Now *I'm* Fait-ing La Grève...

Contre blogging!  Rabble rabble rabble...

Well, really, I was on vacation, which is why I've been remiss in posting.  Worry not, numerous readers (ha!), I'm back and raring to go.  In fact, I have so much to write about, I'm going to include it in several posts.  Ready?  GO!

First Week of Teaching

We spent a week "observing" in our various classrooms before actually getting up in front of the kids.  I introduced myself, told them where I was from, answered some general questions ("Have you ever met Michael Jackson?", "Do you eat food in the United States?", and "Do you know how to speak American all the time?" were some of my personal favorites.) 

The French primary school system is divided into 5 classes--CP, CE1, CE2, CM1, and CM2--which basically correspond to 1st through 5th grades.  As a primary school language assistant, I have a mix of all of these classes (except the CP [1st graders] because my résponsable removed some of my teaching hours to allow time for the 40-minute round-trip commute to my schools every day.) 

I teach a mix of kids, aged 7-11, in three separate schools.  Their levels of English vary between grades, certainly, but also drastically between schools.  One of my favorite teachers, Sophie (who drives me to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and invited me to her house last weekend for a 6-hour French Sunday roast), speaks English really well; she teaches CM1, and her students have the best grasp of any of my classes.  Another teacher, who speaks English with absolutely no confidence, teaches CM2, and her students--who are older--don't understand anything I say.  It's amazing how little of a national curriculum there is; they seem to want the kids to speak English fluently at an early age, but have no idea how to make that happen.  I guess that's the job of the English assistant!

The following week I took some materials to teach the students about Tennessee; I brought pictures of the TN flag for them to color, plus a map of the state and a map of the USA so they could try to find TN within the country.  Some classes did really well, others not so great--one entire class was convinced that California was the state whose shape best corresponded with the shape of TN.  The students were all amazed at how many states there were, and the ones who made the connection between the 50 states and the 50 stars on the flag were SO proud of themselves.  I also taught them about Mule Day, cowboys, country music, and BBQ--I think it was a pretty successful lesson :)  Next, Halloween!

Speaking of Halloween....

Tarte à la Citrouille (Spooky Version)

The Special Ed teacher at one of my schools approached me on my first day and asked me to send her some American recipes so that her kids, who have a cooking class once a month, could try their hand at something "foreign."  I sent her the recipe for pumpkin pie, because 'tis the season, and also for Rice Krispies Treats; that one came via special request from her students.  She promised me that she'd let me know when they had their cooking class so I could join in...which, of course, is right up my alley.

During the first week of "real" teaching, she let me know that Thursday was the day the cooking would go down, and that I was welcome for as much of it as I could attend.  Thursday is the day I'm at one school from 8h30-16h00, but most of that time is free between classes (just not enough free time to take the 20-minute bus back to Nevers), so I hung out at the school all day and was available for the entire thing.

First, the kids gutted the pumpkin (hilarious), cooked it, and started measuring out all the ingredients.  While the pumpkin was cooling, they copied down the recipe, and alongside it a message--in English, which many of them had never even seen before--that briefly described the tradition and history of pumpkin pie.  The whole thing just made me hungry :P

It was really fun watching these kids cook.  They'd never separated an egg and didn't know to keep the shells out of the bowl; they were astonished to see egg whites and sugar beaten into "stiff white peaks;" they were so impatient for the pie to come out of the oven, and we had to distract them with game after game while it cooled! 

Finally, it was cool enough for them to decorate it.  

Even though they'd made it with their own hands and seen all the ingredients that went into it, a lot of the kids were still pretty skeptical about eating pumpkin--something that's usually reserved for soups and casseroles and certainly NOT pies. 

Still, almost everyone tried it, and everyone who tried it liked it, so I call the mission successful! 

Hopefully I'll be included in next month's cooking class, too.  Maybe we'll attempt a turducken :)

On Fait La Grève! And Other French Goings-On

I've been in Nevers now for three weeks, but I haven't written much here because I've been having such a hard time and didn't want my pessimism to bring down the mood of the blog. Now, though, I've gotten a bank account, social security, a phone, AND I've gotten better from being sick, so I'm here to bring you the juicy details of a Year in France :)

First, some photos of my new friends in France.  Before we started working, we had loads of free time, so we went exploring along the river...

and in front of the Palais Ducal, which now houses the Mayor's office, Tourism Office, and a ceramics musem. 

We came across a street market one Saturday that was full of people selling their homemade stuff; there were cheese and sausage makers, booksellers, cake bakers and woodworkers, even a blacksmith, all out in the street showin' off their skillz.  There was even a contest to guess the weight of a dried, cured ham, and if you guessed right, you got to take home the ham.  Of course I entered it :)

Then there was this guy, who was playing a SAW as a musical instrument!  Now THAT'S talent :) 

A couple of weeks ago we traveled to Dijon for our pedagogical training; the visit was short, but we got a nice little glimpse of Dijon.  Mostly we hung out by the cathedral and rubbed the owl repeatedly, who is said to bring good luck.  Looks like he's brought a lot of luck; his poor features have been rubbed into blobbiness.

