when it rains, it pours

a long long long summary entry.. you were warned!

I thought of this title while sitting at the bus station, waiting for the two buses that didn’t come, sans umbrella, soaked socks, missing a class I was supposed to be teaching. Sometimes here it seems that not just one thing can go wrong, but that it must be some sort of string chain like reaction that results in one very bad day. The other meaning is of course that when it rains here, it actually pours, like torrential downpours. Now we’re on to torrential snow downpours, so it would seem that this is just how the weather goes here.

Somehow a couple more weeks have passed where I have not found the time to write in this blog (I guess watching all those chick flicks is taking up all my time.. bust I still find this hard to believe, as I have lots of time. Well here are the highlights of the December, I suppose..

Even when a widespread, publicized strike isn’t occurring, I have found twice now that I have gone to the train station, just to see a notification that there is a “greve prevue”, or a possible strike in the future, meaning that day, that would affect train schedules. I still find it semi-ridiculous that the strikes are planned, and even more that they can stand to put up with these constant interruptions, because I certainly can’t, and I’ve only been here for less than 3 months.

One day I saw a mailman delivering mail on a bike, which I thought was pretty cool. Until I realized that he was also smoking, while riding the bike, and delivering mail (quite the multitasker). Since then I’ve seen someone else doing it also (biking/smoking combo) and I just can’t help but think of how ridiculous it is, and how they are instantly canceling out the positive benefits of the exercise.

One of the funniest things to come out of my thanksgiving lesson was when I taught (and could get them to understand) “I am thankful for”. In one the classes, however, I didn’t have a marker for the board, so I just tried to repeat slowly and have them write it down. One boy could just not get it, and listening to the kids responses, the phrase got less and less decipherable as we went on (like a game of telephone): “I am thankful for”, “I am thank for” “I am uhh for”, “I thanks”, sort of thing. One boy just could not get it, and his friend assured him that he knew what I was saying and wrote it in his friend’s notebook for him. When I went over to check the spelling, I realized that he wrote “I am thing for for”. I was like really? You really think I am standing up here saying “I am thing for for”?!

Another recent lesson I did revolved around American pop music. I chose a recently popular song so that they would get an idea of what kids like in the us, and I tried to choose one where I thought the lyrics were sung slowly and easy to understand. The song – taylor swift’s you belong to me, which, by the way, I never want to hear again (8 classes later with 2 plays each time). Despite my thought behind the lesson, the kids had a lot of trouble understanding the words when sung, and sometimes even when written, and even though I showed the video, sometimes even the concept! Again, maybe it just wasn’t really their thing, but I’m trying to make these fun, so sometimes I just wish they would reciprocate the effort.

I find it kind of funny that aix les bains is considered a lake town. “lake town” should be in quotes. Like yes, there is a lake. Yes it is Lac du Bourget, the biggest natural lake in France. All of those are cool things, and yes it is quite pretty. But the lake is like easily a 40 minute walk from the city. You can’t see it from most places in the city either because there is a big hill with a town on top, called tresserve, that comes between the lake front and the center of aix les bains. So I understand what people hear, and why they would want to visit, but really, unless you like 2 mediocre chain stores and an expensive yet boring club, there is not much going for us here..

I sort of already knew this from studying in Nice (thank you les francais), but there is rarely positive reinforcement in classes here. Instead they are practically made fun of for their mistakes, or at least made to feel stupid. I know maybe Americans take the positive reinforcement to the extreme, never wanting to tell someone they are wrong so as not to hurt their feelings, or tell them that they aren’t doing a good job so as not to discourage them, but it’s what I grew up with, and something I personally like, so I’ve been making it a point to tell everyone they are doing a good job all the time. I know, some are better than others, but the fact is, if you’re doing what I asked and participating, to me, you are doing a good job. Kids at this age in the US can’t necessarily say all the things these kids know in English in another language.

I’ve realized lately, mostly because the only other assistant here is british, that many of the brits (at leas those that I have met) feel like they have to be here. it’s part of their degree program, and they can’t graduate without it, so whether or not they want to teach, or want to be here at this moment in their lives (instead of on campus with the rest of their friends), doesn’t really factor in. it made me kind of sad to think of it from this perspective, even though, ironically, it fits pretty well how I currently feel. I guess the reasons for wanting to participate in this program for Americans and other non brits is just really different, even the application is different, and it’s so much more competitive. Some people left jobs to come here, I had planned on doing this for years, and at least 5 other French majors from umd are in france doing the same thing. So maybe what is more disappointing is not that I relate with the british assistants, but that I went in with the American idea of the program, and ended up with the british version. At least they had fewer/lower expectations I guess..

