Another Sunday, another email. Not a whole lot going on at the moment: Michelle's friend Andrea is here so we stayed out late visiting the bars and the dance club we like to go to. Let me tell you, there's not much more entertaining than going to a dance bar, not drinking, and watching drunk French people dance. Plus, there were so many of us that we took over tables like Genghis Khan (by which I mean more reckless efficiency and less blood and smoke). It was fun, but now we're sleepy. But then we're always sleepy of a Sunday. It's a quiet day, aside from the church bells, and all the shops are closed. Today the weather is bad, so we won't even have much of a walk, I would think. So I'm listening to peaceful music from a mix Bristol made for me a couple of Christmases ago and writing this email and uploading photos from Christmas break and Mom's visit.
Yesterday we had a German dinner, since last Monday was the official Franco-Allemand Friendship day or something like that. Steffen and Ellen and Matthias invaded our little white house and took over the kitchen (not at all like Genghis Khan, unless he also needed help lighting the oven). There was apple streudel and weinerschnitzel (possibly) and some kind of potato salad and a couple of different veggie things for me and Katie, and it was nice to have a big group of people all around the table. I think there were more people than we've ever had at a dinner party, and only one glass was broken, so all sorts of records there. It was all of the assistants in Cambrai except for the mysterious Anne (including Sally, who only came in November and who teaches at primary school and whom we almost never see) plus Max, Ellen's boyfriend, and of course Andrea, and after dinner we split into teams and played Ticket to Ride, affectionately known as the train game. It's funny to play it with a load of Europeans, because it's set in the States and Canada, so there's a lot of "Where is Dull-uth?" "Doo-looth is there." "Oh. Where is Houston? Is that Chicago?"
It was a long week at school. I had my first bad class, as in really actually quantifiably bad class, involving a lot of shouting and a bunch of kids who wouldn't shut up. It was Thursday afternoon at five, so I understand that everyone's hungry and tired and just wants to go home (me too! me too!) but that's not an excuse. In high school here the students are grouped into classes of around twenty that study the same subjects, a kind of tracking program. I have those groups split into smaller groups of about five kids, and usually that's fine. Although technically I ought to have the kids during their English classes, I have them during their study hours instead, so sometimes I have some extra kids come to class. Again, usually that's fine. I had three or four extra girls stroll in and that would have been okay if they hadn't sat down at the end of the table and started chattering. The kids wouldn't shut up and listen to the lesson, which I was cranky about anyway because it was hastily prepared from old books since the printer was broken. One of the kids kept getting up and singing and dancing and the rest were just ignoring me.
The worst part (well, the part I felt worst about) was that they'd brought in some snacks to share, because I'd given a couple of them some pumpkin pie at the bus stop last week and they wanted to return the favor. First I had to take the snacks and put them out of sight to get them to pay attention, and then I got fed up and threw the stuff into the trash can (it was all pre-packaged, so I knew they'd be able to salvage it from the clean trash can, which only had a little paper in it, crumpled up handouts I'd just given them). I had to send the singing and dancing kid out of class, which made his little girlfriend threaten to walk out of class, and they complained every time I told them to sit down. But eventually, after moving kids around and a bunch of threatening glares and some fast loud English they couldn't understand (the power of language as a tool of intimidation!), they settled down. The sassy girl protested that she didn't want to read, but I bent her to my will after a little bit. It's tough some days, this teacher gig! I'm either sitting around for long hours doing nothing, trying to coax reluctant kids to talk, or trying to convince severely hyper kids to shut up and sit down.
But the rest of the classes this week were okay. I did a lot of stuff on river pollution, which is a bit difficult to explain when your handout is full of idioms (also, Not In My Back Yard doesn't make sense to people who don't have yards). But I had them write the words they didn't know on the board and then we all looked them up together (which means I now have some completely pointless French vocabulary, like the word for "slurry") and it was interesting to see which classes knew what words. Some kids wanted to look up "lakes" and "seas" and "farms" and the others just needed "sewage" and "nasty". Hopefully next week will be better, and there are only a few more weeks until vacation anyway. And really not very long at all until I get to go on the school trip to England on the 13th of February! We're going to Cambridge and London for four days with a group of about forty kids and I'm excited. Free travel! We get to go through the Chunnel! This is mostly because of the bad windy weather which might delay the ferry, but it'll be fun. Virginie told me about going through the Chunnel last year and how a couple of kids had their noses pressed to the windows, looking for fish. Oh, small town high schoolers. You've got charm of your own.