Last week we observed in our classrooms before actually starting teaching. I was surprised at how little English the students knew, even the CM1 (the equivalent of 5th grade). When I said, "Good morning!," they said "Hello," but when I asked, "How are you?" they all said, "Yes." I still don't understand that one :P There were a couple of widespread language mishaps--"ten, eleven, twelve, twelvety-one"--so it looks like I've got my work cut out for me! Still, I've committed myself to the mantra that, even though my work may not necessarily help them learn English, as long as I make the learning fun, they'll remember something.

I hope.

Either way, this is going to be fun! It's interesting to think back on what I remember from school when I was their age--obviously not a foreign language because that's not part of the general public curriculum in the States--but other things that stuck out (the Shirley method, the 50 states song, etc.) that might help them remember some things from their English studies. Then again, when teaching a second language to 5th graders, you have to operate at about a 1st grade English level. Still, I'm getting the hang of speaking slowly, using gestures, and resorting to French in the classroom when I get blank, glassy-eyed stares.

So far I've only actually been in the classrooms of two of my three schools, because last week one of them was closed (and had the courtesy to tell me beforehand, unlike any of the other poor girls' schools!) for la grève--the STRIKE. Even people who know nothing about French culture know that they're famous for their strikes--they strike when the mood strikes them, you could say ;) On Tuesday, everyday life shut down all over France when people demonstrated against raising the retirement age from 60 to....wait for it......62.

This relatively simple legislative slip-up got us all a day off work, though, so we can't complain too much :P The main road in Nevers was blocked off to traffic, there were bands and DJs in the streets, and everyone had bright orange vests and stickers and flags--it was amazing to see so many people come together to support the same cause. Of course, we wondered about the effectiveness of it--if you're always on strike, who takes strikes seriously? But this strike in particular interrupted the train and bus system, as well as fuel reserves in big cities, so it's demanding action NOW or the merde is going to hit the fan!

To save money we've been having a lot of "Bread Wine and Cheese" nights--usually at my apartment because it came with 2 chairs instead of 1 (classy!).  Sometimes we even watch episodes of Glee :)  It's so nice to have other English-speaking people here, and the other assistants are SO nice--they really are a saving grace in what can sometimes be a dreadful cultural cesspool. 

Even Diesel likes wine and cheese night :)

Speaking of my apartment, I have some photos of that, too--it's so typically French it's laughable!  One full wall is made of corkboard...

 

And it has the smallest kitchen....

 ...and bathroom...

that I've ever seen.  Still, it's a perfect size for one person, though there are some couples who stay here together and I can't see how they do it! 

Next week is the Toussaint holiday (10 days!) and we're really hoping we can make some travel plans that aren't interrupted by la grève!  We're thinking Grenoble, or maybe Bordeaux...really, the whole of Europe is our oyster :) 

Welcome to Nevers Nevers Land :)

I've been in France for just over a week now, and things are settling in--I'm starting to feel at home!

My travels to Paris were tumultuous to say the least; I got lost, changed plans, hefted heavy suitcases, stumbled exhaustedly around the airport...then ran into a Parisian friend who bought me breakfast, carried my bags for me, and escorted me to a hotel so I could sleep off my crankiness. Tarik--I owe you a big one :)

After being in Paris for just over 24 hours, I caught the train to Nevers. It was only about a 2 hour trip, which is good to know--if I'm ever bored for a weekend, Paris is just a train ride away! And next time I won't have nearly as much baggage ;)

I arrived in Nevers just as the sun came out; a fellow assistant whom I'd only met online came to meet me at the train station and told me that she hadn't seen the sun yet, so having it follow me from Paris was a nice treat :)

Now I'm settled into my apartment (with a gorgeous late-afternoon view of the cathedral!) I'm also really close to the River Loire, which is great. I've finished the paperwork for social security, having a bank account, and getting a phone, plus the immigration paperwork; I've made friends, gotten drunk, spent too much money, and already considered buying a new pair of shoes--it's like I'm French already!

I've visited all my schools so far, and they seem great. The children are aged 7-11, and I'll be teaching them English with the help of their professors. I alternate among 3 schools, one of them in Nevers and two of them out of town in Fourchambault, so my travel time will be included in the maximum 12 hours I work per week. Our schedules are supposed to be finalized today, and that will make it even more real!

So far no major mishaps have happened (which is WEIRD for me--remember when I slept in a soup kitchen? Remember when I got locked in a bathroom as it was being disinfected?!) but I know they will ;)

Until then, I'm content to enjoy my drawn-out French vacation :)

T-Minus One Week...