The immigration appointment was at the “French office of immigration and integration”. Integration is a big part of the immigration process here, which, of course, is totally the opposite of our American melting pot idea. It’s different for sure, but I guess I don’t really have a problem with it, since they are quite upfront with it, telling people what they expect from them if they want to live in france. It was weird to read all the posters about how to integrate yourself though; most revolved around learning and using French.

Despite the long trip to Grenoble, the medical visit was quite easy. Very basic questions/exam, and really I could have lied in my answers to their questions, so I don’t know how they expect to keep their country healthy, or whatever it is that they are trying to do. I guess the x ray thing was a little more than I am used to, though. Whatever I didn’t pay for it!

One day while staring aimlessly out the window of school from the staffroom (this happens a lot), I realized that there were cows that lived behind the school. Where do I live?!

When you come into a classroom here, the kids remains standing until you tell them to sit down. It’s pretty funny the first time because I didn’t know what they were doing, and even now, after I’ve explained to them that we don’t do that, and I don’t care if they just come in and sit down, they still mostly forget and remain standing until I tell them they can sit down. And yes I say “you can sit down” unlike the majority of the teachers who bark out a “sit down!” order.

The other day the IT specialist at the school (who also called me adorable at one point, though only to cut me in the line at the copier.. uhh I’m not ok with that) told me that I “typed like a professional”. Mind you this was on those crazy French key boards, so I personally find that quite hard to believe, as I have to stop and stare at the keyboard sometimes to find the key I want, and the other times I just find that my words are littered with q’s (which is in the a position on a French keyboard). Maybe I do type quickly in comparison with some of the teachers I have seen here, though, who use their two index fingers to write lessons. Ridiculous.

Oh we finally went to that club, night cocoon, which I think I have failed to mention. It was (maybe not so surprisingly) not that cool. Maybe I was just in a bad mood, though, that after paying 12 euro, I had to wait in a non-line (French people hate/don’t understand the line concept) for an hour and a half to get into this place! Sorry, but my good mood was dampened quite a bit by that. Then we get in there and there is a smoking room, connected to the rest of the club, which basically is no better than a smoking club, so I feel like I can’t breathe properly and my hair, clothes, everything smelled when we left. The music choices were mediocre, lots of eurotrash club mixes that go on for ages and sound exactly the same, followed by a few 30-second snippets of the most popular songs in the US. If they could just play a full American song that is currently popular, that would have made me happy. They served (tiny!!) drinks in glasses, which meant there were sticky alcohol and glass shards all over the floor. Despite the mainly younger than me clientele, there were still old creepers. The bartenders were impossible to get the attention of, it seemed they were more concerned with dancing (sometimes on the bar) than serving patrons. A bottle of Smirnoff (~12 euro at the grocery) is 50 euro at the club, and without a chaser..

After that thrilling night, I walked home at approx 4:30 am, only to get up less than 5 hours later to go to Grenoble to see harry potter. To my surprise, after my completely dry and clear skied walk home in the morning, when I woke up there was enough snow on the ground to have already cancelled bus service in the entire area. Ughh.

So I walked to the train station and the trains were luckily still going. Grenoble was nice, harry potter was awesome, and the Christmas markets were cute. Always nice to remember that there are civilized places with people outside of aix les bains.

I’ve done such little travel this year compared to my year abroad. I think some of it has to do with schedule (no more 3 day weekends!) and not being able to skip class when it is convenient for me (it’s a job) and I need to be prepared/rested/on time. I also just think that now I have a completely different spending mindset. Before I had saved a bunch of money to travel all around, and now I’m just thinking about the future and what will come next (ughh I must be an adult!) and how I will need money. This isn’t the best job to try and save money with, but I guess I’m doing my best.

When I see kids on the bus now they all just have to say hello! Sometimes they don’t though, but they tell the teacher they saw me and then the teacher tells me. Sometimes the kids who do know me tell their friends who don’t about me too, as evidenced by the fact when this one kids came up to me on the bus and was all like (in French), I heard you’re the American, do you know Obama?

One school didn’t schedule me for an entire week (4 hrs) in nov, then started scheduling me for 5 hour weeks after. I figured it was to make up for that fact, but when I got there for my first 5 hour week, the teachers said they put too many hours down and that I would only need to stay 4. Well I’m not going to argue with that..

A week later and an even bigger downpour of snow. Luckily one class was canceled (Get this , because the teacher can’t stand the students! Yes, the same ones I had to send to the office! So she just stopped showing up) and the next one I couldn’t get back to school for since the buses were cancelled when it started snowing.
Since I had a make up class this week, I still ended up teaching 11 hours.. hey we’re getting close to 12!

