Austria/America Differences

OK, so, another year passed.  I never update this thing.  Probably because I don’t really enjoy blogging, I just enjoy being able to read through it again.  Probably also because it is extremely hard to motivate yourself to do anything when you have vast amounts of free time.  I have notes of funny things from last year, but for now I just want to do an Austria/America differences blog, since I think that is normally something I think about a lot and something that is funny for everyone.   It’s also something I get asked about a lot by teachers/students here, and I often struggle to find an answer, because my day-to-day life here is not really any different than if I were living in America.  So it will be nice to have this list of answers to fall back on, because there are definitely differences, I just forget about them since it’s my second year here and I am less surprised by it all.

First, some comparisons:

America: The customer service society.  Nice waiters (working for tips), helpful store clerks, the customer is always right, and if you are willing to pay, things can get done as quickly as you would like.   Also if you want to buy something, you better believe someone will want to sell it to you, most likely any time, day or night.

Austria: This is just not the case.  Viennese waiters are infamous for being rude, and in most of my experiences they are.  They are usually being tipped ten percent max, but they are also being paid a living wage, unlike in America, so they can’t really complain about that.  Sometimes you go to a restaurant or café and sit there forever until someone takes your order.  Nice part, I guess, is that you can also lounge around there for as long as you want, even if you have finished, without being bothered.   If you want to actually pay the bill and leave in a timely manner, though, expect it to be pretty hard to flag down anyone that works there.  On many occasions this has led to me just going up to the cash register and handing them money (and even that sometimes takes a while).

Also store hours are so inconvenient!  They are regulated by the government, so even if they wanted to stay open longer, they could not.  Typically stores are open until 7pm Mon-Wed, 8pm Thus-Fri, and 6 pm on Sat.  This includes grocery stores.  NOTHING is open on Sundays.  Ever.  With the exception of two grocery stores, which are open until 9 pm (this is considered late!), and even then I’ve heard they are only allowed to sell food, meaning all non-food products (toilet paper, etc) is put away or behind some sort of barrier.  Austrian law.  Also two grocery stores for the whole city of Vienna!  It’s crazy.  I’ve heard they are packed, too.  Luckily, I have never had to resort to going there on Sunday, and luckily, I have a flexible work schedule that allows me to shop in the middle of the day on weekdays.  But seriously, how does everyone else do it?!

America: The idea of a “common courtesy”.  You know what is common courtesy, moving out of the way when someone wants to squeeze past you in an aisle of a store, or on the escalator in the metro, etc.  People in America are aware of their surroundings and will move for you without being asked.

Austria:  One of my biggest pet peeves!  I swear people here like deliberately stand in my way and block the aisle, or take up the whole escalator.  Really?  I know I have all the time in the world but I do not want to be spending it on this escalator, so please move!  I have stood behind people staring at them, waiting at them to move and they NEVER notice.  I almost always have to ask for them to move; like you didn’t think I just wanted to stand here in this section of the aisle all day long, did you?  Really?

America:  Another common courtesy thing – when a new register opens at a store, the person in the front of the line, i.e. the one who has been waiting the longest, gets to go to that new register.  It just makes sense!

Austria:  When a new register is opened, the person at the back of the line, who probably just showed up there, goes to that register, and most often gets out of the store before I have even put my things on the belt.  REALLY?!  This really bugs me.  Another pet peeve about behavior here in Austria.

America: The land of free water, free refills, and free bathrooms.

Austria:  Good luck finding any of those for free.  When you ask for water somewhere you will be handed expensive bottled water, that is unless you order a coffee in a café, in which case it is customary to receive a ridiculously small glass of tap water that resembles a thimble.  This seems to be a normal glass size in this country.  How the whole place isn’t severely dehydrated (also considering the amount of beer they drink) is beyond me.  Free refills is not a concept anyone knows of here.  Soda is also crazy expensive anywhere other than a supermarket, and is usually more than beer at any café or bar.  I don’t know how they produce that stuff here or what is in it to make it so much more than it is in America.  And free bathrooms are just one of those European things that is hard to come by.  I refuse to pay for something that is a basic human right!

America:  Coupons/sales deals galore!  One of the things I love most about America!  I always buy my clothes on sale, find it hard to spend more than 10 dollars on any article of clothing, and like to have a coupon for every occasion.  I’m hardly an extreme couponer – but I would love to be!  Not to mention Groupons, and many other daily emails I get from email lists or deal finders.  Groupon exists in Vienna, but it is never that good.

