Interim Report back from my supervisor which I had to send back to Leeds. My mark was surprisingly low. I've since then, asked most of my colleagues (will continue this week) for their opinion on what and how I could improve. One suggested reading French poetry out loud, another to listen to and watch more French programmes and another has arrange to chat with me every Monday lunchtime. How lovely.
I crossed paths with my stalker today in the launderette. He asked me about why I wasn't answering his calls, I told him to bugger off. He did, eventually.
Highs
To counterbalance the spoken French mark, I received feedback for the really tedious questionnaire I had to fill in before Christmas. I'm really pleased with the amount of corrections and the comments made; I know where I went wrong and I do plan to revise these aspects of grammar. Sightly annoying though, as usual, when I read back over what I had written, I changed a few things because I thought they were grammatically incorrect, but they weren't. I should have left them.
My classes have gone really well this week, my favourites include the one on gender stereotyping, where we looked at an article about a little boy, Sacha, who has been raised gender-neutral. I'll be doing this lesson for the next two weeks too; I'm glad about it, I really like this class.
Also I loved some classes where I did New Year activities. For example, I gave the students a list of 8 people and they had to complete a table of their wishes for these people's love life, health, money for 2013 and also to give them a New Year's resolution. That went okay, but it wasn't what was so amusing. Some classes then decided to make up a story using these people and when the list includes François Hollande, Marine Le Pen and Justin Bieber, you can imagine the results. One class said that Justin Bieber and Marine Le Pen would have a car accident in the same place as where Princess Diana died (just a tad sensitive) and that François Hollande saw the accident, laughed but then died because he choked on his popcorn...
I had the first choir session of the year. I don't get such a feel-good sensation from it as I do with the choir in Leeds, but it's still good.
I had my first taste of a galette des rois and I had the piece with the King/Queen inside. Well, actually, you could see it because of where we had sliced it, but I was given that piece anyway.
This evening, I went to the cinema and saw The Life of Pi/L'Odyssée de Pi. It's a really good film, but I think I might have to watch it again in English, because the version I saw was dubbed (obviously) so I couldn't lip-read to help me understand. I really enjoyed looking at all the animals though, and the massive herd - what is the correct collective term? - of meerkats!
But anyway, The Show Must Go On (this just happens to be a song I'm learning with the choir here). Another week ahead of me, nothing much planned as of yet, just the demonstration I mentioned last time. Good news though, is that this term is only 7 weeks long, whereas I thought it was made up of eight weeks. Wahoo.
So, Happy New Year to all my readers, I hope 2013 bring you everything you want and more. Right, enough of the cheesy stuff. I thought I'd update my blog because, although it might not be long, I've got a few things to mention and if I don't do it now, I'll forget most of these things, or the new post will be ridiculously long.
As I'm sure you know, I went home for 12 days over the Christmas break and honestly, the time flew by. I knew that it would because I'd be busy seeing family and friends and time always seems to pass quickly on 'big event' days such as Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. The journeys to and from Paris CDG weren't as horrific as I had imagined them to be. Most of the trains ran on time, and even when they didn't I still got to the airport two and a bit hours before my flight. All was going well (ignoring the screaming kids, howling cats, and rude passengers) until I arrived in Birmingham. Well, actually until I got to the Baggage Claim area. I whizzed through customs because I have the new type of passport so I went through the machines that check your passport/retina and when I got there, there were NO queues. Win.
So I got to baggage claim and after about 10 minutes, I began to panic. I was seeing the same pieces of luggage come round and round the conveyor belt again and again. Finally accepting that my bag, for some unknown reason, had not made it to Birmingham, I filed a complaint/filled in a lost bag form. I was told that it would be on the next CDG-BHX flight (sorry for being lazy there), which was due to arrive that night at 10pm. Admitting defeat after travelling for about 16 hours, I felt as if I was crawling through the 'Nothing to Declare' area. I was greeted by my parents in the Arrivals area, then nearly died at the extortionate £17 car parking fee - which didn't include a receipt - so I couldn't try to claim the money back. Cutting this story short, 3 days and many calls to Air France later, a nice guy turned up on my doorstep Christmas morning with my bag. I still have no idea why it didn't go on my flight, I checked in with hours to spare.
Being at home was wonderful, I went out for so many meals and caught up with some amazing people. I even managed to pop up to Leeds for two days and saw three friends up there, one of whom is Kirsty, who is also on her Year Abroad in Pau. You can read her blog here. Something that still makes me smile is when I think of when we went bowling, I was playing the best I have ever played and scored a fair few strikes/spares across the three games. I only managed to win one game though, and even then, that was because the system had messed up and have given one of Kirsty's scores to me.