New photos up here from Mom's visit and my trip to Belgium with Dunkerque Dan (not a lot of photos from Belgium, given that my camera battery died and I was too lazy to charge it). I suppose I ought to trot off and help clean up now. The stupid sink got clogged against last night after dinner, and though I bailed a lot of the dirty dishwater out of a convenient window, we've now got to figure out how to fix it again. And the tub's a bit stopped up. And a cabinet's broken and a bit came out of the locking mechanism on the bathroom door (which oddly enough made it work better). A language assistant's work is never finished.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
meilleurs voeux!
Hello, everyone! It's Sunday again, so that means the weekly email. I'm sure you're all thrilled.
It was back to school this week, which was lovely. Lots of new years' wishes, lots of kissing on the cheek (extra kisses for the new year, apparently). It's so pleasant to see how much all the teachers I work with like each other. After a break of two weeks, they were all chatting happily and looking so glad to see each other. Sometimes the others complain about their teachers not really liking each other or not really talking to each other - at the teacher training days we heard horror stories about profs who won't speak to anyone else in their department - but my teachers are friendly and wonderful. My contact prof was stressed the other week and one of the others gave her a quick shoulder rub as a pep talk, and they all poke fun at each other and they're just comfortable and happy together. It's very nice. People will come and drop into the next chair when I'm sitting in the loung with my laptop doing nothing and advise me on how to play spider solitaire, or ask me to play some music.
I've got mostly new students this semester and so I get to do introductory classes all over again for a month, which is half boring and half entertaining - it's fun to see the new kids coming in, already perhaps knowing a little about me (like the students who belong to my contact teacher who came in and said, "You are Mary Parker!") but perhaps knowing nothing at all except my face. The seconde are really funny in general. I like this group: they're old enough to be fairly advanced in the language, but not old enough to be indifferent to school, so they talk a lot more than my terminale and premiere groups. They're a bit chatty in French, and some of them are a little shy, but overall I think it will be a good semester. I have a way to get the kids to come to class now, because I have proper lists of which ones are supposed to be with me when, and anyway, seconde aren't old enough to realize they can skip class. I have all of my students scheduled during their study hours, though I'm supposed to have them during their English classes, but the teachers and I agreed this was better: I don't want to take up half of their classtime doing pointless things (well, not pointless, but less valuable than their regular lessons except in terms of conversation) when they only have two hours of English a week anyway, some of them, and I'm certainly competent enough to take groups on their own.
It's been a funny week. The weather's alternately miserable (cold, windy, drizzly) and gorgeous (like today, all sunshine). The plants are all confused as to whether it's winter or not. I cut myself on a fish this week: Steffen caught a big pike and called us out to see it, and I got to put it back in the water, but it turns out they have spiky gills and both of us had little cuts. Friday night we went to a French party with actual French people: for Epiphany (or roughly around that time, apparently), everyone eats the galette des rois, the king cake, though it's a different recipe from what people eat for Mardi Gras. It was nice: lots of French grownups, people who aren't from Cambrai who've come to work in Cambrai, and they were all curious about us, so we got to do a lot of talking and explaining. Matthias got the lamb in his piece of cake, so he was the king, and there was a cat wandering around and a few kids. It's always nice to see kids we're not expected to teach, and very sweet how they all automatically come and kiss you. Plus, the party got us to speak a lot of French, which reminds me both that my French is much better than it used to be, and that it's still not perfect. We need to speak more French at home, but somehow it always slips into English. Dommage. At least now I have the grammar book I bought from the vending machine at Montparnasse.
