My last month of working in France!

Friday was one of the sadder days of my French children teaching career--three students just cut my class! I was in my room at 11:30 and waited for twenty minutes before going to ask the teacher if I had the right hour. Apparently, she had sent three students to me and they decided to leave campus for an early lunch instead of working with me :( It was rather heart-breaking...

I had another class where the prof asked me to prepare them for presenting texts for their final oral exam. The problem is that no one explained to me how it works, so I couldn't really answer their questions! Ugh. Only eleven more workdays to go.

Friday evening I went to Vitré to hang out with the ever-cool Caitlin and Katherine. We ate spicy chili, made brownies and pumpkin bread, and danced. The next morning was when we ate the pumpkin bread... Then we had to catch the train to Rennes.

At 5, assistant Kelsey was hosting a party to exchange clothes and books and just mingle in general with other assistants. She made a delicious champagne, vodka, and pineapple juice punch, and I brought White Russian fixin's. The offical invite was from 5 to 7, but we all stayed until 11ish, dancing and eating up all the snacks available because we had all missed our dinner! The last group of me, Caitlin, Kelsey, and Kelsey's French boyfriend Steven went to my place for hookah, then us girls went to the nearby club Delicatessan to dance awhile. I think we only made it to 2:30am this time, but we also didn't spend money getting in or buying drinks at the club, so it worked out just fine.

This morning, Caitlin and I are relaxing over leftover spicy chili and fresh pico de gallo with tortilla chips. It's gonna be a lazy day because her next train home isn't until 7pm. So movies, books, chillin'... My abs and legs are soooo sore from the hours of dancing I've put my body through this weekend.

Also, I officially enrolled at George Washington University! Hooray! Come visit me in Washington, D.C. next year!

Little notes...

1. French fashion among the youth, as observed by me. Boys are really into "Official U.S. Marshal" sweatshirts and college gear from UCLA or Franklin and Marshall, the latter of which is apparently marketed by an Italian designer. Girls wear tights, heels, and scarves for all occasions. Girls hair is usually like long and faux-messy.

2. Children don't know how to be silly in English class. My lesson for this week was for students to bring up life problems and ask the class for good, bad, and ugly (the worst) advice. All of them took it so seriously! No creativity! The only smile I got was a girl's problem being "I'm too blond," but the advice was run-of-the-mill "Dye it, don't dye it, go more blonde." Boo!

3. Tiramisus are time-consuming. For his birthday, PA wanted my tiramisu but without the coffee liqueur flavoring--so basically creamy goo on lady fingers with chocolate shavings on top. It took over an hour to make, but it is super creamy due to the whole French milk I had to use ;)

My homemade tiramisu with chocolate shavings on top!

PA enjoyed his birthday gift :)

 4. My friend Allison is wise. This is an excerpt from her blog:
The right way for you to live simply might indeed be to trim down purchases and go through all that stuff lying around. Or maybe it’s deciding to buy fair trade foods and clothing. Perhaps, though, it doesn’t even have to do with money at all. Thomas Kelly is again quoted, this time about simplifying the way we use our time: “Too many of us have too many irons in the fire. We get distracted by...our interest in a thousand and one good things...simplicity needs to be expressed not merely in the dress and architecture and the height of tombstones but also in...opposition to the hurried, superficial tendencies of our age.”
(I certainly have no simplification problems in France...)

5. I am going to freak out next fall when I am in school and working! I do nothing here!!! I'm only working eight hours this week--three hours cancelled and one was written wrong on my timetable so I missed it--and there is not much filling up my spare time. My fellow assistants and I discuss this all the time here, and maybe the emptiness of time is what I will end up feeling nostalgic for...

Grad schools

I just want to inform you all that I've been accepted to University of Denver (with a scholarship!) and George Washington University in DC! PA is also definitely in at GWU but still waiting on Denver's descision. We also need to hear from American University!

This is super exciting! And I'm just sitting alone in my apartment trying to celebrate with others via facebook and skype!!! AHHHHH!

Another one... SORRY!

I'm sorry, but I'm bored. And blogging makes me feel like I'm doing something useful.

First thought: I have become one of those metro people who can fiddle with their iPod or read or stare off into space and then magically know when to get off. It's like my body has memorized the distances/times between stops, and I don't have to watch for them anymore. Funny, eh?

Second: I'm anxiously checking my mail every 5 minutes for grad school letters!!! Being in Brussels without internet may kill me these next few days...

Third: KFC in Europe sucks. They focus more on sandwiches, so it's just like going to McDonalds. The one I got tonight was chicken, a hashbrown patty, cheese, lettuce, ketchup and mayo--so weird! They have buckets, but there are more options with strips and crispy wings than with bone-in pieces. And the sides are only French fries or corn on the cob (they had coleslaw in Prague), and there are NO BISCUITS!!! The travesty! Only Subway still tastes the same as home here.