I've been back in Lannion since Saturday night and already it seems like the holidays were ages ago. Even by Monday lunchtime, teachers were asking when the next holidays were coming up. I have a new timetable which will be put in place next week; it's not pretty at all, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I also have a clean kitchen. Yes, a surprise, isn't it? You might not have seen the photo on Facebook, but I sent a photo of the dirty pots to my landlord and explained that someone in the house isn't pulling their weight. I got back to the house on Saturday and the kitchen was spotless. I have since found out that the landlord had come round to check how everything else was and then spent six hours cleaning the kitchen. Six hours.
So, that's all for now. Not really much planned in the upcoming weeks apart from an Equal Rights demonstration in Lannion next weekend and, when I finally build up the courage, I'll be asking for a day off, so I can see some wonderful people in London in March.
With regard to teaching, there's not that much to say, really. I'm averaging 9 classes a week, because some are being cancelled due to end of term tests and inspections. I don't mind this at all, I'm all for the extra time in bed extra. What isn't funny though is when a teacher has a planned day off, tells the students and the other teachers, but fails to tell me. This happened to me the other Monday morning, I got to the school for quarter to eight in the morning to be told that the teacher was not going to be in that day. I took a deep breath and headed for the staffroom and set myself up on the computer for my (now) 3 hour gap until the next lesson. I only live a 15 minutes walk away from the school, but for those of you who know me, I was too lazy to walk back again.
I found ways to pass the time, which included voluntarily marking some work, and just before 11am, I went to make some photocopies. This is when I bumped into the teacher of the 11am class and I was told that she didn't need me either because the majority of the class had an exam and the three that remained are nowhere to be seen. Another deep breath and a smile through gritted teeth, I volunteered in a random class because I felt like I should do something as I had just spent 3 hours in the school. I helped out in a class of seconde students, had lunch and went home. I never got an apology from the 8am teacher and at one point, I even had to remind her that she wasn't there that day.
The past couple of weekends have been rather busy and social. The first weekend of December, I was invited to a belated Thanksgiving meal with two other assistants and their teachers. It was a lovely evening and started to get me in the festive mood.
Last Saturday, I went to St Brieuc and met up with a few assistants there. We went to the market, had a pub lunch, went back to someone's house for popcorn, cake and coffee and then once I got back to Lannion, I spent the evening with two other assistants, eating pizza and chatting.
This weekend has been amazing, but now, for a reason which I'm not too sure of, I ache. Friday night, we had a party in Perros Guirec, there were 12 of us in the end, I got to meet new people and catch-up with assistants I had already met. After plenty of food and drink, we decided to go for a midnight walk to the beach. We could have walked along the road and down a few steps, but no, for some reason unknown to me, we climbed down the wet, slippery, uneven rocks, with only the light from our phones. I have no idea why. Once we were actually on the beach though, it was lovely and the stars were very bright.
Today, I spent the afternoon volunteering as a Christmas Angel with the LGBT-H association that I've joined. The association has set up a stall at the Christmas market and we're selling teddy bears, candy canes and Christmas hats to raise money so we can then buy toys for the children in the local hospital. I'll be back there on Wednesday too, for the whole day, which should be interesting.
I've just come off Skype with my parents so now I'm really excited for going home. This time in 6 days. I'm jealous of those leaving on Wednesday but I'm sure Saturday will come round soon enough. I'm also really in the festive mood, despite a few issues regarding presents.
(Picture 1: The group of assistants the morning after the party in Perros
Picture 2: Poster advertising the Christmas Angels operation
So, it's less than four weeks until I go home for Christmas, which seems like a long time, but also not, at the same time. This update is going to be focused on non-work stuff, because I'm now back in a routine at the school and the only things to say in addition are that; 4 of my classes have now gone on work experience, which is good because I've got rid of my stressful class, but in return I've been given a class at 8am on a Monday and another one on Tuesday which means I now do 3 hours straight, but that doesn't bother me as much.
On the social side of things, I've got a fair bit to say actually, so let's get started. Two weeks ago, I found myself sitting in on a Saturday with some friends, pizza and knitting. Two friends already knew how to knit, one was just learning and I sat there determined to remember what my Nan had taught me nearly 10 years ago when I wanted to make some mittens for my nephew. (I only succeeded in making one, I gave up after that). After spending ages trying to work out how to cast on, I gave up and got someone to do it for me. It hit me later (after calling Nan) that I don't think I was ever taught to cast on. Well, I knitted a few rows but the whole thing was very tight so gave up. Again.
I'm sure you're wondering how the choir is going (especially those of you in GA back home). It's going well, despite not being able to read music or completely understand what the director is saying. We've started learning Queen's 'The Show Must Go On' which is such an amazing song and I'm glad it's in the repertoire. Being the token English member of the choir, I was asked to help with pronunciation. Scary. But, I bit the bullet, said 'screw you' to anxiety, read out the lyrics, then proceeded to stand at the front so I could hear everyone. As for GA music, I've not even opened the learning tracks or anything, but I will know them for when I return in September.
