So a couple more weeks have passed where I’ve been “teaching”. Again, I have yet to have a full 12-hour week, even if they are always scheduled as such. At least once a week (AT LEAST) I show up to school and a teacher “forgets” I’m coming, or has scheduled a test, or thought the schedule was different (see the schedule is that confusing that even the teachers don’t get it!). Sometimes they manage to stick me in another class to do some spontaneous question answer session with yet another new group of students, most of the time it just means that I either have to sit at school for an extra hour until my next class, or worse, turn right around and go back home. This week even one school didn’t schedule me for any hours, and I couldn’t get an explanation from anyone as to why (“I didn’t make the schedule and I don’t know who did” was the typical response)! So I had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off this week and did a whole lot of nothing. From this point on, though, it looks like I’ll be working 13-hour weeks, which I guess is fine (not that they gave me a choice). So much for ever having a set schedule.. I’ve learned I just have to show up and basically be prepared for anything..
This is frustrating not just because I show up expecting one thing and then nothing happens. I’ve realized that after I do take the time to plan the lessons, I do in fact want to teach them, and if a month goes by after Halloween I can’t exactly show up on December 1 and expect to teach them about it just because I never got to see them, right? So I think I actually care a bit too much about the lessons, because I put the work into the lessons and I want to see how they will go, and because I am interested in what I am sharing with them. It’s kind of exciting to share my culture and stuff. And I want to see how my lessons that I plan, and usually write myself, will go. Oh well, if I get to use them for at least a couple of classes, I guess that is fine.
Another thing thrown my way this past week was the interruption of bus service at the stop nearest my house (and 2 other surrounding stops) due to a violent incident last Sunday. Oh course I didn’t find out until I had actually left on Monday morning to go to work and had to run to the next stop, but missed the bus and then was late for my class. Removing 3 stops from the line made the bus schedules all messed up; sometimes they came early, sometimes way late, sometimes not at all! Trying to get to my second school later that day I waited for 40 minutes and 2 buses ,which didn’t come, so I missed that class entirely. So frustrating. The non-service at those stops continued through the entire week, and then this weekend the ENTIRE bus network for all of Aix-les-Bains was not in service, out of solidarity for the bus driver (apparently someone was aggressive towards the driver). It’s just such a different way of dealing with things than I am used to, and made me realize how hard it is to get around when you rely on one method of transportation. But really, can you imagine metro like shutting down like that?! I just can’t. Regular service starting Monday, hopefully. Hopefully.
You must think that with all these days off I’d be pretty bored, and the short answer is that you are right. There are times, like last year during school, when I would have killed for free time like this, but now I would give anything for a schedule, structure, even homework! I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. At least twice a week I meet up with the other English assistant here, which is nice, but still leaves a lot of free time (and we also just go into the same couple of stores all the time in tiny Aix.. pretty lame)! Somehow I’ve learned to deal with the boredom. I think the hardest time for me was over the vacation a couple of weeks ago, when no one was around (not even the people I live with) and I didn’t have much to do. I went a little crazy then and was hating life, but since nothing really seems as bad as that now I guess I’m ok. I have lots I could be doing – reading (especially in another language), lesson plans, job applications, travel plans, learn a new language, go on walks or something, all sorts of stuff. But mostly I just end up watching several series of tv shows or movies online. I mean, it’s kind of nice, I guess, to come home after work and not really feel like I need to do anything. Downside to it all: even though I have all this time, I’m finding it difficult to get anything done, it’s horrible! I’m so unmotivated to write these job essays or do my lesson plans and since it seems like I have forever I just don’t feel the pressure to get it done. Look at me, even writing in this blog is an attempt to get out of doing the real work I have, which, for the record needs to be done for tomorrow’s class! Well I’ll just write a little more (this has actually been on my to do list forever also) and then back to the real work. Well maybe after a walk to change it up a bit.
More in regards to my schedule – I’ve finally realized why it was so hard for me to get them to give me all my hours in the morning or in the afternoon (to avoid these 3+ hour gaps of time with nothing to do) – it’s because for them, having these big breaks, like having a 2 hour lunch where you go home and come back, is totally normal. So leaving for a time then coming back to work later is not unheard of, where as for me, used to the American way of working, I just want to get it all over with and then have as much time as possible at home. I really don’t like leaving and then having to go back, it’s so hard to motivate myself to leave, and do the usual 30 minute commute one way, to the school. I’d rather eat my lunch standing up, on the go, walking somewhere (gasp! This is a huge no-no here) and get to leave 2 hours earlier, than have to teach some class until 5:30 at night!
When I do end up having a full day at school complete with 1hr45min lunch break I find that no matter how slow I eat, I cannot stretch it out to fit that amount of time. I am also one of the few that stays at school and eats in the teachers’ lounge (they all have cars and go home.. sigh) and I eat a pretty simple lunch compared to everyone else’s. French people bring multiple Tupperware containers, one of which always needs to be microwaved. Sometimes they even bring a placemat! And there are always multiple courses (main, fruit, cheese, yogurt). Me, I bring a sandwich. Sometimes chips, or an apple, sometimes a dessert. But I don’t even want anything else! I don’t know how they can prepare and eat such elaborate things all the time. I certainly don’t have the patience or appetite for it.
Another weird lunch-time thing, or just all the time thing really, is how often everyone says hello. You go in anywhere (store, classroom, teacher’s lounge, anywhere with a doorway of any kind) and you say hi. Doesn’t matter if you know them, want to talk to them, have ever seen them before in your life, bonjour is required. Same goes for good bye, oh and not to mention that one bonjour does not work for a whole room, usually. So if there are 3 people sitting in the computer room in the teacher’s lounge, all minding their own business, doing work (this is usually me), one still needs to stop and say 3 separate bonjours, and wait for response bonjours, to everyone in the room. Crazy! At lunch time this changes a little. Anyone who walks into the staff room is then required to say “bon appétit” before saying bonjour, or in lieu of it. Do you really care about me eating well or my appetite? Because I was reading my book and didn’t even notice you walk in, but ok, whatever. I find that I tend to use smiling as a response here as a force of habit, but that is not at all common here. They may seem all nice and say hi to everyone and their mom, but they do not smile! And then I am pegged as the weird one.. sigh.
More about the teachers’ lounge (my favorite place), there are usually 3 computers, 1 printer and ONE photocopier.. for the ENTIRE school! Ok this isn’t like Chantilly size, but there are still several hundred students.. how can you work like this? Not to mention the photocopier at one of my schools has been broken twice in the past month! Then everyone has to use this smaller version machine that takes an eternity. Efficient as always, France…
Another weird thing, when the bell rings here, nobody moves! Not like at Chantilly where people where people were edging out the door 5 minutes before the bell even rang (or at least packing up their stuff). Could this be because there is not a clock to be found in the entire school?!
There is no time between classes to get to the next, so students are just expected to walk straight from one class to the next and start class right away. In theory, this sounds like it will work, but in reality, the students don’t all arrive at once. Then you have to wait for the teacher to arrive (because when that bell rings and they are in the teachers’ lounge sipping on their mini-coffees, they are not about to rush to leave either!), open the door, let the students in, take roll, tell them to sit down, and then finally start the lesson, at which point 5 minutes, if not more, have easily passed. This cuts into my teaching time, though, so I’m not complaining. At the end of the lesson the students are expected to stay until the teacher dismisses them, even if the bell has already rung, and they listen (again, unlike at Chantilly)!