Ok, fo shizzle I'm off to Brussels tomorrow. SLEEP! Trying to ignore the Mardi Gras partiers...

:*

Parties and sleepiness

The weekend was rather whirlwind here for me!

Went from six hours of work on Friday direct to the train station to go to Vitre! Caitlin, Katherine, Amanda, David and I had a fun filled evening of coffee, Indian food, bar, microbrewery, club, and a McDonald's visit at 5am! Damn! We were also stalked the entire night by a Brazilian guy who came to speak English with us... Funny how "Americans," North and South, seem to band together to survive Europe.

Our brunch when we were up again around noon consisted of a delicious breakfast casserole that we all helped cook :) It was like being in college again! Haha!

Back in Rennes around 5pm, I napped, ate dinner, and headed to PA's for another party with his friends. I don't really know most of them, and I was exhausted, so I retired to sleep in his room for most of it--and let me tell you that the party lasted past 6am! French students can just keep going and going and going and going...

Sunday was another day of recovery! Luckily, my lessons were already planned for the week, so I could concentrate on sleeping and watching tv. Phew!

It was so good to get out! As Caitlin pointed out, there are only nine weeks of teaching left with two weeks of break the first week in March! That's only about 90-100 hours of work (what we normally did in the span of a week in college)... Oh, how life will change when I'm back in the States, hopefully in grad school!

PA's Fulbright interview is Wednesday! Wish him luck to get some grad school money! xD

:*

Perspective on the strikes last fall

I just read this New York Times article: Europe’s Young Grow Agitated Over Future Prospects.

Though the article focuses on Southern Europe and features stories on young Italians and Spaniards, it does make me think about the problem of raising the retirement age in France. As I wrote before, I was given strike literature all last fall by teachers at my school, and most of it used the justification of our students struggling to find jobs in a market full of 65 year olds hanging on for a few more years to get their retirement benefits!

Another interesting bit in this article is that the featured youth are all highly educated and underutilized: one is a PhD who could only make $750 a month teaching kids drama, and another has a masters and a law degree in addition to speaking five languages and worked for the government unpaid! I couldn't help but think about my friends that have graduated in the last two years in the US recession mess and couldn't find decent jobs. Many of them are going to grad schools or doing Americorps to buy some time and experience. Especially coming from the hyper-competitive Furman, I feel like we were all told that we were going to be business executives, doctors, lawyers, and general movers-and-shakers in the world, but I'm afraid we'll all just be working as bank tellers or at McDonalds in the end!

Then poor PA was heckled by his family at Christmas about all of his Master's degrees... Let us hope that we get into a good US program and find internships that lead to interesting careers! All of this youth anger at the systems in Europe is scaring me!

Anyway, read it, and remind yourself that the US is a land of opportunity :)

2011 it is!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Not gonna lie--2010 was a bit rough... Graduating from Furman was more sad and scary than exciting. Deciding what to do afterwards was hard, and then spending most of the summer on the other side of an ocean from Pierre-Antoine was not pleasant either :/ And, of course, you all know about the trials and tribulations of my time in France so far and about letting go of Copper at the very end of the year...

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because I'm really not--I was so lucky to be able to finish school with honors, to find a job that let me live near PA, and to move to a foriegn country for a year. I guess I just mean to say that 2010 was an emotional roller coaster of these intense situations one after another: having to say goodbye to college friends and the college lifestyle, living at home again, starting over in a new place with new people in another language! I'm pretty sure these experiences were necessary for me to grow up some more, but I'm glad they're over.

The time between Christmas and New Years was so relaxing--nothing to do but hang out with PA and read and chill. I started to get that feeling of "everything is too perfect, so what's gonna happen now?" right before I got the news about Coppie :( I'm just glad he went peacefully with my parents there to comfort him.

New Year's Eve day was a bit rough after the news, but the party at PA's apartment was pretty fun. I knew a few of the people (we were about fifteen guys and four girls total), so it wasn't too awkward for me. The food included lots of little toasts with pate, cheese, salmon spread, pesto, etc. made by Adrien plus hummus, my artichoke dip, and little pastries from the oven. To drink, we had rum punch, gin bucket, and champagne for midnight. There was drinking, dancing, hookah, laughing--at midnight we had a champagne toast to "La Marseillaise" sung by the guys... and I had to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" all alone! It was fun when people spoke some English with me too. I was up until almost four am, but the party kept on until six or so! It was a good night to take my mind off of things for awhile. Here are a few silly pictures for you:

Singing "La Marseillaise" at midnight. A toast to France!