In the back half of last week, I acquired a stalker. I went to the launderette on Wednesday because I was feeling super productive. A guy came in and started talking to me and asked what I was doing when I was finished at the launderette. I explained that I wasn't looking for a boyfriend and would feel that going for a coffee would lead him on. He then asked about going for a coffee just as friends. Because I'm incapable of saying no to people, I agreed to meet him Friday. I never did meet him because in the two days before meeting him, I sensed that he was really clingy and obsessive so called the meeting off. On Friday alone, I received 10 'blocked' calls and 5 blocked messages - blocked because I've downloaded an application to deal with him for me.
On Saturday (November 24th), I went to Rennes for a demonstration in support of equal rights. I was originally going to go alone because I didn't think anyone would want to go with me. I finally decided to post a link in the Facebook group for the assistants in the académie of Rennes and in the end, there were 6 of us at the manifestation. It was a lovely day because as well as being part of a really positive atmosphere, I got to do a tiny bit of shopping too, I bought my Secret Santa present, had a look round the market and ate another one of those lovely galettes (savoury pancake).
You might remember me mentioning an association called &BraiseZ, well I am now officially a member and on Sunday, I went to St. Brieuc for my first AGM. It was rather confusing at times, especially when 20 people decided to all talk at once, but I feel that I understood the most part. I'm also going to be getting involved because I have been asked to do a translation for some correspondence. Yay.
That is pretty much it, I could have written more, but my concentration is dissipating. Plus, I've got to get up early tomorrow for an 8am lesson. Wooo.
So I feel like I should update this blog. At the end of my last post, I had just come back from spending a day in Rennes and meeting friends and of a friend. The rest of the holidays were spent going to drinks, going to the cinema and the market and just generally chilling with the other assistants in the town.
Brief film review: I went to see the film 'Amour' which is about a couple in the eighties and the film shows their everyday life as the wife's health deteriorates. As a non-native speaker, I can say that the film was easy to follow and the story flowed well. I was able to predict the ending but it doesn't mean that I don't think the film was really well made. If you have a spare 2 hours and 5,50€ (depending on where you are in France), I suggest you go to see it and if you're like me, take some tissues. I have a feeling that I'll spend a decent amount of my spare time in the cinema; it's good practice for my French, but also, the seats are amazing.
That's pretty much all I can say about the holidays, they were very chilled and well needed, but I am quite glad that I am (almost) back in a routine with working at the college again. I say almost, I unexpectedly got a day off today, for which I did a massive cheer (my lessons would have been at 8 and 9am), one class was cancelled earlier in the week because the students have a mock exam. I only realised yesterday, however, that the second class was cancelled. I received a flyer in my pigeonhole which told me about a protest/demonstration type thing that would be happening today and thinking ahead, I decided to go and ask the teacher, L, if she still needed me or if she would be going to the protest. As soon as we saw each other, I knew I had a day off. Both of us starting a conversation at the same time, we worked out what was going on.
Plus, starting the last week of November, I no longer have any of my lycée professionnel classes (including the really stressful class). Win. Having said that, L said that we could look at my timetable to see if I could work with other classes, presumably lower years.
There are a few things to mention from working these past two days. On Monday, I worked with 4 students on an activity which required them to imagine that they were very rich and that they lived in the year 2037. All of them got really into it, which was encouraging for me, that was until a girl wanted a translation for something specific from Harry Potter. I felt myself cringe inside. I wasn't really wanting to admit that I haven't followed the whole Harry Potter craze, but I didn't know what the girl was on about. I think I got out of the situation relatively unscathed. At the end of the lesson, we played a memory game which required them to name countries and each turn, someone would add another country. I was a great feeling to see the students in the corridor a bit later on and they were still playing the game.
For every positive aspect of the day, it is likely there'll be something to counteract it. Tuesday was a day where I wished I knew how to say 'it's just one of those days' in French. At the beginning of my first lesson of the day, I met the teacher and she said that she would send the students up to my classroom and that I didn't have to go to her classroom to collect them. So I headed up to my classroom to find that it was occupied by exams. Returning to the teacher's classroom, I found that my students had already been sent to find me. I had no students and no classroom. I went to the Vie Scolaire office where a nice lady found a room that was vacant and also sent a message out over the speaker system in which I was called 'Madame Wightman', it felt weird. After 10 more minutes or so, I still had no students. I had (wrongly) presumed that they had bunked off, but decided to check the initial classroom first. Back up to level four I went, to find 16 students waiting for me outside my classroom. The exam lady nowhere to be seen. Still, I took the students back down into our temporary classroom, to find that it was really small, the students didn't seem to mind about having to sit on the radiators though...