Yesterday was pleasant. We went to Saint Quentin with Max and Ellen, because Max has a car. It wasn't really for any purpose; we just wandered around, looked at the church and the town hall (very intricately carved facade, quite lovely), did a bit of window shopping since the huge sales are on, picked up a tarte or two at the cafeteria in the mall. Highways are the same everywhere, I think, or at least they give the same feeling of suspension, of movement and non-movement. It's interesting to go in the car, since we take trains and buses everywhere generally. Last night we broke out some board games (thanks, Mom and Dad, for sending them on) and figured out the rather complicated (at first) rules of Puerto Rico (which Catalina doesn't mind, fortunately). It turned out to be an excellent game (perhaps because I won?) and a nice change from cards. We watched a couple of episodes of Green Wing as well: television doctors are the best entertainment we've found since Incroyable Talent stopped airing. Then this morning we got up and cleaned the house pretty thoroughly. You know it's bad when Steffen steps in the door and asks if a bomb has gone off (realistically, it was just the day's clutter of jackets and bags, but some sweeping and mopping were in order as well).
Off to take a bath, do some more cleaning, and minister to Cata's cold, I suppose. We've been remarkably healthy thus far in the white house, but hey, germs catch up with everyone sometime.
It was back to school this week, which was lovely. Lots of new years' wishes, lots of kissing on the cheek (extra kisses for the new year, apparently). It's so pleasant to see how much all the teachers I work with like each other. After a break of two weeks, they were all chatting happily and looking so glad to see each other. Sometimes the others complain about their teachers not really liking each other or not really talking to each other - at the teacher training days we heard horror stories about profs who won't speak to anyone else in their department - but my teachers are friendly and wonderful. My contact prof was stressed the other week and one of the others gave her a quick shoulder rub as a pep talk, and they all poke fun at each other and they're just comfortable and happy together. It's very nice. People will come and drop into the next chair when I'm sitting in the loung with my laptop doing nothing and advise me on how to play spider solitaire, or ask me to play some music.
I've got mostly new students this semester and so I get to do introductory classes all over again for a month, which is half boring and half entertaining - it's fun to see the new kids coming in, already perhaps knowing a little about me (like the students who belong to my contact teacher who came in and said, "You are Mary Parker!") but perhaps knowing nothing at all except my face. The seconde are really funny in general. I like this group: they're old enough to be fairly advanced in the language, but not old enough to be indifferent to school, so they talk a lot more than my terminale and premiere groups. They're a bit chatty in French, and some of them are a little shy, but overall I think it will be a good semester. I have a way to get the kids to come to class now, because I have proper lists of which ones are supposed to be with me when, and anyway, seconde aren't old enough to realize they can skip class. I have all of my students scheduled during their study hours, though I'm supposed to have them during their English classes, but the teachers and I agreed this was better: I don't want to take up half of their classtime doing pointless things (well, not pointless, but less valuable than their regular lessons except in terms of conversation) when they only have two hours of English a week anyway, some of them, and I'm certainly competent enough to take groups on their own.
It's been a funny week. The weather's alternately miserable (cold, windy, drizzly) and gorgeous (like today, all sunshine). The plants are all confused as to whether it's winter or not. I cut myself on a fish this week: Steffen caught a big pike and called us out to see it, and I got to put it back in the water, but it turns out they have spiky gills and both of us had little cuts. Friday night we went to a French party with actual French people: for Epiphany (or roughly around that time, apparently), everyone eats the galette des rois, the king cake, though it's a different recipe from what people eat for Mardi Gras. It was nice: lots of French grownups, people who aren't from Cambrai who've come to work in Cambrai, and they were all curious about us, so we got to do a lot of talking and explaining. Matthias got the lamb in his piece of cake, so he was the king, and there was a cat wandering around and a few kids. It's always nice to see kids we're not expected to teach, and very sweet how they all automatically come and kiss you. Plus, the party got us to speak a lot of French, which reminds me both that my French is much better than it used to be, and that it's still not perfect. We need to speak more French at home, but somehow it always slips into English. Dommage. At least now I have the grammar book I bought from the vending machine at Montparnasse.
