Sunday 31 October 2010

vacation

Long start to the vacation, staying in Cusset/Vichy and studying, writing grad school essays. Now I'm off for four nights, five days in Paris with my friend Erin, a colleague from camp this past summer, who's teaching in Luxembourg at the moment.
Pictures to come! Back on Thursday to three hours of teaching, then I'm off for a weekend in Aurillac! Finally things are happening!
Kisses

Wednesday 13 October 2010

First Fortnight in Cusset

Hello!

15 days in France and I am pretty much settled in and continuing the life I left here in Europe four months ago. And it feels great! The French are still crazy (but so are Americans) and stubborn (Americans too) and sometimes ridiculous (USA, yep) but after eight months here last year I have learned how to better deal with this and "be French."

I was technically supposed to start classes last week but my contact here said "eh, we'll have the assistants start next week because we don't have your time tables ready," so I had a lot of extra time to sleep, get to know my surroundings, and STUDY! I have recently decided to take the GRE and the GMAT in February, in order to better my chances in certain graduate school programs for the fall. Math is not necessarily a strength I possess, so I have spent a lot of time reviewing and learning, but I think it will be worth it in the end. Anyway, this extra time last week gave me lots of time to work on applications and study guides.

This Monday I had my first class and though I stayed in the classroom with the prof the whole time, I was in front of the kids, answering their questions. This was all at the middle school and they're so much younger than what I'm used to and, so far, pretty cute. Once they enter the classroom, the kids stay standing in front of their desks until the teacher tells them to sit. And if an adult knocks on the door, the kids stand up IMMEDIATELY when he or she opens the door, just like in the movies! LOVE IT! I think this is how it was for my friend, Allana, last year in the grade schools; the kids didn't stand for her but they did for the teacher and the principal.

Then I had lunch in the cafeteria with one of the English teachers and we ate in a separate room that's reserved just for the teachers, which they didn't have at my school last year! So not only did we not have to eat with the kids, we got to cut line to get our food AND to take our dishes back, which we didn't get to do last year either. Oh, and this is the best part: there were bottles of red wine on the teachers' tables, provided by the school! Wow! Can you imagine our teachers in grade school and high school having WINE with their LUNCH at SCHOOL!?!?! Pretty cool.




Yesterday (Tuesday) the teachers were on strike about the new reform regarding retirement age, so that meant that I didn't have class. Lisa, one of my flatmates, and I walked into Vichy a little before 3pm to watch the protesting. There was someone with on a loud speaker and people with signs and they were all hanging out in front of the post office. Then a little after three, they all walked through town and finished in front of City Hall. It was the first time I'd seen a "manifestation" in person and it was a neat experience.

And then today the STUDENTS were on strike! I arrived at school a little before 8 this morning, finding it strange that no one seemed to be around; it turns out they were protesting outside of the school gates, blocking the doors, preventing people from coming in. There were about five or six policemen, just hanging out, making sure that everything remained peaceful. It was all pretty cool because that kind of thing just doesn't happen in the States! I went out a couple hours later and watched them: large groups walking the perimeter of the campus, chanting about the reform and how they weren't going to let it affect their futures. Then one kid actually got a huge wooden crate and they positioned it in front of the main door. It sounds like schools across the area were protesting, probably around the country too. Even major newspapers didn't publish today or yesterday because of the strike (that is said to last all week).

Everyone outside of the school gates meant that I had two of my four classes today (from 8 to noon) and even in those two classes there were only 4 students each and I just stayed with the teacher and we did a whole lot of nothing. Kind of a waste of time, but I got paid to watch English youtube videos so whatever.

Allana arrives in Vichy tomorrow afternoon then we are going to Aurillac for the weekend. I am so excited to see all my friends, go climbing, and get my bike! Then it's one more week of school before our first two-week vacation! I'm considering going to southern Spain with Allana to see her bf, Austin, and climb and camp. We shall see!

A bientot (see you soon!)

love K

Saturday 2 October 2010

bienvenue chez moi

Hello, Bonjour!!!

I have safely arrived in France (5 days ago--it seems so much longer!) and have successfully gotten situated, acclimated, what have you. No more jetlag. I thought I was "stationed" in Vichy but am actually in Cusset, about 2km away. The two cities mesh, more or less, but insist on being two different entities. my high school is on the outskirts of Cusset, though, so only about a 10 minute walk to the train station in Vichy, and about 17 minutes into the center of town.

As you can see from my first post, the high school where I live is just lovely! It used to be a public park and still has that feel about it.

Not much to report here because I haven't started teaching yet. My contract technically started yesterday but since it was a Friday, the teachers said to wait until Monday to come in. I'll have one week of observation, though since this is my second year it's very possible that they'll just throw me into the classroom! On Wednesday the assistants in the department of Allier, where I am (last year I was in the Cantal), have a one-day "training" session in a town about 30km north of here. My roommates (German and Colombian) and I will take the train up there and will get to meet other assistants from towns around us, which should be really great.

Things are going well with the roommates. Unlike last year, I live in an actual apartment in the school. Instead of a VERY small room on a hallway (with a kitchen and bathroom at the end of the hall) I live in an enclosed space of three bedrooms, living room, bathroom, toilettes and kitchen-- with an oven AND a microwave, neither of which I had last year!!! The only problem (so far) is it looks like we aren't allowed to have guests stay the night as Claudia, the Colombian, got "in trouble" for having a friend up for the weekend. Boo! Not sure how to react to that!

The three of us walked into Vichy on Thursday to sign up for/buy internet service in order to have wifi in our apartment. The woman said that the company says it takes 8 to 12 days, but really it takes about 5, but I got a text saying that it was ready to be activated TONIGHT, just over two days later!!! So we have happy internet in our apartment and now I can email and blog and apply to grad school and study for the GREs (though this last one I'm not really looking forward to).

Today the ladybugs decided to invade my room; it faces west so gets a LOT of afternoon sunlight and I think they like this. After a couple hours of looking to the ceiling near one of my windows (I have two!) and seeing 10, 20, 30 ladybugs huddled around, I decided I couldn't handle it anymore and got the insect spray. Ladybugs are generally nice and I hated killing them off this way, but I couldn't even open my window on such a nice day without them flying in. And enough is enough! Now every once in awhile, several hours later, I hear a light "splat" and know that a ladybug has fallen from who knows where and found its imminent death on my floor. Ohhhhhhhhh dear. But really, enough is enough, I say!

Well, just wanted to say hi! I shall now go back to drinking wine and eating cheese haha!

Much love
xoxox

pictures from my town (the first three are from my high school campus- isn't it beautiful?)