Today marks one week until I fly to France. I've finally made it past the "Oh-my-God I'm going to die" feelings and have landed safely in the "This is going to be the biggest adventure of my life" realm.

I was thrilled when I first got the job, then got anxious as the deadline got closer and closer and I still had no information (thanks, French government. I must say, I love the French way of life--2-hour lunch, 30-hour work week--EXCEPT for the fact that it also applies to the people who run the country. Still, France is still standing, right? The cogs in the Machine are still turning, right? And I'm still moving there!)

Finally, after waiting for ages to find out when I leave, where I'm going, which schools/age groups I'll be teaching; after waiting for the consulate to issue my visa and return my passport; after endless days of shopping for "professional" clothes, new glasses and contacts, shoes, teaching materials, gift, etc....I'm thrilled again :)

So, here's the final recap:

I'll be working in Nevers, France, in the Nièvre region near Dijon.



It's situated near some cities I've never traveled to, but I'm dying to visit all of them before I come back to the States!



The region is famous for its wines (namely Pouilly Fumé, made from Sauvignon Blanc grapes, which I've never even heard of but am EXCITED to try), its faience ceramics, and, being so close to Dijon, its mustard.

Nevers itself is famous historically for being the Loire depot of Julius Caesar in 52 BCE (then it was called Noviodunum). Even though the Aedui at Noviodunum burned the city after Caesar's failure before Gergovia, Nevers became the seat of a bishopric at the end of the 5th century. Even today, many of the buildings and houses are from as early as the 14th century!



The palais ducal (ducal palace) is one of the main sights to see in Nevers; part of it has been transformed into a ceramics museum.



Though the Nièvre region is rural, with on average 50 people per square kilometer, the population of Nevers is one of the largest in the département at about 41,000...soon to be 41,001 :)

I'm so excited to share all my adventures on here with anyone out there who's reading. If you have any comments (or suggestions for places to visit!), please let me know! My plan is to do, see, taste, and try everything I possibly can in the next seven months...so help me out! Looking forward to hearing from all of you :)

Summer in the Crescent City

It's been ages since I've written, but I think that's ok--I haven't been doing a whole lot of wanderlusting this year (well, the lusting yes, but not the wandering).

After graduation in the spring (woohoo! Congrats to the class of 2010) I moved back to Tennessee for a while, went to Bonnaroo for the 4th summer in a row (always a treat, though thinly disguised as a trippy, dirty nightmare in classic boondock fashion), and then moved to New Orleans for the summer.

NOLA was the perfect place to set myself up for a year in France; I had beignets and café au lait from Café du Monde, heard Cajun poetry (and a well-heeled 'yat accent while I was at it), and heard Americans (real ones! With real American accents!) correctly pronounce French street names. I also, for the first time in my life, was NOT the only one celebrating Bastille Day--one of my beau's professors threw a Fête de la Bastille and we arrived...
in costume. (Check out my modern translation of a French Revolution-era ladies' hat and powdered wig; it's a fedora with a red metal mailbox on it, complete with letters from Talleyrand, Ben Franklin, and Sophocles, all perched atop a mop. Viva la Revolution!)

Now that I'm back from the Big Easy, I'm contemplating packing my bags: I leave for France on September 28, flying into Paris, then take a train from Paris to Strasbourg where I'll meet a former French exchange student and her parents so they can accompany me to Nevers. I've been assigned to the Inspection Académique de la Nièvre, which is a fancy way of saying I'll be living in the rustic, rural, breathtaking countryside of the Bourgogne (Burgundy) region around Dijon.

Later this week my mom and I are going to Atlanta to visit the Consulate so I can validate my work visa; really, though, the Consulate is just a necessary formality that so happens to fall during a mid-week mother-daughter excursion full of limousine escorts, organic produce, and the Body exhibit. Sounds fun :) I'll certainly keep you posted.

Awesome Quotes from the Rich Coast

*All names have been changed to protect the dignity of those involved.

Francesca: I can't believe they're making us do that. That's ricockulous!
Mollie Sue: Francesca, you WOULD be the one to use a 50-cent SAT word while we're on vacation in Costa Rica.
Francesca: Mollie Sue, I made that word up. It's "ridiculous" mixed with "cock."

(Carmen and San Diego decided that today was That's a Bit Gay Day. Thus, they came up with various things that are a Bit Gay, announcing them in a British accent)
Carmen: I got a manicure. That's a Bit Gay.
San Diego: I bought a man purse. That's a Bit Gay.
Professor, mimicking his son in falsetto: I borrowed money from my dad! That's a Bit Gay!

Mollie Sue: I can't hold a grudge. I just can't! I'm incapable.
Professora: What if I punched you in the face?