Yesterday was pleasant. We went to Saint Quentin with Max and Ellen, because Max has a car. It wasn't really for any purpose; we just wandered around, looked at the church and the town hall (very intricately carved facade, quite lovely), did a bit of window shopping since the huge sales are on, picked up a tarte or two at the cafeteria in the mall. Highways are the same everywhere, I think, or at least they give the same feeling of suspension, of movement and non-movement. It's interesting to go in the car, since we take trains and buses everywhere generally. Last night we broke out some board games (thanks, Mom and Dad, for sending them on) and figured out the rather complicated (at first) rules of Puerto Rico (which Catalina doesn't mind, fortunately). It turned out to be an excellent game (perhaps because I won?) and a nice change from cards. We watched a couple of episodes of Green Wing as well: television doctors are the best entertainment we've found since Incroyable Talent stopped airing. Then this morning we got up and cleaned the house pretty thoroughly. You know it's bad when Steffen steps in the door and asks if a bomb has gone off (realistically, it was just the day's clutter of jackets and bags, but some sweeping and mopping were in order as well).
Off to take a bath, do some more cleaning, and minister to Cata's cold, I suppose. We've been remarkably healthy thus far in the white house, but hey, germs catch up with everyone sometime.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
home again, home again, jiggity jog
I'm home again from Belgium, Cata's home again from her trip around Europe with her brother, Michelle's home again from Egypt and England, and Steffen and Matthias are back from their German-speaking nations and the others should be home today sometime, so life is very very good. Somehow it just wasn't the same being in the White House without the other girls. It was funny last night how we all just kept saying, "Ah, we're home" in between rounds of cards and watching the last episode of Green Wing (my British doctor show, which I'm working to get everyone hooked on and so far everything's going according to plan). We had a nice quiet little party last night, played a lot of Uno and listened to some awful music (my life in France is soundtracked by bad pop, apparently) and it was just so good to see everyone. Pity we've only got four more months here.
I've been back from India for a year now, which has been on my mind a lot. There are some similiarities between France and India, odd as it may seem. I mean, clearly there are plenty of differences, but underneath the weather and the polish of France, you find that people have roots the same way. The bigger cities are surrounded by all sorts of little towns, each with their own particular customs and foods, and people love their villages. There are a lot of customs about politeness and family and how you act, too, more than in the U.S., and more attention to dress and diet. In the U.S. we have such a ridiculous diversity of food from all different sorts of places. All right, so in Lille you can get sushi and Indian food (and even in Cambrai you can get North African, but that's because of the staggering amount of immigrants from the Maghreb in France), but if you try to go for Mexican, you get a burrito full of asparagus and snow peas with no beans really at all. In general in Cambrai, you can't find black beans and you certainly can't find pinto beans or pecans, and cranberries are a tough search too. Now and again you can get moldy lychees, and sometimes you can find mangos, but overall the variety is just so much less. It's been interesting. I can say the first thing I'm going to want to eat when I get home is some proper Mexican food.
It's back to school tomorrow. I've got a new schedule, so I'll be working MThF from 8 to 6 (which means that three mornings a week, I'll have to catch the bus at 6.55 a.m. and I won't get home until nearly 7, and that's a lot of spider solitaire and Green Wing reruns in the teacher's lounge). I'll have mostly seconde this semester, which are like tenth graders, though I'll still have a class or two of terminale from last semester: the advanced kids I'll still see, and the kids from the professional side of the school, whom I've only seen once so far anyway. It should be fun. Another month of "What is your name? Do you has a boyfriend? Where does you live in the OooEss? Arkansass?" The students in seconde are much more likely to come to class, I think, and more likely to participate, and that outweighs the repetitious questions and the giggling anyday.
The weather's been good so far this year. Blue skies behind the bell towers, green fields, warm weather. It's nice to look out the window and see light gleaming on the old stones and old metal of the building behind my room, which has a little tower for some reason. And it's nice to go down newly discovered alleyways and see the rays of the sun filtering down between the buildings over the cobblestones. Europe really is made up of places where fairytales could happen. Everytime you think you know the town, you discover something new.