Austria – Coupons here are a rare occurrence.  They come out a few times a year, and maximum savings are like 50 cents.  Sorry, but that is not a good deal.  I want something that is like 75% off, but here in Austria, I’ve never really seen anything more than 50% off.  Even Christmas candy after January 1^st, will sit there in a bin for like 3 months with it’s 50% off stickers as the pile slowly dwindles.   In America that stuff would be 90% off at that point (I know, because that is when I buy my candy supply to take back to Europe for the rest of the year); they’d practically be paying you to take it out of the store!  I know it is silly, yes those candies usually have an expiration date of a year later, but no one wants Christmas colored candy after Christmas, so you have to get rid of it somehow! 

Now some more general observations about Austria:

·      More religion in daily life, for example, crosses in public school classrooms, all holidays are catholic, Christian Christmas traditions are taught in public school, compulsory religion classes in elementary school.  Yes, there is separation of church and state here, but oddly not in these realms.  Also let’s not forget, the way to say hello here in Austria is “Gruss Gott” or “greetings to God”.

Many students around election time questioned me about why we cared so much about what religion our candidate was a part of, when it just would never be spoken of in Austria.  I also had a couple of students/teachers comment on Obama’s use of “God bless America” at the end of all his speeches, saying that they thought it was his religion seeping into politics.  I thought it was really interesting how observant they were, but also found it really odd that they think we are doing a bad job of keeping religion out of politics when I look at their school system!  I have brought this up to them, and they react as if they had never even thought about these things as being religious before. Some elementary school teachers I spoke with do say they ask the students if it is OK if they teach Christmas in class, because classrooms here are becoming more diverse now.   To them it is more tradition to teach this way, that is just the way things have always been done, and with Christmas, for example, there is no way to teach it in school here that does not touch on religion.  Their Christmas traditions are the religious traditions, unlike in America where we have all these fictional secular Christmas characters  (Santa Claus, etc) that allow someone to celebrate without even know what the “true” or traditional meaning is.  Christmas is celebrated very differently here, but more on that later!

·      Students standing when you enter the classroom.  Pretty self-explanatory.  This doesn’t happen at university, though, at least not at mine.  But anything younger than that, they will stand until you tell them to sit.  Even for me!  It made me feel really important.  But also it was just weird.

·      People here say hi/bye a lot.  Entering/leaving a store/restaurant, at the cash register of any store, or even say, walking into a crowded waiting room at a doctor’s office; you walk into that room of strangers and say hi, and they will say hi back.  It’s so weird.  I mean, nice, I guess.  But I think I am just more used to waving and/or smiling, and also not talking to strangers so much.

·      Apparently it’s OK to ask what race you are to your face here… uh, what?  I had someone ask me if I was Jewish, because I looked Jewish.  And I was like, excuse me? What does that mean?  And he like didn’t understand my offended tone or why I would even ask him that.  His answer: “I mean it in a good way, I am Jewish”.  So that makes it all right?  I thought that was a really weird exchange, but when I brought it up with my roommate (it was her friend) she said that was totally normal, and that people asked her where she was from all the time (even though she has lived in Vienna her whole life, her dad is Algerian).  I told her in America you just can’t ask someone that stuff (cue Mean Girls quote – “you can’t just ask someone why they are white!”).

·      Dogs are EVERYWHERE.  Much like France, people here love their dogs.  They aren’t just on the streets or in the parks, they are in the malls and stores and restaurants, too.  And on the tram and U-Bahn (metro).  Sometimes they are even off-leash, and still completely well behaved, never coming up to sniff or jump on you, or bark at another dog.  I don’t get how these city dogs are so well behaved and ride the metro like a person.  I also don’t understand the need to take your dog to the mall, but whatever.  The restaurant thing, of course, still grosses me out.

·      EVERYONE smokes.  Yes, you are not mistaken, it is the year 2012, and we are in a highly developed Western European country.  But for some reason Austria seems to have to most lax laws about smoking of just about any European country I have been to, Eastern Europe included!  Here you can still smoke in restaurants (some have smoking/non-smoking sections, but we all know how well that works), bars, clubs.. pretty much everywhere.  And I hate it!   I feel like if you are a teenager here and you don’t smoke, you are not cool or something.  All my students last year smoked, it just seems to be a thing you do when you are a kid, and then some quit as an adult and some continue.  It’s just really weird, like they didn’t get the memo that it kills you or something.  Cigarette vending machines are a popular way to buy cigarettes, too – they aren’t illegal here like they are in America, and I can only imagine that it aids underage people in smoking.  I just could not believe that I could go to a bar in Spain, or Italy, or Bulgaria! and not leave with a headache, burning eyes, and clothes and hair smelling like an ash tray, but in Austria, it’s like a given if you go out anywhere.