Tomorrow is my two month-anniversary in France and I would say it has gone relatively quickly. When I compare these two months to the Summer I spent in France in 2011, it feels like the most recent two months have flown by. However, it wouldn't be fair to make that comparison, a lot of things are different now. As I said earlier, I had a day off today. Originally, I was going to spend my extra time going to Leclerc, I know, I lead an exciting life. Instead, I had an epically long lie-in, then went for a walk around town, exploring and taking pictures. Here are some of them:
Hotel de Ville
(Flags of Brittany, France and Cotes d'Armor)
Quai d'Aiguillon
Some buildings in Parc Ste Anne
Oh, I forgot to mention two things. I came across an article earlier that my friend wrote, so I thought I would share it. It's particularly interesting for those on their Year Abroad or those who are planning one.
Also, observation #754: Dear France, you would do really well if you decided to make railcards and train tickets the size of a credit card, instead of their current size of a large block of chocolate. It would be so much more convenient.
I'll start off with some observations/little anecdotes:
(I realise this is quite boring and trivial...) Although food may be more expensive here than what I pay for at home, there is one thing that I am never going to buy the 'Carrefour discount' version of, ever again. Yoghurts. At home, I am more than happy to eat Tesco value yoghurts, no problem. These Carrefour one though, they look like and have the texture of curdled milk. The only thing that is good about the yoghurts, apart from the price, is the 'aromatised' part.
I found a slug in the kitchen sink the other day. What the hell?
Last week was the final week before half-term, or All Saints holiday and there's not that much to say about it, really. Monday was the first time where I had a difficult group to work with; I couldn't get them to listen to me or to speak in English, they always relied on the two British guys to translate for them and didn't really get involved with the activities I set. After the class, I spoke to the teacher and he said he would talk to them. I do believe something will happen; this is the teacher that makes the student wait to be told to sit down. The rest of the week was pretty boring, nothing exciting or unusual to report. Thursday, with one of my favourite classes, I took a lesson on equal rights which went really well, the only downside is that I ran out of time to have a proper debate.
I had no classes on Friday and have since then, been on holiday. I've met up with the other assistants in my town a few times for drinks. On Monday, I went to Morlaix with 2 assistants, stopped on the way to go to the beach and flew a kite, then when we got to Morlaix, we just had drinks and walked round the port because most things were shut.
Tuesday and Wednesday (yesterday) were spent in Rennes. On Tuesday we went to the Jardins de Thabor and had a nice walk round - both days were really sunny so we were really lucky. After visiting the gardens we were given a little tour of the city centre because we had met up with one of my friend's friends, who is French and lives in Rennes. After sitting in yet another café/bar, we then decided it was time to have dinner. Now I'm a fan of pancakes, but there might have been a bit too much that night. For the main meal we had a galette, which is basically a savoury pancake, mine had chicken and cheese in it and an egg on top. Oh and butter. Lots of butter. So much that my plate was still swimming in it after I had eaten the galette. It was sooooo filling and nice though. Normally, I am the first to want a dessert, but that night I could have passed on one... wish I had. For dessert, we all ordered a crepe, a sweet pancake, mine had Nutella in it. I managed t eat it, but oh my, I was full afterwards. Wednesday, we didn't do much. Just went to the local market, walked round, went to another café and to a boulangerie and then made the 2-hour journey back to Lannion.
Today, I'm just staying in and chilling a bit (literally, if you think of how cold my room is). In between relaxing, I've cleaned the kitchen, well almost all of it. I still need to clean the floor and leave passive-aggressive post-it notes for my housemates for when they return. I am not an obsessively clean person, I would like to think that my cleanliness habits are about average, but I could not take it anymore. In the sink were pots that had been left there for about 2 weeks, if not longer, and there was no sign of them getting washed up soon as my housemates have gone (somewhere) for the holidays. So I bought some washing up gloves and got cracking. *shudder* It was vile. Tomorrow I plan to finally make the trek to Leclerc and buy a light bulb to replace the one in the shower room.
Other things to mention in this post include:
I found a really cheap return flight from Dinard to East Midlands for Wednesday (31/10) and return on 07/11 but I didn't buy it for two reasons. I was running out of money and I had no idea how to get to the airport and then when I did find a route, it looked rather long-winded and expensive. So, I didn't get to go home during the holidays even though I'm very jealous of all of you who have been able to.
I said that I was running out of money. My money situation has now been resolved. I, surprisingly, got paid on Tuesday, so that's a nice 794€ in the bank. I honestly didn't think I'd be paid on time because of the whole French bureaucracy thing, but also because I thought that my Social Security hadn't been sorted out completely. I must have been wrong. I'm still waiting for my carte vitale though.
More money situation has been sorted, I think Student Finance has finally, that's finally realised, that my parents' income is well within the eligibility area for the maintenance grant. After filling in more forms, sending more letters, photocopies of P60s and getting the Erasmus lady from uni to contact SFE, I think it is sorted. I'm just waiting for the letter to confirm this and for them to tell me how I can get the money I am missing from the first installment. Talking of Erasmus, the first part of that has gone into my bank too. Oooh it's so difficult to not buy ALL the things.
With the rest of the day I plan to buy some birthday presents thanks to good ol' Amazon and snuggle up in bed, keep warm and watch back-to-back episodes of Ellen.