I spent a couple of days in Bruges with one of the other assistants and it's all canals and little stone bridges and old portcullises over the river and tall churches with Michelangelo sculptures (okay, just one sculpture, and my delight at seeing it didn't quite compare to seeing the Tamil sign up in Sacre Coeur and still being able to read some of it). There were waffles, of course, and fries with various mayonnaise-based sauces (the Belgians don't seem to understand the delights of vinegar, but since they invented fries I can forgive them) and a bar with three hundred different kinds of beer (of which we sampled only a few, including the Belgian trappist and sour beers and banana beer that tasted like juice) and a magic waiter who taught us a few words of Flemish when I accidentally asked for the bill in French. It was a good time. I met another assistant from Minnesota who's teaching in Alsace and told her about the assistant from the Lyon area that I met on the Metro in Paris. We're everywhere, apparently!
The point of this email is that it's good to be home, even when you've been so many place that you aren't quite sure where home is anymore.
I've been back from India for a year now, which has been on my mind a lot. There are some similiarities between France and India, odd as it may seem. I mean, clearly there are plenty of differences, but underneath the weather and the polish of France, you find that people have roots the same way. The bigger cities are surrounded by all sorts of little towns, each with their own particular customs and foods, and people love their villages. There are a lot of customs about politeness and family and how you act, too, more than in the U.S., and more attention to dress and diet. In the U.S. we have such a ridiculous diversity of food from all different sorts of places. All right, so in Lille you can get sushi and Indian food (and even in Cambrai you can get North African, but that's because of the staggering amount of immigrants from the Maghreb in France), but if you try to go for Mexican, you get a burrito full of asparagus and snow peas with no beans really at all. In general in Cambrai, you can't find black beans and you certainly can't find pinto beans or pecans, and cranberries are a tough search too. Now and again you can get moldy lychees, and sometimes you can find mangos, but overall the variety is just so much less. It's been interesting. I can say the first thing I'm going to want to eat when I get home is some proper Mexican food.
It's back to school tomorrow. I've got a new schedule, so I'll be working MThF from 8 to 6 (which means that three mornings a week, I'll have to catch the bus at 6.55 a.m. and I won't get home until nearly 7, and that's a lot of spider solitaire and Green Wing reruns in the teacher's lounge). I'll have mostly seconde this semester, which are like tenth graders, though I'll still have a class or two of terminale from last semester: the advanced kids I'll still see, and the kids from the professional side of the school, whom I've only seen once so far anyway. It should be fun. Another month of "What is your name? Do you has a boyfriend? Where does you live in the OooEss? Arkansass?" The students in seconde are much more likely to come to class, I think, and more likely to participate, and that outweighs the repetitious questions and the giggling anyday.
The weather's been good so far this year. Blue skies behind the bell towers, green fields, warm weather. It's nice to look out the window and see light gleaming on the old stones and old metal of the building behind my room, which has a little tower for some reason. And it's nice to go down newly discovered alleyways and see the rays of the sun filtering down between the buildings over the cobblestones. Europe really is made up of places where fairytales could happen. Everytime you think you know the town, you discover something new.
I spent a couple of days in Bruges with one of the other assistants and it's all canals and little stone bridges and old portcullises over the river and tall churches with Michelangelo sculptures (okay, just one sculpture, and my delight at seeing it didn't quite compare to seeing the Tamil sign up in Sacre Coeur and still being able to read some of it). There were waffles, of course, and fries with various mayonnaise-based sauces (the Belgians don't seem to understand the delights of vinegar, but since they invented fries I can forgive them) and a bar with three hundred different kinds of beer (of which we sampled only a few, including the Belgian trappist and sour beers and banana beer that tasted like juice) and a magic waiter who taught us a few words of Flemish when I accidentally asked for the bill in French. It was a good time. I met another assistant from Minnesota who's teaching in Alsace and told her about the assistant from the Lyon area that I met on the Metro in Paris. We're everywhere, apparently!
The point of this email is that it's good to be home, even when you've been so many place that you aren't quite sure where home is anymore.
Bonne année! Meilleurs voeux!
Happy New Year, everyone! Sorry for no email yesterday: I was sleeping and cleaning. What better way to spend a New Year's Eve, eh? The evening wasn't much more exciting. Matthias and I stayed in. I made lasagna with whatever was left in the fridge (spinach and brie and pepper sauce) and stuffing with the stale ends of baguettes that we keep collecting. We passed the hours watching Green Wing with a bottle of cheap fizzy wine (seriously, 93 cents and drinkable) and then tried to go out, but everything was closed. Lame. But that's what we get for living in a small town, I suppose.
