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
No comments:
Post a Comment