·      This is no surprise, but there are, just like everywhere else in Europe, no dryers here.   Most people here don’t even know someone who does have one, and if they do, it’s for like “special occasions”.  I don’t understand how/why energy or whatever costs so much more here, but I do really (years later) still miss my dryer.  I’m sorry, but you will never enjoy crispy/crunchy towels on your face/body when you get out of a shower, especially if you know the alternative of a fresh out of the dryer, plush soft one.  Another time I really miss the dryer is when I need to wash my sheets and hope that they dry in about 12 hrs so I can sleep on them that night.  Yet another scenario, when it rains/snows and you get all wet/cold, and you want to dry your socks/pants/gloves/whatever.  Well you’ll just have to wait for them to air dry. 

We also don’t have a microwave in my apartment.  I asked my roommate about it and she said she has never had one and her parents don’t like them (typical European response).  Most Europeans I have met think that owning a microwave is like a downward spiral that only leads to you eating microwave dinners aka unhealthy foods ”like Americans”.  I don’t even want it for that, since there isn’t much food that is microwavable sold here anyway, I just want an easy way to reheat foods and make popcorn.  Having a microwave is just convenient!  But Europeans are way less concerned with that than Americans are (see: stores hours, and just about everything else).

Now for the Christmas differences.  Last year I did a lot of Christmas lessons, so I got the whole Austrian Christmas story from my students.  They have a bunch of catholic traditions like an advent wreath, an advent calendar, the Christmas markets don’t open until advent time, St, Nicolas day, and Krampus day, just to name a few.  Basically the whole month is like a big celebration. 

St. Nicolas Day is on the 6^th, and he is the figure most like our Santa Claus, I guess, except he looks sort of like the pope, due to his big hat.  He walks around with a big cane and his donkey from house to house and leaves small gifts in children’s shoes.  The next day, Krampus, a horned devil-like figure with a huge tongue, comes around and whips (no joke) the bad children with sticks.

Christmas here is celebrated on the 24^th.  Santa Claus is not a character in their story, though most people know him due to movies/pop culture.  Here, the presents are brought by the Christkind, which is a baby angel (Jesus?)  who flies through the window and leaves the gifts.  You don’t see him because you have to leave the room (this happens during the day), and you know you can go back in when you hear a bell ring.  How a flying baby angel can hold all that, we’ll never know!  They also write letters to it (?) just like American kids to do Santa, but they leave the letters on a windowsill for the angel to pick up.  They also decorate their Christmas trees (always real, here, most didn’t even know artificial trees existed) with REAL candles with REAL fire.  Can anybody say fire hazard?!

This year I played Christmas taboo with a class and the first card said “Mrs. Claus” on it.  They had a hard time explaining this one and getting people to guess the correct answer, because no one in the class even knew that Santa was married!

This ended up being a lot longer than expected.. guess I should be blogging more often!

my schedule

the first two days are pretty confusing, as some classes i see every other week, one every third week, and one every week. even the teachers can't keep up! those two days are at the fashion/business school, which is much bigger than my main school. the last two days are at the slovenian business school, where there are only two english teachers, and my schedule is set with the same classes every week, with the exception that Fabiani's class (with the stars next to it) changes every week. I either do 2A on wednesday, or 2B on thursday, and that changes week to week. but it is still the same students, i just see them less often!

teaching english round two

i should really update this more.. i've got a bunch of old french posts yet to be finished (but really, can i even remember what happened or have i already blocked that information from my mind?) and i haven't even mentioned anything about austria. i'll try to work on it. i've got lottsss of free time here as well, so shouldn't be a problem (aside from my lack of motivation to do anything)!

on continue..

ahh another month gone by and no updates in this blog. Don’t be fooled, I’m not all of the sudden busier. If possible, I’m working less, as every week I have at least one class cancellation. Still have yet to work a full 12 hour week! Crazy, really, but I am getting paid for it all so whatever. It’s too bad that I can’t get another job, because then I could use all this free time where I am actually earning my teaching salary to then earn yet another salary on top. If only such bogus jobs existed in America.. have I mentioned I’m not looking forward to the real real world? Because I’m not.. anyway, some ramblings from the past month.