The week was much more exciting! Mom and I went to Paris and did all the Paris things. Saw the Eiffel Tower, saw the Arc de Triomphe, walked the Champs-Elysées, climbed the million stairs to Sacre-Coeur, went to Notre Dame on Christmas. I ran through a flock of pigeons and a crazy man threw bread crumbs at me (though I suppose if he makes his living coaxing pigeons to land on tourists, my disturbing the pigeons is a crumb-worthy offense). We went to Let's Go restaurants. We became masters of the metro, particularly lines 4 and 9. I can now recite most of the mid-town metro stations on line 4 in order from Gare du Nord to Odéon (mostly, anyway, and I know there are Starbuckses at Odéon, Cluny, and St. Michel).
We didn't go to Brittany, by the way. The woman at the train station said they were out of Eurail seats and we weren't brave or motivated enough to just get on the train anyway, when there was a chance we'd be heavily fined or not able to come back in time for Mom to catch her plane. So that was that. More time in Cambrai and Paris anyway, and it's much easier to find your feet (I'm guessing) in a small town than a big city, so Mom could wander around and buy things and I think that was good. It was nice to have her here. It's a little lonely now, just me and Matthias, but I'm supposed to go to Belgium with Dunkerque Dan (one of the other assistants) tomorrow, so that ought to be fun.
The sun is out! So I think I'll go for a walk. I hope all of your new year's celebrations were bright and delightful, just as the year itself should be.
The week was much more exciting! Mom and I went to Paris and did all the Paris things. Saw the Eiffel Tower, saw the Arc de Triomphe, walked the Champs-Elysées, climbed the million stairs to Sacre-Coeur, went to Notre Dame on Christmas. I ran through a flock of pigeons and a crazy man threw bread crumbs at me (though I suppose if he makes his living coaxing pigeons to land on tourists, my disturbing the pigeons is a crumb-worthy offense). We went to Let's Go restaurants. We became masters of the metro, particularly lines 4 and 9. I can now recite most of the mid-town metro stations on line 4 in order from Gare du Nord to Odéon (mostly, anyway, and I know there are Starbuckses at Odéon, Cluny, and St. Michel).
We didn't go to Brittany, by the way. The woman at the train station said they were out of Eurail seats and we weren't brave or motivated enough to just get on the train anyway, when there was a chance we'd be heavily fined or not able to come back in time for Mom to catch her plane. So that was that. More time in Cambrai and Paris anyway, and it's much easier to find your feet (I'm guessing) in a small town than a big city, so Mom could wander around and buy things and I think that was good. It was nice to have her here. It's a little lonely now, just me and Matthias, but I'm supposed to go to Belgium with Dunkerque Dan (one of the other assistants) tomorrow, so that ought to be fun.
The sun is out! So I think I'll go for a walk. I hope all of your new year's celebrations were bright and delightful, just as the year itself should be.
'tis the season, I suppose
Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten! Joyeux Noel! Buon Natale! Feliz Navidad!
Yeah. That's all the languages I've got. But you get the message, eh?
I am, in fact, all Christmassed out and have been for a couple of weeks, probably because I started listening to Christmas music in early November and we had our Cambrai Christmas two weeks ago and did presents and crackers and all that stuff. I even thought about taking down the decorations the other day and then realized, right, the 25th hadn't actually happened yet. But so that goes. Cambrai cranked up the Christmas to the highest notch. Lights everywhere. Hapless Peres Noel hanging on ladders from almost every window, or so it seemed. Gaufres in the main square. Paris is both more and less decorated: what they have is better and on a grander scale, but generally the people seem less concerned with Christmas.