Hannah and I went to a “mall” in chambery. Basically it’s a massive grocery with a few other stores around it. Better than the geant casino mall here, though, I have to give it that. And something to do. Found cheddar at the massive Carrefour, which unfortunately, was not what I was expecting. Probably was made in france. Either way, it was pretty disappointing.

It was the day after the big snow, which had covered one of the tracks and caused a bunch of delays, which we didn’t really encounter until we wanted to leave chambery. Our train was cancelled last minute and the next one was delayed, so it wasn’t the best. We ended up sitting in the waiting room for like an hour and a half, and there had ourselves quite the little creeper experience. Basically 2 old drunk guys tried to talk to us, even though we claimed to not understand their French. We did, however, unfortunately, understand when he said that we had beautiful legs, that we were charming, and how he accused me of tiring to use a bus ticket to get all the way back to England (guess what! I’m not british). They also tried to survey the room for the words they needed “legs,” and “charming” among them). When we finally got done with that and back to aix, I had another run in while waiting for the bus home, when some guy said something to me, which I didn’t hear (headphones) and followed it up with a wink and small amount of lingering.. ugh.

I’ve started playing games with some of the classes I see more regularly/often. Taboo proved to be quite difficult, but I’m hoping with a little practice they will get the hang of it. They all started talking about how they didn’t know how much time was left (I had a stop watch on my cell which I was timing with) so I allowed one kid to take his phone out and time also. Next thing I know, I turn around and notice a flash. Did he seriously just take a picture of me?!

My Christmas lesson with the sixiemes was interesting as always. I decided to start by making paper snowflakes.. ah what a mess! I had made one during my break, but I guess I forgot how 11 year olds are a little messier. They liked it, though, I was just stuck picking up a bunch of little pieces of paper after they left.

I also thought it would be cute to take a picture of them with their art projects (they also made Christmas cards) but that proved to be an even bigger disaster. For some reason, as soon as my camera was out, they assumed they could take theirs out, and it turned into a full on red carpet paparazzi situation. One girl pulls our her iphone (at 11!) others pull out cameras (why at school!) and then after taking pictures of each other they all stand in a semi circle like 2 feet from my face and take pictures of me! The kids start talking about tagging on facebook which leads one to ask if Americans “had that”. Pshh yeah! Long story short, they are all obsessed with being my facebook friend now, I got a piece of paper with a girls name, a cell phone number of another, and came home to 3 new friend requests from 11 year olds, one of who’s last name is listed as bieber (her default [picture also happened to be one of Justin) ugh!

Well I finally ate in the cantine for the first time. And man is it different than in the US First off, here we have plastic trays, metal cutlery and real plates. The meal every day consists of a main dish, a side, a salad, a yogurt, a fruit and bread. The meal that day was mussels or salmon! So I got the salmon, fries, a salad nicoise (with tuna), a plain yogurt eaten as dessert with sugar in it, an apple, two pieces of bread and water. Biggest lunch of my life! I don’t think I could eat like this all the time. But not I also understand why they have so much time, for that amount of food, you need it! I didn’t even eat the apple, and was still really full. We ate in a little teacher’s section of the lunch room (they have their own room) and one table even had wine on it!

My schedule is still, unfortunately, crazy. The teachers just can’t get on top of it, and even tough they are only planning the between the two of them, they still can’t agree on things. This leads to my first week back being cancelled and me wanting to change my ticket but not being able to since the change fee+fare difference is over 1000 dollars!

I played the who’s who game with one of my younger classes again. I asked them all first though to write down the name of a ac eleb so that they for sure would know who they were (instead of me bringing in people I thought they knew). In a class of 10 students, I got 2 Michael Jacksons and 3 George Clooneys, spelled like “Georges Clounet”! I can’t believe these are the only American celebs they know.

Lyon was fun. It’s a nice city. Big, lots of stores and nice things to see. The Christmas markets had lots of cool, different things, the festival of lights was ok. Some things were cool, but some didn’t seem as cool as I thought they would be. It was sooo crowded. All these people came just to see some lights. A nice thing was that the train tickets were cheaper that day, though, I’m not sure people took advantage of it (after I asked everyone about it), and there were additional trains. Our train didn’t even get us home until like 12 am, which is several hours later than normal. We had amazing bagels and nachos that were way overpriced but totally worth it. At the same shop they had Sunkist and Dr pepper for 2.60 euro a can!! And a box of lucky charms or Trix for 11.95!! new plan: I’m opening my own American shop asap! The rest of the day was used to gift-hunt (aka lots of shopping with the rest of the population of france), walk walk and walk, look at some cool lights, and walk some more. All in all, a successful trip.