I’ve recently completed a lesson on school in America and it caused me to make a list of the things that are different between here and the US. Besides teachers blatantly blurting out grades in front of the entire class (which I’ve already had first hand experience with at the Universite de Nice.. ah langue orale, still painful memories), there are other more minor differences. One is that I feel in general (though I usually feel this way in europe) that the kids are allowed more freedoms. They take public buses or trains unaccompanied, but really what I am referring to is that even my youngest middle schoolers (11-12 years old) have a changing schedule that looks more like a university schedule than anything I’ve ever seen. Basically, every day the schedule is different, and every day there are free periods. Sometimes they have whole afternoons off, sometimes just an hour somewhere in the middle. In the end, I just think the french kids should stop complaining about American kids getting out “so early” in the afternoon, when they have breaks that probably make their schedules either equivalent or less rigorous than ours. Not to mention a 2 hour lunch break and every Wednesday afternoon off. I need to also ask them about homework, because anytime I’ve seen a teacher assign something it seems very light in comparison to crazy Fairfax county. I remember learning that we (America) lead in the amount of homework, but I should still ask. I sort of doubt they get that much because French people don’t like to work, especially in their free time at home.

On the other hand, kids here have a 15 minute “recreation” period ever 2 hours where they are forced to go outside. Like they don’t trust them in the halls? Furthermore, the teachers have to go get the kids and walk them in at the end of this time. Even the oldest group of 15 year olds! This I find oddly contradictory.

Sometimes I just find the way things are said in French to be really interesting. I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but I recognized one in a letter I got the other day. Where we in English would say something like “this will be processed as soon as possible” or “you’ll here from us as soon as we can” or something like that, in French they use the term “Meilleurs delais” as in, your matter will be processed in “the best delays”. Seems so backwards to me!

A couple of weeks ago I had what could be classified as my worst teaching day ever (to date) (I hope it doesn’t get worse). First off we were doing a lesson on Groundhog Day, which I thought would be pretty interesting. I mean, it’s a pretty weird tradition. And I wouldn’t even care if they were like “Americans are so stupid, practically worshiping a rodent and expecting it to predict the season’s weather” as long as they said it in English! But instead I got the usual apathy and silence. Well, silence regarding the lesson, and way too much talking about anything and everything else. I essentially had to repeat myself with every direction, every comment, every explanation like a minimum of three times, and when we went around the room to go over answers for the worksheet I had given them time to do, everyone had blank sheets. Even after prompting and pointing to where in the text the answers were, they usually answered wrong, and this just continued through the rest of the excruciating lesson, and the rest of the kids talked while I was trying to coax answers out of a specific kid. Towards to end pencil cases and markers started to get thrown across the room. Yes, 15 year olds acting more like 5 year olds, throwing school supplies and stealing each others trousses. I managed to intercept a marker and tried to find the culprit, but no one would confess. I held on to it to hand to the teacher at the end, and heard a girl saying something about me “keeping her marker” as she walked out of the class. Seriously guys, I don’t know how many times I need to tell you, but I UNDERSTAND FRENCH! And I was just so fed up. And that was only class number 1!

Nothing stands out in my mind in the second class, however that probably just means it just wasn’t as bad as everything else, and maybe not necessarily good. I think I tried I different worksheet, teaching idea to no avail. Still lots of confusion no matter how I put it. Groundhog and hedgehog end up being the most mispronounced words yet. Sometimes I can’t even understand these kids.

Next up is a club of sixiemes (youngins). I’ve had bad days and I’ve had good days with this group. It is highly unpredictable. The problem with the club is that they think it is all fun and games, and while I like having the opportunity to play games with them and not worry about really making the material sink in, sometimes they don’t even want to do that. Sometimes they are really hard to control. And most of the time, I feel like a glorified babysitter.