Today on our magical mystery tour of Northern France, we caught the train to Paris, where we'll stay for a couple of days, and then we went to Chartres to see the cathedral, which was, of course, beautiful beyond description. We looked at the famous windows with their many tiny, tiny panes: it's amazing that they didn't get broken in the wars, but the townspeople would take them out pane by pane and hide them away when there were bombings. The carving is so intricate and lovely, and since it's Christmas, there were a lot of people there lighting candles and such. I had a laugh over the fact that the new steeple is taller and more ostentatious than the old steeple - yet another case of architects and builders saying, "Oh yeah? Watch this action!" in a kind of bit-too-late contest of (usually) masculinity. Of course, the new steeple was just built sometime after 1196, or possibly 1836. I wasn't really paying attention to the history of horrendous fires, what with all the obscure statues and tiny stairways to look at.
Anyway. Tomorrow we'll probably go see Sacre-Coeur and whatever else we can find open on Christmas. Maybe not the best timing in the world, but what can you do? At least our hotel is cute, if out in the 20th arrondissement, nearly out of Paris proper. Only a block or two from the metro though! Which is good, because it's too cold to walk too much. Other benefits include cheapness, an English speaking staff (though my French has improved remarkably, it's good for Mom), and free wireless. Hooray. I would recommend the Hotel Armstrong to you if you are in Paris.
On the 26th, we're off to Bretagne to see the standing stones at Carnac and possibly Mont St. Michel, which is supposed to be incredible. Or we were supposed to be, anyway, except that the woman told me they were out of seats for holders of Eurail passes, which sounded like a bunch of lies, but it was safer not to go than to be potentially stuck in Bretagne. So it was back to tiny Cambrai so that Mom can pack and we can head back to Paris for her to catch her flight and me to meet Matthias. Exciting!
Anyway. That's life. Spent a lot of time on trains today reading Jane Austen. Tell me that's not a vacation.
Yeah. That's all the languages I've got. But you get the message, eh?
I am, in fact, all Christmassed out and have been for a couple of weeks, probably because I started listening to Christmas music in early November and we had our Cambrai Christmas two weeks ago and did presents and crackers and all that stuff. I even thought about taking down the decorations the other day and then realized, right, the 25th hadn't actually happened yet. But so that goes. Cambrai cranked up the Christmas to the highest notch. Lights everywhere. Hapless Peres Noel hanging on ladders from almost every window, or so it seemed. Gaufres in the main square. Paris is both more and less decorated: what they have is better and on a grander scale, but generally the people seem less concerned with Christmas.
Today on our magical mystery tour of Northern France, we caught the train to Paris, where we'll stay for a couple of days, and then we went to Chartres to see the cathedral, which was, of course, beautiful beyond description. We looked at the famous windows with their many tiny, tiny panes: it's amazing that they didn't get broken in the wars, but the townspeople would take them out pane by pane and hide them away when there were bombings. The carving is so intricate and lovely, and since it's Christmas, there were a lot of people there lighting candles and such. I had a laugh over the fact that the new steeple is taller and more ostentatious than the old steeple - yet another case of architects and builders saying, "Oh yeah? Watch this action!" in a kind of bit-too-late contest of (usually) masculinity. Of course, the new steeple was just built sometime after 1196, or possibly 1836. I wasn't really paying attention to the history of horrendous fires, what with all the obscure statues and tiny stairways to look at.
Anyway. Tomorrow we'll probably go see Sacre-Coeur and whatever else we can find open on Christmas. Maybe not the best timing in the world, but what can you do? At least our hotel is cute, if out in the 20th arrondissement, nearly out of Paris proper. Only a block or two from the metro though! Which is good, because it's too cold to walk too much. Other benefits include cheapness, an English speaking staff (though my French has improved remarkably, it's good for Mom), and free wireless. Hooray. I would recommend the Hotel Armstrong to you if you are in Paris.
On the 26th, we're off to Bretagne to see the standing stones at Carnac and possibly Mont St. Michel, which is supposed to be incredible. Or we were supposed to be, anyway, except that the woman told me they were out of seats for holders of Eurail passes, which sounded like a bunch of lies, but it was safer not to go than to be potentially stuck in Bretagne. So it was back to tiny Cambrai so that Mom can pack and we can head back to Paris for her to catch her flight and me to meet Matthias. Exciting!
Anyway. That's life. Spent a lot of time on trains today reading Jane Austen. Tell me that's not a vacation.
