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..

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.

thanksgiving a la française/the final immigration tasks!

Even my busiest weeks, something gets cancelled, namely my whole 3 hour shift on Tuesday morning (23/11). This worked to my advantage, as I woke up with a splitting headache, and had to go to Grenoble for an immigration appointment later that day. So after working my one hour Monday, none Tuesday, and none Wednesday (as usual) I only had to work Thursday and Friday of last week. So another long week averted. Although the trip to Grenoble was tiring, but we’ll get to that later.

Some of the highlights of my first thanksgiving lesson..

i would start explaining how it was this big holiday and we eat turkey and some girl is like "oh see we celebrate christmas in december." and i was like yeah.. so do we. this isn't christmas. and they were like oh.. so it's like armistice day? and i was like no, we celebrate that too, remember, this is another holiday.. one you don't celebrate. get it? silence..

they had a really hard time understand the concept "to be thankful for" and after saying it as many ways as i could in english, i just translated it into french and they still didn't really get it! so i was like, say things you're thankful for, like "i'm thankful for my family, i'm thankful for my pets, i'm thankful for my health, i'm thankful to live in france, anything!" and they all just stare at me. finally one girl raises her hand and says "i am thankful for the job i will have in the future." and i was like ok.. but maybe we should try and stick to things in the present.. like things in your life right now that you are happy about. anyone? silence...

nothing and anything.. two other words they don't get. i guess i can understand, in french one word means both things. but lots of times i'll say something like, "can you think of anything?" and i'll get the response "anything!" from one of the students, when they mean to say "nothing".

after reading a brief (simplified) history of thanksgiving (like "the pilgrims were grateful for the indians help, because without them they wouldn't have survived" etc) there were questions about the text, like "what were the pilgrims thankful for?" kind of thing. they understood indians, pilgrims took a little more explaining, but i said they were the people who came from another country (england) to live in america. and this one girl goes "oh so they were invaders!" and the rest of the time she was like, "i don't understand why the indians thanked the invaders.." and i was like "no.. the pilgrims thanked the indians for teaching them how to survive through the harsh winter." and she was like "oh.. so the invaders thanked the indians.. and then they killed them?!" and i was like "uh.. well.. that's not written here in this text.. but yeah, sort of, let's just do the next question."

there was also something about foods they ate on the first thanksgiving in that text and it was funny to try and explain some of them. for example, eels. i was like "ok so they look like snakes, do you know what a snake is?" and one kid is like "ah americans eat snakes! what a weird country!" and i was like "no, no, they look like snakes and they live in the water." and then i get a collective "ahhh les anguilles" or something like that. another funny one was venison, and i was like "do you know what a deer is?" and no one did.. so i was like "umm do you know who bambi is?" and they were all like "americans eat bambi ahhh!". it was pretty funny.


so the immigration appointment: tuesday i went to grenoble.. i was a little late since i didn't realize how far (and in the middle of nowhere!) the immigration office was. after the train i had a 20 min tram ride, then a 10 minute walk, in the rain! so i was like 10 minutes late, but i ran into a whole group of assistants i had met at orientation there also, and then one came in after me too, so i figured it was ok. well the receptionist like didn't match the names up or type them correctly, i don't know, but i sat there for 30 minutes until some woman came down and was like, "where are the other 2 language assistants? why didn't they come?" then she specifically says my name and i'm like uh, i'm right here. and then the lady got all mad being like, "you should have told her that you had an appointment at 3 (even though i did give her the paper that said that) because our appointment (the immigration one) was at 330 and now it's 345 and i have to stay late.." (her exact words were that i should have "protested" - this country and it's protests!) boo hoo. how was i supposed to know that you just didn't want to make me wait forever like you always do in this country? plus there were other people in the waiting room there before me. well apparently this place like closes at 4 and they (of course) all wanted to leave asap, but at least that meant it all went fast, i guess. so you meet with a nurse, doctor, get an x ray, and then back to the doctor to look at the xray. it was all pretty easy and basic, they didn't even really ask much, i thought ("do you smoke, have you ever had a surgery" kind of thing). then in the end, the doctor like looks at that xray for maybe 2 seconds and is like "looks good" and then told me it was a souvenir for me to keep. so now i've got some (cool?) x-ray of my lungs as a souvenir from france.

no work on Wednesday but a full day on Thursday, thanksgiving of all days!