In class we played a game where we named our three favorite animals, in order of preference. mine were:
1. sparrow
2. octopus
3. elephant

Then we did something special with them, but I won't tell you what until you comment with your favorite animals, in order of favoriteness. What are they?

On a tangent, today's interesting Website du Jour is this: If Abraham Lincoln had an iPod.

As a footnote, happy birthday to me and my sister deer.

Drug Deals, Old Port, Rogue Waves--Does It Ever End?

This weekend we took our exams at 8 a.m. on Friday, then jetted out for Puerto Viejo :) The drive was rather uneventful--no one vommed, we didn't hit anything, and there wsasn't a naked dane party going on in the back of the bus (all of these things happened but one--guess which :P) We drove through the mountain jungle and our tour guide extraordinaire told us all the movies that were filmed in Costa Rica--Jurassic Park, Spy kids 1, 2, and 3, Caribe, Angels, 1492, plus others. Also, Mel Gibson just bought a big ass piece of land there with waterfalls and animals all over the place, so there are bound to be more movies. Coool :)

We got to our hotel, which was...interesting, to say the least. We were paired 9 girls to 1 room with 7 beds, so some people were displaced--I avoided the girl politics by sleeping in a hammock in the backyard :) The beach right outside our hotel was black sand--it was gorgeous, with flecks of gold, but the sand fleas were terrible. We walked past a giant barge parked in the surf to the inlet where we played guitar, sang, interpretive danced, played in the surf, and drank guaro right out of the bottle--pura vida :)

That night we found a bar right next to the hotel that used to serve food, but a new guy took over ownership 5 days before and hadn't opened the kitchen yet. He was still really nice--he served us free chips and mango salsa, plus gave me free drinks because it was my birthday weekend :) Well, it was close enough ;) A friend and I went out for sushi at Chile Rojo, which was awesome. We went to a beach bonfire and then went skinny dipping at the hotel pool--until a security guard with a giant gun caught us :P Slept in a hammock under the stars until the rooster woke me up at 4 a.m.--roosters don't seem to belong here, especially in such an Old McDonald way :P

We woke up early on Saturday morning to eat breakfast and leave for our snorkeling trip at Cahuita. We all got outfitted in our snorkel gear (though I and one other girl had to opt for children's flippers because our feet were so small :P) and headed out! We took the boats first to a shallow area with a bunch of different coral communities. A bunch of people saw a nurse shark and a school of barracudas; I saw parrot fish, sea urchins, and those darling little black and iridescent blue spotted fish. We took the boats to another place, a dropoff barrier reef, where some people saw turtles :) We stopped at an island for watermelon and organic pineapple and saw tons of white-face monkeys! I had taken the legs off my glasses so i could tape them to my face and see inside my snorkel mask (resourceful!) but that means I couldn't see anything on land, so all the monkeys looked like worried infants tacked onto furry primate bodies. We also saw a giant gold eyelash viper that, if it bites you, will kill you in an hour. Insane :P I stayed a safe distance away because, without my glasses, I have incredibly poor depth perception...so who knows, I may have been right next to it :P

We ate lunch at a Bob-Marley obsessed cafe with borderline good food, then traipsed to Manzanilla beach for a quick look at the national park. We went back to the hotel and I packed up my little hobo bag--a towel tied to a piece of driftwood--and set out for the beach! I put all my stuff behind a log, but that didn't help--after about a half hour, a rogue wave came and stole all my belongings--wallet. camera, towel, shirt, skirt, shoes, water bottle, towel, wrap, everything! I got it all back (I have no clue HOW) but the camera is done for--sorry mum ;(

There was a rave on the beach on Saturday night, but I fell asleep in a hammock at, like, 10 p.m. and woke up in time to watch the sun rise :) Well, attempt to--it was overcast, so I didn't really see much, but it was cool being almost alone on the beach and watching everything light up :) I spent the day with friends, trekking around the beach, poking in and out of places we'd never visited :) We had a good time, but there were some weird aspects--like, I witnessed a crack deal on the beach; you're not supposed to shake hands with a local because it tells them you want to sleep with them; the guys in our group got a lecture about how they needed to protect us by walking with us wherever we wanted to go, because men hide in the bushes along the road and attack women who walk by themselves; and apparently the rape count last month alone was 7 :l Oh well, we survived :) Pura Vida!

On the way back to school we watched Quantum of Solace, my very first Bond movie! It was good :) We stopped at the same crappy restaurant for lunch, then everyone slept the whole way bck to reggae beats. I swear, our bus driver has the best taste in music in the world. Fun times.

Now we're back in Heredia and starting on our last week of school, and I just know it's going to pass SUPER slowly because I just want to get home! I've loved my time here, and I've had some great adventures and made some awesome friends, BUT I've got a lot waiting on me back home--like an honors thesis :P Oh well, I'll keep you posted this week, then might see some of you back in the states :) Pura Vida!