Usually I have about 5 students, and even that feels like too many sometimes. But today, for some reason, I had like 16 show up. And that is when the mass chaos began. Luckily I had plenty of cutesy lessons revolving around Martin Luther King Day and Chinese New Year, as well as throwing in some directions, since they had been learning that. And to top it all off, a list of new vocab words to play hangman, their favorite, with. You can always bring their attention back to the lesson with hangman, I’ve found, even if they fight over who gets to go next, who gets to write points, who gets to erase etc. seriously, glorified babysitting. But did we get around to any of that? NO. One kid needed to go get a pencil (showing up completely unprepared and empty handed seems to be the norm for all age groups here in france) and then like half the class left to do the same. we started off with directions, and the kids weren’t getting it, even though I really think they just weren’t listening. When I went around to each individual student and asked them, everyone got all the answers right. But as soon as I turned my back on the group to talk to one, chaos broke out. Students started getting up, walking around, picking up tables and desks, stealing each other’s supplies, throwing things, and yelling, yelling and some more yelling. One kid wanted to write the date on the board, which just led to like 5 kids all rushing toward the board to try and write things. Anything I tried to say was drowned out my screaming from kids who were mad about their stuff being taken, and then screaming by other kids who were telling those kids to “shut up” because they couldn’t hear me. Even though those kids thought they were trying to help, they weren’t really paying attention either, and started trying to push each other off their chairs. They were screaming, I was screaming, telling everyone to sit down, no moving, no standing, no yelling, no everything, but it wasn’t working. It got to the point where I could see it all happening and I was like paralyzed, having no idea what more to say or do, but basically just standing there. Then a teacher came in the room saying she could hear them from the floor below and down the hall, in the teacher’s lounge. She didn’t seem to think I was doing a bad job, but rather said I could just send anyone out I wanted if they weren’t behaving. As soon as she left and the kids heard that, it all became an argument of who I should send out, and some yelling began again with the argument “no send him out!” “ no send HER out” etc etc. Needless to say that bell could not ring fast enough, and my throat was sore at the end of that lesson.

The next class went much more smoothly because the teacher had heard about my rough day, and told anyone who caused any problems to me was going to make the entire class get after school detention. Needless to say, they behaved quite well!

One last class at my last school was the usual amount of goofing off and not listening. I know they think they can get away with it because they are honors, but it is still frustrating and they are still nowhere near perfect. I was too tired at that point to care, though.

The next day, on my 10 am walk to school through the neighborhood where I live, some, potentially homeless, potentially drunk, man ran up to me, like literally chased me, down the street. Well I wasn’t running, but it was like he saw me, and ran down the street to catch up to me, yelling at me and trying to talk to me while I tried to ignore him with my headphones in. He walked in front of my line of vision so that I could ignore him no more and I tried to keep my reluctant responses brief. Sorry but once you heard I was from America, I was not impressed with the fact that you could throw out buzz words like Obama, white house and Washington. Not so impressive (and frankly I get it all the time). We finally made it to an intersection where he realized we weren’t going in the same direction and he left. But seriously, what a weird experience! My creeper magnet is back.

Speaking of which, I’ve completely left out my Lyon trip. The creeper magnet was on full blast there as we bar/club hopped. The way I see it, though, is just that most French guys are creepers. And that has nothing to do with me!

Another week, another absence of a schedule. Every Tuesday/Thursday I turn up to garibaldi and walk over to my schedule, usually to see either no change or to see one of the few hours (always less than my required 4) crossed off. So much for thinking things would be different post holidays (for the record, they are now saying things will be different after the coming holidays, but I just checked the schedule for the week back and I’ve only got 2 hours on there, and if they don’t write it before this Thursday, I won’t see it, so I won’t show up! I don’t have much hope.)

I’ve also had a bunch of new classes lately. I know it seems ridiculous this late in the game, and it is, but at the same time they have all been really young, and so all their first lessons have been introductions, which is quite easy. Since they are just learning the beginnings of English and their vocab is so limited, I get some funny questions and responses sometimes:

“I like sheep.”
“you like sheep?!”
“uh oui, I like sheep.”
“baaa baaa sheep??”
“nooo, sheeeeepssss”
“you like ships? As in boats? In the water?”
“no sheeps, sheeeepss, like food.”
“OH CHIPS”
“yes”

fyi chips/ships/sheep all sound the same to French kids.
As do bitch and beach. Yes I have come across that in writing as well.

Again vocab is limited, so one of the most common questions is – “do you like food?”
I mean is there not only one answer for that? If you don’t like food.. you die.

Then in my food lesson I got a lot of kids convinced that a bagel was a donut, since bagels are rare here. and I’m like no, a bagel is just the shape of a donut, but it’s not sweet and you put cream cheese on it (another unknown here) and it’s just so much better. Of course they don’t get that, so they will continue to think it is a donut.