(NB: Captions mess up the layout of the post. The first picture is from Les Jardins De Thabor and the second is the Hôtel de Ville, Rennes).
Some things, with children, are known internationally. I was walking through town yesterday and I saw a child holding hands with both her parents and on the count of three, the little girl was lifted up and swung forward. I remember doing this as a child and I've done this with my nephew and nieces. It really made me smile.
The ready meals in France are of a better quality than at home, as is a lot of food, some would say. Whilst, tonight, I had my second ready meal since I've been here (this might be a huge surprise to some of you), I've already noticed this difference. For the equivalent of about £1.60 (2€), I have just eaten, chicken, couscous and vegetables. The couscous was not all hard and stuck together, the vegetables were still crunchy and the chicken was there in a reasonable portion. At home, you can pay less than £1 for a value brand meal which only suffices as a 'really can't be bothered to cook/don't have the money' meal or for about £2 you can buy a supermarket's own ready meal, but in my opinion, unless this meal is of the Italian pasta variety, the meal isn't that delightful, mainly because of soggy vegetables.
Sometimes, the French and the English have the same attitudes, in particular when it comes to roadworks. I walked past a sign which told me that the (pedestrianised) street I wanted to go down was blocked. As I was about to go a slightly longer way, I witnessed a load of people walking straight down the street, without a care at all. I followed them.
The attitude towards recycling really depends on what you're doing. In the school I work at, many of the students' worksheets are on the back of waste paper. The other extreme, however, was witnessed the other day when I received 3 or 4 separate letters (all in one envelope, to be fair), all of which were about 3 sentences long. Why they couldn't all be merged into one average length letter, I do not know.
The trains over here really are a lot more expensive than I thought. I, wrongly, came over here with the impression that UK trains were the ones with rip-off prices, but no, even with a railcard, I'm looking at 100€ to get to Paris, which is ~4.5 hours away. At home, I could do that (say to Brighton or Portsmouth) for £30-40. The coaches are really well priced though, I'm looking at getting a return coach ticket to Germany for 95€.
I've now been living in my little French town for a month. This was something that crossed my mind when walking back from a bar. Tonight, I had my first almost-proper social time since I've been here. Over the last two weeks I've been meeting people in the académie of Rennes who are also an assistant like I am, and on Tuesday, I met some more people who either live in my town, or very close by.
As I've not updated this blog for a week, and it's now quarter to midnight, I will just give a brief overview of what happened on the days of the week which are worth mentioning. Let's start with last Saturday. This was a day where most of the assistants in the region met up to meet each other and have a good day in the big city. As you could have predicted, it rained ALL day but it didn't stop us from sitting outside at cafés and walking round the streets looking for the best creperie. I spent most of the day talking in English as I was with a group of native English speakers and a token German who could speak English better than she could French, so there was no question about it.
Tuesday was the stage d'accueil, the training day. I woke up late, but managed to scramble out of bed and walk to the school for just after 8am, to meet Philipp who then drove to the school. The morning was spent listening to men who worked for the local equivalent of the British Council and filling in forms to do with Social Security. This was the moment where I realised I'd made a mistake. I had remembered that I needed to bring my birth certificate with me, but didn't realise that they only wanted a photocopy, along with a copy of my passport and bank details. After a few minutes of panic, it was sorted that I would send the documents the next day. I knew there'd be someone who would forget the documents, but as I am normally a very organised person, I never thought it would have been me. There was one form which made me shake my head, almost in disbelief, but more in a 'this is so typically French' way; it was one form, three pages long, which asked for the same information, three times. If I didn't know my name and address of by heart before that form, I did afterwards. The afternoon was spent with an English teacher who gave us ideas of things we could do with the students. She also showed us some images which may be risky to use as class material; things including anti-smoking ads (above) and anything containing abuse, but at the end she handed out some images which we could take and use for ourselves - one of which showed a man kneeling over a dying/dead child just so he could get a good photo of something else. Right, because THAT makes sense.
************About a week later... ************
Yeah, I'm really sorry for not having updated this sooner, I was either too busy, tired or just couldn't be bothered. You should feel lucky this is getting updated now, I've not touched my French blog since I arrived.
I can't remember what I was going to write for the rest of that week, so it can't have been that important. I'll tell you about this week instead, but include the weekend. On Saturday I met up with a few of the assistants who live in Lannion, or nearby and we went for a drink. It was here that I learnt a new phrase, both the English and the French versions - apparently, it was like we were at a 'Sausage Fest/Fete des saucisses' because for most of the evening, we were the only women in the bar. Sunday wasn't very interesting, I had a lot of lesson preparation to do and other chores, but the highlight of the day was talking to the entire family on Skype via my sister's iPhone - being passed around from pillar to post did give the effect of being on a rocky boat, but it was good - especially seeing my 2-year old niece trying to turn my 9-year old nephew into a frog!
