The Last Leg

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. 

A bientôt! xx

Finally February, Jog on, January!

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.

Des Hauts et Des Bas

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.

Where did the time go?

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.

A bientôt xx

Feeling festive

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

Picture 3: A teddy that I bought).

Out and About

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. 

A bientôt, bisous xx

Quoi de neuf?

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.