Even after switching my worst Friday class to a different one, Fridays at perret still seem to take the cake for my least favorite class day each week. One girl, who hardly ever talks, however, did ask me a funny (maybe thoughtful?) question the other day, asking if I had “a little friend” (the literal translation of petit ami/boyfriend) to spend valentine’s with. When I said he wasn’t around, she told me that was “too bad”. Sympathy from some of the most apathetic students ever? Eh I’ll take it.

We even did a game one Friday and that didn’t turn out so well, meaning they just don’t get it! That day, though, we had visiting german exchange students, which in reality, was actually a real treat for me. Their English was so much better! And as they finished the work much faster than everyone else, decided to have nearly perfect side conversations with me. Motivated, smart students! Who are these kids – certainly not my regular bunch.

The next class had like 10 of them in it, and I walk up to hear the kids explaining in French (again, which I understand!!!) that they never understand anything I say and that the class is just really really hard. The german students again had no problem doing the work, sometimes even translating from English to French for the students!! One (punk) kid even took it upon himself to come up and talk to me after class. Our conversation went something like this:

“that class was a joke!”
“excuse me? What do you mean?”
“it was sooo easy!”
“well your French classmates don’t seem to think so..”
“well it was.”
“well I’m glad it was easy for you,,”
and he walked away. What a jerk!

Back to the lesson about schools, I mentioned something about cheerleaders and just got a baffled/blank stare from everyone. Surely they must know what cheerleaders are, they are like a symbol of America or something. Plus they love letterman jackets here, they are like some kind of trend at the moment, though I doubt anyone could explain their original significance. Anyway after they all ask me what a “sherrleder” is, they finally get the concept and all say “OH pom pom girls!!”. Seriously?! Not only do they call cheerleaders pom pom girls, but they think that is the proper English name for them. Um no.

Somewhere in the span of these weeks we lots heat/hot water for almost an entire 7 days here where I live. It was a ridiculously frustrating time, where I always felt cold and never felt clean. Showers consisted of me heating up a pot of water and pouring it over my head and I spent all my time in front of a mini space heater. 2 days went by without it being fixed because Claire was out of town, and then a ton more went by because they realized the problem was so big that they would need to bring someone special in? I’m not really sure. I’m also not entirely sure I understood the problem, as the technical French terms really meant nothing to me. It probably wouldn’t have made sense in English either, I don’t really know anything about heating in any language. Anyway after nearly a week, a different guy came and apparently the problem wasn’t such a big deal, which Claire said made her really mad. Well it’s about time! I’ve been mad all week.

Then you know, just when I thought I was going to start getting back on some kind of normal schedule, on fait la greveee! The teachers weren’t working so neither was I - 5 clases cancelled in one day! Only problem is that one school decided to reschedule those classes to next week.. meaning a 15 hour week! Could I actually not only finally work my required 12, but 3 extra?!

The answer is, of course, no. even though that was the plan, my first two classes Monday were cancelled, my third didn’t show, my only two on Tuesday were cancelled, one on Thursday cancelled, and finally one on Friday cancelled. Welcome to my life. That is the short story, here is a little more detail.

My French valentine’s day blow-by-blow: got up early to take early bus to get there 30 mins before hand, missed bus. Went back up and was able to grab scissors I had forgotten to cut bingo sheets for english club, figured that was at least a postive aspect to being late. Went back out, caught bus, made it to the last stop 2 mins early. Ran to school, saw my students in the hall and told them I would be there in 5 mins. Went to print and copy, which ended up taking more like 15 mins. Noticed I forgot my planner with copy code, so had to try it by memory, but that only took a few tries to get. Made copies went up to class, no students. Went back to staffroom to find teacher, no teacher. Went back to common area to find students, no students. Sat there for 45 minutes reading instead. Next group came, not really willing to participate. Accidently printed out wrong matching exercise with inappropriate words I had deleted, such as “make out”, and only realized after I had handed it out. Had no way to like ask for them back so had to go forward with it. Came home and tried to find my planner and couldn’t, finally found it in a drawer under my bed, where it must have slid through some crack somehow. Got to school early but class started late because no one could find the key (nor could they understand me asking, “where is the key?” these are honors kids, by the way) got through like no material because they are super slow and blatantly talked through everything I tried to do, and like half the class left early for some “appointment” or another. One girl did give me a chocolate, though, and another wanted a valentine’s day pencil so bad she offered to pay me for it. Ran into my teacher for tomorrow who said that she scheduled a test so I don’t have to come in. my 15 hour week has just turned into 10. (which then turned later into 8)

Last weekend we decided to go to Annecy and had such a travel snafu it was if we had never traveled in france nor lived here for the last 6 months.