Don't I look good in this hat? ;)

Philouze taking a silly picture--PA is doing "The Crab," a dance they invented at the party, lol!

So now that it is 2011, I'm resolving to doing a bit of yoga everyday. Other than that (or perhaps linked to that), I just hope this year is more peaceful. Once Chinese New Year swings around, it will be the year of the Rabbit, which is usually a calm and lucky time. If I can just get into grad school with PA, things will be right on track. Fingers crossed!

Still alive :)

Hello all!

This has been a rather productive week so far. All Christmas cards mailed, lessons finished for this and next week, and the last grad school applications submitted to Columbia and Tufts! I'm just trying to get everything in order since I will be in Copenhagen from Thursday to late Sunday night.

This week I'm doing a lesson on music from Tennessee because even our state quarter celebrates it! The kids listen to blues, Elvis, Paramore, country, rap, and Justin Timberlake--all from TN. We do a fill-in-the-missing-words game with "Blue Suede Shoes" and then play a game where they listen for certain words in Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and grab the card of the word when they hear it--the winner is the one with the most cards at the end. The latter gets rather competitive/violent!

TN state quarter

Othewise, it's life as usual here in Rennes. The snow has turned back into rain, but it is still super cold. I still have two paperwork snafus to sort out before the holidays, but life is good :)

Working in France v. the US

I suppose holiday nostalgia is just making me miss all things about home... I've been very reflective this week!

My thought of the day is about American v. French work ethic. I miss the teamwork and striving for excellence that the US encourages. I don't see creativity or passion in the workplace here, or at least not yet. None of the teachers care what I do with their students; only one has even asked me about it! Here in France at my school I feel like no one cares much about their students--maybe that is also related to lack of school spirit and community. I remember Mrs. G from my high school, the kind of teacher who gets to know you and who goes the extra mile to take care of you.

Another issue hs been PA asking his professors here for recommendation letters for US graduate school applications. Professors and students have no personal relationship here--you don't chat with them, you don't have department picnics with them. While I could ask professors who knew me and my dreams, PA has to rely on professors who have just read his masters work and seen him in class. It seems rather cold to me after the experience of my university.

A tangent off of this: the strikes in October made me angry because I felt like it was silly and selfish to be out protesting when children needed to be in class learning. I thought of my high school experience when I wouldn't dare miss a class because I needed every second of learning for the AP exams! And these kids here lost three weeks with no tangible consequences, just their own intellectual losses! Vacation be damned, kids need structure.

And now I'm off to work, hehe!

Plans for this weekend: maybe dancing tonight at an international student party, lunch with Caitlin tomorrow, a Thanksgiving meal on Saturday with the other assistants in Rennes.

Evenings out and grad school applications done

Saturday evening was pleasant. In a group of about 15 English and Spanish assistants, I ate at Place Sainte Anne in the unusually warm evening. Crêpes and wine and meeting new people while getting to know “old” (meaning I’ve met them at least once before) people better. We then went to a nearby bar that has a laundromat in it—I guess that’s a good idea, but it was a funny setting for hanging out. More assistants joined us there, and we took up basically the entire patio. I kind of got stuck in an awkward corner so it was hard to follow conversations and such… I was also sleepy from the wine. I left before 11 to head back to the apartment.

None of the roommates were in, so I listened to my iTunes and found some college friends on facebook to catch up with, Lin Lin and Daniel. After they had to go study or eat dinner or whatever, I watched an episode of ER and finally made myself go to sleep.

Sunday morning I slept late, but then became very productive! I submitted one graduate school application to American University, and I finished the rest except for inputting the name of one recommender that I am waiting to hear from. I am applying to MA International Affairs/Relations/Studies programs at American, George Washington University, University of Chicago, and University of Denver for next year. Depending on which school I go to, I will be doing either US Foreign Policy or African studies! Hopefully, all four applications will be submitted in this next week, and I can stop fretting over it.

After that, I started working on a powerpoint about Tennessee and Knoxville to present to my students when I start my classes. If any of you have lesson plan ideas, please send them my way! I’m planning on covering holidays, the school system, music, anything I think of!

I’ve hit a block in working, so I’m going to take a break now. Sundays in France are so boring! No stores are open, not even grocery stores! Just some cafés and restaurants, but I don't want to spend money to be alone at them. Luckily, PA will be back from his Normandy trip at 7:30 tonight. And I don’t have work until Tuesday at 12:30, can you believe it? I need to find some hobbies, like a yoga studio, ASAP! Or if I had my apartment, I could be working on setting it up.

All in good time...