Monday
This was quite a scary day. I doubt that I've already mentioned it here, but I agreed to help a teacher with the oral tests for two of her classes that I don't actually work with. She had asked me if I would do it, and I didn't want to say no and it sounded like a challenge, so why not? Only when I realised that the only suitable times were either Monday at 8am or Tuesday in the between two other lessons did I begin to regret it. Monday morning rolled around, I crawled (not literally, which might surprise some of you) into the staffroom to find the teacher downing a mug of coffee to wake her up - if only I drank coffee too. They all find it really strange that I don't drink coffee, tea, wine or that much in the way of alcohol - it is often the case that exceptions prove the rule or stereotype, though.
Anyway, the oral tests, the first girl I sat down with was very shy and hardly said anything, but I'm also tempted to think she hadn't prepared either. The second girl did really well but by the time she had finished, the teacher was giving a monologue to the class about how she was disappointed that no-one had prepared, that she was sorry for dragging me out of bed and that they would all be penalised for this (I managed to make sure that the second girl I spoke to wouldn't be punished as she had done reasonably well. I'm making it seem as if this teacher is horrible, she's not, she's lovely, to me and also to the students, if they do what they are meant to do, this is the case with a lot of teachers and as I was a 'teacher's pet' at school, I never saw the nasty side of my teachers.
One final note for Monday was that, in the afternoon, I had a class with a trainee teacher, which is fine, nothing wrong with that. We all walked into the classroom and I noticed that the students were taking ages to sit down... but then I realised that they were waiting to be told to sit down. Woah, I felt like I had gone back a few decades or moved to a different culture entirely. This teacher is a young guy, so it was not as if he was being a stickler and all traditional. None of the other classes are like this, the students just walk in and sit down, like we're all used to. After thinking about it a bit later, this class was predominantly boys who are on a vocational course, so maybe the teacher has taken that approach to set some sort of discipline level. I re-introduced myself to the class (saw half of them the week before when the teacher was absent) and got them to ask me some questions. This was the first time that I came across the 'do you have a boyfriend question'. When they realised I was single, one cheeky student asked for my number. I smiled at the teacher as I was SO tempted to make up a random number to see how the students would react, but I didn't and decided to ignore the question altogether.
Tuesday and Wednesday
Tuesday was rather normal, except I had the other lot of oral tests, but these went much better than Monday's. Although it made me smile when the students tried to argue about the score I had given them, because they didn't understand my English accent. I told them that my accent was not that strong and that I knew they had understood me as they tried to reply but couldn't. Wednesday was normal, but went for drinks in the evening, this time I pushed the boat out and had an apple juice. Oh yeah.
Thursday
This was the longest working day I've had so far. I finally got to meet one of my classes. I hadn't seen them before due to them having exams or elections for the délégués, the class representative. Another gem came from a question which one of the students asked me; 'Do you have a French origin?' I replied that no, I didn't, all my family were born in either England or Ireland, I just happen to have a French name. It was at this point that the teacher added 'but you never know, maybe the next generation will be born in France, it often happens with language assistants'. Fantastic.
I should have had 4 lessons that day, but the third one ended up being cancelled because the teacher was absent and by the time I had gone to the Vie Scolaire office and returned to the classroom, all the students had disappeared. This was okay though as I spent what was now my two-hour gap, preparing a game for the final lesson of the day. On small pieces of paper I wrote the names of people, places or animals, some turned out to be rather challenging, and the game would require students to ask questions to find out who or what was on the piece of paper. It went well, despite the students not putting their hands up and getting rather excited - but it got the students to practice questions which is exactly what the teacher wanted. For this class, I work with the teacher, which is more than fine by me because I have back-up support and because she's lovely (same one who suggested I might have children in France).
At half 4, my teaching day finished, but I couldn't go home. I decided to finally throw myself into joining the college choir. The choir sessions are an hour and a half long, but by the time everyone is settled and had the cigarette break at half time, there is only about a hour of singing time. There is more of a language barrier than I thought there would be, but I like a challenge and I am sure that I will pick the terminology up quickly - unlike the choreography. For those of you in the choir back in Leeds, you will know this, but for anyone else, I do not have much co-ordination to be able to sing and dance. The choir is currently learning three songs; May It Be by Enya, an African song called Amavolovolo, and Dextera Domini, which I believe to be a religious psalm. Have a look at a video which shows an example of the singing and dancing routine that I will be learning.
That's about all for now. Not currently got any plans for the weekend, but I'm sure something will crop up. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise for the lack of photos, my camera appears to have died... I am so annoyed about this, but will look into buying another one along with boring things such as a railcard and wellies. Next week is the last week before a two-week holiday, and I would love to go travelling in that time, but it'll be such a shame to be camera-less.
As I've not posted here for a few days, I have quite a bit to write about, especially as I can now say that I've made it through my first week of teaching! (*^_^*). I've decided to reduce to bullet points half of the things I want to say and they can come first.