Long story short, we missed the last train home, because both of us failed to check the last train time. We show up at the station at the clearly late hour of 7:30 pm, a little worried since Hannah had checked one line’s schedule and thought the last one was at like 7:30. We looked at the departures board, though, and saw one leaving at 7:38, so we rushed to buy tickets, validate them, and run to the platform, only to get out there and see.. no one. Looking at the departures board outside, our train wasn’t listed. I take out the ticket again and realized in my haste I picked a train for 07:38, meaning 7:38 am, not pm (which would be 19:38 here). the only two trains left on the board are going to paris in 3 hours. So we go back into the train station to check the machines – nothing. Our only option is a sleeper train that leaves in 3 hours and puts us in chambery, where we still would have missed the last chambery-aix train by 2 hours. We go out to the bus station, no buses. That’s right folks, there is no transit out of Annecy – a city at least twice aix’s size, after 7m on a SATURDAY. On Sunday you can leave at 10 pm. Sunday the day when everything is closed and nothing happens! But not on Saturday. So we start calling anyone we know to look for solutions, because chilling (literally) in the waiting room for the next 12 hours wasn’t really going to cut it. We leave a message for the woman I live with, Claire, and decide that plan a is the wait to hear back from her, and then plan b is to talk to the conductor of the night train, since we got mixed answers from other people as to whether it stopped in aix. While passing those three hours in the small waiting room, who should walk in but none other than one of my former, (from my worst class that I stopped teaching!) students. Maybe he won’t recognize me, but of course he sits right behind me. Seconds later, his friend turns around and says something like “uh excuse me? My friend says you English teacher.” This leads us into a long and rather painful English conversation about where this kid is from (Comoros, some island nation by Madagascar I’ve never heard of), with his friend/my student saying nothing. To be fair, he started the conversation in French by saying how much he liked my class because he didn’t have to do anything, but that he never understood a word of what was going on (yeah, doesn’t surprise me). His friend tried to get Hannah to give him English lessons, but maybe that’s just because she was being much nicer than me and actually speaking in French to them. Despite the fact that I don’t want to admit any sort of fault to these kids, I decide to casually drop in a line asking if they are planning on going back to aix-les-bains that night. They both said yes, that they were taking the tgv towards paris. When I asked to see their tickets, the produced these little regional tickets with no specific time, certainly not something you can take on a tgv. They were clearly just going to get on the train and hope not to get caught. We kind of argued for a while about whether or not it stopped in aix, as the machines said it did not, and with the train station being closed we couldn’t go back and check. They assured me they asked “mr. gare” (directly translated as mr. train station) and he said that it did stop there. I went out to try and find someone to ask and the only worker I could find was a distracted man who didn’t seem so sure that either of those tgvs stopped in aix, and told me to ask the conductor once it came, in an hour. During that time, though, we got a call back from Claire, and she fortunately agreed to come pick us up. The first tgv comes and goes and the guys tell us to get on, while I try to explain that I asked and it’s not actually going there. Still I get on and see the train pull away in the opposite direction of aix… and I wonder if they are half way to paris by the time we get picked up.

The real icing on the cake moments were when we explained to Claire that we had gone to Annecy to see The King’s Speech in English, since aix never has English movies. She then said that they were actually playing it downtown this week in aix-les-bains! And on the way home as we passed the train station in aix, I think I saw that sleeper train stopped there..

And here we are, the last week before 2 weeks off! This week I was scheduled for 11 hours, but had 4 Monday classes cancelled Sunday night and one Tuesday class cancelled Monday night, so I’m down to 6 hours this week. I’m starting to feel like classes being cancelled is a daily occurrence here. not to mention the one class I did come into on Monday, only 8 kids showed. This is because their teacher is out and they know it’s just me come to teach them. It’s been this way for the past 3 weeks and numbers have just been dwindling.