all my classes today were an hour.. sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not. i've decided you can tell pretty quickly (like within the first few minutes of class) whether they are interested or not and whether you're losing them. and from that point it's really hard to change it to go in the other direction.. i hate it when that happens.

the first class was good, but i was almost late because the photocopier was broken (get this, there is one!.. ok actually there is a back up, so there are two, but at all the other schools there is one photocopier... crazy!), so i had to use the back up one which is much smaller/slower and of course there was a line. this was the first class that got my "i'm thankful for" thing which was good.. although after one person said "i'm thankful for my friends" it was like everyone just copied, even though i said to try and be original with their responses.

the second class was not as good, the teacher even pointed out students as they were walking in to watch out for (never a good sign). those kids ended up being ok, they didn't really pay attention but they didn't talk or disrupt the class, which is all i really care about i guess. that's probably not good, but some people were listening and i care more that they get something out of it and are not interrupted by those who don't care. i guess, again, that's probably not the point. but whatever, i'm not a teacher and i am just trying to find the easiest way to get through the hour.

i should mention i think many of these kids still think thanksgiving is christmas (they are all like ah noel! noel!), and that americans just celebrate it oddly early, despite how much i tell them that it is different.

then a (boring) break, then the class with the little kids (10/11 year olds). i've decided this class, while enthusiastic, is really hard, and i never know what to expect! they are always all over the place, switching chairs, getting mad if i don't pick someone first, wanting to write stuff on the board even if i tell hem no, and even though they are nice, that hour is just soo tiring. i had plans of trying my best to explain thanksgiving in english/french, but they have such short attention spans, i just passed out a wordsearch and let them do that instead. i think you've got to be prepared, because otherwise they will just be all over the place, but at the same time i was thinking of playing this one game and they wouldn't stop begging me to play hangman, so i just let them do that for the last 20 minutes or so. so you've got to be prepared but also be prepared to throw the lessons out the window? i'm glad this is just like a fun class for them (because they are too young/know too little to actually do grammar/reading/writing exercises) and i'm not really responsible for teaching them material.

i also had SUCH trouble trying to explain how to make a turkey out of your hand. since they weren't really having the thanksgiving lesson, i decided to let them trace their hands on paper and make a turkey out of it, then writing what they were thankful for inside. they were all excited to draw their hands, and i did it for them first, and explained in french, so i didn't think it would be so hard, but the first time around they just all drew their hands and then asked me if they could draw in the nails or add nail polish and stuff. i was like nooo we're making turkeys. TURKEYS. after several english/french/drawing explanations, they finally got it and they got the i'm thankful for thing too.. thankfully!


then another (boringgg) break and one last class, just the section of non euro (honors) kids. i reallllly don't get it. like i just had a class with the same level honors, and they understood everything i said/asked/all my directions. i get into this class and they can't even introduce themselves properly ("i eleven").. how can there be such hugeee difference?! i will never get it. these are the times that i feel like i have to improvise, because i realize even though i've done the same thing with multiple classes, that they won't get it, even if they should. annoying (also i realize this would be easier if i had the same class more than once.. know what to expect or whatever). plus i hate it when i explain something, ask if everyone understands, everyone says yes, and then when i tell them to do the exercise, everyone says they don't understand. like, i don't care if you ask me to explain it a million times, or if you have a million questions, just don't say you get it when you don'tttt. besides that, one boy asked me if i knew french in the beginning (they always ask this first) and i say yes, but i can't speak it with you, which is what i always say. and he's like "oh do you think we could speak in french after class, i just love american accents.." and i was like umm, what? why? that's kind of weird.. i mean i like french accents (i guess? but now i'm kind of over that i think, i hear them all the time) but i would never ask my teacher to talk to me in english because i liked his/her accent or something..

anyway i've pretty much got all the facts you could ever want to know about thanksgiving memorized (that's what happens when you hear the same thing a million times) and could probably give you a pretty good reenactment (geese always pronounced as cheese, for example) of how they say it with their funny little cute french accents (a common intro from my last class: "my name uhh is uhh bastien and i uhh leeeeve in drummataz clarafond and i uhh behh je ne sais pas je ne parle pas anglais.." no no in english! say something about yourself, like how old are you? "uhh behh uhh ok i uh ‘ave twenty" um no. no. sorry but you're not TWENTY. twenty is two zero "oh uhh oui i mean uhh yes i ‘ave 12".)

So soon!