In the past 3 weeks, I've seen a couple of dogs which I believe to be stray, no possible owners were anywhere to be seen. I know the English are stereotyped by the French to love pets, possibly more than children, but I wasn't expecting to see abandoned dogs. I'm hoping there's some decent explanation for this and that I've got it all wrong, because it's quite disheartening as I don't know what I could do to help - without knowing for sure if they were stray.
I tried caramel tea on Wednesday. I'm not a tea/coffee drinker at all, but I thought, it can't be too bad can it? After adding 3 sugar cubes, I still couldn't drink it. It smelt of caramel but certainly didn't taste of it.
Remind me to never again live with guys, unless I already know them. The two guys I'm living with a really messy. They've not done the washing up for days, I'm not an obsessively clean person, but my, they are stretching my limits.
As bureaucracy goes, I've come across the first situation where France is just being slow. I am still without a password for the school network and I still don't know how to print or photocopy. Apparently, they'll 'keep me up-to-date' and put the password etc in my pigeonhole... Next week I'll attack the nightmare that is social security.
Wednesday evening, I finally made it to the launderette. After spending a total of 6,50€, I managed to wash a few tops, 2 pairs of jeans, a towel and some underwear. Jeez, I'm going to spend so much on washing. Moreover, as I walked into the launderette, I realised I had company. A man started talking to me but I couldn't quite understand him. After I started loading the machine, I realise that he wasn't actually washing anything himself, he was just using the place as a shelter while he got off his face by downing many beers. Thinking about it, I'm not actually sure if he sensed I was there, he was too busy talking to himself and his chérie.
So how have my classes gone in the last few days? Pretty damn well, I believe.
Wednesday: I just had one class as one teacher was off ill. The lesson I did have was spent in a computer room, where the students insisted that the internet wasn't working, but they did manage to create an orchestral atmosphere by repeatedly causing the computer to play the 'error' sound. I knew what they were doing, they knew that I knew that, but we both knew that the teacher was rather clueless.
At the end, she told me that she sensed that the students could have done work if they wanted to, but they chose not to, now they have to do the work at home, their problem. I remember the times when I couldn't be bothered to work whilst in class and as a result I had to finish it in my spare time, but now I look back and I can't think why I thought it was a good idea. This teacher also asked me to help with the upcoming oral examinations which I happily agreed to, then regretted it, when the only time which was suitable was Monday at 8am (and another one, but I'm needed for both).. Urggghhh.
Thursday: Normally, I will have 4 lessons on a Thursday, but this week I only had 1 as I wasn't need in the rest. The lesson I did have was the most challenging so far. The teacher had told me earlier in the week that I would be working with a small group of students and discussing the US Elections. Perfect. Cue me doing some panic-research into US politics, before grabbing several satirical cartoons. The lesson was slow to start as I ended up confusing them and it took a while for them to settle and listen to me, but afterwards I feel it went okay. I was certainly relieved when it was over, but I felt I did well. Not sure what the students thought, but, hey ho.
Today (Friday): Every other week, I have 1 lesson on a Friday which is slightly irritating, but at least it's not horrifically early, 11am and it's not every week. When I introduced myself this time, the teacher made sure that some students asked me some questions and I got questions such as; 'Do you like France?' and 'Why are you here?' For the rest of the lesson I just observed whilst the worked in groups to study an American TV commerical (read: advert). Yes, the students are, of course, learning American English. This first struck me when I watched the teacher spell words with missing 'U's and substituting 'S's with a 'Z'. This could be interesting, but hey, at least I'll get to teach the students British vocabulary and pronunciation.
After the lesson, I had a brief chat with the teacher, who is really lovely, she said she felt bad for me having to come in on a Friday, especially for her lesson as she's sure I'll 'get better examples from other teachers'. I told her to not be so hard on herself and that I didn't mind coming in.
What's funny though, is that before meeting each new teacher, I'll have an image in my head of what I think they'll look like, which is created purely on the basis of their name (usually surname only). The teacher today was the biggest contrast I've ever been faced with. I had imagined her to be a well-built, middle-aged woman with greyish hair and glasses. Well, the glasses were right...
Other things that I feel I should mention include the successes and failures I've had today. I have ordered a French SIM card. Yes, finally, I know. The part where I failed though is that, due to attempting to get this card, I now have a blocked debit card for websites which use Verified by Visa and to sort it out I have to call an 09 number... great. Not looking forward to that. I believe it would have happened, even if I had been filling in the form myself because having a quick look around on the good ol' internet, I'm not the only one it's happened to. However, I feel that my friend Kirsty needs a mention here because without her, I still might not have a SIM (okay, I'd have gone to SFR and got a less good deal) and I'd still be without Norton Security. So, yes, thank-you, again. :)
I also managed to send a letter to my grandparents today. Not exactly a big feat, but I was served by a really friendly woman in the post office who talked me through the whole process. There is a sponge which you press your stamps onto so you don't have to lick them. That's cool. Well, it was once I realised what i had to do with it... She also told me that it is an absolute must to visit Brest. Yes, Madame, I'll be doing that.
