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!

Observation and frustration... Followed by fun!

This blog seems to be turning into a daily journal… so don’t feel obligated to read all the mundane details of my life. I think living abroad makes every little problem or success more dramatic by virtue of it being dealt with in French and by myself. So sorry for the silliness I may describe.

Yesterday, I went to school for three hours in the afternoon to sit in on three classes. Once again I had to present myself, answer questions, and talk a little about Tennessee and Knoxville with Google images to aid me. Two of the classes were terminale (last year of high school) comprised of electricians who have just returned from month-long internships in businesses as varied as home electricians to maintenance in hospitals. It was cool to hear their stories of work and see that they do know some English already.

One class was listing what they wanted to discuss with me when I have my own classes, and one guy mentioned basketball. I told them I watch a lot of basketball, so they asked my favorite team—the Lakers! That earned me some grins :)

After the three hours, I was definitely tired from looking attentive and deciphering broken English. I also had to bring financial forms to the secretary to set up my automatic salary payment—I should get 80% of my salary at the end of this month instead to having to wait until the end of November.

Then, I went downtown to drop off PA’s rent check at his agency and stop by my agency to see the status of my apartment. Now that we had a snafu with the last financial guarantor, the agent wanted to talk to them first. I had to convince her that it was all set up and that she should send the paperwork right away. Hopefully, it will all be done by this weekend; I am to await her phone call to get my keys. It was a rather frustrating afternoon.

I met PA back at the apartment and enjoyed a healthy dinner of delivery pizza (ham, egg, potato as toppings!) and brownies that I made from a packet (denser and darker than ones in the US). Around 9:30, I texted some assistants to go to a hookah bar downtown. So me, PA, Seth, Georgia, Caely, and Carolyn (who is placed in St. Malo) enjoyed Melon and Lemon-Mint hookahs and sugary mint tea. I really love this group of assistants—it makes the stresses of work and paperwork easier to bear when I can joke around with them afterwards. Well, and Pierre-Antoine helps a lot too ;)

Also, I finally found some peanut butter here… in the foreign food aisle with burrito kits and teriyaki sauces!

Today, I am going into work for an hour to just hang out with another English teacher, Laetitia, and see some more of the workshops. Catherine is busy the rest of the week, so we’ll see if I have much more to do.

I’ll also put up some photos of the school that I’ve taken! I’m so lazy about doing that :/

Ces soirées-là (Oh What a Night)

Yesterday, PA went to Vitré for his basketball practice/game this weekend, and I stayed in Rennes to organize a soirée of assistants! Using facebook and texts on the phone I had just purchased, I invited everyone to meet at Place Sainte-Anne at 7. Five of us dined at Creperie Ste-Anne, and a sixth met us afterwards. We roamed the streets in search of a bar, and we even sampled some light French beer at the one we chose. Three people left by 11, so us three leftover night owls found a hookah bar to chat some more. I was home by 12:30 so that I wouldn’t miss the metro closing for the night at 12:45. The newbies I met were Katherine of Chicago, Caely of California, and Seth of DC/Montreal. Of course, we had to exchange basic info on our first meeting, but hopefully our conversations will warm up soon :)

I think I’m still rather stressed out here in general… Just having to deal in French. Like this morning I had to go to a laundromat where I had to decipher the machines and systems just to get my laundry done. I ended up jamming the payment machine with a 5 euro bill (which was recovered by a woman half an hour later who gave it back to me) and had to go to the Subway next door to beg for coins to use. I eventually asked some guys for help on how everything worked and that solved my problems.

I really do need to get better about using my French confidently and asking for help from strangers. One of the other assistants stopped to ask a woman for directions on the street yesterday and ended up with an apartment at a good price! Lucky break!

Today, I looked at more apartment announcements, but since it is the weekend, I cannot really contact anyone. I found a PERFECT place that the individual was selling herself (as opposed to an agency), so I did try to call and email her. I hope I can get it because it is gorgeous, furnished, and in a perfect location! *fingers crossed*

I was just invited to crepes for dinner made by Alexandre, but I am headed downtown again tonight after organizing another assistants’ night out via a massive facebook and text recruiting campaign. I have one confirmed for dinner, and three interested in drinks afterwards. I hope to convince everyone to go to O’Connells for Irish beer—oh, Smithicks/Kilkenny, how I miss you!

Until tomorrow my faithful followers!

The French lifestyle myth

The view from PA's apartment balcony--
the building in the center is part of the University of Rennes 2 where PA studies

For those of you who imagine me sitting at a cafe every afternoon with an espresso and a croissant, I will have to disappoint you. If I go out, it is for Subway, McDonalds, Chinese food, or maybe crepes if I’m hankering for some traditional French food. You can also have pizza delivered, just like at home. Otherwise, Pierre-Antoine and I just cook simple meals of pasta or rice, meat, veggies. He does insist on putting cream sauce and/or cheese on most things, which takes some getting used to. It can be delicious, yes, but also very heavy on an American stomach accustomed to sandwiches and salads for meals. And for breakfast, everyone here eats bread! Brioche (loaf of sweet bread, often with Nutella spread), croissants (not from the boulangerie bakery but bought in bulk bags from the supermarket), pain au chocolat (same as the croissants). Lots of carbs and fat, but I guess the walking (and the 80 stairs to the fifth floor where PA’s apartment is) help keep one in shape.

I miss the varieties of foods in the US—Mexican the most, cheap Asian cuisine, even American-style café foods would be nice. The spices are just not the same and are usually more bland. Hopefully, I will be able to piece together and French-ify my recipes to work here. I think cooking is my best way of de-stressing and feeling comfortable here; I can have total control of the kitchen for a few minutes, and I can do something productive, as opposed to sitting around the apartment all day.

For example, yesterday I tried to make my famous oreo cupcake recipe, but I had to convert the measurements and reduce the quantities from 24 cakes to only 6… I forgot baking powder and they came out as short, super-dense cakes of an almost flan-like consistency. PA reassured me that they tasted just fine, but they could not in all honesty be called cupcakes :/ Trial and error with ingredients and figuring out the little table-top oven I have. At least my buttercream icing tasted the same, even though I had to stir it by hand for 10 minutes for lack of an electric mixer!

The Oreo Cupcake attempt

I’m still waiting for work to pick up… So I’m still trying to listen to French tv and the conversations of my hosts to learn more French. Last night was spent comparing childhood cartoon theme songs in English and French (Pokemon, Digimon, Denver, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), listening to music (French and American), laughing over youtube videos, assembling shelves for PA’s room, seeing Alexandre and Wajd have a boxing/slapfight, and watching Wajd burn himself, the table and the carpet by dropping a hookah coal. No baguettes or berets in sight! ;)

Cultural note: Have you seen those Windows 7 commercials where the person tries to convince you that Windows 7 was their idea? They have them here too, and the premise is that a French exchange student is at a barbecue in Texas and created Windows 7 to show them what good food was… snails! Haha!

I'm only updating because I'm bored and pensive at the moment. Enjoy all my attention while you can ;)

Bisous!
L