Eh ben voilà

Well another day where I risked my life while walking out the door. You heard right, I’m talking about ice-covered sidewalks making even my shortest walk treacherous. Despite everyone telling me that it doesn’t snow much here, and that even if it did, the roads/sidewalks in city would be quickly cleared, it has been snowing off and on for the past week (yes that’s right, as in starting in November!), with easily over a foot of snow at the ground at one point. Apparently this amount of snow is exceptional for this time of year, or ever even, so I hope we’re done, because it has only made my life more difficult. Not to mention Geneva airport was closed last week, as well as several airports around London. Ok snow, you had your fun, but when my flight takes off in 11 days (!!) I do not want to be stuck at an airport because of delay or worse have it be canceled entirely. Let’s not go there, positive thoughts..

Anyway, despite the snow, there seems to be no real school cancellation policy. No website/TV/radio/phone call updates.. There are on a more of “show up and see who’s around” system, which is completely inconvenient and annoying, to say the least. Since there are no school buses (kids take public transit to school), if the city buses are cancelled, that to me that means a huge portion of the student population will not be there, so neither should I. That’s how I got out of my last class last Friday afternoon. Before you think that I’m just looking for an excuse to get out of classes (because really that’s only part of it), let me just explain to you the disaster that are the current roadways and walkways in this city. I mean, if the buses can’t even drive on the roads, how can I be expected to walk on them even?!

Basically, no one here has ever heard of a shovel. I don’t know if everyone just assumes it is someone else’s responsibility, but the bottom on the line is, that it is not happening. I saw ONE plow as it was coming down fiercely, so I guess they aren’t really on top of that either. Weird to me since I was thinking the other day, the people I have seen consistently working the most are the landscaping people that work for the city. Not anyone in an office or store, mind you, they’ve got Sundays, Mondays, two hour lunch breaks and whenever else they feel like it off. Somehow the city employees who are supposed to be plowing just aren’t around, though. Back to the sidewalks, so no shoveling leads to packed-down snow that overnight turns into ice. No salt, no kitty litter, no gravel, no nothing. Sidewalks have thus been made into little ice skating rinks; too bad I didn’t bring my skates.

I suppose I figured once the snow stopped, once the buses started running and it was sure that people were in school again, some sort of effort, at least on school grounds, would be made to clear the walkways, but my 5 minute walk (turned into 10 this morning) on a path that leads directly towards my middle school, was as if no one had ever touched it. Even with warmer temps (40s) and pouring down rain to melt the snow around, there were several inches of icy, snowy, slush mix on that path that I slipped on (but did not fall!) many a time. It seems that they rely on people wearing through the snow by walking on it repeatedly. Well I wore my non-waterproof boots with one pair of socks today assuming things would be different, and boy was I disappointed.

Today I found out why they don’t put anything down, though. Apparently salt is bad for the environment, because it runs off into water and kills fish. Due to this, the French government apparently stated a couple of years ago that they were no longer going to purchase or put down salt (which conveniently means they don’t have to spend the money on it). I found this out from Claire, the woman whose house I live in. I started telling her how I just thought that the condition of the sidewalks was horrible (sorry to keep harping on it, but I am so sick of cold wet feet), and that if it was like that in the US, we would not being going to school, mainly because if a student were to get hurt, it could be considered the schools fault. Claire said something about how that just isn’t they way they think here, and I know, this whole “let’s sue everyone” mentality is apparently quite American. Still, I thought, it’s dangerous. Should we really want to put people in danger, regardless of whose fault it is?

Anyway, on my slippery walk home, I started thinking more about this, and it seems that I have found une petite faute in the manière de penser française, mes amis. A mistake, but no! French people don’t make those! Well that is namely the point. French people do not like to take the blame for anything, and in fact will instead actively look for ways to place it onto other people. And while the school doesn’t want to take blame is a student is “clumsy” or whatever while traversing their ice rink of a parking lot, then fine, but why, my French friends, are you not the first to protest (manifestez!!) that someone didn’t do their job who should of? How ironic, n’est-ce pas? For a country that seeks to push blame to anything other that themselves, the Americans who seek to take action in those situations are deemed crazy. A student can slip and break his or her neck on the way to school because no one bothered to shovel and even if they did, the run off and resulting black ice made for a dangerous journey, but said student nor his or her family seek to blame someone about it? This just seems a little off to me, my French friends.

In conclusion, someone DO SOMETHING about the state of roads/sidewalks here.. or I may just stop showing up to work entirely (not that you would notice..).

some (delayed) observations...

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)!