Also, on Wednesday, I finally met up with Philipp, the German assistant and we went for a coffee to get to know each other a little more. Other bizarre and interesting experiences I had that afternoon include; being interviewed by Pauline, a student journalist, going to the beach in the rain and having a photo shoot by said journalist and meeting Albert, a rabbit who thinks he's a dog.
I think this post is long enough now, so I'm going to end it here. Tomorrow I am going to Rennes to meet up with all the other assistants (and I've saved money again on train tickets because Philipp is going to drive there). I will let you know how that goes.
So it's the end of my second day at the school and I've been to 40% of my scheduled lessons (yay, if this was a degree, I'd have just passed...). The past two days have been really good, despite the fact that there seems to be a rather large lack in communication.
Yesterday morning, I arrived 45 minutes before my first lesson because I headed up to administration to hand in all the documents for Social Security. I wasn't expecting my school to be doing this for/with me, so that was a nice surprise. After my birth certificate and everything had been photocopied, I sat back and thought, wow, that was relatively painless. This was until the secretary handed me a folder. Not a few pieces of paper, but a folder. It turns out that, just when you think you've reached the top of bureaucracy mountain, you'll be hit by an avalanche. A few hours later, I tried to fill it in, but only got as far as the basic details such as name and address. There's a whole load of sections on the form which I don't think I can fill in, I don't understand, or I don't know where to start (current doctor section, being a prime example). Great.
Also, I gave my ERASMUS forms to my responsable, the problem is, he doesn't think that it's up to him to sign it. Still he walked away with my one and only copy of the forms. I'll chase him up in a few days. I'll cry if they've got lost...
Just before my first lesson, I headed for one of the language staffrooms to find the teacher I was going to be working with, as I got there, she was about to go for a cigarette and invited me to go along with her. We had a small chat, her talking in English as she wanted to practice, and me replying in French. The first lesson went well, the students were given cities in Australia to research for their written assignment. As the class settled in, Mme Mille (not capitalising surnames here, it would look weird), introduced me to the class and gave them the chance to ask any questions. The only two I got were about where I was from and my age. That was pretty much it, until towards the end of the lesson where I used the program which allows the teacher to monitor what is going on at the different computers. That was fun, but you know, simple things...
For the second lesson, there was much less of an introduction, just a 'this is the new assistant, be nice' kind of approach, but I was more involved in the class as I was listening to groups of students doing orals presentations about the website CouchSurfing.com.
Next was lunchtime, and if I've understood correctly, you get a 3 course meal for about £5 and it's good stuff, too! Originally, I was going to eat in the staffroom as I still wasn't sure about how to put money on my lunch card etc, but a teacher took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. What was really bizarre and a difference I'm not sure I like, is that the teachers eat in the same room and mingle with the students. However, what is good is that I can have a good lunch at noon and then just have something simple when I get home for dinner. It's so good to have an hour and a half for lunch, although I can see there are going to be times where I'm just waiting for the afternoon lessons to start.
I was meant to have a class yesterday afternoon, but my timetable didn't tell me which room I was meant to be in, none of the teachers knew and I hadn't met the guy either - I believe he's a trainee teacher.
Today, I went and sat in the main staffroom before my first lesson and had a chat with a teacher, if he told me his name, I don't remember it. He asked me how I was settling in etc and told me that I'll be pretty much fluent in a month. A month?! Can't see it. He was saying how he wanted to try picking English up again but the native English teacher is always too busy to help. I suggested that I was thinking about setting up conversation classes for any teachers who wished to practice their English. He seemed pretty chuffed with that and told me I speak French very well :)
The bell rang and I headed to my first class of the day (at half 2). I got to the classroom to find a different teacher, Mme Bowman, in there (thankfully I recognised her otherwise I probably wouldn't have said anything). I said I was slightly confused and double checked her name, it turns out that she was running late and the other teacher should have been along soon. 5 minutes later there were no students or teacher to be seen. Mme Bowman said that the other teacher was probably ill, and somehow all the students had managed to find out prior to the lesson. I went back to the staffroom to leave a note in her pigeonhole to apologise for not turning up but I would see her soon. I was then taken to the 'Vie Scolaire' office, where I was told that the missing teacher was currently off ill and that she won't be in school tomorrow either. I'm so grateful to Mme Bowman for taking me there as it has saved me going in to the school for 8am tomorrow, only to find the lesson cancelled. As this other teacher was absent, it meant that all my lessons for the day had been cancelled too.
After taking a deep breath, smiling and saying goodbye, I left the school. The afternoon was not totally wasted though as I went to the bank to transfer money into my account. I now have a French bank account that is not in the red! Wahoo.