Mom's visit and the Louvre
Mom's here! Which is one reason I didn't update this one time, but I have others. For one thing, we were in Paris. We spent a good three and something hours yesterday at the Louvre seeing art and art and art and artifacts until we really couldn't process any of it anymore. I swear, they have more paintings of Jesus as a muscular white guy at the Louvre than I've ever seen.
Anyway. We saw the Winged Victory (which is big!) and the Mona Lisa (which is little!) and innumerable tablets of heiroglyphics and ancient languages I've never heard of, and the capital of a column from some temple, which was so huge that we could barely imagine moving it with a crane. We saw the Venus De Milo and mocked her shapely backside. We saw about a hundred thousand representations of Mary, Jesus, and various saints. There were huge pieces of art and tiny tiny pieces of art and crown jewels from various rulers and what looked like playhouses from the ancient Middle East and toothpicks and sculptures of pharoahs and rulers and gods and goddesses and every so often we'd just stop and look out the window, because the Palace of the Louvre is beautiful all in itself, with lots of detailing on the windowframes and on the ceilings. It's huge. In three and a half hours, we barely saw half of it, I would say, and even then we were skimming, not spending too much time on anything. They have a couple of pieces in alabaster from the cathedral that used to be Cambrai, which was nice to see. Heard of a lot of American English, too. That was funny.
So now in Paris we've seen the Louvre, the Gare du Nord, and the Metro (i.e. almost nothing). Wednesday or this weekend we plan to go back to see Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur and of course the Tour Eiffel. Mom's jetlagged and it's the time of the semester that I'm tired, so we're not trying to pack everything in quite at once, and since I'm still at work this week, most of the traveling and sightseeing will be next week.
Cata's brother is here. They speak very quickly in Spanish, though he speaks good English. Today we took him ice skating while Mom wandered around the little stalls of the Christmas market drinking hot cider, and then we bought hot chestnuts and gaufres (a kind of sugary waffle) and considered the chocolate covered pears. I argued the railway clerks into giving me 45E back, which was an accomplishment and made me feel good about my French, and then we came home and made quiche (and stuffing, because we had two stale baguettes).
And now it's bedtime, because I've got to get up early and go to school tomorrow. Fortunately, living in Cambrai is worth the half hour commute.
Anyway. We saw the Winged Victory (which is big!) and the Mona Lisa (which is little!) and innumerable tablets of heiroglyphics and ancient languages I've never heard of, and the capital of a column from some temple, which was so huge that we could barely imagine moving it with a crane. We saw the Venus De Milo and mocked her shapely backside. We saw about a hundred thousand representations of Mary, Jesus, and various saints. There were huge pieces of art and tiny tiny pieces of art and crown jewels from various rulers and what looked like playhouses from the ancient Middle East and toothpicks and sculptures of pharoahs and rulers and gods and goddesses and every so often we'd just stop and look out the window, because the Palace of the Louvre is beautiful all in itself, with lots of detailing on the windowframes and on the ceilings. It's huge. In three and a half hours, we barely saw half of it, I would say, and even then we were skimming, not spending too much time on anything. They have a couple of pieces in alabaster from the cathedral that used to be Cambrai, which was nice to see. Heard of a lot of American English, too. That was funny.
So now in Paris we've seen the Louvre, the Gare du Nord, and the Metro (i.e. almost nothing). Wednesday or this weekend we plan to go back to see Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur and of course the Tour Eiffel. Mom's jetlagged and it's the time of the semester that I'm tired, so we're not trying to pack everything in quite at once, and since I'm still at work this week, most of the traveling and sightseeing will be next week.
Cata's brother is here. They speak very quickly in Spanish, though he speaks good English. Today we took him ice skating while Mom wandered around the little stalls of the Christmas market drinking hot cider, and then we bought hot chestnuts and gaufres (a kind of sugary waffle) and considered the chocolate covered pears. I argued the railway clerks into giving me 45E back, which was an accomplishment and made me feel good about my French, and then we came home and made quiche (and stuffing, because we had two stale baguettes).
And now it's bedtime, because I've got to get up early and go to school tomorrow. Fortunately, living in Cambrai is worth the half hour commute.
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