Well lot’s to pack/do before my two weeks of freedom!!

and another thing..

france really needs to get it together on the cupcake front.

for real.

i can easily say that the best pastries and bread i have ever had in my life have been in france. recently, however, i've tried a few "cupcakes" as they seem to be popping up all over, presumably starting to follow the american trend. these so-called cupcakes just make me long for my favorite georgetown cupcake. here the cake is dense and dry and bland, the icing too sugary and grainy, often a weird flavor (like pistachio or lemon). needless to say, i've been disappointed each time. good thing i've got my funfetti mix from america!

but really, france, step it up.

get your stuff together, france!

i mean, really.

ugh.



basically, the lack of organization here never ceases to amaze me. sometimes i feel like i am practically begging the school to let me come into work, which lends me to ask, why did you ask for an english assistant in your school if you weren't interested in having me here? most of the time, i just feel like i am (or rather, they are) totally wasting my time. and of course it's not like i live in a town where there's tons to do for me to occupy my free time otherwise..

coming back from the states made me realize (again) one big difference, that being the lack of cafe-culture (or at least, the american version of it) here. don't get me wrong, they do love their cafes. i mean, it is a french word, after all, n'est-ce pas? but the i guess they just have different purposes here vs in the us. given that i have all this free time, but that i have outside work to do (lesson plans ugh, not to mention i'm back on the job application bandwagon.. it never ends!), i would love to plop myself for hours in a starbucks, library, sandwich place with free wifi (or anywhere on umd's campus.. i miss stamp!) but that is just not how things work here. wifi is hard to find anywhere, the library here is only open like 3 days a week (and, of course, closes for a two hour lunch and by 6 pm every night - it's no mckelden), and food places serve one purpose - it is a place where you eat food. french people do not multitask while eating, it is a big no-no here. that means no walking and eating (seriously have gotten some stares for that one before), no working and eating, just eating (and talking with your friends, of course). growing up in multi-task central (aka america) and slaving away at school for the majority of my life up to this point, i find the concept of one task at a time sort of frustrating, because it is just too slow. needless to say, i've gotten used to my extremely free schedule at this point, and find even the smallest task overwhelming (just when am i going to get this done in between my 10 hours of sleep and the three movies i have downloaded?!), but i still do prefer to have an activity while eating (reading, watching something, surfing the internet, etc esp if i have a 2 hour lunch break at school to fill). but again, the main point was, i do have things to do, but no where but my room (where i spend like all my time) to do it. which gets a little old.

but back to school life.. i'm having a really hard time getting one school to make me a schedule. like really, this was your only task for me, to sit down together with all the english teachers and decide at least a little in advance (no texts the night before anymore pleasee) when you want me to come in. to make it even simpler, despite having at least 6 english teachers at this school, only two are ever interested in having me in classes. that should make things pretty simple, right? you two figure out among your hours when you want me to come in. as requested i told you which classes i prefer, but here we are three weeks back from vacation and i have yet to come in. maybe i shouldn't complain, i am, after all, still getting paid for those 12 hours i just missed. but i am actually starting to feel sort of bad for like never being around. the email response from the teacher, though, was quite cryptic; something about if you "need hours" then you can come into my classes, as long as you let me know first. again.. why am i like begging you to come in here? all the other schools have fixed or rotating schedules where i come in and take the class and teach them whatever i want, and for this school i show up, have no idea what is going on, and am usually asked to take some students and talk about whatever they are talking about on the spot (um no.. i don't know anything about murder mysteries.. sorry). while this means less prep for me, it's more stressful when i get there and am standing in from of 15 little faces with nothing to say. i'm just so frustrated that here we are, 4 months in practically, and i am still having scheduling conflicts. and i am not just going to show up one morning. i have gone down that road before, and gotten up at 6 to be there at 8 only to be told to leave, so sorry, but that is not going to happen again.

today i was scheduled for 2 hours, 1 hr break then one last hour of class. two hours went fine, sat around reading/making copies during break and sat in the classroom waiting for the students for that last hour, only to have no one show.. when i asked the teacher she said that none of the teachers that hour wanted to give up their students. so i essentially sat around for an hour and a half at school (literally the most boring place on earth) just to be told i could leave later. another waste of time. again not as bad since i was happy about getting out earlier than expected, but i could have been working on my lesson plans on my computer at home during that time.

i just want people to be more on top of their stuff here pleasee. it's getting old.

in other new, just 36 days until my dad comes and 2 week break traveling around europe.. the light at the end of the tunnel. just 36 more days..

a typical french lunch menu

nothing like what you find in america!

5 different courses compose the meal (not just a sandwich!) and sophisticated foods..

translation:
choose one from each category

mixed green salad
soy hearts of palm (?)
strasbourg salad

sauteed turkey
basque omelette

cauliflower with parsley
gnocchi with parmesan

cheese plate

fruit basket
lorraine peach tart
sundae (spelled sunday ha!)

oh là là..