you should see their faces when I talk about how much fast food we have in America

Another Sunday! I'm not sure where the weekend went, really. It's been rainy so we stayed in all of yesterday and put together a puzzle(thanks, Aunt Laura and Uncle Harold!) while Matthias scoffed at us and messed about with the wireless internet. We're quite domestic, unlike last year's assistants, who were apparently always throwing parties.

It was a good week at school. I've still got the seconde kids and I'm getting to meet more and more of them. They're generally bright and cheerful and talkative, which is more than I can say for the terminale last semester. They do like to goof off, though. I had one girl get out a massive box of makeup and open it up, and she got sassy when I made her put it away, but she obeyed. Oh yes, I'll take away phones, and I'll take away makeup boxes if I have to. Seriously though, all the students are way more fashionable and better dressedthan I am, even if I'm better dressed than most of the teachers, who wear jeans and t-shirts a lot of the time. French people always have really good shoes. Jackets, too, but they fail pretty utterly atpants. I'm not a fan of the skinny jeans trend, I have to say.

Anyway, this week we played a lot of Pictionary as a get-to-know-you sort of activity, and the kids really enjoyed it (and sure, why wouldn't they?). It's a good game because it reminds them of some basic vocabulary and works on their dictionary skills as well. They feel better about their English afterwards, which is good. I feel alternately good and bad about my French, but them I remind myself that speaking is always harder than reading or writing when you've had to do a lot more reading and writing than speaking, and I feel a bit better. I also got to talk a lot about India this week, which pleased me. My advanced kids were still learning about arranged marriages and the caste system and so I got to explain some things to them and be amused by their amazement at my descriptions of the sari and the rest of my photos. I have a little Tamil-to-French book on medical things as well, which boggles their minds.

Have I mentioned that I've started to play football with the people from Fenelon on Tuesday nights? Real proper football, not the American travesty (although I do now and again miss seeing all the tailgate parties and hearing the marching band's practice sessions drift across the field). I am, of course, fairly horrible at it, not having played properly since second grade, but I find myself getting better and better each week, which is pleasant. Last week I actually managed to pass the ball with my knee, and I almost had a goal, and the week before that I did five good things. I remain fairly horrible in comparision with the boys, but since I play defense, there are times Ican just stop and watch them dancing over the ball and passing it without looking. Such grace! Such nimbleness! Such teamwork! It is truly beautiful to watch.

This semester I'm only working Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, so I have a nice lie-in Tuesdays and Wednesdays. In fact, nobody works Wednesdays because it's only a half day (which they make up for with a half day on Saturday) and so we had an excellent time this last Wednesday. Michelle and I got up earlyish and went to the market for vegetables. We made a friend there: the woman who works at the big fruit and veg stand was so amused by us and the fact that I was buying pumpkin for a pie of all things (which I took to the teachers, who thought it was "special" and reasonably tasty) that she talked to us for a long time, and then gave us free parsley and celery to help us along in using up the stale ends of baguettes (I make a lot of stuffing these days). Later Steffen and Matthias came over to do laundry and we played Puerto Rico and made empanadas (by which I mean we watched Cata make empanadas, but they were tasty). It's times like this I'll really miss when I go back to the U.S. We watched a lot of Green Wing and movies this week all snuggled up on the couch and we cooked a bunch of things together and it's just so pleasant here in the little white house, even if I do get terribly Grinnellsick on occasion.

It will be strange to be back in the U.S., I think. I'll want to do all of my shopping in French. I'll walk right past the garlic looking for ail, and I'll never be able to find brown sugar when it isn't labeled "viergeoise". So it goes. There's always an adjustment period. I still wake up craving dosas with spicy tomato chutney.

That's enough for this week! There's a bit of house-cleaning to be done, after all, in our bit of a house.